Achievement Sites

While Rachel and I continue our march through Assassin's Creed 2, I thought I'd take a little time to highlight two of my favorite Achievement sites on the web.

The first is www.xbox360achievements.org. It's a site that catalogs Achievements for every game in existence, including many games that haven't even been released yet. How they get their information so early, I'll never know. Maybe they have wiretaps in Microsoft's office or something.

In any case, this site is invaluable to Achievement hunters for several reasons, but by far the biggest is its active community. It is THE place where Achievement "enthusiasts" meet up to discuss strategies for obtaining tough awards, find fixes for Achievement glitches (an all too common issue), and make friends who are willing to work towards online awards. Rachel and I call this last group "fake friends", people on your Xbox 360 Friends list that you've never met in person, but who you've played games with online. Fake friends are particularly critical for getting the Achievements in older games for which the online community may have dried up years ago.

If you're ever confused about the requirements for a particular Achievement, or just stumped on how to accomplish it, head over to www.xbox360achievements.org to find an answer. Between their guides, road maps, and forums, you'll almost surely find an answer.

The other site I use consistently is www.trueachievements.com. While the first site I listed concentrates on acquiring and cataloging Achievements, True Achievements is about the statistics around these awards. One thing they've done is to solve a long-standing issue with Achievements - that the points assigned to various awards don't accurately reflect the difficulty of obtaining it. Consider that two minutes of Avatar: Burning Earth yields the same 1000 points that one would obtain from 250+ hours of Infinite Undiscovery. When you think about it, that's not very fair. What these guys have done is created a system in which awards are analyzed based on their difficulty, a function of the ratio of the number of people to get the award to the total number of people who played the game. Then they assign a new value (True Achievement Score) by multiplying the original score by that ratio.

Confused? That's okay, the point is that it makes rare Achievements far more valuable than easy ones. It's not a perfect system, but it goes a long way to making Gamer Scores more fair. Best of all, it lets you track statistical measures like which of your Achievements are the most rare, what percentage of awards you've earned from the library of games you've played, and where you rank against all other Xbox 360 users out there. There's a mountain of data to muck about with if you're obsessed with Achievements like I am.

So if you're ever looking to become an Achievement hound, I recommend these two sites. They'll give you a nice boost down the path to a huge Gamer Score!

Infinite Undiscovery - Achievements

NOTE: Rachel pointed out in the comments that I've been abbreviating Infinite Undiscovery "ID" rather than "IU". I have no reason for this...the best excuse I could give is that the game's title is so nonsensical, I got confused and never caught the error. Whatever, I'm sticking with ID.

I've mentioned before that Achievements can have either a positive or a negative influence on one's enjoyment of a game, depending on how they're used. ID is a fantastic example of the dark side of Achievements. If it had featured an ordinary set (or no Achievements at all), I would have played through the game once on the normal difficulty, enjoyed the crafting and Capell's character development, disliked the story and the AI, and probably walked away thinking "Eh, below average but not terrible." Instead, I engaged in a 250 hour death struggle with this demonic entity disguised as a simple piece of software, leaving it dead and me mortally wounded (or at least psychologically wounded). To illustrate this point, I'm going to go through the requirements for some of the Achievements in ID (divided into GOOD, BAD, and UGLY). There are Spoilers in here, so proceed at your own risk!

"Guardian" - GOOD
During one of the game's events, you need to escort some villagers across a monster-infested desert so they can found a new town. If you perform this task without allowing any villagers to die, you get Guardian. This Achievement is well-designed, because it's easy to lose a villager if you aren't paying attention, but with careful planning and a watchful eye, it isn't too difficult.

"Time for Glasses?" - BAD
Play the game for 40 hours. These "play for X hours" Achievements are not uncommon, and I don't really understand them. Is this supposed to be an accomplishment? What if I can beat the game in under 40 hours...should I just stand in a corner until the award pops? Of course, if you want to complete the set then this one won't be an issue.

"Filthy Rich" - UGLY
You get this one by accumulating the maximum amount of cash (ID calls it "Fol") that can be carried - 99,999,999 Fol. Okay kids, time for some math. After you beat the game you can go down into an optional dungeon. On the fourth floor, past a small group of enemies, is a side room with a monster disguised as a chest. If you kill it, it drops about 60,000 Fol, the maximum monetary drop for any recurring (i.e. not a boss) enemy. Then you can leave the floor and come back - voila, it respawns! If you're really clever and make use of Capell's enchanting techniques, you can (temporarily) create an effect that triples cash drops, thus earning 180,000 each time. It takes an average of about two minutes to defeat the enemies, kill the chest monster, and run back to the teleporter that takes you to the previous floor. So that's 90,000 Fol per minute, not including time spent fighting down to the fourth floor and back when you need more supplies or just want to quit the game for a while. So to accumulate max gold, it would take 1111 minutes, or about 18.5 hours. Again, that's just the "killing the same chest over and over" portion.

Here's my question - why such an insanely high number??? When I finished the game, I had about 7 million Fol, plenty to buy everything in the game. 100 million Fol might as well be infinity, because there isn't even anything you can buy with all that money. This is just a stupid, arbitrary challenge thrown in to be obnoxious. It's like some kind of reverse-intelligence test (one that I failed miserably) in which accomplishing the goal proves that you're an idiot for trying in the first place. "Filthy Rich" is the Achievement system at it's worst...it's not creative, it adds nothing to the game, it's just tortuous.

"Big Daddy's Back" - GOOD
In the same dungeon with the respawning chest, you can find your dead teammate Sigmund. If you beat him in a one-on-one battle with Capell, he'll then rejoin your team and you get this oddly titled award. Here we have an Achievement that rewards exploration (finding the optional boss) and strategy (must win a solo fight, the only one in the game besides the tutorial). Plus there's good reason to want to do this one, because Sigmund is a powerful ally. If they could only all be like this!

"Seraphic Gatekeeper" - BAD
To get this one, you have to defeat the Ethereal Queen (the game's hardest boss, at the end of the optional dungeon) on Infinity difficulty. On the surface, this one seems similar to "Big Daddy's Back", so why is this one bad? Because of those tricky little words "on Infinity difficulty". That is, the hardest difficulty setting. Which is only unlocked after beating the game on Hard difficulty. Which, in turn, is only unlocked after beating the game on Normal difficulty. So what this Achievement is basically saying is: beat this moderately long (and not very fun) game THREE times and then you can take a crack at earning this award. I think it should be fairly clear why the full set took me 250 hours to finish.

"Compulsive" - UGLY
It's like tri-Ace is taunting me with the Achievement names. Rachel mentioned in a previous comment that I was using pages of material while working on this game, and she wasn't kidding. For this one, you need to have possessed (and in just one playthrough) every item in the game. There are 880 different items, and no way to know (without a checklist, hence the papers) what you've found and what you're missing. But beyond the sheer number of items, it's essentially impossible to collect all the items without foreknowledge of the game. Consider:

- At least one town is wiped off the map during the game, and any unique items available in its shops or through side quests there will be lost if you haven't found them.
- The items available in other shops change over time, so you can miss items if you wait too long.
- Some items are in "one time only/can never return" dungeons. Even worse, some are in chests that can only be reached by one specific character (out of the 15 you could have selected to accompany you). Better choose wisely!
- Finally, some items are dropped by specific enemies with rare frequency. For example, there's a fight involving three giants (and a bunch of random soldiers) during a castle assault. The giants have a small (say 20%) chance of dropping a "Giant Wristband". It's the only place in the game where you could possibly get one, as there are no other similar giants and no way to buy or craft Giant Wristbands. What are the odds that a person unaware of this fact would happen to get the wristband they needed just by chance? And that's not the only instance where you can miss a unique drop.

There's a big difference between Difficult and Unfair when it comes to Achievements. "Compulsive" is the definition of UNFAIR. Even knowing the exact location of every item in the game, it still took a 20 page checklist and MANY HOURS of work to accomplish it.

My only consolation? I'm done with this stupid game forever. Now I can move on to some other ridiculous Achievement set that will drive me crazy...

WAA - Bully: Scholarship Edition

This week's WAA focuses on Bully: Scholarship Edition. Actually, the game is called "Bully". The "Scholarship Edition" part comes from the fact that it was originally a PS2 title that they reworked for the 360 with added content.

Note: As much as possible I try to preserve the Achievement titles as presented by the game. That includes typos, bizarre capitalization, and plain nonsense. Bully uses Achievement titles with all capital letters, so that's how I've written them here. Personally, I find the all-caps approach obnoxious, but c'est la vie.

The "One With Combat"Award: "KICKIN' THE BALLS"
Step One - Find soccer ball lying around.
Step Two - Press button to kick ball.
Step Three - Repeat Step Two 99 times.

The "Mile High Club" Award: "PERFECTIONIST"
To get this one, you need to to complete everything in the game, including the story missions, the side missions, the classes, the collections...everything. There's no single aspect of the game that's difficult, but keeping track of what you've done and what you still need to do can be pretty tricky. Use the stats page under the menu to determine what you're missing.

The "Seriously..." Award: "THE WHEEL DEAL"
Unfortunately, there are a lot of tedious Achievements in this game. This one requires that you perform 200 wheelies on a bike. The problem here is that there's really no reason to do a wheelie at all besides getting the Achievement, so why make the number so ridiculously high? It seems like ten would have been plenty.

The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "OVER THE RAINBOW"
This one made me laugh. You can give presents to girls in this game and eventually they'll kiss you. Score! But for the non-traditional gent, there's no need to feel excluded. Certain members of the male student body are also amenable to your advances. Collect 20 kisses from the boys and you score this humorously titled Achievement.

The Scientist Gone Gamer Award: "OVER THE RAINBOW"
Yup, I went there...



Achievement Set Rating - 5
This set has pros and cons. The variety of Achievements is impressive, and it really does a great job of encouraging you to explore everything that the Bullworth Academy has to offer. On the other hand, some of these call for WAY too much repetition of specific activities. Give 50 wedgies? Egg 25 cars? Bike 100 kilometers? Pick 50 flowers? This seems suspiciously like busy work to me.

Achievement Difficulty Rating - 3
Of course, there's nothing particularly difficult about these activities either. Go to the flower garden and run around grabbing flowers. When your inventory is full, give them to girls, get a few kisses, and repeat. Or if you want the one for biking, hop on your bike and make circles around the driveway. The soapbox derby races can be marginally tricky but for the most part, it just takes time (around 20 hours to be precise).

Jumper: Griffin's Story

Congratulations are in order for Collision Studios and Brash Entertainment, the minds behind Jumper: Griffin's Story. After all, any game can suck in ordinary ways, but it takes monumental indifference to quality or even basic competence to create a game like Jumper. If there were such a thing as a "Shitty Video Game Hall of Fame" Jumper would be a first ballot honoree. It's easily one of the five worst games I've played on the 360, and bear in mind that I've spent time with some real turds.

I didn't see the movie (I have a fairly strict life policy concerning films that feature Hayden Christiansen), but it's about some people called Jumpers who have the ability to teleport. Like Nightcrawler from the X-Men, they're feared and misunderstood by the public. Unlike Nightcrawler, they're dull jerks with little personality who have no qualms about killing people by the dozens if it suits their needs.

The game follows Griffin, one of the characters from the movie (I gather). He's chasing after a Paladin (people who hunt Jumpers) who killed his parents. That's the whole plot...there are no interesting twists or revelations along the way. Griffin goes from one locale to locale, finding one clue that leads to another, until he meets up with the bad guy at the end.

As for the gameplay, this is a strictly linear brawler with no puzzle elements or exploration. Every fight is basically the same, with little evolution as the game progresses. You can find new combos or weapons if you care to, but none of it makes the combat feel fresh or different.

Speaking of combat, the fighting system in this game is really strange. Instead of mapping attacks to different buttons, they went with cardinal directions instead. So if the enemy is facing you and you want to attack his right side, you push the B button (on the right side of the controller). Rear attack? That's the Y button. In isolation it makes sense, but once everything starts moving? Not so much. See, if the camera turns, then the enemy's back may now be on the left side of the screen. So now a rear attack is X, while Y attacks his "right side". I'm not sure if this makes any sense...it seems like it would be easier to explain with a complicated diagram. But then, that tells you about how well combat flows in Jumper.

Further muddling matters is the fact that enemies have "strong sides" and "weak sides". If there's a little green bar on one side of an enemy, it's his weak side. Attack him there and you build up a special meter. But if the bar is red, it's his strong side and he'll immediately block incoming attacks from that direction and counter for heavy damage. It gets worse...the strong and weak sides move around the enemy at random moments while fighting. And sometimes enemies hunker down into a "defensive position" in which they're completely surrounded by red bars. So what we have is a fast-paced battle against numerous enemies where you can only attack from a specific direction that keeps changing, with a camera that's wildly rotating around the screen and the attack buttons remapping along with it. Fun!

This may make the game sound really difficult, but in fact Jumper is, as they say, "piss easy". Oh, you'll definitely die from time to time. But not because the bad guys outsmarted you. It'll just be because either 1) you got caught between camera rotations a couple times in a row or 2) because a couple enemies locked you into an unstoppable combo until you died. What's crazy is that these things just sort of happen randomly. You'll get your ass kicked in a fight thanks to some cheap camera/button remapping crap, reload, and breeze through it the second time. But outright failure is pretty rare. I'm not sure why these Paladins chose to feud with Jumpers...if this game is any indication then a single Jumper can mow through hundreds of Paladins without breaking a sweat. And if you ever do get in trouble there's usually a health item nearby.

Of course the biggest reason the game is easy is because it's so ridiculously short. There's an Achievement for beating it in 2 hours or less, and I assumed that was going to be difficult. Nope, actually I got it on my first playthrough without really trying. There are only six levels, one of which is the tutorial, and the longest of which is 20 minutes max. I guess if the game is going to be tortuous to play, it might as well be done quickly.

Rounding things out, the graphics are original Playstation quality. In particular, the character models are a joke. In big fights I often lost track of which character was me because all the characters are so bland and poorly designed. Also, it's been a long time since I encountered a camera that made me sick, but the low-resolution graphics and the overly touchy camera controls did a number on me this time. Thank God the game was short!

I should find some positive things to say, so here goes. Between chapters the plot advances in comic-book style cutscenes, which are over-the-top cheesy but otherwise tolerable. And the voice acting for the main character is fine, though he does repeat catch phrases a little too often.

Oh, and it's a great source of easy Achievement points if the camera doesn't make you lose your lunch. There's some mild collecting to do and two playthroughs are required for all the Achievements, but 800+ points for a lazy afternoon of stupidly easy brawling is good work if you can get it.

I don't recommend Jumper to anyone. Not even as a rental. This game is a wretched effort through and through. Jumper makes Disney's Bolt look like Half Life 2 by comparison.

Disney's Bolt

Yes, that title is serious. I played through Bolt. I did this despite the fact that it's based on a kid's movie. And despite the fact that I haven't even seen said kid's movie.

What a man will do in the name of Achievement points...

Anyway, Bolt is a simple little 3D platformer. It doesn't really warrant a full review, so here are some quick hit points:

- Anyone who reads my stuff should hear "3D platformer" and instinctively think "How's the camera?" straight away. The answer: surprisingly competent. I can count the number of deaths I incurred as a result of the camera on one hand, which I consider acceptable.

- The game is divided into sections that use Bolt (the dog) and sections that use Penny (the girl who owns him). The Bolt sections are combat heavy, while the Penny sections are stealth/platforming based. I have to admit that Penny's sections were actually pretty amusing. The platforming is tight and is complemented by the solid camera. Penny uses this weird retractable stick thing with wheels on both ends to roll along ledges and up between vertical columns. She can use knockout gas bombs to knock out enemies as well, which helps with the stealth bits.

- However, the Bolt combat sections are really tedious. This game is not bashful about sending waves and waves of identical bad guys after you. Bolt has a small arsenal of attacks that he'll use over and over and OVER to dispatch these foes. It's hard to believe that a game about a dog that shoots lasers out of his eyes could be boring, but when the enemy roster consists of hundreds of generic drones, you can get tired of just about anything.

- As far as I understand the plot of the movie (I've only seen the trailer), it's about a dog that acts in a T.V. show but doesn't realize it, so it thinks it really has super powers. The game makes the smart decision to abandon that and instead have you play through a few "episodes" of the show so that Bolt really does have super powers. Kudos to the designers, because I suspect following the actual plot of the movie would have made for a dull game.

- Bolt isn't quite as short as a lot of kid's games, but it certainly isn't long either. I beat it in a couple days, with the full 1000 Achievement points coming shortly thereafter. Thus a rental is probably the way to go.

- Speaking of Achievements, the list is solid and mostly fair. My one complaint is that you need to collect a bunch of power ups that are hidden throughout the levels. There's a chapter select to replay specific levels if you want to target a power up you missed, but there's no indication of which levels contain the missing collectible. As always, it's best to follow a guide so you don't end up casting randomly around in the game hoping to find the power up that you missed.

Bolt is okay for kids who have a high tolerance for repetitive combat, but I wouldn't recommend it much beyond that. It does offer 1000 fairly pain-free Achievement points though!

Trivial Pursuit

Sorry for the radio silence lately...I was out of town and therefore not gaming.

But I'm back and better than ever! Or at least the same as always. I finished Trivial Pursuit yesterday so it's time to put it under the microscope and see how it fares.

As a recreation of the board game, Trivial Pursuit holds up reasonably well. You roll a die, move spaces around the board, and answer trivia questions in six different categories. There's a "Classic" mode that just uses the typical rules, but the gameplay is fleshed out with two additional bonus modes. One is "Clear the Board", a single player variant in which you answer questions for points as you collect the various pie wedges. I guess this mode is meant to satisfy antisocial people who like trivia, but I found it to be pretty dull. Far better is the "Facts and Friends" mode, a multiplayer variant in which each player shares one game piece as it moves around the board and the other players try to guess whether their friends will get questions right or not. It also includes bonus tiles that allow players to steal pie wedges or teleport the game piece around the board. It's a nice update to the classic rules that largely negates the advantage of one person being luckier with their die rolls than the other.

There are some key differences between the board game and this title though. First of all, questions are answered largely as multiple choice affairs rather than straight memory recall, as in the original board game version. Multiple choice definitely changes the dynamic, as seeing the correct answer will often jog your memory. Even eliminating a couple wrong answers gives a player a good chance of guessing the correct one. Beyond that, I still question whether this is an adequate replacement for the actual board game in local play. Certainly being able to play remotely with friends over Live is an advantage, but if we're in the same house then call me a Luddite but I'd still much rather roll the dice and read the cards to each other than sit on the couch staring at the TV.

A lot of board games have been translated into Live Arcade titles, including Catan, Carcasonne, and all the Family Game Night entries. But Trivial Pursuit was released as a full retail game, so it has to be judged based on those terms. Given that, I don't think it holds up really well. The experience is too shallow and fleeting to merit a full price purchase in my eyes. Although I will say that I never saw a repeat question, which is a plus.

In terms of Achievements, the full 1000 is a pretty simple task to complete. Most of them are earned for completing the various modes (classic, CTB, F&F) without missing questions in the six categories. The rest of them are tied to fairly simple tasks...there's a decent variety but there's really only so many challenges to be had in a game of Trivial Pursuit. While the icons are colorful, they're just pie wedges on colored backgrounds. I'm not sure what else they could have done given the limits of the material, but it's a dull and repetitive set.

Overall, I'd only recommend the game to a person who was a big fan of trivia games and wanted something to play with distantly located friends over Live.

CSI: Hard Evidence - Review and Achievements

CSI: Hard Evidence is a game based on the very popular TV show. I'll say right upfront that I don't watch CSI, so I'm not really sure how true to the show it is. It does use actors and settings from the program. On the downside, the character models are primitive so the likeness between some of the actors and their virtual avatars is not terribly convincing.

The game consists of five cases that you must solve using techniques culled from CSI shows. You visit crime scenes, collect evidence like fingerprints and blood samples, interrogate suspects, and piece together the details of the case. It's all done in a point and click mechanic similar to PC adventure games of a bygone time. The gameplay works pretty well, though I couldn't shake the feeling that it would be a lot easier to interact with a mouse rather than a gamepad.

On the plus side, the cases are pretty compelling. Each one weaves a pretty interesting story, and there are always multiple suspects so it's not easy to narrow down who the guilty party is. The voice acting is mostly solid, which is good because a lot of your time is spent questioning witnesses and grilling suspects.

The game is also highly accessible. There are no tests of speed or dexterity here...you can take as long as you need and skill with a controller is not mandatory. The game also provides hints if you want them at any time, though using hints hurts your final rating for the case.

The downside of the game is that it gets pretty repetitive once you learn the format. You find the clues, you process them in the same ways, and you click through conversation options until the suspect cracks and gives away key information. I found the first couple cases pretty enjoyable, but by the end I was mostly going through the motions.

I was also frustrated by some unfairly hidden clues. As an example, one case hinged on finding a matchbook in the back seat of an impounded cab. The cab was dark, and for some reason the garage where we were keeping it was poorly lit as well. So you have to fumble around in the dark until you put the cursor over the matchbook by chance, THEN the game lets you turn on your flashlight, and only then can you find the matchbook. Couldn't I use the flashlight from the start? Or better yet, could we set up some lights while inspecting a vehicle for evidence?

The Achievements are not well done, but they're definitely a quick source of 1000 points. There are only five awards, one for solving each case. You can beat the case with any rating and still get the Achievement, so it doesn't matter whether you deduce the facts on your own merits or make full use of every hint in the game. I'd estimate that it took me about 8 hours to beat the game and get all the points. Oh, and all the icons are the same crappy picture shown above...weak!

Still, I'll give CSI credit for what it is. It's a short but relatively well constructed foray into the world of a crime-scene investigator. Plus it's not every game where you have to swab DNA samples from both sides of a used condom, prompting your wife to ask, "What kind of game are you PLAYING?!"

Lego Indiana Jones - Achievements

I've already mentioned that you can finish Lego Indiana Jones in a weekend, Achievement whores are probably already thinking that it might be a good source for easy points. Well, for the most part they're right! It's no Avatar, but LIJ gives up the points pretty easily.

Each of the game's 18 chapters yields an Achievement as you progress. That's over one third of the awards right there. Another group of Achievements are earned by performing task X at total of Y times. Examples include digging up buried Lego parts 50 times or building Lego objects 250 times. If those sound like a lot, don't worry...you do most of this stuff a lot during the course of the game.

Then there are the more unique Achievements, which are usually my favorites.

"How dare you kiss me!" - 15 points
You get this one for using your whip to grab Indy's three main love interests from the movies (Marion, Willie, and Elsa) and giving them each a kiss.


"That's for blasphemy!" - 20 points
Recalling the classic scene from Last Crusade, you need to pummel Jones Jr. with Jones Sr.


My favorite aspect of the set were the titles. As you can see in the above examples, each Achievement is denoted with a related quote from the movies. Favorites include "It belongs in a museum!" and "How we say goodbye in Germany".

My least favorite aspect is probably the icons themselves. I like the ones that depict scenes from the movies with Lego characters, but there are far too many like this:

"Start the engines, Jock!" - 20 points
Fix 50 Lego objects with the wrench. So it's a wrench and it has the number 50...I guess that covers the basic gist of the Achievement but it's not exactly inspiring. How about Lego Jock holding the wrench, and get rid of the "x50" bit altogether?

I'd estimate that you can get all 1000 points for LIJ in around 15 hours of play without much trouble.

Resident Evil 5: Final Achievement Wrapup

I've covered every other aspect of RE5 exhaustively, but I finished off the Achievements last night so I'll finish up that series with a few comments about the set.

Overall, it's a pretty solid set of awards. Some are pretty standard, including the obligatory Achievements for finishing each chapter and beating the game on each difficulty setting. There are some collection Achievements for finding all the weapons and treasures...I usually hate collection awards but these make sense because there's obvious value to the items for which you're searching.

There are also some Achievements that are fun to pursue. Examples include shooting a stick of dynamite while an enemy is still holding it, trying to take out three enemies with one explosive barrel, and killing an enemy with a rotten egg to the face. The game also includes two secret weapons, and there are a pair of Achievements for killing a few enemies with each of those (they're both fun).

I only have two complaints about the set. The first is aesthetic: it' just not a very attractive set of icons. Lots of the pictures repeat, and the artwork is pretty mediocre. It's unfortunate because one of RE5's greatest strengths is the quality visuals.

My other beef is with the Achievement for fully upgrading every weapon. It takes A TON of cash to accomplish this task. I played through the game four times (admittedly one was a speed run), including one playthrough on Professional difficulty where you get double cash, and I still needed to grind through Chapter Select mode for around five hours to get the rest. A better idea would have been to make the award for fully upgrading one weapon of each type (handgun, rifle, shotgun, etc.). As it is, this one is a real pain in the butt.

If you do go for the weapon upgrade Achievement, make sure you keep all the weapons in your inventory, because it doesn't count if you upgrade and then sell them.

Resident Evil 5: Achievement Path

An "Achievement Path" is simply a series of directions indicating how to get the Achievements with great efficiency. They're particularly useful for games that involve multiple playthroughs, because you can get an idea of which Achievements to pursue on which trip through the game.

RE5 requires a minimum of two playthroughs for 100% completion. If you want to emphasize getting the Achievements as quickly as possible, then do your first trip on Veteran difficulty and your second on Professional.

I don't suggest that path though, because the game is annoyingly frustrating trying to work through Veteran (and especially Professional) without amassing some upgraded equipment.

Here's my suggestion for a path that will take a little longer but save you some annoyance. Minor spoilers are scattered throughout, but nothing plot-based.

Game 1: Play through on either Amateur or (preferably) Normal. This is your "enjoy the game" run. Just play normally, watching the cutscenes and seeing what RE5 has to offer. I didn't enjoy it much but maybe you will. Two key points on this playthrough though. First, don't spend any of your cash yet. Second, in Chapter 5-3 when you get to the big double boss fight (you'll know) look for a locked door on one side and keep running around near it until you get kicked through it. Then run down the newly opened passage and find the metal case containing the super-kickass Lightning Hawk Magnum. After the chapter, use you stockpile of cash to FULLY upgrade the Hawk, selling treasure if you need more money. Every upgrade should be purchased. Then finish the game.

Game 2: You've now seen everything the game has to offer, so it's time to do a speed run. Use the bonus features menu to unlock infinite ammo for the L. Hawk. It takes 15,000 points so if you're a little short, use the chapter select and play through a couple short missions until you have the necessary points. Make sure you enable infinite ammo in the extras menu. Now start up a new game at Chapter 1-1 (using New Game+ or Chapter select) on Amateur difficulty. You need to finish the whole game in 5 hours or less, so don't waste time hunting for treasure. Just run and gun with the L. Hawk.

Game 3: Congrats, you just unlocked the infinite ammo Rocket Launcher! With that and the L. Hawk, you're now well equipped to conquer Veteran. I suggest using a guide on this playthrough so you can get the BSAA emblems and the treasures. Save up cash to upgrade weapons as well. Veteran is definitely a step up in difficulty but you can one-shot most regular guys with the Magnum and most bosses with the rocket launcher.

Game 4: Same deal, but now on Professional. Most hits will just about kill you in this mode, so go slowly and make good use of your souped up weapons. An upgraded rifle can really help on this difficulty so you can pick off enemies before they see you. Have patience and good luck!

Clean up: If you're missing any Achievements for barrel kills or whatnot, use the chapter select to choose a good spot to grab them. Hint - they can all be done on Amateur.

Enjoy your 1000 new points!

Banjo-Kazooie: Achievements

B-K is your standard Live Arcade game, meaning it features 12 Achievements for 200 points. Before playing the game I read a few guides that boasted this game is easy points and can be finished without issue in around 10 hours.

Here's an issue: that's bullshit.

If you're already an expert on B-K and played through it a couple times on the N64, then maybe you can cruise through quickly. But if you're coming into the game new, that "10 hours" is blatantly false. Consider this one:

"Music Maestro" - 25 points
Collect all the musical notes in the game. There are 900. No, I'm serious. 900. And they're hidden throughout 9 worlds in the game. That means you'll need to thoroughly explore every single one, including finding any secret areas that might be housing notes. And if you're missing a few, it takes forever to figure out which ones you already have versus which ones you still need.

Unless you have the game memorized, this Achievement alone takes more than 10 hours. Now it's certainly the case that you can work on this while you're completing all the other Achievements. There are definitely some easy ones. But it took me at least 20 hours to finish the game with all the Achievements, and it certainly wasn't because I was taking my sweet time.

It's also worth noting that while the game is far from difficult, I wouldn't exactly call it easy either. I mentioned in an earlier post that there are some elaborate jumping puzzles later in the game, and the camera does you no favors. The game also uses the utterly outdated "lives" system, and if you run out you need to start back at the beginning and jog to wherever you were. The bottom line is that there's a lot of frustrating "fail until you succeed" challenges in B-K so don't expect those 200 points to come in a lazy evening.