Happy Achievement League

League Guidelines Set for First HAL Season

For those of you who don't know what the hell is going on, or who need a quick refresher, here's how this thang works. There are four seasons, aptly named after the seasons that we enjoy as Midwestern residents each and every year:

• Spring season: March, April, May
• Summer season: June, July, August
• Fall season: September, October, November
• Winter season: December, January, February

Since a few of us (*ahem* Brian, Chris, Jon) can't wait to get started, the extra couple of weeks of this first month will be tacked on to the spring season. How do you become a HAL season champion? By doing two things: racking up achievements and completing games. Each week on Sunday at 8pm sharp (SHARP!), the last week ends and a new one begins. All of the achievement points garnered from the week that ended are tallied and players are ranked by most points to least. Then, the players get a number of season points according to their place in the weekly standings (in a six-player league, first place gets 6 pts, second gets 5, and so on down to 1 pt for last place). Then the achievement points are reset for another week, and on it goes until the season concludes.

We've decided that completed games should be factored in as well, since completing a game takes more time than simply getting random points on a bunch of separate games. Therefore, each completed retail game will get 1 bonus season point, and each completed Xbox Live Arcade game will get .2 bonus season points. At the end of the season, the person with the most season points combined from weekly standings rankings and completed games will be the champ!

Cliff Notes version: play a lot of games, get a lot of achievements, complete games when you can.

The Only Rule Is THERE ARE NO RULES!

You may be thinking, "but hey...some nefarious individual may rent Avatar and notch a quick 1,000 gamerscore to win a week and get a completed game to boot!" Yes, they may. You may wonder, "so what are the rules regarding that kind of thing?"

It's simple: there are none!

We are hardcore gaming motherfuckers. We play til our thumbs bleed and our wives file for divorce, then we throw some bandaids on our digits and broken hearts, shrug and keep on playing. Ain't no rules!

If you want to rent Avatar, TMNT or Terminator Salvation, do that shit up. I already have. If you want to "save" some easy achievements by stopping right before you get them, then cueing them up for next week to unleash a flood of achievements on your competitors, do that shit up, too! Quite frankly, that's hilarious, and since this league is based on something silly, get as silly as you want with your methods. After all, there are many seasons to be played, and he who shits first, doesn't shit for very long (unless it's Jon). Therefore, if you blow your wad by renting easy games early on, soon enough that well will run dry and you'll come back down to earth.