On the feeling of complete non-achievement

For some reason, I really like the few zombie-related killing achievements available on the 360. Since the first Dead Rising challenged me to try and eradicate the population of Willamette (53,594), I’ve gone out my way to try and accomplish them. I spent hours planning my route, divising the quickest methods and finally executing the original Zombie Genocide achievement and it was time well spent. While the six hours of driving over zombies may have frequently drifted between being horribly stale and incredibly funny, I was rewarded for my hard efforts with both an achievement and a new gun – the Real Mega Buster, which is every bit as great as it sounds.

Left 4 Dead had the same achievement (Zombie Genocidest – 53,595) and while I never quite got it – it’s a hard one to get, and downloading ‘The Sacrifice’ for some reason wiped my progress in zombie slaughter – I always did my best to do as much damage as possible. I even went for the same achievement in Prototype (Trail of Corpses – 53,596), although that takes significantly less time, thanks largely to a tank armed with a small tactical nuclear device.

Imagine my joy when I saw not one, but two incredibly silly carnage achievements in Dead Rising 2 – Zombie Genocide 2: Genocide Harder (53,596) and Zombie Genocide Master (72,000). I knew I had to go for it.

The difference this time was that it took so much longer to get around to even attempting. Firstly I found that I had to earn $2 million in order to buy the SUV. Then I discovered that I would needto find a cunningly-placed magazine that would triple the SUV’s damage endurance. On top that, I discovered that I would need to manage my time like a bastard.

My first attempt ended after 12,000 kills, when I realised that I had wasted too much time and a quick bit of maths told me that I was never going to make it. Essentially, you have 76 in-game hours to achieve this – the first four are to allow you to gather all the things you need and to begin. After that, you have to kill a thousand zombies an hour, every hour.

It was really quite depressing. You have to be focussed in order to avoid the many obstacles in the way and you also need to keep a constant count of how well you’re doing versus the clock. Adding to that the fact that you have to save and reload after every lap (otherwise you can’t keep the SUV) and you have one tricky bastard.

By the end of the run – which was completed in installments over several days – I was exhausted. I’d gotten the achievement, but what was the point? For the first time, I really felt like I’d wasted my life. I didn’t even get a cool new weapon.

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