Achievements of the Week – The Burning Love Edition

Here we are for the second stab at rounding up all of those juicy Achievements unlocked during the last week. Don’t expect the naming convention of these posts to be conventional; they are born on a whim, on a phrase, on a wild brain-bite, with most often the first Achievement listed acting as the muse. Okay, let’s do this!

From Team Fortress 2…

Flamethrower (5G): Set five enemies on fire in 30 seconds.

I was trying so hard for this Achievement, managing to set three enemies on fire before a turret took me out. Was bummed. But then, after respawning, I quickly shuffled back to the warzone, lit two more dudes on fire, and ping. Glad to see that it didn’t have to be all five on one life. I have to imagine though, that since it took me about 10 seconds to respawn and five or so more to get over to the fighting, that it was down to the wire.

Nemesis (5G): Get five revenge kills.

Revenge is a dish best served BOILING HOT, YA BUNCH OF SNIPING SNOTHEADS. This one also tied in with the above Achievement, in case you couldn’t figure that out on your own.

I actually unlocked several more Achievements for Team Fortress 2, but I did them in a whoring kind of way and am not terribly proud of my actions. We’ll leave them unmentioned this week.

From Half-Life 2…

Hot PotatOwned (10G): Kill a Combine soldier with his own grenade.

Ha, funny.

From L.A. Noire…

Johnny On The Spot (30G): Respond to 20 street crime cases.

Petty crooks and ruffians are no match for the mighty Cole Phelps. I also unlocked the Miles On The Clock Achievement, which gets some coverage here. Closing in on a few more, such as The Long Arm Of The Law and The Brass. Maybe they’ll ping this weekend. Maybe they won’t. I’m no fortune-teller.

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And that’s it. Been a slow week for Achievements, mainly because I was focusing more on other projects, like journal comics and Supertown comics. Writing up a crazy review of Minecraft. Watching some old Shark Week stuff on Netflix to make up for the fact that I don’t have the Discovery Channel currently. Oh, and moving. Always with the moving. Wish I could get Achievements for packing boxes and carrying them to my car, over and over and over again. Something like this, perhaps:

Professional Boxer (100G): Packed five consecutive W.B. Mason boxes, carried them down two flights of stairs, loaded them into your car, and broke a sweat.

Hells yeah.

There’s no “i” in Team Fortress 2, but there is a “me”

Over the weekend, I picked up two games thanks to some coercing coupons from GameStop, but really I picked up six games, as one game is actually five games bundled nicely on a single Xbox 360 disc. It’s called The Orange Box, and it’s one helluva package, especially as a used copy; for just over $20.00, I now have access to Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Man, that’s a lot of 2s in there. I’m sure I’ll be musing about those first four games at some point, but let’s use today to dive into Team Fortress 2, a game I didn’t think I would like, but am having fun with, as well as a game that is sadly not the be-all, end-all version of itself.

Team Fortress 2 is an online, team-based, first-person shooting multiplayer bonanza. You pick a class, a map, and a type of game (capture the flag, capture/defend control points, arena, and so on), and you’re off to shoot non-team members, capture sections of the map, and wait patiently for your character to respawn. On the Xbox 360 version, there’s six maps available, and I’ve gotten to try ’em all once, which should be obvious to all y’all Achievements stalkers:

World Traveler (5G): Play a complete game on every map.

The six maps are all about the same size, a medium build, with a few spots of elevation, but otherwise there’s a lot of staircases and tight corridors to contend with. Each team has a home base where they can restock on health and items. No real direct interaction with anything on the map though, and there’s no destruction a la Red Faction tech. My favorite playground is whatever the snowy one is called. Snowscape? Snow City? Las Frozen Vegas? I can’t remember, and I’m definitely too lazy to look it up.

As y’all know, I’m pretty terrible at competitive shooting games, and that fact has not changed one bit since giving Team Fortress 2 an hour or two of my gaming life. I get sniped from afar, set aflame all the time, and knifed in the back the moment I step into enemy territory. But regardless, I’m having fun. I think it has something to do with the wonderful art style, a loose, cartoony feel that evokes Pixar’s The Incredibles and gives me a sense that everyone else is just here to have fun and not take it so seriously like a lot of Call of Duty fanatics. The controls and simplicity of the gameplay also help; most classes only get two gun-type weapons to use and one melee weapon, and there’s no rain showers of endless grenades. I think I actually did my best with the Medic class, as I kept away from the firefights and healed teammates as they needed.

Do you play Team Fortress 2? What’s your favorite class? And if you’d like to shoot me in the (cartoony) face or help take down others with me, please add me on Xbox Live; my gamertag is PaulyAulyWog.