There are 21 achievements with a total of 400 points.
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Overview
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
- Offline: 21/21 (400)
- Online: 0/21 (0) (All achievements can be received on or offline)
- Approximate amount of time to 1000: 10-20 hours (depending on whether or not you buy the level up DLC)
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 2+ cleanup (achievements do not stack)
- Number of missable achievements: None, levels are repeatable
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No cheat codes (excluding purchase of the DLC to level you up, which does not void the achievement)
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes
- Glitchy achievements: None
- Unobtainable achievements: None
- Extra equipment needed?: No
Introduction:
The Expendables 2 game has two purposes: 1. to get people hyped up for the release of the movie, and 2. to blow stuff up. For me, the first was not necessary considering the epic cast of awesomeness in the movie, however the second purpose alone is reason enough to play a game. The campaign in the game takes place over the course of 4 Chapters with 5 sections each, and each of the Chapters consists of basically the same setup with there being a shootout, followed by a chase scene, and then lots of more shooting, with lots of explosions and bad voice acting throughout. Now it's time to kick some ass and take some names.
First Playthrough:
You can set this to either Casual or Hardcore first depending on your preference, personally I went with Hardcore as I usually do and Caesar with upgraded attack and health makes the end of the game pretty easy even on Hardcore. It may be safer for some people to level up characters first through Casual, however, but it's up to you; one difficulty will yield "Mission Accomplished" and the other "The Extra Mile". As you progress through the game you will finish one achievement for each of the Chapters; "Balkan Party", "Desert Storm", "Urban Pacification", and "Burma Breakout" respectively, and during this time you'll need to work your way to getting xp for the character leveling achievements: "Peak Peformance" and "Top Class Crew" (most likely won't finish the latter), as well as "Professional Wrestler" by using each character's grapple move once their attack skill is maxed out. During this initial playthrough you will also receive "Under Duress" at the end of the first section of Chapter 1, "Time is Money" about midway through that same section, "Knock, Knock" just after time is money, "Raining Down the Fire" in the second stage of Chapter 2, "Gun Safari" basically as soon as you want to use all 4 characters, "Blanket Party" might as well be paired with Gun Safari, "Florence Nightingale" as 50 heals of your partners will come very quickly, and eventually "Challenge Junkie" since the challenges aren't missable.
Second Playthrough (Other Difficulty):
Depending on what difficulty you chose to do first, you can try for some of your cleanup achievements now, primarily "Hands-on" if you're doing Normal 2nd, and "Untouchable" if you're doing Hardcore 2nd. Depending on how you chose to level your characters
Cleanup:
As stated in the previous section, if "Hands-On" wasn't finished in your 2nd playthrough, now is the time, and you should now have at least a couple of maxed out characters by now to make "Untouchable" easier, obviously Chapter 1 is the best bet for this. That also means you can do "Killing Machine" which would more simply done with a juiced up character on Normal in areas where enemies constantly respawn (such as the helicopter fight in the bitch black . During this time, as well as during your first playthrough if you want, you can also go for "4's Company" by grouping with 3 other people for the entirety of a chapter. It's not necessary for Hardcore, however, so it counts as cleanup.
Grinding:
In order to hasten your progress toward "Hands-on", "Killing Machine" and both character upgrade achievements, I highly recommend you set the game to Normal and start from Mission 1 of the Kowloon Chapter (Ch3). What you want to grind on is the large groups of guys between the beginning of the level and the point where you must C4 the first wall (this whole level is pretty full of easy enemies, but I feel this is the quickest section to steam through guys on). With max attack and 2/3 health, Yang can cut through the guys no problem for the "Hands On" achievement. For the other achievements you'll want a more conventional approach by using Caesar and a fully upgraded AA-12 and as much health as you can afford when you attempt this. Note that once you get inside the building full of shipping containers, you'll want to hang to the left behind the first shipping container as long as possible so the sniper won't knock you down and cause you to drop your combo, once you need to proceed for more kills, move quick and shoot 2 or 3 shot bursts until you get to 50 kills (should be very soon after you move out from cover).
[x360a would like to thank Shiftiefor this Roadmap]
You can make this your first playthrough if you follow some key guidelines. I personally spent the first 2 1/2 chapters or so using Yang to get work on the "Hands-on" achievement, but eventually found that leveling Caesar's Grenade launcher and then armor was a god send. From that point on, be sure to park yourself behind some cover (hold ) while you reload, and only coming out to launch a grenade. Use that slow turtle tactic to keep yourself alive while slowly making progress, with progress coming in the form of you rolling () between cover points. This technique is key for the areas that are full of enemies and have an annoying checkpoint ages before you even reach that part. As long as you remember to take the difficult parts slow, and also remember that you don't need to rush any of the challenges in the campaign for the achievement, you just need to finish them, then this achievement won't be too hard to get. Also remember that if the going gets tough and you need to constantly respawn thanks to stupid game mechanics, at least you don't lose your XP so 1000 deaths = 1000 tries worth of XP.
Also, armor piercing ammo is great! Upgrading Caesar's grenade launcher for the last Chapter and a half was a life saver with all of the armored enemies that appear, and of course don't forget body armor (health), it gives a very noticeable difference in survivability.
Some other Tips =
1. if you need to use a rocket launcher to take out a vehicle and you have to reload it, as soon as you start to reload, roll with and it will automatically reload (and it's safer).
2. You DO take damage while planting C4, however you CAN plant it while you're dead if don't release the button, and doing so to reach the end of the mission in a few missions will complete the mission even if you're all dead.
3.Finally, your teammates revive themselves after being down a while, and will instantly revive if you run too far away from them (most importantly if you backtrack to revive them safely, when you are allowed to backtrack...) . Basically just stay alive if you're the last one alive and you can't revive anyone without dying, since in case you haven't noticed all of the enemies on the screen will attack you as soon as the guy is revived.
When you start a new campaign you can either join a quick match or make a private/public game where you can invite people to join or wait for people to join, and/or plugin in controllers so the party has 3 players. Once you have a full squad, complete all 5 parts of any Chapter as a full squad. They're all basically the same length so it's really just preference.
Note that if a teammate lags out during a mission, you can just wait for them to come back and proceed to finishing the mission and you'll still get the achievement. Also note that you can get this over multiple sittings, just play through to the screen where you get your score before quitting out of the game for it to count (thanks Halfevilmonkey).
Many of the missions have challenges you need to complete to proceed, and are generally mandatory to the progress of the game. You need to simply complete the challenge, not meet any other requirements, for the achievement to pop, however if you happen to miss a challenge after completing the game just browse the Challenge menu from the games main menu. The achievement will pop as soon as you blow up the APC and Tank combo during the Burma Chapter.
Make it through a mission on hardcore without getting knocked down and needing to be picked up by a teammate. Be sure to utilize cover () as much as possible, and always fall back if necessary. Once you pass through at least most of the game and level up a bit you should be good to head back to Chapter 1 to cross this achievement off your list. Remember that using your Signature skill (hold next to a bad guy when you're at full charge) heals you to full health, and at max stats for the character causes a massive explosion that kills or severely damages everything in range, use that to your advantage if necessary.
It's important to note that you can switch to a different teammate if you're about to die, even if that person is already dead, just make sure they either have a lot of health or are already dead so you don't immediately die after switching.
Destroy the enemy APC with the rocket launcher by the sandbags. Pick up the rocket by holding and then fire it as you would a regular weapon (mission 1). Challenges aren't missable, so if you join a co-op game that starts you at a later level, you will get it there instead.
As you kill enemies in quick succession a number will appear above your total kill counter. Keep unleashing hell on your enemies in order to keep the counter going, any extended pause in killing will reset it. A good idea to get this achievement is to have a leveled up signature weapon that you like to use, and play on Casual in an area with infinite spawning enemies (usually a helicopter area), which can be found toward the end of each Chapter.
See the grinding section at the top of the main post for a grinding guide.
Alternative method (thanks to NewProfileKid):
Load up Chapter 4 Mission 4, playing as Caesar (and as many of the other players as possible, less computers is better), and progress through the level until you reach the point where you must take Caesar and destroy the two APCs with C4. Clear out the enemies and DO NOT blow up the APCs, instead wait and look to the top right of your screen to kill the infinite enemies that spawn to the right of the APCs (yup, one of the infinite spawn areas I talked about). They will come at a relatively steady stream while you shoot your way to a 50 kill combo.
Once you max out your primary character, start leveling up the attack skill of your other characters until they're all maxed. Once a character reaches it's max attack level, their upgraded grab move (hold ,then tap it's basically the same as their old one with the addition of a grenade) can be used. Rotate between the four characters until you've used the ability at least once on each.
When you reach a large gate blocking the way in the first level, Barney will tell Caesar to blow it up. That's your queue to switch to Caesar () and move up to the gate, then hold until you plant the bomb.
Each character has 2 weapons, you can swap between them by pressing . You need to make sure you kill at least one enemy with each. However, the pickup weapons do not count toward this achievement. You can pair this with Blanket Party pretty easily by simply switch to a character, using their Grab (Hold ), melee (tap ), signature kill (Hold with full Combat charge), and both of their signature weapons (tap to switch), and then proceed to the next team member until you have used all available abilities for all 4 guys.
IF the dropped weapons do count, they will be classified as: Rifle, LMG, Shotgun, Rocket Launcher most likely. Need someone else to confirm that they don't, though I got it without using the sniper rifle or the m16.
Yang is the guy you want for this job, and to make life easier you'll probably want him to be the guy you level up first, starting off by maxing out his attack skill. His knife attacks are both fast and pretty powerful, with good range, and his combat ability ( ) is a smoke grenade which helps protect him from damage as he closes into melee range, and also lights up all the enemies in the area like christmas trees. Once you've maxed out Yang and move on to other characters (Barney does good melee as well), try and melee as much as possible. Each character's melee can be a powerful tool if used properly, some are just easier to use, especially on the higher difficulties (Gunner and Caesar are both open to more damage as their attacks are slower).
See the grinding section at the top of the main post for a grinding guide.
When a teammate drops to the ground, injured, run over to them and hold to heal them. During this time you are immune to damage, and if you need to stop for some reason the heal bar won't reset. Do this to 50 teammates during your career and you'll get this easy achievement.
If you want to get this VERY easily, play on Hardcore and whenever you see someone on your team (in singleplayer) healing a fallen teammate, switching to the character that is healing them for easy points. That is most useful if you're dead.
If you're playing online, it can be even easier by working with your teammates to have them basically collapse in a pile since the heal is area of effect, meaning they will all be healed together as long as they're close enough together.
In the second part of Chapter 1 you'll be a gunner in a helicopter shooting at bad guys. Once the choppers move to give you an angle on the fuel tank toward the front of the train, unleash hell out in with missile and gatling rounds (use to change between weapons). Make sure to shoot up the cars behind it as well, and soon enough the entire train will go off the rails and the achievement will pop.
Each character has two signature weapons with 4 upgrade tiers each, and 3 skill upgrades with 3 tiers each. This achievement may very well be your last for 100%, and if it is you CAN buy the upgrade pack (NOT each individual upgrade, the 240msp ONLY). This will net you the achievement(s) the next time you start a campaign mission (In general, the achievements do not pop until you enter a new game/next level/etc.). See the farming section at the top of the main post for a farming guide.
Each character has the same price for their skills, which are as follows, in order of the upgrade
Health: 3000, 5000, 8000
Speed: 3000, 5500, 7500
Attack: 3500, 5000, 7500
Each character has different prices for their guns
Perform all grab moves, melee attacks and signature kills
Each of the four characters has a unique grab move, which is performed by holding , a unique melee moved, performed by tapping , and a unique signature kill, which is performed by holding when your combat charge bar is full. The combat charge bar is the 3 section bar under your gun icon, note that using grenades takes up 1 section of the bar, and collecting the crossed knives combat charge powerup will restore roughly one section, killing people restores it as well.
(1) 
)
) while you reload, and only coming out to launch a grenade. Use that slow turtle tactic to keep yourself alive while slowly making progress, with progress coming in the form of you rolling (
) between cover points. This technique is key for the areas that are full of enemies and have an annoying checkpoint ages before you even reach that part. As long as you remember to take the difficult parts slow, and also remember that you don't need to rush any of the challenges in the campaign for the achievement, you just need to finish them, then this achievement won't be too hard to get. Also remember that if the going gets tough and you need to constantly respawn thanks to stupid game mechanics, at least you don't lose your XP so 1000 deaths = 1000 tries worth of XP.
next to a bad guy when you're at full charge) heals you to full health, and at max stats for the character causes a massive explosion that kills or severely damages everything in range, use that to your advantage if necessary.
, Gunner 
, Yang 
, Barney 
and then fire it as you would a regular weapon (mission 1). Challenges aren't missable, so if you join a co-op game that starts you at a later level, you will get it there instead.
,then tap 
it's basically the same as their old one with the addition of a grenade) can be used. Rotate between the four characters until you've used the ability at least once on each.