I am super competitive, as anyone can vouch for that knows me.  When the 360 came out in the fall of 2005 I remember challenging one of the guys at the center who is my good friend now, Jared Klug, to a race.   I told him that I could get 10,000 gamerscore on this new system before he could reach level 40 in World of Warcraft.

Oh the glorious sound of unlocking an Xbox 360 achievement.

Now, at the time both items were extremely time consuming.  It wasn’t the invite-a-friend-for-triple-experience-and-reach-level-60-in-one-day World of Warcraft that we see today.  It also wasn’t the grab-a handful-of-2006-sports-games-Avatar-and-Disney-titles-to-boost-gamerscore world either!  Looking back I think my task might have been nearly impossible.  1000 points in King Kong and Need for Speed Most Wanted went pretty smoothly, but then starting through Perfect Dark and even Kameo was no simple task.

Needless to say I got smoked.  I believe I posted about 5k in score when he hit 40 and both of us pretty much no-life’d the process for about a month.  If I remember correctly I had to buy him a steak dinner.  Little did I know that the achievement scene would go so crazy over the next few years.

Now I find myself sitting at just over 75,000 in gamerscore and yet so insignificant in the grand scheme of achievement seekers.  I didn’t start back into achievements until 2008 and was already pretty far behind.  I think the number one guy in the world, Stallion83 (www.1milliongamerscore.com), had just reached 300,000 and now he is over 520,000.  That guy is adding over 100,000 each year which is amazing.

360 Voice is a great site for achievement challenges.

So today I started back into a new 5-day challenge over at 360 Voice (www.360voice.com).  The site was built so that your Xbox could “blog” on its own each day and tell the world what you were playing.  However the real treat of the site is their challenge system which allows gamers to duke it out in a predetermined number of days to see who could gain the most achievement points.

My 5 day challenge will probably be unsuccessful, I am joined by quite a few of the larger names in the game who sit in the 200k and 300k clubs.  To get above 50k in achievements you have to be trying to get achievements.  You don’t accidentally play enough games normally to reach that level.  These guys have played a ton so my only hope is that I have some easier games left that they might have played years ago.

If you are interested to follow my progress here is the link to the challenge leaderboard: http://360voice.gamerdna.com/challenge/74305.  Hopefully this will be a be a good lead into a competition that I am planning for February.

Horse Grooming FTW!

In February I plan on putting up 12,000 Microsoft Points for a team and individual competition for gamerscore.  The challenge will run through the 360voice system and it will be free to join.  Players join as individuals for prizes of 4000 MS Points for 1st and 1600 MS Points for second.  In addition to those points there is also a team portion that combines 4 teammates’ individual scores to form their team score.  The top team at the end of the 30 day challenge will gain each person an additional 1600 MS Points.  If the top individual gamers is also on the top team they will take home 5600 MS Points.

Well, I am off to play some German My Horse and Me 2, Backyard Sports Sandlot Sluggers and History Channel Civil War: Secret Missions today!  I will give everyone an update tomorrow and also start lining out my plan for an online series for Call of Duty Black Ops on the Xbox 360.