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Y'know before the 360 came out I read all the information about the intentions for the platform - and a lot of the Xbox Live stuff sounded really cool - but I have to admit that I did question what the point was having Achievments within the various titles.
Hmmm, I eat my words now - because it seems MS have succeeded in making me care about my gamerscore.
Today i've gone through a few arcade titles and old games i've got to try to mop up the missing achievements. I managed another 50 points or so in Frogger, then another 30 in Rockstar Table Tennis, before starting to play through Prey on hard and gaining another 10 on a secret achievment.
So yeah, basically it seems the gamerscore system has the desired effect - and to be fair i'm quite pleased and it seems to bring an additional amount of longevity to the games......
Do we have any other score whores out there?
GamerTag: WiredWorm
It's like another mouth - LamptonWorm
WiredWorm wrote:Y'know before the 360 came out I read all the information about the intentions for the platform - and a lot of the Xbox Live stuff sounded really cool - but I have to admit that I did question what the point was having Achievments within the various titles.
Achievements are the biggest gimmicky waste of time I've ever heard of. Or at least they were until I became an Achievement whore too.
I'm not really bothered about my total Gamerscore but I do find myself compelled to replay or attempt things in games that I'd previously have consigned to the back of the cupboard.
I've said it before but for me Achievements are the real revolution in this generation of consoles. They've given me more satisfaction than anything else. So much so that I included a variation on them in the last game I wrote.
What Achievements are you most pleased with then? I'll be telling the grandchildren tales of the measly 30 points I got for a stunning 147 in World Championship Snooker.
I just got another 360 yesterday, I was gutted when I saw my gamerscore was 0.
It came back once it signed in properly though.
Been round this road so many times
Feel like it's skin is part of mine
This taste of milk is almost gone
Still got my shame, but not for long
Been wrong so many times before
But never quite like this
Heard all, in the rain
But the rain all turned to piss
I loved the idea of achievements when I first heard about them, and when used well they're incredibly effective. I haven't got a PS3 yet, but when I do a cross-platform title will always be a 360 purchase just because of the achievements. It's a cracking piece of design.
Gamerscore though - pah! Don't care! Meaningless willy-waving.
Until you get stuck at 990, or 1975, or 4980, or something else ever so near a milestone number. Then it becomes an absolute fucking obsession.
Yeah you can count me in as well. I've come to terms with my whoredom. At first I too thought it was silly, but figured it would at least be useful for keeping up with what your friends are doing.
Now I'm a lost cause, though. And yeah, it does make you care more about things. Go back and get the things you didn't get the first time around. The most vicious combination of achievements and games so far for me has been Crackdown. It's addicting enough in itself, but catching all the achievements takes forever! And yet I'm doing it one by one.
Even when a game slows down in places I still muddle along, where I previously would have given up and relocated it to the shelf permanently. Why? Because there's gamerscore at the end of that rainbow...
It's come so far for me that I'm barely touching my other systems. Whenever I'm playing Wii, Dreamcast or PS2 I have in the back of my head "you could be boosting your gamerscore right now". That combined with the feel of being disconnected from everyone else while playing the other consoles = it's starting to really, really hurt.
It's scary how much Microsoft got this console right (and before someone brings up the reliability thing: I'm on my third machine and I don't care how many I have to go through. It's just that good).
That said I'll have to mention Nintendo and what they're doing with their games like Brain Age. The statistics, using data from previous sessions etc. also make those games much more interesting than they would have been otherwise. Yet I'm not inspired to see every single pixel in there as I am on the 360.
The downside to achievements? The online ones. I'm just never going to play Gears of War, Lost Planet or Perfect Dark Zero enough online to get those achievements in this lifetime. Some of the modes just don't appeal to me at all, so there are limits. And I'm sad I'll never get the full gamerscore on those games. Oh well.
Yeah, They're a genius move, sitting there mocking meagre gaming skills. They can really add a great deal when integrated well - making the player perhaps try things they wouldn't normally do.
On the down side, I suppose they could encourage sloppy, cheap games development. The "It dosen't really matter if the games dull, they'll play to get the acheivements anyhoo" mentality.
Yes, like CharlieF said, some games really do have 'achievements' that mask up the not-so-good-gameplay.... Or they take ages to get (I'm looking at Rumble Roses and DOAX2 there ).
Them some geniuses decided to make the FFXI achievements all 'secret'. Besides the fact that they take months to get (get a character's job maxed out), when you have it, nobody can see it if they haven't got it themselves...
But I must admit that I am being a bit of an achievement whore in Forza.... Or else I wouldn't have 150+ cars in my garage...
BTW, if anyone wants the Bomberman cowboy achievement, I've got the full Clint Bombwood costume I can wear... And maybe we can try to get an 'all girly match' one time
Developers do seem to be getting better at putting them together now too. Bioshock's, for example, are light years away from the ones in Perfect Dark Zero...
And the online ones for Halo3 show up just how poorly thought out the ones in Gears of War are (they're mainly for pulling off singlular feats of skill, like getting a triple kill, than simply for having played the thing online lots).
I suspect the achievements are the only reason I'm still plugging away at Nintey Nine Nights despite it being a badly balanced frustrating mockery of a game...
Flabio wrote:I suspect the achievements are the only reason I'm still plugging away at Nintey Nine Nights despite it being a badly balanced frustrating mockery of a game...
Oooh... don't mention that 'unskippable cutscene fest' that manages to interrupt your 'mega-attack'... I've stranded at 600 points there (I still need to get all the A-ranks, and I believe that one of "Ass-far"'s quest is reasonably impossible to get...). And the 'get everyone to level 9' means 'make everyone level 9 and then finish every level with them'
With Samurai Warriors 2 I'm stuck at the survival missions (one where you have to do a lot of stealth-type missions where I always fail, and then apparently 2 missions near level 80 or 90 or something...)
And I should get back to Marvel Ultimate Alliance at one time (I downloaded the extra characters but haven't played it yet...)
My biggest problem, since becoming an achievement whore. (over 12 months now).
Is ......sahhh......... must be stong.
I don't trade in old games anymore that I haven't completed because I've not had the time. Seriously I've tried to finish Prey and Fear but new stuff came along and I didn't have time. But I Know theres points out their for finishing those games so i keep them and horde them dreaming of finishing them. My draws are full I've had to give up the boxes and put the disks in Wallets
Then I bought a Wii and RE4. It helped stem my addiction for a fortnight, things got better my wife starting talking to me again, and we even watched a film one night.
Then space Giraffe and Bio shock came out..............I'm a fucking mess
but seriously this gen is costing me a fucking fortune coss i don't trade in games anymore.
).
