General Tips and Tricks
Before I launch off into different games, here are a few pointers on enjoying Achievement hunting for my fellow gamers.
1. Have fun with the points you get!
Most of you who are really “in” to getting points probably know about some easy marks: NBA 2k6 is the really famous one, and the lesser known (but easier to score with) Avatar: The Last Air Bender: The Burning Earth. While it is incredibly easy to get 1000/1000 points on these games, seriously, it makes them that much more of a chore. I can guarantee that you would much rather spend your time and money on something you would actually enjoy rather than dragging yourself through a poor quality game just for bragging rights. (For those of you who have noticed that I have played Avatar, please read all the way through to the end ;) ) Next…
2. Don’t waste money!
I have been fortunate enough to have landed the same fantastic summer job the past few years running, and it is out of the funds from that job that I buy all of my stuff. I remember the good ol’ days of the SNES and N64 where you could go out to an EB Games (that’s right, not a Gamestop!) and buy a brand new game for about $30 (or a Gameboy cart for $15!). Now, that average game price has doubled, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it go higher in a few years once we hit the next generation of hardware. $60 is a lot of money to throw out if the game you’re going to buy is only going to be played for 15 minutes and never touched again *coughAvatarcough*, so make sure you buy what you like rather than what would only add to your GamerScore. Or be even thriftier and….
3. Rent!
Renting games is something most gamers do, but the degree to which the average person rents is worth examining. With a lot of games you get much more bang for your buck if you rent them rather than buy them. I would say anything that might lack replayability (RPGs can be good examples of this, but not always) is something I would rent rather than buy. A game with a great multiplayer mode, or something that could be enjoyed much more than just once, is something I would buy rather than rent. If you do choose to rent a game, you might want to research what you’re renting beforehand, specifically in the area of how long one can expect to play it. If you hang onto the game too long, you might end up paying the cost of the game (or more) in rental fees, and then you don’t even get to keep it when you are done (Blue Dragon, a great JRPG for the 360, is 3 discs, about 50 hours long. Expect late fees).
If you rent often, I would definitely suggest signing up with a service that will deliver games to your door, much like Netflix does with movies. I myself signed up with Gamefly about 6 months ago, and I absolutely love it. The basic plan is about $15 a month, so if you would rent more than two games a month from a local Bluckbuster Video (about $7 per game with a 1 week rental period at mine) or similar store, then definitely give a service like this a try. Most offer free trials for a week or two. It saves you the hassle of having to drive out to get a game and then drive it back. It is also incredibly nice to no longer have to drive out to the store with that rented copy of Final Fantasy X so you can re-rent it (again, long game), just to avoid late fees. Once you’ve decided how to budget your time and money in picking a game….
4. Research those Achievements!
The above steps are great tips for casual gamers, or really anyone who’s interested in saving money and time with their games. Now we get down to the real business: Achievements!
So yeah. Research them. No, not like that awful term paper for school. If you really want to get points, just look up the best way to do it! xbox360achievements.org is my favorite website. There is a fantastically helpful forum community there, and they have most Achievement lists up and viewable before the respective game is actually out. It takes about 5 minutes to check out your game, much less time than going through the list on your Xbox360 itself, and it has additional features too (you can choose to see Secret Achievements, and you also do not have to individually select an Achievement to see its description, then go back to the full list so you can see other Achievements like you do on the 360. I find it annoying time consuming doing this on the console). Also, if you ever have trouble with a specific Achievement, there is always a guide on the forums, and a plethora of helpful people.
5. Enjoy.
Simple as that. Have fun playing your game.
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I know that’s a massive amount of words to go through just to have fun with video games, but if you actually boil the process down there is no time involved in any part of it, other than actually playing the game (researching Achievements takes an optional 5 minutes). I really do recommend a service like Gamefly, because it gives you access to way more games than your local video store likely has (this is definitely true for me), and may even be less expensive as well (also true). I currently have the “2 Games Out” plan with Gamefly: they send me the top 2 items in my queue, and every time I return one I get another. This is where Avatar came in. I generally like to have one solid, lengthy game out (Fallout 3 was in my possession for at least 2 months), and I then also one other game that is either a quick fun game, something else I just wanted to try out, or one of those “easy marks” for Achievements. A lot of the time I will have one single player game and one multiplayer game (I currently have Left 4 Dead and Prince of Persia, the latter of the two I will hopefully talk about later this week!).
That’s all I have to say on enjoying your Achievements while making good use of your time and money. See you soon. Kaz out.
