It took a whole evening and zero actual work, but I finally unlocked–much to the dismay of Sean Devlin’s lungs–the following Achievement last night in The Saboteur:
Chain Smoker (5G): You smoked way too much.
You can say that again. See, when you stand idly around Nazi-controlled Paris or simply press the left analog stick in, Sean takes out a cig from his shirt pocket and lights up then and there. “Helps take the edge off,” he claims, and he’ll take about three or four drags before flicking it away. Sometimes, if you interrupt this, he’ll just run around with it in his mouth until he gets a chance to puff some more. It’s just another silly idle animation; Diddy Kong would juggle balls if you put the controller down for too long, and Sonic the Hedgehog would rightly tap his impatient foot, waiting for you to make him run, run, run. I’ve even noticed that ‘Splosion Man has quite a set of ’em. Silly details, not needed, but there nonetheless.
However, in The Saboteur, this idle animation is also tied to an Achievement, one that demands Sean smoke 100 cigs. That means smoke them beginning to end, too. No quick puffs here. Meaning, this is the sort of Achievement you get over time, but I checked my stats screen and saw that I had already smoked 45 cigs at this point. About halfway there! So I did the most sensible thing ever.
I made dinner.
And left the game running in the background. As I fixed my turkey, American cheese, and bell peppers sandwich (oh yum!), I could hear Sean softly flicking his lighter open and sparking up. Nom nom nom. Smoke smoke smoke. When I went back to the game, my stats screen said he’d smoked a total of 73 cigs so far. Woo. This plan was working, albeit a bit slowly. Not wanting to leave my Xbox 360 on all night long, I shut down for a bit to do some other work (and not be distracted), but I came back to play a bit more before bed. Did some main storyline missions, and celebrated each one with smoke, and then finally I took a shower and when I came back out the Achievement had unlocked without me even there. Hooray and boo! I missed that oh-so-Pavlov-like ping, but it popped nonetheless. And I barely had to do anything. Though 50 cigerrettes in one evening surely did something to Sean, but it’s hard to tell as this is an Irishman that takes a hundred bullets to the face, hides behind a crate, and comes back to life without any wear or tear. Granted, I like that, but maybe they could’ve gone a little more Metal Gear Solid with this.
Grinding Down 