Let me get this out of the way first, I think achievement points are a great idea
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Having said that, I think that they're greatly flawed.
No, that's wrong. I don't think that. There's nothing wrong with achievement points. The problem lies with the developers (I assume that the task of assigning achievement points falls on the developers) or whoever sits down in a meeting and says, right, the topic of the day today, achievements in our new game.
Gamer points, in my opinion, are HORRIBLY imbalanced from game to game. I know people who rent games solely for gamer points. What? What did I miss, where somebody's prepared to spend five hours and five pounds to have a few hundred more gamer points on your profile? I read somewhere that the highest gamer score is around 150,000. While browsing through gamefaq-esque sites called xbox360achivements.com or something like that, I noticed somebody who had a sig linking to a page where they listed every game they had 1000 gamer points on, the date they 100%'d it, and how long it took them.
And now the gaming community is creaming its pants because the new Avatar game lets you get 1000 gamer points in 3 minutes? Well fuck that. If I'm looking at your gamer card and you have lots of gamer points, but then I look at your games and see Avatar there, I'm not going to think you're more of a man, you're more of a gamer, all you are in my eyes is more of a fool. A friend came round for a few beers and a gaming night, we went down to blockbuster to try and find a split-screen co-op game, in the end we chose Fantastic Four, because Blockbusters choice was shockingly limited. In one evening I racked up around 400 gamer points, and then in the next day I gained a further 200 or so (some mysterious glitch wiped all but 40 of them from my profile the next week, which is both a shame and not a shame, see my next paragraph.).
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Anyway, that's enough ranting about people who are obsessed with gamerpoints, partly because if I go any further it'll be hugely hypocritical, rendering this whole rant largely a waste of time. I have (over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND) gamer points, and I do have times when I look at my gamer card and think "Right, what gamer points can I get today?".
I thoroughly enjoy seeing that message at the bottom of the screen and hearing that customary 'boop' sound that signifies that I have unlocked an achievement.
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So this brings me on to thhe second part of my rant, which is aimed at the people who decide what gamer points to have. This new Avatar game is a good and relevant example. There are 4 or so achievements, each one is for performing an X move combo, which you just hold/tap B on the first level to get all four. At what point did the developers think that they would be a good idea for ALL the achievement points to be assigned to? For something that they must have, at some point, realised is easily achieveable within the first level. And they don't give any for say, completing the game? Moving neatly on from that, the next game that's oft-discussed in reference to gamer score is King Kong, where playing through the game once nets you 1000 gamer points, with no achievements for doing extras or going beyond the call of duty or anything. And that brings me neatly onto the next game. Call of Duty 4. The achievements are good in CoD4. There are the generic "Completed level" achievements, but they're given snappy names and descriptions that you could let out a silent chuckle to, plus there are the extra achievements that don't have much relevance in-game, but are just neat to see acknowledged. On the level that's in the demo, (MIDDLE EAST CAPITAL CITY at night, where you fight your way to the tank in the bog) at one point you and a guy go up the stairs, and he's killed in a scripted thing. But, if you rush ahead of him and kill his would be assailant, you get an achievement for something that has no game consequence. I really enjoy seeing achievements that have been given some thought, they're extras and they know it. Anyway, CoD4. It's a swell game, and arguably, 75% of the game IS the highly tuned, well-refined multiplayer. So why have the entirety of the gamer points, to my knowledge, distributed among the single player levels? It makes the multiplayer seem tacked on in a way, which it is anything but. It makes the game seem like it's living a bit of a half life. Following on from that, Half Life 2: Orange Box. Is five games in one, If you actually look at it, I'd say 2.5 is a closer approximation. Yet you only get 1000 points. This makes each achievement feel largely insignificant compared to other games, when, for example, you get mere pittance in gamer points when you make it through Ravenholm without firing any gun (just using your gravity gun), fighting off hordes and hordes of ravaging zombies. On the matter of ravaging zombies, there is the Xbox 360 classic, Dead Rising. There are 50 excellent achievements on this game, nearly all for either completion of tasks (e.g. completing the game), collecting (eg trying on all the clothes), others (e.g. taking photos of a lot of zombies), and some plain insane ones (FUCK YOU OTIS I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO ALL YOUR CALLS YOU USELESS SACK OF SHIT >:(). So why am I complaining? I think the mix of easy, hard, obvious, cryptic, and amusing achievements is excellent in Dead Rising. But each one gives you twenty experience points. TWENTY. In Viva Piñata I'm given 20 achievement points for RENAMING A FUCKING PIÑATA, and in Dead Rising, I'm given twenty points for surviving for seven days, that's FOURTEEN HOURS OF SITTING AROUND WATCHING MY HEALTH BE SAPPED INTO OBLIVION. Thanks a fucking load, Capcom. So, when discussing oblivion, it is only right to mention Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. An incredible game, one of the greatest games on the Xbox 360 (indeed, according to GameRankings, the fourth best game on the Xbox 360). However, the achievements seem to have had very little thought put into them. They are ALL attainable through the main quest, the Thieves Guild, Assassins Guild, Fighters Guild, and Mages guild quests. That doesn't sound so bad, however, this is a game of infinite possibilities. There are literally thousands of locations that can only be found by exploring the game area, but you never get achievements for say, discovering 50% of these. There are dozens of extra quests that reward you with gold, an enchanted ring, a sword, a new spell, whatever. There are no achievements for completing all of these official side quests. There are the Daedric Shrines, no achievements for them. I could go on and on. None of these have achievements, and do you know what? When I hit 1000 gamerpoints on Oblivion (the only game I have managed to do so on), I put down the game. I had completed a good deal of these side quests and found a great deal of these discoveries, but I lost an impetus to continue after reaching that great milestone.
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So, what is there to do? Well, not a lot, the achievements for the games I have listed so far will almost certainly not change, and I'll still boot up my Xbox every now and then thinking "I am going to spend a length of time on a game pursuing a single achievement", and then I'll do so, and I'll enjoy it. Gamer points are infectious, they are one of the big success stories of the xbox, and they undoubtedly improve any game, be it through simply making a game more interesting to play through, making a dull game more enticing when you walk into Blockbuster, or simply adding replayability to a game and adding a reason to collect hidden Easter egg collectables like orbs in Crackdown and flags in Assassin's Creed. No, they'll never be perfect, there'll never be a game with perfect achievements, but what can I do? Sometimes I suppose I just have to sit back, relax, and appreciate that life goes on. And as this rant draws to a close, I have just finished completing the mundane task of collecting every flag in Masyaf. Why? I had picked them up previously as I had seen them, so that I had 15/20, so I spent a good portion of my time simply finding each of these flags. Why? Achievements. Prestige.
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/endrant.
