Achievements Poll.

[Stewart]

Following on from this thread GTA IV confirmed for PC ? specfically the discussion between me and Revol half way down the first page, what do we think of achievements?

My position is that if you don't like them, you pay them no attention and they don't have any negative effect on your gaming, if you do like them, they add a level of fun to your gaming, and extend the lifetime of the game.

I think this is a pretty sound position, and most 360 (and PS3 peeps with your version) owners are positive towords achievements.

Lets see.

If you like them, vote Good.
If, for whatever reason, they detract from your gaming experience, vote Bad.
If they have made no difference to you, vote Not Interested.

Its a public poll.

If you have a PS3, then change 'achievements' to 'medals' and vote accordingly.

[tigerboyce]

Love them, generally i tend to not pay too much attention to them when going through a game for the first time, but once i have completed it going through gaining some achievements is really fun.

Its just the challenge element I like, and gaining a reward for the input needed is great.

[Trash Man]

Love them

For me they add a great deal of playability to games in the fact that they encourage me to play through a game more than once and get more value from games. Take GTA4 for instance, I've finished the main story in the game and I'm now going through all the side missions and things to do, purely to get the achievement points. If there was no such thing as achievement points then I would have stopped playing once I had finished the main game.

If I don't like the game though I won't play it just for the points.

[Stewart]

I should say, by the way, I already know achievements are wildly popular with 360 owners, and I suppose the medals system is with PS3 owners, who will enjoy filling up their vitrual trophy rooms on Home as much as we enjoy getting 1000\1000, 200\200 on games.

Still, doesn't hurt to confirm it.

[TAKTAK]

i used to like them until i got rid of my 360, they just added an extra dimension to the game...

[directhex]

they're a real help for getting the "full" value out of a game, by encouraging you to play past the final boss

[Trash Man]

Am I right in thinking there is also some sort of medal system coming to the 360?

[N3il]

I like them, definately add a little extra to the game for me..

Depends a little on the game too. Recently played dark sector and i have to be honest the achievements didnt really factor in there for me. They just popped up every now and then..

[revol68]

In alot of games they are fine, games that are score based or meant to be played over and over again but in narrative driven games they jar somewhat with me, creating an unnecassary break in your immersion to tell you that a metaphysical entity enitrely outside the games characters and universe has decided to bestow something upon you for a reason that has no relevance to the narrative or the characters within it. To me they reek of a lack of imagination and their proliferation throughout more and more story driven games represents at best sideways step in gaming, a bare utilitarian courtesy to adding more replayability value to games, that should be unnecessary in top quality games eg MGS, Deus Ex and HalfLife or if implemented should be done in a much more interesting imaginative manner that fits with the actual world and narrative you are playing within.

[Stewart]

One point about them - they do make people play piles of crap they wouldn't normally touch with a barge poll.

Personally I only play games that I like and I think are good, and although I like achievements, I wouldn't have some crap like Avatar: The Last Airbender, or some NBA game on my GamerCard, just because you can get 1000 points quickly.

If there is a negative with achievements, its people who collect them, and play utter tosh just to get the points. You wouldn't have looked at these quality of games on any previous console, and really, no-one is going to think you are 'cool' for having a lot of achievement points, are they?

You can say 'I have no taste' with your gamertag, by clogging it up with rubbish, but you can't say 'I iz cool' by having 19 billion points.

[Trash Man]

Originally Posted by revol68

I wouldn't know about that cos I would never touch a crap game for something like points. There is however a problem in multiplayer achievements when your teammates are too busy trying to unlock this and that achievement than actually winning the bloody map. Remember the ridiculous amount of medics on Team Fortress 2 a while ago, that was b0llox.

The same thing is ruining BF:BC for me at the moment. I'm glad IW kept achievements out of COD4 MP.

[Stewart]

You can fill your boots sometimes. Say you are playing Halo, and some other players are trying to get some achievement or other, you can slaughter them while they try to do whatever it is. Always fun that.

Still everyone has a mic, all you have to do is ask if the other peeps don't mind, easy enough to find a room with people who want to do whatever instead of play.

To be honest, with people droping when they are losing, just general messing about, and peeps who just shout racist abuse, some peeps going for an achievement is the least of your worries.

Online gaming, speshly on Xbox Live is far from an exact science.

[revol68]

achievements in MP really suck though.

Look at a game like Counter Strike, no gimmicky sh1t, just excellent well balanced gameplay and it's still massively popular for the casual gamer and the hardcore. No walking into a game and getting your ass handed to you by some anti social nerd whose unlocked equipment that gives you no fighting chance against them. If you wanna be a completionist nerd do it on your own or go play WoW.

[Stewart]

No I like the Halo3 online ones, like getting 15 kills in a row. That was a good challenge.

By the way, no achievements in Halo3 (or any other game) give you any extra equipment or anything that makes it easier to win. You get the achievement and some points, it doesn't change the gameplay. Have you actually got a 360, because you don't seem exactly sure what achievements do.

You just keep saying OCD, nerdy or anti-social, without really understanding whats going on.

They are just rewards for doing things, not little unlockables. You might get an achievement for unlocking something, but the achievement itself doesn't change anything about the gameplay or your character or anything else. Anti-social nerd, WoW player or anyone else.

In games less popular though, say XBLA games, you can't get the online achievements after a few weeks, because you can't get an online game. That could have been thought about a bit more.

Regardless, what would be nerdy about completing a game?

[Steven W]

They've added something to gaming for me now and those titles that I'd normally give up on, I tend to try and see them to the end for points. They create a new challenge aside to the normal gameplay.

Some of them are badly thought out though. Annoyed about Guitar hero co-op ones.

[handscombmp]

i think they're great. i'll play complete game and then go after them getting all my money out of the game. i can also compete against mates at who can get the most.

i wish more pc games had them. hopefully with them making windows live free more game publishers will take them up. i'm moving towards pcs but i still want to be able to talk to friends on 360 with live