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.

MLB Stickball

You want to know our favorite things about mediocre Xbox Live Arcade releases? Since nobody's playing them – especially since freakin' Fable and Fallout are upon us! – they're really awesome for Achievement stacking. Grab a bud and hit the streets if you've got ten dollars you want to punish by blowing it on simplistic baseball that's, well, about as good as the sport gets on Xbox these days. Best Achievement: "Vandal" (5 pts.) Break any window for an out. – What wee delinquent didn't smash a kitchen window or two with a street-hockey puck, makeshift golf ball or foul-bound baseball? In Stickball, as all childhood rules clearly state, crushing the glass of ol' Miss Perrywinkle's apartment window is an immediate out. It sure sucks to get kicked off the plate without touching a base. But hey, there are definite laughs and memories to be had the instant the ball launches a little too far left and through a pane. Five Gees for destruction? We'll take 'em at the cost of being out, no questions asked.

Worst Achievement: "Card Collector" (30 pts.) Collect all 120 MLB® baseball cards – You know what everyone loves? Randomness. Who needs skill or consistency when you can rely on good ol' fashion unpredictability to rack up the number that makes up your Gamercard's pride and glory? Oh. Nobody does? Well, we were just kidding – we're as adverse to playing hours upon hours of tedious and relatively uninteresting baseball as anyone, especially when it's strictly to build up points to buy packs of randomly generated cards. Every time you see a familiar, tragically rendered Major Leaguer's face on one of the cards, you'll die a little inside. And though you can trade triples for the card of your choice, you'll definitely be goin' batty as you try for the last few of the total 120.

Easiest Achievement: "Shut 'em Down" (20 pts.) Throw a no hitter in a ranked match. – If you and a mate were both duped into dropping 800 MS points on this creepy-looking sports title, well, you might as well earn. Hop online and start a ranked match – we're willing to bet that the online community is as barren as it ever was, so you'll hook up with your pal in no time. With a three inning match to keep it short, the organized "don't swing at any of my down-the-middle home-runners" playing methods will earn you both of these 20 G-Points in no time with little difficulty. Just hope that the jerk doesn't take advantage of a swing in the bottom of the last inning...

Hardest Achievement: "For Three!" (20 pts.) Hit the basketball rim in Chicago. – As is the case in real basketball, hitting the backboard and missing the net entirely makes you want to punch the nearest chap in the bleachers. Since it's hard enough to gauge where the pitch is going (courtesy of a crummy POV) and even more difficult to aim for specific targets, hitting the rim of the Cul-de-Sac's b-ball net is like trying to find a needle in a haystack... Except that the haystack is outer space. And the needle is oxygen. Best of luck, astro-batter!

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 7 (out of ten) – Though a significant amount of the Achievements rely more on chance than skill (you'll need to bean specific vehicles and doo-dads around each street stadium – no easy task) you'll probably be able to net a decent handful of the goods within a solid couple hours of nonstop baseballin'. While that might be a touch more than you'll be able to comfortably put up with, we know you're down with tappin' A in exchange for points as much as we are.

Overall: 5 (out of ten) – You'll hate the random order that the Topps-branded cards are doled out almost as much as the lack of control while batting. It's tough to aim the ball, so nailing various items in each stage is a major pain that you could go your entire life without ever touching. Still, you've got to love the payout if luck plays in your favour (and if you've got a friend who's willing to suffer through the online antics with you). It might not be the best use of 10 bucks, but when we're chasing Achievements, there really is no price too high.

Age of Booty

Initially, we considered writing this entire entry in that annoying, terribly interpreted talk-like-a-pirate-day pirate-speak (Avast ye scurvy devils, tharrrrr be plundarrrrr on Xbox Live Arrrrcade etc). But for our safety and your sanity, we decided to scrap it in favor of just having a lively chat about how awesome Booty’s booty is – which is weird considering how wholly unARRRRRiginal most of the list is. Sorry... we couldn’t resist that one. Best Achievement: "King’s Pardon" (10 pts.) Beat every challenge in the game. – "King's Pardon" is actually a 90 point Achievement when you account for the three Achievements you'll unlock before it. If you've got the stones to tackle and complete every challenge on each difficulty, you're in for about half the total earnings. You'll be the pimp of all pimps at sea if you crack the lock on this badge.

HonARRRRRRRable Mention: "Boom Boom" (10 pts.) Sink two enemy ships with a single bomb. – Sending two wooden water cars packin' to the depths of Davy's Locker with one explosion isn't very tough – you just need to wait for the perfect time. Like "King's Pardon," you'll feel like you could part the sea you're sailing on when you nail a twofer, so flaunt your "Boom Boom" badge when you unlock it. Pirates are jerks anyway so you might as well be too. You've earned it!

Worst Achievement: "King’s Pardon" (10 pts.) Beat every challenge in the game. – On second thought, we'd rather have our left leg lopped off and our right eye gouged out with a hook than have to suffer the frustrations of some of the tougher missions. The AI can and will gang up on you if you get anything resembling the upper hand, and we're conflicted as to whether or not enduring the agony of having your peg-leg shoved in places-unknown is really worth a measly 90 points. If you were patient enough to put up with Johnny Depp as a bumbling, incomprehensible moron for three flicks, then you should give this a stab.

Easiest Achievement: "Cartographer" (5 pts.) Create and save a custom map. – We are the wind in your sails – here's the fast track to victory: open the custom map editor. Save your empty custom edited map. Leave the custom map editor. Bloop! That's some of the easiest five points you could possibly cram in the empty space behind your eye-patch.

Hardest Achievement: "Freebooter" (40 pts.) Beat all hard challenges. – It's too easy to pick "King's Pardon" for a third time, especially for the Hardest award... so we'll pick the next most basic selection in the typical "hard is hard" fashion. We really mean it this time though! Putting players behind the wooden wheel of a refreshingly original strategy game and telling them to give it their all on the toughest difficulty is like telling a blind three-year-old to complete Call of Duty 4 on Veteran with a busted Super Nintendo controller.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 5 (out of ten) – Players who pick up the gist of Age of Booty will immediately have better luck than those who aren't as familiar with upgrades, tactics and commands. But even if you're a pirate pro, you're going to have some trouble swallowing down this list. Completing tons of challenges requires sinking (har!) tons of time into the game, and there are only a few that you'll be able to get off the bat without a stroke of awesome luck. If you're in it for the long haul, set sail. Otherwise, pack your bags and walk your peg-legged ass home.

Overall: 7 (out of ten) – Capture a town, win a match, beat difficulty X, Y and Z – are you falling asleep as quickly as we are? The lion's share of Age of Booty's Achievement list is your standard stuff with a couple cool or clever ideas shoved in between (kind of like Dead Space from earlier) which means it's not exactly a game you come to for the best and coolest unlocks. Despite the fairly stock-standard list, most of the Achievements are easy enough that you'll play the ever-enjoyable Age of Booty and sail away with a respectable score before the sun sets.

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We know you love Achievements, but if you're like us, you're probably getting pretty tired of reading that word over and over and over... Very few alternatives to "Achievement" exist, and frankly, the word "cheevo" is kinda stupid. So what we want from you is a clever replacement word or ten! E-mail it here, and don't forget to write your own Scoreboard review! There are actually prizes we give away if your work gets published, so we expect our inbox to simultaneously implode, explode and solve nuclear fission with all the letters we get. Email away!