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X3F Achievements 101: On the Road


This latest edition of X3F Achievements 101 is up for your perusal, and touches on the joys of traveling when having an Achievement streak to maintain, while at the same time exploring potential options to make it more viable, namely Live for Windows on Vista. I also talk about finishing up Shadowrun, commenter responses on "boosting", and my time with BioShock, as well as what quickies I've got lined up prior to the launch of Halo 3. All of this and more can be found after the break.



I finally got my last Achievement in Shadowrun, playing my hundredth game as a Human. Now I just roll the Ninja Troll, as that's the most entertaining build to mess around with. I had a lot of fun with the game and played the hell out of it, but at the same time I'm glad I finished it before the launch of Halo 3 and the other slew of games coming ou this holiday. I say this not because I don't enjoy playing, I just expect a vast group of people currently playing to move on to bigger and better things this fall.

Another thing that came up after the last installment, just prior to heading to PAX and X07, was the methods in which I attained Godlike, Healer and a couple other stragglers in the Shadowrun. The was a slight backlash in comments about my "boosting" for these Achievements, saying that it illegitimized my Gamerscore in the eyes of some readers. I stated on the second edition of Achievements 101 that my stance was that if your thumbs do the work, that's legitimate. Anything that deviates from that, be it gamesaving, or having a friend get the Achievement for you, that crosses the line into illegitimacy. Either way, as it stands I don't feel that I've broken any rules in unlocking any of my Achievements, but I appreciate your opinions on what you consider legitimate or otherwise.

When traveling to PAX07, we stayed at the Sheraton Hotel right across the street from it. I have a preference towards Sheraton Hotels when traveling with my 360 because they almost always have a complimentary Business Center that I can hijack the connection to because it doesn't have a firewall and the connections to the monitor aren't locked so I can use the VGA adapter with that and I'm good to go. For Saturday and Sunday I used Prince of Persia Classic and Bomberman Live as quick fixes so I could enjoy the event without being concerned about the streak in the back of my mind.

When flying to Toronto, my luggage got lost along the way (thanks, Air Canada), but I always have my laptop and Xbox 360 as carry on. The hotel was a Holiday Inn, and they supplied complimentary broadband for the room, though I had to call the ISP to allow the 360 to connect. For the 28th and 29th, I got a couple achievements in Hexic 2's Battle mode to cover myself whilst traveling, so all was well in that regard.



One thing that crossed my mind as I travel more and more is Vista, and Achievements on its games. Since they show up on my Gamercard, should they count towards my streak? I mean, if I played Shadowrun on Vista, and got Achievements my Superior Platform on that, it would be far simpler, and since the game ID is identical, there is no way of telling one way or another. The benefit of course would be that if I picked up a new MacBook Pro after an upcoming hardware revision that should happen at the beginning of 2008, I could just run Vista and Halo 2 (PC), and get simple Achievements on that whenever I'm on the go. The upside to that is that the connectivity to the internet would be far easier to pull off whenever I'm traveling. Let me know what you think.

Upon my return to Vancouver, I picked up BioShock, which over this past weekend I really pushed through. My first playthrough is on medium difficulty, and I've saved all the little sisters and currently tying up some loose ends before facing the final boss. I need to backtrack a bit and pick up the Irony Achievement, as well as Found Cohen's Room. Any stragglers will be unlocked on my second playthrough on hard difficulty. Hopefully I'll wrap that up either in the next couple days or shortly after Halo 3 lands.

In terms of quick and easy 1000s I've got my eyes on, I'm gonna blast through Fuzion Frenzy 2 and NBA Street Homecourt, as I currently have those in my possession. That'll help me reach 50,000 Gamerscore pretty quickly, which I'll try to hit on the nose as one of my Gamerscore Milestones. I recently got 47,500, which while not as big a deal as 45,000 or 50,000 is a nice round number.

Well, that's it for this week's edition of Achievements 101. You're welcome to contact me through the means listed below, I've added my 360voice profile to the listing, which I've enabled comments for as well. I'm aware that since it gathers its data from the "Last Played" time stamp on games that it's not 100% accurate, it still gets the majority of the information correct , so you're welcome to follow me on that. Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment on your thoughts on Vista Achievements or anything else you've read in this column.

Email: david [at] xbox360fanboy [dot] com | Subject: Achievements
MSN: knuckles_dawson@hotmail.com | AIM: Knuckles Dawson
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