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A while ago now, back before the Sniper and Spy update was making gamers everywhere explode with joy, I posted opinions on what I considered to be the toughest achievements in Team Fortress 2. You may remember it. Well, it was the sort of achievements in that list that frustrated people about the whole system, as they wondered how they could achieve the impossible and earn some shiny new toys in the process. Indeed, this problem eventually lead to drastic reductions of the amount of achievements you required for unlocks, as well as the development of a random drop system that seems intent of giving me as many jars of piss of possible. Yeah, I don’t know what it’s trying to imply… Anyway, that got me thinking – Everyone dwells on these demonic tasks, but what about the opposite side of the spectrum and those achievements you could get with your eyes closed?

So here we go again, as I share my opinions on what I think these easy achievments are, and then throw it open to you to add more or contradict me and insult my mother. The old rules applied to finding the achievements apply somewhat, such as generally ignoring the official achievement statistics page and only considering play that isn’t on the evils of an achievement server. Oh, but of course, this time around it’s achievements I don’t have which are generally exempt. Anyway, are you sitting confortably? Then let’s begin…

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Many of the general achievements for Team Fortress 2 aren’t that taxing, let’s be honest. Either you just have to run at people like a crazed suicidal lunatic whilst holding W + M1 (For the flamethrower achievement), or you generally just have to play and embrace the game and the achievement you seek will fall into your lap fairly rapidly (Team Doctor, anyone?). However, this achievement requires even less effort than some of its counterparts, mainly thanks to the introduction of the Arena mode. Here’s what you do – Pick a class. Leave your PC for a minute whilst you go and get a satsuma to eat, or something. Come back to your PC with tasty treats in hand, watch yourself die in a painful manner, and then pick the next class on the list and repeat until you’re deemed awesome… Well, indecisive, at least. Since arena rounds are of such a rapid pace at times, it’s easily possible that you’ll have this achievement within 10 minutes with only a tiny amount of actual interactivity with the game. Sweet!

The other two potential candidates for this section were, of course, Dynasty and World Traveler. The former was indeed the first achievement that came to my mind in terms of being so simple a chimp could pull it off, but even if you use the Arena method listed above, you really have to rely on the rest of your team not being chimps themselves. World Traveler? Well, that involves playing on 2Fort, and let’s be honest… You don’t really want to spend a great deal of time there, do you?

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Ah, the Medic pack. Where else would you find tons of achievements that skew the whole purpose of the class, make you cry in frustration and help create the demon that was achievement boosting in the process? Still, for all its faults, there’s a lot of achievements in the Medic pack you can easily snag just by playing the Medic properly. Extinguishing burning team members, Switching to a Medic to help a Medic-less team, Hindering an enemy Ubercharge by activating your own… These are all things you’d expect people playing the class to do, and what do you know, there’s achievements tied to all of them. The fact I have the same amount of Medic achievements as I do Sniper achievements seems to suggest that the real fact of the matter is there’s a lot of stuff you can get without breaking a sweat. Well, that, or I suck at Sniper. Your choice.

Anyway, why is Surgical Prep my choice? Well, whilst pondering away at possible candidates whilst playing the game itself, I found myself as a Medic in the Blu spawn, medigun out with no charge and a Heavy taunting away in front of me. Insanity gripped me, and leaning down close to my mouse, I managed to prep an Uber with my nose. That, my friends, is why Surgical Prep is one of the easiest achivements – You can obtain it using nostril power alone!

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…And Spontaneous Combustion, which is exactly the same except with 100% more invisibility. I doubt I have to explain this one in any great detail – It’s not only something anyone who is playing Pyro should be doing at least from time to time during a match, but it’s also another achievement that can generally be obtained by being a little crazy and spamming away at that primary fire button. The chances are by doing this and screaming “SPY CHECK SPY CHECK” the achievement will be yours pretty quickly. Good news for you. Bad news for the spies who freaked out at a burning ball of death heading straight for them and end up promptly dying seconds later.

On a side note, note that the number of ignitions for this achievement is pretty damn low, which is something pretty common throughout the Pyro pack as a whole. Only having to succeed five or ten times in challenges that don’t really stretch your gaming skill is a dramatic contrast to other achievement packs, where you have to do something insane and difficult not once, but a whole bunch of times. Of course, the lower totals are more preferable, because it gives you something to work for without fearing that you might die of old age before you succeed… Oh, and it’s also nice to see those progress bars rise rapidly, I admit.

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Hey you! Yes, YOU! Want to work towards an achievement and finally obtain it without any possibility of an enemy threat coming along and making you significantly more dead than you are right now? Well, this is the achievement for you! It’s entirely possible just to stand in your spawn while consistently firing your gun into the supply cabinet, and since doing this isn’t either a difficult or time-consuming task (About a minute and 45 seconds to get), there’s no need to prep a pillow by your computer for the point where you bang your head in frustration/fall asleep. The only real negative to this approach is that your team will probably end up hating you, but hey, it’s not about them! It’s about you!

I was initially going to put konspicuous konsumption here, practically for the exact same reason that you can hide in your spawn whilst achieving it, but the fact you actually have to unlock the sandvich does elevate the challenge, because you have to achieve other things first. Oh, or get it via a random drop, but what’s the chances of getting anything you actually want that way?

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Here’s a practical experiment for you – find a flat surface and drum your fingers on it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Right, now do the same thing, but make your fingers drum on your space bar instead. Congratulations! I’ve just taught you the fastest way to do this achievement! And hey, if you want to speed it up even more, just find a low roof somewhere, bring the achievement up on your HUD and find out how long it is before the incessant “DingDingDing” of the progress bar drives you insane! Hell, you can even do this safely in your spawn, so even if you attach a bunch of magnets to yourself that attract bullets, this really should be a piece of cake.

Oh, and I suppose you could achieve this easily just by playing the game the way it’s meant to be played, but where’s the fun in that?

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You know, I really couldn’t decide which sniper achievement should go here, mainly because any one of them which involves killing enemy snipers or taunting dead foes can generally be obtained by going on 2Fort and picking on any one of the thousands of failures who stand perfectly still on the sniper deck and practically let you kill them. The only real reason I didn’t put them here, however, is the fact that “Socket to him” requires one headshot. One. Sure, it’s on a specific class, but it’s entirely possible just to fire sniper bullets everywhere and eventually strike it lucky. There’s also many a Demo who will stay still while laying a sticky trap somewhere, making this even simpler.

Oh, and another reason I didn’t put any other achievement here? Because I went on 2Fort to get them and inevitably found the one guy who would blast my head off the nanosecond I dared to show it to him absolutely anywhere. Cue a battle of the minds as I desperately tried to get the last kill for an achievement on him, up until the point I just went in a rage and stabbed him in the back as a spy. Grr.

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Oh, come on, everyone’s done it. I’ve even just mentioned myself doing it! It’s simple enough – Someone outsmarts you at every corner, laughs at you for being the worst [Insert any class but spy] here, and then suddenly drops dead with a knife sticking out of their back. The chances are you then switch back to a class that is actually required for the situation at hand, but heck, there was no way your nemesis was getting away with being awesome! Oh, the joys of a system which encourages you to kill the people you hate.

…Chances are they’ll dominate you again anyway, as a matter of fact, but let’s just try and ignore that possibility.

Honourable mentions

I’ve mentioned a bunch of possible acihevements that could also be considered easy above, but thankfully there’s a bunch of others to pick from after Valve learnt their lesson and didn’t make you achieve the impossible on a daily basis.

Baptism by fire – Because an opponent who doesn’t take advantage of a giant pool of water whilst they are cooking on a high heat is a dead opponent.
Enemy at the gate – Kind of difficult (But not impossible) in the first place, this is elevated to a level of ease simply by the fact I’ve seen people randomly achieve it halfway through a match.
The Melbourne Supremacy – True fact; 95% of snipers are really quite dim. Another true fact; You can take advantage of such dim snipers to a glorious extent.
Side retired – Thanks to the annoyingly fast cap speed in badlands, it’s entirely possible to get this one simply by being on the final point for approximately half a nanosecond.
Supreme Soviet - Worst Heavy ever? No matter! You’re big and powerful and every Medic in the world loves you. So there.