Achievements Anonymous – Red Dead Redemption

The Wild West can be a dangerous place, but survival is well worth it’s weight in gold…and Achievements/Trophies.

If you are after a great example of an open world game, Red Dead Redemption is a bloody fantastic place to start. Rockstar’s Western epic combines a fantastic narrative with missions that offer tons more variety than other games of the genre. What’s more, is that its multiplayer mode is as enthralling as its single player.

However, RDR is also a great game for Achievement/Trophy hunters to run through, and with over 90 to obtain there is plenty to keep a cowboy occupied. As the game recently became free for PlayStation Plus users, this week’s column will be taking a look at some of the trickier Achievements/Trophies out there.

How The West Was Won – Reach The Top Rank For Multiplayer Experience:

Reaching the highest XP level in Red Dead Redemption is a far more obtainable goal than doing the same thing in Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as being exponentially more enjoyable as well. Everything you do in the game’s multiplayer should contribute towards earning this Achievement, so it’s probably worth concentrating on the rest of the multiplayer Achievements first.

However, there is one situation where you have a really good opportunity to obtain this Achievement in the least possible time, and that is when Rockstar’s Social Club holds special event weekends. Playing multiplayer during these events can earn you double, triple or even quadruple the amount of XP you can earn from gameplay. It is entirely feasible to go from level 1 to level 50 in two days during a Triple XP weekend (which is what I did).

So what is the most efficient method of earning XP? Without a shadow of a doubt, that would be the Gang Hideouts. Entering particular areas of the map will instantly take you to a Gang Hideout, where you must kill all of the enemies in the area, and occasionally perform other simple tasks. Repeatedly completing Gang Hideouts will earn you a considerable amount of XP (especially if you keep your consecutive kill meter up as high as possible).

Pike’s Basin is the Gang Hideout of choice, earning me around 1400-1600XP per run through; do that on a Triple XP weekend, and you’ll easily earn the 337110 XP required for level 50.

Dastardly – Place a hogtied woman on the train tracks, and witness her death by train:

While this Achievement is pretty simple to do, it’s certainly one of the more amusing things you can do in the game. The Achievement’s description gives a pretty good explanation of what to do, but if that wasn’t enough here’s a video from Rooster Teeth to demonstrate.

Redeemed – Attain 100% in the Single Player Game Completion stat:

Getting a 100% completion stat in Single Player can be a time consuming process, but like any decent open world game, it’s a very rewarding one. My best advice to you is to just play the game through as normal and enjoy the narrative and the variety of missions and distractions available to you.

Then once you’ve finished the game it’s time to knuckle down and mop up anything you’ve missed. Rockstar’s Social Club is a brilliant resource, as if you sign up to the free service you can actually view a detailed checklist of everything you need to obtain that elusive 100%. While it may not always tell you how to tick those boxes, it makes it a lot easier to search for these missing items/tasks on the internet.

Spurred To Victory – Complete 20 story missions without switching to a new horse at a hitching post:

This is one of those Achievements that is very easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention, and if you complete the game before you earn this, then you’ll just have to start a New Game and play through 20 story missions again.

Very early on in the game you are given a horse by Bonnie MacFarlane and then shown how to hitch your horse. After this point, you must never hitch your horse to a post ever again until this Achievement is earned. It doesn’t matter if a Story mission gives you a new horse, so long as you always retrieve a horse by whistling, and never from a hitching post than this Achievement/Trophy will be obtained after 20 completed missions.

Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker Ace – In a full Multiplayer Poker game, beat the table when blinds are at maximum

Obtainable for those with the Liars and Cheats Pack DLC, you must win a six-player Poker game while the minimum bet you can make is maxed out (also known as the blinds). For those who are good at Poker this is probably a doddle for you to do. However, I know absolutely nothing about playing Poker and I can’t get my head around the blasted game, so here’s a solution for people like me.

What you need, are five other friends or people who require this Achievement, plus a couple of hours of free time. Get yourselves into a private Free Roam, and meet up at the Poker table in MacFarlane’s Ranch (as this table takes the shortest time to reach the maximum blinds). The Free Roam host should start up a Poker game and allow the other five players to join.

Once the game starts, everyone folds for their first turn. When the next turn starts, everybody leave the game but two people (ideally those who don’t have the Achievement/Trophy). Those four people can do what they like, they don’t even need to be playing the game. Then the two remaining players do absolutely nothing – Leave the controller alone, make a cup of tea, read a book, etc. Every five minutes or so, the blinds (minimum bet) double and you need to wait until the blinds are maxed at 64 (This takes around 20-25 minutes).

Once the minimum bet is 64, the person who wants the Achievement simply has to beat the other player (you could tell each other yours hands via voice chat to manipulate who wins). If you know nothing about Poker (like me) then it helps to Google a list of Poker hands, or find a Poker hand calculator to make things easier.