Thunderbuckets presents: achievement whoring 101

[noble]

As most of you are probably aware late winter early spring is a barren wasteland for new video game releases.

Ok let me rephrase that it's a barren wasteland for anything good. But I'm a gamer, and a gamer needs to game. So when there's no good games out to play it's time to play the rest of the crap. The games that you first hear about and go oh boy, that can't be good. Nine times out of ten you'd be right, but every once in a while you get one of these bottom rung games that are actually half way enjoyable.


I play the games that you don't want to...and show you some that you might just want to take a look at.


Now keep in mind, that I rent 99% of the game I play. So these are based on rentals only. I can't recommend buying most of these games...ever.

And this is going on not only fun factor, but getting achievements as well. I know I can't be the only scorewhore on the board

For the achievement seekers look for the buckets review. Numbered 1 - 10.

1 - being that you could get these achievements if someone removed your brain and replaced it with a mister potato head.

10 - being that even god almighty using his magic popsicle stick powers would snap his controller trying for some of these monsters.

First up,

Earth Defense Force 2017 -

Fun, fun game. The first few times through. With 53 missions the game isn't short by any stretch of the imagination. You're looking at a good 5-6 hours to get through it on the easy setting, and of course the time gets longer as you go through it again on normal, hard, hardest, and finally inferno. There are only 6 achieves in the game and five of them are for going through and beating the game on each difficulty. So you're looking at a good 60 hours + to get the full 1000 points. And as I said it's a fun game IF you like the old japanese giant monster flicks, and getting to destroy pretty much everything in your path with rockets and what have you. It does however start to get old around the third time through, which is when it starts to get frustrating as the monsters get damn tough to take out. When the giant black ants(the weakest of the enemies in the game are taking 3-5 rockets just to kill...and there is groups of 30-50 swarming at you at once...yeah it will make you want to snap your controller in half. But again good fun if you're looking for something to blow the shit out of but if you're looking to get 1000 points out of this game, you're going to have to really dig in and be with it for the long haul.
There is co-op which makes the game even more of a blast to play through. HOWEVER it's split screen/same console only. No live co-op. So if you have an extra controller and a friend handy, it makes the destruction even that more fun.

This game gets a score of 7 buckets out of 10.

You will replay levels again and again to get the weapons and health you need just to survive in hardest and inferno. I've been playing this game off an on for a month and so far have only squeeked 300 points from its alien teet. Hardest is just what it says. I have over 3000 in life points and I've only managed to clear about 7 of the 53 levels.

Crackdown

With the release of the new downloadable content packs:

1 which is free, and 1 which will run you 800 points and adds another 350 points for a total of 1250.

This downloadable pack adds so many damn new modes that it is well worth the 800pts. I mean there's some arcade titles running for that price, and you won't get half as much enjoyment out of them as you will from this.


For those not in the know, Crackdown has you choosing an upgradable agent to clean up a crime ridden city. Imagine if you were a super cop trying to clean up a Grand theft auto style city. Now to power up your cop you have to kill gang members. Punch them to get stronger, run over them to improve your driving skills, shoot them, etc etc.

Damn fun game while it lasts. Because unfortunatly once you take down all the crime lords in the city, and max out your agent...you're pretty much done.

Until now that is.

The new downloadable conent includes a boss battle mode. Where you get to face each of the bosses without the pesky trouble of bouncing around the city to find them. There's a 100 points if you can take them all out on psychotic difficulty. Took me about 5 hours to do, and you don't have to do it all in one sitting.

Then there's the rocket tag, keys to the city(which basically disables achievements but gives you a super agent(double the max stats) and the ability to spawn pretty much anything you want from cars, weapons, the time of day, to even making you unkillable. There's also co-op collection races, checkpoint races, and your standard street races. A huge amount of things to do adds hours to the lifespan of the game, and you can waste hours upon hours blowing the living crap out of your co-op partner.


This game is a definite purchase. Forget the fact that the Halo 3 beta is unlockable with the disc. This game is worth a purchase on it's own merits.

This game gets 8 buckets out of 10.

There are some easy achievements, but there also some you are really going to have to work at. Finding all the hidden(300), and agility(500) orbs is a very daunting task. The street races can be very difficult, getting the rampage achievement will take patience, and while fully powering up your agent isn't difficult, it does take some doing.

I've managed to snag about 830 of the points so far.


Shrek the 3rd:

If you liked the old Final Fight/Streets of Rage style of games you'll really like Shrek the 3rd.


For about 2 hours.


It's a very linear, throwback to the old side scrolling brawlers. Complete with meat that pops out of barrels and light posts when you smash them to replenish your health.

However about the 2 hour mark (which is about half way through the 20 stages in the game, you'll start to wish for the end. You'll start to wish Shrek would shut up. You'll start to wish a cart would smash Puss N Boots into street pizza.

The achievements for the most part are easy to get. The stages are all pretty much 'on rails' you can't go anywhere except your designated path, and a chunk of the 'missions' has you collecting things like mugs, trophies, etc. Which all of these are contained in the breakable barrels, or pop up when you defeat enemies. So just break everything you see, and beat up every bad guy(they don't respawn), and you'll have all of these by games end. There is one achievement for getting through the levels without having a die. I only had to go back and replay 3 of the levels as wonky cameras had made me fall to my death because I couldn't judge exactly where to jump.

There are two achievements I didn't get. Go through the game on easy and go through the game on hard.

I barely squeeked through it the first time through(without slitting my wrists with a rusty moose). No way in hell was I doing it two more times.

I spent about 6 - 7 hours getting 890 points.

This game gets 5 buckets.

Not for the fact that the achievements are hard to get. It's just that about halfway through you'll NEED to stop playing for fear of death by monotony.


Guitar Hero 2:

If you don't know what GH2 is, then stop reading this and go buy the game. Now. Or the gods of gaming will turn their backs on you forever.

A rhythmic timed music game, and probably one of funnest games released this year for the 360.

Getting the full 1000 points out of this game is going to be nigh impossible, and you're going to have to be one of the gaming elite to pull of this herculean task.

This game gets a rating of 10 buckets.

Aside from that this game is one of the top 5 360 titles, and you're doing yourself a disservice by not owning this game.

And if you buy the game, for the love of all that's electronic and beepy get the guitar that goes along with it.

Otherwise, what's the point?


More to come.

[Matt Jay]

Great idea. I agree about EDF. Hardest achievements I've ever personally come across.

I haven't noticed any drought of good games, although it's probably because I have been making up for lost time with Oblivion, and I am in love with Shadowrun. Incidentally, Shadowrun gets 7 buckets from me. They'd be somewhat easy to get if you play to get them, such as getting into a party with friends for that purpose. But I'm just playing for fun so it's taking forever. I'm at least 40 hours in and I probably have around 400 points.

[dougmac]

As most of you are probably aware late winter early spring is a barren wasteland for new video game releases.

Ok let me rephrase that it's a barren wasteland for anything good. But I'm a gamer, and a gamer needs to game. So when there's no good games out to play it's time to play the rest of the crap. The games that you first hear about and go oh boy, that can't be good. Nine times out of ten you'd be right, but every once in a while you get one of these bottom rung games that are actually half way enjoyable.


I play the games that you don't want to...and show you some that you might just want to take a look at.


Now keep in mind, that I rent 99% of the game I play. So these are based on rentals only. I can't recommend buying most of these games...ever.

And this is going on not only fun factor, but getting achievements as well. I know I can't be the only scorewhore on the board

For the achievement seekers look for the buckets review. Numbered 1 - 10.

1 - being that you could get these achievements if someone removed your brain and replaced it with a mister potato head.

10 - being that even god almighty using his magic popsicle stick powers would snap his controller trying for some of these monsters.

First up,

Earth Defense Force 2017 -

Fun, fun game. The first few times through. With 53 missions the game isn't short by any stretch of the imagination. You're looking at a good 5-6 hours to get through it on the easy setting, and of course the time gets longer as you go through it again on normal, hard, hardest, and finally inferno. There are only 6 achieves in the game and five of them are for going through and beating the game on each difficulty. So you're looking at a good 60 hours + to get the full 1000 points. And as I said it's a fun game IF you like the old japanese giant monster flicks, and getting to destroy pretty much everything in your path with rockets and what have you. It does however start to get old around the third time through, which is when it starts to get frustrating as the monsters get damn tough to take out. When the giant black ants(the weakest of the enemies in the game are taking 3-5 rockets just to kill...and there is groups of 30-50 swarming at you at once...yeah it will make you want to snap your controller in half. But again good fun if you're looking for something to blow the shit out of but if you're looking to get 1000 points out of this game, you're going to have to really dig in and be with it for the long haul.
There is co-op which makes the game even more of a blast to play through. HOWEVER it's split screen/same console only. No live co-op. So if you have an extra controller and a friend handy, it makes the destruction even that more fun.

This game gets a score of 7 buckets out of 10.

You will replay levels again and again to get the weapons and health you need just to survive in hardest and inferno. I've been playing this game off an on for a month and so far have only squeeked 300 points from its alien teet. Hardest is just what it says. I have over 3000 in life points and I've only managed to clear about 7 of the 53 levels.

Crackdown

With the release of the new downloadable content packs:

1 which is free, and 1 which will run you 800 points and adds another 350 points for a total of 1250.

This downloadable pack adds so many damn new modes that it is well worth the 800pts. I mean there's some arcade titles running for that price, and you won't get half as much enjoyment out of them as you will from this.


For those not in the know, Crackdown has you choosing an upgradable agent to clean up a crime ridden city. Imagine if you were a super cop trying to clean up a Grand theft auto style city. Now to power up your cop you have to kill gang members. Punch them to get stronger, run over them to improve your driving skills, shoot them, etc etc.

Damn fun game while it lasts. Because unfortunatly once you take down all the crime lords in the city, and max out your agent...you're pretty much done.

Until now that is.

The new downloadable conent includes a boss battle mode. Where you get to face each of the bosses without the pesky trouble of bouncing around the city to find them. There's a 100 points if you can take them all out on psychotic difficulty. Took me about 5 hours to do, and you don't have to do it all in one sitting.

Then there's the rocket tag, keys to the city(which basically disables achievements but gives you a super agent(double the max stats) and the ability to spawn pretty much anything you want from cars, weapons, the time of day, to even making you unkillable. There's also co-op collection races, checkpoint races, and your standard street races. A huge amount of things to do adds hours to the lifespan of the game, and you can waste hours upon hours blowing the living crap out of your co-op partner.


This game is a definite purchase. Forget the fact that the Halo 3 beta is unlockable with the disc. This game is worth a purchase on it's own merits.

This game gets 8 buckets out of 10.

There are some easy achievements, but there also some you are really going to have to work at. Finding all the hidden(300), and agility(500) orbs is a very daunting task. The street races can be very difficult, getting the rampage achievement will take patience, and while fully powering up your agent isn't difficult, it does take some doing.

I've managed to snag about 830 of the points so far.


Shrek the 3rd:

If you liked the old Final Fight/Streets of Rage style of games you'll really like Shrek the 3rd.


For about 2 hours.


It's a very linear, throwback to the old side scrolling brawlers. Complete with meat that pops out of barrels and light posts when you smash them to replenish your health.

However about the 2 hour mark (which is about half way through the 20 stages in the game, you'll start to wish for the end. You'll start to wish Shrek would shut up. You'll start to wish a cart would smash Puss N Boots into street pizza.

The achievements for the most part are easy to get. The stages are all pretty much 'on rails' you can't go anywhere except your designated path, and a chunk of the 'missions' has you collecting things like mugs, trophies, etc. Which all of these are contained in the breakable barrels, or pop up when you defeat enemies. So just break everything you see, and beat up every bad guy(they don't respawn), and you'll have all of these by games end. There is one achievement for getting through the levels without having a die. I only had to go back and replay 3 of the levels as wonky cameras had made me fall to my death because I couldn't judge exactly where to jump.

There are two achievements I didn't get. Go through the game on easy and go through the game on hard.

I barely squeeked through it the first time through(without slitting my wrists with a rusty moose). No way in hell was I doing it two more times.

I spent about 6 - 7 hours getting 890 points.

This game gets 5 buckets.

Not for the fact that the achievements are hard to get. It's just that about halfway through you'll NEED to stop playing for fear of death by monotony.


Guitar Hero 2:

If you don't know what GH2 is, then stop reading this and go buy the game. Now. Or the gods of gaming will turn their backs on you forever.

A rhythmic timed music game, and probably one of funnest games released this year for the 360.

Getting the full 1000 points out of this game is going to be nigh impossible, and you're going to have to be one of the gaming elite to pull of this herculean task.

This game gets a rating of 10 buckets.

Aside from that this game is one of the top 5 360 titles, and you're doing yourself a disservice by not owning this game.

And if you buy the game, for the love of all that's electronic and beepy get the guitar that goes along with it.

Otherwise, what's the point?


More to come.

I was flipping through the GH2 booklet and wondering if anyone plays without the guitar (I have the PS2 version)

[noble]

I was flipping through the GH2 booklet and wondering if anyone plays without the guitar (I have the PS2 version)

I couldn't imagine it being any fun without the guitar.

Honestly, it would be like playing DDR with the controller...and y'know...what's the point

[noble]

Call of Juarez

This was ALMOST a really great game.

It tries really hard. Unfortunately the camera, and nonspecific radar locations try harder to piss you off.

If you liked Gun(and I believe Gun was a criminally underated game) then think of this as a prettier version of Gun, with some interesting features to advance the genre.

For instance you actually play two characters.

One is Billy a native american/mexican half breed who has been hounded his whole life just because of his background. He's trying to get home and upon arriving there finds his mother and step father murdered.

Enter the Preacher...who is a spitting god damned image of the Saint of Killers. Seriously. He has his hat down so you can't see his eyes, he's an aging weathered(to the point that his skin looks like it was carved out of leather), gunslinging son of a bitch, and he happens to be the brother of Billy's stepfather. Now when he rides up and sees Billy standing over the corpse of his brother and wife, he decides then and there that Billy did it, and he's going to hunt him to the ends of the earth, and kill anyone that gets in his way.

So one stage you're playing Billy, a sneak style character, who has a whip to help him swing from trees, etc, and really sucks at gunfights.

The very next stage you play the Preacher. Traversing through the stage that you so precariously snuck through as Billy, blasting the shit out of anything that moves(gives you kind of a good feeling inside to blow the crap out of the guys that were giving you so much trouble while you were Billy).

So yes, you are a bad ass hunting yourself down, while in other stages, you're running from the baddass you...yeah it gets confusing at times.

and of course you have to watch your weapons. The rusty ones you pick up can easily overheat and break, so it's best to check out the guns your victims have dropped and keep a fresh set. Don't want to be in the middle of a twenty man shoot out, and both your guns go explodo on you.

Unfortunately all this bad assery is hampered by a jinky camera. As the Preacher it's not much of an issue. He's pretty much the terminator on legs(complete with an iron chest plate that bullets bounce right off of), and just stamps his way forward while you unleash a rain of hot death on any idiots stupid enough to cross your bible verse shouting self(yes one of your weapons is a bible. You start yelling out nasty passages from the good book, causing those in ear shot to stop for a second and listen. Then you can blow their sorry asses back to hell. But as Billy, which is a lot of sneaking, and swinging platform sections, you'll fall to your death more likely than not. Even the most devout of religious people will find themselves uttering the dreaded go fuck yourself after the tenth time the camera causes you to fall to your death.

The second hitch in this game's getalong, is the ambiguous radar 'goals'. For instance the game will tell you to 'get to the burning barn!' which is usually on the other side of the stage, and a red cursor will mark it's location on your radar. Now it always stays directly on top of your goal. So if you have to circle around behind a cliff to get to said barn, you could be heading in the completely wrong direction according to the radar, but still be going in the right direction if you know what I mean. It will lead to a lot of second guessing yourself if you're heading in the right direction or not.

Also even though you're in the middle of wide open prairies and canyons there is only ONE way to get to the goal. So while the arrow will be pointing north, and there's a river in front of you, you would naturally assume that that is the way to go...only to be killed by the rapid waters. Or you see a small cliff in front of you and the arrow is pointing that way, so you jump down it, only to be killed by the fall. It's a lot of trial and error that could easily have been fixed by a checkpoint radar system instead of the one they used.

As is, if you enjoy the western genre, and had fun with Gun back when, you should get some enjoyment out of COJ. Just be aware of the game's faults.

I give this game 8 Buckets


If you play through the game and pay attention to the specific achievements for each stage(like shoot 10 sticks out dynamite out of the air, or shoot 6 men while riding in the mine cart, etc), you should walk away with around 400 points by the time you finish the game once. There are a large chunk of achievs for online play and some of them are pretty crazy. Like kill 3 people at the same time with 1 stick of dynamite, or shoot 6 people in the head with the sniper rifle without using the scope, on 1 magazine(no reloading). Things like that. There's also achievs for going through the game on mega hard, and finding all these little wanted posters(and the stages even though linear are very large, so this is going to be a herculean task in and of itself.)

Armored Core 4

For us nerdos that played Battletech back in the day, you should have a field day with this one. You get to take a standard mech layout(small and fast, medium and standard, or large and slow) and tweak it as you see fit. The more mechs you face and destroy the more you get to salvage weapons, armor and body types from them. The game is fairly difficult in the first two chapters as your mech is pretty much a tank with a machine gun. However once you start salvaging thicker armor, faster boosters, tracking missile launchers, and giant fuck cannons, the game gets pretty easy. I mowed through this game in about 15 hours(4 of which was trying to get an A ranking on all the normal missions and getting through some of the hard ones). Be warned that once you start to build an uber mech the stages can fly by pretty fast. There are 40+ missions, but some of them are over in a minute. You show up, unload a volley of rockets, and cannon fire, the enemy mech explodes, the end. There are a variety of missions to keep things from getting stale. Protect the tanker, wipe out invading armies, repell invading forces, and some battles are on land, some sea, and some in the air.

A really fun game that you should at least give a rental.

I give it 6 Buckets.

The achievements are pretty easy to nab once you figure out how to power a mech (basically take a medium sized mech, and give it the highest firepower and armor you can), but there are some that will stay out of your reach unless you really dig in(and are better than I am). I managed to walk away with around 820 points...and I almost got that A ranking...but couldn't quite cowboy up for it.

Open Season

This game is so easy a sentient turd could get all 1000 points in an afternoon. It starts off fun, but gets a bit repetitive towards the end. There's search quests but the levels are linear as linear can be, so if you break open everything you see(this sounds like Shrek the 3rd), you shouldn't have any problems whatsoever in snapping up all 1000 pts. I put in about 5-6 hours and nabbed all 1000pts. The basic story is domesticated bear gets shipped back to the wild, and he has to rely on the help of a mentally retarded deer to get him back home. On the way there he meets a scottish squirrel, latino skunks, and insane french ducks. Whom he has to team up with to take down hunters during open season.

This gets 1 bucket. A piece of roadkill could get these points.


Surf's up

Another animated movie turned game. Another short(probably the shortest retail title I've ever played in my life) game with simplistic tasks (score 10,000 points is pretty easy when you average around 50-60,000 a level), and pick up quests(I'd call them search quests, but the things are just lying out in the open...all you have to do is surf over them to pick them up. Not hidden or anything). The story of a surfing penguin.

I can't make this crap up.

This game gets 2 buckets. It would have gotten 1 but there are four achievements that are actually pretty difficult. I played for 3 hours and walked away with 800pts.




Eragon

There are actually two games in here. One is a baldur's gate style hack and slash(without the leveling up and collecting bits), the other is a dragon flight game...however I've come to believe that the dragon flying bits were programed by helen keller. Or Daredevil if he had his radar sense shoved up his ass after a six month bender. Luckily there's only 4 of the 18 stages that involve you 'flying' this 10 ton paperweight, so there's that. The on ground stuff is a throwback to the old final fight types of games. A straight brawler where you go from one point to the other. Sure they throw in things like protect the villagers or...protect the villagers, but it's all pretty straight forward. It's mindless fun, but around level 15 you're ready for it to be over.

The dragon flying bits...My mother always told me that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all so here goes...





...




And that's all I have to say about the dragon flying bits.

The game is extremely easy(except for the flying parts. And in some strange nod to assbackwardness everywhere....Hard difficulty is actually EASIER than normal difficulty. I have no clue why this is...but it is what it is. I was dying way more on normal than I was on hard. You will fly through this game in a couple afternoons. It's wicked short, and easy...except for mission 18. The last mission which is a boss fight while...you guessed it...flying that goddamned blind ass dragon. A dragon that can crash into things that are no where near it's body. It's a gift.

That I'd like to return


This game gets 3 buckets

I finished this game in under 10 hours and got all 1000 points.

The main set of achieves are finish each stage on normal, finish each stage on hard, and find the 18 hidden eggs(they're blue eggs, 1 per stage, that glow like a sumbitch, and you'd have to be blind to miss them. All you need to do is a little snooping around the stages and you'll find them. The only reason it didn't get a 1 is because the dragon stages are a pain in the balls(specially the last stage), and you have to play through this game twice to get them all. And even though you get 30 pts every time you finish a stage on hard, you still question yourself every step of the way as to why you're playing this game again.


More to come...

[Mike_Johnson]

The use of the word bucket in this thread was too much for me to handle.

[noble]

The use of the word bucket in this thread was too much for me to handle.

Blame Low key.

Since my gamertag is Thunder buckets, and I've played pretty much every 360 game ever, he suggested ratings using buckets.

[baldonetoo]

Cool feature you have going here.

I'm married to a wonderful wife who just doesn't love watching me play games so I have to pick and choose my games.

But if I can tell her that I only have to play this for a few hours and get all the achievements...she probably still won't care but at least I can slip in some playing time here and there.

Keep the achievement reviews coming.

KC

[NickT]

The Call of Juarez demo made it seem good. Oh, the quick draw

[noble]

The Call of Juarez demo made it seem good. Oh, the quick draw

The mechanics and features of the game are fun.

If it weren't for that damned camera during the Billy missions, and the non specific map pointer, this would be a really great game.