@eNamrah, yeah I did a bit of loot and spell farming offline while I was gone.  I have all of her spells (that I'm aware of) maxed out except for Death's and Dracula's.  I really want to go ahead and beat it on hard, I was actually quite jealous that you and Big Sama seemed to have cleared out most of the rest of the achievements.

I have nothing against Big Sama but its getting a little old that he just jumps right into our party and then half the people on his friends list jump also into the party.  Then it really got on my nerves when that one guy jumped on just to tell him he was going to feed his kids and be back later.  I don't know, maybe its just me but I think you should either be invited into a party or start your own but not just jump right into other people's parties.  I actually fear now that I will never be able to play online again without half a dozen random strangers coming and going.  Its very wierd...

I was a bit miffed by it Friday night, and mixed with my horrible performance in castlevania made me retreat in shame.  But we had bad storms and then the Internet went out anyway so it wouldn't have mattered.  If I had come back chances are I would have messed up our game with the power surges we were having. I don't know why I was dying so much against the bosses in Castlevania except that it seems almost easier with less people.  The more people you have the more chaos that goes on, its very hard to focus on blocking or dodging all the boss attacks when you have people running here and there and going "come here, I'm healing!" but yet to die trying to get accross the screen.  As soon as you told me the boss HP goes up for each extra person you have, that makes me doubt why you would even want a full party, seems like more of a chance for error there.  Also that unlimited magic thing Sama is doing is annoying me and I don't even know why.  He wasn't even playing as Charolette and suddenly he has her completely maxed out??  Also he stayed on the near brink of death the entire time because he was using HP for MP.  I don't know, even when I get that item to drop I don't think I'll be using her that way.  I like having seperate life and mp totals.  I may have sucked at the boss but if you notice I didn't take two hits getting to him.

For the next update please add my CoD4 platinum award

oh and didn't Terminator Salvation also made it into the platinum games list ? If so ad that award as well :P

But you're right Xbox.com updates ALL games as soon as you log into Xbox Live. MGC.net doesn't, that's why my MGC profile says that I only have ~38k  even though I have ~61k in the VGC ranking.

Terminator has too many people with maximum achievements to qualify as platinums.

Thanks for the heads up on CoD 4...   It will be in the next update.

alright thx

kinda surprised how low the number of NFS Shift owners is here. It's a great racing game, I hope more people will get it.

@JPL: I wouldn't worry too much.  Sama has a lot of people in his friends list and I guess they like to chat even if they're playing different games.  I don't necessarily speak up unless I've played with any of the people.

When you left us Thursday night, we jumped into a game with 4 randoms.  That's how I beat it on hard and got the boned achievement without even trying.  After a few runs of chapter 5 and 6 on hard you get so many great/expensive items. The item and money achievements don't take any real effort.  It was pretty fun, except the randoms tend to avoid using their mics, which of course can hurt the team.  Also Sama doesn't play with Charlotte anymore and only initially did so because no one else uses her online.  Everyone is either Soma or Alucard because they're best weapons are ridiculously  powerful and can take down hard bosses in a matter of seconds.  You can consistently clear out chapter 6 hard in under 8 minutes with Alucard and Soma. They're great characters for item farming runs.

Hopefully we can play Crackdown or Castlevania tonight or sometime this week.

@eNamrah, yeah I'm sure they are all great people.  I'm just not mister person guy.  We've been playing for a while so obviously I am comfortable talking to you.  I can't even log on now without big sama sending me a party invite.  I have no problem with a group of guys who all want to talk, cross-game, or whatever if that's their thing.  I just think personally I prefer to talk to only the people I am playing with.  It can become a big cluster F otherwise.  And like you said you didn't say much, I know you don't have to talk, its just more for me about the distraction of hearing the others and in some cases their girlfriends, wives or children.  And mainly I just think its tacky to jump into parties uninvited like that.

I'm going to try to keep an open mind and I'm sure when I get on tonight it will somehow involve him and his friends but at some point I value my space too much to be constantly counted on for voice chat with random strangers everytime I log on.

Congrats on the 200 gs by the way, who got there first you or Ryu? If Neo would score some gs it could be a partial tournament...

i hate this fucking castlevania game.  so just got the thing and played through the first level as shanoa(?) and managed to beat it.  figured i understand the controls and can try an online match.

"unable to find team"

"network error"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"searching for team" (it froze on the searching for team screen..i was still able to access the guide button, but i couldnt do anything in game)

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"network error"

yay! i found a game!.   "ok, who is the stupid fucking piece of shit that can only do level 2.  why dont you get the fuck out of here."  oh...

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"searching for game"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

so i get into another game.  there is this one guy on the team who runs to the end of the level as fast as he can and beats up the ending boss by himself.  the others on the team repeatedly label him a cheater.  apparently he isnt taking any damage and his weapon is just a giant blur extending a considerable distance out in front of him.

"unable to find team"

"unable to find team"

"searching for game"

"writes angry post"

(there is actually a lot more "unable to find team" but i left most of them out to conserve space, but left enough in to get the point across"

@MrBubbles: Did you select "quick match"?  I don't use that option.  I rarely have a problem finding a team with the other option.  When the teams available do come up it's recommended you select one with only 1/6 and do it quickly because they fill up very fast, so most teams listed are likely full by the time you select them.  Even then, I'd probably beat the game on normal before playing with randoms because most people online just want to farm chapter 5 or 6 on hard.  Hopefully Konami releases an update that allows you to search for teams by difficulty.

The guy that was speeding through the level wasn't a cheater and almost certainly had the "winged boots" which are the rarest/best leg equipment in the game.  They allow you to move twice as fast as normal.  He also had the best weapon for Alucard/Soma called the Valmanway.  With the best equipment it's not very difficult to run through the game on hard without getting hit.

I wouldn't mind playing the game on normal and hard with you if you'd like.

@Mr. Bubbles, I haven't played public so I have no clue if thats true.  Aside from some chat problems one night I haven't had even the slightest hitch in private games.  I guess it helps if you have some friends playing it.

Keep going though, it will feel good to get stronger and collect some of those items.  It is a very deep game.

I figured out the problem with Soul Calibur. I have to start the game, then sign out and back in. After that I can play and get my achievements.