Achievement Mastery 101: Episode 2

By Jason Joseph at August 10, 2010 | 1:32 pm | Print

In my opinion, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is as good as it gets as far as the multi-player experience goes for a first person shooter. The entire atmosphere feels so authentic, and the ability to do more than run and gun or camp until someone happens to pop by keeps things fresh and entertaining. One of the other great aspects of the game is that it is the type of game that can very easily be maxed out if you want to put the time in to do it.

With the Dr. Pepper promotion EA has run, the total attainable gamer score for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is 1060 g. Just about all of them are pretty easy to attain, but there are two that a lot of gamers seem to be having some trouble with. The first is called “Et Tu, Brute?” and is worth 15 g. The second is called “Demolition Man” and is also worth 15 g. This guide will show you the fastest and most efficient ways to nail these down on your quest for a perfect 1060/1060.

Et Tu, Brute?

“Et Tu, Brute?” is obviously a play on the famous line from “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, and is synonymous with betrayal. In the play, Caesar (in Latin) asks “even you, Brutus” and resigns himself to death after being ambushed by a group of senators, including his own nephew Marcus Junius Brutus. Now that we have our history lesson out of the way, you attain the achievement by stabbing and killing someone on your friends list five times. I can’t help but laugh at the pure genius of the concept, but this can be extremely difficult to get without planning for it specifically.

There are two ways to get this achievement: legit or through boosting. I am not usually an advocate of boosting, but unless you have a ton of friends playing this game, it may be the only way you can get it. Either way, the first thing you need to do in order to be able to stab a friend five times is actually get on different teams. Without the trick I am going to give you now, this can be as challenging as the actual action of nabbing your buddies dog tags.

Normally, to get into the same game as a friend, you would either be invited from the menu, which pretty much guarantees you end up on the same team, or you would join their session in progress from the XBox Live menu and 85% of the time, you’ll probably end up on the same team. Forget all of that. Just make sure you get in the same match and go from there. Once the game starts, hold down the back/select button so you can look at the teams. If you are on the same team as the friend you are going for, find a screen name for a player on the other team and remember it. Then hold in the center XBox button to go into the guide. Go to your friends list and then go over to the right to the Players menu. This is a list of people you have played games with on XBox Live, and the ones that are online now and most recent should be at the top. Scroll down to the player  you picked on the other team, pull up their profile and join their session in progress. When it brings you back to the game, it will ask if you are sure, you’ll commit suicide and when you spawn again, it should be on the opposite team as your friend.

Now again, there are two ways to approach it from here. If you want to do it legit, then you’ll need to run around and try to find your friend and stick that knife in their back every chance you get. Once you get any of your friends dog tags five times (any five, all five do not need to be the same person), the achievement should pop. This will obviously be a challenge given the fact that there can be up to 12 other people on the other team, and any of them can see you coming. I have been trying to get it legit, and it is the last achievement I have left to get. So far, I only have 3/5 through exactly 699 matches, all of which came in games I just happened to be on opposing squads. I have yet to actually try to get the last two by intentionally going on the other team.

To boost it, all you need is an XBox Live party and a co-conspirator. The best way to do it is to take turns knifing each other five times in your home base. So if you are the one getting knifed, have your friend travel to your home base and find a place out of the way where your teammates won’t see you. The best map for this is Panama Canal, as both bases have fences you can hide behind. Have your friend stay hidden, and each time after they knife you, respawn in your base and go back to where they are hiding. Once they get the achievement, go back to that friend and take your turn knifing them. Have them respawn at their base, then make your way over to get your last four knife kills. Once you both achieve what you set out to do, I strongly encourage you to get back on the same team and play legit.

With there being no free-for-all mode and most teams generally staying stagnant, I don’t think DICE really considered just how tough this achievement would be to get, or the fact that it would kind of encourage boosting. I know plenty of people that have managed to do it legit, but considering I roll with a clan (The Outlaw Army) and at any time, there can be 12 or more of us playing the game, it is not all that uncommon that I have someone on my friends list on the other team.

One last thing before I move on to the next achievement: adding someone that you have knifed as a friend after you have already knifed them will not count towards the achievement. They must be on your friends list at the time of the betrayal.

Demolition Man

“Demolition Man” does not have nearly the back story as “Et Tu, Brute?” and it is pretty straight forward. In order to gain this achievement, you must amass 20 Destruction 2.0 kills, which occur when you kill someone by destroying a building on top of them. I know, pretty awesome right? Gotta love the destructive environments. This would seem easy enough, but you would be surprised. While I am sure you can boost your way to this achievement (and I know there are people that have), it is actually completely unnecessary and I’m not even going to give advice on how.

The easiest way to get these kills is with vehicles. Tanks or helicopters, either way. There are specific maps that are better than others, and I am going to try and help you figure those areas out now. Of course, if vehicles aren’t your thing, running around as a Wookie (Recon class) with either Mortar Strikes or C4 and extra explosives can work too. I will cover both.

Atacama Desert on Conquest – This is one of the most popular maps for helicopter action. When you are not in a dog fight with the other teams helicopter, focus on shooting out the walls on every building you can near objective A and C. There are quite a few two story houses surrounding these flags and people will hide in them running as snipers all the time. Just keep shooting out the walls until they come down. You can also do the same thing with tanks on this map. Aim for the corners, because it generally does more damage to the wall. The best thing to do is just try to take down every building you can in hope that someone is inside.

White Pass on Conquest – There are tons of houses here that can be knocked down, but there are two in particular that are usually perfect for getting Destruction 2.0 kills. Those two houses are in the middle of the map at objective B. At the start of every match, a tank battle usually plays out around this location, so if the other teams tank is not at the B flag yet, start trying to take out walls now. You’re probably not going to knock them all down in one pass, anyway, so go ahead and start the damage now so you can finish it off later. The best time to finish off a building is when the opposing team is holding B, because a lot of times it is not uncommon for two  or three people to be holed up on the second floor waiting for people to run up the stairs. If you happen to be in a tank, just keep hitting the walls until the building falls down. If you have C4, try to use it on the inside walls, as they will blow out easier. If you are using the trusty RPG or Carl Gustav, just fire away. Keep in mind, half the battle in getting a D 2.0 kill is the element of surprise, so having most of the damage already done is the easiest way to get the kill. Sometimes, the best way to knock down this house is with a mortar strike. You can hide in one of the attacks of a house that looks at either of the two houses I have specified and drop mortars on them from afar. There are other houses on this map that can be destroyed, but they are much tougher to knock down and are not generally quite as populated as the two I mentioned.

Nelson Bay on Rush – The house containing the M-Com at objective B is one of the best spots to get D 2.0 kills. Generally, everyone is trying to knock this house down anyway, so I have had good luck using the UAV to shoot missiles at the walls. The goal is to not draw attention to yourself, so ignore anyone you see running around outside. Just focus on the walls. If you can work it out to where one of your teammates is setting the M-Com, the likelihood for D 2.0 kills is even better. Now you can use rocket launchers or C4 on this one too, but I have found the UAV to be the best way to get the kills on this map.

Arica Harbor on any game mode – Now that Arica Harbor is available across the board, it has become one of the best maps for D 2.0 kills, especially on Rush. As the attacking team on Rush, get in a tank and proceed right for objective A. It is the big building with the M-Com. When you get up to the gate, hang a right towards the middle of the area where the two M-Coms are located. You’re probably going to have people shooting at you, but you’re going to have to ignore it. Start taking out the walls as soon as you can. It is very possible you will be destroyed before you can knock the building down, so be prepared to die and grab another tank. On the second set of M-Com stations, objective B is in a two story house and is pretty easy to knock down. Try avoiding the main road going towards it, because there is a stationary missile launcher looking right at it, and a lot of people will drop mines along the road. Go down the hill with the tank towards the two large unfinished buildings. Your target will be on your right. Hit it a few times from there, then keep going straight until the end of the road. From there you can turn right and come up behind the other team and take anyone that may be at the stationary gun out. If you are lucky, you should be able to sneak up next to objective B and finish off the building. There are other buildings you can hit, but those are the most prominent two during Rush. One other building that can be good for kills in any mode is in that same middle section. It is a red house in the far right corner near the hill (if you are looking from down the hill with the road). Lots of snipers will camp there. In Conquest and Squad Rush, there are no vehicles, so you will need to have extra explosives equipped with either rocket launchers or C4, or try to take it down with mortar strikes. If you have taken those buildings down already, just keep hitting every house you can. There are a lot of them you can take down on this map.

Isla Inocentes on Rush – While there are a few houses you can take down on this map, the one housing the M-Com station A on the second pair of M-Coms by the beach. It is a yellow, rectangular building. There used to be a glitch where you could shoot out the back fence and it would knock the whole building down, but that has been fixed. This is still an easy building to knock down. The best way to do it is as a gunner in the Blackhawk. Just have your pilot circle around while you shoot out the walls. There really aren’t any other buildings here worth mentioning. You can go ahead and shoot out the other houses around that say set of M-Coms, but it is going to be hit and miss.

Panama Canal on Conquest – This map in general is not the best map for D 2.0, but there is one building that can get you a couple. It is best to attack it as the Russians, because it is right next to the American base where flag A is located. It is always best to try and knock it down while it is held by the other team or in the process of being captured.

Laguna Presa on Conquest – Like Panama Canal, there isn’t much to work with here. The main building to focus on is the barn at objective B. People hide in there all the time and it will definitely come down. You can take it out with a tank, but I have found dropping mortar strikes from the roof at objective C works really well too. There is a small house across from the barn that can be knocked down, but it doesn’t usually matter.

Port Valdez – As the attacker, take a tank down the hill and swing to the right into the trees. The house with M-Com B and the two story house directly across from it are the targets. Both houses are usually full of snipers, especially the two story building. Tanks are definitely your best bet to take them down, although having Carl G’s never hurt anyone either. As you proceed to the second batch of M-Coms, both buildings housing the M-Coms can be brought down. The bigger building with A is going to take quite a few hits and may be a bit of a challenge, but the house at B is a pretty good target if you have rocket launchers. There is a house right next to it that no one seems to go into, so you can blow out half of the house from inside the adjacent house without anyone noticing you.

The rest of the maps are pretty much not going to offer you much. The buildings on Laguna Alta do not collapse since they are essentially bamboo huts. Valparaiso is pretty much the same deal. The roof blows off so it doesn’t collapse on top of people. I have found Rush mode to be the best way to get Destruction 2.0 kills, and the best part is that even if you don’t get the kill, you usually get some consolation points for destroying the M-Com station. I would talk about squad deathmatch and squad rush a little more, but let’s be honest… no one plays that shit.

That wraps up this week’s guide. Best of luck locking down these two achievements, and stay tuned next week for Episode 3 of Achievement Mastery 101.

This review was originally written by me for analoghype.com.

Achievement Mastery Gaming News Battlefield: Bad Company 2, DICE, EA