• Main quests only – the fastest and simplest way to get this is to only tackle the main campaign. Side quests don’t count towards the achievement so don’t bother unless you are in dire need of some XP.
• Alarm not alarmed – enemies entering an alarmed state don’t trigger an alarm automatically so don’t worry if you get spotted on your crate toting travels. Alarms can only be activated by cameras, alarm panels and as far as I can tell sentry bots. There are some worries over whether failed hacks set off alarms so be careful.
• Choose your upgrades carefully – Praxis points will be scarce. Obviously spend out on augments such as the Cloaking system and Stealth Hacking upgrades as soon as possible as these will make the game much much easier. After that it’s up to you, anything that means you can stay hidden for longer or take more enemies out faster is a bonus.
• Keep an eye on your awards – most main quests can be completed with either the Stylishly Done bonus for not setting off alarms or the Ghost bonus for not being seen at all. If you don’t get either of these don’t panic. So long as you are sure you haven’t set anything off you should be fine.
• SAVE! – This one should be the most obvious, save and save often. Make sure you use 2-3 slots so that if anything goes wrong you can always backtrack a little, you don’t want to fail a conversation to be faced with hacking a door you don’t have the right skills to open or killing your way in.

There we have it; 5 simple pointers that should make getting this achievement a cinch. Got any questions or other achievements you want us to tackle? Do let us know in the comments.

Note: There are some mild gameplay spoilers in these tips.

1. Steal from everyone, all the time – Right from the very start of the game pickpocket and steal everything. Don’t get rushed by the main plot. It can wait. Quickly rack up your cash by pickpocketing people during the walk and talk bits so you can buy some better armour as soon as possible. Go have a wander, explore the city and mug some people.
2. Renovate banks and book shops first – The quicker you start renovating the city, the more money you’ll earn. Renovate the book shops first and buy all the treasure maps you can afford. Many of the maps are really cheap so you’ll redeem your money just by finding a couple of treasure chests. Then renovate the banks so you can get your money out to spend on armour and weapons.



3. Aim for the nuts – As with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, the kick is a ridiculously overpowered attack. There’s only one type of guard – who turns up a lot later in the game – that isn’t totally crippled by kicks to the groin. Especially when you’re outnumbered and cornered, start kicking. More armour = more kicking in the bollocks.
4. Reset your Templar Awareness (formerly known as notoriety) – Find a memory start to push the main plot on a bit. This has the effect of resetting your awareness to zero. So all you need to worry about is making it to the memory start without annoying the highly alert Templars in the meantime. That means no killing, renovating property or recklessly running about the city. Added bonus, it means you’ll spend less time in the game’s tedious version of Tower Defence.
5. Forget about a lost den – If you lose a den back to the Templars, don’t worry about it. You’ll still retain the 2 assassin recruit spots you gained from reclaiming it the first time. Get on with training your team of assassins and making lots of cash.
6. Don’t rush to a contested den – When one of your dens gets attacked, don’t rush to win it back. You have loads of time. Go search for treasure chests, Animus data fragments or organise/training your assassins. Take your time.
7. You can bribe the same Herald twice – When you max out your Templar Awareness meter (i.e. top left logo on the HUD is completely red) all your dens are at risk of Templar attack and navigating the city is a real pain as everyone hates you. There are 2 ways to get your status back down to secret (white).
   • First way – Find a memory start (see tip 4).
   • Second way – Kill a Templar Official (eye shaped icon) and bribe two Heralds (person shaped icon). You can bribe the same Herald twice in quick succession by running away for about 15 seconds and then coming back. He will have mysteriously forgotten that you’d bribed him earlier and happily take another chunk off your awareness status.
8. More cities equals lots more income – In the Mediterranean defence game use the easy difficulty missions to start off your assassins training. Once they are above level 6 start sending them in groups on the reclaim the city missions. Once you’ve got control over other European cities the money starts rolling in.
9. Listen for the “twinkly” sound – As with all Assassin’s Creed games, the twinkly sound means that treasure or a collectable item is close by. In Revelations it’s either a treasure chest, a chest with bomb making ingredients or an Animus fragment. You can turn down the voice and music volumes (via Options>General) and leave SFX volume set on 10 to make this sound a lot easier to hear.
10. Go for the Templar den captain – Forget about everyone else. Just focus on killing the Templar den captain(s), even if they’re surrounded by a million guards. Once you’ve killed the head honcho they’ll all run off like frightened rabbits, leaving you to climb the tower and set off the flare. Job done.

Check out my 9 top tips for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood if you haven’t finished that game. IF you haven’t, you probably shouldn’t start playing Revelations unless you don’t mind major plot spoilers.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

So, here are some common sense tips and/or things to at least bear in mind, if you decide to pursue this avenue yourself.

1. Choose your preferred weapons to stick with.

During my run, my weapons of choice were the assault rifle, heavy machine gun, and – depending on scenario – either the rocket launcher or sniper rifle. The assault rifle is an obvious choice, its rapid fire and constant availability throughout the game means you’ll never be short on ammo, or the opportunity to upgrade it. Same applies to the heavy machine gun, but with less rapid fire and scope for the more distant enemies.

2. Upgrade your weapon choices as much as possible.

Although the main concern is staying alive (naturally), ensure to raid as many weapon boxes as possible on every mission. It is usually safer to do this once an area is cleared, if possible, as is the best opportunity not just to reload, but maybe gain two or three star ranks on your weapons. Not many weapon drops occur from destroyed enemies on hard difficulty. It’s worth noting that when I got to end of the game on this difficulty, none of my weapons were at the maximum rank. However, this was my first run through. It is definitely achievable.

3. Prepare to die. A lot.

If this is also your first run though the game, then some of the set pieces will require a trial and error approach, you will die quite a lot. Believe it. But, keep going, it only gets more and more difficult, so suck it up.

4. Use AR mode as much as possible.

Performed by using the evade command whilst targeting, AR (Augmented Reality) Mode slows down time, and is the best way to quickly target and achieve those critical hits. It can be a lifesaver against an Argus robot, for sure. Try also not to max out the AR bar; it’s quicker to recharge it than letting the suit overheat, as will leave you more exposed. Of course, if you do take a critical hit, AR Mode automatically activates, but will max out, so find cover!

5. Never underestimate cover.

Using cover locations is vital to stay alive, particularly on this difficulty. The R.Is are more accurate with their aim, and you take less damage to die. Using cover works the same as any Gears of War game; pressing the command button when standing in front of a bunker, or wall, etc. Keep moving though, as cover locations will be destroyed eventually if they take a lot of firepower.

Overall

Finishing the game on hard difficulty, even without obtaining the act-based achievements, is worth 290 gamerpoints, and there are many more combat achievements you are sure to pick up along the way. If you’re up to it, you can go for the “Finish the game without dying once” achievement by returning to the title screen whenever you die, then select continue. Never pick the checkpoint option, as it will record this as a death. Good luck!

1. Legs, legs, legs – Always shoot the legs off Necromorphs first. This gives you a lot more time to kill them as they are slow to recover from initially falling on the floor to crawling towards you. Use this time to reload, blow their arms off, stomp on their head or freeze them with a stasis shot.
2. Always have 1 power node handy – Most levels have 1 door which you will need a power node to unlock. Although the contents of these rooms can vary in value, they are almost always worth investigating. At worst you will find circuit boards to sell and lots of ammo, at best you get blueprints for new weapons and better survival suits.



3. Explore. Go the other way! – Many hidden items can be found by simply going in the opposite direction to the one shown by your locator. You will find quite a few power nodes hidden on the wall right at the end of dead-end corridors. Search the areas you can’t reach as well, as you will be able to use your kinesis ability to retrieve hidden items. Like from the ground floor of the shopping mall for instance.
4. Blow up Stalker (Raptor) Necromorphs – These particular Necromorphs are usually a real pain in the butt to kill as they are so quick. However, they do like to run blindly into mines which is a rather big weakness. When you hear their characteristic Raptor-like noises in a room, fire off some detonator mines and back off. Once they’ve seen you they will eventually come out of hiding and run straight at you so make sure there is a mine in the way. Also you don’t even have to bother upgrading the detonator gun either as it’s very powerful even on its lowest settings.
5. Stop. Look. Listen – As soon as you walk into a new room, especially if it is quite big, STOP. There are certain points in rooms that trigger the arrival of Necromorphs, or at least attract their attention. Have a look around for any wall vents as Necromorphs do like to pop out from them. Grab any containers you can see with your kinesis ability and reload all your weapons and stasis. It is also a good idea to plant detonator mines behind you to catch any Necromorphs that decide to spawn behind your back.
6. Upgrade the Plasma cutter first – A fully upgraded plasma cutter (18 power nodes required) is a wonderfully destructive weapon. If you focus on upgrading it early on, rather than spreading your power nodes across several weapons, you can make the majority of the levels in the game a lot easier. This weapon makes it a breeze to blow off Necromorph limbs, especially if you set it in alt fire mode (press RB) as then the shots come out horizontally.
7. The Ripper is a good fall back weapon – If you’re not too hot at aiming then the ripper weapon is perfect for you. Its big, spinning blade means horrible, dismembered death to any Necromorph that gets too close. Simply deploy and wander around slicing everything to death. However, it does make the game a little bit too easy. Fun to use, though.
8. You have enough air already – Don’t worry about upgrading the air capacity of your protective suits, the basic level is more than enough for the whole game. Use power nodes on upgrading your hits points and stasis ability instead.
9. Pick-up everything – I mean everything. If you can’t carry it all, go off to the nearest store, dump your inventory and go back to pick up the remaining items. You can sell off the unwanted ammo (i.e. for the weapons you don’t use much) for quite a bit of cash to buy more power nodes and ammo for your favourite weapons. As the Necromorphs don’t re-spawn after you’ve cleared an area you can safely retrace your steps and scour for hidden items too.
10. He’s behind you – Although Necromorphs don’t re-spawn when you revisit a previously cleared area, they do like to appear behind you as often as possible whilst you’re exploring a new area. They especially like surprising you in long corridors. You can help yourself not get ambushed by planting some detonator mines behind you. Not only will this probably kill off any sneaky Necromorphs, but the explosion should at least alert you to their presence.
11. Hide behind doors – If everything is going a bit Pete Tong (i.e. wrong) , retreating into a room and closing the door behind you will (almost every time) protect you from the Necromorphs. It seems that most of them haven’t worked out how to open doors yet. There are a couple of Necromorphs on the later levels that can open them however, so don’t get cocky. I first used this hiding behind doors tactic many years ago whilst playing Dungeon Master on the Amiga A500. Some things never change :-)

There is also a glitch in the game which allows you repeatedly pick up 2 power nodes and a semi-conductor from a room in the 14th level (almost at the end of the game). There is video showing how to take advantage of this power nodes and semi-conductor glitch.

Dead Space 2 is out now for Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3.

Once you’ve won this race the Top Gear Test Track is unlocked for use during the arcade and practice modes. This allowed me to scream around the track a bloody sight faster in my awesome McLaren MP4-12C supercar. Brilliant fun.

1. Know your cones – Avoid the small, solid red cones at all costs. Hitting these results in an instant disqualification. The bigger, white/red striped ones you can mangle to your hearts content.
2. Main overtaking Points – Bacharach at the end and Chicago and Hammerhead at the start of the lap are the stand out overtaking points. Especially during the Volkswagen SambaBus ’62 race, you can overtake 2-3 vehicles by not breaking during the first part of Chicago. If you want to win the race and unlock the test track to drive in arcade and practice modes, you need to do this.
3. Hammerhead - You can overtake upto 3 cars in the Lotus race (if they are reasonably close together) in one move through Hammerhead. Simply leave your breaking so late that you pile through the red/white cones at the top of Hammerhead. Then drive left around the left side of the 3 smaller red cones ahead of you as going to the right of them will gets you disqualified. In doing so you will not only cut a little bit of Hammerhead, but also block of any cars who may be driving around it when you rejoin the track.
4. Side-swiping and blocking – If you do drive into the other competitors, try to hit them with the side of your car rather than just the front as the game will be more forgiving and not disqualify you. Also, getting bashed from behind will not get you disqualified and can give you brief speed boost. You my need to block other competitors after Bentley and before Bacharach as they tend to be quick on this straight.

The Hammerhead cut may not look like much, but the extra breaking distance you get by driving through the cones allows you to overtake quite a few cars. Depends if you regard this as a tip or a cheat, as you are actually deviating from the course. I’m sure The Stig would not be impressed. Anyway, I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Check out my in-depth Gran Turismo 5 review for Spong.com.

1. Keep everything you find – You need trade objects (e.g rabbit’s food, tomatoes) that you pick up during your travels (looting bodies and treasure chests) to complete the various shop quests to unlock weapons and maps. For instance, to unlock the Captain’s Sword you need: 3 Terracotta pots, 2 Totems and 2 Buddhist prayer beads. So don’t sell any of the items you find as they will be useful. Also there is no encumbrance penalty for carrying too many items. Ezio is superhuman in that respect!



2. Renovate the banks first – Just like in real life, things are lot easier with a functioning banking system. Not only will it generate you lots of income but the more banks you renovate the easier it is to withdraw your money (i.e. more branches are available). If you do this at the start of the game you can build up a tidy, regular income quite quickly.
3. Search everybody – If they are alive: pickpocket them (also see tip 9). If they are dead: loot them. You will find that if you loot the bodies of everyone you kill you will rarely have to visit the shops to resupply. This will save you a lot of time and money. Also the guards in heavy armour usually carry loads of ammunition and money. So look out for them. Finally, if you kill someone near a group of guards, just pick up their body and drop it somewhere quieter to loot. This way you won’t get noticed.
4. A kick in the nuts – 3 to 4 kicks in the groin will fell any guard to the floor, even the heavily armoured ones. It is an amazingly overpowered attack. You can even kill people using it! This is an especially useful technique on the guards with long spears who will otherwise block your hand-held weapon attacks.
5. Buy treasures maps – Buy the treasure maps to get rich a lot quicker. They make treasure hunting simple. However, some of the later treasure maps require you to complete a shop quest (see tip 1).
6. Pistols and crossbows – Your pistol kills anyone with one shot. This makes it the perfect weapon for assassinating the Borgia Captains. The downside is that it will attract attention. But, if you’ve killed your primary target (i.e. the Captain) that’s ok you can handle that. Whilst the crossbow will kill poorly armoured guards with one shot, it’s not as effective on Borgia Captains. It will simply alert them (and everyone else) to your presence and make the Borgia Captain flee.
7. Viewpoints and fire go hand in hand – When a viewpoint is at the top of a Borgia tower, kill the Borgia Captain and then climb the tower to burn it. When at the top simply synchronise the viewpoint and then burn the tower. This will save you climbing the tower twice.
8. Listen for the “twinkly” sound – It means there is a treasure, flag or feather near by. Turning down the voice and music volumes (via Options>General) and leaving SFX volume set on 10 makes this sound a lot easier to hear. If you don’t have a treasure map (see tip 5) then this is the easiest way to locate the hidden treasure chests.
9. Don’t rush through the main story – Until you complete the first thieves memory and renovate their guild building (i.e. when the memory start is located in the bottom left corner of the Rome map), you cannot become notorious whilst wandering around Rome. This makes it very easy to go on a pickpocketing frenzy. Also, it makes renovating the city a little bit easier as the guards don’t bother you.

The only other thing I would say is if you haven’t played Assassin’s Creed II, I would highly recommend it for a few reasons. Firstly, it is a brilliant game. Secondly, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood follows on straight on after the end of Assassin’s Creed II you will find it a lot easier to understand what’s going on. I’m not saying that a total Assassin’s Creed newbie can’t just pick up and play Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, they can. It’s just that they will miss some of the back story.

Update 20th Nov 2010: I’ve added a 9th tip – Don’t rush through the main story.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is out now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Achievementhunter.com has all the maps from the game showing the locations of all feathers, glyphs and statues. Also when you click on each of the hidden items locations you get a youtube video showing its exact location. Couldn’t be simpler. Happy hunting!

Assassin’s Creed II is out now on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Basic Tips:
The goal of the attackers in Domination is to destroy a rival PMC’s oil facility in 3 phases. Each attacking platoon first needs to simultaneously grab control of two burn-off towers. Once these are both held, they are destroyed and can’t be repaired. Destroying these towers also unlocks a pair of cooling towers which operate in a similar fashion. Once those are taken out, the attackers move in to take over oil pump controls and destroy the facility. The more pumps that are held, the faster you can damage the facility. The goal for the defenders is to keep the facility from taking too much damage before the attackers run out of reinforcements.

• Try to stay near to your squad. Not only do you receive leadership bonuses but you are more likely to be resuscitated quickly.
• Come in prepared with a loadout that has a repair kit for defending and a rocket launcher for attacking.

Advanced Tips:

If you are attacking:

• Focus on taking out the defender bunkers and possibly the AAA before you go for the burn-off towers.
• Make sure that you take out the bunker turrets from behind cover before you rush in to plant charges on the bunker.
• You can damage the bunker turrets with rockets, grenades, APC turrets, and even small arms fire.
• Make sure that your squad leader puts down FRAGOs on each objective.
• Lead objective assaults with grenades.

If you are defending:

• Keep your bunker turret repaired. You can repair it faster with multiple people repairing at once, though there are diminishing returns.
• Repairing the AAA is a great stall tactic since it can push back the attackers. You can often grab a motor pool vehicle and drive up to repair it with some protection.
• You can force offensive Helicopters to fly off by damaging them, forcing attackers to spawn further away from the front lines.
• Repairing the doors around the objectives can prevent the attackers from flooding in.

Via MAG blog
MAG is out now only on the Playstation 3

Basic Tips

• Unofficially, the Acquisition Maps have two main phases: the bunker phase and the extraction phase. In the bunker phase, the attackers will attempt to break through the frontlines of bunkers and destroy the anti-air batteries, allowing them to spawn closer to their final objective. In the extraction phase, the attackers will attempt to steal the prototype vehicle and drive it to safety. Generally speaking, it is best for the attackers to complete the bunker phase before attempting the extraction phase.
• For an attacking squad, there are three basic strategies for taking out an enemy bunker: smoke grenades, smoke grenades, and smoke grenades. The smoke grenades are a cheap way to neutralize the turret and confuse the defenders. For extra credit, the attacking squad can hit the turret with weapon fire while it is encased in smoke. Defenders will often give away the turret’s location by firing wildly in the smoke.
• During the extraction phase, attackers should select an evacuation route and then assign squads to remove any obstacles along that route. Once the obstacles are removed, keep the squads near the obstacles to prevent the enemy from repairing them and to provide cover fire once the enemy vehicle is stolen and evacuated by the lead squad.
• Defending squads should spend the first phase of the game concentrating on three main goals: 1) Keeping the bunker turret repaired, 2) keeping charges off the bunker, and 3) keeping charges off the anti-air battery.
• Not only should defenders work to keep gates and tank traps repaired, but they should use their regular vehicles to block important evacuation routes.
• Defenders, you don’t need a rocket launcher to damage or destroy a prototype vehicle. If you see a vehicle race by, fire at it. If you see it take damage, keep firing. Every little bit helps.

Advanced Tips

• If the attackers are having a hard time getting through the front line, platoon leaders should coordinate their platoon on a single point in the line. Once one bunker is down, the next bunker’s flank will be exposed, making it more vulnerable. Work on down the line until all bunkers are down.
• Attackers, try to keep a Precision Strike in reserve as soon as your team attempts to extract the vehicle. The defenders may unexpectedly repair a road obstacle, and a Precision Strike is a quick and appropriate counter.
• If possible, the attacking faction’s platoon leader should help steal the vehicle, because his passive repair ability automatically repairs the prototype vehicle without anyone needing to get out and use the repair gun.
• Bunkers are most effective when supported by other bunkers. A defending squad should prioritize protecting its own bunker, but when a neighbor goes down, it should send a few soldiers to help get it back up.
• During the Extraction Phase, the defenders should jealously guard the mortar battery as if it were the prototype vehicle itself. If the enemy manages to steal one of your vehicles, the mortar battery is a quick way to both destroy and demoralize the enemy attackers. However, if your area is secure, don’t let the battery go to waste. Use it to help the other platoon, if necessary.
• Once the bunkers have fallen, if a defending squad has a soldier or two who insists on being a lone wolf, the squad leader should encourage the loner to sneak behind enemy lines and start repairing bunkers. As long as the defending team doesn’t waste too many resources, this is a nice way to knock the attackers back on their heels.

Via MAG blog
MAG is out now only on the Playstation 3