22 June 2009
Boost your Gamerscore: The List
In the early years of gaming, playing was all about getting that high score on the arcade machine that everyone else would see and revere. Making it through 574 identical levels of Pac Man meant that your score would hang out in infamy for quite some time, giving you bragging rights and a sense of superiority over other gamers.
These days, games rarely keep score. The content and format of most games are not conducive to such a tally, and as such, they have been replaced by other rewards. On Xbox360, the Gamerscore is the amalgam of all individual reward points earned in all games attached to a single Gamertag. This score carries with your avatar anywhere you go – online play, websites, or other friends’ consoles. It is the ultimate “nerd cred.”
The problem with the Gamerscore is that not every game developer designs their achievements the same way. Some games make it terribly difficult to gain achievements, while others throw them at you for doing nearly nothing. For that reason, Gamerscores are not always reflective of a player’s true ability.
Regardless, people are always searching for ways to boost their score. They are always seeking what games will give achievements points for less work, letting them pump up that score quickly. Essentially, people like to exploit those games teetering towards the easier side of the achievement earning spectrum.
In this article, you will find a list of games that are great for your Gamerscore, both from the retail and XBLA realms. Keep in mind, however, that there are certain games that are looked down on by the gaming community as “Gamerscore boosters,” or titles that people only ever really played as a way to boost their score. Some fellow gamers will sneer if your score is compiled entirely of these games, calling you an “achievement whore.” But, if you are a hardcore gamer and also have a milieu of difficult titles peppered throughout your list, you won’t come across as a total sissy.
