Last week was the week of the big 7.

Why? Two things 7 happened. First off I passed 7000 on my live gamer points. If you are not into gaming, points stem from achievements and achievements are gained by fulfilling specific conditions in a game. This can be as easy as playing through a level as you would normally, or as hard as get through the level without getting hit once. When these conditions are met you get an achievement which is worth a certain amount of points. You can use these points to compare yourself to other gamers, in theory. In practice you find people plowing through easy games just for the achievement score. Also if you play short games you get to get the 1000 points they allocate per game pretty easily. But if you play role playing games or multiplayer-focused games, you'll get them much more slowly. So you can't really compare a game in which you can achieve the 1000 points in about 5 hours to a game you have to play at least 30 hours to get all the achievements.

The system is very addicting nonetheless and it's a miracle I got to 7000 with my schedule being the way it is nowadays. Mind you that's 7188 out of 37120.

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Also my game-collection has now exceeded the 700 mark. Absurd? Maybe. Proud of it? Yes! All originals and a result of 5+ years of collecting games. So I am pretty proud of the fact that I now have 700 of em. I still enjoy all of them whenever I can, though most of my free time is spent in World of Warcraft.

I finally finished my  new epic armorset

Though the last one look more menacing I think.

Well that's about it for this blog. Not very interesting, I know, but the next one will be a bit more interesting, promise. I am just proud of the big 7.

• exalted with 2 factions in World of Warcraft  (you earn reputation and start of with being neutral with a faction after which you go to friendly, honored, revered and finally exalted by doing quests for members of that faction, or collecting certain items for them, after being exalted you get the right to buy certain exclusive items)
   
• 3 of the 5 epic pieces of my next armor set for my WoW character and have already socketed them with the best gems I could find, which cost a hellofa lot of gold
• 2 of the most expensive enchantments on both my weapons (mongoose: chance to get increased attack-speed and increase agility by 110
• Finished the 50cc in Mario Kart Wii
  
   
• Several little achievements for some Xbox Live arcade games I own

Finished Bioshock, one of the best game-stories I have seen in these past few years. The kind of story that still ahs you guessing till the very end if you are in league with the good or the bad guy. And crazy-ass plot-twists.

After finishing Biohock, I looked at my library of xbox 360 games and realised why Nintendo is doing so well. Of the 33 games I own, 18 are First Person Shooters, racing games or something that closely resembles them. Of the remaining 15 games, 3 games are games only hardcore gamers would play, or hard for new players to get into. Stuff like japanese Role Playing Games & Online Massive Multiplayer RPG's.

So that leaves 12 games of the 33 that are easily accesible to non-gamers or new-gamers. Games like Guitar Hero 2 & 3, NBA homecourt, Marvel Ultimate Alliance etc. Do the math and you get an idea of whom Microsoft is targeting with these games. Whereas Nintendo has simple understandable games (which bore the hell out of most hardcore gamers) which in turn attract people that don't play videogames that much into the videogameworld.

Take the wheel in Mario Mario Kart Wii for example. That thing is brilliant. I had a slight learning curve twith the thing, but after that it feels natural and it's more fun. I think if you are playing Mario Kart Wii hardcore-like and are going  for the top-spot in time trials and races, you'll play with a controller. But for all the non/new-gamers out there is is a brilliant concept. Everybody knows what a steering wheel is and it comes with the game. I expect a lot of people to get into this new hype. To further strengthen my theory, Mario Kart Wii has been sold out in stores. As is Wii Fit, which further cements my theory that making understandable games for this new audience translates into more cash for Nintendo.

Go Ninty!