How a combo worksThe combos rack up points for killing monsters in as varied a way as possible, and without ever getting hit. As soon as you get hit, the combo is lost and you have to start over. "Getting hit" includes being hit by a monster, being shot by a monster, a barrel exploding on you etc. Walking through fire doesn't count as getting hit and doesn't affect your combo.
Set validation to manual!To achieve a 10.000 point combo, the first thing you'll have to do is set your combo validation to "manual" in the settings, getting a high combo on "automatic" is pretty much impossible. When it's set to "manual", you'll have to press
D-pad Down to validate your combo, which means you can go a whole level without ever validating, racking up a ridiculous combo.
Though this achievement stacks with
I don't recommend going for both at once. Opportunities for the different types of combos present themselves pretty naturally during the game, and the most accessible 50.000 point ones are on the last few levels where they throw loads and loads of enemies at you.
More practical is to validate your combo whenever you feel you're getting out of your league, or a huge boss emerges and you know you're about to get hit. That way you can work your way up to the bigger combos, and you still earn points towards your golden gloves.
CharactersI prefer Sean because he does massive damage with firearms and melee weapons, and because of his no-need-to-reload skill. If you're more of a brawler Brutal Joe's a great pick, but any character works fine.
Weapons I find the axe, shotgun and regular hand grenades to be the most effective weapons in the game.
- The axe is fast and does heavy damage.
- The shotgun does massive damage up close and still has enough reach to shoot down monsters trying to snipe you from the ceiling. It stops monsters dead in their tracks (many other guns don't) AND can hit more than one monster at once.
- Grenades fire instantly providing great crowd control and doesn't damage you or your partner. You can use any weapons you'd like for the achievement, though.
UpgradesBefore thinking about getting high combos, you should get the improved dodge, the air-hitting move, the "hitting-while-dodging" upgrade and a special attack. Though you
can get any combo without upgrades I'd say these are the bare essentials to getting high combos.
The special fighting skills will also give you more points, so they're always a plus.
Fighting- Make good use of your dodge and jump-attack, they should be your essential way of moving around masses of monsters.
- You're invulnerable while dodging, you can dodge into fire, shots, falling debris, anything.
Note: When you're landing from a dodge there's a slight pause before you can move again, during which you can be hit, so beware not to land in harm's way.
- The dodge-hit attack is invaluable, if you find yourself surrounded by monsters you can just spam dodge-hit and you're doing damage while invulnerable.
- The slide attack is very useful when you're running around the level looking for more monsters. If one comes running towards you at the edge of the screen, just slide into it to avoid getting hit.
- Each character's first special attack is great for crowd control, just beware that you'll be vulnerable right after they stop so be prepared to dodge (or dodge-hit) out of the way.
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Warning! Beware using any stillstanding special attacks when fighting the huge tank monster. It WILL run up to you and grab you, even though you're otherwise untouchable.
- Learn your monsters. They always signal when they're about to hit you. The regular monsters cock their fist, the spitters, rollers and exploders start glowing etc. Hitting, shooting, or blowing them up usually cancels their fight move though.
Co-opWhen you're playing local co-op, you share the combo meter and you get a lot more monsters thrown at you. While this means the meter racks up faster, it also means if one of you gets hit, the combo's lost. So bear that in mind if co-op:ing for the achievement.
ReloadingReloading your gun is a bitch. When your mag's empty, it doesn't automatically reload, you'll have to do it manually by pressing
RS or shoot once to start reloading, and press
RT again after reloading to start shooting again.
To make matters worse, just about any move you make cancels the reload: dodging, hitting etc. The only move you're allowed to make while reloading is walking and jumping. So make sure you're reloading when jumping for safety is fine or when there are no monsters nearby.
To bypass the whole reloading issue, play as Sean, buy his "no-reload-necessary" skill and forgeddaboutit.
DifficultyYou gain some points for hitting a monster but the most points come from killing it, so it's easiest to rack up huge combos on Regular or Tough. On Rock Hard the monsters just take too long to actually kill to be worthwhile, plus you get much more items.
LevelsWith the mentioned upgrades you can get a 10.000 point combo pretty easily on any level.