Lusipurr.com – Presenting the Sundry Opinions of Lusipurr and Friends

In my last post, I asked for ideas and suggestions for topics for posts. In alphabetical order, they were: Dissidia, GameCube games, Phoenix Wright, and general videogame soundtracks. Also, more Oliver Motok jokes in my posts, but I feel bad not knowing the guy first. These are great ideas! So great that I will not talk about any of them!

Just yet, at least. I have had the idea for this particular post for a while now, and finally feel the time is ripe for it. As our readers and listeners probably know by now, I have not been the best at completing games for some time – years really, but 2009 proved to be the beginning of a new me as far as that goes. It is not the biggest accomplishment in history, but this landmark year found me completing Flower, Uncharted, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which is roughly 1000 times the number of games than I have completed since NiGHTS on the Sega Saturn (it has been a while). Mind you, some games do not really lend themselves well to beating, but it certainly helps to have a goal to strive for when playing those, and I have had a few accomplishments on that end in ‘09 as well.

I want this trend to continue in 2010, and I want readers to join me on mine (and Ginia’s) journey to beat more games. These are some tools I am personally using to keep my eye on the prize.

1. Trophies (Achievements too, I GUESS). This one might seem like a no brainer to many, and endless debates can be had about e-peens, cheapening the game playing experience, overall uselessness of one of this generations newest in-game features (so long as you are not Nintendo), etc..; but Trophies have really helped me determine how to go about accomplishing some things for certain games. For more story driven affairs (Uncharted), the goal was obviously to see what happens at the end. There are Trophies to be had by beating Uncharted in each difficulty, and I might play the game again because it was good, but my goal was simply to finish the game, and I did. Games like Rock Band or Bomberman, however, have no definitive end. Though that is not the goal of either, there is much to be explored in both, so when does it end? Both end when you decide you have had enough, and though one could drive themselves mad grinding away until they have had it, I set goals.

2. Pen and paper. In Bomberman Ultra for PSN, my goal was to get the full cowboy outfit (there is a Trophy for playing an “all cowboy’d up” four-player match, but I really just wanted the outfit, so I was fine not getting the Trophy in this case). In Rock Band 2, my goal was to play every venue in the world, something cemented by the fact that there is a Trophy for it. And for games that have stories but are more-or-less grindfests, I just want to level up a character – a single character – to an appropriate level (capped or not) before any DLC/expansion increases the Trophied level (the cap is 200 in Sacred II: Fallen Angel, but the “maxed out” Trophy only requires a character to level to 35, Borderlands has a Trophy requiring one to go all the way – 50). For these goals, I have employed my own take on a method recommended to me (and Ginia) by our very own reader, darthgibblet. In it, darth (may I call you just darth?) recommended creating a database to help keep track of game progress and playtimes for the titles currently on ones plate. My take here is two-fold, and first on this take is to keep a gaming journal. At the beginning of this month/year/decade, I bought a little note book to help me keep track of my gaming. I spent some time the other day plotting out which venues needed to be played still and what songs I should play once there. I also wrote down what I had left to do to unlock the still dimmed out venues I had. This is probably the nerdiest thing I have ever done, but it helped keep me on track, and I will definitely be using this for when I play through PixelJunk: Monsters and PixelJunk: Eden to plot out maps and goals within those games in the coming weeks. Thanks, darth!

I will not give this next item its own number on this list, but does deserved to be mentioned, and that is in-game tallying. Games have been keeping all kinds of stats for us for as long as games were electronic (high scores, lines cleared, chickens kicked – a Fable reference for Lusipurr!). The systems keep track of Trophies (Achiev…s), but games themselves only really started keeping track of Trophies for us within the past year, and it has been pretty significant for me. At a glance within the game’s menu, I can see how far along I am or how close I came to getting a Trophy. For games with no end in sight, I can see how closely my goals are being met.

3. Disciplanning! Almost immediately I knew this site was for me, the way they took two words and jammed them together – man! That’s the stuff!

Disciplanner is a site I stumbled on at the end of last year, and I was struck by its ease of use and basic goal-oriented discipline and planning. The site runs on the honor system, requiring users to be honest with themselves to help keep track of whatever they so choose. I have three “Exercises” in my “Gym” currently, one for writing (general, but meant to keep me on track for the site), one for light exercise (crunches and push-ups I avoid), and one for video gaming (play two hours a day). Each time I do any of these things, I add it to my “Repetitions” for that day (20 Minutes of writing here, 45 minutes of gaming there), and it keeps a “History” and creates pie graphs (unfortunately, not pies) to breakdown where your time is being spent.

This might all sound pretty whogivesacrap-y, but this is part two of my take on darth’s database suggestion. One of the cool things users can set in their Gym are “Milestones.” Lose 10 pounds, stop smoking, beat Uncharted 2, whatever! The site dates when you add a new Milestone and adds the date completed next to it once done. It even gives you a useless gold star too!

These three (four, depending on the game) things, coupled with support and encouragement from friends and loved ones (HI NANCY! I LOVE YOU!) – maybe from you guys too – are all the right ingredients to make my (and Ginia’s) 2010 all it can be when it comes to beating games. If you have any others tips or words of encouragement, drop them in the comments. Let us be there for each other by being here for each other! (cheeeeeeeeeesyyyyyyyy)

Now let’s get out there and win these games! YEEEAAAAAH!!!
(so dumb)