Achievement junkies or whores, if you prefer, have become more and more common as the need for virtual bragging rights has grown with the 360′s rampant popularity.  Sadly, being one myself I realized that many of you may not be quite so adept at spotting these unrelenting obsessives.  So, after thinking about it, I figured I’d better do the internet a good service and explain what behaviors and traits to look for when trying to sort out if one of your friends or relatives is a junkie.  Below are five questions to help you sort this mess out.

1. Have they played Avatar: The Last Airbender?

If so, you can pretty much safely assume one of the following: A)your friend really likes Avatar or B) they’re aware that Avatar is pretty much the most embarrassingly easy way on the planet to earn the oh-so-coveted 1000 achievement points.  I kid you not, if you pop this title in you’re going to have 1000 points in about 5 minutes of hitting the attack button over and over again.

Sure it’s an easy 1000, but will you be able to respect yourself in the morning after your friends find out that you paid 7 bucks to rent this from Blockbuster for 20 minutes or worse still, bought it pre-owned just to return it an hour later?

2. Do they only buy multi-platform games for the 360?

While many blockbuster titles come out across all three systems usually, if your friend is always buying the 360 version over the PS3 this is usually a pretty good indicator that they have a problem. Oftentimes a PS3 release will look markedly better than its 360 counterpart, but this won’t stop the achievement junkie from valuing the accumulation of meaningless achievement points over a slicker presentation.

3. Is this their ringtone?

4. Does their profile ever leave their side?

Gaming isn’t an uncommon past time when friends gather at each others homes, but the achievement junkie has absolutely zero tolerance for casual gaming.  The junkie will often insist that before a game can be played he or she be allowed to recover their profile onto the host’s 360.  In extreme cases, the junkie will keep a 360 memory card handy at all times with their profile saved here instead of a hard drive to ensure that even if said host has no internet connection, those tasty achievement points are still ripe for the reaping.

5. Do they write self-serving posts on a questionably updated blog about how awesome their gamerscore is?

Well…guess I’ll just show myself out then…

Related posts:

1. The “Avatar” Craze Begins