Week of 11 Sep 2022
“Strike me down. It is your destiny.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Just Dance 2022
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
- New Rally-X
- Fallout 76
Between the madness of my life this year and my injured knee, I have played Just Dance 2022 very little for the past few months. I’m trying to get back to it so I hit the dancefloor (aka my living room hardwood) on Sunday, jumped into Quick Play, and danced to “Swish Swish”. It ended up being my 25th Quick Play song, earning that achievement! Now I can just play what I want, which is great because I still love the game. I’m up to level 95, so it won’t be long until I’ve got this completion! I haven’t decided if I’ll be moving to the 2023 Edition when it comes out after the reveal there’ll be no Kinect support, but I don’t know if I can commit to that. I love the series and sweating to good music… and feeling like I’m nailing some sick dance moves.
Achievements unlocked: 31 (+1) | Completion: 97%
The 2022 Bean Dive recovery continues, and this week it was time to focus on my final, Unleashed-difficulty playthrough of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, the sequel to the game I was just not a fan of back in 2011. I raged so badly trying to complete that game on the hardest difficulty that I slipped when I stood up to turn the game off and scratched the disc! Took me almost a year to finish that one. This was a much better experience, though; maybe I’ve gotten better or maybe it’s easier (or both!) but I cleared both the Easy run, the challenges, and this week the Unleashed difficulty with little issue. If anything, the hardest part was my own fault last week when I thought I needed Platinum ranking on all the challenges, instead of only one, and trying to do so on “The Combat Challenge” was ridiculously frustrating. As for the hardest difficulty, using Force powers makes it pretty easy, mind-controlling or Force grabbing the little guys and a charged Saber Throw for the bigger baddies. The additional DLC level on Endor is just more of the same, and you have to beat it on Unleashed difficulty and collect the Holocrons there, too. I also didn’t run into any glitches or anything. Even though I was kinda concerned with trying this, I’m glad it ended up being a fairly painless completion.
Achievements unlocked: 58 (+24) | Completed
Get Emperor’d, Bantha fodder!
For the Bean Dive, of the twenty games I started I have a pretty good balance of easy/short and longer games. New Rally-X was next on the block since it’s nice and quick. This is an old arcade racer that’s kinda like Pac-Man if all the characters were cars. The achievements are all simple enough, as most of them are for beating certain levels and you can continue from any you’ve reached. There are two achievements that can raise an eyebrow: one for beating level 7 without dying, and one for reaching a score of 100,000. The former is easy enough: you can load up level 7, not die, and get that one. The second, on the other hand, is a little tougher. There’s no way to easily do this, so you have to go about starting at level 1 and working to earn as many points as possible. You have to start each level by grabbing the Special Flag before any others, grabbing the Lucky Flag as soon as possible, and then not dying while collecting the rest of the flags. This maximizes your score and, in this way, gets you the achievement in level 8. I guess you could get most of the achievements in one go if you knew the plan. Then just get through level 16 and you’ve got a completion! I didn’t have too much trouble and soon this was all done.
Achievements unlocked: 12 (+6) | Completed
Bang Bang Bang!
Well, heck, Fallout 76 received its first expedition update, The Pitt, and with it came more achievement. These won’t take anywhere near as long as the Wastelanders update did, but still a pain to return to this pain of a game. I was quickly reminded why I don’t like this game anymore, as I ran into the boss of the “Union Dues” mission and spent far too long chipping away at its health. Ugh, stupid level scaling. But, I finished the hardest of the achievements after I also finished the “From the Ashes” mission and got the achievement for those (with an overpowered group this time). I just need to visit the Whitespring Refuge daily for the next ten days to help with a quest, and get to Rank 15 on the Season scoreboard to unlock the Auto Axe recipe. Nothing too bad.
Achievements unlocked: 64 (+1) | Completion: 97%
Never thought I’d be back in The Pitt.
