I've spent some of my downtime waiting for my Xbox's coffin to come and go (for what its worth I'm on my 3rd 360 since February) toodling around the forum, answering Create your own Achievements" threads, as well as looking at actual achievements. The threads help with creative juiciness and executive functions, and have led me to believe that well, some developers just aren't trying as hard as they could be.

So in an attempt to help Developers, or at least the interns who are not paid to come up with Achievements trip their way through some of the typical lame Achievements minefields, I present a

List of Achievements that need to Die! (Imagine this echoing a little bit)

1. You Completed the First Level! - 50 points!

Woo-hoo, lets celebrate mediocrity! Seriously, who would buy or even drop $9 for a game and NOT BEAT THE FIRST LEVEL!? There is no need for these, or really for any level except the last one. In a typical game, cutting these would free up at least 9 new achievements slots, even 2 or 3 times that for games that award you for multiple difficulties.

2. You just did something that was MANDATORY to continue the game! - 75 points!

I'm looking at you King Kong.

3. You scored every single rank in every single type of online multiplayer game. - 10 points each X 30

The whole POINT of a competitive online multiplayer system is that people who want to play it, will play it, to.... win? If you want to unlock an achievement for getting the highest ranks that's cool, but there's no need for the other 28 ranks. If anything you guys should be limiting the need to people to play online only for achievements. You should not have to team up with a partner for the specific purpose of letting each other earn achievements.

4. You defeated this boss, and the next, and the next, and well all of them. yay. - 40 points each

Kind of covered this already, but needs to be specifically covered. You want to reward someone for defeating a boss, then reward them for doing it creatively, like no damage received, or by using a pistol, something.

5. Yay, you were in a room with 1000+ people at the same time! See that means people like us! - 25 points 10 Points for simply popping online for the first time!

Yeah, like this ever happens. Maybe on the first Tuesday of release, that many peeps will be on, but aside from MMO's there's really no way to reliably let people earn this. Then some games give them for using online features that should be used anyway.

Now these type achievements are dead. They can no longer be used.

Now a big part of me is irritated by my complete and total lack of Xbox Live Connectivity, and hence the inability to even try at 500 of every game I play. I would just like to have a shot at at some more meaningful Achievements.

So it feels like I actually Achieved something.