Top 5 Video Games I've Played in the Past Week

With the forum not pulling in a lot of traffic, I figured I'd post my Top 5 lists on here from now on. We'll kick it off with something completely transient and random.

Top 5 Games I've Played in the Past Week

1. Rock Band 2 - What can I say? I love the bastard.
2. Army of Two - I played it online for the first time last week, and it's kind of intriguing. Plus I've still got hundreds of achievement points to earn.
   
3. Pizza Tycoon - It's losing steam, though, as the sheer number of stores is getting tough to manage.
4. Guitar Hero III - It's not perfect, but the basic tenets are up my alley...figuratively.
5. Grand Theft Auto IV - I may be done with the story part of the game, but there's still plenty to do (and destroy) in Liberty City.

Week 6.5 Fitness Wrap-Up (and other stuff)

Alright, truth time. I haven't posted a blog in a while because I've been a little scared to step on the scale. I've been a lot more lax with the diet, and with the basement getting worked on, I haven't had the easy access to lift weights or do any Rock Band drumming. For the most part, I've been completely inactive recently, and I was terrified to see how unforgiving the scale was going to be. You'll catch the exact numerical results at the end of this blog post, but I was completely floored by how much that wasn't the case.

Plants vs. Zombies

My cousin Mike posted this link in his AIM profile, and made the extra effort to tell me to check it out. It's a music video for a video game that came out a few days ago called (as you might have guessed) Plants vs. Zombies. If you've ever played any of the "maul" games online on Warcraft III, it's the same concept. You have an area that you're trying to defend from waves of enemies; in this case, your defenders are plants, and zombies are the attackers. You start out with simple plants, and get more sophisticated and powerful plants as time goes on. Of course, the zombies also get more powerful.

I fully expected the game to be a nice little game that I wasn't going to be willing to pay for, but the demo has got me very seriously considering shelling out the $20 to get the full game. Partly because I'd like to play the rest, but also partly just because I'd like to reward the programmers for creating a fun (and funny) game. I'm trying to figure out if I'd actually play it more than once, and that's really the question that's tempering my action. I've played Warcraft III mauls hundreds of times, but there are several dozen different versions of those. I'll let you know if I do end up buying it, and whether or not I'm happy about the purchase.

The Price of a Gamerscore Bump

I've been playing NBA Street Homecourt and Grand Theft Auto IV (the 360 version is only $36 right now, pretty good price) with the specific intention of acquiring some gamerscore points. I bought Homecourt recently, and found that I was probably going to be able to get at least 800 of the points without having to be particularly skillful (which is good, because I'm finding out that I'm not all that good at video games). I've already beaten GTA IV, but there are a few decisions you have throughout the game that you can do differently to see different consequences, and there's an achievement you receive for completing the story in 30 hours, so I figured it was worth another go-through.

I've completed the "campaign" on Homecourt, and have 800+ points from that game. I also beat GTA IV last night, getting the "Liberty City Minute" achievement for beating it quickly. However, towards the end of the evening, I started to notice my left hand was getting very sore (I know what you're thinking, but I said left hand...so it's not from writing). I realized it was actually from playing so much 360 over the past few days, which is shocking and a little embarrassing. So, going to take a break from the gaming for a little bit, give my hand a chance to recover. Movies, I guess? Speaking of...

Netflix

Netflix has a free two-week trial that I'm in the midst of, and so far, I'm liking it. The service offers movies both via mail on DVD and instant viewing online and (more importantly) the Xbox 360. The subscription plan I have gives unlimited access to the instant viewing movies/TV series, as well as one DVD at a time for $8.99. It's like $5 more a month to bump it up to two DVDs at a time, and there looks to be more than enough content on the instant access list to keep me occupied without running out of movies to watch while I'm in between DVDs. For now, my intent is to keep the service for a few months and see how much I use it.

PS: It would get used a lot more if I had a girlfriend who came over to watch movies all the time. So, heads up ladies, I've got a ton of movies we can watch. Does that make me a little more appealing? I bet it does.

I've heard Chip's opinion on this, but I figure I'll toss it out there to the masses. Do you prefer one big blog post like this, or several split up blog posts over the course of a day or two? I'm probably going to only be writing up posts once or twice a week regardless, but do you prefer that it be collected like this, sort of in a newsletter form, or would you prefer a variety of posts, each about a specific topic? Let me know.

Week 6.5 weight: 311.8

Achievements Mentality

As these past few weeks have passed, I've kept an eye on Patrick's gamerscore, and frankly, it's been discouraging. He just keeps racking up achievements, while I pick up 10 or 20 here and there, but keep getting outdistanced. I'm not mad at him; we're both doing the same thing, trying to pick up points. But to maintain my mental health, it might be better for me to change my mentality with regards to the leaderboard.

First, I probably need to accept that I won't be catching Patrick. Patrick, you are a worthy adversary, and an achiever. That doesn't mean I'll stop chasing you, or stop trying to expand my fresh new lead on Marcus. But it'll be more of a point of interest than a goal.

Second, and both more interesting and more fun, I want to watch our leaderboard on www.mygamercard.net. You can see our leaderboard on the right side of this page; we've got 11 users and over 50,000 gamer points. I'd like to find other small groups like ourselves who have players of varying skills and playtime, and compete against them for leaderboard dominance. Our entire leaderboard can work together to accumulate points, both competing against the other leaderboards and against various milestones. We're currently just under 51,000 points; our next milestone can be 60,000. That would require less than 1,000 more points per user on average, and I know Patrick, Nick, and I will all be rolling forward at breakneck speeds.

I do have a personal goal as well: 10,000 points. It's still 2,645 points away, but it's within striking distance. The objective is to get to 10,000 by my birthday, August 1st.

Game on.

Housington Blog Xbox Gamerscore Leaderboard

I've created a custom leaderboard for Xbox gamerscores, open to anyone interested in joining. For the moment, I'm the only gamertag on the list, but just let me know and I'll add you to the list.

Please note: I might just add you without waiting for your request.