#true achievements

[jennawynn]

WOO! 100 days of achievements. 

[aarrowom]

See all the games and the completion %age drop for AarrowOM's Bean Dive

Aarrow Reviews: TrueAchievements Bean Dive 2026

Another year, another Bean Dive. I suppose I should have waited until this year for an alphabet-based game set, but I did that last year and honestly, I couldn't be bothered this year.

The 26* games I chose this year all have walkthroughs somewhere (usually TA, sometimes Steam), and run the gamut of genres as usual since I'm delving into my Games With Gold collection as well as what Game Pass Essentials gets me. Unless otherwise noted, I started it because it had a walkthrough and seemed vaguely interesting.

Aground

Armello

Astroneer - I may need to find a better guide for this one; the Dive achievement I popped wasn't the one the guide started with because I couldn't figure out where I was/where I was supposed to be.

Autonauts

Battlefield 1

Big Crown: Showdown

BioShock Infinite

Card Storm Idle (Xbone)

Card Storm Idle (Windows) - Started this one seperately so as to have accessible easy achievements when not at home (e.g. at GenCon).

Chivalry 2

Control

Dark Souls

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Hades - I was excited this was available on Essentials since I've seen much about it on Tumblr (which is probably giving me a skewed sense of the game itself, but eh, it's Tumblr, what did I expect?)

Hand of Fate

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - This one seems interesting and I may (re)start it sooner rather than later.

The Inner World - The Last Wind Monk - The controls on this one suck.

Lamentum

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures - To work through the LEGO backlog from GwG.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game - To work through the LEGO backlog from GwG.

Life is Strange 2 - I played LiS 1, but I must admit I remember none of it. Chapter 1 was free, so why not?

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Queen's Quest 5: Symphony of Death

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments - Seemed like a relatively straightforward point-and-click mystery game.

Superliminal - One of those I'd seen and been curious about for years.

[aarrowom]

See all the games and the completion %age drop for AarrowOM's Bean Dive

Aarrow Reviews: TrueAchievements Bean Dive 2025 in Retrospect

It took 11 months to restore my completion ratio (333 days), somewhat as a result of me slow-walking achievement acquisition so as to maintain my achievement streak (currently at 771 days). That said, I did fully complete some of the games I started last year, but some others I haven't finished or even gone further into.

So, here's my retrospective of the games I started in 2025's Bean Dive:

Aven Colony - I've got 5 achievements to go here, but I haven't played since the end of February. The remainders are somewhat grindy (5 referenda with 90+% approval, 50 sols, 200 solar panels), speed-runny (Vanaar by end of Sol 5), or difficulty-specific (won on Insane). I'll get back to this at some point, I'm sure, but for now it's just waiting in the wings.

Batman: Arkham Knight - Another one with 5 achievements to go (base game), though this is what I was working on just prior to 2026's Bean Dive. All are grindy/difficult, with all three AR challenges (23, 46, 69 stars), the new game+ campaign run, and the 15 different combat moves in one FreeFlow. I'm a button-spammer in fighting games more often than not, so Brutality 101 was going to be a time-sink just by itself, but my TV's actually dying, so I decided to shelve this for a bit (but hopefully not too long lest I forget the playskills).

Call of Cthulhu - The first game I played post-Dive and the first I finished. I probably should have paced it out, but I finished all of it in 4 days (July 7-10).

DPS Idle - Used as quick achievements, yeah, but I also spent way too much time actually "playing" this than I should probably admit. I did start, off-cycle, the PC version for emergency achievements as well. For 2026, I'll pay closer attention to unlocks in Idle games so I can pace any achievements better for emergency purposes.

Dragon Age: Origins - I'm less than halfway through the achievement list and haven't finished my first playthrough. I know I stopped for some reason, but I can't recall why I stopped where I did since I'm close to the end.

Firewatch - The second game I finished. The commentary playthrough was interesting for the background on game design, Again, though, I didn't pace it well, taking 4 days to finish it; but at a total of 10 achievements, that's not too much of a problem.

Grim Idle (Xbox One edition) - I don't really recall this one, though like DPS Idle above, I didn't spread achievements out as much as I could have.

Human Fall Flat - Ugh, I'm still not done with this one thanks to seemingly endless Title Updates. The handful of achievements I have left are just annoying: complete the game in one run, Dark without moving planks (not sure how I missed this one), Dark's Clock Tower in 40 seconds, Thermal's electrical cables in 35 seconds, avoid Museum's lasers. They're not necessarily hard, per se, but the game controls are hellishly loose so precision isn't really possible.

Interial Drift - I probably should have taken the TAR as an indicator of difficulty more than I did since I'm stuck in campaign somewhere because I can't beat the AI on whatever course I was on.

Jurassic World Evolution - I haven't touched this since the Dive.

Korgan - Another wasted completion that I did in 4 days.

Limbo - I got stuck at some section and still have 7 achievements to do. I probably could power through, but I switched to other games for ease of streak maintenance.

Murdered: Soul Suspect - This one was fun, and though I could have spread achievements out a bit more, I did use it for the majority of December.

NeuroVoider - Haven't touched it again besides for an emergency quicky achievement in early November.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - I tried picking it back up in December and have come to the conclusion that I don't really like Metroidvania game, which is problematic since I have a number of them on my to-be-completed list.

Planet Alpha - The visual-only storytelling was engaging, though I do think that there should have been a bit more detail as to what exactly happened in the endgame. (I ran to Google for discussion of it, myself.)

PowerWash Simulator - In the base game, I'm just the two gold medal challenges away from completion. I may pick it back up again in the future.

Quantum Conundrum - I feel like the missions (hallways?) are on the long side, which is making play somewhat tedious. I especially don't like the solutions that require what amounts to dexterity (throwing stuff while flying, for instance). I still have the majority of the achievements to get.

Retro Classics - The game options are interesting, though I really like the demo that is Venetian Blinds. I'm holding off on one achievement specifically for post-GenCon (2026) achievement streaking (collectibles), but otherwise just have the variety of competitive achievements to work on at some point.

Ryse: Son of Rome - I enjoyed the gameplay, yeah, but the glitchy achievements led me to put it aside before I finished my first campaign playthrough. I'm hoping that the glitched achievements pop on a second playthrough in the future.

Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition - Though I said I was looking forward to playing it, I haven't touched it since last year.

Thief - Yet another one that I didn't even touch after the Dive. I'll probably have to restart when I get to it.

Unpacking - A cozy game that I actually managed to spread out across late August. Definitely scratched that itch of organizing something else in a digital environment.

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown - I've picked at this one, but in all honestly, I may need to restart while wearing headphones it if I actually want to play it to completion.

World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap - I pick at this every so often, but I'm still on my first character class so it may be a while before I finish it.

[aarrowom]

See all the games and the completion %age drop for AarrowOM's Bean Dive

Aarrow Reviews: TrueAchievements Bean Dive 2025

As in the past few years, I am partaking in the annual Bean Dive event over at TrueAchievements... and as I've done since 2023, I start a number of new games equal to the [two-digit] year. It's 2025 and that means 25 new games started!

Though Games With Gold ended awhile ago now, I still have a significant backlog of those to work through in addition to other newer free (or otherwise) releases and, seeing as 25 is approximately the number of letters in the alphabet, I decided to, roughly, start a new game per letter of the alphabet. Knowing that the Bean Dive is annual also has the side-effect of preventing me from starting games besides for the dive period. While I do have some games I meant to start (looking at you Star Trek Prodigy, which I go at a library used book sale), my Xbone's disc drive is acting wonky (also preventing me from working on Halo MCC stuff, annoyingly), so this year is digital releases only.

Now, I have to freely admit that while I have recovered from my previous dives, I haven't necessarily finished games from them. Roughly speaking, I have left 9/20 for 2022, 13/23 for 2023, and 13/24 for 2024. The remainders vary between games I haven't yet continued (e.g. Blue Fire from 2024), games with campaigns I haven't finished (e.g. Assassin's Creed Chronicles China, India, and Russia from 2023), and games with grindy last little bits to finish up (e.g. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Xbone edition) from 2023 or Saint's Row: Gat Out Of Hell (360 edition) from 2024). There's also Halo Wars 2 (from Bean Dive 2024) which is a game to milk achievements off of as needed.

For my choices this year, I did check to see that the game is completeable and most have walkthroughs. But beside for that one requirement and one desirable trait, I was open to basically anything in my library. But enough of the preamble, here's my initial reviews of these 25 games:

Aven Colony - Back in my PC gaming days of a quarter century ago, I used to love management games like SimCity 2000, so this is something of a return to form for me. I'm not quite a fan of the sameness of the buildings (I have to keep clicking on them to know what they are), but I am looking forward to resuming play.

Batman: Arkham Knight - I hadn't previously played Batman games in this vein, since Lego Batman or the Telltale Batman games are very different genres. The first achievement is relatively immediate, so I'm not yet sold on the gameplay and will get back to it in time, but I did have to uninstall it to make space for other installs further down the alphabet. And, of course, Kevin Conroy as Batman is virtually a millennial requirement.

Call of Cthulhu - I do enjoy campaigns and have learned to like point-and-clicks, so a Cthulhu mythos game seemed like a sure bet. I'm actually starting the recovery with this game and am having to restrain myself to a chapter a day rather than just steamrolling through everything. All that said, the game's coloration is a tad monochromatic (and green-tinted) for my tastes.

DPS Idle - Honestly I chose this so I'd have it available for uber-quick achievements should I need them to maintain a streak.

Dragon Age: Origins - I've never played a DA game before, and I had this from GWG. However, I'm playing it 16 years after it came out and I can't honestly say the graphics hold up. It's quite clear it's last generation's game from that alone, but I'm hoping the gameplay will be good enough to allow me to overlook the graphical limitations.

Firewatch - One of those free ID@Xbox story-only games that I've come to love. It was a toss up between this and CoC as the first game to start recovery with.

Grim Idle (Xbox One edition) - Another game for uber-quick achievements for streak maintenance.

Human Fall Flat - I needed something with H. (Yeah, yeah, I know I skipped E, but I had options for H.) I'm not sure if the controls are as loose as they seemed from that first achievement, but I suspect this will be a game I'm glad to see the backside of when it's finally done.

Interial Drift - It's been awhile since I had a car racing game to play and the cartoon cut scenes make for an interesting change of pace during gameplay.

Jurassic World Evolution - Management and dinosaurs, what's not to like?

Korgan - Uber-quick achievements.

Limbo - I quite liked Inside when I played that a few years ago, so I'm looking forward to this.

Murdered: Soul Suspect - Like CoC above and from my first bit playing, this should be a fun playthrough.

NeuroVoider - An old-school 16-bit-type game that may be a bitch to complete at it's 7.2 TA ratio.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - I had meant to get the Nintendo Switch Ori game one of these days to use for streak-maintaining achievements on the go, but I never did and I thought I might as well try one of the series.

Planet Alpha - It seems like a glorified side-scroller, but kinda fun thus far.

PowerWash Simulator - I'm late to this particular party, but it definitely scratches an OCD-like itch in a cozy manner.

Quantum Conundrum - I needed a Q after having already skipped out on E. John de Lancie as Professor Fitz Quadwrangle keeps reminding me of Discord (moreso than of Q), which may make gameplay amusing.

Retro Classics - I was surprised by the offers on hand.

Ryse: Son of Rome - It's been on my to-play list for ages, and now it's time. Even though it's a dozen years old, it's clear it's a Crytek game since the graphics easily hold up.

Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition - A cozy game about becoming a psychopomp. Another one I'm looking forward to playing.

Thief - Though I've played a few Assassin's Creed games, I'm actually not one for stealth games as a default playstyle. I think I'll be glad to be done with this one when I get to it.

Unpacking - I needed a U.

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown - Yes, I needed a V, but a video game for the blind seemed like something I had to try just for the uniqueness of the idea.

World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap - I love tower defense game, so this one was always going to be something to start.

[venatusmedia-blog]

We're running this awesome Far Cry 3 takeover campaign on True Achievements

[lkxx-blog-blog]

Xbox achievements and stuff.

[fuckyeahgamerscore-blog-blog]

Some Friendly Competition

Ask and you shall receive, a gauntlet has been thrown down... This will be quite a challenge as the competition is fierce, but I will not make it an easy fight by anymeans.

On the surface this seems achievable, to break it down all he needs to do is match whatever I currently earn daily plus 162.2TA each and every day for the better part of year. Sashamorning has several games which should earn him big TA cued up if things go well.

Little does he know I have a stack of 40+ unplayed games at my disposal almost all with < 1700TA and sleeping schedule like a maniac and marathon weekends, where I camp in front of my xbox... and I'm also one up on having a WP7 (this also calls for more grinding at work) but it certainly looks like we will have no choice but to buy/bring an Xbox on vacation with us. (no complaints here)

Spit polishing my plastic* instrument skills is going to take a very far back seat unless there are points to be had.

May the better gamer win.

*My guitar is a logitech so its actually rosewood and fiberglass and my current drums are also logitech but I will be acquiring an Ion kit shortly.