The Scoreboard #8

The doldrums of April are upon us, loyal readers. In the wake of Grand Theft Auto IV’s imminent release, this month’s gaming releases are as slim-pickin’ as a stereotypical summer's. Luckily, there was a good chunk of games released in the last couple weeks to fill the void in your Achievement-deprived heart. So if you want to learn about the latest Xbox 360 games that will jack that pitiful little Gamerscore, you’ve come to the right place. The Scoreboard features scientific, analytical reviews of the oh-so-sweet nectar of Gamerscore. By association, the 60 dollar plastic donuts they come on are bound to come up, too.

We’re going to be taking a look at five games’ Achievements this week, all of which fit an overarching theme: Just Keep Playing. So if you want to unlock Achievements for these titles, and we know you do, plan on grinding for a worthwhile payoff. Okay, now that you’ve been prepped and pumped up, we can be done with this introduction bull and get to the good stuff. Achieving begins in three, two, one...

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Viking is a meaty, meaty game. You’ll run around three kinda-open-ended islands as Skarin, a blond haired, pony tailed pretty boy masquerading as a violent Viking warlord. Over the course of 20 to 30 hours, he can be seen bisecting thousands of anthropomorphic fish-men while liberating hundreds of kidnapped Viking tribes. In the process of destroying the forces of evil, you are, expectedly, rewarded with mad loot. In this case the loot is both gold and Gamerscore. A lot of Gamerscore.

Best Achievement – No Need For Immortality (50 pts.) Achieved the perfect victory at the final battle for all Midgard This one requires you to go the entirety of the final battle (which is beyond epic due to mass enemy density and 20 minutes of snoozing stair ascension) without getting eaten, torched, smooshed or stabbed in the face.  This is no small feat so it’s immensely satisfying when you end up on the winning team. Block, dodge and run in the finale, and Skarin will be just fine, sans resurrection.

Worst Achievement – (Three Way Tie) Skullbagger 1, Skullbagger 2 , Skullbagger 3 (15 pts. each) Collect the 6 skulls in Darkwater, Caldberg and Thornvik  These nearly identical Achievements are equally super-weak because it’s never made clear that there are any skulls in the land for locating (let alone earning Gamerscore for) and we were Marco Polo-ing the crap out of Asgard. We didn’t find a single one of these things in our 25 hours with the game. Rip off!

Runners Up: Viking Blademaster (18 pts.), Viking Warrior (16 pts.), Viking Slayer (14 pts.) Viking Slaughterer (12 pts.) Weirdly numbered Achievements can burn in a fire. No one messes with our Gamerscore! Well, okay, it doesn’t really matter. We’ll take points where we can get them, but it’s preferable that they’re multiples of five; not three, four or seven.

Easiest Achievement - Viking Butcher (10 pts.) Mastered the first advanced combat move Upgrading Skarin’s skill set typically requires exorbitant offerings of gold to the dead Vikings of Valhalla, who school him in the ancient art of swinging axes in to skulls. Fortunately, the first class is free. In turn, so are these 10 points.

Hardest Achievement - Viking Conqueror Hard (60 pts.) Reach the end of the game on hard difficulty It’s cheesy to use “beat hard” as the Hardest Achievement again (and it isn’t really that difficult) but Viking does offer a couple stupidly tough situations throughout. It’s better to play on hard from the beginning since there’s little to stop you in your viciously violent adventures.

Time Investment vs. Payoff – 3 (out of 10) It is not as harsh as say, Final Fantasy XI, but holy friggin’ Freya this game is time consuming. The payoff is eventually awesome, though. A minimum of 500 points will have been awarded after the entire country has been slaughtered by the too-pretty protagonist’s epic adventure. Careful searching, slicing, and stealth should cover the Gamerscore gaps.

Overall – 9 (out of 10) The Achievements are fun in Viking: Battle for Asgard. They’ll pop up at some unexpected moments when you pull off some super-sweet business like stealth kills and executions, but it also includes a big bunch of terrible, oddly numbered and vague Achievements. Like most games this week, “Just Keep Playing” applies, though here more than ever. You can’t finish this and not walk away satisfied with your bloated Gamerscore.

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