Dead Rising -- Chewing Through the Soft Pink Underbelly for Achievements.

So I'm still playing Dead Rising trying to knock out some more achievements. But now it's getting to that point. The point where you can see the end. You can see that full one-thousand Gamerpoints, and you want them bad enough you can taste it.  I'm six away from earning all fifty achievements. When you first start playing the game and you look over the achievements you think some of them are near impossible. But as you play the game and climb that hill, you start to think well maybe I can get that one. So you give it a try and you get it. Then some of those near impossible ones don't seem so impossible anymore. You give those a try and you get them. Next thing you know, there's the summit. The top of the hill. You're so close. Then it becomes nothing is going to stop you now. You're going to reach the top or die trying. I've earned what I feel are probably the harder ones to earn like Transmissionary and Saint. I still have to get Frank the Pimp, Tour Guide, Indoorsman, Outdoorsman, 5-day Survivor, and 7-day Survivor. I don't think the survivor ones will be that tough, they just take the dedication of playing the game for ten straight real world hours without being able to save. The indoor and outdoor ones are simple, again they just take the time of standing inside or outside for twenty-four in-game hours. Tour Guide will unlock when I complete Frank the Pimp. Frank the Pimp will be the toughest of the ones I have left. That one will take some planning. I think there is really only one way to pull that one off. The achievement system is truly brilliant for adding replay value to games. The depth they've added to Dead Rising has kept the game in the system this long. I've played the game's 72-hour mode five or six times over. I've played the Overtime mode twice. And I still have the infinity mode to play. I didn't expect this much out of Dead Rising. I thought it would be the standard action game and spend three to seven days in play and be done. I have roughly a week to wrap things up before Saints Row arrives where I'll be busy shooting Magus and Riddel in their virtual backs...