Gamer's Lowdown on Xbox 360 Game Achievements

As we play through various games completing set goals such as passing levels, setting best times and racking up high scores, being able to tell our friends about our accomplishments gives us a great deal of satisfaction. Only now with Xbox 360 we have a great way to back ourselves up?

Every single game must include at least 5 significant achievements which are set objectives or milestones that developers are required to put in. Most games so far have many more than this like Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, Quake 4, and Condemned, which have 50 different achievements.

Achievements can range from finishing a level on the hardest setting (Call of Duty 2) to finding 60 dead birds (Condemned: Criminal Origins) to earning every single platinum medal in the game (Project Gotham Racing 3).

If you are a member of Xbox Live, when achievements have been obtained, they are saved as part of your gamer profile for everyone to see both offline and online.

Achievements are a great way to look back on your gaming feats but it doesn’t end with that. Every single achievement that developers include is also worth a certain number of Gamerscore point

At the moment full games have a maximum of 1000 Gamerscore points that can be earned and Xbox Live Arcade games currently have a max of 200 points to giveaway. These points are distributed among achievements as the game creators see fit.

For instance, NHL 2K6 and NBA 2K6 have 5 achievements each worth an average of 200 points which are all offline, while Perfect Dark Zero has 50 achievements worth various amounts of points with a mixture of off and online goals. So every achievement you earn will add up to a total Gamerscore which is displayed on your Gamercard.

If you browse the xbox.com forums you will have noticed that when a post is made, the posters whole Gamercard is displayed (Rep, Gamerscore and Gamerzone). By clicking on these cards you can go in, view what that person has played and achieved and see a breakdown of their Gamerscore.

You may also notice that some achievements are hidden, meaning that they are secret achievements that must be unlocked before they will become visible. You can also compare yourself side-by-side to another gamer. This is an awesome feature and can also be done through the Xbox 360 dashboard.

So, that’s it for me for another week. Catch you on the forums.

MightyOat

• Achievements: Your Gaming Legacy
• Your Gamer Card