Overview:
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 8/10 (Depends Heavily on Skill)
-Offline: 37/50 for 880
-Online: 13/50 for 120
-Approximate amount of time to 1000: 25-100 hours (Depends Heavily on Skill and Online)
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1 (2-3 Recommended for New Players)
-Number of missable achievements: None, you can replay songs.
-Do cheat codes disable achievements? Yes
-Does difficulty affect achievements? For specific Achievements. See below.
-Glitchy achievements: People are reporting problems with You're The Best!
-Extra equipment needed? 2 Turntables and 1 Mic as well as Live Gold for online.
-Avatar Awards: No
Introduction
Welcome to DJ Hero 2, Activision and Freestyle Game's second entry into their DJ Hero series. The sequel improves on a lot of the problems the first game had, while also introducing a brand new multiplayer mode. It also introduces 83 brand new mixes that are sure to have you rocking in your seat.
Step 1: Calibration
While you could jump right into Empire Mode, for some reason we have a calibration achievement. If you have an SDTV, just run through the calibration and nail out your first achievement, En Sink?. If you have an HDTV, you'll be happy to know the calibration actually works well.
Step 2: Tutorial
Again, we have a tutorial achievement. This time, though, you only need to go through the brand new features in DJ Hero 2. If you're new to the series, though, you might as well do them all. It will help a lot in the long run. Once you finish out 6 of the 7 new feature tutorials, you will get Higher Education achievement.
Step 3: Empire Mode
Now we can finally start the game. From the main menu, select "Empire" and begin your journey through DJ Hero 2's career mode. There are no difficulty based achievements in Empire Mode, save for one concerning DJ Shadow's setlist, so feel free to pick whichever mode you want. Throughout career mode, there will be several chances to earn some achievements. So, play as your Avatar for Not All Avatar's are Blue; Beat DJ Qbert in all his battle mixes for The Grandmixer; Earn 3 stars in Every song in Tiesto's Megamix for World Number One; Crossfade to the Left in every Freestyle section for To the Left; Complete every DJ Battle for Big Bad Boss and The Emperor; and attempt to freestyle well for Freestyle Superstar. When you get to DJ Shadow's setlist, pick whichever difficulty you feel comfortable with. The achievements correspond to Medium, Hard and Expert, with difficulties stacking. Many people believe you must beat the challenge for the setlist which requires you to 4 star each song (or get 3, 4 and 5 stars). After completing all DJ Battles and bonus setlists, you should have unlocked every Power Deck for the I Have the Power Decks! achievements and bonus song (Bonus), as well as Thirty Three Without the Third achievement and possibly failing to 5 Star Galvanize on Expert for the At Least you Tried achievement.
Note: For some reason, DJ Hero 2 will not tell you which difficulty you have 5 starred songs on, it just universally displays that you 5 starred "X" song. If you play most of the songs on Medium, Hard, etc., but are able to 5 star a few on Expert, make sure to keep a note of which ones you have completed. Any song finished in Empire mode (excluding Megamixes) will count for 5 starring.
Step 4: 5 Starring Songs on Expert
If you played through Empire Mode on Expert you should have 51 of the 65 mixes done. If you didn't 5 Star them, it will be easy to keep track of which ones you need to finish. If you didn't start off on Expert and didn't even attempt to, then your task will be easy, as well. You'll just have to replay all 65 songs until you can 5 star them. If you did 5 star a few on Expert during your Empire career, then you will not be required to replay them. People are reporting some issues with unlocking the 5 star achievement, though. I can confirm that Power Decks will not hurt your chances at getting the achievement, but no one is positive why it's not unlocking for a few people. If you 5 starred songs on the lower difficulties, though, DJ Hero 2 will not tell you which ones to 5 star on Expert. This can be frustrating, but if you just keep a list of mixes and check off what you've accomplished, you should be able to bang this out in due time. If you're having a hard time with the game, Power Decks will be your best friend. If the song is tap heavy, pick the "Tap Master" deck and etc. "Rewind", "Euphoria" and "Multiplier" will do wonders in some of the harder songs, especially if you can 100% a section, but mess up later.
Step 5: Vocals
Activision has included vocals in DJ Hero 2 and have linked 4 achievements to it. For the first, grab a friend and play a song with 2 turntables and a mic for The Magic Number. After that, you need to proceed to play all 58 mixes that have vocals on them. What you must do is sign into a controller (not a turntable) to get the rest of the achievements. Once you do that, proceed to make a setlist (the maximum number of songs you can put in one list is 20 songs) and then let it run (or sing, by all means). It will take around 6 hours, but you'll definitely get each song done. After that, you will be tasked with getting a 200 Note Streak and 100%ing a song on vocals. Play "Firestarter" as it is the easiest song and has more than 200 notes. If you have trouble getting 100%, just constantly tap the mic instead of humming into it.
Step 6: Multiplayer
This I'm putting as a universal step since there are two things you can do. There are various achievements for playing the different multiplayer modes and achieving a certain feat, but they can be completed offline or online. For example, Accumulate! requires you to win 10 mixes in "Accumulator" by a 50 note streak margin. You can simply play offline with another turntable and win by 50 notes. Check below for the different multiplayer modes and what they require. As for Online, there are various things for winning games and ranking up. It's fairly straight forward and simply requires time. There is a thread here that will detail how to get more points in a shorter amount of time. Also, check here for the trading thread. When you finally win a battle online, you will unlock some Medals and Tags. Chose something other than the default and you will unlock Got ID?. Also, if you have friends playing the game, make sure they issue you challenges. Challenges will be found in the main menu under "Rep" and then "Hero Feed." From there, proceed to play their challenge. You need to complete 5 for Hero Feed Heroism. Also, if you beat a friend's score on any song, you will unlock 1UP.
Step 7: Misc.
There are various song based achievements in this game that you can attempt during Empire mode or during any of the multiplayer matches. One requires you to rewind 6 times on a song and gain a 400 Note Streak on another. It's not terribly difficult and I will detail them in a special section below.
Conclusion:
DJ Hero 2 is a much easier list to 1000 then the first, thanks in part to Power Decks allowing you to 5 star every song easier and a multiplayer mode that doesn't require ranked matches. Aside from some misc achievements that may give you problems, nothing is really hard about this list. It's not a quick 1000, but it definitely will be one of the most fun. If you have previous experience with the series, it will be even easier.
[x360a would like to thank KingSigy for this Road Map]