Still mired in The Golden Compass *sigh*

Yes, folks, I'm afraid I'm still playing The Golden Compass.

I thought it would be just a matter of dumping a few more hours into it to get the full 1,000 points. Well, my review still stands -- it's a horrible game and the best you can expect on a single play through (without a guide, anyway) is 700 points. You can get 750 if you are willing to suffer through it a second time -- which I did on Saturday.

The thing is -- this game is a total tease. Right now I have 102 of the 108 symbol meanings needed to get the second biggest achievement in the game (Symbol Master -- 150 points.) to make things worse, I know the exact location of a token for one of the symbols (saw it, but I need to restart the level to get to it) and the particular levels to find 2 or 3 more -- just not how to find/trigger the meanings.

And that's the problem -- discovering a symbol meaning can happen from any of the following:

• Finishing a level the fist time
• Collecting symbol tokens in the level
• Finding symbols in the levels using Pan's Ermine Insight
• Completing secret objectives and then collecting the revealed token
• Completing a conversation
• Overhearing a conversation
• Witnessing an event

So, even if you know what particular symbol meaning you are looking for (programming yourself to remove a schitoma), you aren't guaranteed to find the meaning, since it may only be triggered by some event.

I'm going to give it one last go tonight targeting a few specific levels and then throw the sucka onto the "abandoned" pile.