This is part two in the series of me trying to justify games on my Xbox 360 achievement list. As you guys know, I’m a reviewer for KINECTaku now. As such, companies have been sending me games to review. What this means is I’m playing a lot more games and getting more achievements.

I have some people on my friends list (who will remain nameless) that clearly only play games for achievements, and it’s REALLY obvious. All kinds of Disney games, movie games and stuff like that. What I always liked about my Gamerscore was that it was all from games that I actually wanted to play; there was nothing on there that I played JUST for achievements. Well, except for those free Doritos games, but they were free so they don’t count.

If you’re my friend on Xbox Live, you’ve probably seen me playing things things like Cabela’s Big Game Hunter: Hunting Party and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and wondered “WTF Joe”, but let me explain!

I make my Gamertag (as well as PSN and Steam IDs) pretty public. It’s here on the blog and it’s on my profile over at KINECTaku. Part of why I make it so public is because I want to connect with people, but why I’ve continued to do so and why I’m playing these review copies of games on my main profile is to establish credibility as a reviewer.

There have been several instances since the Xbox 360 was released where reviewers have been caught panning games only to have people check their achievement progress to see that they barely played the game they were reviewing, the most notable example being IGN’s Hilary Goldstein being outed as not even having finished half of Sonic Unleashed before he gave it a 4.5 out of 10.

Do I think every game needs to be played to completion before being reviewed? Not necessarily; the majority of what I’ve been playing for KINECTaku has been minigame compilations and dance games, neither of which really need to be played to completion to be able to give it an accurate score. However, I’m using achievements to show that I played every mode and fully EXPLORED a game before giving it a score. My achievements in Grease Dance show that I gave all multiplayer modes a try. That way I can protect myself and prove that yes, I did give the game a fair shake before sitting down to write about it.

Sure, I could have started a second profile just for games I’m reviewing, but I didn’t want to fragment my online identity and create confusion. Besides, it would be kind of a waste to just throw all those Gamerpoints away.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I do for my day job, I work in the administration department of a natural and organic grocery store chain. My job entails counting cash and working with store financial reports, so as a result I have an office that has no windows and requires a key code to get into. My job is one that must literally be done every day, and as such I have a backup who works on weekends while I’m doing cool things like saving the world and winning NBA championships.

A while back Christina and I were at our local Newbury Comics and they had some of the American Legend of Zelda gashapon figures. They were less than $5 so we bought a few. We got a Darknut, Tetra and two Links. I took the spare Link to work, where I set him up on my computer so he could protect me from Keese and Stalfos.

Last week, I came into work on Monday after a weekend of bench pressing Buicks and tempering swords to find my Link figure broken. The figure ITSELF wasn’t broken, but the peg that connected him to his base had snapped. There was no note and no email. There aren’t a lot of people who have access to my office, so I figured it was either my backup or my store team leader. No big deal. I’d just take him home, glue him back together and set him back up.

My backup, who is the nicest lady ever, came into my office the next day to ask me about something and I jokingly asked her if she broke my figure. She IMMEDIATELY started apologizing, freaking out about how she spent so much time panicking thinking she had broken something that was super important to me. I assured her it was no big deal, it was a $5 figure and the whole reason I even had him at work was because I had another just like it at home.

“Who is that guy, anyway?” she asked.

“It’s Link, from the Legend of Zelda. Relax, it’s just a cheap figure I got at Newbury Comics. It’s no big deal. I’ll put on a dab of glue and it’ll be fine.”

Fast forward to Friday and she comes into my office again. “I felt so bad about breaking the guy (note: even after I told her his name was Link, she has called him ‘The Guy’ each and every time) that I went out and got you this.”

She hands me a plush of Link and something wrapped in white paper. “I got you that guy so I can’t break him. But he has to stay here! I like The Guy now.”

I insisted that she didn’t need to get me anything, but she told me to open the other item. I ripped off the corner of the paper.

Oh, no. Why?

She bought me a copy of Skyrim for the Xbox 360.

I was absolutely DUMBFOUNDED. I kept telling her I couldn’t accept it, it was way too much, it was only a cheap toy and the plush MORE than made up for it. She would have none of it, though; she said that she finally felt better after giving it to me and refused to take it back.

I have a LOT of weird quirks. One of them is that accepting ANY kind of gift from ANYONE makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. I don’t even like accepting gifts from friends and family on Christmas or my birthday. Now I had a coworker giving me a $60 video game and an $8 plush as an apology for breaking the tiny peg on my $4.99 figure I had TWO of.

Things got kinda funny after, when I heard the story of how it all happened. She was talking to my store team leader and HR person, both of whom are big gamers (my STL even took a few days off to play Skyrim when it came out) asking what to get me as an apology. She kept asking if The Guy had any friends that she could get a figure of, and I guess another coworker, who doesn’t really know anything about video games, said in complete seriousness, “I can Google it.”

Anyway, I guess she called Newbury Comics to see if they had any of the figures and they told her that they were, in fact, in capsules and you couldn’t see which one was which until you bought them. She told them to set ALL of them aside and she’d be in.

I don’t know what happened after that, but somehow she wound up at GameStop and saw all the plushies next to the register and yelled “THAT’S THE GUY! I NEED THAT GUY!” She then called my STL to see what else she should get, and he, being the Elder Scrolls fan he is, said “Get him something Skyrim,” assuming there would be like a dragon figurine or something. He knew I didn’t have the game, because I had asked him about it when he had come into my office to finalize the store deposit for that day and it turned into a half hour discussion about the game mechanics and why Battlemages are awesome.

Anyway, I guess she took that to mean “Just buy Skyrim,” because that’s what she did.

I’m having a good time with the game, but I do feel a bit guilty whenever I play it. I know most people would be like “hey man, you got a free game, don’t complain,” but I still feel pretty bad about it.

Still, though, I’m very lucky to be able to work with someone so nice and who values others so much to go so far out of her way like that. It’s up to me now to pay it forward.

I finally found a new main in Soulcalibur V! I wasn’t sure who would become my main character after Namco Bandai decided to kill off my Greek goddess Sophitia, but with today’s character announcement by Famitsu there is no choice but Xiba (or Sheba, or Sheva depending on which Romanization you’re looking at. I’m going with “Xiba” because technically it’s correct when translating from Chinese to Japanese).

As you guys know, I’m a big Dragon Ball fan. What you might not know is that early on, Dragon Ball was loosely based on the Chinese epic novel Journey to the West which featured the great monkey king Sun Wukong as its main protagonist. “Son Gokuu” is the Japanese pronunciation of Sun Wukong, and both characters feature a tail, a staff that can grow in size and ride around on a cloud. Noticing a pattern?

Anyway, as such I’m always a fan of fictional characters based on Sun Wukong. I loved playing as Son-Son in Marvel vs Capcom 2 and I even nicknamed my Infernape “Wukong” in Pokémon Diamond. When I saw Xiba, I immediately knew I had found my new favorite character.

Xiba appears to be a replacement for Kilik which doesn’t entirely sit well with me, but I’ll get over it. In Soulcalibur II, Kilik was one of my favorite characters to play as. In Soulcalibur IV, I learned to hate him. You see, Soulcalibur IV featured an achievement that required you to reach level 20 in ranked online matches. As a result of this, EVERYBODY picked Kilik because he has the best range in the game and his moves are easily spammable. If you played Kilik online, you were a scrub who would do whatever it took to earn that achievement.

As if the reputation of Kilik spam wasn’t enough to turn people off to Xiba, the reveal thread on Soulcalibur fan site 8 Way Run is already brimming with people who hate his personality despite no one hearing his voice or knowing anything he says yet. I think he looks great! His character art that shows him balancing on his staff and chomping on a big piece of meat looks to me like he’s going to be a carefree, upbeat character, and I’m a sucker for that shōnen character archetype, despite being a 27 year old man. This is even better for me, because I’m one of those jerks that likes to use characters that no one else does (see: Sakura in Street Fighter IV, X-23 in Marvel vs Capcom 3, half of the Pokémon I’ve leveled up in every Pokémon game ever). I GET HIM ALL TO MYSELF.

Everything new I see from Soulcalibur V has me more and more stoked. I’ve always been an old school Capcom and SNK 2D fighting fan, but over the past few years I’ve really fallen in love with the Soul series. As I’ve gotten older my reflexes and reaction time aren’t what they used to be when I was 15, so a more “deliberate” game like Soulcalibur is right up my alley.

The gorgeous graphics, epic music and wonderful cast helps too.

It’s nice to know that after the holiday rush is over I still have another exciting game to look forward to.

I haven’t written much lately. Looking at this front page, I’ve hardly written anything of substance in the past month! Sorry about that. That’s just like me, saying I’m not going to stop writing and then doing exactly that. In my defense Christina and I have been very busy, she’s been sick and those Blogimations that no one watches are a LOT of work.

Rather than spend another day doing nothing and complaining that I don’t know what to write about, here’s a few quick thoughts on what I’ve been up to.

- I’ve been playing the 3DS a lot lately! I got back into Ocarina of Time 3D. I still insist it’s not a good portable game, but man is it pretty. I also picked up Pokémon Rumble Blast and it’s a really good time. It’s really simple and easy to play and it’s something that I enjoy playing for a little while as I’m winding down and getting ready for bed. If you played the WiiWare original and liked it, you’ll like this.

- Thanks for forumite Hexen, we’ve discovered VGCollect.com. It’s a video game database that allows you to keep track of your collection, and if you own something that’s not listed, you can add it to the database yourself! We have a pretty long list of stuff to add and we’re not even close to done, but you can check out our list so far here.

- Ben Paddon (who is the genius behind GameJournos, formerly GJAIF, don’t ask what it stood for) has started a web show called PortsCenter, where he takes a look at games that have been ported to a multitude of systems, how they’re different and which version is the best. The first episode focused on Doom, with the episode going into detail about why the PlayStation version is the best. It was a great episode and I found the original long-box PlayStation version of Doom in near-mint condition at my local comic shop about a week later. I picked it up and it really is the best version!

Check out the episode on their Kickstarter page, and be sure to toss them a couple bucks so we can see more in the future.

- During a trip to our local anime shop I discovered Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line of statuettes, where they take icons of American comics and pop fiction and render them in a beautiful anime art style. I bought Jean Grey, and with X-23, Liara T’Soni and Jaina Solo on the horizon they’ll be getting lots of my money. I’ll be reviewing the Jean Grey statuette for Christina’s site Otakuholic pretty soon, so stay tuned for that.

- I’ve talked about the Daizenshuu EX podcast a few times before, and I finally got to cross something off my nerd bucket list because I was a guest on episode 277 to talk about the latest Dragon Ball video game, Ultimate Tenkaichi. Give it a listen, it was a really good discussion! Spoiler, I’m the only one that liked it.

- I think I’m a REAL games reviewer now, because I’ve been getting games in the mail from PR companies! It’s kind of funny that the first game I ever received from a PR company is Grease Dance for Xbox 360, but hey, it actually wasn’t a bad game! I’m such a nerd, though; I saved the packing slip and hung it on my fridge FOR NOSTALGIA.

Not every game I’ve been sent is fun, though.

Also, if you never checked out my first review for KINECTaku for Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, you may do so now.

- This past weekend I was in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta test. Legally, according to the fine print in the non-disclosure agreement all I can say is 1) there was a beta test and 2) I took part in that beta test. So guys, there was a beta test and I took part in that beta test.

On a completely unrelated note, HOLY SHIT.

- Finally, we got Super Mario 3D Land yesterday. I don’t want to say much because I’m taking it slow (the game is short, so I’m limiting myself to only one World a day) and I want to give it its own post in the future, but it’s an absolute blast and that THIS is the game that will make you a believer in 3D games.

That’s all I’ve got! Regular updates to resume soon. I PROMISE.

Okay guys, it is ALL ABOUT Skylanders now.

I’ve been following the development of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure for a while now, because I thought the idea of collecting toys that would then work with a video game was an awesome idea. I’d been dying to play it, and the other night Christina and I picked up the Xbox 360 starter set along with a couple of extra figures.

Since then, we’ve been back to the store twice to buy more. I’d say it’s working.

Skylanders, for those of you who don’t know, is an action RPG that comes with an accessory called the Portal of Power. When you place one of the Skylanders figures on the Portal, it appears as your character in game. Any experience, money or accessories you collect on that Skylander is stored on the figure, independent of your save file; if you’re playing on the Xbox 360, you can take your Skylander to a friend’s house and play on his PS3 and your Skylander will be exactly as he was when you last played with it.

(I just wanted to show off the cool glow effect of the Portal of Power. The video doesn’t do it justice, but man, this is an awesome peripheral.)

It seems like a cash grab, and that’s probably true. In levels there are paths that can only be opened by a Skylander of a certain element (there are eight: Magic, Earth, Fire, Life, Undead, Water, Air and Tech). The game comes with three figures: Spyro (Magic), Trigger Happy (Tech) and Gill Grunt (Water) so the first few levels you’re fine. After that, though, you’ll have to buy more figures.

You also collect power-ups for characters that are scattered around the world, and of course they’re for figures you don’t have. When you pick them up the game asks if you’d like a preview of the Skylander in question, and then they show you a short, 15-second video of just how badass that toy you don’t have is.

Again, it seems like a cash grab, but the game’s production values are so high that you can’t really get upset about it.

For one thing, the figures themselves are INCREDIBLY well made. They’re solid, colorful and detailed and look like they can actually spring to life at any moment. Honestly, even if there were no game element I’d want to collect them. The characters are all cool looking too, with some of my favorites being Prism Break (who is a stone golem who shoots lasers from his crystal hands), Eruptor (a being made of lava) and Warnado (a spunky ripoff of Gamera, who unfortunately isn’t out yet). There’s 32 in all, so you’re bound to have a favorite.

Of course there are store exclusives, too; the Air type Whirlwind is only at Target, while Toys R Us has a three-pack of “Legendary” (recolored) versions of Spyro, Chop Chop and Bash. Which we bought, natch.

This would all be moot if the game was no fun, but Christina and I are really enjoying it. We actually have two save games going (so we can both get Achievements; they’re primary profile only) and we’re having an absolute blast. I said on Twitter that it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in co-op since Gunstar Heroes, and those of you that know me know how lofty a statement that is.

The game’s not a cheap vehicle for the figures; the graphics are bright, colorful and bring a whimsical world to life. Supporting characters have fantastic voice acting (including Flynn, who will be your favorite character, who’s voiced by Patrick Warburton). The game is even scored by Hans Zimmer, who you probably know from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks.

It’s a really solid action-RPG, and while it’s not terribly difficult, each Skylander does have their own Challenge level that will even give hardcore players a bit of a tough time. Completing them does bestow upon your Skylander a permanent stat boost, so they’re worth playing as you advance through the main quest.

Oh, and is if collecting the figures wasn’t enough, the game also has enough collectible hats to please even the most jaded of Team Fortress fans.

What really makes the figure mechanic work (rather than just having the characters be something you select from an in-game menu at any time) is the sense of ownership it gives you over your Skylanders. Christina and I each have our own little stable so far and leveling up each of our Skylanders is surprisingly rewarding; knowing that they belong to you gives you a surprisingly strong connection to them, and it gives me a feeling similar to what I’ve gotten from putting together a carefully raised team in Pokémon.

The price of admission isn’t cheap, as the game will run you $10 more than a normal new release ($70 on consoles and $60 on 3DS, and they include the Portal of Power and three figures) and the figures are another $8 a pop. Not to mention there’s “Adventure Packs” for $20 that contain an exclusive Skylander, a new level and a power-up. Doing the math, we’ve easily dropped over $100 on it this weekend, but the amount of fun we’ve been having is absolutely worth it. It’s a game that will bring out the kid in you, the kind of game that will make you smile and get you genuinely excited to see new characters. If you can find a friend or family member to jump in with you, you’re absolutely going to have a great time.

I mentioned it a few days ago on Twitter and Google+, but I’m going to be an honest-to-goodness game reviewer for KINECTaku!

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t even heard of KINECTaku until I saw their call for reviewers pop up in my Twitter feed as a retweet from Nintendo Life. What immediately got my attention is that it’s run by the same team as Nintendo Life, which is one of my favorite gaming sites for a long list of reasons.

One of my favorite things about Nintendo Life is that they review every single Virtual Console, WiiWare, DSiWare and 3DSWare game released. It seems like an odd choice, but the vast majority of these games fly right under the radar of the gaming press; in addition to providing excellent coverage of all news pertaining to Nintendo, they’re the only site you can go to check out any of those games and know that they’ve reviewed it.

They have two other sites, KINECTaku and MOVEmodo, focusing on the motion control efforts of Microsoft and Sony respectively. Again, it’s a small focus, but it really sets them apart. If you’re a Kinect or Move owner who doesn’t buy into all the “casual vs hardcore” garbage and just want to know what games are good, where else can you go?

So I’m a reviewer for KINECTaku now and I’ll be writing my first review this weekend, and I’m hoping to have it posted Monday or Tuesday. I’ve signed up for a few other games that are coming out (a few of which are BIG titles) and I’m incredibly excited. You guys know about my dream to be a legitimate games writer and this is a BIG step in the right direction.  I’m gonna be working my butt off to improve my writing and, fingers crossed, be able to make the step up as a full-fledged member of their team.

PK Bloggin’! isn’t going anywhere, though. I know I said that last time I started writing somewhere else and my productivity dropped off, but this is a completely different situation and I won’t have anywhere near the volume of things to do at KINECTaku, at least at first. I am hoping that will change, however.

I know things have been a little quiet around here lately, but I’ve got a few things I’m working on that I think you guys are REALLY going to enjoy. There’s one project I’m in the early stages of planning that I can’t wait to show you; you’ll really dig it.

So yeah, hooray for opportunity!

Long gone are the days of the pack-in game. The act of purchasing a new console and having a new top-tier game right there in the box to show off what your new hardware can do has slowly faded from reality to fable to legend.

With Kinect Adventures, the pack-in title with Kinect for Xbox 360, however, you’re not only getting software that shows you what your magical new piece of hardware can do, you’re also getting an EXTREMELY fun multiplayer title that will have you laughing and smiling so much you’ll think you’re seven years old on Christmas morning again.

When my wife and I bought our Kinect, we mainly did so for Dance Central and considered Kinect Adventures as kind of a bonus. After spending time with it, though, it’s just as much fun as other titles that have gotten way more attention and buzz.

Kinect Adventures is a mini-game collection, but don’t stop reading just yet; these are not half-hearted games slapped onto a disc and thrown out to retail. The mini-games in Kinect Adventures all do a fantastic job at demonstrating what Microsoft’s latest technological wizardry can do as well as provide an awesome time for you and your friends. In a lot of ways it replicates the experience Nintendo provided with Wii Sports as a way to teach you how to use your Wii Remotes.

There are five games in Kinect Adventures, all played by controlling your avatar: Space Pop, which has you flapping your arms to float around a space station popping bubbles; Rally Ball, which combines the classic game Breakout with handball where you have to use your entire body to knock balls at targets; River Rush, where you control a raft traversing intense rapids full of obstacles; 20,000 Leaks, which places you in a glass tank underwater and you must use your hands and feet to plug leaks from fish and sharks attacking you, and Reflex Ridge, where you’re on a railroad platform ducking and weaving through an obstacle course.

All five games are not only fun, but they’re a workout. After a session of Reflex Ridge, where you’re constantly ducking, jumping, sidestepping and swinging your arms to dodge hazards and grab medals, you’ll definitely be sweating. You’ll be having such a good time, though, that you’ll hardly even notice.

Kinect Adventures REALLY shines, though, when you bring a second player into the mix. Some games are hardly changed; for example Reflex Ridge just uses split screen and places you on two separate tracks. Other games will have you and your partner working together, like in 20,000 leaks there will be special cracks that can only be plugged when both players work together to seal them up. Trying to steer the raft in River Rush with two people is infinitely more difficult, but exponentially more rewarding when you get a good score.

After each game, Kinect Adventures shows you the pictures it took of you while you were playing with hilarious captions. You know you look silly when you’re playing, but when the game shows the whole room a still shot of you jumping in the air with your arms and legs going every which way you get the reassurance you didn’t even know you wanted. These pictures can be saved and uploaded to KinectShare.com.

All in all, Kinect Adventures is a game that would certainly be worth a full retail price and the fact that it’s included free with your Kinect makes it the icing on an incredibly delicious cake. Whether you consider yourself “casual” or “hardcore,” Kinect Adventures will provide plenty of fun for you and your friends & family, and you’ll want to keep playing long after you get too tired to continue.

Last weekend Christina and I finally went out and bought a Kinect. We’ve been meaning to for a while because the games looked like fun and we’ve been looking for a fun way to exercise at home without needing expensive equipment. She just got a new job (yay!) and will be making better money so we decided to go ahead and take the plunge.

Holy crap this thing is awesome.

First of all, the technology behind it is nothing short of wizardry. You can register your face with your gamertag so when the Kinect recognizes you it will sign you in to Xbox Live. When I activate the Kinect sensor, it scans me from across the room and says “Welcome SpaceKappa!” Christina will enter the room and sit next to me and, without ANY prompt from us, she’ll be greeted with “Welcome LadyStarstorm!”

Navigating menus with your hands isn’t as intuitive or quick as using a controller, but it’s way more fun. Moving my hands around to make selections makes me feel like I have telekinesis or something. It’s astounding how well it works, but your first instinct isn’t even to be impressed because it all feels so natural.

The sensor came packed with Kinect Adventures and a download voucher for Child of Eden and we bought Dance Central separately. All three games are a blast.

The first game we tried out was Dance Central because it’s considered THE reason to own a Kinect by pretty much everyone. We’re both big Rock Band fans so we knew with Harmonix behind it the game would be fun and it really, really is. Do you look silly playing Dance Central? Of course. You won’t care, though, you’ll be too busy laughing and having a good time. I don’t even like most of the songs I’ve unlocked so far but I still can’t get enough of the game.

The game’s been out forever and I don’t really do “reviews” per se so I’m not going to go in depth but Dance Central really turns the fun factor to 11. During each song you’ll activate a “freestyle” section where you can do whatever you like. During your freestyle the Kinect will be taking pictures of you, which you get to see as a slideshow directly after. It’ll take one more picture of you as you do your finishing pose at the end of the song and you can review them from the game’s menu.

I’ll be honest with you: I do NOT look good dancing and I would never want any of these pictures to wind up online (and you guys know I have no qualms posting my handsome visage all over the webs), but the night we got it Christina, her sister and I were CRACKING UP after each song seeing how stupid we looked in the pictures.

The game’s a fantastic workout and, most importantly, it’s enjoyable so you won’t need to keep pushing yourself to play more.

Fun fact: I am WAY better at the game than both Christina and her sister.

Another fun fact: Emilia is my new video game waifu.

Child of Eden is a game that really defies any kind of explanation, and as my ability to wrangle language is far from top-tier I’m not even going to try. If you’ve played Rez you know what to expect from Child of Eden, but it’s even better. The colorful, visualizer-style graphics, pumping music and tasteful use of FMV all combine to create something that transcends a video game and becomes an Experience. Yes, I capitalized that e on purpose.

Your right hand will guide your lock-on cursor, and thrusting it forward will fire at all enemies you’ve tagged. Your left hand is a simple rapid-fire weapon. As you’re flying through these levels, literally using your hands as weapons, you really feel like you have superpowers. My mouth was agape the entire time I was playing because I could hardly wrap my head around the whole thing. I don’t mean that the game was difficult (although it is); I’ve just never played anything like it before.

Kinect Adventures is WAY more fun than it should be. This was the only game that we were able to play with the two of us at the same time and we were laughing and yelling until we were too tired to keep going. It’s a minigame compilation and none of the games are particularly deep or hard to understand (and they shouldn’t be, as this game is really the “ambassador” for the Kinect as a family gaming device) but they’re a total hoot. There was a game where we had to flap our arms and walk around the room to pop bubbles on the screen. Another one had the two of us in a glass tank underwater and we had to use our hands and feet to plug leaks caused by fish and sharks ramming us. Another had us on some kind of railroad platform where we had to duck, jump and sidestep to avoid obstacles while trying to reach our hands out to grab medals at the same time. When it was all done we were on the floor, exhausted, but we couldn’t stop laughing.

Again, the Kinect takes pictures of you while you’re playing and they’re still so funny. This time the Kinect reads the poses you’re in and assigns a funny caption to them.

I know a lot of gamers who are “teh hardcores” like to spit on the Kinect and call it stupid. I don’t subscribe to either the “casual” or “harcore” newsletter. I’m a gamer that just LIKES VIDEO GAMES and I can’t say enough awesome things about Kinect. I wish we had gotten one earlier. I honestly can’t tell you the last time Christina and I had as much fun playing a game.

That’s the thing I think a lot of people forget: we’re playing video GAMES. It’s okay for a game to just be a lot of fun.

I don’t know if I can recommend it if you’re going to be playing by yourself, but if you can get family and friends involved, you’d be hard pressed to find a better time than Kinect.

When I was but a lad (which is an overly dramatic and incorrect way of saying “the past few years”), part of the appeal of the Xbox 360 for me was achievements. Oh, did I love achievements. I still do, actually. The sound they make, the often humorous names they have, and that number that keeps going up, up, up.

When I worked at GameStop I made good use of the store’s rental policy (which everyone hates so much, and with good reason; however 90% of the games I borrowed were used. 100% of the ones I RETURNED were used. HEYOOO!) and played a lot of games to not only always have something new to play, but to make sure my score kept getting higher. My friends and I would compete for Gamerscores, but it was always in good fun.

There are two games on my played games list that people are often mocked for having on their lists, two games that are almost a badge of shame to gamers who are “teh hardcorez” – Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth and TMNT.

I am going to defend both of those games.

I’ll start with TMNT because I played that first. It was actually one of the first Xbox 360 games I rented, because I’m a longtime Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan and because the TMNT movie was RAD AS HELL. I wanted to play the game! So I did. It wasn’t MY fault that the game was pretty easy and you can get all but one achievement just by beating each level. I didn’t even know until I beat it!

Avatar is a bit of a tougher one to defend, because it is THE most notorious game for Gamerscore boosting. You can earn all 1000 points in under two minutes as soon as you start the game. Yes, I heard about this before I played the game, but NO, that wasn’t why I played it. I’m a HUGE Avatar fan and I was going to play the game anyway. The first Avatar game they made for Xbox, GameCube and PS2 wasn’t that great and only covered the very beginning of the show’s story. I was waiting for them to release an HD game that let you play as my favorite character, Toph, from later in the series.

I didn’t just turn the game off and return it after I got my 1000 points. I played it for a while longer, but sadly it wasn’t very good and I gave up after a couple of hours.

So yes, I bear these two badges on my record, but my intentions were pure.

So kicking off my slog through my backlog is off to a rough start.

The first game on the docket was Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 on the Xbox 360. I remember having a good time with it, because hey, I loved Lego Star Wars and I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. Unfortunately I started playing it not long after I had just finished Lego Star Wars so I was kinda Lego’d out. Going back in and doing the last couple of story mode levels and then doing all the postgame stuff was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, it has to go back on the pile.

While I try to not be an achievement whore as much as I used to be, part of the appeal of the Lego games to me is finding all the collectables and getting the game to 100%. The first game that I ever got 1000/1000 on that wasn’t super easy was Lego Star Wars so I was ready to do it again with Potter and company.

I played for several hours after coming home on Friday and I went to a new area in Hogwarts I hadn’t been able to explore because I didn’t have characters with the required abilities yet. I went down into a basement in the Charms classroom and saw that I needed dark magic to move an object to get one of the Red Bricks which unlock extras in the game (like stud multipliers, extra health, etc). I left the room and came back with a dark wizard and the door to the basement won’t open. I reloaded my game several times. I couldn’t get back in.

A quick Google search revealed that that room had earned the nickname “The Basement of Doom,” but not because people couldn’t get IN… it’s because they couldn’t get OUT. In order to leave the room you need to build a dragon and he launches you back up to the classroom proper. A lot of people had an issue of the dragon not launching them out, so they were stuck. Traveler’s Tales had patched it. This didn’t help me.

I cleared my 360 hard drive’s cache to remove all patches I had downloaded for games, thinking if I reverted to the original version somehow the flag on the door would reset, but no dice.

I did find a few forum threads here and there of people who had the same problem as me, but no resolution. Since TT is busy working on Lego Star Wars: Clone Wars, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean and Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, it seems unlikely that they’ll patch it, which is a shame, because it would be a simple patch: just remove the flag in the game that tells the door to close. Easy.

I was mad and a controller may or may not have been thrown. You guys need to understand how bad my luck is: in the past three days I found one of the super rare dungeons in Minecraft that DIDN’T have a treasure chest, went to a restaurant to find out that they stopped serving my favorite dish that I had been craving all week and now this.

It’s a damn shame because now all the positive feelings I had associated with the game and with TT are gone. I don’t want to play another one of their games again because what’s to say that I’m not going to lose another 15 hours of work because of shoddy programming? We’ll buy the next Lego Harry Potter because Christina will want to play it but I’m out. I can’t deal with something like that again.

My wife, she’s amazing. I stormed off in a huff and put on my Astro headset and started Minecraft to try to calm down and forget about how mad I was and when I turned around she had started the game again on my profile to try to get past story mode for me so I could just worry about the postgame stuff again.

So the backlog is off to a rough start. Yesterday after work I started Final Fantasy XII instead, and I’ve already put in eight hours of early powerleveling and I’m having a great time.

Lego Harry Potter… such a shame. It was so fun when it was working.