There are "impossible" Achievements, like making it out of Mass Effect 2 on Insanity with all crew mates alive and kicking, and then there are genuinely impossible Achievements, their Gamerscore riches put beyond mortal hands by some quirk of technology.
We're rounded up a few of the latter (and a couple of the former) for posterity's sake. If you're wondering why you can't clean out a given game, make sure it's not one of the games below.
1. Race Driver: Grid
Gotta Drive 'Em All (30G)
Drive all 45 cars in the game. A simple Achievement, complicated mainly by the fact that the game featured 43 cars. A patch fixed the problem: DLC broke it again. Nice work, everyone.
Eyes and Ears (20G), Look Sharp (20G)
If you picked up intel using a cheat, it's gone forever, and you didn't get the credit. These Achievements are dead to you. Serves you right, cheaty pants.
3. Arcania: Gothic 4
Master Chef (10G)
You have to learn all the recipes to unlock the Master Chef Achievement. But the Minor Stamina Potion was impossible to learn - if you tried, you were told you already knew it.
4. Left 4 Dead
Multiple (150G)
No matter how long you play on Valve's dedicated servers, some infected Achievements in the two DLC chapters won't unlock. The good news? They will if you play on local servers or with an offline System Link.
5. Cars Race-o-Rama
Over-Achiever (100G)
We're not fond of "Achievements for getting all the other Achievements". They're lazy. But when they're worth 100G, and they simply don't unlock, that's the unkindest cut of all.
6. Rayman Raving Rabbids
Rayman Loves Drawing (100G), Rayman Loves Challenge (50G), Greatest Rayman Ever (100G)
A massive 250 points lie forever out of reach in Raving Rabbids - and why? Because you need to score 174,000 to unlock the last challenge. A perfect score lies tantalisingly shy of that number - at 173,000. It's not going to be patched.
7. Chromehounds
All of them (860G)
Servers getting turned off is a common thing. But with Chromehounds, a whopping 860G are no longer available. Listen. Listen to that whopping sound. That's Chromehounds, literally whopping.
Urban Battle (10G)
Urban Battle is supposed to unlock with 50 free roam challenges. It doesn't. On the upside, this statistical glitch doesn't stop you getting the other Achievements, so it's just 10G.
9. Dark Void
Fireworks (15G)
An award for killing ten airborne enemies with a grenade. Fireworks isn't impossible, but the game doesn't reliably register the hits. It's so unpredictable that for just 15 points, it's probably not worth your time.
10. Rapala Tournament Fishing
Multiple (280G)
One of the glitchiest games around, Rapala would save erratically, ignore fish you'd caught, ask you to "finish the tournament mode with every character" then stiff you for 135G.
11. Osmos
(0G)
This one isn't worth getting worked up about - the developers only came up with 11 Achievements, so Microsoft came up with this catchy-sounding 12th. You can't win it, and it's worth zero gamerpoints.
12. Hellboy: The Science of Evil
Multiple (160G)
DLC usually adds points to a game's total. Not here - the four locked Achievements can't be unlocked because of planned DLC that wasn't released. Same story with Aquazone.
13. UFC: Undisputed 2009
Gold Digger! (30G)
An Achievement for getting all the gold medals in online Ranked Matches. People have unlocked this, but a patch broke it. As you need the patch to play the game online, Gold Digger was lost to those who didn't already have it.
14. Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3
Multiple (170G)
A timing glitch in a couple of challenges means that you can't hit every note. It makes two Achievements impossible - and affects the clothing unlocks.
As ever, add to the list. Question for the thread: can you think of any things you should be rewarded for not doing in a game? As in, "Neg-achievements"? Embryonic feature idea, coming through...
15 comments so far...
Waffles2541 on 4 Feb '12 said:
My worst gamerscore experience was in crysis 2. I have completed the game on all difficulties and earned all connected achievements, apart for the 'New York, New York' achievement, the one you get for completing the game!! You can't explain that.
SidTheSloth on 4 Feb '12 said:
Oh achievements, how we all hate and love you so... How such an insignificant, completely pointless value has taken on such meaning is incomprehensible, but i, like so many others am guilty of doing ridiculous things or playing longer than i want, hell, even playing games i don't want to, just to get an extra 20g
Assassins Creed Revelations currently has an impossible "Sage" achievement if you're all patched up which annoyed me immensely, was going to say you could add it to the list but Ubisoft announced a few days ago it'd be patched within the next 2-3 weeks!
Dowgle on 4 Feb '12 said:
I tried that race driver grid achievement for about a week, driving every car about 5 times over, only to then google it and realise it was broken.
Codemasters still owe me a new controller in my opinion.
STE MO on 4 Feb '12 said:
There was one in Halo Reach, if they came to hear me beg. You had to perform an assassination on an elite to survive a fall. I tried and succeeded several dozen times and didn't get it. Finally after about 8 hours of trying I got it. Never has getting a stupid achievement felt so good.
sonicmark on 4 Feb '12 said:
Nearly all achievements are unachievable untill you get them, then you can turn round and say "that wasn't too hard"
.
Decent_Jam on 4 Feb '12 said:
Surely no-one short of an actual tactical squad could get through Left 4 Dead 2's campaigns on the highest difficulty....
golliwoza on 5 Feb '12 said:
No not my Chromehounds........ I will die without that 860g
reeceiscrisp on 5 Feb '12 said:
"The Dark Soul" achievement on dark souls is annoying, as you need to get all other achievements to get this one, which consists of 2-3 playthroughs to get everything
lawsond28 on 5 Feb '12 said:
The two Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare intel collecting achievements shouldn't be on this list. OK, so most people will refer to a guide to find them all but that's not to say that there won't be someone out there who managed to find them all without the use of a guide. The person who wrote the guide for a start. So they're not impossible achievements to get, ergo they don't belong on this list.
What's next OXM...(besides a list of neg-achievements)...maybe a list of achievements that it's impossible NOT to get? Like the ones you get for simply sticking in the game disc and watching the game intro, or gamerscore simply for creating your character. Achievements should only be awarded for players actually doing something noteworthy. A gamer simply deciding to play the game is an achievement for the game's developers and publishers, it shouldn't be considered to be an achievement for the gamer.
Bezza89 on 5 Feb '12 said:
Interesting theory Lawsond, but then you'd get a lot more hard/impossible achievements. I like ones that persuade you to be more inventive in gameplay, or to get 100% in a game as there is generally no point otherwise, or for not doing what someone says - like going left in Limbo.
I hate online ones as you generally have to grind/boost to get them, there's no point. I also wish multi pathed games would reward you for playing it differently, dragon age rewarded you for 3 playthroughs at least. But Mass Effect 2 everything could be done in one, and for people new to the series I reckon complete as each class/renegade or paragon/ each background would make them play again and have more love the series a bit more so we don't get overly actiony marketing campaigns.
VirtualCynic on 6 Feb '12 said:
I like the idea of gamerscore and love getting achievements "accidentally" simply by playing a game. But I don't go out of my way to get them; they're not the be-all-and-end-all of my 360 experience.
Spiderless on 6 Feb '12 said:
*shudders with suppressed rage*
Me and two friends managed to complete Hard Rain on 'expert realism' after a lot (3.5 hours) of screaming, dying 17 times, accidently shooting witches and screwing everyone over we finally did it. Finished the finale, stood on the boat, then got smashed in the face by a tank's big ol' boulder out of nowhere. So I died and the game finished with me on the boat but dead! So technically I had failed, no achievement after all that! Bloody tanks.
golliwoza on 6 Feb '12 said:
Ouch. A similar thing happend to me on blood harvest on the first game.
AtlantisRhythm on 6 Feb '12 said:
@lawsond28 I think you only half got the point, no one is saying the intel is impossible to find, only that if you find any with cheats on then they don't get counted and never reappear. I do agree that one shouldn't be on the list though as (I think) you can start a new save on another device, or delete your save, clear cache etc.
It's server closures that really get me, ever since I bought Tiger Woods 2010 and EA shut the servers in...2010! I was a pretty late starter with the 360, late 2009 and the ever expanding list of games I can never play online or 100% is sad. It'll be interesting if they ever close a server for a game with an online pass.
SidTheSloth on 6 Feb '12 said:
Sadly i was thinking about this yesterday and found myself surprised that Blue Dragon has avoided all mention as it's usually the goto for ridiculous achievements. To be honest though, most J-rpgs have some that are beyond comprehension, this however is the only one where nearly all of them are (do i recall an OXM-er doing a blog about blue dragon a while ago?) incredibly difficult to obtain.
Star Ocean 4 has one which requires approximately 100 hours of grinding and a '2 hour without a savepoint' romp through an incredibly difficult dungeon to face an even harder boss who can ohko characters, all for a measly 1g - there's a phrase involving buggering and bananas that springs to mind!