1P Start

No reason for this other than I like chicks.

Over on Gametap there’s a great article that delves into how achievements work and how they could be fixed. At first I thought the idea was silly, why would Xbox 360 achievements need to be fixed at all, they didn’t seem broken in the first place? However, the answer is that there is room for improvement and I’ve gathered my responses here. So here’s how it works, go there and read the article and come back here to read what I think and post your own thoughts. Got it? Good.

Online Achievements: The main problem with Online Achievements is that they have the real potential to ruin matches by those who will do anything to get their Gamerscore higher instead of helping your team. On the other hand, getting achievements for doing things that you’d normally do (kill 100 bad guys with a rifle) isn’t out of line. The argument is made that it screws those who don’t play online. Tough titties is all I can say on that account. Nixing online achievements isn’t an answer at all, instead being more realistic in what ones you can achieve online is the solution.

Pointless Collect-a-Thons: Sometimes collecting meaningless objects is a decent way to get Achievements. Case in point: collecting enemy intel in Call of Duty 4. Sure it’s pretty pointless, but it does add a little bit to the game because it has you exploring areas you might otherwise ignore.

Time Burglars: I really question the logic of Wartech: Senko no Ronde’s Achievement where the game can be left on the title screen (and played) for 100 hours and you get 100 gamer points. My roommate has this game and he’s currently trying to get the achievement, even though those extra hours on his Xbox 360 are unquestionably going to bring his ‘box to a quicker red ringed death.

Overestimating Your Popularity: Oh the curse of this one. There’s nothing worse than trying to earn an achievement for something like winning 1,000 matches when there’s a grand total of three people that play the game. If you’re not a big release and you’ve got no buzz for your game, developers please use some common sense.

So while Achievements aren’t completely broken, there is some room for improvement. It makes sense though, Achievements as they are known today have only been around for one generation. As time goes on, hopefully developers will keep some of these kinds of complaints in mind when they work on them in the future.