Are you dissatisfied, perhaps insecure with the size of your Gamerscore? If so, you’ve come to the right place: Official Xbox Magazine’s online-only feature, The Scoreboard, is here to help. By following the advice in our in-depth investigative reviews of the latest Achievements (and the Xbox 360 DVDs they come in), you can avoid being publicly humiliated for the itty-bitty number scarring your Gamercard.

This week we’ll be taking a look at Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness and Assault Heroes 2 for the Xbox Live Arcade, as well as the retail releases of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Grand Theft Auto IV. Which of these will bloat your Gamerscore so huge that you won’t be able to keep the masses of grovelling geeky gamers away?

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One

Taking a stab at game design during their full-time jobs of “game mockery,” the chaps at Penny Arcade have a $20 XBLA title that’s begging for your purchase. It’s a bit pricey, but we really liked it. As an added bonus, the Achievements are not only hilarious, but achievable. You’ll need to be thorough (as is the case with all point-and-click adventure games) and knowing what you need to do in advance is a plus, so if you’re keen on putting rake to flesh, you’ll be showering in Achievements.

Best Achievement – Nine Lives (15 pts.) Kill an enemy using T. Kemper's basic attack. For the unaware, Thomas Kemper is an adorable yellow feline. His basic attack – dealing a mere one damage – involves nothing more than a good cat-crotch licking. After Gabe, Tycho, and your hero beat a baddie to exactly 1HP, apply tongue to junk for the most hilarious victory ever recorded.

Worst Achievement: Immortal (20 pts.) Play and win the game without allowing a character to die during combat. We’re going to give you a tip, gratis, just for showing up today: have and use explosives. The Mime-thulu final boss might have a copious amount of HP, but if you keep up the dynamite chuckin’ and special-character attacks in between regular attacks (charging up the Y button combo isn’t worth the wait), you should be in good shape. Use any and all items that aren’t Band-aids to boost your stats and drain the God of his defense/attack/speed, and you’ll be mint. It’s a major pain in the neck to pull off, and if you don’t do it perfectly you’ll be restarting ‘til you can’t take it any more.

Easiest Achievement: Stray Cat (5 pts.) Have T. Kemper join the player as a support character. After taking your first big step in to the wide world of New Arcadia – all three areas of it – you’ll immediately come across this yellow kitty comrade. Stray Cat could not be any easier. These 5 points are just sitting in the street, waiting for you to look in their general direction... Not unlike Kemper in PA’s opening seconds.

Hardest Achievement: Immortal (20 pts.) Play and win the game without allowing a character to die during combat. Unlocking Immortal either requires the turn-based mad skillz of an RPG god, or the lousy cheating antics of a system-resetting sissy. Honestly, we couldn’t play the entirety without having the characters drop in to a bloody mess unless we quit and retried every time someone died. Unless you plan on saving before every fight, don’t frustrate yourself by gunning for a perfect run. You’d have better luck slicing and dicing your way through feudal Japan with a cardboard tube.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 9 (out of ten) – Depending on how meticulous you are in your battles and searches, OtRSPoD Episode One could easily take up to ten hours. Bashing in the fruit-f****** face of every Fruit F***** could drag you down, and unlocking artwork demands looking at every little trinket around, but it’s worth it to go through the motions. Without Immortal, you’ve still got 180 Gamerscore, and 11 unlocked Achievements.

Overall: 9.5 (out of ten) – Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One only has 200 available Achievement points for you to toil over, which feels strange because of its retail-game production values. Unlocking the better part of The Good Stuff only takes playing the game; gameplay being an arbitrary prevention measure (a fun one, though) implemented by the developers to forbid you from easily breaking the locks on the game’s 12 Achievements.

Assault Heroes 2

The original Assault Heroes was a solid twin-stick vehicular carnage. Players were sent rampaging through concrete jungles, actual jungles, and nautical fortresses (which were probably near jungles) as a Lamborghini-tank with a variety of weapons. It didn’t take long to finish, and if you rocked it with a friend in co-op, you guaranteed yourself a hundred Gamerscore. Assault Heroes 2, however, removed the well-placed bar of Achievement-unlocking fun and hurled it so high in to the sky that it disintegrated upon atmospheric re-entry.

Best Achievement: Smoothie Heroes (20 pts.) Co-op Campaign: Kill 100 infantry, one player freezes & the other shatters, on Hard in one session. Mmm... Smoothie! We’ve got to give props to this Achievement for being clever and original, since most Achievements these days seem to be simply “smoke a fool.” It demands teamwork to do, and it’s great watching a buddy ice an infantrymen, only to see him get roasted shortly afterward. This is definitely one of the coolest ideas for an Achievement, and we’d be happy to see co-op takedowns implemented in to other games!

Worst Achievement: Assault Flags (10 pts.) Single Player: Collect all of the Flags scattered throughout the game. This wasn’t fun in Assassins’ Creed, and it sure as heck isn’t any fun here. Why are we collecting flags in the middle of a nuclear-fuelled war? There’s kamikaze dudes running in from all directions looking to shove TNT up your rear end, and you want to hop out and collect a flag? Uh, not happening, especially since there are too many to bother collecting for just 10 points.

Easiest Achievement: Hot-wired (10 pts.) Single Player: Capture all 3 hijackable vehicles at least once. Leading up to the point where you can steal a giant robot (OMGundam!) takes some time – you won’t even see the mech ‘til after level 15 – but entering the three vehicles (tank, chopper, big-ol’-robo) requires a simple tap of the B button. We’re pretty sure that pressing B is easy, but your mileage may vary.

Hardest Achievement: Fearless (20 pts.) Single Player: Complete 3 sequential areas on foot: Medium or Hard difficulty in one session. Don’t be fearless. Don’t even pretend to be. Taking out scores of suicidal soldiers without the extra health of being inside an armored vehicle is brutally frustrating. Buff up that trigger finger. You’ll need the practice

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 5 (out of ten) Considering the length of the game triples that of its predecessor, it’s no wonder it takes so long to get the lot. Achievements that are bound to certain modes, such as Single Player or Zone Battle, really hinder any unlocking. Mastering AH2 is a must, as are level repeats

Overall: 4 (out of ten) This game is just plain skipable for Achievement whores (that’s you). It’s a challenge, and as we all know, that just gets in the way of the real point of gaming on the Xbox: Gamerscore-getting. Sinking your teeth into it will reward you, but we’re willing to bet most of you won’t play it enough to get more than 50-100 points.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

We need to implement a law on this planet. This law would forbid game developers from putting Achievements in games with poor how-to-get descriptions. Also, Achievements that are not retroactive (i.e., unlocking the Achievement for beating “hard” doesn’t unlock the Achievement for “medium” and “easy”) should be punishable by stoning. Sci-fi FPS Enemy Territory: Quake Wars features both of these flaws, but in exchange for terrible Achievements, the game offers easy-to-earn Gamerscore. If you don’t have an eternity, however, don’t plan on becoming the master of Quake Wars’ Achievements.

Best Achievement: Victory (50 pts.) Complete Every Campaign. There are few things outstanding about the Victory Achievement, but after three hours of campaign play, it comes in tandem with the complete-the-final-mission Achievement. As another bonus, you can get this 50 point-er while playing Easy mode; as mentioned, its simplicity will insults the intelligence of infants.

Worst Achievement: Commander (30 pts.) 25 Stars in Every Class on Strogg or GDF 300 Total Stars. This is a “pick your poison” dilemma. As Strogg, you can shave off time by going for 25 Stars (awarded after earning XP), but you’re more likely to rack up ‘em up faster as a GDF soldier due to their offensive-based objectives. Regardless of how you approach this one, it’s going to take more time than Quake Wars is worth. That’s saying a lot, because our 7.5 rating is nothing to scoff at – the game is definitely good, but it’s one hell of a grind.

Easiest Achievement: Complete the _____ Campaign Easy Difficulty (4 @ 10 pts.) Each of the four single player campaigns (North America, Africa, Northern Europe and Pacific) have gamers playing three 20 minute maps, and when playing on Easy, “play” is relative. If you want to make it even easier, you can drain Quake Wars of 40 Gamerscore by simply starting up a campaign and walking away. Easy objectives that demand your team to defend can be completed by literally putting the controller down for the entire 20 minutes of the map, while offensive missions can be accomplished in five minutes or less. Enjoy.

Hardest Achievement: Complete the _____ Campaign Easy Difficulty (4 @ 10 pts.) It’s a cop-out to use “Hard mode” for the “Hard Achievement, but before you judge, try it. The default difficulty is moderately challenging at points, but the ruthless AI in Hard wants your blood, and will stop at nothing to get it. Snipers are magic behind the scope, tanks will put a halt to any aerial antics with perfect shell blasts, and your face will be the new home of many a bullet. You might stand a fighting chance with a mouse, but that’s a write-off.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 2 (out of ten) Quake Wars is a tight fisted, greedy SOB of a game. Unless you want to play the campaign, online, and Instant Action game modes across nine maps multiple times, and boost the stats of every class (for both sides) you might want to take a walk.

Overall: 4 (out of ten) The time investment required, as you just read, is a harsh requirement for the 50 Achievements in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. As if it weren’t enough to bust your ass for hours upon hours, the Gamerscore-holding goodies are just plain boring. Upgrade your soldier, win this, win that, get a bunch of kills...Haven’t we passed the days of crummy, unoriginal Achievements?

Grand Theft Auto IV

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers to Grand Theft Auto IV’s main story. If you’d like to avoid any kind of story details, you’d best come back once you’re comfortable with the storyline.

Well, it had to come to this, didn’t it? Of Grand Theft Auto IV’s 50 Achievements, we’re going to cull the very best, worst, and confusingly non-existent. Feel free to leave your feedback and personal thoughts about this titan’s Achievement list! We know you’ve been lappin’ it up like a thirsty dog, and so have we. Which Achievements made the cut? Who made the chopping block?

Best Achievement: Warm Coffee (5 pts.) You were invited into your girlfriend's house. Rockstar’s making no bones about the disastrous Hot Coffee scandal that plagued the gaming (and public!) world with this hilarious inside joke. It’s an achievement in itself, especially if you can score on the second date. You’d better know your lady’s interests in advance if you want to go upstairs and do the nasty, which is indeed warm, if San Andreas was “hot”.

Worst Achievement: No More Strangers (5 pts.) Meet all random characters. Unless you’re in the right area, these randoms aren’t going to show up on your radar. If you’ve got a guide handy you may be able to chat it up with the local crack dealers, sketchy addicts and wannabe thugs. There’s little benefit to locating them, save for the humorous conversation Niko will have with the crazy cats, so don’t waste your time unless you’re really bored. The amount of points given to you is about as pleasing as a cap in the ass, too.

Easiest Achievement: Off The Boat (5 pts.) You have completed the first mission. Think of Off The Boat as Rockstar handing you five GS for buying their game. It’s nothing short of “Press Start to Unlock” since the requirement is to, you know, hit Start. You also watch a two-minute cutscene, but you can skip that with a button press.

Hardest Achievement: Key To The City (100 pts.) Achieve 100% in "Game progress" statistic. Have a spare couple hours? You’ll only need a few dozen if you want to unlock every item, complete each mission, side-quest and sub-side-quest in the wide open world of GTA IV, on top of killing every flying rat and unlocking Endangered Species. It might not be the most perfect game on the planet, but damned if it didn’t try by offering players potentially limitless hours of things to do. It’s no wonder Rockstar is handing out physical prizes to the first group of gamers to unlock the Key to The City Achievement – it’s a task that requires almost as much time as the game’s development cycle! If you want to enjoy Grand Theft Auto, don’t stress over that last bit of the percentage bar you need to top up. Also, if previous GTA games have lead us to believe anything, cheating will only shaft you, sticking you with an unbreakable 99.9%, so steer clear of that just in case tradition has kept up.

“Why Didn’t I Get an Achievement?” Achievement: Three words: “Three Leaf Clover.” WTF, Rockstar? Our AK-47s were AK-shredding-the-crap-out-of-cops by the truckload as we walked out the front door of a robbed bank! Was it possible to have a better time grenading patrol cars or escaping out of the subway and in to the sunset in a more intense manner? Yeah it is – by giving gamers an “Achievement Unlocked” pop-up as their four star Wanted level popped out.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 3 (out of ten) Despite the outrageous requirements to nail 1000/1000, GTA’s Achievements are handed out fairly well over the course of the game. The problem is that, even if you’re running critical path to get the best time, you still won’t come out with too many Achievements. Gamers are bound to walk out of the game’s finale with 200+ points.

Overall: 9 (out of ten) Not only are the Achievements in Grand Theft Auto IV fun, but they’re original. There’s so many entertaining ways to get Gamerscore – a 500ft wheelie, ten counters in four minutes, crazy car-splosion carnage... the list goes on – GTA could hold Gamerscore Whores’ attention for a number of months as they check off each richly engrossing activity after another. Well, we can’t justifiably call playing QUB3D for 20 minutes “richly engrossing”, but it sure was a good time banking those 15 points. People aren’t buying Grand Theft Auto for the Achievements, but if you were given full access to everything but the story, it would still be worth the retail price just to be able to dive in to the mini-games, stunt jumps and police chases to show off the 50 badges.

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We hope you enjoyed our Gamerscore-enlargement program, which if you recall, cost you absolutely nothing. Nothing but your time, that is, which you could have spent bowling or playing darts in Grand Theft Auto, murdering a hobo with a cat in Penny Arcade Adventures, or putting your controller on the couch and going to take a nap while “playing” Quake Wars’ Easy difficulty. Did you get anything out of our guidance today? Let us know, or write up your own advice to Gamerscore-boosting hopefuls with your very own Scoreboard review, and you could see your name in the next Scoreboard! If you’re anxious to hear what’s happening next time, you can look for us on the Grid, where we’ll be talking about a bevy of licensed-games’ Achievements. What can you expect from Lego Indiana Jones, The Bourne Conspiracy, Kung Fu Panda, and more? A gang of tips and an in depth insight into each titles locked Achievements, that’s for sure.