If you fancy yourself as a baller at NBA Live 07 for the original Xbox, you might be the gamer Electronic Arts is looking with their upcoming multi-city gaming tournament. The first annual "EA Sports NBA Live Challenge" takes place across eight cities, culminating in a championship battle in Las Vegas, with the winner's purse weighing in at $50,000.
The contest begins this weekend in the Jersey Garden City Mall (10/13) before moving to:
King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA (10/20)
Concord Mills Mall, Concord, NC (10/27)
Galleria Mall, Houston, TX (11/3)
Hollywood & Highlands, West Hollywood, LA (11/17)
Great Lakes Crossing, Auburn Hills, MI (12/1)
Target Center, Minneapolis, MN (12/6)
Navy Pier, Chicago, IL (12/8)
When Microsoft initially unveiled its achievements system for the Xbox 360, it was seen as not only a way to show off your gaming skills, but as a means of lengthening the enjoyment and value that every game has to offer. "I'm going to get every achievement for every game I own!" cried enthusiastic gamers, eager to rack up the points and enjoy video games in an entirely new light.
Then the Xbox 360 launched and Perfect Dark Zero asked players to gain 1,000 kills with the sniper rifle. The dream was dead.
I have to admit I am addicted to achievements. Its one of the better points of Xbox Live.
Also all the compalining about the $50 yearly fee for Xbox Live has to stop. Its worth every penny.
I have found achievments to do pretty much what they said (means of lengthening the enjoyment and value that every game has to offer)....if the game is to my liking that is.
Perfect Dark Zero was a horrible experience and I had no need to get achievements in it. But other games like COD2, Gears of War, COD4, Mass Effect, Lost Odyessy, Bioshock and others I have played far more then I probably would have had their not been acheivements.
I loved these games but I tend to move on once I "finish" a game. With acheivements I never really "finish" the game until I get all the (single player) acheivements so I tend to play it a lot more times. Having a goal out there that can be acheived and marked as acheived does motivate me. I never played a game on the hardest setting in the past because there was no need. You beat it, the end. Now its like "did I get the acheivement for beating it on the hardest difficulty? No. I can beat that on the hardest, that wasnt so bad." and I play it (unless I think I have no hope of beating it on the hardest, or the game just doesnt hold my interest).
Acheivements are a little thing, but I think they were a stroke of genius. Not that MS was the fist to do it. It seems like the old Madden and NCAA games (when they were good) gave you ingame achievments and trophies. I see it as an expansion on that. Soon PS3 will have achievments as well. So people other then me must enjoy them.
That said the article is correct that not all developers use them correctly and there are a lot of cheap or unmotivating achievements that I tend to skip (like MP or absurdly long collect-a-thons that you cant complete without multiple replays of the same level)
Adding achievements was a dream come true tbh, it's best thing added to next generation.
Achievements have been around since the dawn of gaming, just in a much simpler form. Being able to put your initials in the high score list on arcade games was often enough draw to motivate gamers to practice up or keep playing... of course some guy named a$$ seemed to always have the high scores everywhere I went :)
Still, I think the best draw for an achievement is some type of in game reward. Flag collecting in Assassins Creed was just a waste of time.
I thought it would be easy to get all the achievements. But I realized I couldn't do it. I have 15000 plus achievement points out of maybe 56000. The worst was Blue Dragon, I finish the game and only got 60 achievement points out of 1000. But hey as long as the game is good achievement points is just a nice bonus. When I purchase a game I really don't think about achievement points.
Electronic Arts would be wise to buy 2K Sports, or so says industry analyst Michael Pachter for Wedbush Morgan Securities. The suggestion came amid the move from Wedbush downgrading Take-Two Interactive's stock from "hold" to "sell" Friday. Take-Two Interactive owns 2K Sports as a subsiderary.
"It is clear to us that Take-Two's sports business would have tremendous value to EA, as it would give EA a monopoly on football, basketball, baseball, and hockey," Pachter said. His analysis concluded that EA might purchase 2K Sports for as much as $200 million dollars, but he noted, "It is arguable that EA would benefit by as much as $1 billion if it were to obtain an exclusive; this does not mean that it is willing to pay $1 billion."
Just the thought of it reinforces in my mind just what a travesty this would be. EA is turning out to be the absolute Wal-Mart of video games. Not like I don't shop at Wal-Mart myself, but when I'm, looking for something special and unique unto itself or brand I don't go to Wal-Mart, but if it's something cheap and made for 'the masses' then I do. Get my point? Please EA, just move along and don't touch anything on your way out of the door.
If EA buys out 2K sports, then I'LL COMMIT SUICIDE!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(in gta, not real life)
Here is the list of the latest review scores from Famitsu.
The complete list:
Motorstorm (PS3, Sony): 8 / 8 / 8 / 6 - (30/40)
Sonic The Hedgehog (PS3, Sega): 8 / 7 / 7 / 7 - (29/40)
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360, Capcom): 9 / 9 / 9 / 9 - (36/40)
Sonic The Hedgehog (Xbox 360, Sega): 8 / 7 / 7 / 8 - (30/40)
Seiken Densetsu 4 (PS2, Square Enix): 7 / 8 / 8 / 7 - (30/40)
Madden NFL 07 (PS2, EA): 7 / 8 / 7 / 5 - (27/40)
Monster 4X4: World Circuit (Wii, Ubisoft): 7 / 6 / 7 / 8 - (28/40)
A Ressha de Ikou HX (Xbox 360, Artdink): 7 / 6 / 7 / 7 - (27/40)
Metal Gear Portable Ops (PSP, Konami): 9 / 10 / 9 / 9 - (37/40)
Tales of The World: Radiant Mythology (PSP, Bandai Namco): 8 / 7 / 8 / 7 - (30/40)
Nounai Aesthe: IQ Suppli DS (NDS, Spike): 7 / 7 / 6 / 6 - (26/40)
Heisei Kyouiku Iinkai DS (NDS, Bandai Namco): 6 / 9 / 7 / 6 - (28/40)
Need for Speed Carbon (PS2, EA): 8 / 8 / 7 / 7 - (30/40)
Need for Speed Carbon (PS3/Xbox 360, EA): 9 / 9 / 8 / 8 - (34/40)
Need for Speed Carbon (Wii, EA): 8 / 7 / 6 / 7 - (28/40)
Need for Speed Carbon (PSP, EA): 8 / 8 / 7 / 8 - (31/40)
School Love! (PS2, Views): 6 / 6 / 6 / 6 - (24/40)
Intelligent License 2 (PSP, Now Production): 7 / 9 / 7 / 8 - (31/40)
NBA Live 07 (PSP, EA): 7 / 8 / 7 / 7 - (29/40)
Hamster to Kurasou (NDS, Interchannel): 6 / 6 / 5 / 5 - (22/40)
The most important rating is that Lost Plant scored a full 6 points higher than Motorstorm. That is so huge. Sony has really been pushing Motorstorm as a reason to buy a PS3.
Motorstorm is sooo awesome, NOT. I guess it doesn't look or play well like all of the other PS3 games.
Does anybody know how they score the games and in which order for catagories, e.g sound , graphics