The Scoreboard #22

This is not the Scoreboard you're looking for.

Sure it's got loads of Achievement reviews (including a returning reader's review for Far Cry 2), but it's not the Scoreboard you want. We're cleaning up the scraps, so to speak, before we drive home the holiday's biggest blockbusters. And don't take that statement as a condescending brush-off: all of Scoreboard #22's reviews are worth reading if you're sceptical about the odds-and-ends of 2008's fall line-up. Guitar Hero: World Tour and Legendary bring the Gamerscore home from retail shelves, and you might be able to suck some Gees out of XBLA releases Vigilante 8 Arcade and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. But before we send you off, a returning reader has a review for Far Cry 2.

So if you're ready to prep for the major releases, read on, and be prepared to be surprised by the worthwhile gettin' in some games you never thought you'd care about. Achieving time is now.

Guitar Hero: World Tour

Gosh frickin' darn it, Neversoft. Why is this franchise continuously getting worse? We're not speaking quality, mind you – that's not what we do! We're talking strictly in the bland, boring, terrible, awful, generic list of unlocks that's been steadily rolling down to crap town since Guitar Hero 2 personified the standard list of creatively void badges. They're still fun to unlock in the sense that fluffing comes from shredding, but holy smokes, dudes: hire us and we'll make a decent list next time just so we can stop complaining about the crummy quality of numerical nectar.

Best Achievement: "Wylde Man" (10 pts.) You rocked out as Zack Wylde – Zack Wylde, in case you missed the memo, is the baddest of all BAMF's in the rock world. The ground smashing, speaker facing master of shred eats Chad Kroegers for breakfast, and being able to jam as the leader of Black Label Society, particularly during his song "Stillborn," is a really cool experience and at least four billion times cooler than a whiney bald dude or some chick who thinks she's way cooler than she actually is. We're big fans of these "real" musicians being in the games. Here's hoping we'll be able to shake hips and bend knees as The Beatles in Harmonix's upcoming Paul McCartney simulator.

Worst Achievement: "Platinum Rockstar" (50 pts.) 100% a song as a band, hard or expert only (4 player band) – Are you looking to shatter a friendship or break up with your boyfriend? If so, ask them to help you become a "Platinum Rockstar" with a couple other buds and the relationship crushing will commence as you blame their first faulty over-strum as the reason for your continued failure to unlock the badge. Gathering four total Guitar Hero badasses to full combo a song on hard or higher is an agitating experience that is better off being left alone. Unless you want to flip out at your friends, that is.

Easiest Achievement: "Warrior Of Rock" (5 pts.) You created a male band member – When you start your first career, get the basics of customization out of the way right away. Busting out custom tattoos, band logos and instruments is simple enough when you start, but nothing is easier than rocking out with the standard, generic-o-rockstar that World Tour provides you. Remember, you can edit these characters later, but you can just go ahead and start playing to unlock this – if you're demanding and want to go through the effort to make a lady then the "Rock Maiden" Achievement is worth the same amount of GS for a little more menu navigating.

Hardest Achievement: "Get Your Boogie On" (30 pts.) You scored 222,222 or higher on the song Satch Boogie as the Lead guitarist – Eff you, Joe Satriani. Your insanely crazy note chart for your god forsaken Satch Boogie makes even the most seasoned experts cringe with carpal tunnel – and that's just the thought of passing it, never mind acing the predetermined score of 222,222 points. We demand at least that many in Achievement points for this to be an equal exchange, because our fingers are now permanently craned because of this stupidly tough-to-nail Achievement. Take a pass and save your hands. They're better off being used for something useful than this self-inflicted suffering.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 7.5 (out of ten) – Crushing the expert career retroactively unlocks the preceding difficulties, so if you're a music-game vet then this is the speediest route to unlock 300 points or so. Playing with band mates – ideally four of them – also unlocks more badges for you, and dipping in to the creation and customization will earn you more decent points. At four to five solid hours to wrap up your world tour, it's not a loathsome amount of time to kick out the jams in return for GS.

Overall: 3 (out of ten) – We looooooooove us some o' them there 'chievement points, but yeesh, this list makes us sleepy. Passing careers, making multipliers, hitting star power as a band and jamming as a famous musician make up the plain list – 50 of which are Secret! Ridiculous! Thank goodness for the Internet or we'd never know what to do... oh wait. You could just play and unlock most of the points. When can we start getting points for things like playing the entire song on the solo-frets, with our teeth, behind our head, etc.? Slap a speedometer in the guitar and we've got a whole new batch of potential, force singers to stick to a single octave and reward drummers for pounding the toms as hard as possible. Get mildly creative – it's not hard. You just have to be better than our trashy examples.

Legendary

So what if it bends the mythos of Pandora's Box a little? It's cool, dudes! Even if Legendary has its fair share of problems throughout each chapter, there's a little Pandora's Box of Gamerscore in it for you if you suffer it through. You'll want to, too: things happen in Legendary that'll momentarily make you forget about Achievements, and the only thing you'll be thinking of was how badass it was when an MF'ing Kraken slammed its tentacles through your friends, thus crushing London's parliament building. Then it's straight on to killin' it for GS!

Best Achievement: "I Owe You An Apology" (14 pts.) The Lead Designer apologizes for writing the terrible pun "DouBull TrouBull" -- have some points – This is class. Read on for details.

Worst Achievement: "DouBull TrouBull" (1 pt.) Survive the double Minotaur attack in Episode 8 - We'll be frank: the minotaur fight in the lobby during chapter eight is an absolute sunuvab****. The checkpoint to start it will almost assuredly leave you with little ammo and depleted health, but you're stuck fighting two hammer-carrying brick walls that can swallow three rockets before they consider dropping said hammer. Worse, when you finally beat it you'll only unlock one (ONE!) measly friggin' Achievement point. Thanks. But wait! There's more, and it almost pains us to spoil it but we're going to anyway. You've been warned.

Moments after you've unlocked "DouBull TrouBull" – a pun that would make even the worst pun pundits around the OXM offices *coughDancough* blush – and the horror of being screwed out of potential points has fully sunk in, another Achievement unlocks. "I Owe You An Apology" might be the best use of a funky-numbered Achievement payout we've ever seen. The intense hatred you'll get from Legendary is alleviated when you see this, as you'll probably split your sides laughin'. We did. Good game, Spark.

Easiest Achievement: "Gum On My Shoe" (5 pts.) Get stepped on by the Giant Golem in Episode 3 – We've detailed some woefully easy (and fully appreciated) Achievements in the past, but this one is only bested by The Simpsons Game's "Press Start" unlock. Sure, we've elaborated on the complexities of pressing the A or X button to crack the lock on an Achievement, but this time, all you've got to do is get smooshed. If you can manage to not press any buttons, the smash-happy golem would be happy to oblige you in the giving of Gamerscore by stomping on your chest – unfortunately for you, his foot is made of a bus and a bank, so you'll have to drop dead and reload the checkpoint to continue playing... But how can you complain about getting stepped on for G-Score when all you have to do is nothing?

Hardest Achievement: "Mint in a Box" (40 pts.) Collect all PDA pick-ups – We're known to complain about silly things here on the Scoreboard, and anything we can't pull off is immediately put on our Black List of Hatred and Loathing. The Bourne Conspiracy's passport Achievements eluded us, and now PDA pickups – which are physical PDAs, funnily enough – have us stumped, too! After collecting approximately 14 trillion PDAs, we still hadn't even reached the halfway point! COME ON! That's ridiculous! How many people in New York could possibly have lost their digital day planners that we missed over 50% of them? Screw it. We're glad the city was eaten by griffons.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 6.5 (out of ten) – Eight hours in and 485 points richer, we've wrapped up Legendary's single player campaign. Not a bad haul until you consider the frustrations you endured. But at the end of the day when you've reaped the wealth and murdered some bloodthirsty, brain-eating dogs, you know it was all worth it. Playing on higher difficulties will most definitely lengthen the amount of time it takes to complete Legendary, but the payoff is proportional. The problem is that you won't unlock the Achievements' nerd-numbers retroactively, so you're looking at four play-throughs for the full cash out.

Overall: 8 (out of ten) – We busted out laughing and were incredibly relieved to earn a respectable chunk of Gamerscore from slaughtering the minotaur duo, so Legendary earns huge points there. Aside from that we've got a pretty regular list of "beat missions" and "win multiplayer matches" but the occasional sub-side-mini-mission for points results in some more comedy or coolness. Keep your eyes peeled for alternate routes – you might find PDAs on your way to hilarityville or awesometown.

Vigilante 8 Arcade

Holy crap. Car combat is awesome, even ten years after its "death" on the PlayStation One (because let's face it: Twisted Metal Black was butt)! But nobody cares how it plays or how fun it is when it's packed with 200 individual Gamer Points to be earned, most of which involve flat out whoopin' some vehicular ass. But there's always a catch, and with a few easy Achievements to be unlocked, you might be surprised by the challenge (or tedium) of some of V8 Arcade's generic-as-a-Grand-Am unlockables.

Best Achievement: "Total Pro" (20 pts.) Destroy 100 cars by 'totaling' them. – If there's one thing in this world more satisfying than roasting a hippie's van with a flamethrower, it's obliterating it with a charged up collection of insanely powerful rockets. You can't question the rad-factor of turning opponents' rides in to dust with powered-up homing missiles or a field of land mines 100 times, so don't even try... or we'll mess up your ride with raining purple death beams.

Worst Achievement: "Alien Contact" (20 pts.) Collect all 100 'Alien' icons in single player to unlock a secret craft. – In spite of its freaking phenomenal reward (take a guess what it could be...) the monotony of collecting the one hundred glowing golden gray-men heads wears thin while you're trying to duke it out with opponents. If you insist on unlocking these 20 points like the ravenous rat you truly are, hit the free roaming mode with a couple friends and LEVEL each stage like you were nuking an island populated with bloodthirsty zombies. You'll want to clear out every possible structure to locate each arena's set of icons, but try to refrain from smashing each other up in favor of tedious, boring-ass exploration. Collection sucks, so let's keep it out of our action games, mmmmkay?

Easiest Achievement: "Learner's Permit" (5 pts.) Defeat any vehicle in any mode. – How hard could it be to shove machine guns, mortars and missiles up the exhaust pipe of any number of vehicles ripping around the exploding environments? Not hard. Not hard at all. Y'know why? Because it's friggin' machine guns, mortars and missiles being crammed in to cars, and there are few things easier than making destructible cars, uh, destruct with highly flammable, highly explosive, highly dangerous weaponry. If you're still finding yourself getting blown sky high before you can squeeze off a shot then feel free to drop down to the easiest difficulty or let a local/online buddy eat your hot lead.

Hardest Achievement: "Quest: High Octane" (30 pts.) Complete single player Quest Mode on Hard mode. – You wouldn't expect a farmer driving a bumblebee-filled pickup truck to be a total badass marksman, but he, along with just about every other AI vehicular brawler on Hard mode, will completely destroy you before you even know what's going on. Prepare to spend a frustrating amount of time throwing up – the camera in Vigilante 8 goes a little haywire when four other dudes are blasting you in to the heavens with repeated rocket blasts. It's almost too agitating to bother with... but 30 points is 30 points.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 6 (out of ten) – Racking up 100 Whammies and kills will take up time, as will placing first in a bunch of online matches, but there are a few early unlocks that you'll undoubtedly get without trying. You'll assuredly fire ten charge attacks before your first match ends, and you'll inevitably collect enough bits for upgrades. It's a shame that there are so many "100 times" Achievements because you'll find yourself deliberately using inappropriate weapons just to earn Whammies. It could be worse, but we're not in love with V8's Achievement payout. Overall: 5 (out of ten) – Win online. Kill dudes. Do something 100 times. Beat a difficulty. Seriously, what kind of world are we living in where developers can't think up a moderately clever or creative award for doing something? Every Achievement feels like a throwaway decision made by an intern. Except the intern is a dog. And the dog is Lassie. And, in case you missed it, Lassie died like 30 years ago.

12NEXT