I earned all of the Mass Effect achievements (1,050 points) in the wee hours of the morning today. That makes four games in which I have a gamerscore of 1000 or more (my gamerscore is 8,885 now).

Some details:

I purchased the Mass Effect Limited Collectors Edition before buying my 360.

I played Mass Effect from December 2007 through April 2008, then started up again in December 2008 until finishing it last night, over 140 hours of gameplay.

I had four Commander Shepards:

• Rebecca, Vanguard; 3 full playthroughs (normal, hardcore, insanity difficulty); reached level 60 (near the end of the hardcore playthrough); over 103 hours of gameplay; both paragon and renegade; once with Kaiden as the significant other, twice with Liara
• Walter, Soldier; paragon; played up until my last ally achievement (Wrex) popped (level 55, over 26 hours); then finished the Ashley romance
• Cadence, Engineer; played long enough to get the remaining tech achievements (over 6 hours, reached level 28)
• Bart, Adept; played long enough to get the remaining biotic achievements (over 5 hours, reached level 16); second time playing the very cool Bring Down the Sky DLC

And even at the very end I was still seeing stuff and hearing dialogue that I hadn't before, and I consider myself pretty thorough when playing RPGs. Kudos to Bioware.

This checklist came in handy.

My main gripes:

• too many elevators, especially the one in the Normandy that takes like 30 seconds to go down about 10 feet (I wanted to install a ladder)
• chase camera that insists on following the ground contour exactly, resulting in too much vertical jarring motion, especially up and down stairs
• low-resolution facial shadows that destroy the "cinematic effect" the game advertised
• while trying to get the weapon achievements, you want to keep your squad out of the fight so you can get all the kills, but they don't always stay put, or refuse to go where you tell them to
• annoyingly repetitive "music" in the galaxy map; otherwise pretty good accompaniment

Nonetheless, I loved the game.

Now what:

I need to finish the story mode of Mirror's Edge. I am in the last chapter (9) but took a break since I was having trouble on the rooftops in the dark with snipers on one side and assault rifle dudes behind me. I had to give up on the no-guns achievement in Chapter 5 after trying for several hours to get past that warehouse room with the catwalks and several baddies overhead; finally I just had to grab a gun and mow them down. I don't know if I will do a full playthrough again. I will probably try to collect the rest of the bags (I think I have over 2/3) but will likely just pop in at given checkpoints to pick them up. I am at 400 points and may be able to get another 200 out of it.

There are a few more Left 4 Dead achievements I think I can get, but I'll be lucky to break 600 points.

Plus the two last achievements in Penny Arcade Episode 2 that I was working on. One glitched on me in my first playthrough (fully upgrade everyone's weapons) so I'm hoping the second playthrough will pop it.

I hated the Resident Evil 5 demo. I have slight interest in H.A.W.X. but it will depend on the demo, if any. I've had more than enough Halo so I will definitely be skipping Halo Wars (not into RTS) and will likely skip the idiotically named ODST ("Odious T").

I need me some Sam Fisher or some Agent 47 stat. Call me glass-half-empty but I fear that Velvet Assassin is going to suck.

I love Mass Effect as well.  It was a close 2nd to BioShock as my game of the year in 2007.  I still don't own a copy of the game yet though.  I think I'll pick up that 2 disc special edition they are releasing in February for $20.  It sounds like it has most of the content in the Limited Edition, plus it includes the DLC. Let's hope the rumor is true.

I managed to get around 500 points in one play thru.  Good job on getting all 1050 points!  I definitely agree on the elevator.  Does installing the game to the hard drive improve the load times at all?

I also hated the RE5 demo.  I wanted to walk and shoot at the same time (like in Dead Space for example).

We should play Burnout Paradise some more.  That was a hell of a lot of fun.  I'm eagerly awaiting the patch on February 6th that will allow restarts, as well as several other improvements to the game.  I'm comparing our achievements on xbox.com and I'm surprised that you only have 5 more points than I do.  It looks like you have a ton of achievements that I don't, yet I'm only 5 points behind.  I assumed you had a shitload of achievements because you sounded like you knew what to do and where to go when we were doing challenges online.

Anyway, that was a lot of fun.  I have vowed to no longer play single player until that patch comes out.  I'm sick of losing a burning route only to have to drive all the way back to the beginning and loose it again (the hot rod sucks!!).  That and I only have about 5 races left to complete and 7 or so road rages and then all I have left is marked man and stunt runs.  Man, I hate stunt runs.  I suck at them.  I've only completed a single one.  You'd think they'd be easier.

So far with the 5 or 6 games I have installed to the hard drive, the only constant benefit is not having to listen to the hellish whine of the DVD player spinning. The only additional benefit I could notice from installing Mass Effect to the hard drive was that the Rapid Transit in the Citadel seemed to take less time. The downside is that saving my game actually took longer (it takes somewhere around 35 seconds to save). After copying Halo 3 to the hard drive, when I started it, it actually told me to delete it, that it was programmed to read from the disc and would run worse off the hard drive.

As for Burnout Paradise, yeah after the next update I may be up for some more. You've got 3 achievies that I don't, and I've got 6 you don't (two are courtesy of my Live Vision camera). I started losing interest in getting my Burnout License. I played too much online (which means challenges mainly, hence my familiarity), but playing online does nothing to unlock new cars that I need for the events I haven't beaten yet. I would like to get the Block Party achievement -- I only have a handful of 2-man and 3-man challenges to do (that damn jumping through the hoop in the airport is a killer). But I don't see how I will add much more than another 60-80 points, looking at the achievements I don't have. I hate the stunt runs too. I don't think I've completed a single one.

I've noticed that most of the games I've installed to the hard drive work much better and load much faster.  Only problem is, I only have enough space on my HD for one game at a time.  So I have to delete one before moving on to the next game.

The Burnout License isn't so bad, the Elite one however is a nightmare.  I feel like I'll never get it.  I think I have around 30 more wins before I get it, but only 10 or so of the events I'm good at are left (race and road rage).  I've given up on the events until that patch comes out and started to do the road rules timed runs.  I've been doing pretty decent so far.  I think I have about 42 of the 62 (or so) completed.  I haven't done showtime much, but I imagine that'd be a bit easier.

You know, I think I've had more fun playing online those few times than the dozens of hours I've played by myself.  I was playing with James and Jameson and we actually completed that event where you have to jump through the hoop in the airport.  It's not so bad once you've found the right car.  I think I used the one you get for completing the super jumps (Jansen Carbon X12 I think).  That car handles extremely well and its very fast.  Only problem is that you can lose control when you're starting from a complete stop since the tires tend to skid like crazy.

We should plan something for next weekend after the new patch comes out.

Congrats on getting all the points. I've done two run-throughs and still need to focus on checking the rest of the achievements off my list.