The Scoreboard #21

Turns out that there are way too many amazing games coming out at once this month. We kicked off the holiday season with Crash Bandicoot's latest adventure, Mind Over Mutant, followed by Dead Space. And though MLB Stickball and Age of Booty probably aren't on your “must buy” list, they still might be worth checking out for Achievements, don'tcha think? We've got the scoop on what you can pick up during all that free time you’ve put aside. Achieve with us, won't you?

Crash: Mind Over Mutant

Everyone loves upgrading characters, right? Right! If you're looking for tons of Gamerscore in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, then the scrumptious looking pick-ups known as Mojo just might be your ticket. We won't lie to you; it'll be a dangerous ride and you might not make it. But if you're ready to brave the wilds of Wumpa Island for oodles of points, then don your safari hat, get comfy, and prepare to, well, be bored.

Best Achievement: "Over Easy" (15 pts.) Complete co-op balancing puzzle in Mount Grimly –In our infinite quest for collection, whether it's the character-upgrading bits of Mojo or scattered assortment of plush toys, we found ourselves searching every nook and cranny at erratic rates. Because of our ADD approach to gaming, we stumbled across a number of floating see-saws littered with bigger, shinier Mojo than usual. When Crash made it to the end of the teeter-tottering deathtrap on Mount Grimly, the "Over Easy" Achievement unlocked! Snap! In other words, you can nab co-op Achievements in solo play, so keep your eyes peeled and snatch up all the Mojo-money that you can find for bigger Gamerscore cash-outs.

Worst Achievement: "Crash King" (25 pts.) Fully upgrade Crash – Though Mind Over Mutant is a meagre four hours long from start to finish, having to play it multiple times to grind your way to Crash-max-success is as fun as being stung in the lung by a gorilla/scorpion hybrid. Considering how many collectibles you need to find in order to boost the level and abilities of our bandicoot buddy, it's actually pretty daunting. Expect at least two gruellingly thorough play-throughs before you turn Crash into the ultimate orange badass that developer Radical so desperately wants its tattooed 'n mohawk'd marsupial to be.

Easiest Achievement: "Can U Dig It?" (5 pts.) Enter an underground space – As it turns out, bandicoots are actually burrowing little critters in real life too. This works especially well for Crash since the island he lives on is home to a massive deposit of secret underground Mojo. Since he already spins around quite quickly, it's only natural that the ability codas into a dirt-shredding sub-surface hunt for cash. Simply rotating your right stick over the appropriately marked area nets you these five points, so make use of your God-given attribute and dig for those Gees!

Hardest Achievement: "Crash King" (25 pts.) Fully upgrade Crash – See "Worst Achievement." For real, this unlock is nuts. You're probably going to want a case of beer or two to get yourself through repetitive plays of a game aimed at adolescents.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 4.5 (out of ten) – After the credits roll, you'll probably be up 200-ish Gamerscore and about finished with Crash forever. But if you want to really bask in the Gamerscore glory, then you better be willing to dedicate yourself to some serious play-throughs. Too many Achievements require specific upgrades for each monster that Crash mounts, seemingly endless collecting and huge combat combos for this to be a quick in-and-out adventure, thus making it a timelier endeavour than initially expected. Like, way timelier.

Overall: 6 (out of ten) – To its credit, Crash: MOM has a pretty decent spread over the badges, which means that you'll need to keep playing to unlock 'em all. They're far from difficult to do for the most part, but you'll want to deliberately hang around areas with loads of enemies and endlessly crush them with monster-fists. The generic list is pretty loaded with garbage like "kill X # of Y" and a bunch of crummy, time consuming side stuff. But if you're looking to squeeze some longevity out of this one then this is your excuse.

Dead Space

Hopefully our POV on Dead Space's Achievements won't stir up the ruckus that our real review did, because we're trying to kick it and have some fun here. That said, we wouldn't turn away angered gamers' page views because, well, clicks are clicks. Perhaps we'll stick in a couple low blows and see what kind of hatred we can instil on the fanboys. Ah, we're just kidding – Achievements are way, way too serious to be kidding around with. We'd hate to inspire more anti-OXM banter in the comments anyway, especially with something as lowly and terrible as Dead Space... Dead Space's Achievements, we mean. Phew. Close one.

Best Achievement: "Brawler" (10 pts.) Kill at least 30 enemies with a melee attack – The melee combat might be the clunkiest thing about Dead Space, but hot diggity damn if it isn't a brutal feeling to cold cock a chicken-winged mutant in the teeth. The satisfying crunch when a lower jaw severs from the head and a stream of stasis-infused slow-motion blood flows as you rip off one of the aforementioned chicken wings are what make Dead Space so freakin' cool. Stomping on tentacle'd foetuses also counts toward your Gamerscore end goal... and is the most disgusting thing ever. 10 GS was all the encouragement we needed to go sock some aliens silly with the butt-end of our laser pistol.

Worst Achievement: "Pack Rat" (10 pts.) Store 25 Items in the Safe – Survival horror as a genre has one objective: to screw the player in every possible way. The most notable and universal offense across every horror game is that items and ammo come up pretty sparingly, and Dead Space makes no bones about tossing you an "F-U" or two throughout. Smart players will drop loads of cash on piles of clips (because we'll be honest: we all know that the plasma cutter is a gun, not a "tool") so they always have enough beat-down power to take out the necromorph horde on the derelict spaceship, Ishimura. So when the game offers you points in exchange for sacrificing the ammunition and items you so desperately need to survive , you've got to wonder how much worse the screwing-over could possibly get.

Easiest Achievement: "Marksman" (5 pts.) Dismember 20 Limbs – Despite Dead Space not being terrifyingly frightening, we were initially paranoid when we made it through the first elevator on the Ishimura. With corpses strewn about, we were certain that they'd be reanimated and attempt to slice our brains off – which they later would. Our rampant stomping to dismember the hideously mangled crew worked great towards unlocking the "Marksman" Achievement. Yes, you can unlock this badge without ever firing a shot! Simply stomp on the strewn-about bodies to remove their arms and legs, and you'll be up 5 Gamerscore before you so much as think about shootin' your pistol.

Hardest Achievement: "Maxed Out" (75 pts.) Upgrade all weapons and equipment – Honestly, we are big, fat cheaters. The Internet told us the secrets of Dead Space, and even though it asked us not to spread the gossip, we simply love you too much not to spread the goods around to our best buds in the whole wide world. Check out a cheat page if you want some help in obtaining phat lewtz and mad cash without all the hard work of maiming monsters. These codes don't affect Achievement unlocks and they go a long way to help with the ridiculous requirements of fully juicing Isaac's engineering suit and arsenal of killin' gear. If you're a purist and refuse to exploit tens of thousands of dollars and dozens of upgrades, we wish you the best. Nobody saved a bloodied space ship without a little help, y'know.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 8 (out of ten) – At ten hours, Dead Space is pretty short. By default, you'll walk out of the end credits with a few hundred points, but the real goods come from spending every cent you earn (uh, we mean steal from corpses) on various weaponry and making sure you whoop ass with each of them. Consistent slaughtering, exploring and listening to logs will keep the flow fairly steady, which means go-getters can finish up with well over 500 points. Very few hindrances will stop the ambitious from clocking out with almost the full thou'.

Overall: 4 (out of ten) – Before you flip your lid, hear us out. Despite being decently paced for earning, Dead Space has really bland Achievements that are despicably unoriginal with a scanty amount of awesome peppered in between. We love the idea of zero-G b-ballin' as much as anyone else, but not even Space Jam can save Dead Space's mediocre list of "complete chapter 1, 2, 3..." and weapon-specific unlocks. We appreciate the payload of course, but the process is as exciting as ten hours of hallways and fetch quests.

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