Six months ago, I finally took the plunge into the new generation of consoles and bought myself an XBox 360. A new feature to gaming has been introduced since my Gamecube days -- Achievements (XBox 360) and Trophies (Playstation 3) -- which are basically meant to give players bragging rights and to compare games played with friends. I don't have a Playstation, so fuck Trophies. I'll just be talking about achievements.
Achievements (which really couldn't be more of a misnomer) can be earned in different ways: for simply advancing through stages of a game, for reaching a stats threshold, or for doing some action that is obscure and/or inane. No matter what the condition met, I love hearing the "Bwop!" when a new achievement is unlocked. I don't know why, I just find it satisfying. Not an accomplishment per se, as that would be fucking sad, but it does add to the fun. It's sorta reminiscent of that feeling when you get the top score on an arcade machine and get to put your initials in. It's a permanent record of games that were conquered. However, it's gotten to the point that the promise of achievements are herding my actions.
Two shameful examples.
1) There's a free game on Live called Dash of Destruction. It's a poorly programmed Doritos commercial that's not at all fun. I played it for about an hour and a half because the achievements were easy to unlock. So I guess I'm not just an achievement whore, I'm also a corporate whore.
2) I'm currently playing the RPG Dragon Age, a game that offers an amazing number of difficult choices. One of those choices is whether or not to seduce a bisexual elf and then sleep with him. Well, I did it... for 10 achievement points. And 10 points ain't much. In real-life terms, that's the equivalent of a $2 crack ho. And the game didn't let me off easy with a suggestive fade to black. This is some Six Feet Under shit right here. Share my degradation. The game really rubbed my nose in it (and by "it," I mean an elf's taint).
But I think Dragon Age may have cured me of my whorish ways. It scared me straight by making me totally gay. From now on, the only achievements I'll be... uh... achieving will be incidental ones while I'm racking up head shots. Fuck yeah!!
(Goodbye, sweet Zevran...)
Here's an ign blog that talks about the same subject, and has an interesting example of an achievement for pricks found in Halo: ODST.
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