I may have become addicted to in game achievements and gamer points. Recently I played some Halo 3 and went on the hunt for the hidden skulls. One skull hidden on each level. The skulls allow the player to modify certain aspects of the game such as having the enemy throw more grenades than you can juggle and turning off things like your motion radar or your HUD entirely. You also get in game achievement points for obtaining these skulls. I have only played a few games on my 360 recently but I’m up to 4000 gamer points now and it’s quite interesting looking back on all the achievements you’ve obtained throughout the different games played. Some of my friends online have in excess of 10000 gamer points or more!.
I think the achievement system is very good for extending a games lifespan, not to mention a great way to boast about what you’ve accomplished in game. It’s certainly made me always choose the hardest difficulty setting now when I start a new game, just so that when I do complete the game, I get all the achievements in regards to difficulty and don’t have to go back and play the whole game again on a different difficulty level. You really have to look at the rewards though to see if it’s worth your time and effort to completing it again. Yes it will look great on your achievements page to have gotten every achievement in the game (which very few people have done) but how many gamer points is it worth. A measly 15 points only, you’re better off playing a different game from scratch and racking up the points from that. At least you’re playing something new and refreshing. However that’s where the reward system differentiates between gamers. You’ll have those who will want nothing but to get as many points as possible regardless and you’ll have those that want to completely and utterly get every achievement in a game. The developers know this and rightfully so have achievements in place that can only be obtained from extensively playing the game. For example Gears of War 2 has an achievement for those who obtain the Veteran rank in online play which I believe is level 100. I’m not sure how experience is obtained, probably through winning games, kills and accomplishing in game objectives but I can no doubt imagine, getting to that rank would require considerable amount of time devoted to the game.
As much as I would love to fully complete the games I play, I can only really say I have ever done this with Super Mario games, mainly Super Mario 64 and the New Super Mario DS. Arguably these are easier to do than some of the more complex games out there, but game developers further draw out their games life span with achievements. Sadly there are no gamer achievements for those Super Mario games but it’s incredibly self-rewarding to have obtained every coin, star and unlocked every secret. I do wonder why Nintendo hasn’t adopted their own in game achievement system. The gamer achievement system on the 360 and the PS3 is notably similar and it’s always gratifying to achieve something in game. I only wish it didn’t require so much “work” and “dedication” to fully complete games these days. I suppose the question really is, does beating the last boss mean you’ve completed a game or does obtaining and doing everything a game has to offer mean you’ve completed a game?
A benefit of in game achievements is that it could introduce new aspects of the game to the player. For example, the Easter egg hunt like achievements in Halo 3 for the skulls brought me to areas of the level I would have never thought of going to. I enjoyed being forced to leave my usual style of gameplay and do something a little different. Not just exploring but in shooters you could get an achievement for a target amount of headshots or doing something as simple as ski diving out of a helicopter and safely landing on the ground. As incredibly simple as those sound I guess some players may just not bother doing certain things in a game that is available to them and in game achievements is a great way of promoting and introducing a different style of play for the player. Which ultimately results in a different experience, hopefully positive.
I went through a brief phase when Trophies were introduced on the PS3 where I wanted to get all the trophies in game. I was about 20 hours into Fallout 3 when the trophy system came out, and I restarted Fallout3 (because the system can't read a save game file and give you achievements, you have to get them from the triggers in the game). AFter beating Fallout3, I was surprised I only had less than half of the trophies!
ReplyDeleteApparently, they want you to play it three times through, as a good, neutral, and bad guy! Ugh! I didn't want to spend anymore time in the wastelands of D.C. after beating the game and putting in nearly 100 hours (not counting the 20 I "lost" by restarting). Frustrated, I moved on to Pixeljunk monsters and tried the first trophy challenge. Those are all ridiculously hard! Again, in frstration, I moved on to Echochrome. The trophies aren't hard, per se, but the puzzles can be, and there are so many, that it's nearly impossible to put up with that gameplay for long enough to get trophies.
Then I pick up a game recently in Harry Potter where they are practically throwing trophies at me for walking around and completing the normal in game missions. Ridiculous, espcially when you pick up silver trophies like that.
So my take on trophies is this: Give the gamers trophies for completing in game missions/levels and beating the game AS A RULE. It makes gamers feel good about pushing forward in a game and hearing that "ding". Then put in optional harder type of trophies for easter egg hunts or weird modes. And sure, make the platinum level trophies obtainable only with multiple playthroughs for the really hard core. Learn from us what is good, and what is bad about trophies.
BTW, I don't care about them so much anymore :P
Maybe if when I was in high school I would have cared about the trophies or achievement points. My main reason for not getting to bothered by them is time. Time always plays a major factor into my gaming. One game I wish had a trophy system for is Mario Galaxy. For some reason I always want to collect all 120 stars.
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