So it appears I've just reached rank 51 here at Gamespot, and I am now an "Alien Hominid", whatever the heck that is. It's a little sad to leave rank 50 in the dust, but, I can't say that I miss being Strawberry Candy. Seriously, who came up with the bright idea of making that the title for such a "prestigious" rank? Oh well.
In more interesting news, I have finally achieved my Platinum Trophy for inFamous, just in time for the sequel I might add. To get it, I had to get the "good" trophy in one mission (which I had unintentionally failed to get like three times, lol), get "Oh, you've done this before", and get "Get off my cloud". In addition to that, I had to pick up the rest of the Blast Shards. The trophies were pretty easy, and so was getting that good award for the mission. The Blast Shards, however...that was tough. It took me over four hours to round up about a hundred of them, with the last two taking up maybe an hour of that time. My overall strategy was simple...first, I rode the train tracks and found every single shard that was within range of a scan. By doing that, I killed the possibility of shards being near the trains. Then, I simply ran around each city and collected shards as I repeatedly scanned for them, until they became too scare for this method to suffice. At this point, I decided to clear all of the docks around the edge of each of the three maps. By the time I was done with this, I had only the two shards left. One was on top of a gas station in the Warren I believe, and I still don't understand how I ever missed seeing it for so long. The last one was on the side of a building, near the top of the map in the Warren. The really funny thing about this one was that earlier in the same day, on a different save file, I can distinctly remember finding this particular shard. Anyway, I have to tell you, it felt really good when I finally saw that Platinum Trophy pop up. Now I'm really ready for the sequel, and so far, I've been trying to avoid the overload of info and spoilers that Gamespot is hurling at me, lol. It's been going well.
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Now I said something about portals, didn't I? Yes, that would be a reference to Portal 2. I don't own it if that's what you're thinking, and for a long time, I had my mind made up that I wouldn't get it. The puzzles can be seriously mind-bending and that's one thing I generally don't care for at all in my video games. When I sit down to play, I want to have fun, not pull my hair out over a difficult puzzle. But after seeing the insanely high review scores, hearing it be called "possibly the greatest game of all time", having the game strongly recommended to me by a friend, and after watching trailers and the first 15 minutes of gameplay...I have changed my mind. I definitely want to pick this game up sometime soon, as it seems like a very different, immersive, and genuinely humorous take on the puzzle/platforming genre. I'm planning to see if I get this for my birthday, but if I don't, I'll check into getting it when I pick up inFamous 2 (which I am going to pre-order at Gamestop soon). I have a nice little coupon from Gamestop to whack off 20% of the price tag on any pre-owned title, so I could potentially take about $11 off of the price of a used copy of Portal 2.
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(MINOR POSSIBLE SPOILERS)
The "pirates" par if this blog's title is a reference to the upcoming movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Lots of people are excited for this movie, and lost still are assuming that it will be a flop. Personally, I'm looking forward to it. I don't plan to catch it on release day, but I certainly want to see it as soon as possible. The story intrigues me, and I for one am so glad that Will and Elizabeth are gone. It was just...time for them to go. Now the focu in on the main man himself, Jack Sparrow, along with some help from Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and Blackbeard. One other thing that looks interesting is the mermaids. I'd like to see how they fit into the story. The idea of zombies sounds...eh, admittedly quite dumb. But I'll see how it all pans out.
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For the last part of the blog, no, I am not giving you free games. Hopefully you've already realized that I was referring to the upcoming return of the PSN Store (scheduled for May 24), and along with it, the batch of free games that Sony is releasing as a way to say "Sorry guys, we really messed up". The games include inFamous, Little Big Planet, Dead Nation, Wipeout HD + Fury, and Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty. If you want my opinion, this list is a heck of a lot better than what Sony easily could have thrown at us. The fact that such big hits like inFamous and LBP are on the list shows that they're making an effort. And speaking of inFamous...if you have never played it, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE! There's no better price than free, and since Sony is letting each person download two of these games, I suggest inFamous and LBP. Since I already have the former, though, I will be getting LBP and Wipeout HD + Fury.
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Well thanks for reading everyone. I'l leave you with the awesome (and kind of cute) bots trailer for Portal 2. God bless.