Friday, March 27, 2009

Got Gamerscore?



One of the best things about the Xbox 360 is the achievements that are built into every game. They give you extra motivation to play a game longer than you normally would in order to earn an achievement and add a few points to your gamerscore. Sure, your gamerscore is meaningless, but there is nothing quite as satisfying as playing a game and hearing the "bleep bloop" and seeing the “Achievement Unlocked” window pops up.

I'm currently involved in a gamerscore challenge over at 360voice.com involving members of 360junkies.com. I decided to do a little research on "easy gamerscore" games to try and get a leg up on the competition. What I found blew my mind, there are games out there where you can, with a little work, get a full 1000 gamerscore in one game of college basketball or one playthrough of an easy game. I would like to share this information here so I don't feel as bad for blowing away the competition.

The first and easiest game to get the full 1000GS on is College Hoops 2K6. I know it's old and bad, but don't worry, rent it and be done with it after just one game. The game has a grand total of 5 achievements and with a little tinkering of the settings can all be achieved in one game. There are many youtube videos and walkthroughs found online for this one but really all you have to do is look at the achievements, make the halves 20 minutes long, and do what you have to do.

I found two games that reward you a full 100GS for just completing the game, without any side quests or collectibles. TMNT and King Kong are very easy games(you can't die) in which you get chunks of gamerscore for completing each level. TMNT personally took me about 4 to 5 hours, I haven't played King Kong yet but it will take a little more time investment with about eight hours of gameplay to go through.

There are several easy gamerscore games out there including probably the easiest, Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth(jeez what a name). Apparently you can get a full 1000GS in 5 minutes, including putting the game in the tray and loading it up. Good luck finding this one though as I hear it's pretty hard to find.

Good games for this are titles that award you for progressing through the single player and completing simple tasks. Bad games for this are titles that stick heavily to multiplayer achievements and lengthy exploration. I've put together a list of good games for gamerscore.

- Avatar TLAB: easy 1000 in 5 minutes
- Bully SE: easy 1000
- DiRT: 700+ for completing career mode
- Enchanted Arms: get them all in one playthrough
- Fight Night Round 3: Play through career, easy 1000
- Fuzion Frenzy 2: Get most of em very easy
- King Kong: just play through the game
- Lost: Via Domus: very easy 1000
- Madden NFL 06: very easy, just sim franchise
- NBA Street Homecourt: very easy, and fun
- College Hoops 2K6: not even fair, easy
- TMNT: easy playthrough and fun!
- Viva Pinata: very easy

I don't consider this "boosting", "boosting" is beating your unmanned second controller, lowering the AI(in most sports games you can dumb down the other team), and glitching or hacking with a modded Xbox. All of these I listed are achieved legitimately and do take some effort to accomplish.