Friday Fun! Get That Fake Sense of Accomplishment In Achievement Unlocked 2

If you’ve played a game on a major gaming platform in the past few years, chances are you’re familiar with achievements. Games on the Xbox 360 have them in the form of a Gamerscore, where certain actions in games gain you points that are displayed in your profile. The Playstation 3 has platinum, gold, silver, and bronze trophies. Most Steam games come with achievements that can be earned.

Some people go to great lengths earn achievements, and even play terrible games just for the easy Gamerscore they can earn. If you count yourself among those ranks, or if that “ten more minutes of Civilization” has ever turned into six hours, chances are you’ll love Achievement Unlocked 2.

Achievement Unlocked 2 is a direct sequel to, you guessed it, Achievement Unlocked. Don’t worry if you haven’t played the first game. While it’s fun as well, enjoyment of the second game doesn’t depend on it at all.

The gameplay in Achievement Unlocked 2 is incredibly simple: while controlling your elephant avatar using the arrow keys (Why an elephant? Why not?), you attempt to traverse the game’s levels and unlock all 250 achievements. Achievements range from the absurdly easy (“use the Internet”), to the slightly trickier (“collect all the coins on all the levels”). Chances are you’ll unlock at least ten achievements within your first ten seconds of play. Coins collected around the levels can be used to purchase ‘DLC packs’ in-game, unlocking more levels to earn more achievements.

If you have friends who share your neurotic urge to unlock achievements, Achievement Unlocked 2 also sports a co-op multiplayer mode. It’s pretty basic, but multiplayer is never a bad thing, right?

While you’ll probably start out laughing at the absurdity of it all, it’s hard to deny the draw of the game that keeps you playing. You know the achievements are completely meaningless, yet you still keep trying to unlock just one more. What started out as a quick five minute break from work quickly turns into an hour of mashing the arrow keys. Eventually you realize the futility of trying to get all 250 achievements, but if you do manage to unlock them all I applaud your perseverance. I didn’t have the willpower to keep going.