There should be a film made about my playing Halo 3 again. It would be called, “How Jared Got His Fierce Back.” And while they’re at it, they could make a documentary about why I don’t blog when I totally should, like last week when I put my new feature up about Xbox 360 achievements and how they need fixing.
I was actually inspired by an article by Nadia Oxford over at 1UP on how we, the gamers, are completing our games less and less these days. In my case, I already knew she was right, but I checked out my Gamercard anyway and found that for all these games that I love, my lack of achievements said otherwise. This sent me into a brief frenzy of achievement hunting, which would explain why you may have seen me playing The Simpsons Game and Project Gotham Racing 4.
Kongregate, which has an achievements system all its own, also played into all this as I rediscovered it thanks to our indie gaming week over at GameTap. It’s amazing how Microsoft’s system has changed the way we play games and appreciate games, as there’s nothing more rewarding than earning a few ego boosting points simply by burning the rope. Unfortunately, developers still have plenty to learn about making them so.
I loved Race mode in Halo: Combat Evolved. Many a nights were spent in Blood Gulch, chasing down friends and ramming them off the ledges of the infamous canyon. So you can only imagine how bummed I was to find out that not only was it removed from Halo 2, but it didn’t return in Halo 3, either. And while the latter came with the Forge creation tool, I never felt particularly inspired to create my own race track, though plenty of others did.
I wasn’t inspired, that is, until I got my pre-release code for the Legendary Map Pack and with it, Avalanche. With little to no experience under my belt, I dove into Forge and through plenty of experimentation, came my first creation: Overdriftacular.
Now that the girlfriend and I have our new place setup the way we like it, we can focus on more important stuff like getting the band back together. Yes, Friendship Adventure is back and we’ve even got a new guitarist so that I don’t have to pull double duty on the vocals (even if it does give me an excuse to break out the mic stand). That puts me back behind the drums and returning to an old problem: my faulty red pads.
I never did get a chance to send in my second kit, so instead I turned to the Internet to help solve my problems. I had heard rumors on these here Internets that a mere penny could solve my waning pads. As it turns out, the rumors are true! I looked up a video and proceeded to pry the covers off my drums by force (naturally, the only answer). Once inside, all I had to do was unscrew the sensor, replace the rubber shock pad with a shiny, US penny and put it back together. The entire operation took about 5 minutes and behold, the drum roll is back!
Now if only the download content could return to glory, too. The six pack of Boston was incredible and while “Still Alive” was cute, it was still only one song. Worse yet, tomorrows content is none other than the awful selections from the once-exclusive Official PlayStation Magazine disc. Having “Sprode” on another game is nice, I guess, but it’s been scientifically proven that any Freezepop song is infinitely superior with guitars. To what depraved favor must it come to for “Who’s Next” to see a release already?
Sigh. Remember how hyped I was for Oneechanbara becoming a full-length feature film? Yeah, I’d like to get off the hype train at the next stop, please.
It’s not that it’s filled with cheese and bad acting (Because seriously, what else would you expect?), it’s that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen better cheesecake action in dirty, softcore sentai videos. In other B gaming news, I finally have a partner again in the Earth Defense Force. Soon, the achievements shall be mine!
“The captain is dead! FOLLOW THE CAPTAIN! EDF! EDF!“
Now that the girlfriend and I have our 
