Gamer Tag Game Days between first and last achievement unlock Tears of Fenrir Perfect Dark Zero 4941 Racknore Hexic HD 4914 X Lord Doom X Kameo: Elements of Power 4907 Amethystine NHL 2K6 4896 Cashin The Outfit 4878 Jerry QC X-Men: The Official Game 4813 BTZ Silence Condemned: Criminal Origins 4805 Chemical 3 Peter Jackson's King Kong 4771 Amethystine Kameo: Elements of Power 4762 Amethystine FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup 4760

Achievements can be tricky little things, ranging from a welcome surprise at the start of a game when everything seems hopeful, to an impossible goal which never seems to get any closer. Completing a game can therefore take anywhere from hours to weeks to months, and beyond. Several members of our community here at TA have racked up astonishing completion times of over a decade, so we decided to ask them about their experience with these games. Was it a labour of love? Did that uncompleted game come to haunt them? Or, to be honest, did they simply forget it existed? Below, you can see a table of the ten longest gaps between the first and last achievement unlock in a game by members of our site:"I've always been a perfectionist", says Amethystine, who features several times in our rankings. "I suppose I've also always been a completionist". So when achievements came along with the Xbox 360, Amethystine was "doomed from the start.” Yet this ambitious achievement hunting was limited by the fact that the games were rentals, mostly from Blockbuster — remember Blockbuster? — and would need to be returned after a week or so. "I would do as much as I could with a game, but I wouldn't obsess about finishing it 100%". Amethystine focused on "amassing a larger gamerscore as steadily as possible without worrying about the idea of a good average completion rate. There was no TA, after all. This was all 2005 and 2006." Amethystine had been searching for games with the shortest achievement lists, and had been "pointedly" avoiding sports games. "But my friends assured me they would help me and... This is how I ended up with Madden NFL 06 and and NHL 2K6". Whilst Madden was quickly dealt with, NHL 2K6 ended up as "little more than an annoying footnote in my achievements section".Of course, TrueAchievements soon came along, and things changed. "TA made me obsessed with my stats", says Amethystine, giving TrueAchievement's completion percentage tracking as the reason for returning to the game. Coming back to complete a game after more than a decade is no mean feat, but Amethystine doesn't seem too overwhelmed by it. "It's vaguely satisfying to have the 550/1000 gone from my records...I'm glad I was able to succeed in finishing it now." That drive to complete games means that they're returning to many old titles to finish them, with completion times almost as long as NHL 2K6; and some long overdue completions are more satisfying than others. "I recently finished LIMBO's 'complete the game with 5-or-less deaths'", they said, "after 9 years of assuming it was impossible".Amethystine says that guides and walkthroughs were helpful when returning to older games, particularly as they didn't exist when the games came out. Racknore, who sits at the no. 2 spot for longest completion with HEXIC HD, seems to feel the same. In the intervening time, the community have come up with “many guides and tricks [they] didn't have before."Racknore was intrigued by HEXIC HD at first because "it was a very solid puzzle arcade game", and also happened to be free with the Xbox 360. Having been driven back to complete it, Racknore is pleased to have done so. It was "a challenge to get that last hard achievement and it's nice to complete the oldest 360 game I have". Although, like Amethystine, they're not losing their heads about it. "It's still only HEXIC HD", they say, ultimately deciding that it would occupy "a middle pack position" in the list of games they're proud to have completed.Cashin, meanwhile, occupies the no. 5 spot with 4878 days to complete The Outfit. For Cashin, The Outfit represented an old enemy, waiting patiently through several life changes to be challenged once again. The Outfit was one of Cashin's first games on the Xbox 360, and they "actually completed a good chunk" of it after purchasing it. Then The Outfit was put down “for 3 years or so," with Cashin finding a chance to return to the backlog when they were "a broke college student". Even then, the temptation to complete couldn’t overcome the daunting prospect of grinding through 500 online matches. The Outfit was again demoted to the sidelines whilst Cashin "moved on to other games, and more importantly trying to find a job", which was a "tough prospect in 2009 for a college graduate, particularly in aviation". Cashin had other things to focus on, allowing The Outfit to lurk and bide its time. Cashin understandably "fell out of achievements for a while" after the birth of their oldest son. Cashin would eventually find a job which, while tough, allowed plenty of free time to play video games.With this new time allowance, Cashin could face down The Outfit once again — though thanks to networking issues on a decade-old game, it wasn’t easy. While in the intervening decade The Outfit didn't quite hold up to scrutiny — in Cashin's words, it "definitely missed the mark" — it was immensely satisfying to complete. "It was nice to close that loop, and put a 100% next to a game I started when I was barely out of high school".Returning to complete a game more than 10 years after starting it is quite a feat, and for many can act as a milestone for all sorts of changes in life. What’s the longest you’ve ever taken to complete a game? Feel free to share your own stories with us in the comments below!