Achieveables: Zombie Style

in a rare move, an outside contribution has hit my inbox for all you Achievement Whores out there. it's Left 4 Dead Achievement tips from Ms. DOOMstein, Rose:

Now, I am not the most gaming-est chic you'll ever meet, however, I have logged quite a bit of time playing this addictive shooter. I don't have all the achievements, and I probably never will. I do, though, have the somewhat coveted 'Stand Tall' (or the Karl Marx achievement as I like to call it).

If I may, I would like to share some tips and/or tricks for grabbing this achieveable, so you too, at the end of the campaign can here the 'Bleep Bloop' of new gamer points!

-First things first, go after this achievement and only this achievement. Do not attempt for cr0wnd, Akimbo Assasin, Man VS. Tank, Unbreakable, or any of the other big ones. It will only lead you to the heartache of kissing this Bleep Bloop goodbye.

-Play with other REAL people. The A.I. is good, but they don't care about you and your gamerscore. They WILL let you get incapped. Don't let the game dialogue fool you. Louis will leave your ass and Francis doesn't care if you live or die.

-Don't get discouraged if a Hunter pounces you or a Smoker snares you or you are dangling from a window sill. These do not count as incaps, just minor inconveniences.

-Stay with the pack. Don't take point, don't be a scout. Use your ears. The main baddies make distinct noises. The Hunters growl and scream. The Smokers cough and hack. The Boomer has a bad case of acid reflux. The Tank has some scary, thundering theme music, as well as the Horde. And the Witch cries.

-Speaking of the Witch, don't disturb her. Let someone else do that and then just save their ass. Honestly, the A.I. will almost always bother this whiny bad ass. Let'em. They don't get achievements.

-As soon as possible, pick up the M16. This weapon is best used with short bursts rather than all willy-nilly firing blindly into the massive horde of zombies. Only hold the trigger down when you find the point of origin of the Horde. This will take them ALL out as they file in through the hall/doorway/broken wall/ceiling tile, etc.

-When the mass is too great, if you have one, throw a pipe bomb. The zombies flock to this, as it is shiny, and they like shiny. It will save your ass everytime.

-If you are going to use a molotov or blow up a gas can, make sure it is strategically done. Place it where the zombies are coming from, but far enough away from your point of defense. Zombies still run when they are on fire, and they will pounce and snare you and catch you aflame as well. Remember kids, fire is not a toy.

-When you hear the Tank music, find a good place for defense and stay there. Let him come to you. When you see him in your sights, aim at his chest and fire at will. If everyone is concentrating their fire, you'll take him down without having to reload. I promise. He's big, he's fast, he's undead, but he isn't immortal.

-In the finale, find a spot with a good view that is near the ammo, and crouch there. Your aim is almost dead on in a crouching position. Also, have your back to something solid, and remember, not all walls are solid.

-I have found that the best 2 levels for getting this achieveable are No Mercy and Blood Harvest. Keep your back to the gun cabinets, next to the ammo. Keep your eye on the doors and windows and stay where you are.

- Defend your point AND your people. There should be 2 waves of Zombies as well as 2 Tanks to live through. After this, run like hell to the escape vehicle. In No Mercy it's a chopper, in Blood Harvest is an armoured military vehicle. Get your ass there and get inside. You can still shoot Zombies, so lay down cover fire for your team.

Remember, throughout all 5 levels, heal BEFORE you get in the red. If you have pain pills, use those before you use your med kit. If you see that an A.I. has a med pack and you need health, wander around them and most likely they will heal you before they heal themselves. They will also hand pain pills off to you.

Last, but not least, let your team mates know what's going on. Let everyone know if you hear a hunter, a smoker, a boomer, etc. If you are pounced or snared, tell someone. You need to work together to get this achievement.

Now, I can't promise that all these tips will get you your Bleep Bloop. But, they will get you damn close. Pay attention and KNOW the level you are playing. You'll get it. And when you do, you'll say, "Man, that was easy."


Rose

Well............

credit to 1up.com for the pic. i think it sums it up well.

Achievables

Achievements... I love'em and I hate'em. For the most part they are as useless as your appendix... until it explodes and tries to kill you that is!
Anybody but me remember the good old days of the local arcade? I do and I had the high scores on T.M.N.T. the Arcade Game, Contra, Mortal Kombat NBA Jam and Road Blasters (until they closed the arcade for good one day that is). How does that relate to achievements you may ask? Well remember how you would enter your initials when you got one of he top 10 high scores? My initials (which I always entered as FUQ) were at the top and people that frequented that arcade knew it was me. Still wondering the correlation between the two? Well it was a reminder to people of what and who they had to beat to gain notoriety in the arcade scene. This is basically what the number under your Gamertag reflects these days. Pretty much just bragging rights.
No matter how much I try to ignore'em tho, I just can't resist peeping them out the first time I boot up a new game. Curiosity I suppose. Achievements run the gamut of difficulties from being either way too easy (that even your dog can do it) to so freakin' frustrating and impossible that they're way out of the average gamers league (you want me to kill how many people online in Gears of War, Cliffy B?). Not that every single one should be able to be obtained without some work I guess, but that shows people how hardcore you are about this stuff. There should be a standard about some of them though. You should get some points for each difficulty you beat a game on (seriously BC Rearmed, only Superhard nets you a couple points?) and they should unlock all the difficulties below it as well (who wants to beat a game on megawussy after they just whupped its ass on überhardcore mode?). I'd like to see some more of the creative ones as well (HalfLife 2's "Two Points" for making a basket with the gravity gun) cuz it rewards you for just screwing around in a game which adds a little spice to the mix. But that one also brings up a little sumthin that irks my anal retentiveness. I hate it when my gamerscore doesn't end in multiples of 5. It eats away at my brain and will continue to do so till I net another 3 to 7 points, so stop messing with my head already! Some of them should just die of gonorrhea and rot in hell! I'm talking to YOU COD4 Mile High Club achievement! 980 points on that game and they couldn't just make the last 20 a little bit easier. Just give me 2 more seconds, damn you Infinity Ward!
I think that these achievements really tell a lot about a person as a gamer. They show off the brutal things you have accomplished like finally whuppin Halo 3 on Legendary (and now people don't just have to take your word for it) and the crazy time consuming things you have done like ridding Liberty City of its "flying rat" problem (and thats a pretty tuff job, even with a map of the birds). Of course some people's gamerscores get a little bloated when they start achievement whoring and they want to play stuff like Barbie Horse adventure just to add another grand under their name (at least stick to the less incriminating games like Madden '06 if you wanna make yourself look credible buddy). Its all good to want a high score, but you got to draw a line somewhere people! At least wait till you have kids so you have someone to shift the shame to. Stick to something the guys around the water cooler aren't going to ridicule you the rest of your life for. So go ahead and pick up that copy of Deadliest Catch and set sail on that quest for crabs and achievements (no sense in your mom being the only one to achieve that one), but be warned! You'll never be able to wash the stink of that game off of your online persona for all of eternity and everyone will know what a loser you are for whoring yourself out to it! I'm just going to stick to the games I want to play (and won't be embarrassed about) and keep my achievements coming the honest gamer way since I know deep in the recesses of my brain that that number doesn't mean that much in the real world. Its really just showing what i've achieved.


Doomstein