Clixbys XBox 360 has it's own voice, check out it's thoughts here.

I certainly wasn't the first in the queue for an XBox 360, but looking back, I wish I had been!
I was a PS2 fan, but no were near and addict - how things change lol.

I'm on my 3rd XBox 360, but not due to the now infamous 'Ring Of Death' (I've only had that pleasure the once!) but because everyone in our house in now addicted.  You can have your gamertag on multiple XBoxes at once, but you have to download it from XBox Live each time, the easiest way to move it quickly is to buy a memory unit, and store your profile on there.  This way you can move it to any XBox 360 you like (Great for playing multiplayer Rock Band at a friends house!).

I'm not just talking about games, games, games.

We use our 3 linked to our home PC to turn it in to a media center.  We have all our music for iTunes, videos, films, pictures, everything.  All on the media center, in turn, each 360 can watch or listen to the lot.  It's great, all those digital camera pictures you take but never do anything with, home movies that never get watched.  Awesome.

Its pretty easy to do, both with Windows XP or Windows Vista.  Simply prepare all your videos, songs etc in media player.  Your 360 will find it on your network and away you go :)

However, since my brother Adam works in the computer games industry, it sort of rubs off.  I'd describe myself as being 'Really Interested' in it all, rather than a nerd, but I some people may disagree lol.

Right now I've got over to 20,000 achievement points :)

It's a phrase used to describe someone that will play a game just to increase their gamerscore.  I don't care, I really do want to have the highest gamerscore of all the people on my friends list, and I'm not ashamed to say it.  I'll play a game just to get the points from it, so what?!  They all count don't they?  "My name is Tim Clixby and I'm and achievement whore".

There are some games about that a just easy, and some that are easy-ish.  I like a game that gets me 500pts with a bit of effort, but then you have to work a bit harder for the rest.

Since getting my iPhone, I'm becoming a Podcast addict to, mostly XBox 360 related casts, but hey.

One of the best ones its 'Achievement Junkie', sounds like it would be just a quick show to talk about how to score 1000pts in the latest games? Not really, more of a round up of what's gone with the 360 this week, well worth checking out.  the two presenters are a great mix of industry knowledge, and a genuine gamer.  (Not that Nelson isn't just because he has insider knowledge!)

Larry Hyrb (aka Major Nelson - Head Of Microsoft's XBox Live) has a great Podcast, a bit more formal and has some 'featured items' unlike the Achievement Junkies but still worth a listen.  Major Nelson's site is always worth checking out, it builds to a frenzy twice annually when Microsoft release their Spring and Fall updates.  These updates alter the operating system of the XBox and are always full of new features and tweaks to keep the 360 developing at a superb rate!

Being an Achievement Whore doesn't come cheap!

If you want a gamerscore up there with the best of them you'd imagine that its going to cost you big bucks.  Lets say the average XBox 360 game is £40?  Well a gamerscore of 10,000 is going to cost you £400, and that's assuming you get all 1000 possible points from your game right? wrong.

There are lots of companies out there now that will rent XBox 360, and other console games to you.  nothing new there I bet you're thinking, its been possible to rent DVDs for years.  Yes.  But you can watch a DVD in a couple of hours, you'd struggle to get through a couple of levels in that time.  The difference these days is that for the price, you rent the game, but keep it for as long as you need to, only sending it back once its complete, or your so stuck that you're glad you didn't waste your hard earned cash on it!

is my choice, for a set price per month we get 3 games at any time, and we keep them for as long as we like.  When we're done with one, send it back, and you get the next one on your list, easy as that.  If a game is great, then I'll go and buy it, but more often than not, I'm glad its cost me £3 or so for the privilege. 

Wired Or Wireless?

I wanted to go wireless.  It looked like that was going to be the easiest and 'most techie' was of doing it, and lets face it, if we can use a gadget in the process, they why not!  But I wasn't that impressed, it could be a bit 'laggy', or completely went out of the window when someone put the microwave on!  So I assessed my options....

I went with Wall Plugs, and I'm glad I did, haven't looked back since!  Simply plug them in to a mains socket, and run a cat5 cable from your router to the 1st one, then plug the 2nd one in by your XBox.  Run a cat5 cable from your XBox to the wall plug and hey presto, fully wired.  You get the benefits of the superb transfer rates - mine are around 160mbs, more than adequate for even HD streaming.  We've got 3x XBox 360s in our house, and even if we're all streaming things from our media centre, it never breaks up!  Great value for money!  

Make sure you've got a router thought that will support multiple XBoxes or you can be in for some great fun and expense.  I've got a wireless ADSL router that works in the UK with XBox Live with multiple Xbox 360's and allows all 3 to have a NAT status of OPEN!  Its a D-Link DSL-2640B.  Its also a total bargain!  I got mine for under £40.  I'd read a review of it here, and read up a bit more about it.  It really was as easy as plugging it in, running the ADSL wizard, and then running the wireless wizard.  No port forwarding, nothing :)  And our 3 XBoxes all now have OPEN NAT.  I can sleep easy again.  So if you have one, two, three or more xboxes, the DLink 2640B will cope with them all straight out of the box.

I've got a Vision Cam, an external Hard Disk and the infra red eye for Scene It.  I'm one of those OCD people that cant have visible wires below my TV.  So I needed a USB hub to link them all in to my 360 at the back.  I tried a couple with no joy, but now have the Belkin F5U234vuk1, and it works perfectly.  This leaves my front 2 USB ports free for my Rock Band instruments :)

This superb Vista Sidebar Gadget allows you to see the status of 5 of your friends at any time, so you know who's online without putting your 360 on, or constantly checking xbox.com.  Just make sure you have silverlight installed first.

Here's my break down of achievements in games I've played:

I've listed the games in terms of 'How much effort is needed' to get the points.  There are some great sites out there that will give you the exact break down of the easy achievement points for the 360.  What I wanted to do differently was list the games Tim Clixby has played, not just list the games that everyone says are easy.  

I'm a big games player, but by no means a pro, just someone that would rather play a game that watch TV.

Retail Games:

Retail games are all worth 1000 achievement points, but if there is downloadable content, they are allowed to make these games worth 1250 points. If your like me you might just want some easy 360 achievements, you cant beat easy achievements!

Really Easy: (850pts+)

Assassin's Creed
Avatar
CSI
Jumper
Lost
Surfs Up

Easy: (500 - 850pts)

BioShock
Crackdown
Dirt
Guitar Hero II
PGR4
Scene It? LCA
Shrek The Third

Average: (250 - 500pts)

Call Of Duty 4
Crash Of The Titans
Halo 3
Gears Of War
NBA Live 08
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Need For Speed: Pro Street
Pimp My Ride
Race Driver Grid
Rock Band
Stuntman Ignition
Transformers: The Game
Viva Pinata

Hard: (100 - 250pts)

Burnout Paradise
Forza Motorsport II
Guitar Hero III
Sega Rally

Impossible (0 - 100pts)

Arcade Games

Arcade games are all downloadable from XBox Live.
Great fun and for all the family :)

Easy (150pts+)

Average (75pts - 150pts)

Frogger
Track and Field
Word Puzzle

Hard (25 - 75pts)

Bomberman LIVE
Boogie Bunnies
Boom Boom Rocket
Doom
Pac-Man
Sonic The Hedgehog
Speedball 2

Impossible (0 - 25pts)

Last Updated
August 21, 2008 10:39

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