Gamer's Lowdown on Xbox 360 Game AchievementsThe concept of Game Achievements for the upcoming Xbox 360 was something a lot of us were a bit unsure about. How would you earn them, how many would be available per game and would there be anything you could do with them except gloat? The Xbox 360 has seen plenty of great new additions to Xbox Live such as the Gamerscore and the Live Marketplace but the one that seems to be causing the most discussion, and at times, even some controversy would have to be the Game Achievements. For those reading this that have yet to dip into the trust fund and splurge on an Xbox 360 the Game Achievements are rewards offered up by developers for completing particular parts of their games. Each Achievement is worth a certain number of points, that when earned, contribute to your overall Gamerscore (full retail games offer up 1000 possible points and Live Arcade games, 200). They vary greatly but a few that you see, for example in shooters, may be achieved my completing the training mission, each single player mission, completing the game, achieving certain rankings, spending a certain amount of time or hitting a particular rank online.
It’s quite creative and some developers even go to great lengths to give their Achievements funky names, obviously for a bit of a laugh which Hexic HD (eg, Big Cheese of the South Seas for forming a cluster of Black Pearls) is a good example of other developers producing content to merely offer them up for completing each level and simply name the Achievement accordingly. Some are even a bit creepy with Condemned: Criminal Origins rewarding you for collecting dead birds! Obviously the onus is on the developer to do what they like with their 1000 points but there seems to be a bit of a feeling from gamers that some developers aren’t even trying, that many Achievements are too easy, or too hard and then don’t reward you enough. It’s obviously impossible to go into more detail without singling out the developers of a couple of games so if they’re reading this let’s just hope that they appreciate the feedback eh... If we were to give out game awards based on Achievements the ‘Easy Beat’ trophy at this stage would easily go to Fight Night Round 3 would have to be the one game that just about everyone I know that’s played it have been able to complete each of the Achievements. Merely playing through the game on easy over a weekend nets you all 5 awards and a lazy 1000 points. One of the Achievements in Madden NFL 06 is to simply complete a game offline which rewards you 30 points, yet surviving 250,000 points in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved only gives you 10 points for that Achievement. It took me 2 months to get good enough at Geometry Wars to earn that one, yet only 10 minutes in Madden NFL 06 to earn an Achievement worth 3 times the amount of points. The most popular game online recently hasn’t been Perfect Dark Zero, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Project Gotham Racing 3 or Call of Duty 2 but rather a nifty little Live Arcade version of the card game Uno. Day or night you’ll be able to track down a game of Uno underway and it’s incredibly fun. The only criticism gamers seem to be making is that the Achievements are extremely easy and don’t reward long term play. The only ones offering up any sort of challenge are Devotee (for winning 40 games) and Uno Shark (win 10 games online with 4 players) awards. As an example of how easy some Achievements can be, in Uno you’re rewarded with the Twister award simply by playing 40 reverse cards. Of course this is all just my own views and opinions towards the Achievements are totally subjective. Many of you may argue that keeping 500 points for the Challenges mode in 2006 FIFA World Cup enhances the replay value of the game. Many of you may argue that awarding you 15 points in Uno simply by playing cards that you’re dealt makes it easy for everyone to join in the fun. On the flip side, in the case of Uno, you could also argue that the Achievements are being deliberately made easy so that the Xbox Live Marketplace items become even more of an impulse buy and a way to simply purchase Achievements. Or is Uno easier because it’s aimed at families or is Geometry Wars harder because of its appeal to ‘Old School’ arcade fans that used to be able to make 20 cents on Galaga last 3 hours? You might agree, you might disagree with me but at the least I think it’s something that definitely needs to be discussed and shared with the developers. It’s great to be rewarded, and that little flashing ‘Achievement Unlocked’ alert is extremely satisfying so let’s hope that the obvious creativity that goes into making games spills over into the Achievements even more often in the future. Oh and if you ever unlock that Ghost Recon Achievement for number 1 player in the world, be sure to let me know, now that would be some seriously well earnt points. Spagman |
