Drunk Tank Week 2





The drunks are back for another week of reliving their past while hating on the present. This round, they tackle commitment, Britney and Battlefield.

What’s your favorite New Year’s Resolution that you’ve already abandoned?

Geoff -- Getting the 7 Day Survivor in Dead Rising. Instead of doing it this year like a chump, I think it will make a great 2009 resolution.
Burnie -- To build a time machine. Don't get me wrong, I did it. But I fucked up so much stuff, I came back to stop myself. In fact, I'm on my 87th iteration trying to return everything back to normal. I still can't get those last two Matrix movies right, but I'm working on it.
Gus -- Try...

Drunk Tank Week 2





The drunks are back for another week of reliving their past while hating on the present. This round, they tackle commitment, Britney and Battlefield.

What’s your favorite New Year’s Resolution that you’ve already abandoned?

Geoff -- Getting the 7 Day Survivor in Dead Rising. Instead of doing it this year like a chump, I think it will make a great 2009 resolution.
Burnie -- To build a time machine. Don't get me wrong, I did it. But I fucked up so much stuff, I came back to stop myself. In fact, I'm on my 87th iteration trying to return everything back to normal. I still can't get those last two Matrix movies right, but I'm working on it.
Gus -- Try to be less mean to and critical of other people. I find that as they give up on their resolutions and fall back to their stupid ways it is harder for me to not be a jerk to them. I know it is a vicious cycle.
Jason -- I stopped making New Year's Resolutions when I was 5 -- the year I realized I had it all figured out.
Matt -- I had planned to lose weight on the treadmill. Not by running, but by recreating that OK Go video. However it turns out that not only requires exercise but rhythm.

Pick your favorite Britney picture from the last twelve months.

Geoff -- Definitely this one.
Gus -- I swear that she looks just like my neighbor's little brother that used to live up the street from me when I was growing up. He definitely should've grown his hair out also.
Burnie -- This picture was taken right after her break up with K Fed and I think she looks super hot in it. Unfortunately it's the kind of super heat that only an imminent nuclear meltdown can produce.
Matt -- I liked Britney's red wig phase, but I still don't understand how she got the Wendy's endorsement deal. I also really liked the creepy umbrella Britney because she looked like she could be related to John Locke.
Jason -- I know this is more than a year old, but if you look closely you can actually see the crazy being transferred.

EA revealed Battlefield Heroes: a free, cartoonish game based on the popular Battlefield franchise.[link]

Burnie -- Awesome. I loved Team Fortress Two, and this looks like Team Fortress Too.
Gus -- I'd love to comment on it if I could see any screenshots or video of the game. They have only released a press release hyping a magazine release. So far all I know is that the game is announced and if I want to find out more I have to buy some stupid magazine on February 12th. A magazine for God's sake. Do we live in the fucking STONE AGE?
Geoff -- Honestly, you'd have to pay me to play any PC game. Coincidentally, Peter Moore, if you're listening, I am open to being paid to play this game. Give me a call, my number is on the restraining order you filed.
Jason -- I didn't play any of the previous Battlefield games, so I went to the Battlefield Heroes website to try to get the scoop. I was instructed to purchase the March issue of Games for Windows magazine for more info. I'm already not enjoying my "free" game experience.

Back so soon?Now that the introductions are out of the way, Knuckles is getting down to business. This week marks the release of the highly anticipated Burnout Paradise, and he's all over those achievements like Burnie on a package of Fig Newtons. Try not to get too close, you could lose a finger.
--geoff

Blaze Consumption: Utopia

One of the first titles of 2008 that I'm looking forward to, and not just because it comes out this week, is Burnout Paradise. First off, it's got gorgeously clean box art, which is, oddly, the first in seven Burnout titles to not feature a crash/wrecked automobile on the cover (even though the initially released box art did). Now, if you want a taste of what to expect, ...

Back so soon?Now that the introductions are out of the way, Knuckles is getting down to business. This week marks the release of the highly anticipated Burnout Paradise, and he's all over those achievements like Burnie on a package of Fig Newtons. Try not to get too close, you could lose a finger.
--geoff

Blaze Consumption: Utopia

One of the first titles of 2008 that I'm looking forward to, and not just because it comes out this week, is Burnout Paradise. First off, it's got gorgeously clean box art, which is, oddly, the first in seven Burnout titles to not feature a crash/wrecked automobile on the cover (even though the initially released box art did). Now, if you want a taste of what to expect, there's a demo up on Xbox Live Marketplace (also the Playstation Network if you sway that way). Personally, I'm a big Burnout fan, and the only ones I haven't played are Legends (PSP/DS) and Dominator (PS2/PSP). The rest I completed 100%, and even got some top lap times on Burnout Revenge for the Original Xbox. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the open-world concept meshes with the franchise.

Burnout Revenge for the 360 had a fairly decent list, featuring a total of 36 Achievements to unlock, and as an added bonus each one was full of exclamation points! That being said, it was brought up (comment #60) as being a bad list in the comments of my first article. Sure, there was a dreaded "leaderboard" Achievement, but the leaderboards were reset weekly, so getting in the top 20 wasn't too difficult as long as your timing was right (and your friends voted on your totally awesome crash on White Mountain North). But enough about the past. Let's take a look at Paradise's list of 50 Achievements, and see what you're getting yourself into (outside of listening to Atomika on Crash FM).

If I were to compare it to anything, I'd say this list is a cross between Crackdown, and Need for Speed Carbon. It's got some of the open world and unique playstyle Achievements of Crackdown, but is still...plagued...by some staple EA Achievements that weren't a problem with Revenge. There's your standard introductory Achievements like "win your first race," "fix your first wreck," "get your D Driver's License," etc, with most of them worth 10 Gamescore a piece.

Like Crackdown, there are two sets of collectibles you find while roaming about Paradise City: Burnout Billboards and shortcut-hiding Smashes, which are like Agility Orbs and Hidden Orbs, respectively. Burnout Billboards are, well...billboards, with the uh, Burnout logo on them that you need to fly through during a jump. Like the Agility Orbs from Crackdown, the early ones are rather easy low-hanging fruit for you to hit, but as you progress you'll find that they require a little more creativity to leave your car-shaped silhouette on. Thankfully, the billboards you break through remain in that state, so you always know which ones still require a facelift. The Smashes are yellow fences that lead to shortcuts, having the double purpose of helping you learn the best route, while rewarding you for exploring. There are also progression Achievements for completing milestones in some of the long-term goals (like increasing your Drivers License level), which are worth progressively more Gamerscore, capping off at 70G for "Elite."

The online Achievements are where things get a little shaky however. They start off well, with ones like "win ten races," "get 500 takedowns cumulatively online or offline," or "make 50 rivals". All good stuff, but it breaks down from there, and you start seeing some EA style Achievements that look strangely familiar. There's a viral Achievement which is all right, but kind of seems like something EA has been throwing in as an afterthought lately. Then there's the ever elusive "Paid and Displayed" where you must go to the official website "to find out more."

Following that are Achievements for sending snapshots to your rivals. Whenever you get taken down, if you have an Xbox Live Vision camera, it will immediately take a picture of your genitalia reaction and send it to the bastard the T-boned you. I admit that it's a cool feature, photography of phalli notwithstanding. The problem is, what happens if you don't have the proprietary webcam? Do you still get the Achievements for getting taken down? Are they seriously making it so you have to have a specific peripheral to unlock it? That's like having to win a certain amount of races while using the Wireless Racing Wheel. It's kind of the opposite of beating Guitar Hero III  on Hard or Expert with a standard controller, but you get the idea. Next up are a few Achievements for completing (up to 250) online Challenges. The Challenges were fun in the demo, and varied depending how many people you had with you in the Freeburn. The Achievement "Block Party" suggests that there's a required checklist of multiple challenges, as you unlock it after completing two whole sections of it. Here's the kicker though: at the end of the Achievement's description it reads "(excluding PDLC)." So, I guess that suggests that there will eventually be Paid (and displayed?) Downloadable Content with new Challenges. Hopefully it will come with its own Achievements, if at all.

The list is topped off with a few completion Achievements, basically requiring you to do, see, and explore everything, which is fine (or better than fine if you're Geoff, who lives for that kind of thing). There isn't much disparity with point distribution, as the vast majority of the Achievements are worth 20-25 Gamerscore, with a few worth less or more depending on their difficulty. Sprinkled throughout are a couple of extracurricular ones like completing a few specific events without getting taken down, or reaching certain point values in a Stunt Run combo. There's even an exclamation point given for getting "Takedown Rampage!," which doesn't even begin to compare to the staggering 100 exclamation points in the Achievement list for Revenge. All and all it's a pretty good list, and should hopefully add to the enjoyment of the game, despite the potential missteps in the online space.

What do you think? Is this list better than Burnout Revenge? Will the Achievements make or break Burnout's foray into the sandbox racer subgenre? Or does it even matter so long things crash and look purdy?

Polar Bears and Ice Fishing and shitSo the weather forecast for Park City, Utah (Sundance), is fuuucking cold. I don't care how many drunk celebrities he's partying with, I don't envy Nathan one bit as he freezes his ass off showing his film in those sub-arctic conditions. What the hell was Robert Redford thinking? He could have picked anywhere to create this festival; places like Maui, Miami Beach, Key West or Malibu, but instead he picked the American Siberia. What a nut.



Put your gamertag here too.

Polar Bears and Ice Fishing and shitSo the weather forecast for Park City, Utah (Sundance), is fuuucking cold. I don't care how many drunk celebrities he's partying with, I don't envy Nathan one bit as he freezes his ass off showing his film in those sub-arctic conditions. What the hell was Robert Redford thinking? He could have picked anywhere to create this festival; places like Maui, Miami Beach, Key West or Malibu, but instead he picked the American Siberia. What a nut.

And now for something differentSup playas?
One of the things that's been so fun about running a company/site like Rooster Teeth, is finding exceptionally talented members on the site, and then exploiting them to our evil gain. So, in our never-ending desire to bring you new and different content, we've decided to look into the community for more poor souls to harvest towards that end. Enter "Mr. Achievement", Knuckles Dawson.

Posted below is the first of (hopefully) many "Achievement-centered" columns by him. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Knuckles Dawson, you might recognize me from such popular websites as Xbox360Fanboy.com, or “not so” popular ones like KnucklesDawson.com, but hey my mom thinks it's cool. Anyway, m...

And now for something differentSup playas?
One of the things that's been so fun about running a company/site like Rooster Teeth, is finding exceptionally talented members on the site, and then exploiting them to our evil gain. So, in our never-ending desire to bring you new and different content, we've decided to look into the community for more poor souls to harvest towards that end. Enter "Mr. Achievement", Knuckles Dawson.

Posted below is the first of (hopefully) many "Achievement-centered" columns by him. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Knuckles Dawson, you might recognize me from such popular websites as Xbox360Fanboy.com, or “not so” popular ones like KnucklesDawson.com, but hey my mom thinks it's cool. Anyway, my real name is David Dreger, and like most of you I'm a big Red vs Blue fan, going all the way back to their premiere trailer where the true meaning behind "Rooster Teeth" was coined. I initially met the RT gang at the first Penny Arcade Expo, back in 2004. Only at PAX'07 did I really hit it off with Geoff, even though he'd forgotten chatting with me at all the previous PAXes, despite my wearing the same damn Dreamcast Jersey each and every year, and him complimenting me on it each and every year. I also hung out with Burnie at the Halo 3 Launch in Bellevue, WA and had each of them on the X3F Fancast.

Like Burnie and Geoff, I'm a big Achievement Whore. Some might say the biggest, despite my total Gamerscore being nearly one fifth of the current leader, who's even admitted and is proud of using game saves to artificially inflate his score. Let me give some backstory as to why that might be. I was one of the fortunate 32,100 Canadians to actually get an Xbox 360 on launch day. I played my share of Perfect Dark Zero and Hexic, and acquired a dozen Achievements that day. I was instantly hooked. I continued to play Call of Duty 2, Kameo or Project Gotham Racing 3, and unlock more Achievements. A few days into it I noticed that I'd gotten Achievements each day in PDZ. So, being someone who likes to challenge himself with goals, I posed the question "I wonder how long I can do this in PDZ for?" The answer was only four more days, as the following Monday I couldn't nab 100 Sniper kills, because I tried to in an offline match rather than one on Xbox Live, so the Achievement didn't unlock after I did it. Awesome. I did however, get some Achievements in PGR3 and CoD2, so I switched gears to open up the self-imposed challenge to include any Xbox 360 game's Achievements, so long as they were worth Gamerscore, because (believe it or not) there are actually games with 0 point Achievements. I continued getting at least one Achievement each day for nearly two years, putting a stop to my streak on October 5th, 2007. My Gamerscore was 49,900 on that day, netting roughly 1765 Achievements along the way. For the record, I also did a bunch of traveling in 2007, had a steady girlfriend, and got pissed drunk enough to keep my sanity intact. The reason I stopped, as stated in my original article on it, was because Microsoft awarded me MVP status on October 1st, 2007, and felt that I'd proven my point with the whole endeavor (that point being that good things come from playing video games).

That's still 681 days.

In a row.

For starters, I'll give you an explanation on how Achievements work. Every Xbox 360 game, be it Arcade or Retail, has Achievements that are worth Gamerscore. When you get an Achievement, it’s tallied up on your Xbox Live Gamercard. It would actually be kind of sad if you had an Xbox 360 and didn't know that. Initially, retail games required a minimum of 5, and maximum of 50 Achievements, totaling up to 1000 Gamerscore (some early games like The Godfather, included less than 1000 points – no one in the world knows why), and Arcade titles had 12 Achievements for a total of 200 Gamerscore. These totals have recently been allowed to increase thanks to Downloadable Content, potentially bumping Retail / Arcade titles to 1250 and 250, respectively.

The launch titles tried but didn't always get the idea right, with some games being notorious for having ridiculously easy Achievements, most of which were the first sports titles. Others were ridiculously hard, sometimes even excluding the majority of gamers with Achievements that require you to top a game's leaderboards in multiplayer. Early missteps aside, they do add an extra "something" to Xbox 360 titles, whether you're hooked or not. When properly implemented, they give you incentive to play games uniquely, reward you for playing normally, and sometimes even coerce you to play games you normally wouldn't touch. They can also add friendly competition among peers, be it besting a friend's score, or as you've seen first hand, racing to complete a game the quickest. Community sites have popped up to catalogue them, and even manage to get complete lists for games months before their release.

Outside of the Achievement Streak, one thing I did that changed the way I played (that I wouldn't have done otherwise), was to try and hit Gamerscore Milestones. Basically, these are cool numbers that I hit, rather than simply pass over, because you only ever get a chance at it once on any given Gamertag. For example, the first one I got was 2,500, though that wasn't a big deal at the time. The next one, which almost happened by fluke, was 12345. I thought it was cool, and from that point I tried to hit as many as I could, like 22222,  25000, 44444, 54321 to match my first one, and most recently 55555. When I first told Geoff about this, he thought it was a cool concept. He was on the cusp of getting 33333 himself, and this requires taking care of what Achievements you get. We used some odd numbered Achievements in GRAW and Marathon: Durandal to pull it off, and he nailed it this past weekend, which is pretty cool. I was at a Microsoft event in New York City, when I got my 33333, so it was cool having him start with the same one.

Fortunately, game developers have become more familiar with implementing Achievements into their games, and we've seen some great examples in the past year of how Achievements can work to enhance gameplay. Titles like Crackdown, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 all have balanced Achievement lists that are fun, challenging, and sometimes downright difficult. That being said, we've seen some missteps as well, with titles like Guitar Hero III's ridiculously difficult Achievements, or Avatar's laughably easy ones. I can only hope that in 2008 we see continued improvement in games as developers get a better grasp on what works and what doesn't. 

If you’re on this site, it’s probably safe to say you’re at least a Halo fan, which means you probably have a 360 and have hands-on experience with at least Halo 3’s Achievements. Halo 3 has a nearly perfect balance of Single Player to Multiplayer Gamerscore distribution, allowing you to get 90% of it done without even playing online. Sure, the spread of 100/1000G for the multiplayer Achievements looks a little scarce at first, but once you think about, it works out nicely. First off, you can get all of the Achievements online if you want, via co-op or otherwise. There are 13 online-only Achievements, and barring the rank-based ones, all of them are worth 5G and exclusive to Lone Wolves. This means that if someone doesn't play that playlist, they aren't missing out on a bunch of Gamerscore. Plus, given the quality of the campaign, and Bungie's focus on the story, it's good that the majority of the Achievements are devoted to it.

So, what do you think? Do Achievements affect the way you've started to play games, make you try new ones, or just enrich the ones you do play? I can say that having all three current gen consoles, it’s definitely made sure the Xbox 360 is my preferred choice. Let me hear your thoughts.

Return of the crap





Rooster Teeth Productions celebrates its fifth anniversary in just a few months and we've been compiling some of the old work from the early RvB and Drunkgamers days. We thought it might be fun to bring back some of the old classics. Ones like DrunkTank, where we take three questions from the news every week, get drunk and burn some bridges. We've grown so much. We even have an old DGer, Notorious, weighing in this week.

It has been reported that GoldenEye for Xbox Live Arcade was cancelled less than two months from release because Nintendo and Microsoft could not work out a deal. What went wrong?

Geoff -- I don't know what went wrong, but I can tell you who loses: the annoying peo...

Return of the crap





Rooster Teeth Productions celebrates its fifth anniversary in just a few months and we've been compiling some of the old work from the early RvB and Drunkgamers days. We thought it might be fun to bring back some of the old classics. Ones like DrunkTank, where we take three questions from the news every week, get drunk and burn some bridges. We've grown so much. We even have an old DGer, Notorious, weighing in this week.

It has been reported that GoldenEye for Xbox Live Arcade was cancelled less than two months from release because Nintendo and Microsoft could not work out a deal. What went wrong?

Geoff -- I don't know what went wrong, but I can tell you who loses: the annoying people who still live in 1997. Wake up. It's been a decade. New FPSs have been released, some of them even let you jump, or aim while running!
Burnie -- It's too bad, I was hoping someone would make a Nintendo 64 controller for the 360 to go along with the Goldeneye release. I miss wrapping my hands around the worst console accesory ever made. I think I would prefer a controller based on that knife-star thing from Krull.
Nathan -- I am very upset by this. GoldenEye is the root of my brother's carpal tunnel, which is the only reason I am able to beat him now arm wrestling. Of all the "retro" games I was looking forward to playing again, this was at the top of the list. Cyberball was #2. Which I did play. And it sucked.
Jason -- Someone must have realized all my loser friends finished/got kicked out of college and were forced to move on with their lives, thereby leaving no audience for this classic.....ly overrated game.
Notorious -- Apparently somebody hates money. I'm tearing up a little, I was really hoping I could revisit the old days, only with some 13 year old calling me a fag every 5 seconds.

Knowing that none of you have seen the movie or really paid attention to any of the marketing -- draw the Cloverfield monster.

Geoff -- The scariest thing about my creature is that he wears a scarf. Nothing is more frightening than a monster that cares about his health, cause you know he'll be around for a while.
Gus -- Gus's awful pic that we are obligated to link becasue it took him six hours to make.
Burnie -- I decided to make a Frankenstein-esque creation from all the most terrifying aspects of other JJ Abrams productions. The result is truly horrific.
Nathan -- Nathan's very scary pic.
Jason -- Jason's first "no, you're not listening" pic. Jason's current events inspired second pic.

Gizmodo had a reporter banned from CES for disrupting booths and presentations. Thoughts?

Geoff -- I think he's lucky to still have all his teeth (assuming he started CES with all his teeth, which is probably a big assumption). I'm sure he can take solace riding his bicycle through his neighborhood with his universal remote in hand, opening unsuspecting neighbors' garage doors. That'll teach them to try and protect their cars from the rain.
Gus -- I wish the conventions we went to would start banning people for disrupting booths. Come to think of it I wish that the conventions we went to would ban people for not showering...or for getting a little too much pleasure from hugging people.
Burnie -- Oh boo hoo, Internet. Gizmodo pulls this kind of weak "prank" stunt every three months and you only play into this dopey shit by crying about it. They "destroyed" their Halo 3 gear before anyone else could get it and then posted tubgirl pics on Kotaku's main page. I think they're trying to beat out Gamecock for lamest promoters on the web. I did like that Giz posted a link to a story of a kid who used an IR remote to derail trains. Even their deflections are douchey and embarassing.
Jason -- The dude who turned off all the TVs? I feel sorry for the him -- anyone who works for company called "Gizmodo" probably has a similar effect on all the women he approaches, too.
Notorious -- This sounds like something Drunkgamers would have done, and it's probably why we never got invited nice places. All I ever did was go to Burnie's house and see a spider as big as Gus's head.