Well, I broke 12,000 earlier today. Galaga put me over 12k. Right now, I only need one more achievement in Galaga, which is the "Perfect Bonus" achievement. It's kind of tricky, because you have to make sure you have a double-ship (it's pretty much impossible without one) and then make it to a Challenge stage and beat EVERY SINGLE ENEMY before they escape. It not as hard as it sounds, and I know exactly which stage I'm gonna use (thank God for Achieve360Points.com), but I haven't gotten around to logging onto XBL and actually doing it yet. I'm also working on Oblivion right now, which I've logged about 100 hours in so far. Just need to beat the Fighters' Guild and Thieves' Guild questlines and then I can put that one back on the shelf. So yeah (I say that a lot), I've been feeling kind of sick lately. Starting to get a cough, and I have this constant headache that's been lingering for a couple of days. I should probably go take a nap. Yeah, I should. Here's the plan. Spell check this blog post, submit it, go take a nap, make a sandwich, eat the sandwich, and then log onto XBL and unlock that last Galaga achievement and work on the Fighters' Guild. Your plan is to finish reading this sentence, drop me a comment, and move on with your life. UPDATE: I finally got that last achievement with the help of SoralinkGS, thanks again man!

First off, my profile is getting a bit dull with my "The Hawk's Notes" blog header, and even my sig is even getting boring... so I have a couple of requests. To anyone with skill in Photoshop, I'd like a few things made... Blog Header -- Dimensions: 360 x 50. I'd like this Gears of War image in it. Put him in the right side, with "JoeyHawk's Blog" in the left. Make sure much of the character is visible. A thick, white border would be nice, too. Signature -- Dimensions: 380 x 90. I want it to include this Button Mashing picture. Or this render. Preferably the first one, though. Basically, just that picture without the bad-looking edges on it. Yeah, just that pic in the dimensions given, with "JoeyHawk" in small font somewhere in the bottom left or right corner, and a thick black border. Note: If you do resize the picture, only make it smaller. If you need a bigger picture, just tell me and I will provide one. Thanks to anyone who does those requests. :) So yeah, now onto points. Right now my gamerscore stands at 11,495. I got some points out of G.R.A.W. recently, such as the "Falcon" and "Committed" achievements. Those also rounded out my score, which I'm happy about. I also beat Cloning Clyde, and got 166 points out of it. I may go back later to get the last two achievements, but right now I'm focused on beating Oblivion (finally) and getting some Battlefield 2 achievements with Dgrimes14 tomorrow. Until next time, JoeyHawk

So what's up with this whole Cloning Clyde achievement thing? I really dislike getting 12 point achievements, I really do. Not only does my gamerscore look better with a 5 or 0 at the end, but it also makes it a lot easier to know your future gamerscore after planning the acquisition of an achievement. For instance, if your gamerscore is 1,000, and you're about to get a 25 point achievement, your gamerscore is obviously going to be 1,025. It's not that it's hard to calculate, but everything would be a lot easier if achievements went by fives. You know, 5, 10, 15, 20. Not 8, 12, 7, and 2. Anyways, that's just a pet peeve of mine. Does it bug any of you guys?

I finally got all 1,000 points in Prey, thanks to my friend Dgrimes14! He helped me get nearly all of the multiplayer achievements, so he helped me a lot (thanks again, Grimes). Overall, I think the Prey achievements are pretty easy, granted you have someone to help you with the multiplayer achievements, and some time on your hands. The only achievement I really had trouble with was the "Black Jack" achievement. I just got it a few minutes ago, and it was the last achievement I got in Prey, but as long as you just concentrate on the task at hand, and take a few risks, you shouldn't have much of a problem. Now besides the points, I really do think Prey deserved a better score. Maybe somewhere in the later 7s or early 8s. I definitely feel that Prey was a solid FPS, with some neat gameplay elements (that weren't taken too far, mind you), and some minor bugs here and there. It had a lot of this going on: , but you should definitely give it a try if you're into these kind of games. And if you're a super-nerd like I am, go ahead and buy the massive collector's edition! ^_^

Way too easy. I was expecting Cherokee mode in Prey to be much harder than Normal, but all they did was take away the health upgrades, and throw in a few more enemies here or there. Weak. I was a bit worried about the boss battle where you have to fight Jen (that was a spoiler, wasn't it) because I remember having to do the death walk a couple of times before figuring out exactly how to take him (or her) down. Looking back on it, that was a stupid-easy boss fight. The final boss is still easier, though. Basically what I'm trying to say here, is that Prey is an easy game. I should have that Galactic Hero achievement by tomorrow, after putting in a couple more hours on Cherokee, so that's pretty much taken care of, but the hard part is the multiplayer. Part of what makes it hard is all of the lag. But my friend Dgrimes14 is gonna help me with some Prey MP achievements tonight (most of them can be done through a player match). Well, overall, Prey was a bit underwhelming. It had a cool ending, but the shooting wasn't satisfying enough. Well, I take that back. The acid sprayer is awesome. >_> UPDATE: I beat it on Cherokee difficulty. Only got 65 points. -_-

You heard me, I'm just 80 points away from 10,000 gamerscore! (At the time of writing this.) I have 600 out of a possible 1,000 Hitman: Blood Money points, and I know that doesn't sound like much, but let me put it this way: I have 20 out of a possible 24 Hitman: Blood Money achievements. See? I just completed Expert mode today. The last few achievements are worth a ton of points... but yeah, SoralinkGS is still the best at that game. Anyways, I'm picking up Prey tomorrow, and that will surely bring me over 10,000 points in no time at all. It's kind of a bummer though, because I dropped out of the race with keiblerfan69. Now that I think about it though, he probably would have gotten to 10,000 weeks ago had he known I was actually playing my 360. I didn't even want to get to 10,000 or anything, it's just that the last couple of games I rented had SUPER-easy points. But enough about points! Prey. It's out tomorrow. I was a little disappointed with the score, but I'm convinced it's still a good game, I don't know why. There's just something about it... let's hope I'm right. Anyways, keiblerfan69, I'll be waiting for you at 10,000, let's race to 15 grand! UPDATE: Alright, I finally broke 10,000 points! Like I said before, I got Prey (the collector's edition, damn that thing is big!) and I broke 10,000 gamerscore tonight. The achievement that took me to 10,000 was called "All Fall Down" in Prey. It was this creepy level where you had to kill the soul of this little girl that was killed by aliens... it was creepy. But yeah, I did it!

This is a little bit scary... I was outside with my dog just a few minutes ago, and right at the intersection next to my house, a bunch of police cars and ambulances pulled up all of the sudden. I overheard a cop arguing with a resident of this neighborhood, telling him that he couldn't pass, and that he'd hear about it on the news, and there had been a shooting. Fortunately, my house is just before that intersection, so we can go in and out as we please. It's still a bit freaky though. My sister and her boyfriend are out right now, so hopefully they'll be able to get to our house without any trouble. I just hope everybody is okay... UPDATE: Three people are dead. I was just watching the news, they were live right outside of our house. (Link.) But wait, there's more good news. North Korea just launched another missile at the South Pacific -- near Hawaii. (Link.) That one was a failed attempt, but it's a bit freaky.

If you were watching the Nathan's 4th of July eating contest this morning, you saw that Kobayashi beat Joey Chestnut by 2 3/4 dogs. It was amazing! I don't normally watch that stuff but, damn... those guys can eat. I noticed a lot of different techniques. Some people would listen to music while eating so that they could chew and swallow to the beat, while others kept their own pace and just stuffed away, which is what Kobayashi did, and won! It's really strange how the smallest people are the best eaters... ...but enough about that. What's really important, is that I broke 9,000 gamerscore this morning! As of now, my gamerscore stands at 9,165 points. (Proof.) I got the rest of the King Kong points, as well as 4 out of 5 achievements (or 850 points) out of College Hoops 2K6. By the time most of you read this, I will have that last College Hoops achievement, as I'm having my friend help me get it later... but 4 of those achievements were from one game of basketball! Can't wait to take these games back and play some more Burnout, though. I mean, King Kong was exciting, but it was short. And, well, you know. College Hoops sucks. But I was expecting that. Anyways, Prey is coming out on Tuesday, so I'm eagerly awaiting that. I looked at the achievements online the other day, and there's a lot there, but they don't seem all that challenging. I think it's gonna take quite awhile to get most of them, though. But that's not why I'm playing Prey! I'm playing it because it looks freakin' awesome. EDIT: Just got that College Hoops achievement, gamerscore stands at 9,315. Oh yeah, and you guys should totally check out the new Prey theme on the Marketplace, it's very cool. EDIT 2: Okay, my gamerscore is 9,365. Just so that I don't have to keep updating this, here's my gamercard:

That's right, I bought Burnout Revenge... again. I already own the PS2 version, but the online modes, enhanced graphics and sound, new downloadable cars, and of course, achievements, drove me to buy it again. It really feels like a different game this time around. First off, I'm playing it in HD, with much better speakers. They also switched around the Accelerate and Boost buttons, which I am very grateful for. In the PS2 version, you had to press X to accelerate, and R1 to boost, which was a little strange. I also noticed they fixed this little pet peeve of mine. In the PS2 version, the buttons had a little bit of a delay, where to had to hold something to get it to recognize it. This wasn't a big deal for a racing game, but it was irritating. Overall, I am really enjoying Burnout Revenge this time around. Everything is just so much... better! The sense of speed in this game is fantastic, and it's just a lot of fun to play. If you don't own this game already, I recommend that you pick it up RIGHT NOW. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I've been at GameSpot for over a year now! I know this because I had to renew my annual subscription the other day... -_-

A bunch of you have probably heard about it already, but for those that haven't, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a fantastic webcomic. By fantastic I mean "not quite as good as Penny Arcade, but better than VG Cats". Speaking of VG Cats, I have really lost faith in that comic lately. Scott Ramsoomair just recently celebrated his 200th VG Cats comic, but man, have they gone downhill. I really love the art-style, but that doesn't make the comic any funnier. Sure, the last one about Spore was pretty good... but yeah. Enough about webcomics. I'm gonna go decide if I should buy Point Blank DS even though it had a really disappointing score.