Neopets 'Game Master Challenge 2010' Review: Good Games, Better Prizes

On November 22^nd, 2010, the latest edition of the 'Game Master Challenge' went live on Neopets.com, the popular virtual pet website from Nickelodeon. Offering seven days of challenges, it is always a difficult task to continue to reward top Neopets gamers without making the requirements so high that only the elite Neopets players can succeed. Fortunately, guide sites such as JellyNeo once again featured a handy quick guide of the challenges and their respective prizes.

Once again, AAA and Abigail-the mascots of the Game Master Challenges and 'Daily Dare' events-lined up a tall order of video game scores to beat on the free website. Each of the seven days had five individual categories, one of each being a "Send Score Challenge" in which players need only submit scores for a certain number of games on the site; in addition, the NC Mall, where site users spend real-life money to buy Neopets items, brought Lulu back with a pay-to-play set of challenges.

This year, each day featured a "Theme Challenge" category, which paired up 2-3 mystery challenges in video games on the site which vaguely linked together. Day 1 had "Down on the Farm," and required players to submit a score above 150 in 'Extreme Herder 2' and 225 in 'Gadgadsgame.' Each category rewarded victorious gamers with a Neopoint item-some of them wearable, the latest customization craze to sweep the website in the past few years. Additionally, on November 30^th a trophy was awarded to the user look-up page of every participant, provided they completed at least one video game challenge. This year, a "Community Challenge" prize was obtained after a global total of 45,000,000 users sent-in scores during the challenge.

Neopets players who chose to purchase a set of tickets and participate in the "NC Challenge" were rewarded with two NC items each day; as an added bonus, those who completed all seven days were surprised on the 30^th with a bonus super pack of items, featuring Lulu's clothing, wig and a Background. These limited edition NC items are usually highly tradable on the website, since the implementation of "Gift Boxes" and trades in recent years.

Ultimately, the assortment of "Qualify Games" and those featured in challenges were better than in previous years; I managed to complete all 35 tasks and receive the top achievement trophy, with little difficulty compared to previous Game Master Challenge years. The annual Daily Dare challenge is set to begin in March or April of 2011, if previous years are an indication; however, a spoiler on the Neopets website indicates that "Daily Dare will be here sooner than you know!" Time to prepare, fellow Neopets players!

Sources:
Neopets, "Games Master Challenge 2010"