The Scoreboard #10

It's back! The deepest journalistic gaming coverage of Achievement points across the seven spectrums of space: The Scoreboard. What you’re about to read may contain graphic detail of the latest games' Achievements, tips on unlocking them, and a critical analysis of how awesome they may or may not make you.

Okay, so we don’t span all seven spectrums, but The Scoreboard is back for another week of reviewing the Xbox 360’s crown jewel and gamers’ raisons d'être: Achievements, Gamerscore, and the rad 80x80 images that accompany them. Feel free to check out our studies of Universe at War, NBA Ballers: Chosen One, Lost Cities and the bargain bin winner Earth Defence Force: 2017 over the next few pages for the most reliable Achievement reviews available.

Universe at War: Earth Assault

The game-pad is no substitute for a mouse when it comes to real-time strategy games, but it gets the job done, and by the job, we mean “unlocking Achievements”.  Universe at War: Earth Assault is tight-fisted with the goods, but with supreme investment, strategic commanders will be obliterating spider-tanks and extracting the Gamerscore resources that they contain.

Best Achievement – The Sacred Cow (10 pts.) Collect 200 cows in Ranked or Conquer the World multiplayer games using Kamal Rex. The Sacred Cow gives you a badge featuring a cow rocking a high calibre machine gun. Do you need any more than that?

Worst Achievement – My Virtual Life (45 pts.) Play multiplayer for 75 hours. This one has “FAIL” written all over it. Universe is a pretty damn good game and all, but will anyone ever spend 75 hours online? Most gamers don’t have the attention span (or care) to play a 50+ hour RPG, let alone a hundred or more online battles. Don’t waste your time.

Easiest Achievement – The Basics (10 pts.) Complete the Prelude Campaign. The tutorial is about 15 minutes long, and consists of baby stepping the unfamiliar through the the first race, the Novus, and the basics of the genre. Since you’re playing an RTS, you’re obviously in it for the long haul; this is as good a place as any to learn what’s what and bank ten points in the process.

Hardest Achievement – Skirmish King (50 pts.) Defeat 3 hard AI players during a skirmish session. Having three enemies head-hunting you is pretty rough. This is for seasoned players looking to really challenge themselves, which this will. The payoff is pretty decent, but don’t plan on walking in without intimate knowledge of how to lay an anime-robot ass-whoopin’.

Time Investment vs. Payoff – Quit your job (out of ten) Even if “My Virtual Life” wasn’t on the list, the amount of time you’d have to sink in to Universe at War is a little unfair to your social life. Missions are simple enough, but the cats who play online are ruthless and don’t plan on losing to you. You’ll be lucky to walk out of a complete campaign with more than a couple hundred points. Get good, or get out.

Overall – 4 (out of ten) The RTS genre is very slow paced, and despite UaW’s fantastically implemented control scheme, a mouse and hot-keys are preferable to increase efficiency. The Achievements are the same for the Games for Windows version, so if that’s your preference, go for it. There are a few cross-platform Achievements (though the cross-platform patch has yet to come out) as well as some interesting skirmish stuff to keep you going for a long time if you’re in to that. Let’s face it though, you definitely aren’t.

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