Knuckles Dawson

So, I've been playing Dead Rising, which I actually stopped playing before I started this blog back in September of 2006, so I picked it up again after a year's absence of decapitating zombies with small cyan chainsaws lifted from the (cold and/or dead) hands of overly enthusiastic clowns with separation anxiety. Obviously, in order to justify such odd behavior, considering I have Rock Band, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4 all just sitting on a pile of games that I'm in the middle of playing, I'm going have to give you some context, and it actually involves the latter on that list.

 My buddies over at Roosterteeth, Burnie and Geoff, are both something of Achievement Whores as well. Anyway, they had an interesting internal contest with CoD4 where they both started playing the game at the same time and raced to be first to get the full 1000 Gamerscore, since the game was A.) new and B.) had Campaign only Achievements. The winner got to choose an Achievement that they've previously unlocked that they can have the loser go and get themselves.

In the end, it was a close match, but Burnie came out ahead, nabbing the "Mile Hile Club" Achievement and sealing the deal. Burnie had his side of the story on his journal, including a runthrough of the Airplane 60 seconds found in that last link as well as serving up his penance Achievement. Geoff gave his outlook, and eventually finished off the game, and now is working on getting hte "7 Day Survivor" Achievement on Dead Rising. Ironically, in order to get that Achievement, he's going to have to get like, 6 others. But, on the bright side, it's a fun game, even if the 14 hours of gaming required is a bit of a chore.

Geoff and I have played through games together for Achievements before, like Fuzion Frenzy 2, and more recently joining in on his conquest of GRAW 2. So, having played Dead Rising before then abruptly stopping for other gaming stuff, I decided his punishment would be a good excuse to pick it up again and finish off the Achievements, as he and I both agreed that since he's playing it, he might as well get the last Gamerscore remaining, and I felt that I should do the same, after all company and misery tend to go hand in hand, right?

Anyway, in the past week, I've unlocked 15 Achievements in it, and only have 7 more to go. Notably, over the weekend I got Frank The Pimp, Tour Guide, PP Collector, Gourmet and Clothes Horse. I also did some other extracurricular Achievements along the way, but those were some of the big ones. I also had to do Zombie Genocider again, and finish the playthrough to unlock arguably the best medium-long range weapon in the game. My next playthrough will focus on getting Saint, Full Set and Transmissionary, and by utilizing either of my memory cards, I can save a branching point to pick up Snuff Shots J and B. Then that'll leave me with just the two Surviving Achievements.

We've been looking over various guides, and finding the path of least resistance for the various objectives. The Frank the Pimp guide over at GameFAQs is pretty tight, and there's a photo album for all the PP Stickers, a nice list for all the pieces of clothing. I recommend going from Paradise Plaza down to Wonderland via the shortcut in the ladies restroom, then down through Al Fresca and finishing off at Entrance Plaza. For Gourmet, don't forget to drink all the mixed drinks, and you can eat 98% of the list in Seon's Food & Stuff anyway. I did all of those in one playthrough too, so it doesn't take much time if you've got the Small Chainsaw+3 books, Real Mega Buster, and a nice supply of wine, milk or OJ.

 Anyway, Geoff and I are probably going to do our Survivor run simultaneously, which will most likely happen on a weekend, since it's 14 hours straight and all. I may liveblog my experience, and he's got some ideas cooking for his coverage too.