Because of the way I was brought up, not having owned a games console until an age that most people would call very late, I take pride in the things that I do in games that I consider really hard, like most people… But for me, with the amount of effort that I put into these, I feel that the personal achievement means even more to me.

To kick this list off we’re going to need to travel back in time to April 14th, 2012 – My favourite game at the time was Midnight Club LA on the Xbox 360, and all of my other friends at the time had the same game – One day, while I was over a friend’s house, we started playing as we usually did; unfortunately, there was a time trial race that was needed to be completed for the story to progress, and at this point, my friend had made the mistake of putting money into the way that his cars looked rather than the way that they handled or performed, meaning, that with his driving style being very aggressive, he struggled to complete the course without running out of time. This is where I come in. I take over control of the game and after a little driving around to get used to the car; the way it drifts, leans through corners, how well it takes off from the starting line and how fast it can get in a straight line with the use of nitrous, I enter into the time trial to make my first attempt. After a few attempts, I finally complete the race – As you can see below, I had managed to complete the race with 1 thousandths of a second left on the timer – This was the moment that the gloating started and the war or who was a better racer out of the two of us had begun.

Up next we go even further back in time to World War 1 – Or rather, back to 2016; a friend and I were playing Battlefield 1 on the Team Deathmatch game mode, and, as many of you know, one of the things to remember with Team Deathmatch on Battlefield is that it is considered harder than the same mode on a Call Of Duty game. This is because of the way that the games are programmed with the way the guns work, the physics, movement, the spawn points, and then the size of the maps as well – It’s a very rare occasion that I’m playing a Call Of Duty game on TDM and manage to get a positive Kill to Death Ratio… So with that said, how is it possible that within Battlefield 1, I am not only able to come second on the scoreboard, but I am also able to get a positive KD of 3.8? It’s the same within every game mode within Battlefield; I am just consistently better at playing those slower, more tactical games.

Going from one shooter to the other, we move over, ironically, to Call Of Duty. Every Friday, as many of us at Respawning try and get online together to play a game of the group’s choice (The most recent being Friday the 13th). Before we did this regularly, Luke, Will and I played some of the best games of Gun Game I have ever experienced. Some of the best moments for example were when Luke was running towards me with nothing but his fists as the final weapon of the game; I had a Rocket Launcher, and the only way to describe the reaction I had is that I screamed in genuine terror – There was no hope that I would be able to accurately aim to be able to take him out before he got to me, so after randomly firing, missing and dying, Luke won the game, but only as all of us where in fits of laughter… Within this gaming session, we have the next gaming achievement: I won the game of Gun Game. This may not seem to be particularly impressive but it means a lot to me sentimentally due to the fun I had – It is also worth saying that all of us did win games at some point while playing the game mode, meaning that none of us really felt like the odd duckling in the group who couldn’t beat everyone else.

Finally, we get to my greatest and most recent gaming achievement. Guitar Hero. It’s hard to find people around my age who have not experienced a Guitar Hero game at one point or another in their lives, either as a kid owning it, or going over a friends place who had the game and booting it up. For me, it was a case of owning it, but this is my most recent gaming achievement; how am I still playing guitar hero in 2018..? The answer is by using a PC version of the game called Clone Hero, being developed by a fan of the series who doesn’t want the community to die. For more information, you can read my article about it here. Anyway, back to the achievement; on the 29th of August 2018, I managed to FC (Full Clear, or rather 100% clearing) the song “They Say”, by Scars On Broadway. While it’s not the longest song, the challenge is keeping in time and not missing any of the many repeated notes. Oh yeah, did I mention that I was playing on the Expert difficulty? This was also kind of a double achievement for me since it was also the first 6-star rating I had received – This, if anything, has just pushed me to keep playing the game and FC even more songs. Hopefully, as I keep improving, this FC will be trivial in how difficult the songs I’m playing are.

So there are my gaming achievements; they may not seem particularly impressive to you, but they mean a lot to me. Why don’t you guys all comment down below your greatest or favourite gaming achievements, and remember how great you felt when you completed the challenge and passed a new milestone? I’m dying to hear them!