Completion update 2

Just a quick update on how my quest to complete my back-catalogue of games is going. The short answer is that it isn't. I'm still engrossed in Modern Warfare 2, hitting 2nd prestige earlier this week and already soaring my way up the ranks to the mid level 40's. I'm pretty much concentrating on a small set of weapons this time round as opposed to my usual 'level-up-as-many-guns-as-possible-for-the-XP-bonuses' method. My main weapon of choice is the UMP45 sub-machinegun, with two different setups. The original one which I don't use much any more had marathon, lightweight and commando as the perk setup. This arrangement is great for getting around the maps quickly and getting in for the up-close and personal kills. I used this setup to unlock all the attachments for the gun, earning a nice shiny title for my trouble; I even maxed out my throwing knife kills using this loadout, picking up a bunch of bonus XP and some sweet titles and emblems along the way. Once I'd unlocked everything though I changed tac, switching to a more accurate and stealthy approach. First of all I switched out the marathon perk for the bling perk, allowing me to fit two attachments to the gun in exchange for losing the ability to sprint permanently. Then the lightweight perk got dropped in favour of cold-blooded, a perk that makes you invisible to enemy radar and airsupport, and the commando (enhanced melee range) perk was dropped for Ninja, which makes you invisible to enemy heartbeat sensors, and once leveled up enough will grant me silent footsteps. The Bling perk allows me to use the red-dot sight for better accuracy as well as fitting a silencer, which combined with the cold-blooded and ninja perks makes me a very sneaky bugger indeed. Coupled with the Thumper grenade launcher as a secondary weapon and claymores in the equipment slot its become a very versatile loadout. I'm really enjoying the stealth play so far, though weather I'll be able to stick to it until the end of the prestige remains to be seen.

As a change of pace for when I get stuck in a rut of dying a lot, or for playing on wasteland, one of my favourite maps, I have a loadout with my trusty Barret M107.50cal sniper rifle set up. The beast itself is silenced and is complimented by the PP2000 machine-pistol as a secondary; with marathon, stopping-power and steady-aim as the perk set it becomes a highly mobile, highly effective long and close range setup.

When I'm not playing MW2 I can usually be found behind the wheel of a fantastically expensive car in Forza 3, (currently a Koenigsegg CCGT). I'm now into the 5th season of racing and at driver level 41 (out of 50), meaning I'm very close to "completing it". That statement is massively wrong on two levels however. Firstly, although season 6 is the last one you get an achievement for, the seasons just keep rolling over, basically repeating season 6 over and over again, plus there's still loads of races that won't have been raced during the previous seasons as you can only race one of the three offered each month, meaning there's plenty more to do in the 'race events' menu. Secondly, even assuming the completion of season six is the ultimate goal, it's still going to take aaaaaages to get there as the races are starting to get very long indeed. Not only that but there are more of them for each event now meaning it could still take weeks to reach my goal!

As an added hindrance to my goal of completing all my old games, I seem to be buying lots of new ones! Probably more in the last two months than in the last year combined! For Christmas I got Batman: Arkham Asylum, then I bought Mirrors Edge, Colin McRae Dirt 2, Fuel, Red Faction Guerrilla (which I haven't actually played since claiming it would be my next completion target last week), Saints Row 2 and Brutal Legend because they were all dirt-cheap and it would have been rude not to; then I got Dragon Age for my birthday and just this last week I've used up old clubcard vouchers and some left over birthday money on Mass Effect, Bayonetta, Gears of War 2 and Dead or Alive 4! I've had about two hours in the company of Bayonetta, (which was immensely enjoyable) and about six hours on Red Faction, but haven't even had time to open the boxes on the others! Damn special offers and tempting new releases! How on earth am I supposed to keep up with all that lot AND find time to play games I've already got!