Only the bravest, smartest, most elite gamers have earned the most extreme Achievements the Xbox 360 has to offer. Now they’re here to help you mere mortals get them, too. Read on for the best advice of some of the 360's best gamers.

GEOMETRY WARS: RETRO EVOLVED
Achievement: Survive 1,000,000 (Earn 1,000,000 points without dying)
Value: 30 points
The Experts: blu grunt gamer (Ryan Wooten), PhoenixAtDusk (Ryan Huddleston)

Wanna survive? Get your ass out of the middle of the screen.

Geometry Wars may have started out as a minigame in Project Gotham Racing 2, but its Retro Evolved cousin is one of the most downloaded games in the Live Arcade library. And that means a lot of gamers would like to ring up a cool million points without dying.

Our two star players both stress the importance of practice, and suggest watching videos of accomplished players like K4rn4ge on YouTube. Learn from their movement patterns, like maintaining almost constant counter-clockwise motion, and get into a groove, developing movements that feel natural to you. Sorry to say, there’s no single magic formula; there really is a lot of room for personal interpretation here. Ryan Wooten suggests you use bombs when your gut tells you to, while Ryan Huddleston emphasizes saving them up, so there’s clearly room for divergent play styles if you put in the practice. Just don’t forget to leave a steady stream of fire in your wake: many enemies simply chase your six, running right into your line of fire with all the guile of a drug-addled pop star.

TONY HAWK’S PROJECT 8
Achievement: That Combo Was Sick! (Land a combo worth over 5,000,000 points)
Value: 35 points
The Experts: blu grunt gamer (Ryan Wooten)

For a 5-mil combo, mix your entire bag of tricks at your favorite spot.

Whether you’re still grinding every curb and rail in sight or think Tony Hawk’s ollied the shark, there’s no denying the patience and skill that goes into bagging a 5-million-point combo without leaving a trail of teeth on the sidewalk. Ryan Wooten, not content just to help us with Geometry Wars, offers more words of wisdom: Taking the time to line up a good variety of special tricks in your repertoire is handy. You have access to four each from the air, manual, and grind families, and greater variety translates directly to a higher score. The fun-park level is particularly suited to the task of milking high scores, too. Look for the bowl with an air vent atop one of its buildings: it gives you so much hangtime that local air-traffic controllers start panicking. Use all your special tricks, and keep practicing — but don’t forget to take some time out when your hands demand it. No Achievement is worth carpal-tunnel surgery.

DEAD RISING
Achievement: Frank the Pimp (Simultaneously escort 8 female survivors)
Value: 20 points
The Experts: MightyHealthy (Josh Beld), Silent Jay88 (Josh Thompson), twitchy24 (Travis Soennichsen)

"C'mon, hot stuff, let me show you the courtyard. We'll just leave this dude to be violently dismembered."

Herding zombie-holocaust survivors around a mall can feel like herding cats across a prairie, depending on which scatterbrained dipsticks you saddle yourself with. Still, with some preparation and patience, you can turn Frank into the ultimate ladies’ man. (He’s covered wars, you know.) Take your time, though: Josh Thompson tears a page from Yoda’s book, saying “frustration leads to anger, and anger leads to broken controllers.”

Josh Beld points out that getting your pimp to level 50 first is paramount. By doing so, you’ll max out his inventory slots, health, and attack options, and that means a far easier time equipping and feeding your harem.

Travis recommends bringing enough shotguns and katanas to turn your growing parade into a virtual army, and says to avoid traveling through the heavily populated mall unless you absolutely have to, since that can sometimes leave behind unintended victims. Stick to the courtyard and the access tunnels whenever possible.

Killing Adam as soon as you can will ease your mass-transit woes considerably, too, as doing so opens up the security-guard tunnel between Wonderland and Paradise Plaza. Also, remember that Otis won’t even call you with a mission if it would put you over the eightperson escort limit. Keep an ear out for tasks that’ll snag you three or four women in one go, and don’t feel bad about eliminating your male competition: if you want this Achievement, you don’t need any dudes wrecking the ratio.

PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3
Achievement: Platinum Champion (Complete all championships at platinum level)
Value: 100 points
The Experts: Satman9 (Scott Fuqua)

Keep your eyes on the road, but drive with your ears.

A good racing game with a convincing physics engine can be mastered by applying real-world road wisdom, and Scott helped distill it into digestible chunks. First of all, racing is like learning a new piece of music: you must learn to go slow before you let loose. This applies to just about everything: “feathering” the throttle at a standstill will keep you from “burning” your tires, and finding the perfect racing line is easier if you take a leisurely practice run first.

Most importantly, too many adrenaline junkies just hammer the gas through turns, without realizing that they’re costing themselves valuable seconds. “Slow in, hard out” should become your motto, and careful practice will have you slingshot-ing out of hairpins in no time. Coming in, use your brakes as you would in the real world: gently, without locking them up. Better yet, get the most out of your engine by switching to a manual transmission, and take the pressure off by downshifting into corners.

Another expert tip that isn’t so obvious: Turn down all the sound effects and music except for the engine noise, and learn to drive by sound. This will save you from countless accidents caused by your eyes darting down to gauges at the wrong moments.

PERFECT DARK ZERO
Achievement: Completed Single Dark Agent (Completed single player on Dark Agent difficulty.)
Value: 50 points
The Experts:  Synol (Sean O’Doherty)

Few players would put Joanna Dark’s 360 debut on their list of favorites, but “Dark Agent” difficulty certainly makes the game a stronger test of skill and endurance. Sean recommends the plasma rifle as a consistent primary weapon: it’s powerful, its infinite rounds give off splash damage, and the secondary cloaking function comes in handy with startling regularity. For a backup piece, grab the magnum; this hand cannon might not be the most accurate hole-puncher in the world, but its ample damage dealing can make all the difference at short range.

Like most difficult first-person shooters, the real key is remembering where each set of enemies is. It may bite into the immersion factor knowing exactly what to expect at every step, but a little foresight goes a long way. If your memory fails you, just focus on taking it slow and steady, and always maintain a mental picture of your available cover.

FINAL FANTASY XI
Achievement: Level 75 Achievements (Raise a particular character class to level 75)
Value: 30 points The Experts: Zalora (Terry Campbell)

Konnichiwa! Sprechen ze Final Fantasy?

Final Fantasy XI is a bit of an oddity in that it didn’t ship with any Achievements at all. A later update unveiled a raft of challenges, many of which involve getting particular jobs all the way to level 75. Terry Campbell graciously gave us the low-down on working your way there, stressing above all the virtue of simple patience. As he put it, it “takes a lot of time, planning, and excellent social skills to get anything accomplished quickly,” so don’t expect to pull this off in a weekend. Bards and White Mages may be able to hit 75 in a matter of weeks; others might take months. As Terry points out, there are “no real sweet spots” for grinding out a level that aren’t already widely known. Minimizing the time you waste recovering from battle will help make the work go quicker, which makes effective grouping all the more important. Along those lines, learning a little conversational Japanese can help a great deal: because Final Fantasy XI is so immensely popular in Japan, knowing enough to get by can give you a leg up on party invites.

F.E.A.R.
Achievement: Fearsome (Complete the campaign on Extreme difficulty)
Value: 100 points The Experts: brekbc9 (Brek Christian Ryals), DatBoyMook (Kevin Bibbs), MAgnUm91 (Sam Firgens), Night Raider (Mike Lee)

The combat shotgun: Gaming cliche or a Gamerscore whore's best friend?

We managed to get four different gaming gurus to give up their tips on F.E.A.R., and all of them agreed that the game’s sometimes unpredictable A.I. is formidable. Brek recommends first going through the nightmarish FPS on a lower difficulty to prep, and tweaking your sensitivity settings until you can pull off headshots with comfortable consistency. Kevin is particularly fond of the combat shotgun, which can cleave opponents in half at close range and does considerable damage even from mid-distance. Heck, with a little slow-mo finesse, you can even pull off a long-range headshot. Mike prefers the particle gun for the last few levels, assuming you gathered enough ammunition. Sam reminds you to wait for the slow-mo meter to refill after every big firefight and retain the element of surprise as much as possible: The more baddies you can drop before their weapons are pointed at you, the longer you’ll live. All of our experts agreed that managing health and reflex boosters is important, as is maximizing the effect of each. Wait until you really need a health pack before activating it, as non-portable health boosters are hidden all over the place. If you have to, memorize the location of each one and plan accordingly.

ROBOTRON: 2084
Achievement: Wave 100 (Make your way to wave 100 using default settings)
Value: 45 points
The Experts: dogofwar28 (Shawn Riley), NooNooHoverman (Russ Cooper)

Rescuing humans in Brain waves is your best bet for survival.

Eugene Jarvis’ run-and-gun classic hit arcades 25 years ago, but all that time hasn’t dulled its challenging two-handed gameplay even a smidge. We deemed the coveted Wave 100 Achievement “impossible” in our July 2006 issue, but our tipsters just took that as an invitation to prove their mettle.

Russ stresses staying on the move, always clearing a path with your bullets, and both he and Shawn underscore the importance of quickly killing enemies that spawn new hazards, like enforcergenerating Sphereoids and tankbirthing Quarks. Shawn also advises that you avoid the walls in tank stages if you’re keen on surviving, but his No. 1 tip is simply to collect as many humans as possible. Dying is a simple fact of life in Robotron, and since humans generate the highest point rewards, they’re your best source of extra lives, so rescuing them is job one. Keep an eye on the Brains that show up every fifth wave, as they always start out targeting a single human: defend that dope successfully, and you can easily scoop up his or her brethren when things calm down a bit.

LEGO STAR WARS II: THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
Achievement: Death Star II Undefeated (Complete this level without dying. No extras should be turned on)
Value: 20 points
The Experts: ContactThedude (Jake Rogers), JimmyHova (James Hovan)

LEGO Star Wars II might look cutesy, but its vibrant colors mask some tough puzzles and hard Achievements. If you’ve chased any of the “undefeated” Achievements, you already know that taking a ghost Jedi in on-foot is the key to defeating most of them. However, you have no such luxury in the flying levels, and Death Star II is among the toughest of them.

Jake recommends using the TIE Interceptor and making constant use of the barrel roll while firing. He also advises that you break down this particular level into sections: outside the Death Star, the first tunnel, the inner room, and the escape tunnel. “By mastering each section one at a time, it was easier to put them all together and finally get through it,” he says.

James emphasizes learning where the enemies appear, staying on the move, and grabbing every heart you see to keep your health up. But he and Jake agree that practice is your most valuable asset.

CALL OF DUTY 3
Achievement: Grizzled Veteran (Complete the single player campaign on veteran difficulty.)
Value: 150 points
The Experts:  Bosniac (Damir Hurtic), CroTech (Admir Jusufovic)

Smoke, grenades...yep, this screen's got everything.

Veterans of the seemingly neverending stream of first-person shooters based on the last great war talked about how difficult Call of Duty 2’s veteran campaign was. Bah — Call of Duty 3’s is even tougher, thanks to stronger AI, fewer checkpoints, and an irritating tendency for bullets to mysteriously penetrate even the thickest objects. Indeed, Damir’s first tip is to play through the game on a less frustrating difficulty level just to learn the rough spots.

Both Damir and Admir schooled us on the art of using smoke grenades effectively. The Germans can’t shoot what they can’t see. Smoke is less effective when it’s thinnest — when it’s first dispersing and when it eventually starts dissipating — so master the art of using the sweet spot of each grenade’s timeline to put yourself on an enemy flank before exposing yourself again. Out of smoke? Focus on keeping your heart rate down, your patience up, and inch your way forward. 

Ammo for allied weapons is harder to find behind enemy lines, so grab a German rifle nice and early. You’ll be able to snipe enemies from further away, and ammo shouldn’t be much of an issue. Lastly, learn to listen to your squad: when they tell you to advance, they’re usually right.