If you like playing on the Xbox 360, then it’s probably safe to say that you like getting achievements. Oh come now, don’t deny it. You may claim you don’t go after them actively, but everyone is satisfied to get one when that little icon pops on your screen. It’s a freaking mini-party. Many achievements are standard fare: complete a mission, defeat a boss or a certain number of enemies, collect some items. But some games don’t take themselves too seriously and provide achievements outside the box, many of them humorous additions to already great games.

Here’s a tribute to achievements that push the envelope, and usually require you to do something outside of the normal parameters of the game’s intended gameplay. Special props go to Valve, I could have written an entire article about their clever titles and word-play, but I tried to spread the love around a bit. WARNING: some spoilers follow.

9 Irony – Bioshock 2: In the first game, there was an achievement called “Irony,” which required the player to snap a photo of the recently deceased Sanders Cohen (who spent a whole level forcing you to kill people and take a picture of them for his masterpiece). 9 Irony adds a clever word pun to the mix, and requires you to throw a golf club at a statue of Andrew Ryan (who famously forced you to kill him with the same weapon in the first game). Easy to get, it’s only worth five points, but for me most of the cleverness lies in the title.

My Brother is an Italian Plumber – Borderlands: Super Mario references may be cliché, but I still had fun trying to jump on Skag heads to get my “plumber-style” kill.

Big Bully – A Kingdom for Keflings: Now I would never condone acting like a bully in real life, but kicking helpless Keflings across the map with your avatar was obsessively funny. And by obsessive, I mean that I kept doing it even after I got an achievement for it.

Flushed – Half Life 2: Gravity Guns are cool, and result in numerous ways of eliminating your foes. Conking one with a hurled toilet is near the top of my list (right next to shooting teddy bears at Super Mutants in Fallout 3).

The Fowl Player – Fable 2: You get an achievement in this game for kicking a chicken (Don’t worry, they have reinforced feathers), but the game ups the ante by giving you another achievement for kicking one while wearing a chicken suit. “We’re sickened.”

True Identity – Rainbow Six Vegas 2: One of the cool features about this shooter is that you can upload a photo with your Vision cam to create a character that looks like you. Cooler thing is you get an achievement for doing so. Coolest thing is putting on a face mask before you take your pic, and then freaking out everyone online with your creepy looking character.

Psychotic Prankster – Fallout 3: In any game with moral choices, I always tend to play the nice paragon. This explains why I reloaded my save after pick-pocketing a stranger and leaving, in return, a live grenade in their pants. And so I don’t seem like a complete prude, I did laugh at them randomly exploding before I reloaded.

Cr0wnd – Left 4 Dead: This one wasn’t as much fun to get as it was fun to watch your other friends try to get. Hearing them run away screaming after their headshot attempt fails never got old. Especially after you just explained to them that getting as close as possible first is the best strategy. Also of note, Cl0wnd in Left 4 Dead 2 requires you to honk clown noses.

…Where Credit is due – Eat Lead: 60 points just for watching the credits, one of the easiest achievements I’ve ever gotten. Eat Lead also wins points for the funny descriptions for almost all of the achievements (for example, Pure Energy: Get 50 Energy Pistol kills. “Blaster? I hardly know ‘er!”)

Crowd Pleaser – LEGO Star Wars: TCS: Call me petty for taking out my movie annoyance grudge on a poor, defenseless video game character made of virtual Legos, but breaking Jar Jar 20 times sure felt satisfying.

Guardin’ Gnome – Left 4 Dead 2 and Little Rocket Man – Half Life 2: Episode 2: As far as fun and silly achievements go, these two up the difficulty level by requiring you to carry a garden gnome across an entire campaign. It’s not too bad in L4D2 if you have buddies, just be careful on the roller coaster so your little friend doesn’t go flying away. For HL2, most of the time you could set him down somewhere while you did what you had to do, but the driving sequences were tough. That little bugger did not want to stay in my buggy. Frustrating moments aside, getting these achievements did provide some laughs and humorous moments.

Did I leave any of your favorites out? Lemmie know, I only included achievements I got myself!