Goatmoose

I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about my tips on completing Left 4 Dead 2 Achievements. Since I just acquired Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age: Origins yesterday, I figured I’d do one better and toss up lists for them as well. I’ve already finished the Modern Warfare 2 campaign and a number of the Spec Ops missions, so just with the other list, I’ll update tactics as I unlock them. And you, of course, can feel free to contribute.

Back in the Saddle 15
Help train the local militia.
This achievement and the many that follow it are all story achievements. Move through the campaign and you’ll unlock one after each mission up to the end.

Danger Close 15
Get hand picked for Shepherd’s elite squad.

Cold Shoulder 15
Infiltrate the snowy mountain side base.

Tag ‘em and bag ‘em 15
Find Rojas in the Favelas.

Royale with Cheese 15
Defend Burger Town.

Soap on a Rope 15
Storm the gulag.

Desperate Times 15
Execute the plan to help the Americans.

Whiskey Hotel 15
Take back Whiskey Hotel.

The Pawn 15
Assault Makarov’s safe house.

Out of the Frying Pan… 15
Complete the mission in the airplane graveyard.

For the Record 35
Complete the Single Player campaign on any difficulty.
Not much more to say about this one – just complete the game.

The Price of War 90
Complete the single player campaign on Hardened or Veteran Difficulty.
Modern Warfare 2 lets you get 315 total points for completing the missions, and thus the entire campaign, on Veteran difficulty. See the following achievements for which ones need done to get the points.

First Day of School 25
Complete ‘S.S.D.D’ and ‘Team Player’ on Veteran Difficulty.
SSDD really has no difficulty rating. You just play it like usual, then select Veteran at the end. Doing so will unlock a Veteran Completion for that level. Team Player is the first real level. If you have the skill to get through levels on Veteran, Team Player will be the least of your worries. The big thing to remember in all Veteran campaigns is to take your time and keep your eyes open. Any enemy has the chance to kill you, and fast. Pace yourself and work through each level checkpoint by checkpoint.

Black Diamond 25
Complete ‘Cliffhanger’ on Veteran Difficulty.
I have a hard time getting through this without alerting guards – not by my fault, but by Soap’s. Any time he snipes someone, they get alerted. If this happens to you, tuck yourself in a nook and just unload on people as they pop into your sight. Once you kill a pack of them, the alert ends. After the ambush it gets tough – Stick to Soap’s back as much as possible. He offers a good bit of cover fire and triggers events that keep you alive. Once you get to the end of the tarmac, just run like hell to the snow bank. It’s the only checkpoint between the hangar and the beginning of the snowmobile race, so it’s your goal.

Turistas 25
Complete ‘Takedown’ and ‘The Hornet’s Nest’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Red Dawn 25
Complete ‘Wolverines!’ and ‘Exodus’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Prisoner #627 25
Complete ‘The Only Easy Day… Was Yesterday’ and ‘The Gulag’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Ends Justify the Means 25
Complete ‘Contingency’ on Veteran Difficulty

Homecoming 25
Complete ‘Of Their Own Accord’, ‘Second Sun’, and ‘Whiskey Hotel’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Queen takes Rook 25
Complete ‘Loose Ends’ and ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Off the Grid 25
Complete ‘Just Like Old Times’ and ‘Endgame’ on Veteran Difficulty.

Pit Boss 10
Run The Pit in ‘S.S.D.D’ and finish with a final time under 30 seconds.

Ghost 10
Plant the C4 in ‘Cliffhanger’ without alerting or injuring anyone in the blizzard.
Get there without killing anyone or being seen. Not as easy as it sounds, but very doable. The bigger issue will be avoiding alerts when Soap snipes someone.

Colonel Sanderson 10
Kill 7 chickens in under 10 seconds in ‘The Hornet’s Nest’.
There are chickens in cages all over the place in this area. Try to empty out an area without killing too many in crossfire, and when the attack dies down, unload on the cages that contain the most chickens. Hitting 7 in 10 seconds isn’t tough, particularly if you target ones that contain 4-5 chickens per cage.

Gold Star 20
Earn 1 star in Special Ops.
The following few achievements are all about earning stars in spec ops mode. Each mission has its own requirements for earning stars, either based on difficulty or completion time. Do what you need to do to unlock them.

Hotel Bravo 20
Earn 4 stars in Special Ops.

Charlie On Our Six 20
Earn 8 stars in Special Ops.

It Goes to Eleven 20
Earn at least 1 star in 11 different Special Op missions.

Operational Asset 20
Earn all 3 stars in at least 5 different Special Op missions.

Blackjack 20
Earn 21 stars in Special Ops.

Honor Roll 20
Earn at least 1 star in each Special Op mission.

Operative 30
Earn all 3 stars in at least 10 different Special Op missions.

Specialist 30
Earn 30 stars in Special Ops.

Professional 30
Earn all 3 stars in at least 15 different Special Op missions.

Star 69 90
Earn 69 stars in Special Ops.
Get all available stars in spec ops mode.
This is nearly impossible. Nearly.

Downed but Not Out 10
Kill 4 enemies in a row while downed in Special Ops.

I’m the Juggernaut… 10
Kill a Juggernaut in Special Ops.
Some Special Ops missions have juggernauts – enemies who can’t be killed with bullets. You have to blow them up or stab them multiple times (3-4) to get them to die. Killing at least one will nearly be a requirement to complete particular Special Ops missions, so you’ll get this naturally. All it takes is one to unlock.

Ten plus foot-mobiles 10
Kill at least 10 enemies with one Predator missile in Single Player or Special Ops.
You have a couple occasions to use the AGM missile. This may happen in the campaign because the missile has a pretty fierce splash radius, but if not, one of the first Spec Ops campaigns makes this simple. Fire it off quickly as you’re being attacked, get a transport vehicle in the hit and you’re almost guaranteed 10 kills.

Unnecessary Roughness 10
Use a riot shield to beat down an enemy in Single Player or Special Ops.
During the Gulag, there are lots of riot shields. Grab one and push RS when near an enemy, just like you would to perform a knife kill. Instead, you’ll smack him with your shield. Achievement unlocked.

Knock-knock 10
Kill 4 enemies with 4 shots during a slow-mo breach in Single Player or Special Ops.
Any time you breach a door, you get a slow-motion entrance to the room that’s all blurry from the explosion. If you can take out four people in the room with four single shots, you’ll get this. Try using a pistol, otherwise it’s hard to control your shots to 4 single shots.

Some Like it Hot 10
Kill 6 enemies in a row using a thermal weapon in Single Player or Special Ops.
Another thing that’s not very difficult and will likely happen naturally as you’re using the thermal sniper rifle. Just snipe six people using the rifle. You have lots of opportunities here.

Two Birds with One Stone 10
Kill 2 enemies with a single bullet in Single Player or Special Ops.
Possible with most sniper rifles. I didn’t even know I did it when it unlocked, but after I already had it I noticed a few other occasions where I took out two enemies with one shot.

The Road Less Traveled 10
Collect 22 enemy intel items.
Grab the enemy laptops/intel around the campaign. There are 45 total and are easy to miss. On my first play-through, I totally forgot about them until right near the end and ended with 2/45.

Leave No Stone Unturned 10
Collect 45 enemy intel items.
Get all the enemy intel.

Drive By 10
Kill 20 enemies in a row while driving a vehicle in Single Player or Special Ops.
I achieved this during the boat mission at the end, as it was easier to hit people than the snowmobile driving, imo. Lots of boats come up beside you and you can easily gun down the enemies in them as they pass you. They contain more personnel than the snowmobiles too, which makes you get to 20 quicker.

The Harder They Fall 10
Kill 2 rappelling enemies in a row before they land on their feet in Single Player or Special Ops.
This is simple in Spec Ops mode where you traverse the bridge. Right off the bat, a bunch of guys rappel down onto the bridge from the sides. Pop two of them before they land and this will unlock.

Desperado 10
Kill 5 enemies in a row using 5 different weapons or attachments in Single Player or Special Ops.
This isn’t terribly difficult, particularly if you’re playing on Normal difficulty or below. If you’re in a fairly crowded area, simply shoot someone with your main gun, then shoot someone with your second gun, then find one on the ground that’s different and shoot someone with it, then find another different one, make another kill, another different gun, and another different kill. If your difficulty level isn’t up too high, you won’t find it as hard to run around picking up other weapons inbetween kills. Just be sure you don’t take out more than one person with a particular weapon and that you don’t repeat weapons before 5 kills are up. You can, however, use the same gun twice if it has an attachment – i.e. the normal fire and grenade attachment on many machine guns will both count.

Look Ma Two Hands 10
Kill 10 enemies in a row using akimbo weapons in Single Player or Special Ops.
Akimbo weapons, like desert eagles or mini uzis, are weapons where you can hold one in each hand and fire simultaneously. Favela has both double eagles and uzis, so it’s a good area to try this. Simply kill 10 people while using them and you’ll get the achievement. You don’t have to kill 10 with each hand, just 10 total.

No Rest For the Wary 10
Knife an enemy without him ever knowing you were there in Single Player or Special Ops.
Easy as pie – just stab an enemy from behind. You’ll likely do it dozens of times.

Three-some 10
Kill at least 3 enemies with a single shot from a grenade launcher in Single Player or Special Ops.
This opened up for me about twenty seconds into the game, when instructed to shoot the grenade launcher across the river at the enemies. If you don’t grab it there, the game presents to you numerous occasions when you can equip yourself with a gun that has a grenade attachment, and you always have frags in your pocket. Finding three enemies together isn’t particularly difficult so it shouldn’t take a lot of trial to get this.