Hack and Slash Your Way to 1,000 Achievement Points InLeft 4 Dead 2

Campaign Trail

Like the original, campaigns are a great source for achievements. The campaigns seem far more difficulty than the original, mostly due to the increased variables, i.e. new Left 4 Dead 2 special infected, tougher A.I. Thus, it’s a great ideal to work together with a friend or two.

Rice Chopper – 20pts - Survive the Dead Center campaign.

Midnight Rider – 20pts – Survive the Dark Carnival campaign.

Ragin’ Cajun – 20pts – Survive the Swamp Fever campaign.

Weatherman – 20pts – Survive the Hard Rain campaign.

Bridge Burner – 20pts – Survive the Parish campaign.

Still Something to Prove – 35pts – Survive all campaigns on Expert. Unless you are a L4D God, you will only succeed with three other advanced zombie killers, sound strategy and at little bit of luck.

The Real Deal – 35pts – Survive a campaign on Expert skill with Realism mode enabled. Essentially, the game isn’t going to let you know when a friend is being attacked by special infected or incapacitated. All the intangibles from the previous achievement apply, only with the added importance of good communication skills.

By Your Cold, Dead Hands

With the addition of melee weaponry, one could only assume this new killing engine would be the avenue for several achievements. Well, Valve didn’t disappoint. Some of these are almost inappropriately satisfying to achieve.

Confederacy of Crutches - 30pts – Finish a campaign only using melee weapons. This is similar to the first game where an achievement could be accomplished by only using pistols. The only downside is using melee weapons leaves you vulnerable to various special infected especially the smoker and tank. Thus, I would recommend having a friend tag along to use regular firearms while you do some hack n’ slash.

Head Honcho – 15pts – Decapitate 200 infected with a melee weapon. This is where it gets satisfying. This will happen relatively quickly and can be achieved while attempting to accomplish the previous achievement, just remember to aim high to ensure you get the decapitation.

Club Dead – 15pts – Use every melee weapon to kill common infected. There are eight of these throughout the game and some are only available in certain campaigns. You’ll have to play whole game to ensure you get the chance to wield them all.

Chain of Command – 15pts – Kill 100 infected with the chainsaw. The chainsaw is the scariest of the melee weapons and will eventually out of gas. Efficiency is key.

Tank Burger – 30pts – Kill a tank with melee weapons. The major problem here is that your A.I. support will shoot the tank and ruin the achievement. Either play with all friends or ensure the A.I. players aren’t alive when a tank comes. This achievement can be gained through the survival mode, by the way.

Level a Charge – 15pts – Kill a charger with a melee weapon while they are charging. This one requires patience and luck. You have to be quick as they are deceptively fast and will be all over you before you know it.

Helpful Hand

These two achievements involve helping a downed comrade during normal game modes.

Shock Jock – 30pts – Revive 10 dead survivors with the defibrillator. The only downside to attempting this is its another item you have to carry instead of something else useful. Just wait until someone dies, use the defibrillator, repeat.

The Quick and the Dead – 30pts – Revive 10 incapacitated survivors while under the speed-boosting effects of adrenaline. Pretty self-explanatory stuff.

Special Effort

The game also features a great deal of achievements based on killing special infected or uncommon infected in specific ways. Their difficulty levels vary and oftentimes its a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

Acid Reflex – 15pts – Kill a spitter before she is able to spit. Use a long-range fire arm to take these out from afar. Once they see you, they’ll spit, even if they don’t seem close (their spit can go a lot further than you would expect.)

A Ride Denied – 15pts – Kill a jockey within 2 seconds of it jumping on a survivor. Again, being at the right place at the right time is helpful. More often than not, the jockey will immediately and rapidly move its host away from the other survivors. A well-place shot gun blast should do the trick.

Cl0wnd – 15pts – Honk the nose of ten clowns. This was a tricky one to figure out, basically you need to hit the clown in the face with a weapon using the left trigger. You’ll actually hear the honk. The best part is, one hit won’t kill the clown and you can do it multiple times to the same clown.

Fried Piper – 15pts – Using a Molotov, burn a clown leading at least ten special infected. There will be a few opportunities to execute this during the many sudden hordes you’ll see in the Dark Carnival campaign.

Crass Menagerie – 20pts – Kill one of each uncommon infected. These include the clowns and CEDA agents. There is one uncommon infected per campaign. This should be easily accomplished through merely playing through the game.

Robbed Zombie – 15pts – Collect 10 vials of boomer bile from the CEDA agents you have killed. This one doesn’t really require much more explanation. Speaking of the bile…

Septic Tank – 15pts – Use a bile bomb on a tank. Just throw a vial at the tank. Its amusing to see infected converge on it.

Dead in the Water – 20pts – Kill ten swampy mudmen while they are in the water. This is in a specific portion of the Swamp Fever campaign. Be sure they’re killed in the water, if you take them out on land it doesn’t count.

Weapons Galore

The game also has several achievements based on killing zombies with specific Left 4 Dead 2 weapons that are new to the series.

Armory of One – 15pts – Deploy an ammo upgrade and have your team use it. This is fairly easy, the AI usually knows well enough to utilize the upgrade.

Burning Sensation – 15pts – Ignite 50 common infected with incendiary ammo. This achievement does not have to be completed in one sitting or campaign. You’ll work toward this achievement naturally through normal gameplay.

Dismemberment Plan – 20pts – Kill 15 infected with a single grenade launcher blast. Three words, “trial and error” that’s what this takes. I suggest the final horde of the Dark Carnival campaign. There is typically a grenade launcher and there’s certainly no shortage of zombies.

Just a Bit Random

There are a few achievements that are quite cryptic. A few are a little more obvious than others, some can be easily figured out, others you’ll have to read an article like this for advice.

Stache Whacker – 15pts – Prove you are faster than Mustachio. This is a game in the carnival that is similar to “Whack a Mole” but here you have to shoot the moles or “Mustachios” in this case. You can also use a melee weapon to get the achievement by getting a score of 40 or 50. Beware, winning the game will set off an alarm alerting a horde.

Gong Show – 15pts – Prove you are stronger than Mustachio. Near the stache whacker, you’ll find another carnival game, this you’ll need a melee weapon to test your strength. Like me, you’ll find it doesn’t work and you can never hit it hard enough to win. However, find yourself a little adrenaline to get that extra boost.

Guardin’ Gnome – 30pts – Rescue Gnome Chompski from the carnival. Basically, you’ll win a small gnome at the carny games. The object is to get him through the rest of the campaign, even on the escape helicopter. Even if you’re not the one carrying the gnome, you’ll earn the achievement, whether or not you survive the campaign. Be sure to do this with several users as the carrier of the gnome will be largely exposed to danger.

Nothing Like a Bad Case of Gas

Many achievements appear to be designed to get gamers to flock to its newest Left 4 Dead 2gameplay mode: Scavenge.

Hunting Party – 15pts – Win a game of scavenge. Just end up on the winning end, hopefully you’ll have some skilled teammates. Staying together as survivors can be helpful, being isolated is just as well as playing with one hand.

Gas Guzzler – 20pts – Collect 100 gas cans in scavenge. This obviously doesn’t have to be at once, duh. This takes time, but is fairly easy to get.

Cache and Carry – 20pts – Collect 15 gas cans in a single scavenge round. This is actually tougher than it sounds, but still not impossible.

Scavenge Hunt – 15pts – Stop the enemy team from collecting any gas cans during a scavenge round. All I have to say is this should be worth more than 15pts.

Fuel Crisis – 15pts – Make a survivor drop a gas can during overtime. This is very situational, again, its all about being in the right place at the right time.

Gas Shortage – 20pts – Cause 25 can drops as special infected. This doesn’t need to be accomplished in a single round. So even a novice should get this by playing scavenge for about an hour.

Miscellaneous Horror

These don’t really fall into any specific category, other than obscenely difficult to get.

Wing and a Prayer – 30pts – Defend yourself at the crashed airliner without taking damage. Best get on the plane, use teamwork and avoid friendly fire. If others take damage, you’ll still get the achievement.

Sob Story – 30pts – Navigate the Sugar Mill and reach the safe room without killing any witches. This takes place in the Hard Rain campaign. Unlike the original game, there are some free-moving witches. Turn off your flashlights and be careful, hoping all the way that any AI characters don’t screw up for you.

Violence in Silence – 30pts – Navigate the impound lot and reach the cemetery safe room without tripping any alarms. This takes place in the Parish campaign. Watch your step and try to minimize the number of AI-controlled characters.

Bridge Over Trebled Slaughter – 30pts – Cross the bridge finale in less than three minutes. This is very difficult and the helicopter has to be off within that time, which means all survivors need to be on the chopper or incapacitated for this to happen.

Beat the Rush – 15pts – In a survival round, get a medal using only melee weapons. I manged to do this with only one other human user by sealing ourselves off in a motel bathroom on the second floor in the first part of the dark carnival area. Basically, the two user AI character will distract most of the enemies and even after they die, any infected (even tanks can be taken out reality easily.) Have one person in the bathtub and the other on the opposite side of the bathroom. Another bonus is that this is how I almost got the “Tank Burger” achievement. NOTE: This is the one and only achievement you can get solely in survival mode.

Some Four on Four Action

There are a host of versus achievements in L4D2. Get together with some of your best zombie-killing buds and unleashed chaos. Can you survive long enough?

Heartwarmer – 20pts – In a versus round, leave the saferoom to defibrillate a dead teammate. This is a risky thing to do and is eerily similar to an achievement from the original game. You can try to get it on purpose by having one member die intentionally and have your other two teammates cover you while you attempt the save.

Strength in Numbers – 15pts – Form a team and beat an enemy team in 4v4 versus or scavenge. Another self-explanatory achievement.

Qualified Ride – 15pts – As the jockey, ride a survivor for more than 12 seconds. Just wait until a survivor has unwittingly separated themselves from the rest of the pack.

Back in the Saddle – 15pts – As the jockey, ride the survivors twice in a single life. Jump on a survivor, survive another human’s assault, and jump on another. This is only difficult in that you’re very vulnerable when on a survivor’s back.

Rode Hard, Put Away Wet – 20pts – As the jockey, ride a survivor and steer them into a spitter’s acid patch. This provocatively-named achievement is best done when working together with a person controlling the spitter. It’s just too random to attempt if a spitter is AI-controlled.

Great Expectorations – 15pts – As the spitter, hit every survivor with a single acid patch. This is similar to achievement in the original L4D with boomer bile. Here, its a bit easier as a survivor may also accidentally step into the patch after you’ve already spit.

A Spittle Help from My Friends – 15pts – As a spitter, spit on a survivor being chocked by a smoker. This is far easier than the ‘rode hard, put away wet’ achievement. Here, you can much more easily wait for an AI smoker to do its thing and step in for an easy achievement.

Scattering Ram – 20pts – As the charger, bowl through the entire team in a single charge. Try to do this in an area where the team is forced to be bottled up together, some sort of small room, enclosed space or when they are leaving the safe room.

Meat Tenderizer – 20pts – As the charger, grab a survivor and smash them into the ground for 15 seconds. Like the jockey achievement, try to prey on a survivor who has been separated.

Long Distance Carrier – 15pts – As the charger, grab a survivor and carry them over 80 feet. This is easier than it sounds, just grab and run as far and as long as you can. Hopefully, other infected or special infected can cover you to help you get a head start