Overview:
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
-Offline: 44 (890)
-Online: 16 (360)
-Approximate amount of time to 1250 : 25+ hrs
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
-Number of missable achievements: None
-Do cheat codes disable achievements? No cheats
-Does difficulty affect achievements? Yes
-Glitchy achievements: 1 (Army of One)
-Unobtainable achievements: None
-Extra equipment needed? None
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Seek and Destroy Map Pack DLC
- Difficulty: 4/10
- Time to 250: 6-10 Hours
- Unobtainable: None
Introduction:
Welcome to Section 8. This game is an enjoyable First Person Shooter. You play as Alex Corde of the 8th Armord Infantry.
The achievements are rather easy, although 2-3 of them can be time consuming.
The campaign, which consists of eight objective-based missions, is relatively short, as it is more a tutorial to the multiplayer part of the game. The campaign itself will net you 160 and requires you to play on Hard difficulty. Although the game is multiplayer oriented, most of the achievements can be unlocked by playing offline/single player. The hardest part of the game is to find an online community to play with. As for steps numbers 2, 3 and 4, you might want to find people in the achievement trading thread found here.
Step 1: Campaign
In order to start the campaign, choose "Corde's Story" from the main menu. Be sure to set the difficulty to "Hard". All missions are pretty short and are more an introduction of what to expect on multiplayer. None of the missions are difficult except for one maybe, which is the map Edge of Oasis. If you get stuck on a mission, you might want to check the achievement discussion thread found here and hopefully you'll find the answer based upon other people's experiences.
As soon as you've finished the first mission, you'll unlock the First Drop achievement. Mid-way through the game, you'll also unlock the To the Delphi Man achievement. Throughout the game, you'll come across the Nuclear Dawn map where you can unlock the With All Due Haste achievement. On the Blackstone Marsh map where you can get the Lightning Assault achievement. Both achievements are to perform a specific action within a certain amount of time. The Lightning Assault achievement can be done on the easiest difficulty setting by chosing "Level Select" after you've beaten the game. But With All Due Haste has to be done on Hard difficulty. At the end of the campaign, you'll unlock both Mission Accomplished and Over Achiever achievements assuming you did it on Hard difficulty.
There are also a few achievements that need a little grinding, but we'll come to that in the next steps.
Step 2: Offline Non-campaign / Multiplayer (2+ human players and/or bots)
Now that you've done the campaign, it's time to focus on the other achievements that you can get offline, although it's better to boost them with another player in order to speed things up and make it easier to unlock them (LIVE Gold accounts required).
One basic rule, though, is to always set difficulty to "Trivial" to make it as easy as possible, unless the achievement requires otherwise.
The achievements are: Never Tell Me the Odds / 3,720 to 1 / Instant Gratification / Boom Goes the Dynamite / Bane of the Immobile / Test Drive / Excessive Celebration / Steamroll / This Is My Rifle / Ain't Got Time to Bleed / Feeling Lucky? / Ventilator / It's a Legitimate Strategy / Repo Man / Public Housing Authority / Improvised Orbital Cannon / Sherman's March / Silent but Deadly / We Have Won / Goal Oriented / Adaptable / Swatting at Flies / Recession Proof / Passive Aggressive / Shop 'til You Drop / Ringleader / Mr. Fixit / Drop It Like It's Hot
Refer to the guide for further information on the achievements.
Note: Again, these are achievements that you can do solo in theory, but most of them are best done with another player.
Step 3: Multiplayer Ranked Matches (4+ human players)
In this step, we'll focus on the real multiplayer achievements. You need at least 4 human players with LIVE accounts, otherwise the ranked stats won't be enabled.
Before you start with these, you have to know how to get a "Feat" as several "Feats" activate a DCM (Dynamic Combat Mission) which both will be important towards the Feats and Badges related achievements.
For information about Feats go here.
For information about the DCM go here.
The Ranked achievements are: You're Doing It Right / Badge Expert / Feat Expert / Badge Collector / Feat Collector / Top Brass / Rising Star / Ding! / Plays Well With Others / Veni, Vidi, Vici / Blades 'n 'Nades / Bloot Lust / Cutting to the Chase / Desensitization / Blitzkrieg / Conscientious Objector
If you had difficulties unlocking the Boom Goes the Dynamite achievement in Step 2, you might want to do it when playing in a game with 4 people or more. Note that if you need 3 people on the other side of the team to boost this specific achievement with, you either have to be in an 8/12/16 player game with bots active so that the human players can swap from one team to another, or you need to have 5 (or more) human players if you set the bots inactive.
Since not so many people have downloaded the DLC yet, boosting is best done on a DLC map (Azure Basin, Devil's Backbone or Hornet's Nest) so you don't get annoyed by people playing legit when boosting.
Seek and Destroy Map Pack
Single Player
If you're a god with shooters, you won't have any troubles unlocking the DLC achievements. Again, always set difficulty to "Trivial" unless achievement requires otherwise.
The achievements that can be done on "Trivial" are: Dance with the Devil / Buzz Kill / All Your Basin / Plow The Road / Revenge of the Falling / Army of One / Immortal Sovereign / Swarming Behavior
The achievements that have to be on a harder difficulty are: Insanity Defense / For the Swarm
Co-op
But since you're reading this step, maybe you're not such a god with shooters after all. It is best to do the Insanity Defense and For the Swarm achievements with a human player in co-op as the AI of the bots on your team won't be a big help to you, trust me! And while you're at it, Plow the Road, Immortal Sovereign and Swarming Behavior are also more fun with a real human assisting you.
Conclusion:
If you are a completionist, I hope the road map and guide have been helpful in order to get the full 1250. An achievement that you possibly haven't unlocked yet, would be the We Have Won which is a time consuming one and needs a little grinding. With a little research on the internet, you'll be able to find an easy way to unlock this one using rubber bands. Perhaps you're also missing the Feat and Badge Experts. Again, having a good team to play with, preferably on a DLC map, and understanding the DCM mechanics are the key ingredients to make this work faster.