Steam Treasurehunt

The Steam Holiday Treasure is over, and I didn't even win a single game. I will review my progress in this post.

December 6th-7th

• Self Portrait - Setup an avatar
  Already done.
• Got Tanked? - Become a Desert Fox in R.U.S.E.
  See note below.
• Up the Ante - Unlock The Iron Curtain in Poker Night at the Inventory
  I already owned this game, but not this achievement. It didn't take long to get, though.
• More Cowbell - Set a leaderboard score of at least 1,124,400 in easy (9 minute) mode for the "Paul Hartnoll" level in Chime
  I already owned this game, but I hadn't played the specific song in easy. This took, naturally, nine minuts.

 December 8th-9th

• Friends with Benefits - Have 10 friends on your friends list
  I had 83.
• What Happens in Vegas - Complete Ol' Buddy Ol' Pal achievement in Fallout: New Vegas
  See note below
• Terminal Velocity - Set a leaderbord score of at least 22,600 on the level 'Mash Face Against Mountain' in AaAaAA!!!
  This game has an achievement named after me for some reason, so, naturally, I already had this one.
• Go To Your Happy Place - Play the demo or game The UnderGarden
  Tried the demo, but didn't buy the game.

December 10th-11th

• Join the Club - Join an Official Group
  I'm already a member of 86 official groups.
• Family-Style - Get Back in Business in Mafia II
  I have 100% in this - well, except that one buggy achievement in Joe's Adventure DLC.
• Stack the Deck - Be a Devastator in Magic: The Gathering
  I am not good at Magic, but I already had this one.
• Just Drop It - Set a leaderboard score of at least 85,370 for 'Classic - Small Wonder' in Droplitz
  I already had 100% in this game, so that score was cleared.

December 12th-13th

•  It's Better to Give - Send a gift to a friend
  I'm very generous!
• Take One for the Team - Make a Sacrifice in Call of Duty: Black Ops
  I only got this game because I could get it 40% at release, which made the price reasonable. I'm just missing the Zombie mode achievements, so this one was done.
• Breaker, Breaker - Set a leaderboard score of at least 11,200,000 for 'Bonus Mode' in Shatter
  I already had a score of 15,500,000.
• Zombie Zoo - Create a Crass Menagerie in Left 4 Dead 2
  I love L4D and L4D2 and I play them casually with friends. I have both games at 100%.

December 14th-15th

• Sneak Peak - Download and watch a trailer from each of the following games: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Homefront, BRINK, Red Faction: Armageddon, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and Portal 2
  I had a lot of trouble downloading these because Steam would freeze for a min. everytime I pressed download. After I was done, Valve decided to rename this objective to "Steam Gimme", and you just had to have an account. I got it the hard way!
• Tunnel Vision - Become a Nosalis Hunter in Metro 2033
  I haven't completed a playthrough in this game yet, since I didn't find it that much fun. However, I already had this achievement.  
• Cause and Effect - Create a Destruction Frenzy in Just Cause 2
  I already owned Just Cause 2, but I couldn't play it because it requires Win7, and I'm still running XP on my PC. To took a chance, downloaded it on my laptop, and managed to get the achievement even though the game was lagging like crazy on very low settings.
• Beat It - Set a leaderboard score of at least 3,770,488 for 'Survival Best Score' in Beat Hazard
  Already done.

December 16th-17th

• Smack Talker - Post a comment on a friend's Steam Community profile page 
  I actually had to do this. I'm surpriced I haven't done it before now.
• One-Hit Wonder - Build a Wonder in Civilization V
  Already done.
• Road Rage - Set a leaderboard score of at least 10,515 for 'Slaughter, City Center' in Zombie Driver
  Great game! I already had a score of 127,922.
• Butter Me Up - Build Me Up Buttercup in Bob came in Pieces
  Another great game! I have all the achievements already, so this was free too.

 December 18th-19th

• Suggestive Behavior - Write a recommendation
  As I've already written about on my blog, I have made a few.
• Made in the USA - Become a Founding Father in Empire: Total War
  I already had this one, but I haven't played this game that much, since my game started crashing everytime I got to a specific mission.
• Buzz the Tower - Set a leaderboard score of at least 37 for 'Beach' in flight Control HD
  I think my score for every level is over 100, but for some reason this objective kept going from completed to not completed and then back again.
• Overachiever - Played at least 15 games or demos since March 2009 (When Steam began recording playtime)
  No comments...
  

I really didn't want to purchase a lot of games for this treasure hunt, since you only had to complete 10 out of the 28 tasks to do in the drawing for the 100 games, and I was expecting those 10 to be complete free. In fact, I ended up with 20 free tasks, and 6 very easy ones. The first day R.U.S.E. was 33% off, but I decided not to buy it for two reasons: 1. I wasn't really interrested in this game, and 2. I price was still too high, and I could buy it retail cheaper and just activate it on Steam if I really wanted.

The second day Fallout: New Vegas showed up with no discount, and at first I was happy to see this, since I still didn't want to buy a lot for a perfect treasure hunt, and with two expensive games the first two days it looked like that would be the trend.

Then the next few days came, and I got a lot of free tasks - well, the Just Cause 2 one was a bit of a pain as already described. I was now hoping for a game like Modern Warfare 2 to show up, so I could just say 'Fuck it!', but no. All free tasks too.

It was now Saturday the 18th, and I was only missing those two tasks from the first two days, and my damn OCD kept nagging me about it. It was too late to buy the game retail and just activate them on Steam, and I didn't want to spent 100€ on them on Steam. Thus, I decided to look at some of the other digital stores where I came across Direct2Drive where they were also 100€ in their EU store, and cheaper in their UK store. And on top of that you could add a coupon to get an extra 25% off, which in the end meant that the games was about half-price. I thought I would get an error when I tried to use the UK, and I got one:

Your transaction will require review by a Customer Service Agent. Please contact Customer Service for further information. We apologize for this inconvenience.

I decided to contact support, and let their responce time decide whether I should go for the two tasks or not. At 00:18 I made my ticket, and at 00:30 they responded:

I sincerely apologize that you’ve been inconvenienced!
In order to protect your card from unauthorized internet purchases our system required a manual review by a human being in a random security sweep.  This is a precaution we take as an online, no card present merchant.
I have cleared your account and sincerely thank you for your patience! Please return to making purchases with us as you normally would. No purchase has completed from your previous attempt.
Feel free to contact me with any more questions you might have.
Regards,

That's just crazy! 12 minuts responce time in the weekend at night? Valve could really learn something here! Anywho, I bought the two games without any problems and activated them on Steam. I was not at home so via remote control I told my PC to start downloading them so they would be ready when I got home the next day. To make a long story short, the Fallout: New Vegas task took a few hours, and R.U.S.E. took around 30 seconds.

Click the image below to see the whole contest page:

And, naturally, the epic Hat of Undeniable Wealth and Respect:

RUSH review and 100%

RUSH is a good puzzle game that never gets too frustrating, and if you do feel a bit frustrated there's a simple hint system that either tells you if your signs are placed the wrong place or tells you where to place signs. However, the game is missing a cute creature like Toki Tori.

The 21 achievements were easily done, but I still had fun doing them. I should have added to the review that the frame rate tends to drop when you start the boxes in the larger levels. This, however, isn't that important since you aren't actively doing anything while this happens. You should still note that some of the loop achievements can be a bit buggy if the game lags.