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How to Earn 6000 Points
Get out and rent a bunch of 360 games, because we're going to show you how to quickly milk your Xbox Live achievement points score from zero to 6,000 without trying.
By Jeff Gerstmann || Design: Collin Oguro - posted March 10, 2006
Points? What are Points?
So here's the situation. You hung back at the Xbox 360 launch. You decided you didn't need one right away, but not long after, you decided it was time to take the plunge. Of course, the first part of the fight is actually finding the system for sale. But you took the challenge and found one. And now there's a new problem. All of your friends that got the system on day one are way ahead of you. In what? The only thing that matters, of course. Points!
Each Xbox 360 profile has a "gamerscore" associated with it that goes up when certain achievements are reached in all of the different games. Of course, not all games are created equal, and we're going to help you use that inequality to get ahead. I locked myself in a room recently and set out to round up as many of the easy points as I possibly could. What did I discover? That there are some ridiculously easy achievements in some of these games--especially the in the sports games. I'm not saying you need to buy any of these. You and I don't care about the quality of the game here. We just want the points. So get out and rent these games, and I'll show you how to quickly milk your score from zero to 6,000 without even trying.
Madden NFL 06
Madden NFL 06 has plenty of extremely easy points up for grabs in its 11 different achievements, but if you really want to get the full thousand, you'll actually have to (gasp!) play some football. Let's start with the achievements that don't actually require any real work (thanks to the magic of simulated seasons and franchises).
Activate RS Card - When you first read this, you might think it refers to some sort of unlockable cheat football card that you'd have to earn. But, no, it doesn't. Push in the right stick at just about any menu and bang, 10 points.
10
Enter History Book - Whoa, for this one you'll have to do so well that you set a record or something! Oh wait...no. Just go into the history book and look at a page. You'll get 10 more points.
10
Complete 30 Years of Franchise - This one takes time, but not nearly as much time as you might think. Sure, you need to take your franchise team through 30 seasons, but since you can simulate seasons, this 400 points is only a few hours away, depending on how good you are at occasionally pressing the start button.
400
Win the Super Bowl - Here you need to get your franchise team to win the Super Bowl. But nowhere in there does it say that you have to be at the controls. Pick a team that's already got a winning roster, like the Patriots or the Seahawks, and then simulate the first season of a franchise over and over again until you get it. 100 points is your prize.
100
The rest of the Madden achievements actually require you to play the game, but just because you have to take control doesn't mean it has to be a fair fight. Dig around for the difficulty setting, set it as low as it'll go, pick the best team in the game while playing against one of the worst (the 49ers work well for this, though you could beat up on the Cardinals or the Lions, too), and you'll cruise through the rest of these. Can you accomplish all of them in one game?
Win a Franchise Game - Winning one game isn't that tough, but if you want the odds to be in your favor, wait until your team is going up against a weak opponent and choose to play that game. Win for another 100 points.
100
Complete an Offline Game - If you make your franchise game your first offline game, you can double up and get this one along the way. If not, well, just complete a game. Heck, if you're really against working to get this one, just select plays and let the clock tick down whenever possible. 30 points.
30
Get a First Down - You'll almost certainly get at least one first down while winning your franchise game. 20 points.
20
Score a Touchdown - Again, you'll probably pick this one up along the way during your franchise win. It's easy. 30 points.
30
The remaining three achievements require a little in-game finesse. But again, with you at the controls of a top-tier team going up against a garbage team, these shouldn't be much trouble.
Rush for 200 Yards - Rushing means running, in case you didn't know. Why don't they just call it running? Anyway, this one might require a little focus, but just make sure to throw in some running--er, make that rushing--plays and you shouldn't have much trouble racking up 200 yards in a game for another 100 points.
100
Four Sacks in one Game - Can you tackle the quarterback for a loss four times in a game? If you're focusing on that task and that task alone, this shouldn't be much trouble with the team mismatch we've been talking about all along. Here's another 100 points.
100
NBA 2K6
This basketball game has five different achievements, and if you set things up the right way ahead of time, you can get them all in one game. For starters, set things to the lowest difficulty setting and set the game time to its longest length. You might not need all that time, but if we're going to do all this in one game, we might as well make sure we get it all. Pick the Western Conference All-Stars and put in Steve Nash, because that dude can nail three-pointers. Play against the Raptors, because they're awful in almost every way, so you shouldn't have much trouble running circles around them, especially on the lowest difficulty setting.
Make 15 Three-Pointers in one Game - This is why you've got Steve Nash in there. He can sink threes like crazy. So just feed him the ball and have him keep taking outside shots until you've got 45 points. That'll give you 150 points.
150
Score 50 Points With any Player - You know, you already have 45 points with Nash after doing the three-pointer stuff, so get him another five points and be done with it. That's another 150 points.
150
Grab 20 Rebounds With any Player - After you get your 50 points, pause the game, bring up the stats, and check out the rebound statistic. Find the person with the highest count and just start taking control of him on defense and positioning him under the basket. Toronto won't sink many shots, so you'll have plenty of opportunities to grab rebounds if you just let that player take shots. Kevin Garnett seems to be pretty good at getting rebounds, though Yao Ming's not too shabby, either. Either way, that's a big 250 points.
250
Get a Triple-Double - If Ice Cube can mess around and get a triple-double, it really shouldn't be a problem for your Western Conference All-Stars, especially after all the damage you've already been doing. In case you're not 100 percent clear on the concept, a triple-double means getting double-digit numbers in three of the following statistics: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. Points, rebounds, and assists are going to be the easiest ones to get. Take the player that already has 20 rebounds, score 10 points, and then have him pass the ball to another player who'll quickly score 10 more times for the assists. You'll be freakin' brothers every way like MJ, and you'll get 250 points while you're at it.
250
Score 140 Points With any Team - At this point, you're probably already close to this total, but just keep scoring points. If you really drive the point home, you could easily score 200 before the game is over. Break the 140 mark for the final 200 points, finish the game so that the achievements all rack up, and then never play this game ever again! Unless...you know...you like basketball games.
200
NBA Live 06
OK, more basketball. These ones are a little trickier than 2K6's, but you can out-trick them with simulated seasons and stat-altering. Simply pick a team, any team you like. If you go into the edit-player mode, you can edit the players on that team. Edit them so they all have 99s in their statistics. Then take a team you hate and lower all of their stats to one. It's a little time-consuming, but setting this up ahead of time will let you get through the rest a little more quickly. For the record, we bumped up the Rockets and lowered the Raptors, since most of the Raptors' stats were pretty low to begin with.
NBA LIVE 06 Created Player - Just go in and create a player and save him. 20 points just for looking pretty.
20
You get this one for having a player on your season mode team get selected for the all-star game halfway through the regular season. Pick the Lakers. Kobe will make the all-star team almost every time. If he doesn't, simulate another season until he does. When he does, you'll get 75 points.
75
Clinched Playoffs - The Lakers or the Rockets both seem to clinch a playoff spot in most simulated seasons. Pick one of them and simulate your way to 100 more points.
100
Best Regular Season Record - Again, simulate The Lakers or the Rockets and keep those fingers crossed. You'll eventually get this one and get another 150 points.
150
Most Valuable Player - Pick the Lakers and simulate the whole season. It seems like half the time, Kobe gets the MVP award. So half the time, you get 150 points.
150
Coach of the Year - This one seems to take a little more time. But again, simulating with the Lakers or the Rockets over and over again until you get it seems to work. 100 points.
100
NBA Champions - Not to sound like a broken record, but yeah...Lakers or Rockets. Take your pick and simulate away. You'll eventually get 200 points.
200
To get the rest of the points, you'll actually have to play a little basketball. There's one achievement for winning a game on each of the game's four difficulty settings, and this is where your stat-altering comes into play. Play as the superpowered team against the low-rated team, with the quarters set as short to get them out of the way in a hurry.
Rookie Difficulty Win - 10 points
10
Starter Difficulty Win - 30 points
30
All-Star Difficulty Win - 50 points
50
Superstar Difficulty Win - 75 points
75
Online Win - Well, about the only way to get this one is find a friend who's doing the same thing you are, play twice, and each let the other win once. Otherwise, you're on your own. No doctored rosters here, just man-on-man competition. But hey, it's only 40 points--you could always just skip it and make them up somewhere else.
40
King Kong
There's no real secret to King Kong. The game is almost painfully straightforward, though, so the chances of getting lost or stuck are slim, unless you run into those scripting bugs that prevent, like, the dinosaur from breaking through the bridge or something like that. The key thing to know here is that you'll get every single one of these achievements during the course of normal play. They might sound like specific tasks, but they aren't. Just sit down with a FAQ from the fine folks over at GameFAQs as a backup, and go to work. It shouldn't take more than six or seven hours.
Pyromaniac - 100 points
100
King of the Jungle - 100 points
100
V-Rex Annihilator - 100 points
100
King of the V-Rexes - 100 points
100
Protector - 100 points
100
Foodchain Master - 100 points
100
King of Skull Island - 100 points
100
King of Demolition - 100 points
100
Completed game - 200 points. Take this one back to whatever store you rented it from.
200
College Hoops 2K6
You would think that 2K Sports would have learned its lesson by now. Or maybe they think they can sell more games if the points are easy to get. Either way, College Hoops 2K6 is almost as easy as NBA 2K6 when it comes to sacking the full grand. The basic set up is roughly the same. Pick a good team (like Duke) and play against a low-rated team on the easiest difficulty. Set the halves long if you want to try to rack all of these up in one game.
Make 15 3-Ptrs In One Game - This is a team-wide goal, but chances are you've got one player with a higher chance of sinking threes. If you're playing as Duke then that guy is #4. Feed him the ball and drop these, no problem. 250 points.
250
Score 40 Pts With Any Player - If you've used one player to get all of those three point shots, you'll get this one at the same time. That's another 250 points.
250
Get 6 Blocks With Any Player - Get your best blocker in the face of anyone trying to take a shot. Duke's big-man is #23. Six isn't that high of a number, so this shouldn't take long. Just jump up and swat the shot down before it gets too far and you'll be sitting on another 150 points.
150
Get 45 Rebounds With Any Team - This team rebounds thing is nice and all, but again, you probably already have a player that's better at grabbing rebounds than the rest. Use him. Since the lowly team you're playing against will miss shots most of the time, you'll have plenty of chances to get these 200 points.
200
Get 20 Steals With Any Team - Again, the weakness of the team you're playing against will come in handy here. Those guys can't handle the ball. Strip them of possession 20 times for the final 150 points.
150
NHL 2K6
OK, we're almost there. But here's where it starts to get a little trickier, because these last 1,000 points might be a bit of a grind. Rather than focus on completing games, we're going to skip around a bit to get points fast. Let's start with the last of the sports games on our list.
The funny surprise here is that you can get these achievements during a two-player game. So if you have a second controller, get a friend who's with you on this quest for points and have him play like a stooge so you can quickly rack up some points. And by "play like a stooge," we mean "go into the team strategy menu and use the pull goalie function." If you're a good duo, you might just get the full thousand here, but the first 500 are easier than the rest.
Set the game to the all-star difficulty (or higher), then have your associate take control of the goalie and move him out of position. Slap a shot into the open side of the net at the beginning of the game for a fast 350 points.
350
Score Goal With Defenseman (Pro) - Set the game to pro difficulty (or higher), and then do the same thing you did for the under-a-minute goal, but make sure you use a defenseman to score. 150 points.
150
AMPED 3
Now you should be hovering right around 5500 points. Amped 3 is the easiest path to completion from here, unless you've already devoted yourself to just getting the rest from NHL 2K6. You'll get most of the rest of the points you need by simply completing Amped 3's story, which is both easy and short.
Snowbird bound! - You get this for finishing the first section of the story. 70 points.
70
Vamonos a South America! - Finishing Act 2 gets you 80 points
80
Rescued Weiner Boy! - And not a moment too soon. Hitting this point in the story offers up 90 points.
90
Reunited...and it feels so good! - 100 points for completing the fourth segment of the game.
100
Big Musical Finale! - The ending is worth watching because it's completely insane, but you'll also get 100 points for getting there.
100
Sledding Merit Badge - You need more than a million points in your sledding score to earn this, which you'll most likely get along the way. 30 points.
30
Park Designer Merit Badge - Go into the object-placement mode after you complete the game and just drop one object over and over again, then save out, ride around for a second or so, then drop back in, remove all of those custom objects, and place them again. Repeat this until you've placed more than 200 objects for a brainless 30 points.
30
Points Rundown in All Retail 360 Games
Amped 3
The last couple of achievements require you to finish everything, but you'll get a great deal of points just for playing through the short, easy story mode.
Burnout Revenge
There are a few easy points here and there for uploading replay clips and recommending them, but you'll have to work for most of your points.
Call of Duty 2
Except for points for finishing the first and last levels, every other achievement requires you to finish the levels on a harder difficulty setting. Time-consuming, but not impossible.
College Hoops 2K6
Mind-numbingly easy.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
This game is pretty short and easy, but many of the points are based on finding hidden secrets. Dig up a FAQ and go looking for dead birds. Also, after finishing the game, go back and reload your last save, beat the game again, and choose the other ending for extra points.
Dead or Alive 4
Set the rounds down to one to get the time attack points more easily. This one can be a grind, especially if you want to unlock all of the costumes.
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
Get the "win on Perfect difficulty" points by setting it up to Perfect, setting a very short time limit, letting the computer score on you, and switching to the winning team just before time expires.
Fight Night Round 3
Set it to easy and dive into career mode. You'll get 750 points before any of the fighters pose a real challenge.
Full Auto
The rampage race mode is your key to getting the kills achievements and the wreck points achievements in a hurry.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
This one has some real challenging points, but each single-player level gives you 25 points a piece, so there's some to be earned just from playing through.
Gun
Play through it on easy, which won't take you too long. Then bust out a FAQ if you want to find all the gold. Then use all that money to buy all the upgrades, and so on.
Kameo: Elements of Power
600 points for finishing the game, and it's pretty easy. Go for it.
Madden NFL 06
Among the easiest of the bunch.
NBA 2K6
You'll have to actually play the game, but this is the easiest thousand points on the whole system.
NBA Live 06
You can get 960 out of this game in a hurry using the method we described earlier, but that last 40 is for an online victory.
Need for Speed Most Wanted
All points are earned by beating the career mode, and most of the points you get along the way are pretty low. If you're willing to dedicate yourself to beating this one, it's not too tough, but it'll take time.
NHL 2K6
Pulling the goalie makes most of the game's five achievements pretty basic.
Perfect Dark Zero
PDZ makes the points a real chore. There are a few here and there to get via multiplayer, but you won't get them quickly.
Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
It'll take a little more time than you'd probably like, but this game's stupid easy and the full thousand is granted for beating the game.
Project Gotham Racing 3
Great game, but only a few of the achievements are super-easy to get.
Quake 4
Great use of achievements in that it balances them across single and multiplayer modes, but they don't come easily.
Ridge Racer 6
Do a 360 spin for five points. The rest of the points are tough.
Rumble Roses Double X
Lots of "all costumes" achievements means you'll have to unlock a lot of stuff for these points.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
No fast and dirty points here, unless you're a good putter.
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
If you're already familiar with the series, you can blaze through the story and classic modes fast. Once you've unlocked all the levels, load each one up in an Xbox Live lobby to unlock the online points for each one. The last hundred points require more work than they're worth.
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