Xbox Living

I just finished up Assassin’s Creed this weekend. It’s a pretty fun game, although tedious at times. But one thing that always gets me shamefully excited when I wrap up a game is the rush of Gamerscore that usually comes with that last Achievement or two.

I’m not one to spend hours trying to get a single Achievement unless the gameplay required is lots of fun. I’ll never boost an achievement and I don’t care if most games on my record have less than 1000G earned. But I do have fun picking them up, and sometimes I will go out of my way to get them. They’re a great part of the Xbox 360 experience.

So I was a bit disappointed when I realized I’d missed one of the achievements you can earn by completing the game. The ‘Conversationalist’ achievement is earned by entering into a dialogue with the Lucy character at every opportunity. I missed one near the beginning of the game. Oh well.

To save you the trouble if you haven’t been through the game yet, here are a few quick achievement tips to keep in mind when playing Assassin’s Creed:

• Talk to Lucy repeatedly: Lucy is the technician who operates the Animus. Between each memory segment you can talk to her by approaching and pressing a button when prompted. This usually happens immediately after each memory is completed, and before you go to your bedroom. Talk to her repeatedly to get all of the dialogue, until she starts repeating things like “can’t talk” and “aren’t you tired?” If you get them all, you get the 20G Conversationalist achievement.
• Activate all Memory Glitches: Memory glitches can be accessed whenever you see the screen flicker white and the DNA codes appear over top of the screen. They happen in many of the cutscenes throughout the game. You activate them by pressing any button on the controller — you can tell they’ve activated because the perspective will change and you can see a closer view of the scene. They usually occur during the scenes immediately before fighting a target (when they’re giving a speech, for example) and during the scene immediately after each assassination (occurring each time the target speaks to you). There are multiple glitches in each scene.You need to access 85% of all the glitches in the game to earn the 20G Hungerer of Knowledge achievement.
• Flag locations are available online: Normally I’m not a huge fan of using guides, but the flags can drive you crazy if you’re missing one or two. I’m not sure if I’m going to go back and complete them all, but if you choose to, the best maps are available at AssassinsCreed-Maps.com. This site has nice, big, easy-to-read maps that show all hidden flag and Templar locations. Try and get them all on your own, but before you pull your hair out, swing over here to track down the last few. The Flag and Templar achievements can be earned after you beat the game.The eight “Keeper of” acheivements are earned by collecting flags, and are worth 105 Gamerscore in total. The Personal Vendetta (kill every Templar) achievement is worth 40G.
• Save Every Citizen: There are a number of citizens calling for aid in each district of each city. Save them all and get the three “Defender of the People” achievements, worth 20G each. The description of these achievements says you need to complete every “free mission” in the city — this only refers to saving citizens. You only need to complete 3/6 investigations per district to advance to the assassination point, and you won’t miss this or any other achievement by not completing them all.

Most of the other achievements are self-explanatory, and the secret ones all come to you during the normal course of the missions. Hopefully these tips will keep you from missing anything!

Ah, Gamerscore. The whole concept of Achievements is marketing gold, really. It’s enough to get anyone with some free time or obsessive-compulsive tendencies renting games or playing longer to earn achievements.

Yes, it’s just a number. No, it won’t do much for you. But let’s face it, it’s fun.

There are basically two ways to get achievements. Option #1 is to play games and earn them. Option #2 is boosting.

Boosting is basically conspiring with friends, using a second controller or doing anything else that allows you to get Achievements without legitimately completing their requirements (at least, their intended requirements). I’ve expressed before that I’m not a fan of boosting, and I’m not going to help you do it. Boosting makes your Gamerscore meaningless and makes you a lying hypocrite if you ever brag about it. Anyone can stand around in Halo 3 blowing up their friends, or beat their unused second controller at a sports game. It takes effort, practice and/or skill to earn achievements legitimately.

But of course, some achievements are easier than others. And that’s the purpose of this post — how to earn some quick Gamerscore without resorting to cheating or boosting. The following list presents some of the games that yield the most Gamerscore for the time you put in:

• Amped 3: This game gives you nearly 500 Gamerscore just for playing through the main game, which doesn’t take long at all.
• TMNT: This game is easy, and gives you the full 1000 Gamerscore just for playing through.
• Prey: Over 600 Gamerscore are yours for finishing the single-player game. Very early into this game, you gain immortality, so it’s quite easy. It may take 5-7 hours to complete, though. The game is OK, so play until you get bored. You’re not likely to get the online achievements anymore.
• King Kong: Notorious for being an easy-Gamerscore title. King Kong gives you the full 1000 Gamerscore just for playing. It’s a crappy game, though. Your call.
• Fight Night: Round 3: Get all 1000 points for punching through the single-player fights. Doesn’t take too long but you might need to practice a bit to win.
• Lego Star Wars II: This game is quite easy, although earning the entire 1000 will take some time as you’ll need to replay some levels.
• X-men 3: A pretty easy game that will get you access to the full 1000 if you complete it and collect items on your way through. Some levels may require a few tries on the hardest mode, which is required to unlock everything. You won’t get many achievements in the beginning, though — nearly all of the Gamerscore is unlocked towards the end.
• NBA 2K6: Very easy — the achievements will pile up as you play just a few short games.
• NHL 2k6, 2K7: 2K6 only has five achievements, which won’t take long to get through. 2K7 is easy enough if you adjust the difficulty in your favor. Dynasty mode achievements can take more time, unless you sim your way through.
• NHL 07: Most of the achievements are pretty easy, if you give yourself enough time and practice to pull them off. If you make some good trades you can sim your way through most of the dynasty achievements without playing many games. I find actually playing more fun, though. If you want the 10-year achievement, you’ll do lots of simulations.

Put in a decent run with those games and you can get around 7000 Gamerscore without too much effort.

Slower, but enjoyable

These games will give you a good shot of Gamerscore if you play them through. They’re not quick but they’re fun enough to keep you playing.

• Halo 3: Getting the full 1000 means playing through all the levels on Legendary difficulty, finding a hidden skull in each level and playing some co-op rounds. You’ll also need to spend some time earning rankings in multiplayer. Not quick, but very fun. The single-player campaign yields a decent number of points just for playing through on Normal, though. There’s a very good chance you own this game already.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Oblivion earns you a full 1000 for completing the major quest-line as well as several side-quests. An additional 250 Gamerscore is yours if you purchase and complete the Shivering Isles expansion. You can adjust the difficulty to make the quests insanely easy if you want, but expect to spend dozens of hours just the same.
• Bioshock: Bioshock takes a while to complete, but most of the Gamerscore is earned as you go through. Collecting tape recorders as you go through the levels is important for one achievement — otherwise you’re stuck going back to look for them. This game is excellent, so you won’t mind putting in the time.
• Crackdown: It takes a while to get through everything, and many of the time-trial achievements are a challenge, but this is a very fun game.
• Viva Pinata: The achievements take a while to get, but they’re easy. If you like this game, though, you’ll be addicted anyways.
• Two Worlds: This game is a lot like Oblivion, although maybe not quite as good. The achievements are easier to get, and will take less time, though.

Bad for Gamerscore

Longer games, such as RPGs, will not give quick Gamerscore. Enchanted Arms is a good example — this game takes a long time to complete, although it does give the full 1000 Gamerscore for getting through. Unfortunately, it’s not a great game.

Some shooters can require lots of skill or online play to get much Gamerscore. F.E.A.R. and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat are examples of this. Call of Duty 2 put 800 of its points in its Veteran difficulty, which is quite difficult. Call of Duty 3 did a better job of providing more accessible Gamerscore, but completing Vetran difficulty and playing an insane number of online games is required to get the full 1000.

The absolute worst game for fast Gamerscore is most likely Final Fantasy XI. To earn all the Gamerscore, you need to level every job in the game up to 75. It can take a couple of months to a couple of years to get your first level 75 job, depending on how much you play. The remaining achievements come from doing long quest lines and difficult battles. I’ve been playing FFXI for about three years (although somewhat infrequently), and I’ve earned a total of 140 Gamerscore from it.

So there you have it — a few games you may have missed that will help you get your Gamerscore fix, all without resorting to boosting or glitching (which really destroys your Gamerscore completely). If you have any other Achievement/Gamerscore tips, let us know!

I’m playing Two Worlds right now. This game is fun, but quite glitchy.

For those of you playing it, save often. I’ve had this game freeze my Xbox 360 after an hour of unsaved play, and when you’re playing an RPG, that’s a pain.

It’s also important to save before you get achievements. This is especially true with the elements. Before you pick up each element for your relic item (this becomes clear in the storyline), be sure to save your game in front of it. Various people have reported not getting achievements when they collect an element item.

I picked up the Air Element (by the Drak’ar Desert and Dead Forest) and didn’t get the achievement for doing so. Unfortunately I hadn’t saved for some time, so I couldn’t just reload the game and try again. Instead, I had to start a new game and make a run for it. Two Worlds is friendly on easy mode, though, since you can easily outrun any enemies you aggro along the way.

This kind of thing makes me pretty nervous about that “Visited All Areas” achievement. There’s a huge time investment in exploring everything, even if you are having fun doing it. With only three people with the full 1000 Gamerscore for Two Worlds on MyGamerTag, I’m concerned it might be glitchy as well.

Oh well, I’ve managed to get all of the achievements I’ve earned so far, and I’m now saving compulsively, so I should be OK.

Now, I know the Achievements system on the Xbox 360 has its flaws — some games can be cheated, and some gamers are obsessed with boosting their Gamerscore with these achievements. This obsession with Achievements is why they’re such a great idea for Microsoft, though, since they’ll get anyone with a touch of obsessive-compulsive behaviours grabbing up extra games just to raise their scores. (I don’t believe in boosting, but I have been known to keep playing a game just to snatch some extra gamerscore when I may have put it down otherwise.)

Anyways, Bioshock was released yesterday, and I picked up my copy. As I mentioned in my recent Bioshock preview, this game is fun, and just… awesome. It’s among the top Xbox 360 games this year, along with Crackdown, presumably Mass Effect, and certainly Halo 3.

But one of the things this game got right is the Achievements. Bioshock has 50 achievements, and many of them are small. I liked this a lot about Crackdown, as well. Both games have tons of little tricks to get, items to collect, or character upgrades to acquire that make getting your Achievements that much more fun.

By contrast, some other games only include Achievements that are part of the normal gameplay (You beat the first level! Here’s 100 gamerscore!) or rewards for keeping their online gaming going (Congrats, you’ve played 10,000 online matches!) . Sure, it’s nice to be rewarded for progressing in the game — but these achievements aren’t nearly as fun to get.

Now, many of the Bioshock Achievements will be yours just by playing through, but there are enough extras to give you some extra playtime chasing the last bits of Gamerscore. Other developers should learn from 2K on this one - Bioshock got achievements right.

I have a bit of a hard time with achievements. The problem is not really with the system itself, or the concept of achievements, but with those that abuse it.

I’m all for going for achievements. I think they’re fun, and a nice addition to the Xbox Live community. I also have no problem with a little “trickery” and creativeness when trying to get these achievements. Perhaps there’s one that’s pretty hard to get, but there’s also a nice way around it. Rewards for cleverness are fine by me.

What I have a problem with is straight-up achievement boosting. Let’s say I’m playing Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, and I want the 10 kills with a sniper rifle achievement. Now, I can do this two ways:

1. I can be sneaky, and smart. I can navigate my way around the map carefully and take out enemies one by one with a sniper rifle. I can understand that this isn’t easy, that I’ll probably need to try a few times and that I may break a controller or two in frustration after someone shoots me in the back 9 kills in.
2. OR I can get a buddy or two to play with me. I can have them stand in front of me and I can shoot them without even looking through my scope. I’m done in no time.

Option 2 is certainly much easier, much less hassle and will get me my Expert Sniper: Online achievement and the 25 gamerscore just as Option 1 will.

However, with option 2, I have not achieved anything. I have no achievement. Sure, I have something called an “Achievement”, but it wasn’t earned legitimately. I’ve forefeit all bragging rights — in fact, if I brag about my Gamerscore after using Option 2, I’m a liar, and a loser.
My gamerscore reflects this sentiment. It’s not high, and I’m not good at getting Battlefield 2 achievements. Oh well. If you have a legitimately higher gamerscore, congrats. I applaud your skill. If you have more achievements than me because you cheated, I don’t really care. Your vanity and possible cowardice do not impress me.

It’s hard to trust anyone’s gamerscore, unless it’s really low. That’s a shame.