Top 10: Best Achievements

Yeah, a lot of people hate them or think they're a waste of time. Hell, I hate 'em; I just can't stop going after them. I've spent far too much of my life 'cheevo chasin'. But, even though the majority of Achievements are mundane, sadistic, or just stupid, there are some truly great ones out there. Some are even iconic. So, what makes an Achievement great? It could carry a large amount of prestige, be hilarious, or even inspire copycats. Without further ado, here are my top ten 'cheevos of all time, and no, I haven't gotten them all.

10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -> 'Et Tu, Brute?'
The first 'cheevo on the list makes it there because it's perfectly suited for hilarity. This Achievement rewards you for getting five of your friends' dog tags. Not only is it awesome that you can get an Achievement for embarrassing your friends, but DICE had the wisdom to do this one right. 5 is not a large number, but it also requires a little time. This way, you probably can't get the Achievement in one sitting, but you shouldn't feel the need to grind for it ("Okay, come let me knife you and then you knife me"). Plus, you don't have to knife 5 unique friends, so don't expect random friend invites from strangers looking for this Achievement. Also, since you sometimes end up on the other side as your friend if you join him midgame, there should be ample opportunities to get this one.

9. Portal: Still Alive -> 'Out of the Blue'
This one makes the list because it's one of those Achievements that adds a fun challenge without decreasing the fun of the game. That being said, this is no cake walk (sorry...and wtf is a cake walk, anway?). The goal is--once you control both portals--to only use the orange portal as your entrance and always come out of the blue one (geddit?). I've tried this one a couple times and I'm still not entirely sure where I've failed. Guides on the ingterwebs suggest that you have to make sure you get through every portal as quickly as possible. But, hey, don't let the challenge dissuade you. Plus, Portal's just such a good game that you shouldn't mind playing it a few times.

8. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved -> 'Pacifism'
This Achievement tasked you with surviving the first 60 seconds of a game without so much as firing a single shot. People loved this Achievement so much that the sequel had an entire gametype built around the idea. No, it wasn't all that difficult to get (it should only take a few tries), but it was definitely a lot of fun to get. Plus, since Geometry Wars was one of the first games on the 360, you could really say that this 'cheevo paved the way for Achievements revolving around trying to play the game a certain way or by handicapping yourself.

7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock -> 'The Inhuman Achievement'
No, I don't have this Achievement. I've never even beaten the intro. This Achievement is on here simply because it's probably the most prestigious Achievement in existence. It's not like 'Seriously 2.0' where any monkey can get it with enough patience. This takes an ungodly amount of skill and a shit load of practice. If you have this Achievement, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really are one of the best Guitar Hero players in existence, and that you will probably have carpal tunnel in the near future. Oh, and let's just get this out of the way: yes, 'Kick the Bucket Award' (GHII) came first, but "Through the Fire and Flames" is both a better to listen to and tougher to beat than "Jordan."

6. Battlefield: Bad Company -> 'Darwin's Parachute'
When you read the description for this Achievement, it says, "(Online) Glide in the parachute for 3 seconds." Seems simple enough. So, you get yourself a helicopter and fly as high as you can and then jump out. A moment afterward, you realize you're plummeting towards the Earth and that you have no idea how to open the parachute. You start randomly hitting buttons, but your efforts are fruitless, and you smack into the ground at terminal velocity and get to wait for your next respawn. "Crap, how do you open the parachute?" you think. Then, before you can even finish that thought, you unlock the Achievement. You quickly hit the guide button to make sure you're not crazy. Yep, there it is, but now its description reads, "There is no parachute, right?" Yes, that's right, you just got tricked into killing yourself, and now the title of the Achievement makes sense. This is hands-down the funniest Achievement I've ever seen.

5. The Orange Box -> 'Little Rocket Man'
I did not have the patience for this one (and I, uh, never found the gnome), but one of these days I'm going to go back and get it. This was a very popular Achievement, and it even inspired a follow-up for Left 4 Dead 2. This Achievement takes dedication unlike any other, and shows just how much you want to help a garden gnome reach his dream of making it into space. For those of you who don't know, this Achievement tasks you with carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 all the way to end. So, after every firefight you have to go back and pick him up. The most frustrating part is trying find a good place to wedge him in the car you have to drive for a large portion of the middle.

4. Dead Rising -> 'Zombie Genocider'
You earn this Achievement for killing 53, 594 (the population of the local town) zombies in a single playthrough. No, this Achievement was not particularly fun to get. In fact, I outsourced about half the work to a friend. This one makes the list for a few reasons, though: you unlock the bitchin' Mega Blaster weapon for earning it, it was one of the first well-known and much-coveted Achievements, and it inspired several copycats. The first copycat was Left 4 Dead's Zombie 'Genocidest', which was awarded for killing 53, 595 infected over all games. The second was [Prototype]'s 'Trail of Corpses' Achievement for killing 53, 596 infected. In other words, this one makes the list not because it particularly great, but because of its legacy. Speaking of legacies...

3. Gears of War -> 'Seriously...'
Getting 10, 000 kills in Gears of War's multiplayer was no small feat. You were lucky to get 30 kills in a 45 minute game. If you had this Achievement, it meant two things: you played a lot, and you were probably pretty good. Sure, any 12 year-old could get it, but they usually didn't. This is still the most prestigious online Achievement, and almost anyone who has it proudly wears the emblem as their gamer picture. Like Zombie Genocider, it also yielded copycats (The Club's 'No, Seriously' for 10, 001 online kills), including the follow-up 'Seriously 2.0' in Gears of War 2. 'Seriously 2.0', however, was hugely disappointing, as it required 100,000 kills across all gametypes. Anyone who has it probably spent an inordinate and ridicule-worthy amount of time replaying the brumak rodeo over and over again.

2. Halo 3 -> 'Vidmaster Challenge: Annual'
We're getting down to the end, and here we have my vote for the funnest Achievement of all time. This Achievement required you and three of your 'cheevo chasin' friends to beat the final level of Halo 3 on the hardest difficulty with the Iron skull turned on, but with a little twist. Instead of allowing you to use a couple of warthogs and allowing you to strand stragglers, everyone had to be in their own ghost and everyone had to get to the end. It required team work, persistence, and a little luck, but it sure yielded a handful of laughs. This Achievement is the shining example of how to add challenge and fun simultaneously. Oh, and this 'cheevo grants you exactly zilch in Gamerscore, so fun's the only thing you're gonna get out of it...that, and you'll be one step closer to Recon.

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -> 'Mile High Club'
This really shouldn't be a surprise. If I were a betting man--and I am--I'd wager that more time was spent globally trying to unlock this Achievement than any other. It's very prestigious, but only requires a minute of your time to unlock...if you get it the first time...and you won't. What made this Achievement so cool was that it was so hard to get, but it was always just out of your reach. Every time you start up the Epilogue, you think to yourself, "Okay, this is it. This is the time I actually beat this thing." Sure, it required luck to unlock (AI is inconsistent, so the pure memorization of the NES days isn't an option), but once you unlocked it, it was like taking a monkey off your back. And I'm not talking about a cute monkey like Spike in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, I'm talking about the kind of mokey that throws feces at you and your friends. If you've unlocked this Achievement, you're in the club.

--Chilly P