Seven Steps to Boost Your Gamerscore

11:35 pm Games for Fun, Games for Points

Points are fun too!

Last time I wrote about why I like getting achievements. This time, I want to give some insight on how I go about getting those ‘cheeves. A few people I know keep prodding me to write about this, so here we go!

1. Play games you enjoy – This probably sounds dumb or obvious, but you shouldn’t play games you don’t really like. You’ll notice I have some games like Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2009 (that’s everyone’s favorite to pick on so I point it out in particular) that I’ve 1000pted. Guess what? I actually like playing those games… rag-dolling animals is fun for me and I don’t get to do that in any other game. By contrast, I wasn’t feeling the recent Harry Potter game (too long and involved), Deadliest Catch (too repetitive), or Dead Rising (terrible save system) so I stopped playing them. I will admit I will put up with a mediocre game just to get achievements though, since playing a bad game is more fun for me than watching a decent TV show. I think it’s really up to the individual player, but as long as there is enough “fun” to keep me interested I’ll stick with the game.

2. Find the fast points – This goes against #1 in someways. You’ll see I’ve 1000pted a hockey game which honestly I didn’t think was that fun (I’m not a big fan of hockey in general, nothing against the game itself). However, early sports games for the 360 are some of the easiest to get achievement points in. Avatar: The Last Air Bender is everyone favorite example of quick points. You can get all 1000 points in under three minutes. For someone who is into getting achievements, getting fast points is fun by itself. If I can play one game of NHL 07 and get 1000 points, it’s pretty freaking fun to see that you’ve unlocked 26 achievements for 1000 points in a match or two. Getting back to Harry Potter; I wasn’t having a ton of fun playing the game and it was long, so the investment in time for points wasn’t worth it.

3. Avoid multiplayer games – I feel guilty playing multiplayer games solely for achievements. Plus, you generally have to play a ton of MP to get a small amount of points. In general, I think it’s unwise for designers to put task specific achievements into multiplayer since the point whores could potentially ruin everyone else’s experience. Case in point: When Halo 3 was released, I spent a decent amount of my multiplayer time trying to get the mongoose splatter achievement in ranked matches. I didn’t care if my team won or lost, it was all about getting that achievement. As a side note, you should avoid all rhythm and instrument games too if you’re only concerned about getting points. While incredibly fun, the Rockband and Guitar Hero series are punishing when it comes to dishing out achievements. This is my weakness… I really like playing rhythm and some MP games, which basically puts me on a point hiatus.

4. Read achievement guides – There are a few good sites, like achieve360points.com and xbox360achievements.org that have active communities of people who want to max out their gamerscore. The forum goers generally write some awesome guides which tell you the best strategies and fastest ways to get points. Think of these as souped up game FAQs that are specific to achievement getting. Generally, the guides are good about telling you what difficulty level to play on for cascading difficulty level achievements, how many playthroughs of the games are required max your points, where all the collectibles are, any legal glitches that help speed things along, what cheats can be used that still allow for achievement unlocks and so on.

5. Use glitches – I mentioned legal glitches in #4. What I mean by “legal” is if the game shipped with a glitch then it is safe to take advantage of. Anything that requires a save game hack or hard drive hacking is off limits and is the equivalent to using steroids in the Olympics. Sure, you might not get caught but do you really want to risk the consequences of getting banned from Live? Some of my favorite glitches would be getting the “Hard” completion achievement in the most recent Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts game via save game glitch (not a hack!). Another is the “Trogdor” glitch in Guitar Hero II which allows you to do crazy things like trick the game into thinking you’ve beat Buckethead on Expert. Again, this stuff is generally posted on those achievement forums.

6. Play lots games all the time – I play a lot of games. All the time. I barely watch TV or films, and sacrifice a lot of that free time playing games instead. Sure, I never know who any actors are when friends bring them up in conversations, but I don’t care… I have more points than them! This was more of a problem when I lived in LA since people would say “I saw INSERT ACTOR NAME HERE at the mall” and I had no idea who they were talking about. What’s a Tom Cruise again?

7. Get Gamefly – Self explanatory. I tend to buy a lot of AAA games, but in between those big games I use Gamefly to play the other titles I might have missed and to get easy points. I’m probably not going to buy all the Cabela’s games, but renting them is a no-brainer.

That’s basically it. There’s no magic behind this really. I play games whenever I can. I also look up the best and fastest way to get achievements. Ta-dah! Hope you’re completely disappointed!

2 Responses

  1. Keith Kleinschmidt Says:

    Dear sir:
    These seven steps were a great read! And you nailed it with every step! I especially like #1-the have fun rule! It sounds simple but weren’t games created to have fun? Great read and Thanks!

  2. In the Trenches » Blog Archive » Seven Steps to Boost Your Gamerscore | GLITCH IT Says:

    […] In the Trenches » Blog Archive » Seven Steps to Boost Your Gamerscore // Category: xbox 360 games | Tags: cabela, causing-the-psp, dangerous, dangerous-hunts, […]

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