Achievement Unlocked: Forgot What Outside Is.

Turn away if you’re against pervert moths.

These days, it’s nice to have friends around you. Especially with those big life moments. Buying a new flatscreen and showing it off for the first time. Going to the big game and getting resoundingly Chucklebrothered, waking up with your hands tied up to a strangely yellow coloured lampost, wearing nothing more than a Samus Mask with a sign hanging around your neck saying ‘If Found Return To Hogwarts‘ with what you’ve been told is a very shaky wand slightly ajar sliding rather awkwardly out of the side of your mouth.

NEVER happened to me.

Then you have those moments where you just need them to be your buddy. You promise them money – or in my case, a pizza – and eternal respect for the ultimate in gaming friend activity: Achievement Whoring.

This is a job which is dedicated only to the friend who will genuinely say yes to you requesting a night with his wife. He’s the most laid back, happiest person alive and just gets his happiness from helping out others. Imagine though, if you will, that said best friend is not available? Who are you going to turn too? Your other friend? The other who is happy to help but doesn’t really want to because it interrupts his schedule of watching Jeremy Kyle with a packet of Doritos and his laptop on his sofa on Facebook inexplicably stealing next doors Wi-Fi. You don’t want to tear him from that which brings him the most pleasure in life, right? Of course not. Therefore, you need an alternate. Or – you could just do it yourself?

You join me at a bit of a crossroads. A few months back, for whatever reason I got rid of my Xbox 360. It was a difficult decision to make, yet ultimately seemed like the right thing to do given the circumstances I found myself in at that point. I had alot of history with this particular Xbox 360 – 4gb S model, very nice – in the short space of time we had together I started and finished many games, including ‘Halo Reach’, ‘Black Ops’ – including an uncountable amount of Zombies – ‘Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’ ‘FIFA 11′ and even sat back and ‘Backseat-Game’d’ the hell out of my roommate as I watched him annihilate ‘F1 2010′ several times over. The beauty of the latter was that he did it all on my Gamertag, which was incredibly nice of him as I took all his achievements, and I still find it funny to this day (I know you’re reading this, I love you. And thank you). We blasted through ‘Reach’ together on Legendary on this Xbox, spent an entire evening attempting to beat the Guiness World Record on ‘Sonic 2′ (which he did, and I didn’t), teamed up on ‘Arkham Asylum’ and decimated the Joker. This Xbox was where we discovered Kinect for the very first time. The first time we jumped our way through River Rapids and waved our arms for floaty Space Balls. It was a sturdy, powerful machine that took everything we threw at it and shoved it right back in our faces in glorious High Definition. My Gamerscore (I’ll admit, mainly thanks to my roommate) was getting very respectable. Not 12-year-old-kid-in-America-sitting-on-his-ass-doing-nothing-but-levelling-up-on-Black-Ops respectable, but respectable enough for a guy who worked full time and shared his Xbox with somebody else. I have nothing but fond memories of that machine, even if it was my 6th Xbox 360 in my lifetime, it never quit on me once. And just like that, it was gone.

Cue to a few months later and I’m in a better place so I pick myself up a shiny 250gb Xbox 360 Slim. My word, is it beautiful. I can USE THE THEATRE ON REACH! AT LAST! I can FILE SHARE BECAUSE I FINALLY HAVE THE HARD DRIVE SPACE TO DO IT! I CAN INSTALL MY GAMES! HALLELUJAH! I HAVE ALL THESE ARCADE GAMES I’VE BOUGHT OVER THE YEARS I CAN DOWNLOAD AGAIN FOR FREE AND STICK ON MY HARD DRIVE! SONIC 1! SONIC 2! SONIC 3! SONIC & KNUCKLES! SONIC 4! PERFECT DARK! BANJO KAZOOIE! EVERYTHING’S GOING SO WELL!! AND IT’S…IT’S…..IT’S SOO SHINY. THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!

….

Except….it wasn’t. It. Just. Wasn’t.

The brand new, shiny 250gb Xbox 360 Slim is set up. Everything is plugged in and ready to go. The Xbox needs an update. OK, was expecting that, it’s cool. Update done. Now into the setup, happy times. Date, Time, Location. Great. Xbox Live? Connected. Fantastic. Sign up for Xbox Live or Recover Gamertag? Recover Gamertag, please. Email address…no problem . Bring it all back!!

Password. Oh, frag.

I don’t remember it. At all. Nothing is coming back to me. Right, straight to Xbox.com. Sign In. I use my email address and pray that the password I typed in is the correct one. It isn’t. Right. ‘I can’t remember my password’, clicked. Security Question. Security Question. SECURITY QUESTION? WTF? I don’t remember the answer to my security question! This is a HOTMAIL account, nobody sets up a new hotmail account anymore? I set up this account when I was THIRTEEN, Microsoft. This isn’t fair. Right, um..*puts in what could possibly be the answer*. ‘The answer to your security question is incorrect. Blocked’.

BLOCKED?! I go to keep trying..’You have failed too many times to access this account. This account is now blocked. Please contact Windows Help for more support’. Bloodyell, fine. I call the lovely Xbox Customer Service people, after waiting in the queue for what seemed like a full eternal life (it is Microsoft, after all) I finally get through to a lovely lady called Gertrude – I don’t remember her name – who asks me for my Gamertag and post code connected to my billing address. Done, lovely. I explain the situation, saying that I’m trying really very hard to recover my Gamertag but I don’t have my password or my security question. I can answer any bloody question about my Gamertag, not a problem..the security side of it not so much. She asks me when my last Microsoft Points transaction was and how much it was for. Bollocks, she had to ask me that. I go with 1000 Points on the 12th October (the day before ‘Sonic 4′ was released. Had to make sure I stocked up), remarkably it works. She then asks me the last three letters of my password. Come on, we got this far, and I’ve already explained that I don’t remember my password, so we go round in circles. Eventually, after lots of telling her lots of things including my credit card details associated with my Gamertag, she still can’t/won’t let me in. That’s it. It’s all gone. Everything we played. Everything we worked for. Every XBLA game I paid for. Game over, man. Game over. To be honest, I felt like crying, it was a brutal moment. How could everything just have disappeared like that? It actually hurts to think about now, my online rep was getting very cool indeed and now it’s gone and it’s never coming back. Life is so unfair.

After picking myself backup after the tragedies I have suffered, I begrudgingly set up a new Gamertag.

However upsetting it was for wonderful memories such as these to just disappear, a new Gamertag is a new Gamertag. The idea of paying Microsoft to change my old one seemed utterly ridiculous, so the idea of thinking up a brand new one for free was rather exciting really, as my old one had fallen into some kind of black hole with no chance of it ever coming back. As I twiddled my thumbs thinking of a cool new name, I always had in the back of my mind my old Tag, and as such..rather boringly and disappointingly, just added a ’2′ to the end of my original one. It’s not big and it’s not clever, but it made sense to me. There was nothing wrong with my original tag, so I just left it there and kept on. Now, what a heartbreaking moment it was to see my Gamerscore as precisely ZERO. I was kept thinking about everything in my power I could do to bring it back up to the levels of brilliance it once enjoyed, so many moons ago. First things first, pick up some cheap copies of ‘Reach’, ‘ODST’ and ‘Black Ops’. I annihilated those three games in terms of Achievements so they were my first port of call. I picked up the ‘Halo”s rather easily, got them both for under £15, lovely. ‘Black Ops’ proved far more difficult, as I couldn’t find a pre-owned copy anywhere for less than £25. I’m not cheap, but there is no way I’m paying £25 for a pre-owned game, even if it is bloody ‘Call of Duty’. I know that the games in this particular series have absolutely no interest in dwindling in price until the next iteration is released, but seriously? ‘Black Ops’ hit our stores nearly a year ago, the fact it’s not even half  price yet pre-owned is somewhat frightening, ergo, I left it. I’ll pick it up again at some point, until that day, the ‘Halo”s will have to do.

Before all this, though. I found myself playing those stupid free games that come built in to every Xbox 360. I was bored so broke out the mother rockin’ behemoth that is ‘Hexic HD’. Got myself a couple of achievements on there, which I focused intently on. I remember because there were two moths on my TV screen looking at me like they wanted my body in a naughty way. Perverts. I got these Achievements very happily. The ball was indeed rolling.

Now, what to play first? ‘Reach’ I know like the back of my hand, so that’s probably a good a place as any to start. The fact you can get Achievements for stupid things like ‘Recommend a File’ and ‘Uploading to File Share’ makes it a no brainer for some quick points. I wanted to get through it quickly, so with no shame or reluctance, went straight for the Heroic difficulty. I was thinking to myself, does it really matter? ‘Halo’ is notorious for it’s regens, and you just start over at your last checkpoint. I wanted to run, not to walk. Heroic was fine enough for me. Bring it on, Noble Team! Let’s er..start, the fight. R.I.P. Kat .

‘ODST’, however, is a different beast altogether. The controls are all messed up, for starters which is annoying. The whole game is so damn dark you need the Visor set to ON for more or less the entire game. The enemies are in huge numbers and unpredictable. The levels aren’t as big as those found in the main series – everyone probably knows this, but ODST was originally meant as DLC for ‘Halo 3′, until the game became so huge Bungie decided to release it as a physical disc, packing in the full ‘Halo 3′ multiplayer – so running through it shouldn’t be too difficult. Heroic it is. Um, oops. Bad idea. Hang on, I’m shamelessly Achievement Whoring, here. I take a quick look at the Achievement list. You get the same points for completing the game on Heroic as you do on Normal? Thanks very much, I’m going back to Normal. Do I feel guilty and a little weak? Yes. Do I care? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

As expected – not to blow my own giant frikkin’ Rod Gun or anything -, I sailed through both games. I’ve played them both to death and could have probably done it with my feet. ‘Reach’ isn’t the most difficult game in the world, of course, but ‘ODST’ at the highest level does present a serious challenge. Well, it did. Once. Not anymore. Inbetween the Campaigns I assured myself I would get some random multiplayer Achievements, which I did. I also managed to squeeze in some Forge creation, without question my favourite part of ‘Reach’. What next? Well, I have a LoveFilm account, may aswell rent some games to Bitch-Slap for Achievements. Wait…what’s this? ‘Avatar: The Burning Earth’…..

If you’re in it for some shameless Achievement Whoring. Look no further than ‘Avatar: The Legend of Aang – The Burning Earth’. A game so freakin’ terrible, it stands on it’s own as a testament to developers doing utterly nothing with modern technology and pitifully staying in the last generation. Its execution is horrible, its voice over work dreadful, its graphics just…nasty. It takes the skills and talent of every AAA game developer and throws them into some useless disrepute as you wonder how they can stand side by side in the same industry. Don’t – DON’T buy this game, ever. For fucks sake, don’t buy this game.

However….

For Achievements? It is without doubt the very best game ever made.  No game even comes close. If you’re reading this article you probably know about this games legacy, about how it’s still full bloody price EVERYWHERE you look purely and utterly because of it’s Achievements. Clever marketing tool? Perhaps. Like I said, though. Don’t buy this game, it’s so horribly dreadful. Do, however, rent the crap out of it. Borrow it from a friend who was stupid enough to buy it. Steal it, then give it back. It won’t take you long, you can get every single Achievement in the space of around 5 minutes. Just. Press. B. 1000 G’s are yours without breaking a sweat. Can’t believe it? Trust me, somehow pick this game up without paying for it, and you’ll see what I mean. It really is quite amazing. Some people argue the developers – THQ, of all people – put all the Achievements at the very start of the game as they knew the whole game sucked and assumed nobody would play on past the first level, while others argue they just had no idea what Achievements actually meant. The truth is, from THQ themselves, that ‘the Achievements were placed where they were with kids in mind’. Aww, ain’t they sweet?

Now, yes I rented it. Yes, I got the 1000 Points. I’m not going to pretend I’m the only one, a quick glance through my friends list on Xbox Live and I see pretty much all of them have done the same thing. I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness, it’s a quick way to get Gamerpoints. Its legacy will live on for a long long time.

At this point, I’m about a quarter of a way towards my original score, which isn’t bad going in the space of two weeks, I reckon. I continue to soldier on in my perilous mission, in the hope that I reach those dizzy heights of fame and fortune one requires when reaching such an important milestone in life. My current Achievement Whore of choice is ‘Burnout Paradise’, not particularly easy for Achievements but certainly brilliant fun. Plenty to do and the Points just come along with it. Plus DJ Atomica of Crash FM is just awesome, isn’t he?

What games am I avoiding? Well, the pure unfairness of ‘Red Dead Redemption’. As fantastic, mystical, wonderous and beautiful as the game is, it’s brutally unfair with Achievements. I’ve never worked so damn hard in my life to finish a game, only to get very little back in the way of Points. Originally, that isn’t why I finished it. Back in the day – like, last year – it was all about finishing the game to finish the game. I didn’t care so much about Achievements, they just were all part of powering through. The satisfaction of completing a game like ‘Red Dead Redemption’ was a great feeling, something you can only get with games. It wasn’t until my roommate started getting a pretty hefty Gamerscore of his own that I started to really take notice to the fact that he could be defeating me on my own Xbox, something I just couldn’t let happen. He completed ‘Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’ before I did. There was no way I was gonna let him take all the glory. If anything, he gave me the determination to power through ‘Brotherhood’ and ‘Red Dead Redemption’. Now of course, because of Gamertag Recovery fail he’s lightyears ahead of me in the Gamerpoints stake, which is doubly annoying because he’s now replayed ‘F1 2010′ and reclaimed back the Achievements he so kindly donated to me. You can’t go wrong in life when you have friends like him. Anyway, I completed ‘Red Dead Redemption’ and got 90G for my efforts. 90?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FAR I’VE GALLOPED ACROSS THIS BLOODY MAP? How many people I’ve killed and bears I’ve gutted? 90 points? It was a cruel twist of fate on my part, I was expecting and demanding more. I’ve since ran through it again and got little Achievements, but nothing breaks the heart more than playing through that entire damn game just to get the Achievement equivalent of a pat on the back. Don’t even get me started on ‘Undead Nightmare’. The game has been tossed out of the window.

Whatever you may think of my shameless Achievement Whoring, it’s really all about trying to recapture that time I had with my original 360 and hoping that it wasn’t all completely wasted. I love my gaming as much as the next person, and I hate to see my times and efforts be in vain. It’s a tried and tested motivation, but one that seems to divide people. Do you play games to finish them 100%? Are you that gamer? The one that won’t stop until every Achievement available for that game is unlocked. The one that sees the game as incomplete until every picture has been mysteriously coloured in. I’ll be honest, I’m not this person. I do love my Achievements but I won’t go out of my way to get every single one, I just don’t have that kinda time y’know? Except of course for ‘Avatar: The Burning Earth’.

Which person are you? Let us know below.

Fancy a game? Add RosskoAK862. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, I can tell.

Cya pals!

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