Achievement Hunter

Achievement Hunter

Type of site	Video games, web series
Available in	English
Owner	Rooster Teeth Productions
Created by	Geoff Ramsey, Jack Pattillo
URL	achievementhunter.com

Achievement Hunter is a gaming website created by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo of Rooster Teeth Productions. The website is largely based on the achievement mechanic, found in seventh generation video game consoles after being made popular with Microsoft's release of the Xbox 360. The website was launched 2008, along with Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel. Achievement Hunter has since gone on to become the core of Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel.

History

During 2008, Geoff Ramsey's interest in gaming achievements led to the realization that there wasn't a community-based achievements website, and in turn Achievement Hunter was created, which shares the design, user profiles and forums of the main Rooster Teeth website. The site is run by two full-time Rooster Teeth staff Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo, who regularly release achievement guides, easter egg videos and other game-related videos, and select volunteers from the Rooster Teeth community help moderate the website. The most frequent videos come from employees and some of the said community members. The current main hosts are Ramsey, Pattillo, Gavin Free, Ray Narvaez Jr., Michael Jones, Ryan Haywood and Caleb Denecour. Unlike many other achievement-dedicated websites, Achievement Hunter is highly dependent on public contributions and so has guides across many different games and platforms, allowing the site to expand its focus from Xbox 360 games to those on PC, PS3, Steam, iPhone and Windows Phone 7.

In early 2010, Ramsey and Pattillo started a weekly series called Achievement Hunter Weekly Update, commonly abbreviated to AHWU. In it, Ramsey talks about upcoming games while Pattillo talks about gaming news. In line with the community-focus of the Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter websites, and similarly to The Rooster Teeth Podcast, each episode's title sequence is created by a member of the community. Late 2010 saw the introduction of two more regular series, Fails of the Weak and Achievement HORSE. The former is a compilation of mistakes and glitches in Halo: Reach and later Halo 4 with commentary from Geoff and Jack. Reach mistakes have been replaced by Halo 4 on the series 117th episode on December 14, 2012. The latter has Geoff, Jack, and other Rooster Teeth staff members play H-O-R-S-E using obstacle courses built with the Forge mode of Halo 4 (initially Halo: Reach) and the level editor in the motorbike platform racing game, Trials Evolution. They further published their videos both on their website, and on other media-sharing sites such as YouTube. Another series is Rage Quit in which Michael Jones play a very difficult or very annoying game until "he eventually has an aneurysm and we have to rush him to the emergency room," in Ramsey's words. In August 2011, Jones became a full-time staff member at Achievement Hunter.

In 2011, Achievement Hunter debuted three new series for its audience. The first, titled This is..., in which featured members of the staff introducing an upcoming gaming title (either retail or XBLA) and premiered in early March for the game, Dynasty Warriors 7. It comes out a day or two after the game comes out. The second series, titled Things to do in: was created in November 2011 and presented viewers and gamers with fun and interesting things to do in games like Saints Row: The Third and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The final series, Let's Play, began airing in early December. In this series, Rooster Teeth staff members play different games every week, with weekly episodes focusing on Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition having become a popular sub-series. Right now most of their Minecraft Let's Plays and Things to do in take place in Achievement City. Sometime the maps ae created by a special guest AxielMatt. Things to do in: comes out every Wednesday and Let's Play comes out every Friday. This is... eventually formed a spin-off series known as A Look Back At..., in which members of the Achievement Hunter crew re-introduced old Xbox 360 games that may have been overlooked in their release but are now a classic game. This series is no longer done weekly, and has been replaced by Achievement Hunter's "Retro-Active". This series shows classic games such as Blood, TimeSplitters, and Mega Man X. It is presented by Achievement Hunter employees Ray and Fragger.

In September 2012, Achievement Hunter launched a new series called Five Facts. In this series, Jack and Geoff discuss little known facts about various video games such as BioShock, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Resident Evil 4. The series is sometimes presented by its creator, Franco, along with another Rooster Teeth employee.

Hosts

Main hosts

• Geoff Ramsey
• Jack Pattillo
• Gavin Free
• Michael Jones
• Ray Narvaez, Jr.

Recurring hosts

• Brandon "Fragger" Light
• Caleb Denecour
• Ryan Haywood

Series

In addition to daily video game guides, Achievement Hunter produces several weekly series as well.

Series	Years
"Forced Enjoyment"	2008
Jack Pattillo must play poorly received games. The series is filmed in a documentary format, with several segments per episode.
"Pajamachievements"	2008-2009
Geoff Ramsey plays games with his wife Griffon and her friends.
"Achievement Hunter Weekly Update"	2010-Present
Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo go over recent video game news and releases, as well as their achievement of the week.
"AH Predicts"	2010-Present
Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo use simulation in sports video games to "predict" an upcoming real-life match.
"Fails of the Weak"	2010-Present
Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo go through fan submitted Halo "fails" and give them commentary.
"Achievement Horse"	2010-Present
Two hosts go through fan submitted "HORSE" maps in Halo and Trials Evolution. These maps include obstacle courses, shooting challenges, and other types of skill challenges.
"Rage Quit"	2011-Present
Michael Jones plays annoying or difficult games, until he inevitably quits out of anger.
"This Is..."	2011-Present
This series goes through a recently released game, and explains the game's achievements. Pattillo has called this "the closest they'll ever get to reviewing games".
"A Look Back At..."	2011-2012
Similar to "This Is...", this series includes older games that may have been overlooked.
"Things To Do In"	2011-Present
Typically hosted by Geoff Ramsey and Gavin Free, this series show unusual or cool things the audience can do in a recently released game.
"Let's Play"	2011-Present
All the main hosts play a video game, with their live commentary dubbed over the events. New episodes are released three days a week with their flagship episodes being their weekly Minecraft episodes.
"Game Fails"	2011-Present
Several videos a day of fan submitted "fails" in many games.
"Trials Files"	2012-Present
Jack Pattillo and Geoff Ramsey highlight a new user-created map in Trials Evolution.
"Game Night"	2012-Present
Caleb Denecour and Geoff Ramsey plays a Halo custom game with the Achievement Hunter community.
"Retro-Active"	2012-Present
Hosted by Fragger, this series features games from the past generations of consoles and how they can be implemented into the current generation.
"Quick Bits"	2012-Present
This series features several clips of episodes of "Let's Play".
"Five Facts"	2012-Present
This series features five little known facts about a very well known game or game series. The series was created by community member Franco for the Community Hunter channel and was recently added to the main channel line up.

External links

• Official site
• Achievement Hunter Community Youtube