Achievement Guide - Seriously Unstoppable in Serious Sam: Double D XXL

This post is a little different from any of the others that I've written because it's a (somewhat) detailed guide for earning an Xbox Live achievement.  The achievement in question is "Seriously Unstoppable" in Serious Sam: Double D XXL, which I'll get to in a moment.

Before then, though, I'll mention that I won't be doing an Achievement Report this week, as the GTASC was suspended while TrueAchievements updated its formula for calculating DLC TA Scores.  It led to many big fluctuations in TA Score that weren't related to earning new achievements, so the powers-that-be opted to delay a week and eliminate six teams next Saturday.  Anyway, I didn't earn any Xbox achievements this week because I was focusing on other stuff.

Now for the achievement guide:

To get this achievement, you first have to unlock all of the challenge levels by finding all the MBG pies throughout the story mode.  Then, you actually have to complete each of the challenges, which is undoubtedly the toughest part of the game.

MBG Pie Locations:

First up is the list of pies and brief explanations of how to find them.  It’s structured as:

“Challenge name – Level containing the pie – explanation.”

The list is arranged according to the order on the challenges page, not the order in which you can actually find them.  If you’re missing a few, look at the challenges you have available and find the missing ones in this list, choose to start at the appropriate level, and work your way towards the pie.

Kleer Karnage – Pyramid Looting - near the beginning of the level, there’s a room where the path splits: you could go down to the right (towards a switch that opens a door) or climb up a series of platforms.  Go up the platforms and into the little alcove on the right side, walk through the wall, and there’s your pie.  (It’s right across from the Secret Gunstacker Stash.)

Gnaarmageddon – Egyptian Assault - in the middle of your path in the level, shortly after seeing the Kamikazes for the first time.

Dino Destruction – Flying Reptiles – this pie is hidden right above the Secret Rock ‘n Hard Place Connector (it’s to the left after dropping down a long shaft with several flying dinos and logs).  Use the jump pad to wall jump up the hole in the ceiling, and you’ll get your pie.

Caterfighter Chaos – Pompeii Pyromania – this pie is in the Red Light District secret area.  After leaving the underground area and passing a shop, drop straight down, and you’ll find the secret area and this pie.

Biomech BBQ – Dinoo Switcheroo – right in your way during this level, immediately after the second time you have to climb up a bunch of missiles.

Vuvuzelator Vendetta – Dark Harvest – it’s the reward for surviving Mental’s Secret Closet.  It’s right after seeing a vuvuzelator for the first time; instead of climbing up to the vuvuzelator, continue to the right and you’ll find the closet.  You’ll have to survive against a series of Kleer skeletons in a small room, which can be tough, but if you come back after getting more powerful weapons, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.  The pie will be right in front of you as you’re leaving the area.

Kamikaze Kill-fest – Jurassic Reckoning – when you first see the kitten enemies, continue walking right (instead of dropping down).  After a Rejuvenative Flask, there will be a log covering a gap; drop into that gap to grab the pie.

Monkey Mayhem – Amesthystine Depths - in your path near the beginning of the level, before you encounter any enemies.

Skyline Speedrun – Tube Town – while not particularly hidden, this pie is tricky to get because the level is so complex.  If you follow the path near the ground, you’ll come to a place where a blue tube is angled up to the right at about 45 degrees.  Under that tube is the pie.  It’s almost directly below the Secret Celestial Connecter area.

Volcanic Violence – Vesuvius – in your path halfway through the level, right before a shop.  I don’t think you can miss this one.

Lava Death Race – Fireball Fury – visible on a ledge after traveling under the first Flea.

Tomb Stone - Long, Hard Road – in the Secret Lasergun Left Under a Building area; when you first exit the cave and start running over rooftops, continue to the right.  The pie is in a little alcove at ground level on the right side of this area.

Challenge Level Tips:

Once you’ve found all the challenge pies, you’ll have to complete the challenges.  In each, it’s important to get a feel for how the challenge works – what stacks you have, what enemies you’re up against, and how the stages are set up.  In some challenges, just playing through them a couple times may be enough to get it done.  If not, here are some additional challenge-specific tips:

Kleer Karnage: Start by jumping up to the ledge to the right with the yellow armor.  This challenge isn’t timed, so you can sit up there comfortably killing enemies as they gather on the starting platform.  When you need more ammo, run to the opposite ledge on the left side and grab some.  If the enemies stop spawning, you’ll have to jump down and kill some that are running around the lower levels of the stage.  Stay on the starting platform and shoot down and retreat to the upper right again if dudes start to swarm you.  Be careful not to over-extend yourself; hold back and keep grabbing armor if your health is getting low.

Gnaarmageddon: Your biggest threat here are the beheaded soldiers.  Keep sweeping the chainsaws around to kill Gnaar, and focus on chasing the beheaded down, dodging their shots as you go.  Run back and forth across the bottom of the stage to line the enemies up behind you to make it easier to mow them down.

Dino Destruction: This is a survival challenge, so don’t worry so much about killing enemies.  I stick with the rocket launcher stack, killing dinos until there’s a nice pile of corpses in the middle of the arena.  When the pile gets high enough, you’ll start seeing some flying dinos – if you can get on their backs, the others can’t reach you very easily, making it a lot easier to survive for two minutes.  If not, you may be able to build a corpse wall on one of the sides; if there’s a big enough pile of bodies, you’ll be able to hide at the bottom beyond the reach of the dinos (they’ll be on top of the corpse-pile).

Caterfighter Chaos: This challenge is undoubtedly the hardest of the bunch.  My winning strategy was to drop down to ground level but stay in the middle of the area (so you can jump up and grab more ammo as needed).  The real problem here is the rocket-launching spider, so you need to position the laser shields to block those missiles.  I would alternate shooting right and left, trying to place the shields up angled at about 45 degrees.  Moving slightly to the right when shooting to the left and slightly to the left when shooting the right would give me a little shield wedge that I could stand under to protect against those missiles.  It’s really frustrating, so you’ll need a fair amount of luck to get past it, so just keep at it.

Biomech BBQ: Your biggest asset in this challenge is the fact that the flamethrower blocks enemy fire.  Constantly hold the trigger, sweeping the flamethrower around to protect yourself from the lasers and missiles from the biomechs.  Make that your focus – survive and you’ll get the necessary kills in time.  To make things easier, head to one side of the map so you can only get attacked from the other direction.  When you get overwhelmed with numbers, run to the other side (and grab more ammo along the way).  If at any point you don’t need to block shots, try to cover the ground with butter; knocking the biomechs down is always advantageous.

Vuvuzelator Vendetta: This one’s like Kleer Karnage – jump up to the highest level of the stage and kill vuvuzelators until no more are spawning around you.  Then, drop down until you find where they’re all getting stuck (probably the lowest level), and wipe them out.  After that, you’ll have to maneuver around a bit to keep from dying, but try to stay alive while getting back to the top to repeat the process.

Kamikaze Kill-fest: This challenge is surprisingly simple.  Run to the right and into the little alcove on the side of the stage (go into the middle one, not the highest one).  If you chill out in there, kamikazes will gather in the area below you, where you can quickly jump out and kill them.  A bit later, femikazes will actually do all the work for you, killing the kamikazes and bringing you closer to your goal.  As with the other challenges like this, you may need to jump out and find more kamikazes to kill if they stop spawning near you – I found that they tended to collect on a ledge on the left side of the stage.

Monkey Mayhem: This one will come pretty naturally if you keep moving.  Make sure to avoid kamikazes and try to stay away from exploding monkeys, and you should be fine.

Skyline Speedrun: The goal in this challenge is just to reach the end line. You only have one machine pistol, so you won’t be able to kill very much.  It does come equipped with Air Buffer, though, so use that to float along when you can.  Jump on monkeys whenever possible and try to get as high as you can and just float off to the right.

Volcanic Violence: Start by braving the lava and heading to the next platform to the left (it has an ammo backpack, which is really important).  Then, switch to the laser stack and use it indiscriminately.  One of the lasers will heal you, you’ll get automated turrets and rockets will lift enemies off the ground.  Grab the backpack when it appears and you should have an easy time finishing this one.  Watch out for the lava monsters, but otherwise it’s pretty smooth sailing.

Lava Death Race: Don’t worry about the enemies or even the lava in this race, just hop along to the right.  If you shoot continuously angled towards the ground, you’ll be able to incapacitate the enemies by lifting them, and you might be able to give yourself some impressive air if timed well with your jumps.  Try to grab ammo and health as it comes along, and you should be able to sail through this race.

Tomb Stone: Yet again, the best strategy is to head to the top of the stage.  There’s plenty of ammo and healing up here, so you should be set.  Switch to the second stack (the one with the laser) and just keep shooting.  Focus on taking out the spiders and dodge the missiles and you should survive for several minutes, finishing this survival challenge.