Why Achievements Are Awesome!
SmellyGeekBoy
Mummy Will Be So Proud!
Aaah… Achievements. Something my good friend and fellow blogger OwningXylophone knows a lot about, as he recently got more of them than anyone else in a competition he was taking part in, and ended up winning an assload of stuff. Achievements can be good because they can win you prizes, you see.
But they have the Xbox 360 community divided. Some are classed as “achievement whores”, social outcasts who spend every waking moment grinding away on the most ridiculous of tasks, only to be rewarded with an achievement and a slight gamerscore increase for their trouble. Others shun this way of life, playing as many games as possible from beginning to end while their “completion percentage” whittles away to nothing.
I’m firmly in the middle, although I have to admit that just lately I’ve been swaying more towards the “whore” way of life. Here’s why.
You see, all modern games have a story of some sort. You progress through it, passing various milestones along the way, until you reach the end. It is at this point when, on other systems without the achievement scheme, you put the box back on the shelf and move on to the next game. But not on the 360, oh no. Not if you’re a big dirty whore.
There are so many “ancilliary” things to do in modern games that the vast majority of people miss out on all the fun that could be had because they’re too busy concentrating on the story. Whether it be driving at 88mph in a thunderstorm in a DeLorean (PGR4), completing a level in a stupidly short amount of time (Sonic The Hedgehog, Zuma), or even launching a garden gnome into space (The Orange Box), game developers are now using achievements to encourage gamers to notice all the silly little things that kept them sane throughtout their game’s development cycle.
So, why did I bother completing Half-Life 2: Episode 2 with garden gnome in hand? Why am I taking part in some of the more ridiculously long rallies in DiRT even though I finished the career long ago? And why, oh why did I set up a race with my aforementioned fellow blogger in PGR4 just to do synchronised endos on motorbikes? Because the people who made the games thought that these things would be fun for me to do. And if they want me to keep playing my games long after I traditionally would have given up, squeezing every last drop value out of them, then I’ll keep on achievement whoring until I can whore no more!
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Update
Hello Kotaku readers! 
I’d have to say I’m kind of neither. I have a lot of games as we all know, most of them I haven’t completed yet. though I won’t go out of my way to get an achievement unless its worth having and I certainly don’t care about my percentage. I prefer just to play through the story from start to finish and that’s enough to keep me happy.
That’s strictly old-skool. Good stuff.
You should play Dead Rising sometime. Those acheivements are brutal. Transmissionary, anyone?
I played it! And I had a go at transmissionary once but missed one and got fed up with it. Never again!
Props to the people who have got it, though.
I am all for whoring, the only achievements i never do is “find all” achievements. After wasting hours on cracking down looking for those orbs from hell (missing 2 green ones). Even the great GTA4 had the annoying 200 pigeons achievements
That kind of grind is just not fun.
Haven’t even started on the pigeon achievement. The only “whoring” achievement I think I have is the COG tag one from GoW - I was missing two after the first playthrough, so I went and looked up their locations online and was sure to grab them when I played through again on insane.
Totally agreed on Crackdown, although I know my fellow teabagger OX has one of the orb achievements.
So Avatar and Multiplayer Perfect Dark achievements don’t count as whoring achievements?
Avatar achievements are “not letting Tim beat me” achievements! Surely you can understand the importance of that!?
Hello Dr. Nick!
I think its neither here nor there to be honest, Great games, as been said; GTA4, PGR4, HL2 etc they can help show lil cool things that can make you apriciate the game a tincy *lil* bit more, as for stupid ‘collect x ammount of y’ stuff may seem stupid but I suppose if your really /that/ bored it could kill a few hours.
Its all down to the individual really
I dont like them.
they are a waste of time.
And playing games generally isn’t?
It raises an interesting question: should one differentiate a “casual” achievement whore from a “hardcore” achievement whore? You know, someone who goes after achievements not for the sake of attaining perfection, but more for shits and giggles?
Ohh man,
This is the best…my friend always calls me an achievement whore. I’m such a whore that I rented NBA 2k6 and College Hoops 2K6 just for easy achievements (thats a little too far). I totally agree that it adds more gameplay to games that would otherwise just collect dust. I feel that the achievements also reflect your level of gaming expertise also (beat COD 4 on veteran, hardcore!). If I’m adding new friends from online games and they can’t even get some of the easy of achievements they seem almost lazy, or they just suck. I am such a WHORE! Avatar FTW!…..
ohh, and add me if you get a chance, gamertag - Construc
Later
LOL… Avatar. I like your style.
I love the achievement points! I find it hard playing my DS or Wii, because they don’t have achievement points. The only thing I wish is that Xbox would throw you a bone or something! Buying and playing all these games, spending loads of cash and wasting tons of time. We should be able to trade them in for Microsoft points - or just a point rewarding system - for every 1,000 i get 100 Ms points. That would be worth it.
Damn achievements…..
I love them….I admit it.
Being an old school gamer….I can’t help but want a higher score……
Achievements are a genius invention for modern gaming…….it does make you play your games more and in ways you wouldn’t have expected.
Insidious as they can be……you can’t help but love them.