Is It All Down To The Gamerscore?
by Rob
Achievement Unlocked: Facepalming How Shit Your American Accent Is - 50g
When I first got my 360 and played Halo 3, I was blown away by the graphics and just the sheer awesomeness of the game. I’ll probably say this time and time again, but I am a sucker for first person shooter games. When I completed the first mission I remember a bar appearing on the screen saying “Achievement Unlocked: Landfall – 20G”. For a second I thought I unlocked a huge mega prize, so I looked under all the Halo menus but couldn’t find a thing. Then I returned to the dashboard and noticed the number next to my name had gone up to 20. This was my first experience with achievements and I look back at it now and just… facepalm.
Ever since then I have been one of these guys who likes to get achievements. Sometimes I will try and get some of the hardest, other times I will just play through the game and be happy that I had unlocked a ton of achievements simply by playing the thing. I’ll admit I am pretty happy with my gamerscore but what I don’t understand is the small section of the gaming public out there who just buy games for the sake of the ‘easy achievements’. I remember being in an Xbox LIVE party at one time, and one of my mates said, “Oh I just bought Lost, King Kong and Avatar”. I questioned these strange purchases because, let’s face it, the games aren’t really your run of the mill classic must-buys. Turns out he bought them for the easy achievements and was gonna trade them in about a week or so later.
Is that what gaming is about nowadays? Buying games just for the sake of a number next to your name? I know I am one to talk but why oh why would people buy games that they aren’t interested in for the sake of their gamerscore/trophy collection?
To me the introduction of a gamerscore and achievements is both a good and quite bad idea. Good for the competitive streak in people, as they can have a laugh and just blow raspberries at each other if they have a bigger score. Then there is the bad, this whole achievement malarkey has, of course, set off the crowd of gamers who call themselves “hardcore gamers”. If you delve into the Plus XP archive you will come across a post I added a fair while back about my views of these so called “hardcore gamers”. These guys have now taken their gamer score and started bragging, flaming and just being downright gits about it all. Who in their right mind would judge someone’s gaming ability just because they have a smaller score than them. I could go off on a year long rant about this but it would probably bore you to tears. A good thing about the achievements is for completionists out there. Ever since the dawn of games there have been crowd of people who, when they get a game, must squeeze every gaming nugget out of it. Achievements help these people and that’s another reason that I do admire them.
Even your typical pervy game designer can't make Evangeline Lilly look hot.
So let’s get back on track now, taking into consideration the fact that there are gamers out there who buy games just for the sake of the achievements. Was this Microsoft’s clever idea of helping publishers out by shifting units of their not so great games? Probably another silly theory of mine, but if the achievements are easy to get, then surely gamers who love achievements, or “achievement whores” as they are more commonly known, would buy them? Therefore shifting more units, and more money for developers and publishers. I mean look at the Avatar game; getting 1000 out of 1000 gamerscore in the first five minutes of the game? Surely they must have been thinking that this was a cunning plan to get more units out over time?
With all that said, achievements, trophies and gamerscores are a bit Jekyll and Hyde really. They can make people grin when they are unlocked, but can turn a select few quite nasty when it feeds their ego a little too much. For me they are just a nice addition and, when I feel like it, which I sometimes do… help me try and complete every single thing in a game.
Looking at my gamerscore, thats quite rare!
Last five articles by Rob
- Do Games Need A Reboot?
- What Makes A Good Fighter?
- Golden Joystick Awards 2010
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Is It All Down To The Gamerscore?
I am The Rook… and I am a gamerscore whore.
I do enjoy unlocking achievements and try to get as many as I can out of a game but I have never bought a game just to get easy achievement points, I do have the 1000 points from Lost but I bought the game because I enjoyed the show and wanted to play the game. I bought it on release day, so before I knew how easily the points flowed.
My gamerscore is quite high but it’s that way because I enjoy playing games, if it’s higher than someone else’s then that’s just the way it is. I’ve never played to beat someone’s gamerscore, I play because I enjoy games and unlocking achievements has given more playtime from those games.
The more I play, I get the feeling that I won’t be a gamer for very much longer. I remember when I had my Xbox 1 and thinking that towards the end of its lifespan, that I had done everything, seen everything and experienced every type of game that there is. Videogaming in itself is an exercise in repetition. I mean, how many cars can you drive in a circuit before you can’t be arsed? How many times can you save the princess, before you say, “Fuck it, become a republic”? How many times can you save the universe before you decide it is just an inevitability?
That’s how I felt years back, but my achievement addiction gave my gaming the kiss of life. But now? We shall see. If nothing else, achievements are responsible for me still being a gamer.
All I hope is that the day I switch off my console for the last time is still a long way off.
Having slight OCD is a nightmare with achievements. Out of the 40 something games I have listed on my xbox at least 20 are 1000/1000. It’s not the final score that attracts me, rather the individual completion of each game. It nags at the back of my mind if a game I really enjoy is listed in my library as 93% complete.
Often some achievements are either near impossible or completely arbitrary, but I still try if it’s a great game. There is a sense of accomplishment from getting a 1000/1000 score as often it means you have done pretty much everything that game has to offer and you can try a new challenge. Even before Xbox I was really obsessive about getting 100% in games like GTA and Resident Evil.
There are some games that I have resigned myself to never getting 1000/1000 and it still irks me, such a Left for Dead 2 and GTA4. I really hate multiplayer achievements as there are too many variables that are often out of your control or that the community is just dead.
Achievements are and should be a bonus, and a means of getting more mileage out of a good game. They should never be the sole reason to play a game. I truly think that those termed as “Achievement Whores” will ultimately become disenfranchised with gaming. They need to take a step back and look at why they game in the first place. Surely, gaming is about escapism, fun and excitement? Not grinding through mediocrity to increase an arbitrary number next to their Gamertag. Achievement whores should also remember that one day Microsoft will hit the off switch, and that treasured high gamerscore will vanish into the ether. When that happens tell me this. Will playing Hannah sodding Montana have really been worth it?
I’m an achievement whore.
I have Lost and King Kong on my game list, I can admit that. But that’s because I got King King with the 360, and I actually enjoyed Lost the tv show, and got the game on it’s release day (before trading it in the next day).
I will always try to max out what game I’m playing (currently Lego Harry Potter)(Thanks GL), but sometimes I look at the achievement list and think ‘I will never be able to do that one without becoming extremely frustrated and swearing alot”, so I don’t even try. Sometimes I’ll get said achievement without even realising I was attempting to.
And most times I will actively hunt for certain achievements… The Halo Skulls, Biotic power usage in Mass Effect, etc etc
And these hunted achievements are the reason why I replay games.
If it weren’t for the 100% achievement, there’d be no way in hell I’d be replaying Lego Harry Potters levels over and over and over again… Bloody Dumbledore is 1,000,000 studs for crying out loud… I’ve never even gotten close to that amount before I cave in and spend them on useless characters and cheats.
I think achievements are a brilliant addition to a game, if used to their full potential… Go out and hunt them… Don’t get all 1000gp just for completing the game… Give us a challenge!
I’m a selective whore, I suppose. I really don’t care about achievements, and care less about my gamerscore than I do achievements… which really is saying something! Having said that, however, I DO like to completely max out a game if I really enjoy it but I’ve only done it four times so far.. Oblivion (main game), Two Worlds, Risen (PC, so nothing to show for it) and Borderlands (main game). To pick up all the achievements for Fallout 3 would mean having to replay the game through twice to pick up the two more “neutral” and “evil” achievements… and I really don’t have the time anymore so that will likely have to remain as is for the forseeable future.
The Two Worlds 100% completion was the hardest achievement I’ve ever picked up, and took a couple of weeks of wandering around the map crossing every single location off (underground and above ground) so I could get the famed “Visit all locations” bleep. I enjoyed Two Worlds immensely though, so it was more fun and less of a grind than expected. My next 100% shots will be General Knoxx, Mad Moxxi and Dr Ned in Borderlands… only one more to go for Knoxx.
I have to admit though, while I understand WHY they created achievements… to prolong the enjoyment and give you something to aim for… I much preferred the in-game trophies in Borderlands to the actual achievements. They were much more fun to obtain and I actively pursued a lot more of those than I would regular XBox achievements.
My take on them is very similar to Jimmy’s. I like having games complete and it always gets under my skin when there is a game on my tag which I know will never be maxed out, such as GTA4 thanks to the stupid multiplayer achievements, or more specifically – Auf Weidersehen Petrovic. I also hate MP achievements, mainly because I’m largely a solitary gamer and dislike the thought of running into some of *those* arseholes in a multiplayer lobby. The trend of shoehorning multiplayer modes and achievements into games that don’t need them and should never have them frustrates and angers me in equal measure. Overlord? Dark Sector? Really? FFS.
When all is said and done though, there is an element of satisfaction which comes with achievements. The score I am not fussed about, it is a meaningless number really, the achievements themselves, however, I enjoy. I like the innovative or quirky ones, the ones which make you play a different way than you usually would or explore more of a game world which you would otherwise have ignored. In the past I have breezed through games or simply abandoned them, now, through picking up achievments in the games that I love, I have whole new level of understanding and appreciation and that can only ever be a good thing.
I am deeply offended that you think houses accent is shit, i fink youll find its the shniz, GL youve gone down in my opinion and im not mad im just disappointed…
kthxbai
I wrote a thing like this once. http://www.peoww.co.uk/achievements-whore-the-origin-of-the-species/
There’s only one really bad thing about achievement whores and that’s the fucking whiney piece of shit forum pedants who object to it. I don’t object to people collecting every PAL Saturn game or cosplayers (okay maybe a little). It’s just gaming after all. I choose to do mine with one eye on the area of the screen where the achievements pop.
Achievements have benefits though. Certainly in terms of getting value for money out of your games. Also I would never have 1CCd something like Contra without them.
They have their place in time and space. I think they make excellent ‘additional’ challenges when done right and can have so people postulating for weeks and weeks on how best to solve it. I loved the intial belting of ‘Vidmaster’ challenges in Halo 3. Getting some friends together, replaying a mission you’ve done plenty of times but asking you all to club together and do it differently, on the hardest diffuclty with absolute punishment for death and 0gs reward. The absolute most ridiculous gamerscore challenge that gave nothing, asked for everything and was bloody fantastic to pull off.
I’ve got some shockers on my card, lots of early sports games -yes Avatar- and one or two others. I think it can work both ways, score-whoring. Yes, you’re being quite odd in playing a game just to max out a meaningless score but on the other hand, you are actually playing these games.
A friend of mine gave me his copy of Viking on the 360. He said that it was pretty easy 1000g and not having anything better to do, I played it. What he actually meant by easy 1000g was that the game didn’t ever really ask you do anything out of the ordinary to get the gamerscore, this was still a solid 8-10 hour title and I really enjoyed it :D. I know that kind of goes against what I mentioned previously about games setting you a random task but I was actually driven to see the game through to it’s end and thats surely a commendable side effect.
Bravo Rob
I don’t really whore. I go for achievements I know I can achieve, but if I don’t succeed, its not a big bother, and I won’t spend hours trying for something I don’t think I can achieve. It has to be natural to the game and keep me enjoying it, rather than having to take me out of the game in frustration or for extended periods, or to make me enjoy the game less by having to play in a certain way.
Great job, Rob
I don’t much care about achievements at all… baffles me why anyone would play something that even they consider to be bad, just to make a number next to their tag go higher. If achievements actually meant something (ie, didn’t unlock in some games just for loading the game disk and not skipping the opening video, as Soul Calibur IV does I believe) I might be more inclined to seeing some worth in them. As it stands, it seems a little like a good idea that was destroyed by the act of making it obligatory of developers on the system to include them. Grasping at straws isn’t in it, a lot of the time… some of these so-called achievements are ridiculous. Either through simplicity or sadism.
At least for some people, the answer to your question of whether this is what gaming is about nowadays is “no”. People do have the option to ignore them if they want, and find their motivation for a game the old fashioned ways. Even if they make it harder to, by popping up in the middle of cutscenes, heh.
Well I have only maxed out 2 games in my life, One is Portal still alive which is understandable, and the other is Dash Of Destruction. I must admit the last one is a bit of a score whore game, to be honest I don’t know what came over me :p
Dash of Destruction is a great example
The game was so deliberate in that you were going to get 200gs just for playing it, they were so candid with that throughout the game that it was really funny. I think when you get to the end doesn’t it say something like “Right , you got your 200 points now sod off?”. But we still played it because it was stupidly fun
It wasn’t particularly imaginative but it was one of those things where if you saw your mate play it on his, than you wouldn’t feel inclined to go and play it on yours (in a world without achievements) because you’d seen everything the game had to offer over the first 2 levels. But when you actually sit down to play it yourself, you’re very much like hey! I quite like this, this is fun 
Without achievements, that game would never have existed, Dorito’s would have spent their marketing money differently but because there was an unexplored avenue here, they went for it 
Lovely 
As dark as some games can be with Cheeves, the games that ARE rubbish (no if’s no buts Vic
) but are incredibly easy to get score from just shouldn’t exist full stop, they should never have been greenlit by the publishers. But then are occasions where they are so inviting and ask players to come and have a go and they help everything along. Half Life 2 is a good example of that. I’d never have played Half Life 2 on the Xbox having ran it so many times on PC but Orange Box gave it achievements which was Valves way of taunting me in, “So you think you’re good eh? Completed the game on al difficulties eh? Well how about trying this?”. Brilliant!
Ive never quite understood the achievements collection thing personally – whilst its nice to see the bar flash up during a game, I wouldnt go back to a game once completed to ensure that the gamescore is as high as it could have been..
Then again, I get so bored with games once i find it difficult that I rarely complete a game and get the full gamescore available!
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