So, this time I thought I'd try and raise the tone a little and talk about something the xbox does better than the wii. No, I'm still not talking about graphics and I NEVER WILL BE. Today I want to talk a little about achievements.
Now, it has to be said that the major reason the xbox does this sort of thing better than the wii is that the wii doesn't do it all. And indeed there's no particular reason why it should. But Achievements have become an important part of the gaming experience since they were introduced. And they can be a powerful tool when used right.
When it comes right down to it the whole gamerscore thing is basically another e-peen dick measuring contest, and when it comes down to it about as vacuously empty as accumulating facebook friends you've never met. Some people like that sort of thing for some reason, and good luck to them. But it's not really all that interesting to me. Well, perhaps I should say I don't find it INVOLVING. It was uninteresting I wouldn't be about to launch into a paragraph on the subject.
See, gamerscore and achievements, whilst obviously related are pretty radically different things. Sure, you unlock achievements and you get gamerscore. But what does having a high gamerscore actually MEAN? Well, nothing. Let me give you an example. I have a friend with a higher gamerscore of 8000 and something. I currently have a score of about 7000. Does that mean that I'm not as good as her, or just that she's played xbox longer than me. Her score comes from around 80 games (apparently) and mine from 20. Now does that mean I'm a better player than her, or that she's simply got a broader experience of the medium? Or maybe I've just been spending an awful lot of time playing Halo whilst she's been off having an actual life.
You can get a high sounding gamerscore from doing pretty much anything. Just borrow a whole bunch of awful games that give a few hundred points for little effort or involvement. Or a handful of mind numbingly similar games that you happen to be good at. I mean, there's enough bloody sequels of shitty looking FPS games that you could spend a year without even LOOKING at another genre. Whatever way you look at it the final gamerscore number is pretty meh.
But I think that the achievements themselves have a lot more potential for interest. At least when they're handled well. The ideal achievements are like mix between hint and encouragement. The inherent reward mechanism motivates the player, but also gives pointers towards interesting or different play opportunities in the game. The nadir of course is a depressing slew of meaningless grind and soul shattering arbitrariness.
Achievements can commonly be broken up into different categories. Depending on disposition, philosophy and goals these may vary somewhat from person to person. But here's how I like to think of them.
First and most obvious are the Progress achievements. These are the ones that pop whenever you complete a level or defeat a boss or whatever. Not particularly related to difficulty or play style. Just the little dings you get along the path to completion that let you know you're making progress.
If we're talking about stuff related to difficulty though we're probably thinking about Challenge style achievements. These are the ones that are meant to be, somewhat obviously, challenging. Defeat the final boss is a Progress style achievement. Defeat the final boss without using any health packs, standing on one leg, blindfold and dressed as a nun? That's a challenge.
This leads into the Cool Stuff type achievement. These are the ones put in to encourage you to try new things or look at parts of the game you might otherwise gloss over. Pointing the player towards new and interesting methods of play. Often this sort of thing will sit somewhere between the Challenge and, sadly, the final and most lamentable category.
Grind. We all know what this is. It's the one that rewards you for doing the same thing over and over again. Now, to be fair Grind isn't always a bad thing. It depends on a number of other factors. Mainly of course how fun that particular activity is. After all, if there's a particular special move you really like chances are you'll do it a lot. And you may well get a little smile when an achievement pops up letting you know exactly how many hundred minions you've dispatched with it. On the flip side though it could go all World Of Warcraft on you.
Obviously there is a degree of overlap between all these. Grind overlaps with Progress if the achievement is just about doing something about the number of times you would reasonably be expected to do it in the course of the game. Progress and Challenge overlap on the various difficulty settings. They can all overlap if you have to kill a particular number of a particular bad guy in a particular way on a particular level. The most important thing is that there is a good mix of these qualities.
Well, to be honest the most important thing is that the game itself is fun to play. If you don't enjoy the game then you're hardly going to worry about unlocking anything for it. Except maybe the "Traded It In" Achievement.
But if the game itself is decent then a good mix of achievements can add a new dimension and a shit ton of replay value. They can give the player a whole slew of new objectives outside of "Well, I guess I'll play a bit of that again". They can hook you in and make you think "Maybe I'll try doing that one".
Obviously games can do something like this on their own anyway, by having various secret extras and what have you. But the advantage of the achievement system isn't just that it gives a sort of universal currency for this sort of thing, but that it's made it MANDATORY. Every game that ships for the xbox has an amount of points that it is required to give out. And in the best cases this results in an entertaining and imaginative application of achievements.
Of course, not all games are like that. Let me give you an example.
Enchanted Arms is one of the first xbox games I bought. And it's a fun game in it's own way. I really got into it. But the achievements on it were all Progress related. Each and every one was linked to a boss battle, and all you need to do to get 100% is just play the game straight through. Why is this a problem? Well, because that's not all you can do in the game. There are weapons and skills to be bought and upgraded. There are Golems to be captured and synthesised. There is a large, ridiculously hard side area to complete. Hell, there's even a casino to gamble in. But your 100% completion can ignore ALL of these things. And achievements shine, as I said, when they're prodding the player into the full experience. To be honest I think that on this particular game the concept wasn't explained very well to the developers. Quite possibly it wasn't properly translated. It just feels like someone said to them that they had this many achievement slots to fill and it had to add up to this many total points and they were all like "'kay?". I mean, it's not even like it's every boss that gives you an achievement. There are a bunch of random ones that don't give you anything, whilst there are a few areas where you fight a few mini bosses in quick succession and get an achievement for each one.
It's a fun game, but purely in terms of the achievements it feels pretty disappointing.
On the other hand look at something like Halo Anniversary. I'm nowhere near 100% on that, and probably never will be. But it has a whole bunch of achievements to get you replaying different levels in different ways on different difficulty settings. Had it not been for that I doubt I'd even have looked at any difficulty higher than normal. But they sneak in something like "Complete the level “Pillar of Autumn” on Legendary without picking up an Overshield." and you think yeah, I could try that. Next thing you know you've got half the skulls turned on, sneaking around on maximum difficulty trying to shoot everything in the head with the pistol. Because if it notices you you're going to fucking DIE. You're playing the game in a different way.
Now, the other thing that needs to be addressed is that of 100%ing things. Because for some people that's a big deal. Now, I have to say that percentage is a lot more useful than just gamerscore, but it's still not the be all and end all. Now if you can get 100% on a game then good for you. It's not something to be dismissed. But neither should there be any stigma attached to NOT doing that. The important thing is to not let the achievements become the sole reason to be playing.They are the carrot, not the stick. There are achievements on games I love that I know I'll never have a hope in hell of getting. But that's fine. I mean, if at least some of them weren't properly bastard hard would it even be worth referring to them as achievements? By all means have a go. But if you're finding the process of getting the achievement in question dull or frustrating, why bother? We are meant to be here to have fun after all.
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