Ian

Bean Dive pt.1 can be found HERE.

My plans to put some time into the more challenging first achievements prior to July 7th sadly didn’t come to fruition for whatever reason. See, I’m good at this procrastinating lark. However, having a better half who does shift work played into my hands as she worked Friday 8th until 2200 and all day on both Saturday & Sunday following, so some proper headway can be made on these badboys.

Due to my gambit of watching NFL Total Access on Sky Sports, I was successful in my plan of making a sly start to the Dive prior to turning in for the night. First up just after midnight on Thursday was DJ Hero. The purist in me wanted to just get the one achievement before moving on to the next. However the game had other ideas. I skipped the tutorial as is my wont, before diving into the first mix. Got the first achievement by getting an 8x multiplier but since I was on a roll saw out the mix. Then the game hit me with the bête noire of many score whores, a bloody 1 point achievement for finishing my first mix as well as the achievement I’d expected to get first for 5G. I could’ve carried on but for work in the morning so switched off. My own personal hell is an uneven gamerscore set to a Mick Hucknall soundtrack.

30 unstarted retail titles, some good, some bad, all mocking me

Along with breakfast, I made a start on two easy XBLA achievements, Sonic & Knuckles & Age of Booty both gave up a combined 15G with ease. I thought Feeding Frenzy would be another that’d yield quickly, but oh no. With that I went to work.

Eight or so torturous hours passed where all I could think about was which game I’d be tapping up next…

Continuing where I left off, Guitar Hero Metallica was slain with a simple ‘download a free song from GHTunes’ for 5G. I could’ve sung or played a song, but time was of the essence and I still had most of a pile of games to tackle.

Next up was Bayonetta and I can see why it polarises opinion, though I’m not sure how it garnered an Erse 10. Maybe the reviewer likes pain or has a thing for Sarah Palin. Two achievements popped this time (15G), though I could’ve quit to dashboard after just one. I figured my copybook was already blotted by DJ Hero so it didn’t matter anymore.

Revisting Feeding Frenzy garnered a quick 10G after about 10 minutes, easy. Another XBLA title, indie poster-child Limbo was up next. I went the wrong way and got some avatar tat as well as 5G for my trouble.

Following on we had a Peoww source of mirth, Shaun White’s Snowboarding (bLOL – Ed) was inserted in the disc tray. Horrible. One of our erstwhile forumites paid full price for this. He may have even been lead reviewer. Wow, what an incredible error. It takes everything that was great about Amped and ignores it. Horrible. One flung snowball later (15G) and I popped the disc tray with the disc still spinning. Horrible. It’ll take some going to surpass this game with another I’ll want to play even less. Did I say it was horrible? Our 2/10 review back in the mists of time may well have been a trifle generous.

Aqua: Naval Warfare was up next, nothing to do with those annoying Nordic pop types thankfully. More a water based twin-stick shooter. Finished the tutorial, 10G was mine.

Time to move on to MindJack. Overwhelmed by the sudden stench of citrus, I did everything I could to try to skip the interminable opening sequence and the crude control orientation, I was out to dashboard quicker than the game blotted my gamercard with 5G. Cheers for that Squiddy.

A much more promising game was up next, underpublicised racing game Superstars V8 Next Challenge from Italian developer Milestone, fondly remembered by me for their early PC game Screamer. Distributed over here by Codemasters, I’m not hugely surprised SSV8 didn’t get any hype given as it clashes with their own Grid series. Regretfully rather than sampling the gameplay, I went for an easy achievement in watching the credits. They went on for about 5 minutes, thankfully not as long as those for the interminable Guitar Hero II. 9G later (Ha! Take that DJ Hero!), it was time to move on.

Bargain-basement darts title PDC World Championship Darts gave Shaun White a run for its money in the enthusiasm stakes, thankfully my fears were proved wrong as I found myself quite enjoying the game. At least once I’d realised you could stop a throw if you’d Johnny B. Downsed it. Sure, a max looks like a grindy hell, but it’s not hateful like SWSB is. Won my first match against the 16th ranked player for a paltry 5G. The postman only won once though.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting bored of this blow-by-blow account of every damn achievement I got during the dive, so if it’s boring for me god knows how you must feel dear reader.

In conclusion, I decided not to go for Ninety Nine Nights, Blaverage Angels or Naruto: Rise of a Ninja ’cause I had taken on enough games as it it was. That combined with the fact I’d have had to grind to even get the first achievement in each. And in the case of NNN, there was probably a reason why I’d bought it cheap in 2008 and never played it.

Total games played rose from 215 pre-dive to 249 afterwards and my completion ratio dropped from 51.2% to 44%. Going to need a bit of work to tackle this, but at least it’ll stave off my compulsion to buy yet another game for a while.

Will I do it again next year? Possibly. At least now I have the ghosts I’ll address them. Bullet Witch can still fuck off though.

Ian

My name is Ian and I have a problem. Besides being an achievement whore, I’m prone to pick up the odd gaming bargain from time to time. Trouble is, I’ll often forget I’ve even bought it so it can languish in my stack of un-played games for a long time. Brütal Legend (£4), DJ Hero (£15 inc turntable) & several others languish there alongside cheap old sports games like PDC Darts (£1.99) & Trouser Snake’s PGA Tour 07 (98p).

For example, I’ve not started Mass Effect 2 (£5) ‘cause I wanted to mop up the first game before I went to the by-all-accounts superior sequel. Or Super Street Fighter IV (£25 so hardly a bargain) that I’ve not played due to the lame excuse of the 360 direction pad being atrocious. There may be some justification in that point, but not really a valid reason for not playing the damn game.

Then there are the games sent to me by a fellow PEOWW achievement whore, Rich, as he’s done with them and the gamerscore garnered might help me along a little. There’s Dark Void and Jericho to name but two. Microsoft don’t exactly help matters with their deals of the week either, so I have Limbo (600 space bucks) & DR: Case Rosie West (400MSP) on the list with some other XBLA games. To top things off I recently tapped up my friend who works for a certain large software company and I now have promos of Soul Calibur IV & H.A.W.X. 2 amongst others.

“All those games that we have kicking around unstarted are not counting against our completion percentage stats, so we are not particularly motivated to start them.
The idea of the [dive] is to start each and every one of those games, gaining at least one achievement. The shame of having our completion percentage collapse will no doubt shame many of us into rebuilding it as quickly as possible.”

All of which is a great excuse for me to finally address those games I keep putting off starting. This year’s Dive commences on July 7th  so apologies in advance for those of you on my TA friends list as there’s going to be a lot of activity from my direction on the day in question. 28 games so far in fact.

The plan of attack so far is to hop in and hop out right quick just getting an easy achievement and then moving to the next victimgame as efficiently as possible. Bearing in mind that for every Scene-It showering you with achievements like Poundland confetti at a chav wedding, there’s a Monster Madness (played for 5 hours, not one achievement, traded in for profit). Therefore I’ll start on the easier games first then tackling those that require a little more commitment.

The bastard of the bunch looks to be Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII purely ’cause it requires you to beat all 18 campaign missions just to get the first achievement. To fit this into the schedule, some groundwork is required or I’ll be playing this game all day on the 7th. Clearly the only solution is to play the first 17 missions beforehand leaving the final mission and first achievement for Bungie Day.

My grandpa was always on about the WWII, yes.

It’s TA ratio of one belies the chore involved as anyone who plays the game will get it with perseverance. I’m guessing it’s been deleted from a great many game histories since that option became available.

In complete contrast, DJ Hero is a polar opposite when it comes to getting that first achievement, almost rewarding you for starting the game.

10 PRINT "PEOWW IS THE GREATEST"

Saving all game acquisitions I’d got since deciding to do the Dive would be pure folly though so Portal 2 & Child Of Eden were given the proper respect they deserved, the former getting maxed with relative ease thanks to a great co-op partner. The latter is a different matter, no way was I waiting to play it.

My plan is to get home from work (early?) on the 7th and hit up as many games as possible that evening but if  I don’t manage to start them all, I won’t be too crushed. After all, some of the guys on TA who’re also doing it have 100+ games they’re diving with.

Finally, if you want to participate, sign up here!

See you on the flipside if I’ve not lost my mind or caused my 360 to meltdown due to the sheer lemon overload I’ve subjected it to.

Achievement Whore:  A Guide to True Achievements.

Rich

It’s been a while since I’ve written an Achievements Whore article. The reason is that since the last one, a site specialising in that kind of caper has come along and blown away all the competition. True Achievements is a rather clever site which pretty much encompasses every aspect of achievement hunting, making it my favourite one-stop shop for all things whorey.  The site works on a clever premise. Instead of worrying about the gamerscore value of each achievement, True Achievements works out a ratio between the number of people playing the game and the number of people who have that achievement. This gives a value with the easiest achievements resulting in a 1:1 ratio. That is to say that 100% of people who have the game, and have registered on True Achievements, have that achievement.

The ratio gives a multiplier which then is multiplied by the original gamerscore to give an adjusted score (in TA rather than GS if you will).  Having the original gamerscore in the calculation does skew things a little (achievements for Avatar are individually higher than achievements for Dead Rising) but with a little practice you’ll soon be mining enough information from the site to keep Naomi Campbell in whorish rocks for a lifetime.

99% of True Achievers have this achievement giving it a very low ratio. But at 302TA it scores higher than anything in CoD or Dead Rising.

Basic principles.

One unavoidably easy achievement is the Press Start achievement in The Simpsons.  You get this achievement for simply starting the game.  As True Achievements only start counting you as a player when you unlock your first achievement, this achievement has been nabbed by 100% of the people who on TA that have played it.  That gives a 1:1 ratio.  The achievement is worth 5GS which is multiplied by 1 (the TA multiplier) to give a score of 5TA.

One of the most difficult achievements out there is XXL on the game Fight Night Round 4.  This achievement is one of those ‘be the best in the world’ ones where you have to be the number one player online in ranked matches.  Out of 10,073 players on TA, only nine have this achievement giving it a ratio of 33.45 and a TA score of 2509 from an original 75GS.  Pretty frightening but not as frightening as EA being stupid enough to pit their horrendous online community against each other like that.  To put that all in perspective, that one achievement is worth more TA points than you’d get for maxing out EDF, Dead Rising or any of the Call of Duty games.

Getting this achievement involves being the very best in the world at GRAW. Being the very best in the world at GRAW involves being a terrifying twat.

Incurable whores will even check out TA before buying a game in order to ascertain the level of chore involved in maxing it (or in extreme cases, checking that the game’s achievements end in fives or zeroes), but there is much more that the site can do for you.  Here’s PEOWW’s guide to getting the most out of TA.

Getting your whore on.

If you’re looking for cheap achievements, a good place to start is by clicking on ‘Games’ and then ordering the list by ratio or TA score by clicking on ratio, click the ordering button again to order it low to high.  Scroll down to get past the games that have just one or two players on them (those are usually developers) until you get to the likes of Avatar and whatever filth Disney-Pixar have released recently.

Any game in the lower reaches of that list are perfect for crack-addict whoring with most of them being maxable (getting the initial 1000GS) within a day’s play.  Any game that tops out at under 1200TA is ripe for a super easy max.  Over that and you’ll be looking at a little effort for your max, usually a collectathon achievement or some rudimentary online bollocks.

Each game on TA includes a list of achievements, with most of them having a guide attached.  These are submitted by members of the site and vary from idiots telling you what the achievement description says to classic works of whorish art like THIS.  With a little effort, and a membership to a rental company, you can easily increase your gamerscore by 10,000GS

Getting stronger!

When games start hitting over 1300TA, you’re looking at some decent effort for your max.  Horrible tricks include making you play a game twice (Wolverine which tops out at 1300TA exactly), winning more online matches than you’d care to or some kind of relentless grind-o-achievement.

If you’re happy to be a filthy, crackwhore about it all, then stay away from these games or just rinse the easy achievements.  To find them, go into the game on TA and click the list button (see below) to list the achievements.  Then order them by ratio.  Anything under 2:1 is going to be a gimme.

The 'list' button (bottom right).

Those of you who like a little classiness on your gamercard will look to get games like this maxed.  Again, check the achievement guides on each achievement and also the comments within.  These often give extra hints.  Also check the voting on each achievement guide but be aware that some people vote negatively just for fun because, you know, they are cunts.

The 2K Club.

If you want to really put a shine on your TA profile, you need to get serious and nab a few 2000+TA maxes.  These always involve a mixture of skill and chore and are not easy to put down.  Anything from Marvel: Ultimate Alliance to Ninja Blade can be in here.  If you want to see what the main fly in the oitment is, order the achievements by ratio and look at the hardest ones.  Here you’ll find the ‘complete the game on Bastard mode’ or ‘kill everyone ever’ type achievements.  At this point you can expect the number of people who haven’t got the achievement to out-number those who have.

These are doable though.  It’ll take persistence and maybe a few long days of online boost-o-chore, but you’ll get there eventually and you’ll have a nice little something for your trophy cabinet – more on that later.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

From 2500TA upwards, you’re looking at something bleak blocking your max attempts.  From ranked match achievements that can’t be boosted to difficulty curves that resemble a typical Stoke pass, games with this kind of TA score often devolve into joyless experiences.  They are doable but they are going to require the sort of dedication that makes playing other games more or less impossible for a while.

A favourite here is what I like to call the ‘stupid fucking achievement where a developer thinks that their piece of shit game will actually be played by anyone online’ achievement. These are pretty common in the mid 2K range on TA.

Ain’t nothing up there but dead folk.

Eventually the TA scores get high enough to suggest that something has gone horribly wrong.  An unachievable achievement will score 0 on the site so that’s not the problem.  These really high scores either indicate that the achievement was once gettable (like old EA games that no longer have online servers) or that it’s just really, really fucking difficult.  If you pick up a game with a TA score over 3500, the odds are you won’t be maxing it.

The piss on your chips.

The ‘all achievements’ list on TA is only available if you register on the site (you should do that anyway) but it allows you to see all the hardest achievements.  These vary from getting thousands of online wins on Armoured Core For Answer, perfect runs through the harmless-sounding Hail To The Chimp, being the best player in the world at Fight Night Round 4, Kane and Lynch and GRAW and a host of secret achievements on Lost Planet 2 which sound like you need autistic super powers to get.

The hardest full-retail maxes on True Achievements. These games are effectively broken (I still want Deathsmiles to get a proper release in the UK though). Spiderman's high ratios are due to it being a new game. Expect it to drop super quickly.

Screw you, Clyde.

Aside from nabbing maxes and avoiding high TA titles, the site also is very useful if you’ve got any ghosts pestering you.  A ghost occurs when you pick up a game, for example Call of Duty 3, and realise you hate its fucking guts.  If you’re lucky, you won’t have scored any achievements and you can delete your game history but if you accidently snagged 10GS before binning that piece of shit, then you’ve got 10/1000 cluttering up your card.  That right there is a gamercard ghost.

TA can help you identify the easiest achievements (list them by clicking the button as shown previously and then click ‘ratio’ at the top of the list to order by ratio) and then you can polish these off in a few hours, turning a ten point ghost into three hundred points of respectability.  I’ve used this technique a few times to quickly exorcise a ghost but I’m not ever going back to Wartech or Lego Bionicle no matter how easy the achievements are because they are irredeemably awful.

The easiest achievements in Prototype. If I ever decide to de-ghost this fucking shoddy Crackdown rip-off, this will guide me.

He did not kill you because you weren’t armed.

One nifty feature of True Achievements is the Trophy Cabinet.  Here you can put in your hardest-earned achievements in order to show off like the whore you are.  But did you know that you can also include entire maxed games as well?  Go to your game list, click on the game you want to show off and there’s a button in the top-left to add the whole game to your trophy cabinet.

Whores will have their trinkets.

Statistical quirk-oh list.

Scouring the huge archive of data that makes up True Achievements reveals some fairly odd quirks and anomalies.  Here’s some of my favourites;

2134 number of people have 5 Day Survivor on Dead Rising but only 1856 have 7 Day Survivor.  That’s quite a few really pissed off people.

301 people fell just short of maxing out Avatar (despite there being absolutely no difficulty involved).

Despite being a fairly innocuous family horror title, Monster Madness has never been maxed thanks to a combination of fucking horrible achievements and some glitched ones.

Stallion83, the legendary reigning champ of True Achievements, has maxed out Blood In The Sand.  Twice.

The Wave 100 achievement on Robotron: 2084 is the hardest XBLA achievement out there. Only 28 people have ever achieved it. Start building bunkers before the rest of their species arrives.

So there you have it, everything you need to get your Paris Hilton on.  Get onto TA, register yourself and bookmark your profile page.  If you really like it then you might want to donate which will give you faster achievement scanners, meaning your conquests will appear on the site a lot faster.  Bonus.  Add to this nifty little automated announcements when you hit GS and TA milestones – as well as a running total of your maxed games –  and you can’t really go wrong.

Part Six: Crack addict whoring.  The easiest 1000s.

Rich

In my first Achievement Whore article I made a distinction between the various types of gamerscore whore from the high class types who only play good games and will actively chase down worthwhile achievements to the filthy sluts who’ll play anything and will do anything to pick up points (short of gamesaving which is a cunt’s trick, frankly – thankfully M$ are banning these sick fucks).  This article focuses on the latter type and the games you need to get a quick boost to your gamerscore.  Remember, there is no shame.  We’re all in it together.

Of course, if you’re going to pick up these kind of titles then you need to max them out.  Leaving King Kong sat on your profile with only 800 points is just bad form.  If you’re going to sell yourself you might as well get paid so we’ll be looking at the effort (or lack of) involved in getting a sweet 1000 out of these games.  Invariably this will mean a collect-a-thon achievement or a small difficulty spike in some cases but this guide should let you know what you’re letting yourself in for when you first commit these titles to your gamercard.

Of course, the problem with an article like this is the inevitable whining of cunts who will proudly proclaim that they ‘don’t see the point of playing rubbish games for achievements’.  Well, I don’t see the point of reading things I’m not interested in and then commenting on it.  So with that out of the way let’s get ourselves some gaming AIDS.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

I don’t know what an Airbender is.  I’m not sure I want to know.  It probably involves bumming.  Famously, Avatar is a five minute max-out.  Bash the ‘B’ button enough times to get a fifty hit combo and you’ll be a thousand points better off.  For those of you who want to feel clean afterwards, you could always try actually beating the game.  But fuck that.  It’s a lemon.

In whoring terms, this game will give you chlamydia.  It’ll sit there on your card and you’ve got to live with that.  But remember that shameless whoring is just that, shameless.  It’s these cunts who say ‘I got 30,000GS without playing Avatar’ that you have to watch out for.  Check their cards, there’ll be some of these other games on there.  And then check their PCs and get ready to phone the police.

Hardest achievement: ‘One With Combat’.  Achieve a hit counter of fifty.  The other achievements are for ten, twenty, thirty and forty.  So this is only a fraction harder and you’ll get the others on the way to this achievement.  It’ll take you longer to load up the game than it will to get this achievement.

Time: 5 minutes

Effort: minimal.

NBA 2K6

This is one of those basketball games that they insist on re-releasing every year with a minor update to the stats and gameplay.  The game has five achievements which are easily gotten within one match (if you set the time to maximum).  All these old sports games have sliders in there for all the stats.  The trick is, maximum stats for your team, minimum for theirs.

You’ll need to score 140 points and then concentrate on blocking your opponents to get some defense stats happening.  The achievements unlock at the end of the game which means you’ll get a nice ’5 achievements for 1000GS’ message pop up.

Hardest achievement: ‘Get A Triple-Double’.  A double is a stat (three pointers, blocks, steals whatever) that has be performed ten times (ie – double figures) in a match.  The triple refers to the fact that you have to get three of those.  So ten blocks, ten steals, ten three points (with one player) would unlock it.  Or you could switch one of those for rebounds or steals.  Three pointers, assists and steals is the easiest combination.  Look, I know nothing about basketball and I got this first attempt.  Nice and easy.

Time: 48 minutes (4 x 12 minute quarters)

Effort: small.

TMNT

This ridiculously easy beat ‘em up/platforming cross-over isn’t a bad game at all.  You can’t really die whilst playing it so the achievements should come to you over just a few hours play.  A much better game than most efforts aimed at kids.  The final boss battle is easy but it doesn’t exactly signpost what you’re meant to do.  So watch out for that.  The achievements threaten a collect-a-thon with a ‘collect your first coin’ achievement but thankfully the devs decided that ‘hey if you can find one, you can probably find them all’ and left it at that.  Sweet.

Hardest achievement: ‘Clean Sweep’.  To get this achievement you need to complete a level without taking any damage (including falling off platforms, an ever-present danger thanks to the shonky camera).  It’s not tricky at all though and you might as well repeat level one until you get it.

Time: 5-10 hours.

Effort: some skill required at points but little effort and its an enjoyable game.

Cars: Mater-national

Shitly-titled racing game aimed at kids and gamerscore whores alike.  Arguably a bit too tricky for kids to max out (the ‘Tractor Tipping’ stealth sections are a marginal prick and the rhythm action sequences can get a bit manic) but at least the races are piss-easy (especially if you put in the cheats for infinite boost and maximum acceleration).  The mandatory collect-a-thon achievements aren’t that bad either.  The game itself isn’t up to much and so the time spent playing it might feel like a chore.  This is the follow-up to the equally easy/dismal ‘Cars’ which is made slightly more choreish because of a larger collect-a-thon achievement.

Hardest achievement: the ‘Frank Slash’ and ‘Ghost Light’ achievements are based on a stealth minigame and one that reverses your left/right controls (turn pad upside-down if this gives you too much trouble).  These aren’t particularly hard but might stall you for a few extra minutes.  The last tractor tipping level (for the ‘Frank Slash’ achievement) has a tricky part at the end where there are a bunch of lights that you have to go through, just try to get to it with your stealth maxed out and prepare to take some stealth damage on that part but be quick and you’ll get through.

Time: 10 hours.

Effort: practically none for the main game, a little skill required for the mini-games.  Fairly effortless collect-a-thon achievements.

Surf’s Up

Surf’s Up is apparently another one of these animated film things that so enthralls children and the educationally sub-normal.  The game focuses mainly on the surfing which can be though of as a stripped down, on-rails version of well… any extreme sports game you can think of.  The usual jumps, tricks and grinds all apply here.  It’s a very easy game to complete but the levels will require multiple playthroughs so that you can collect all the idol trophies.  An additional ‘leaf sliding’ minigame sees you sliding down a hill in a race against time.  These bits can be frustrating but overall it’s still a very easy max-out.

Hardest achievement: ‘Slide Survivor 3′.  The leaf-slide sections are a race against time and play like a regular racing game, except you can’t really stop (unless you crash).  There is some room for error on the third one but not much.  You’re going to have to learn the route through repetition but don’t be afraid to use the brakes.  Rather that than fall off of one of the narrow sections.

Time: 10 hours.

Effort: Some tricky sections and you’ll need to replay each level a few times to find all the collectibles.

CSI: Hard Evidence

The game of the series that never seems to stop being on telly.  The game gives you five murder cases to solve, with each one giving you 200GS.  Solving the cases involves looking for clues, analysing items in the lab, questioning suspects and all that other science shite that the show bangs on about all the time.  It’s a six hour max-out but you’ll have minimal fun doing.  Of course, you’ll want to follow a guide (otherwise it’ll take five times as long to beat) which will utterly kill the gameplay for you.  If you’re going to play this one, prepare to be demoralised.

Hardest achievement: ‘The Peacemaker’.  All the cases are easy enough if you follow a walkthrough.  This is the last case though and it does involve trying to find bullet holes in the crime scene.  That isn’t particularly hard but it’ll be a fucker if you’re in standard def as the holes are tiny and the graphics are quite horrendous.

Time: 6 hours.

Effort: Minimal skill required but the game will test your sanity and will to live.

Open Season

Another animated film tie-in.  Open Season is a roaming platformer/adventure game that has you playing as a bear or some kind of deer.  The gameplay is standard stuff.  You run about a bit, jump on things, avoid hazards, scare hunters by roaring at them and throw skunks into buildings to flush enemies out.  It’s as charmless a game as I can remember unfortunately and is dragged out to a ridiculous 28 levels.  The achievements are based on completing the levels perfectly.  That means picking up all the collectables (usually 5-10 per level), scaring all the hunters and completing all the objectives.  There are only really two tricky levels (one where you are a trapped in a giant rolling snowball and a mine cart section) but the game is still very easy and at least the collect-a-thon stuff is broken down into each level.

Hardest achievement: ‘Perfect Snow Blitz!’.  Whilst this level is piss easy to complete, getting the achievement for perfecting it is harder than you’d expect and is the main sticking point for most people who maxed this game out.  It’s not that hard but the game makes some curious design choices that make it harder than it should be.  You need to obtain nearly all the available style points in the level and you get most of those by taking the harder route through the level.  However, as you are rolling quite quickly this will test your skill a bit and, oddly, the point locations aren’t marked out.

To get the achievement you’ll need to crash three times in each section so that you’ll go back to the checkpoints.  This will let you mop up any points you missed in that section.  You can miss a few points and still get the achievement but I recommend milking all the points you can incase you accidentally pass a checkpoint too soon.

Time: 10-12 hours.

Effort: A couple of trickier sections but overall it’s an easy, if tedious, max out.

Fuzion Frenzy 2

This follow-up to Bill Gates’ favourite Xbox game (apparently) is a bit of a lemon.  The mini-games vary from poor to quite good but the inclusion of cards that either steal or multiply points means that most tournaments are settled by luck rather than skills.  It’s a pretty quick game to max out but you’ll need a boosting buddy to get the multiplayer achievements as you’ll not find anyone online playing this game anymore.

Hardest achievement: ‘Fuzion Frenzy Master’.  To get this you just need to play all of the mini-games.  You don’t need to win them and you can do it versus the AI.  There aren’t that many either but some are unlocked as you go through all the other achievements so this is the last achievement you’ll get.  Not hard at all.

Time: Can be done in a day.

Effort: Easy but you can be undone by the AI getting lucky with their cards.  Requires a boosting partner for online achievements.

King Kong

King Kong was one of the first wave of Xbox 360 games and was also the easiest of them to max out.  Achievements are given for completing each level of the game and there are no collectables to worry yourself about or multiplayer matches to win.  Unfortunately, the game is a horrible chore to play and all the graphics seem to be the same shade of mud brown so expect to squint your way through large portions of the game.  The bits where you play as Kong are a bit better than the bits where you play as Jack Black but it’s still a bleak experience.

Hardest achievement: ‘Completed game’.  The achievements in this game are unavoidably unlocked as you progress through the story and this one unlocks at the end.  As long as you can handle playing a fucking lemon, you’ll get this quite easily.

Time: 8-10 hours.

Effort: a little harder than people would have you believe, especially as the game is a joyless experience, but still pretty easy.

Lost: Via Domus

I never bothered with the TV show so I can’t tell you if this is a good game for fans of it but it’s a very simple max out.  The majority of the achievements unlock as you beat each level but it does include some other ones that you have to go out of your way for.  These usually involve taking a photograph of something and are easily missed but the game will allow you to replay any chapter so it’s not really a problem.

If you use a walkthrough (like this one), you should be able to pick up the full 1000 within 6-7 hours.  The game is a bit of a lemon though and the jungle sections can be a chore but the game doesn’t really offer any challenge and the achievements are nicely compartmentalised in each chapter for orderly whoring.

Hardest achievement: ‘Dharma Ride’.  To get this achievement all you need to do is take a photo of a van.  Unfortunately the van is hidden in a jungle and that jungle is quite tricky to navigate (it’s not always that clear where you can and can’t go) and is patrolled by a cloud of deadly black smoke.  It should only take you a few attempts to get the achievement but this was the only one that gave me any kind of problem.

Time: 6 hours.

Effort: very easy apart from one section (the return leg past the black smoke when you aren’t allowed to run) but even that is still only going to take a couple of attempts.

So, there we have it.  A very easy ten thousand gamerscore from a bunch of games that you should have no problem getting on rental whilst everyone else is silly enough to request CoD5 or Gears 2.  Remember though, this kind of dark arts whoring is indelible.  You make your bed and then you’ve got to lie in it.

So make sure that you max these out once they hit your gamercard or else you’ll be the king of fail (and you do not want to be left with 850 out of 1000 on Cars – bleoww) and remember to, I don’t know, max out something credible now and again.  You don’t want to be one of these guys on xbox360achievements who has like three games maxed and that includes Avatar because they truly are the Rik Wallers of gaming.

Part Six: The Grind.

Rich

It’s been a while my whoreish chums.  The last article I did for the Achievements Whore series was about the mighty Two Worlds back last April.  I’ve maxed out plenty of games since then but none of them have warranted a full feature.  Either that or I’ve been too busy whoring more games.

My next one will be about FIFA ’09 when I finally get round to finishing the game, which is taking a while.  This is because there are some frankly bollocks achievements in that game.  Not hard as such, just shit and whilst I really don’t want to open the whole ‘achievements are good/gash’ can of worms I think it’s time for a feature about the bad side of achievements.  The horrible ones.  The ones that are either too demanding, too boring or just too badly conceived.

Here’s my run-down of the worst ones I’ve encountered and, yes, it starts with GRAW.  I’ve included achieveability scores for us mere mortals.  It’s just a rough guide but feel free to increase them if you’ve one-credited Ikaruga recently/are unemployed/are a robot from the future.  Also in there is a chore score calculated using a simple formula, Time x Effort/Volume of Tears.

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, or GRAW to its friends, is a phenomenal game.  A tense and tactical shooter with an array of brilliant multiplayer options.  If you hate the run and gun of Call of Duty or Halo, this is the game for you.  This game got so much right, especially if you played as a sniper.  One hit, one kill.  None of this emptying a clip into a fella and watching him blow your face off with a shotgun nonsense.

Unfortunately, the game made several errors with its achievements.

Firstly it is full of 8 and 12 point achievements.  As any good whore knows, achievements should end in fives or, preferably, zeroes.  Then there are the annoying but gettable achievements such as ‘Master of Ceremonies’ (host 1000 matches – what?!) and ‘Commited’ (play for eight hours straight in multiplayer – why?).

However, the real kicks to the testicles are the Champion achievements.  World Champion (climb to the top of the world leaderboard), Solo Champion (the solo leaderboard) and Team Champion (the team leaderboard).  Basically they are saying you have to be the best in the world at the game in three ways.

Unforgivable and unachievable.  Thankfully, Ubisoft got their shit together for GRAW2 and did away with the need for ranked matches at all and also tracked every achievement in the game with a nice in-game system that told you your progress towards things like getting ten solo wins or 500 kills.

Achievability: 0

Chore: 10

That game they gave away with the Halo 3 beta?  That’s rubbish right?  Shut up, you’re wrong.  Crackdown is a sandbox masterpiece.  Full of co-op joy, insane driving and cartoony ultra-violence, Crackdown was as close to being Neo as you’ll ever get (without the splinters from Keanu’s acting).  From leaping onto buildings to throwing cars at people’s faces this game offered up the sort of action and fun that other games can only dream of (I’m looking at you GTA4).

Overall the achievements weren’t too awful on this game.  Indeed a lot of them were fun.  There were a bunch added with some premium DLC (800M$P) but the extra content was more or less worthwhile.

However, the achievements that has caused more wailing and gnashing of teeth than any others in the game are ‘Orb Hunter’ (collect 300 hidden orbs) and ‘Free Runner’ (collect 500 agility orbs).  Basically, if you want this achievement you need to use a map and tick them off as you go along otherwise you’ll be in 499/500 hell.  And you will never be free.

Quite why Realtime Worlds thought that collecting 800 of anything was a good idea remains a mystery but we’ll forgive them, just, because Crackdown is just so much fun.

Achievability: 6 (with map and infinite patience), 3 (without).

Chore: 10 (with map), 5 (if you find them all by just playing, until you get to 499 at which point: 10)

The war between EA’s FIFA and Konami’s Pro Evo has been fought for over a decade now.  Konami had the upper hand for so long but got complacent and eventually 2008 was the year that EA came out on top.  First with Euro 2008 and then with the masterful FIFA ’09 which is as complete a football game as you can imagine with a myriad of modes and features that will hopefully lead to the resignation and suicide of Seabass Tanaka (the creator of Pro Evo).

However, if there is one area in which FIFA ’09 lets itself down, it’s in the achievements.  Most of them are okay, if a bit choreish (play an entire season of Manager mode without simulating a match) and some of them just require a bit of luck (score with a diving header for example).  But the real bastards in the list are The Peterson (play for 50 hours) and ‘Duo-Hedgidecimal’ (play a 10 v 10 club match).

Now you’d think that a game that requires you to play a 10 v 10 club match would allow you to challenge another team directly or at least filter your opponents by the number of human players they have.  NO!  Instead you get matched up with team after team of pointless pricks in their little three man clubs.  Eventually, after much persistance, you MIGHT get to face off against the other team that you are trying to get the achievement with.

At this point everyone has to pick a position on the field or the game doesn’t give you the achievement.  Helpfully, EA have left the default option as ‘ANY’.  If one person leaves it on any, no-one gets the achievement.  EA are cunts.  Then you’ve got to hope that EA’s woeful servers actually let all ten of you into the match.  HNGGGGG!  Also, at some point you’ll get ‘search failed’ and everyone in your team will have to turn of their consoles.  If at this point you still have twenty players with enough patience, you MIGHT get the achievement.  An achievement which can fuck off.

Achievability: 3 (it just requires that you find nineteen people on Live who aren’t twats).

Chore: 3 (takes up to an hour to nail, a few hours planning)

Hopes were high when Midway announced their MK vs DC Comics crossover title.  Scorpion vs Batman?  Sign me up for that action.  Unfortunately, the game was dogshit because, as any good fight fan knows, MORTAL KOMBAT IS SHIT IN 3D!  The game was let down by unbalanced characters, rubbish game modes and some of the worst controls ever.

The achievements were a disgrace also.  The gettable ones often didn’t unlock (to this day I have an achievement for beating level five but not the one for beating level three) and the rest were awfully thought out.  The Kombo Challenge achievements (complete all the combos for each character) were horrendous due to the terrible controls and Nazi timing of the movements but the absolute shit in the pie was ‘Online Champion’ which required you to win 25 ranked matches…. IN A FUCKING ROW.

So somehow you are meant to win 25 matches in a game where everyone picks the same cheap characters and you are liable to lag out at a moment’s notice.  Also if someone quits on you you lose your streak (which is guaranteed once in a while thanks to the shower of utter cunts that make up the MK community).  I’m not kidding.  I’m fucking glad Midway are going under.  I hope their dev team dies in front of their children.

As v_thorne’s guide on Xbox360Achievements.org says;

“Just like it says… win 25 Ranked Matches in a row. Again, disconnects do not count towards this achievement and will also cancel your streak. Example: You’ve won 20 matches and on match 21 the opponent disconnects, you have to restart from 1. Your skill level will determine how easy or hard this achievement will be, there’s not really much to do to cheat around it.“.

Chore?  Paint the fucking fence, Daniel-san.

Achievability: 0/10

Chore: 10/10

Ubisoft’s free-running murder simulator may have provoked a lot of negative reviews, and some suspiciously glowing ones (kerching!), but I somehow persisted with two entire playthroughs and then a third run for the collection achievements.

Most of the achievements in this game are easily gotten with a little planning and forethought (also a look at MY GUIDE might help you out) but the worst achievements relate to collecting all the flags.  There are 400 of them in total and they are mostly black and often hidden.  Sometimes you can barely see them even if you are looking in their direction.

Much like Crackdown this is another map/checklist job and so isn’t too difficult but be warned, it takes HOURS to do.  Almost twenty infact.  *SOB*!  One of the choriest achievements on this list.

Achievability: 8/10 (needs map)

Chore: 9/10 (needs tablets)

Many old-school gamers were pretty excited when Street Fighter 2 came to Xbox Live Arcade.  Until they played it.

For those of us raised on the SNES version the increased speed, horrific d-pad controls and community of cheap and nasty wankers made this game a bit of a lemon.  The worst thing by a mile though was the difficulty.  Ranging from zero to seven stars, you’d think there would be a difficulty setting for everyone.

Wrong.  Zero stars may as well be called ‘fucking horrible’.  It may be the easiest setting but the AI will still bounce you off the walls until you vow to never play the game again.  So it’s pretty odd that the game has achievements for winning the tournament without losing a match and, even worse, one for not losing a round!  Suffice to say that Street Fighter 2 can literally fuck off.

Achievability: 1/10

Chore: 8/10 (takes minutes to do, months to learn how to do)

Part Five: Two Worlds.  One thousand points.

Rich

With it’s fifty percent Metacritic average you’d be forgiven for thinking that Two Worlds is more lazy 360 shovelware. You would, however, be wrong. It’s ace. Sure, it appears to have been programmed on a yellow bus at times but it’s a fun action-RPG of the same ilk as Oblivion (although, rather unwisely, the game was described as an Oblivion-killer which it really isn’t).

But I come not to review Two Worlds but to whore it.

Once you get past the technical problems (relatively frequent crashes, a sketchy framerate and more pop-ups than Kerry Katona’s bookshelf) this game is really good fun. Sure, it suffers in comparison to Oblivion but, for my money, it handles levelling up and equipment in a far more intuitive way than Oblivion and, most importantly, has vastly better achievements. Well… apart from one of them.

Remember in my first AW article, I categorised the types of achievement whore? Well Oblivion is a good benchmark. Do you, like me, play it through on the default difficulty for the best part of one hundred and twenty hours or, like some gaming version of Divine Brown, drop the slider right down and piss away the greatest game on the 360? Either way, the achievements are the same. Play through the guilds and the main quest until you get your 1000 (or 1250 if you’ve got Shivering Isles).

Two Worlds is far more interesting to whore out. It throws a few achievements at you for going through the main quest (including 370 points for beating the game) but most of the achievements are for doing things in the game like killing a dragon, riding a horse, levelling up and making certain items.

I played Two Worlds in the right spirit by exploring the world and completing as many sidequests as I could find and it only took me twenty or so hours to reach the end of the game. 920 points for twenty hours, a respectable return.

You never could beat me, Egg Shen.

Of course, you can’t leave it on 920 can you? No. That’d be wrong. Easily as wrong as hiding your brother’s stepchild under your bed. To get the full 1000 you need to grind. You need to grind hard and long.

The story mode on this game really takes care of itself and, for the most part, the other achievements are relatively simple to work out (Rode a Horse – Rode a horse at least once, can you guess how this works?).

I’m not going to describe them all but here’s my guide to the less obvious, or more difficult, ones.

Thirty-seven hours later.

Achievement Guide

Created a Bomb – to do this just mix together any temporary effect items without a health or mana potion in your alchemy cauldron. That should make a trap or a bomb. Either are good.

Created a Weapon Enhancer – more alchemy gubbins. This time just mix a couple of permanents without a potion and you’ll get a shiny gem.

Cast a Chamber 5 spell – Not too tricky to work out except that it requires level 15 of a magic type which is odd as the little dial thing only shows up to ten levels and that’s usually the maximum. Most fifth chamber spells are rubbish from what I can tell. Personally, I’d do this with necromancy anyway as the third chamber ‘Poison Cloud’ spell is absolutely devastating and is all you need along with a well-stacked heal spell.

Defeated the Grand Enemy - Nothing too tricky about this, but make sure you save before the fight as once it’s over, it’s game over! Ridiculous.

Learned All Skills – Here’s a handy guide but, and this is important, make sure you do this as quickly as possible as the cost of training goes up when you level. A level one character can buy training for 100 gold, a level ten or more will need to part with 10000.

To raise cash fast I recommend learning lockpicking and levelling that up. Picking open cupboards and chests is a great way to earn a lot of cash. Don’t waste money on spells, gems and potions. You’ll pick these up along the way.

You’ll need to level up your combat abilities but remember that a few permanent items mixed with a health potion will permanently boost your stats. That is the best way to get like Chuck Liddell.

So, that’s all the easy stuff out of the way… now welcome to the hellish part.

Sob!

Visit All Locations – Visit all locations in the game. – 50 gamerpoints

Bloody hell, Lord. This achievement is pain. You know when you’re running around and you find those mana/health shrines, grom camps and towns? They all count. Yes, weep yourself silly.

The main game took me twenty hours, this took another seventeen. It’s not entirely unenjoyable as the (one) world of Two Worlds is quite a lovely place to explore but the last ten or so hours make you weep.

Also, do not attempt this without taking the game online. There is a critical patch needed to make this achievement work. I’d also recommend you play through the entire game first so that you’ll have found the majority of the locations naturally (make sure you play off of a saved game just before you beat the boss, you can beat him to get the achievement for doing so, but then revert to the previous save to do the locations).

So, where the hell do you begin? Well, whilst playing the main game you will have visited large sections of the map. The trick now is to eat your way through those black bits of the map, Pacman-style.

First thing to do is to go to this site and view the teleporters map. Ironically, teleporters do not count as locations but this is the place to start. Having access to every teleporter will make the rest of this achievement a lot easier.

The good thing is you’ll end up in locations that you never thought you’d get to. Up in the mountains usually. But it’s still nice.

Okay, once you’ve got the teleporters out of the way you should go for the underground locations. There are sometimes shrines hidden deep in the caves, so make sure you explore them thoroughly. Thankfully they are all quite small and by this point in the game you’ll be able to outrun all the enemies to save time.

With that out of the way (it unlocks its own achievement) you can either go for the graveyards (for another achievement) or start the main grind of finding everything else.

For this you’ll need this map, preferably on a laptop or a good quality colour print. Start in the top left (A1) and work to I1, then I2 and back to A2. Just zig-zag through.

Handy tips:

If you die you’ll respawn at the nearest shrine. This can save you a lot of time in the mountains. Simply jump off a few high rocks and resurrect at the shrine.

Equip some armour that you can’t swim in. This makes it easier to do the respawn trick in coastal locations.

Stop trying to level up. By this point your whole focus should be getting the locations. Levelling up will make you even harder to kill.

There is a location in I8 on the above map. Buggered if I could find it, didn’t stop me getting the achievement.

Horses, whilst being horrific to control, are very handy for this achievement. Also, if you didn’t know already, sheath your weapons to run faster.

There you go. Not a tough achievement but quite arduous. Mayhap a good grind for thine whores. Good luck! Aye.

Part Four: 11 out of 12 is bad. Putting the final touches on those XBLA games.

Whilst I’m totally an achievements whore, I’m not actually that fussed about individual achievements. There are still plenty of achievements in my games collection that I could hunt down given a spare ten minutes here or there but for me it’s all about the maxing out. From Dead Rising and Call of Duty 2 to Avatar and TMNT, I just want to see that ’1000 out of 1000′ message on my gamercard.

XBLA games only give 200 points (250 if you’re being assaulted by DLC) and they ease you in with a few gimme achievements but more often than not there is a pain in the arse achievement. A god damned frustrating bastard that keeps your achievements at 11 out of 12. These are the worst. Like seeing 960 out of 1000 on Dead Rising cos you can’t be bothered getting the two survivor achievements. You can leave it for a while but it’s an itch that I personally have to scratch. Even if it costs me a little sanity.

Here are some of the more annoying ones with tips on how to get those elusive twelth achievements.

Pacman CE Let’s start easy. The bulk of the achievements on this game involve surviving the various modes the game has to offer. This is easy enough if you just stay by an exit and lure the ghosts over. When they get near, go to through the exit and they’ll turn around and head towards you again rather than taking the exit. The pain in the arse, although it’s not that bad, is; 400,000 Points: Score 400,000 points! This isn’t the hardest ever but it’s still a pain. Extra Mode 2 seems to be the best mode for high-scoring so go there and then concentrate on comboing the ghosts at the beginning (aim to get 3200 for each one). When the combo runs out you need to concentrate on getting the items. Aside from repopulating the board with dots they also score big points. Grab the ghosts when you can but concentrate on survival (the longer you live, the more you’ll score for regular dots) and items and you’ll eventually break 400k.

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo Oh jesus… Chain of Jewels: You performed a 7 chain combo in X or X’ Arcade Mode (Normal or harder). This is the sort of achievement that just doesn’t happen by accident. Your best bet on this one is to start an X mode match and pick a complete bastard character like Akuma. You won’t be doing much damage to your opponent so you want any attacks to be quite hard to deal with. The easiest way to get this achievement is to stack seven crash gems in the 2nd column on the left (with whatever they are attached to being in the 1st column). Keep column three clear and use four-six as your regular dumping ground. Try to only use three colours of crash gems in case a smartbomb diamond appears (let that hit the colour you’re not using or, even better, the ground on column three. Once you’ve got your seven crash gems stacked put corresponding gems above them in reverse order. Once you’ve done that start CAREFULLY filling up the third column until you can safely trigger the seventh crash gem. This achievement is unbelievably frustrating as you’ll often get a smartbomb diamond at just the wrong time or you’ll accidentally trigger crash in column two but stick with it because it is doable.

Assault Heroes One of the best games on XBLA without a doubt but it does have a handful of tricky achievements. The one that tends to get most people is; Lair Slayer: Complete all underground zones. The difficulty with this achievement is that it requires you to clear all four of the underground areas in one playthrough. If you die in a lair, you get ejected so you need to be ultra-careful. Your best bet for this achievement is to set the game to ‘easy’ and find a good co-op buddy. In lairs three and four you’ll be attacked from all sides especially in the big rooms, so it’s good to have the extra gun and three more nukes. If one of you covers up and left, the other covers right and down. Move slowly, let your health regenerate if necessary and proceed with maximum caution. Agree that one of you will be on grenade duty, the other one nukes. When you reach a big room you will be attacked from all sides. Grenade guy needs to spin around launch off about a third of his stash (you’ll pick up plenty on the way) and nuke guy needs to use his nukes sparingly. They don’t stop bullets so be aware of that when you turn half of the screen into a blinding flash. Save the extra nukes for the end of level bosses (outside of the lair), to get to the later lairs you still have to beat the levels remember! Level four’s lair is the worst, especially when the blue electric disc things show up. Nuke them nice and quick and watch out for sneaky enemies approaching from behind. You still need to finish level four to get the achievement and, remember, the last boss (a weird train thing) can deal out a fair amount of damage so save a few grenades if possible.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Arguably, your last achievement may actually be to win 100 ranked matches. I got this achievement in November 2006 when there were still people playing it. If people are still playing it they’ll probably be obsessive pros or boosters. You’ll probably run into Smoke a lot. His teleport uppercut move is the cheapest thing in the game and regularly gets abused by bastards. My tip is to learn Sonya’s leg-grab. It makes Smoke players cry (and then they leave you bad feedback). The trickiest achievement though is; Beat the Noob!: Beat the hidden character, Noob Saibot while playing the CPU. To meet this shadowy, but stupidly named (Tobias and Boon were the main devs on this game), ninja start an 8-player tournament using two controllers. Go through all the matches until you win (which you will because there will be no AI matches). Pick the ’3′ icon as your prize and you’ll get to fight Noob. Noob is a horribly fast opponent and will destroy you easily unless you exploit this technique. Let Noob approach and then start hammering away at your low punch button. He’ll walk into it repeatedly, allowing you to double flawless him. Hilarious.

Track and Field Perfection: Qualify on every individual attempt in the first 6 events. Troublesome but not overly difficult. The main difficulty here comes from the hammer event. If you get near 45 degrees after six rotations you just about clear the qualifying distance but it’s less risky than going for a ninety metre throw.

Contra Bulletproof: Complete the game in Arcade mode using only 1 credit. Now we’re talking. On first impressions this will seem nearly impossible. On first impressions of the final level it will seem actually impossible. On first impressions of the final boss this will look like it’s taking the piss completely. I actually assumed this was one of those Robotron wave 100 type deals until I saw a couple of guys on my list beat the achievement. Bah! It is doable. For the most part this game is a test of memory with a couple of nasty spikes in difficulty. Level 1 is easy enough. Take the spray gun from the hovering thing at the beginning of the level and hold onto it. When you reach the end of the level take out the soldier on top of the wall first, then the gun emplacements and finally the door. Level 2 is super easy. Just don’t shoot when you see an orange jumping guy. If you catch him he’ll probably drop a weapon you don’t want. Duck away from the bullets and shoot the small circular things on the wall. You’ll emerge at a boss. Shoot the gun emplacements and avoid the bullets by standing slightly left or right of the guns. The spray gun will make this bit a doddle. Level 3 has a spike. Shoot the first two guys, jump up once and then head to the right. Jump again and a gun turret will emerge. Jump and shoot down to kill it. By doing this you’ll have avoided a grenadier over on the left. Make your way up the left side. When you can see the two gun emplacements at the top, clear out any guys and then jump up. Shoot the guns as soon as possible and stand so you are level with the edge of the central bank of guns (you’ll avoid the shots). Destroy everything from here. Level 4 is like level 2. Use the same tactics until the boss. You need the spray gun for here. He’s a prick. You can only do damage when the four targets at the top focus into two. Shoot these and watch out for the semi-homing bullets (these can be shot). Level 5 is horror. You can only really stand to have lost one life by now. Take out the first few guys and then shoot up and to the right whilst running. A dropship will appear and you’ll already be shooting it. Hammer that fire button. The next spike is at the ‘rugby’ guy. He’s a big armoured bastard who flings rugby ball things at you. Jump to avoid these but keep shooting him. The quicker he’s dead, the better. Things are straightforward until the next ‘rugby’ guy. He’s equally a prick. Carry on until you start getting these weird machine claw things going up and down. A power-up will appear. Shoot and get it. It’s temporary invincibility. Run! Get to the sub-boss (a giant head) and hammer it before the shield runs out. After this you’ll hopefully have a couple of lives under your belt. Proceed slowly, take out the weird face things and the stars they shoot. Eventually you’ll reach the final boss (a big heart thing). Ignore everything and just shoot it a lot. You’ll die but keep going. Watch it explode and then put your thumbs in a bowl of cold water.

Scramble Perfection: Complete the entire game without losing any lives. Another pig of an achievement which takes about five minutes to do but weeks of practise to achieve. In this you have to complete a run of the five levels without dying once. Oh. Level 1 is nice and simple. The patterns can be learned and you’re never really in any danger. Level 2 is also pretty easy. Stay at the highest height that the aliens reach and then just hammer the fire button. Level 3 is a bit trickier. Stay low, below the level of the fireballs. When a mound turns up, fly over it and get back down as quick as possible. Stay slightly forward so you can dodge back and forwards. Level 4 is quite random and horrible. I’ve not got a surefire method for beating it but just keep bombing. I tend to do well if I stay back and to the left and just drop bombs when I’m near the rockets. Use your bullets as well. Level 5 is horror because of the 360′s slightly lax controls. Stay as far forward as possible. If you move up or down and backwards at the same time you’ll move at the same speed as the scrolling. So always do this. There is a small tricky section that especially relies on those diagonals. Remember, stick with the diagonals. Don’t try and judge it any other way. The Base. Stay forward. Swoop low as soon you get past the tower. Take out the target with bullets but throw bombs as well. Get up!

Worms Challenges: Complete all 20 single player challenges This achievement causes much anguish due to the AI’s unerring ability to drop a grenade on your eye in high-wind conditions. Your best bet here is to use guerrilla tactics and fight dirty. The last three levels are horrendous so what you need to do is find some high ground that you can dig into. Cover your exit with girders and sit tight whilst the clock counts down. Once it does, let the floodwaters take out the AI and keep your airstrike handy for any stragglers. It’s not pretty but it’ll work.

Part Three: A Weekend In Willamette. Maxing out Dead Rising.

Rich

After Sony dropped their ‘PS3 delayed in Europe’ bombshell, my loyalty to the Playstation brand wavered, swerved and was left in a crumpled wreck faster than you can say ‘Princess Diana’. Two generations of unquestioning love, albeit with a rather steamy affair with the Dreamcast, came crashing down and suddenly I found myself being wooed by the 360.

Still, I was never a fan of the original Xbox and it was going to take a bit more than Sony being shit for me to jump into bed with Microsoft. No, it was going to take a killer exclusive and it was in the previews section of GamesTM that I found it.

Dead Rising. Bloody hell. If the gameplay could cash the cheques these screenshots were writing this would surely be one of the best games ever.

I ended up buying my 360 in a bundle with Dead Rising and Dead or Alive 4 (which is a piece of shit) and naturally Dead Rising was the first game that I fired up. A few minutes later and I found myself falling off of a shelf in the warehouse.

‘Achievement Unlocked.’

‘Freefall’ – Drop from a height of at least 16 feet (5 meters). Unlocked on the 9th of September 2006.

Kent? Kunt more like.

‘Ooh! Interesting’. I carried on playing, unaware that a seed of obsession had just been planted. After a week or so I started unlocking other achievements and after 16 months and several run-throughs later and I finally maxed it out. It started in Sept 06, I then got round to beating the game once in Jan 07, sorted out ‘Frank The Pimp’, ‘Saint’ and ‘Transmissionary’ in Sept 07 and finally did the survivor achievements in Jan 08. This has been a very on-off relationship.

Anyway, it is done. Dead Rising maxed. My Achieve-o-Everest has been conquered and if you want this game out of your hair, this is the path I recommend.

Marginally harder than surviving a real zombie invasion.

‘they leap out a little’

Dead Rising can be a particularly difficult game with x360a rating it a 9 out of 10 for achievement difficulty and there really are no shortcuts. However, with some organisation and preparation the 1000 is doable.

One downside however is the save system which will regularly punish you in Saint and Transmissionary runs if you are not careful. As such, I recommend you use this walkthrough. It is particularly well-written but I recommend that you highlight the survivors in red and the transmissions in blue just so they leap out a little.

The way to approach Dead Rising is with several playthroughs. Some help you level up, some mop up achievements and others are the hardcore dedicated sessions for the big achievements.

1. Playthrough: Regular play

Without using a guide, just play the game. Don’t worry about the survivors, just do what you can, but play it and enjoy it. Follow all the case files and don’t worry about the side-missions (or survivors) too much. This run will be the most fun and is for enjoyment only for you to get the Dead Rising experience. It’ll level you up and will get you used to combat. On day three you’ll have a few hours to kill so you might want to go achievement hunting a little.

Remember to go and see Isabella at 10am on the last day to get the best ending and unlock Overtime mode.

2. Achievement Run: Zombie Genocider

Go out of Paradise Plaza, cross the park (bear right a little) and look for a gap in the wall. Follow that path, grab the red car and enter the tunnel.

In the tunnel head left and follow it round. Grab the white truck and drive it to Paradise Plaza (DO NOT LEAVE THE TUNNEL). At the Paradise Plaza entrance is a white car. Drive it back to where you found the truck. Opposite the truck’s location is a door to the meat packing room. Go in, come out. Truck has respawned. Drive it to the white car and rinse/repeat.

If you find yourself needing food just go into Paradise Plaza. After 24 hours you’ll get the ‘Indoorsman’ achievement (they have to be consecutive hours). I recommend killing 60,000 zombies just to make sure you get ‘Zombie Genocider’ and therefore the Real Megabuster which will be your best friend during subsequent runs.

This achievement can be hellishly tedious to get.

3. Achievement Run: Collections

This run is all about achievements. Punch and kick your way through 1000 zombies for ‘Karate Champ’, grab some guides and get all the clothing and food and if you get a chance attempt the PP stickers. Bear in mind getting two of the stickers requires getting caught by the cultists so don’t expect to get that achievement in a regular run if you want ‘Unbreakable’ (complete the game without getting knocked out). Hopefully you’ll be at, or near, level 40 by the time you finish it.

4. Achievement Run: Frank The Pimp

This is the first really horrible achievement. On the plus side it earns you shitloads of PP and unlocking it is very satisfying. Opinions are split on this one but I reckon you can sacrifice Sophie, she’s rubbish, and just carry Leah around for a while. Jo the cop provides four more and the two friends in the shops in Wonderland count for another two.

At this point you do not want any other scoops active as they’ll stop you seeing your eighth girl. Kill any men that you see or that come up in scoops. My last girl was Jennifer, the captive of the Cultists. She’s outside the cinema in Paradise Plaza. You don’t have to take the eight girls back to the Security Room for the achievement but it will earn you a huge amount of PP if you do.

This will unlock ‘Tour Guide’ as well. If you didn’t get all the PP stickers last time round you can do it on this go also as you’ll still have a couple of days left.

5. Playthrough: Saint

You may still have some regular achievements left but it’s now time for Saint. This achievement is one of the hardest in any game as it takes meticulous planning, a lot of skill and even more patience. Bear in mind that unless you are waiting for the next day to start, time is always an issue. You need to be efficient so make sure you get the short cut open (after killing Adam the Clown go back to the train controls) and pick up the maintenance tunnel key from the warehouse room in the tunnels (from the carpark outside go in, right, left, right).

Whilst you don’t need to save everyone, I don’t recommend skipping any people either. Eventually you’ll fail to save someone so always try to leave that safety net for as long as possible.

The hardest part is near the beginning when you escort Burt, Aaron, Leah and Sophie across the park when you first see the convicts. Make sure you arm the boys and carry Leah as much as possible. Kill the convicts ASAP though and after that just take it slowly back to Paradise Plaza.

The medicine run section is also very tight for time, especially with Survivors. Be aware of that and arm anyone you can.

The achievement unlocks at 12 noon on the final day.

6. Playthrough: Transmissionary

This is the same as Saint but with the bonus that you can kill a lot of the survivors. You do need to save some though as they instigate more calls from Otis the cun… I mean janitor.

The key thing is to rescue three people from each list as well as the other three ‘essential’ survivors.

Note: this can be done on the same run as Saint if you continue onto Overtime mode. I don’t recommend it though unless you are feeling quite ‘pro’.

7. Playthrough: Overtime

This section wraps up the story and unlocks the true (or ‘ture’) ending. I recommend a guide for this as it’s not always clear what you are meant to do.

8. Survivor Run

The ultimate badass achievement. 14 hours to unlock. No saves. This can be approached in various ways but this is how I did it.

Woke up at 8am on a Saturday with a view to doing the achievement in one go. I didn’t fancy leaving the 360 on overnight.

Have a big breakfast and get comfortable. Whilst you can take breaks it is still a very long amount of time and if you get irritable you’ll lose concentration and that’ll get you killed.

Have something to do. I watched TV all day in the corner of my HD screen. You can’t really play PSP games or whatever as you’ll be too nervous about messing up and letting Frank die.

Generally though the plan is to circle the mall looking for survivors and psychos to kill. Psychos are a godsend because they drop a lot of food, survivors usually drop one food item only. You need the three food books as they give you much more energy from your food.

Health 1. Sir Book-a-lot. Wonderland Plaza.

Health 2. The Sinister Read. Entrance Plaza.

Survival. Empty store next to Crisplips (North Plaza).

Then start circling. My route was;

Security Room
Entrance Plaza
Al Fresca
Entrance Plaza (I avoided Food Court for the last four days because of a rumoured glitch that crashes your 360)
Paradise Plaza
Warehouse
Security Room (for ammo)
Warehouse
Paradise
Wonderland Plaza (via shortcut in ladies’ toilet)
North Plaza
Crislips
Park (watch out for convicts! Also, sniper family turns up on day one and drop enough food to last a day. Grab what you can, climb up onto the picnic area roof, drop it, get the rest and hide back up there for a day)
Tunnels
Meat-packing room
Tunnels
Park
Paradise Plaza
Cinema
Paradise Plaza
Warehouse
Security Room
Roof

Rinse and repeat. Remember, you only stay still if there is food that you can’t carry. Hide somewhere safe and wait until you can eat something and pick up the remaining food. DO NOT USE MALL FOOD UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST!

Good luck!

Part Two: AssCreed Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  Assassin’s Creed gets a damn good maxing.

Rich

Oh Jesus… I need help. I’ve ground my way through games before, it’s what us whores do. Collecting the orbs on Crackdown, the endless T-Hunts on Rainbow Six, the hundreds of fights on Virtua Fighter 5. It’s all in a good cause right?

But Assassin’s Creed, ten minutes of great gaming wrapped up in many hours of tedium, ceased to be fun pretty much after the first thirty minutes and by the time I’d finished the game the first time I was utterly sick of it. Having completed all the what are laughably known as side quests meant I’d already sunk at least fifteen hours into the game.

So having completed the game I looked at my remaining achievements. Oh fuck me…. ‘Conversationalist’ one of the worst types of achievement. The sort that isn’t signposted at all in the game but if you miss it you have to go back and do it all again. Yes. This achievement requires that you go through all the dialogues with one of the characters in the game, something that is incredibly easy to miss and I didn’t check the achievements beforehand because I didn’t want any spoilerage. LOL @ Me. Clearly.

The 'Death of Man with Shit Hair' achievement.

‘insert bastard items here’

Completing the game without doing the side quests takes just a few hours but I still had to complete the second worst type of achievement ‘Collect all the *insert bastard items here*’. In AssCreed, these items are flags. There are four hundred and twenty of them. The are mostly black, two-dimensional like Parappa The Rapper and the gameworld is enormous. Pins. Haystacks. Cunts. Cuntstacks.

So, with such games as COD4 and Orange Box demanding my attention what did I do? Trade in the game to capitalise on its still high value and enjoy other, better games? Or settle down into a lengthy tedious grind? Answers on a postcard please. Address it to Grind E. Twat c/o Special Bus Company.

Several sessions, ignored COD4 invites and gameplay hours later I eventually maxed out the game. The final achievement came up (Conversationalist of course) and, as is traditional for me, I pressed the Xbox Guide button and then checked the overall achievements list. 44 out of 44. 1000 of your finest gamerpoints. It was at this point that I had a realisation.

AssCreed isn’t a good enough game to warrant spending the time on it that it takes to max it out and, ultimately, the 1000 points mean nothing but that feeling of ‘thank fuck that’s over, I can now trade this piece of shit in for something else’ was almost as rewarding as actually playing something decent. Of course, I actually enjoy the sheer bloody-mindedness of grinding my games and I hadn’t maxed out a full retail title for a while but that overall feeling almost made the whole sorry episode worthwhile.

Anyway, if you want to get those 1000 points in one playthrough here are my tips. Learn from my pain.

Achievement 45: 'Trade in your game.'

‘walk up to Lucy and press’

Most of the achievements just fall into place as you are playing the game. Certainly anything plot-related or the score 50/100/200 whatever-type kills will unlock as you go along. If you want to avoid a second playthrough though you’ll need to be aware of the following.

Conversationalist
Go through every dialog with Lucy.

After each mission you’ll go back…er… to the future. Wait for the Doctor to leave the room and then walk up to Lucy and ‘press any button to interact’. Do this until she starts asking you if you are tired. That’s her way of saying ‘piss off’.

You really don’t want to mess this up or it’ll mean another playthrough so keep a check on your progress by using this excellent guide.

Maps/Templars

These are a massive pain in the arse, so if you’re going to attempt this follow this fantastic guide from Firestorm and MrSchmo at Achieve360Points. It’s a life-saver and really helps. Make sure you make a list and cross it off as you grab each flag. Don’t cross it off until you grab it!

Eagle’s Dive
Perform 50 Combo Kills in Fights.

There seems to be a lot of confusion around this. Essentially what you have to do is tap the X button and then when your blade makes contact tap it again. This will send Altair into a tidy little animation where he’ll kill the opponent. You can’t button mash this one, it’s all about the timing of the first contact.

Disciple of the Creed
Assassinate all your targets with a full DNA bar.

This is tricky but does make the final hits a lot more interesting. Completing all the side-missions may be a criteria but no-one is really sure right now. I did complete all the side-missions but didn’t kill the first target with a full DNA bar but still got the achievement so it’s a bit glitchy also.

Anyway, to play it safe make sure you do all those side missions and don’t lose any health in the game. The eighth boss (at the funeral) is the worst for this. Take out the two archers first and kill all the guards. Run around until your health recovers and then counter the prick to death.

Good luck!

Part One: A Descent Into Madness. Exploring what it takes to become a whore for those sweet, sweet gamerpoints. Hints, tips and commentary from Peoww’s very own lady of the night.

Rich

Do you remember your first? The first time the words ‘Achievement Unlocked’ flashed up onto your screen. The first time you heard the ‘ping’ that now quickens the heartbeat of many a gamerscore whore (usually followed by the crushing disappointment of finding out you’ve actually been invited to yet another Halo 3 session). For me, a self-confessed whore (more on that later), it happened during my first game of ‘Dead Rising’. As I was wrestling the controls and squinting to read Otis’ first transmission I fell off of a shelf.

‘Achievement Unlocked’ – Freefall (20), Drop from a height of at least 16 feet.

What? Fuck off Capcom.

It didn’t click for me at all. I felt like an amateur smoker taking their first drag and realising that breathing lungfuls hot smoke instead of air is a really fucking bad idea. I looked at the rest of the achievements and realised that some of them were going to be impossible, or at least so I thought at the time. Ah well, forget it.

So what went wrong? Well, it was actually Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. As a long-term fan-turned-critic of the series I’d always displayed frankly obsessive tendencies with these games including finding all the gaps in the first three games (for some bizarre reason).

The idea of fully completing the game appealed to me, especially as the series had returned to basics after the spackfests that were the two ‘Underground’ games. Maxing-out ‘THAW’ involves beating the story and classic modes twice and finding all the gaps in the game. It gets tedious but eventually that final achievement popped up on the screen and it was there 1000/1000. Maxed-out, for her pleasure

‘the groupie who sucks off So-Solid Crew for crack rocks’

Fall off a shelf or rescue fifty people. It's all the same to Frank.

Since then I’ve amassed a tidy 30000 or so points in roughly one year. Not as high as some, but it’s legit and it’s the highest on my friends list. Although that is thanks to me booting anyone who has blatantly used gamesaves. As with anything on Xbox Live, someone is always going to try to cheat the system.

So instead of merely trying to chase points for the overall leaderboard, I look to complete games. I’ll never play the likes of THAW again but it’s there on my record. 1000 points and that’s what I want. Especially as I have a habit of trading in my old games.

My whore-status is confirmed but that title, coined by Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb is a little too generic for a column like this. You see, there are many types of achievement whoring. From the high class cortizan who just wants to keep their completion percentage up whilst playing decent games, the parlour-worker who isn’t too fussy and will have 1000 points on Oblivion but will also have score on King Kong, the street-walkers who rent out the likes of NBA2K6 just to fuel their addiction and finally the groupie who sucks off So-Solid Crew for crack rocks who uses game saves and has all the achievements on Rumble Roses or EDF unlocked on the same fucking day.

I’m strictly a street-walker. Not too fussy but with an occasional ‘heart of gold’ moment that makes me question what I’m doing. Sure, I’ve gotten into a car with the wrong punter before (PES6… maxed out) and been knifed up by my pimp (10 out of 1000 on Dead Or Alive 4 before lashing it onto eBay) but it’s still how I choose to play my games and I’m more than happy to keep chasing those points.

Sure I can be treated like Julia Roberts by some games and occasionally I’ll find myself gobbling off EA in a sordid back alley for a crumpled 1000-point bank note but as long as I keep telling myself it’s to pay my tuition fees, who am I hurting?

It could be worse. I could be playing a Playstation 3 instead.