50 Most Memorable Achievements in Gaming History

By Alex Turner / December 10, 2012

11. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Old School Gamer

You found all the hidden story items in Megans office. Point and Click much? Before the advent of achievements and trophies, completionist gamers like me had no way of tracking their accomplishments, or indeed of knowing what exactly there was to accomplish, especially when we were given the opportunity to leave a confined narrative path. This was particularly poignant in the role playing genre and would often result in what may now be known in a contemporary gaming world as L.A. Noire syndrome, which involves the player tracing the walls of every location they enter, manically pressing the interact button in the hope theyll stumble upon some secret treasure. This achievement is a great little nod to that.

12. Burnout Paradise - Criterion Elite

You truly are Criterion Elite! Go take your Platinum cars online and gloat that you own Paradise City. The Criterion Elite achievement was just on the verge of completionist overkill; it wasnt as daunting as the Gears series equivalent, but there was still enough content in there for it to feel like a real accomplishment. And you got to crash a whole lot of cars in gloriously brutal ways.

13. Dead Space - Maxed Out

Upgrade all weapons and equipment. Dead Space is a great game and, like many survival horrors, is fairly replayable. Its not like a max out all of your weapons achievement is particularly uncommon, either. Having to max them out by collecting a grand total of 155 nodes which are rare to find and expensive to buy in a game where money and consumables are always tight, however, is asking a lot.

14. Portal 2 - Still Alive

Complete course 4 with neither you nor your co-op partner dying. One of Portal 2s greatest assets was its multiplayer co-op and this achievement is a great celebration of that. This achievement is a potential time-sink, as you can fail it on the very last stage and have to restart, but its a great test of teamwork and all the more fun that youre playing with a buddy.

15. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Demolition Man

Get 20 demolish kills. Similar to Mongoose Mowdown, this achievement is inordinately difficult due to it involving other human players. In the same way people will immediately run away when they hear the mongoose, theyll also run out of the building when they hear it collapsing (duh). Unlike Mongoose Mowdown, however, you need to do it twenty times.