Tomb Raider: Legend (Xbox 360)

 

Bejeweled 2 (Xbox 360)

 

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360)

 

Sneak King (Xbox 360)

 

Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360)

 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360)

 

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Xbox 360)

 

Hexic HD (Xbox 360)

 

PERSONAL NOTES & STATS

1. This is the second game I've unlocked achievements in.

TRIVIA!

TRIVIA: The game was preinstalled on all XBox 360 hard drives when it was first released in 2005, and it currently free to download for any XBox user on the 360 and XBox One. It is an updated version of Hexic, which was released in 2003 for a number of different platforms. This version features enhanced graphics and leaderboards.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Many achievements in the game are largely self-explanatory or could be easily extrapolated by their names. For instance, Survivalist is are for beating Survival mode, Millionaire Extraordinaire for score a lifetime one-million points, and Marathon Mogul is for 150,000 points in a Marathon game all have some either reference their game mode or the amount of points needed to unlock them. Similarly, it can be assumed what unlocks Collapse Master (5000 combos), Tick-Tock Doc (getting points in Timed mode), and Hexic Addict (playing 100 games) simply by looking at the achievement's name.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Two of the games achievements are so easy to unlock that you might get them in your very first game. Cluster Buster, which is for performing 25 combos, is typically unlocked first by 99% of gamers. This is followed shortly by Star Gazer, which tasks the player with making a cluster of starred hexagons, and is unlocked by 93% of players.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Thanks to the hexagon shape of the game pieces, one can make easily make a 'starflower': a grouping of six same colored pieces surrounding a piece that is a different color. This not only gives you the Flower Child achievement, but is important to other achievements down the line and offers additional options in gameplay. Gameplay wise, the resulting piece (the starflower) can be used to rotate the six pieces around it which can make certain combos really easy. Bonus Trivia: a 'flower child' would be someone who dressed with and distributed flowers or flower-themed decorations to symbolize the ideals of peace and love, an idea that was embraced by the hippy counterculture.

ACHIEVEMENTS: The achievement Oyster-Meister involves creating a ring of starflowers around a single piece, which creates a 'black pearl'. A meister is a person skilled at a particular activity or area, which means that an 'oyster-meister' would be adept at serving up or farming oysters. I guess that makes sense because you get a pearl afterwards? (Oh, and before you ask, no, this wasn't meant as a YuGiOh reference.)

 

ACHIEVEMENTS: Moving up from the Oyster-Meister achievement, Big Cheese of the South Seas involves creating a cluster of 3 black pearls. A 'big cheese' is someone who is considered to be very important, a term that was probably coined in the early 1900s, with the first recorded use in print being from 1910.

 

ACHIEVEMENTS: With the final, most impressive combo in the game, the Grand Pearl Pooh-Bah tasks the player with creating a ring of black pearls around a single piece. The 'Grand Poobah' was a character in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado, though it could also be a reference to the character of Sam Slagheap from The Flintstones, who held the rank of Grand Poobah (or The Exaulted Grand Poobah) in the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes.

Gears of War (Xbox 360)