My Wookiee-English Dictionary defines the word "achievement" as "roooaaarrrrgggg!!!" or "an action or result accomplished through effort, skill, or courage". Although achievements under Microsoft's Gamerscore system often do reward us for putting a lot of time, skill and/or dedication into a game, sometimes their merits are rather...questionable. Sure, whilst most games will dole out achievements for doing something fairly basic like completing the tutorial or first level as a sort of "welcome to our experience" achievement, some take the idea of an achievement being anything approaching challenging or rewarding and throw it out the window. These achievements, known as "gimmes" can make the idea of earning something as a reward for effort a bit of a joke. They're the game equivalent of getting a gold star at school for remembering to breathe.
Having said that, if you're trying desperately to keep that Achievement Streak going or you're embroiled deep in the murky waters of a Bean Dive, these super simple, quick to obtain achievements can be very welcome indeed.
So, let's take a look at some of the stand-out "gimme" achievements. To qualify, these achievements need to be part of otherwise "normal" games i.e. not games where the entire list is one great big "gimme", so no Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth Achievements.
Honourable Mentions
Perform a single button action - Transformers: The Game Achievements
Bumblebee Tuna
In a game called Transformers: The Game, you're probably going to expect a fair amount of transforming to take place. Apparently, doing so for the first time is deemed a worthy achievement in this lesser title of the franchise. By simply pressing Y you can turn your humble robot into its vehicle, weapon or tape recorder of choice and earn 10GS in the process. Congratulations, you've done that thing that these things do on an extremely regular basis and will continue to do throughout this game.
Watch the opening movie - CSI: Deadly Intent Achievements & CSI: Fatal Conspiracy Achievements
"Whoooo are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?"
Although 2007's CSI: Hard Evidence Achievements has a very lazy achievement list, its sequels have some of the laziest individual achievements. These two take the biscuit, though. Won by simply watching the opening sequence in the first case, in which the scene is set, the titles are splashed and bad puns are made, it's the achievement equivalent of turning on the television. Unfortunately, the classic The Who theme is absent, which kind of makes the whole thing a bit pointless. As a bonus, both games also share a handful of "gimme" achievements for messing about in the main menu. Deplorable.
Visit the shop - Stranglehold Achievements
"Woooo are you? Woo? Woo? Woo? Woo?"
As the sequel to his 1992 film Hard Boiled in which he cameoed as a bartender, and with him working on the game as a director and producer, and with his name in front of the official title, Midway would've missed a trick not to include John Woo in a cameo role of some sort in 2007's John Woo presents Stranglehold. To meet the legendary director and claim this "gimme", simply enter the Unlock Shop from the main menu (which is an amazing menu, by the way), there he is waiting to serve you and pop goes the achievement. If you look closely, you'll see him silently judging you for the easy gamerscore.
The Top Five
5: Look in your bag of tricks - Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition Achievements
If it's an empty inventory that's just rubbing salt in the wound
Seeing as the whole game is about putting stuff into your inventory and then building, cooking or killing with it, it was pretty much going to be a given that at some point (probably close to the very beginning) you were going to want to take a look in there. Apparently Mojang thinks that doing the equivalent of checking your pockets is an achievement, but there you go.
4: Customise your character - Mass Effect 3 Achievements
Ok, so I'm enlisted. Now what? Oh. Right. Run.
The Enlisted achievement in Mass Effect 3 worth 5 pointsStart a character in multiplayer or customize a character in single-player.
On the whole, the achievement lists for the Mass Effect series present a nice mix of variety with story progression, action and difficulty. This isn't one of them. There are two lazy ways to get this "gimme". The first is to customize your Sheperd before starting out i.e. give them a big nose and cold, dead eyes, then sit through a couple of cutscenes, then *pop*. The second is to go into multiplayer, choose a class and name, then *pop*. Choose your poison, but either method just takes a few minutes and couple of button presses.
3: Loiter - Saw Achievements
If I just stand here forever then Jigsaw won't be able to get me in any traps. It's the perfect plan.
So you've survived your first trap. Do you fight to escape the twisted maze you find yourself in, trying desperately to save your life as soon as possible? Or do you just take five? For this zero-effort "gimme", put the controller down and go and make a cuppa, take a wizz, have a power nap, rearrange your underwear, whatever you want. After 5 minutes of indolence, you'll be rewarded with an achievement for literally doing nothing. Jigsaw would be proud. Or he wouldn't be. He really isn't into the whole "wasting your life" thing.
2: Get them handed to you by the main character - Deadpool (Xbox 360) Achievements
Deadpool knows how to "gimme" in style
With Deadpool's whole shtick as a meta self-referential character who knows very well what medium he's part of and addresses the reader directly in his comics, it was obvious that High Moon Studios was going to have a little fun with gameplay tropes and quirks through their titular mouthpiece. *heh, heh TIT-ular* Go away Deadpool!
Playing out as a game within a game, the Merc with a Mouth comments freely on the budget, graphics, characters, gameplay and...yes..the achievements. He even hands out not one but two "gimmes" in the opening sequence of the game, just for the lols. When they pop, he says "Hey, what's that? You guys tracking my every move now? But I haven't even accomplished anything in this game yet...and there's another one. So, it's gonna be one of those games, huh." What a loveable rascal.
1: Press Start - Numerous
Do what it says and easy gamerscore you will receive
The Simpsons Game Achievements
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard Achievements
Prince of Persia Achievements
Shadows of the Damned Achievements
These are all grouped together because they all reward you for doing what you pretty much do in every single game ever: press Start to begin a new game. Developers haven't quite got to the point where you get an achievement just for putting the disc in, but this is probably as close as we can get and it's unfortunately quite prevalent. Unlike the Mass Effect 2 achievement, no customisation or selection process is required, just one simple button press. Sometimes there's a cut-scene to sit through, but really, we're talking about getting achievements for the bare minimum here. Luckily, for those players out there having real difficulty with these sorts of achievements, https://www.trueachievements.com/XReDeMPTion+XiX.htm has created a solution for the Shadows of the Damned version that should really help through those tough spots:
This is one of the harder achievements of this game. First off before you try to go for this achievement make sure you have a working controller plugged into your Xbox or you CANNOT get this achievement. Next step is to make sure your Xbox is ON, if for any reason it is not on pressing the power button on the console should turn it on. After that you're going to have to load up Shadows of the Damned. After a bit of loading it will ask you to press start then select a memory device that you'll use to save your game to, fortunately for this achievement any device you have will work, select any device by moving over to it using the left analog stick and confirm by pressing down on the A button (green one) After you do all this you'll get this 5g achievement. Good luck!
What are your thoughts on "gimme" achievements? Love 'em or loathe 'em? Did we miss any out that you've encountered? Let us know in the comments.
The TA Team will be bringing you The TA Top Five every Sunday until we run out of coolness to debate and discuss. If you have an idea for a Top Five you'd like us to do, be sure to let us know in the comments!