Steam Achievements are a divisive phenomenon. While they sound like a neat way to keep you playing a game, they also tap into the obsessive sides of our personalities. Where before, playing through a game's campaign or story from beginning to end was enough for you to feel satisfied that you've completed it, now there's a whole new layer of meaning to the word 'completion'. None of us feel quite fulfilled until we have gain every achievement in a given game, and yet in most cases we simply don't have the time or skill to do it. It's like they're designed to keep us playing to fill a psychological void that keeps on growing and growing. Achievements aren't all bad though. They encourage us to try new ways of playing, opening us out to a whole new gameplay experience simply by taking us out of our comfort zones. They can push our skills and expand our game-time far beyond what the initial campaign offers us. Then there are the ones that take things to the absolute extreme; they force us to grind monotonously for hundreds of hours, hone our skills to near-professional levels, or even make us question whether they're possible to complete. This list is a tribute to Steam's little stamps of honour that have frustrated, confused, and challenged PC gamers most over the years.
15. Super Meat Boy - Impossible Boy
Achieved by 0.6% of players Super Meat Boy is a fast-paced, meticulously designed platformer that's infamous for its exponentially-increasing difficulty. While the early levels are a breeze, it takes tens of hours of hardcore, death-filled platforming before you'll be skilled enough to overcome the 'Dark World' levels. "Impossible Boy" is the achievement you get for completing the Dark World version of Cotton Candy World - by far the hardest world in the game - without dying once. That's 20 of the game's toughest levels in a row, many of which have to be completed in one long streak of momentum as the ground crumbles beneath you, spin-saws chase you down, and homing rockets do what they were designed to do. Despite its difficulty, "Impossible Boy" deserves credit for being one of the ultimate skill-based achievements in gaming. There's no luck or dreary grinding involved here, just raw platforming skills for which you get an achievement to be truly proud of.