Platinum 11: The Penguins of Madagascar - Dr Blowhole Returns [Again]

Well, bit of an 'unscheduled' platinum this is, as I was planning on completing three other games first.  But then I started playing this 'to have a looksie' and before I knew it, platinum was within only a day of grinding reach after finishing the main storyline.

The Penguins is another THQ movie franchise of an animation film, and truth to be told, it holds somewhere between Kung Fu Panda 2 which sucked big time, and MegaMind which was easy but hilarious.

The game is not THAT hard to complete, but it does require a little more braintwisting to complete the storylines, as the levels are build up of puzzles in which you have to switch between the different Penguins (Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Junior) to complete them.

The rest of the trophies are traditional: buy some minigames, get certain scores on them, and collect a set of items in each level (in this case, Chameleons, 3 per level of which some are darn well hidden).  The biggest up in this THQ franchise game compared to the previous two I platted, is that the controls here at least do what you want!

All in all not the most difficult trophy set I completed so far, though it did take a bit more effort then the 'easy breezes' of the previous ones where you basically platted just when completing the main story.

And now back to the online part of Fall of Cybertron, I so want to reach the King of Scrapheap trophy...

Lost Classics

Ever since I restarted collecting Transformers, up and about the release of the second movie - not due to the movie, but due to getting the original cartoon dvds for 1 euro a piece - I've been cursing my puberty.

That dark period in my life has resulted in the tossing away of a lot of 'Robots in Disguise' which would now be reverently called 'G1' or 'Generation 1s'.  But thank the lord for re-issues, and the chance to get some back into the collection...

Now, with the restart I did decide some things for myself to guide the collection, namely to only get those I like and within these 3 criteria:

* They have to be Autobots

* They have to transform in cars (called 'auto' in dutch conveniently)

* The Dinobots are exlcuded from point 2, they just rule supreme

Now, scouring the web, in search of the classics for affordable prices, I must say there are 4 I am still so fond off from the old days, that I'm going to try and get them back in my display cabinets

1 Jazz.  The ultrafast, special ops agent of the Autobots.  And the fact he transforms into a Porsche 911 is an added bonus of course.

2. Mirage.  He becomes a formula one car (to be exact, a Ligier from around the early 1980s)

3. Tracks.  Not one of the more well known autobots, but his dark blue Corvette mode has always 'stayed attached' in my brain.

4. Prowl.  I don't know why, but there is something about him I like.  It is since the comic days, when in the early issues, Ratchet tried to repair his fellow Autobots and Prowl, though weakened, was amongst the first to awaken and save the doc from some human punks that had stolen some of his medical tools.

Of course, the secret agenda of this post is that my birthday is comming in a thick month, and the GF never has any idea what she would get to make me a happy little camper... *hint hint*

Gundam AGE OVA

Estimated release around the 26th of July.  Good.  Now get back finishing Unicorn!!!!

The Playstation Challenge: part 5 of 12

So we near the end of yet another month is this battle between two amateur gamers, for the honour of the bragging rights and a free meal as these teams try desperatly to knock out each other.

This month it seems the table swinged a little bit back in my favour, reducing the gap to 5730 points, comming from 8970 points last month, a net gain of 3240 points compared to Andy.  Now in all honesty, this is mainly due to the fact that for the comming months, HOPEFULLY untill the 2nd of september, I`m a member of the `In-Betweeners` as one career ended and I`m waiting to start a totally different, no past attached, fresh one.  This leaves me with a lot of extra game hours between the still Herculean work of clearing out and severing the old hobby ties.

The oversight of gained spoils, updated after every monthly update post.

Last update: 28st of May 2013

Yokai_Tomsche

Points: 40.605 + 5700 points
Level: 15 - 7% + 71%, 1 level gained

Platinum Trophies: 10 + 3
Gold Trophies: 93 + 23
Silver Trophies: 336 + 38
Bronze Trophies: 1357 + 130

Games played: 249 + 21
Games Beaten: 31 + 4

AnRoDr

Points: 46.335 + 2490 points
Level: 15 - 79% + 31%

Platinum Trophies: 13 + 0
Gold Trophies: 117 + 3
Silver Trophies: 357 + 30
Bronze Trophies: 1517 + 88

Games played: 196 + 8
Games Beaten: 26 + 5

This means Andy starts the year with a lead of 8670 points, currently the gap is 5730 (WIN TOMSCHE)

The biggest difference this month though in managing to more then double the points gained compared to Andy is not the 3 platinums per se (Lego Vita Lord of the Rings, Lego Vita Harry Potter 5 -7 and MegaMind) compared to his 0, but mostly the 23 versus 3 Gold trophies.  At 90 points for a gold trophy, this weighs in seriously in the end account.

Next month I might be able to score two to three more platinums `easily` with games above 80 percent, but I just haven`t gotten around to play them a lot recently (still X-Men Destiny, Lego Vita Batman and Lego Harry Potter 5-7), but I actually might get around that the comming month, it will all depend a lot on how the administration, Bane of anything Belgian, mill will be turning...

Ending the shabang, let`s have a look at the global and national rankings at the moment...

Andy ranks on a global scale, out of 1.288.107 tracked profiles, on a 74.030th place, but still hasn`t been able to make the small jump nationwide in the top 1000, lingering at a 1.059th place at the moment.

I am ranking on global level still far behind, trailing back at 101.146 and still a long way of the top 100.000, while in Belgium at spot 1.392 the top 1.000 is also still a good way off.

Thus ends the 5th instalment of the battle, see you back in month for more numerical shennanigans, I`m off now to plan my strategy to actually overtake Andy the comming month (FAT CHANCE).

And Andy... where is my follow up article about gaming the past month?

First yearly goal achieved

Well, just before June, and thanks to the Playstation Challenge, I've already achieved my first of three goals for this year.

I reached level 15 on the PSN, which at the same time popped the 40.000 points achievement as well.

The trophy responsible for this is the bronze 'Sky Survivor' for finishing Chapter 10 in the Skylander's Giants storyline.

Now the battle in this challenge continues for 7 more months, so I'm going to raise the result by at least about three more levels I think (though it does take 8.000 points for a single level to complete), at least this thing is out of the way.

With my life settling a bit back to normal after the not so happy things of the last weeks, the next target is going to be the level 30 in Magic The Gathering Planeswalker Points (though I'm going to have to start playing again then soonish), but I doubt I'm goign to make the aim for 150 painted wargame models... heck, I even doubt after all closets and boxes are sorted through, I even will have that many unpainted / to repaint anyways...

Only time will tell, now back to business... gain a free meal at the end of the year!

I`m feeling Jazz-y tonight

Jazz... your all-time favorite Autobot Special Ops officer (I`m not talking that wannabee gangsta they made of him in the first movie, I almost felt glad he had a swift demise) and cool Porsche 911 sportscar.

It is always fun to come to your house and find some parcels waiting for you.  The first one is the superb Fall of Cybertron series Jazz, one I recreated with the armor sets and colourings in the Multiplayer of said Playstation 3 game.

Now he can stand beside me on the table while I game, granting me valuable advise on tactics and firepoints.

The second one is the Kre-O version, the Hasbro `not Lego` range, whom I`ll be building tonight while the GF watches the tube.

Okay, so he is based on the Pontiac Solstice version of the movie range (urgh) BUT he comes with the ubercool `cartoon style` mini jazz minifigure.

Me happy, now to keep on gathering funds for those Dinobots...

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Hades Shun

When Hades chooses to reincarnate, he takes possession of the body of the gentlest soul roaming the Earth, while his own body rests safely in Elysium.

During the holy war of the 20th Century, that gentlest soul also happened to be one of Athena's Saints, the Andromeda saint Shun.

The brother of Phoenix is a pacifist in heart and soul, and only has been forced to kill his opponents, after he always tried to spare their lives, a weakness the perhaps strongest of the Bronze saints is been scowled upon by his brother, Phoenix Ikki.  In the anime, his hair at first turned a reddish brown when he became the host, but in the magna, this was already his original hair colour, only to turn to purest black later on when the spirit of Hades started to awaken.

The model itself is like the genre of Pandora and the Grand Pope that came with the Gemini set, being a basic model without armour, some robes, and in this case as an accessoire the Throne of Hades.

It is a pretty nigty set to have in your collection as a centrepiece for your 'dark servants', but all in all it has to be said that there is nothing spectacular or special about the model.  I picked it up for a measly 30 euros at Antwerp Convention last month, but otherwise I wouldn't have shelved out the 60+ euros this model goes for minimum on sites like eBay.

Coolest... Transformers... EVER... available again

Grimlock.  Swoop.  Snarl.  Slag.  Sludge.  Without a doubt the team of the coolest Transformers EVER.  These five names form the elite 'let's give those Decepticons a good bashin'' team... the Autobot DINOBOTS.

And now a re-issue, knock off whatevs set is being released and available again, I tracked them down to a store in The Netherlands at Antwerp Convention (and subsequently cursed I forgot to bring my bank card to get the whole team in one go), at 50 euros a piece, 200 euros for the full set of 5.

I AM GOING TO GET THESE GUYS.  Many a wargame item will be traded off, many a Magic card traded away, to gather the funds ASAP for these wonderful models.

Hell, even my aunt always liked these particular Transformers, she bought me the original Grimlock ages ago (sadly lost in the age called puberty), so auntie Mie, soonish they will be on display at 'Casa Murrath' again.


GRIMLOCK SMASH!!!!

The 10th Platinum: Megamind

Two platinums in half a week, we're on a roll here, and the investments of playing storylines, then revisit seems to be starting to slowly pay off.

With this funny little game, achieving platinum isn't that hard, just finish the storyline, and see you don't get killed in any boss-fights, and you'll grab it in a single playthrough.

Bar that, THQ 'movie license' games aren't never to hard to platinum because of, well, three reasons:


1. They are kids games based on Disney and Pixar movies.  You don't want unreachable goals to turn away your younger gamer nor games that last half a year to finish the story lines.

2. Their games are never hard, just sheer irritating in controls.  Though this one is at least better then Kung Fu Panda 2 was, no glitches, only the second storyline is a bit hard to jump over sinking crates with the not so responsive, and non decently turnable cameraviews.

3. It was Andy's very first platinum, so it couldn't be hard teeheeeheeee.

All in all, it's an enjoyable game with the typical Megamind oneliner humour and wordplays between himself and Minion.

Easy as One, Deux, Trois...

The 9th Platinum: Lego Lord of the Rings (Vita)

I just gained my second Vita platinum, the ninth overall.  The game in question is Lego Lord of the Rings, based on the movies and the game on the PS3, minus the 200+ Mithril bricks you need to look for.

The game is a neat thingie, not that hard like all the Lego games (averagely rating Medium or 4/10 on most rating sites), involving the usual three times to finish the whole game and get all collectibles (story mode, free play mode and mop ups of levels).

Two hints:

* Bar the two mass battle levels in story mode (Helm's Deep and Pelenor Fields, where you tend to die a lot in all the chaos and confusion) all levels can reach True Adventurer about 2/3rds down the line by smashing just every plant and rock you come across.

* During the Dunharrow / Paths of the Dead levels and hubs, you can unlock a lowly 'Soldier of the Dead'.  Buy him immediatly when you start Free Play, as he is all Mithril hearts (aka, unkillable unless you fall from great heights or wander of the 'game area') and this helps a lot in the level go throughs for collectables and all.

You'll also notice you still have two characters open when the all characters found trophy unlocks.  Don't distress, this isn't a glitch, as soon as you reach 100% completion, you receive Elrond (2nd age) and Lurtz (newborn) as additional rewards.

Now, unto the grind for the next platinum in this ever lasting battle with AnRoDr and the Playstation 3 Challenge.  I'll need them, as every point gained will be welcome after the beatings of the past two months...

Yes, I`m a member of EA (Eurovision Anonymous)

Yes, I like the contest.  Yes for the first time in years I believed in our song.  Yes, it actually made the finals comming saturdays...

So if your watching, and don`t know who to vote for since you can`t vote on your homecountry...

Omega comes to Myth... and OMG that Athena!

Well, I hoped for it last week, and today with the 10th anniversary of the Myth cloth line announcement... it is indeed revealed the Omega saints will get their own Myth line as well.

All kinds of pictures at the Tamashii Facebook page and I SO want Athena to centrepiece my collection.

For the rest of the new releases shown, Hyoga god cloth OC, Papillon spectre and Omega Souma of Lionet are on the 'to get' list, the others go on to the 'if I can get them, gladly' list ;-)

Mark your calendars: B.O.T.S.

This year, the 9th of June, it is time for the BOTS convention, the unofficial Transformers convention in The Netherlands.

I won`t be able to attend, Aalsmeer not really near the door for a non-driver like myself, but if you get the chance, go there to have a looksie and share the impressions with the world!

And bring me back a cool classic Jazz ;-)

Going 1701 with Star Trek

I gained a fresh accomplishment today over at Your Gamer Cards in the Playstation 3 trophy hunting career/
NCC-1701 Trophy, awarded for, well, the 1701th trophy you gain.

And yes, when I saw this morning I was up to 1697, I played and grinded to gain it with the Star Trek game on my PS3, accomplishing it with the 'Beat New Vulcan' bronze trophy.

I just thought it fitting for a trekkie with an Enterprise tattoo on his leg to grab this with a Star Trek trophy, poetic justice they call it :-)

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Thetis of Mermaid

Thetis is a servant of Poseidon, and if the Marinas are equal to a Gold Saint, then she would be on the power level of a Silver Saint.

Thetis acts as the guide to Julian Solo, the hostbody for the God Poseidon, and her role is identical between the manga and the anime, bar the ending.  When in the manga, once Poseidon has been defeated; the host is returned to the land and finds a dead rainbowfish nearby on the beach, whence in the anime we see a mermaid swim away after delivering Julian back.

She was defeated by Shaina, but survived this encounter, when she tried to stop Kiki of delivering the Libra cloth and it's weapons to destroy the Pillars of the Oceans.

This means that Thetis is perhaps one of the few saints or equivalents that turned out not to be humans, but an actual mermaid, this only later joined by the Angels of the Heaven Ouverture, even though she is of Danish origin, to tie in with Hans Christain Andersen's fairy tail the Little Mermaid.

The model itself is a Tamashii exclusive, and comes in a very pretty colouring and the tipical 'smuck' face of Thetis is also included, hence I used it on my version.

The cloth is pretty forward to build, BUT the top plastic parts of the underlegs, the 'cups' around the knee area as seen on the picture, are a bitch.  They hardly fit and seem to have a will of their own, not really wanting to stay in place once assembled.  It basically depends a bit on the positioning of the legs if they keep in their place, but forget putting her in the crosslegged mermaid pose like her object mode.

It is a good model of a bit of a 'cult' character (a bare faced female saint wasn't common pre Yuna) but I doubt she is worth the inflated prices you see around the net lately, I was luckily to get her around the normal 'release' price from around last year at Antwerp Convention, but would have cried if she would have knocked me back the 150+ euros you see her going for today.

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Koga of Pegasus

 Koga.  The Pegasus saint of the next generation, as depicted in Saint Seiya Omega.  A young baby found and raised by Athena, and brother of Aria who was to become the new Athena in Mars's plans.  

Being bathed in Darkness cosmo when he was found after the impact of the dark meteor, he uses the lcosmo of Light but is ultimately posessed by Abzu, God of Darkness, before with the help of his companions as well as Seiya and Athena, breaking free of his hold and defeating the god.

Trained by the Silver Saint Shaina, he realizes his destiny when Mars appears and steals away Athena, making Koga realise how weak he still is as he was unable to help her, and sets of on his journey to become a stronger saint.

This leads him through the 'Omega version' of the galaxian Wars (now a school tournament), the Silver Saint arc (with cameos of all 'Legendary Saints' bar Ikki) and finally the storming of the 'new' Twelve houses (leaving even more of a mess then the originals did).

Okay, let's start out by stating that this isn't a Myth cloth in the true fashion of the series, but instead kind of an action figure.  Produced by BanDai under their SH Figuarts banner, the model is in scale with the regular cloth bearers.

BUT it doesn't have an assembleable armour, instead it is a one piece sculpt where you only have the options of changing heads and hands to make different poses, and is all plastic.  The reason for this being the (in my opinion) silly Cloth stone theory of the first season of Omega, together with the fact that the new armours had what looked like actual clothing as part of the cloth.  Like Eden's scarves, Yuna's shoulder 'banners' and in this case, Koga's shoulder plates.

Luckily they skipped the idea for the second season, and brought back the object modes and Pandora boxes, bringing the series back in line with the original canon and 'tech' of the franchise, so actual myth cloth figures might be on the horizon in the future.  And they already had the 'elements' powered thing fade out to a wisp during the second part of season one luckily...

The figure itself is a very good representation of the new generation Pegasus though, and I modelled him when he is about to unleash the famous Pegasus Ryu Sei Ken (the Meteors of Pegasus), being a one cast the model is easily poseable.

Definitly not a bad buy, and with Yuna comming out in this line I'm going to get her over time as well, though they aren't high on the priorities list personally...

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Kanon of Sea Dragon

Kanon, younger twin brother of the gold Gemini saint Saga, is by himself responsible for instigating no less then two wars in the story arc of the Saints.

Being pure evil and ambitious, he planted the seeds in his brothers mind to assassinate both the Grand Pope and the infant Athena, resulting to the battle with the Gold Saints and leaving Sanctuary severly weakenend.  He was imprisoned by his brother a decade before these events, and even though he was saved by Athena, he escaped to Atlantis and stole the Sea Dragon scale, manipulating the slowly awakening Poseidon and starting the war between Atlantis and Sanctuary.

However, he repented for his sins during the story arc of Hades, taking up the mantle of the new gold Saint in honor of his brother, and turns out to be just as powerful as his brother, defeating the three judges of Hades before delivering his cloth to the Wailing Wall for his brother to reincarnate and break the barrier to Elysium.

The myth cloth comes with two figures, on the one side the 'mysterious' look before it became revealed who the Sea Dragon is, and on the other hand a Kanon figure with the option to dress him up in plain clothes.

I went for 'maximum value' and build both figures, as seen on the picture, to adorn my Saints cabinet (I promise to post a picture soonish).

The Saint itself is a fairly straightforward and solid build, in the trends of the regular gold saints.  Just remember to add the cloak if you want to include that one before adding the shoulderpads, as this is a tight fit and can't be 'slipped under' once the pads are added to the chestpiece.

Imported Playstation Games

Thanks to that lovely site called Play Asia, I managed to get my hands on some coolish, nerdy, my kinda geek games for the various Playstation portable devices.

First of all, I finally got the Saint Seiya Omega Ultimate Cosmos game for the Playstation Portable, heck, I actually BOUGHT a PSP three weeks ago just to order this particular game.  Pity in a way that Sony is giving the Vita`s predecessor an extended lease on life (though I doubt it`ll be able to break the venerable PS2`s record) as this means no Trophy support in a game I`m bound to get my teeth in big time.

Secondly, talking Vita, I also got the Mobile Suite SEED Destiny game for the hardware gempiece.  Surely, like Saint Seiya it is all japanese menus and dialogues, but thanks to a start menu translation site, I can load and save, and for all the rest I`m drawing on my `experience` in playing Gundam games.
I even managed already to score two bronze trophies for it (I *think* for completing the tutorial, and one for scoring my first `excellent` or SS rating score in a mission), though I do realize that with my modest knowledge of (spoken) japanese, I won`t 'get' the more subtle trophies.  Kill that, complete this etc etc will be doable, but the more obscure ones will be standing in the way between platinum and me unless they somehow pop by accident.

I also swore that I will have the Kanji of my very first ever Platinum Gundam or Seiya game I ever should score tattood onto my ribcage... once I managed to survive my GF on that issue that is.

The 8th Platinum: Lego Harry Potter 5-7 (Vita)

It's been a while since I managed to gather a platinum trophy, but this one is on top of being number eight, also the very first I gained on the Vita.  Bit of a milestone trophy then in a way hehehe.

Now, the game is enjoyable, but mind you it is a completely different version from it's big brother on the Playstation 3.  This one is the smarthpone / Nintendo DS version, with the duelling club and such in it, and different levels and minikits.

As such, you have no benefit of having finished it's other edition, as there are barely any carryovers apart from the rough storyline progression.

Time to start palying something completely different now on the Vita that dropped in my mailbox yesterday from Play Asia, as well as on the PSP, but more on that tomorrow in a seperate blogpost.

Ciao ciao