zwolanerd

Today is one of those rare days where I gripe on the site. But if you bear with me, I will reward you with three unrelated cat GIFs at the end. Deal?  Deal. I know people are split on the idea of achievements in games – some think they add to the enjoyment, some say they ruin the fun of “just gaming, man – but my opinion is that I’m fine with them.  For the most part. On games I really like, getting all the achievements is a way to wring more out of the game than I might have otherwise. Some games, I will admit, though, I only go after the 1000 Gamerpoints because I know I can get them. Consider the following list of games I’ve gotten all the achievements on:

• Assassin’s Creed II
• EA SPORTS FN 3
• King Kong
• LEGO Batman
• LEGO® Batman™ 2
• LEGO® Harry Potter™
• LEGO® Harry Potter™ 2
• LEGO® Indiana Jones™ 2
• LEGO® LotR
• LEGO® Pirates
• LEGO® Star Wars® III
• Oblivion
• TMNT

Now, I really like the LEGO series of games, but the main reason I have all the Gp on those is because with enough grinding anyone can get them. King King, TMNT, and Fight Night 3 are notorious for being games that you can get all the available achievements just by playing through the game, no “above and beyond” measures needed – many people play them specifically for that reason, but I actually wanted to play those.  That leaves Oblivion and AC2, which are the completions I’m most proud of, and consider that Oblivion includes some extra content, so there are actually 1250 points available, above the normal 1000.

Which brings to me to my first of two gripes: DLC messes with completion statuses, and it shouldn’t. A perfect example of this is Tomb Raider: Legend. I have 1000 Gp on that one and it was completed…until they released a DLC. This happens a lot, and I don’t mind people getting more Gp for DLC, what I object to is your completion percent being knocked down if you don’t buy the DLC. I finished the game. I shouldn’t have to not count it because you added more to it after the fact. There’s a reason I’m using Tomb Raider: Legend as the example here, because it is particularly egregious. The DLC for Tomb Raider: Legend is … Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Now, you might not know this, but Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released as a completely separate game. It’s an update of the very first Tomb Raider game, better graphics and a few gameplay changes. I currently have 495/1000 Gp on the standalone version.  There is absolutely no reason I would ever buy Tomb Raider: Anniversary as DLC for Tomb Raider: Legend, aside from wanting the completion stat. This drives me a lot more crazy than it probably should. Proposed solution: Games are completed when the released game is completed. Future DLC gets marked as a separately-complete-able unit. This sounds very easy to me.

My second gripe: Multiplayer achievements, especially on games that are primarily single-player. I just finished the new Tomb Raider game, and I loved it. The reboot is a good one, so yay. While I have not yet gotten all of the single-player achievements, fifteen of the available fifty achievements are for multiplayer, representing 25% of the available Gp. Please picture me in a top hat and monocle as I say the next thing: “This is outrageous!” I first experienced this issue on Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, a game I loved. I even sort of liked the multiplayer enough to have a few of those achievements. But there are two main problems with multiplayer achievements: 1) Many people (like myself) just aren’t very good at multiplayer (which is why we’ve purchased a singleplayer game). Reaching level 60 in multiplayer Tomb Raider requires something like 50 hours of multiplayer, if other outraged Internet denizens (are there any other kind?) are to be believed.  I’ve played for maybe four and am only at level 12. If I were better at it it might not take so long, but I’m not, so I probably won’t ever get these achievements.  2) Multiplayer achievements rely on other people. That last one means that if you pick up an older game, there might not be any others playing it and, even more hampering, the multiplayer servers for that game might have been shut off.  Proposed solution: If you want to have multiplayer achievements, fine, go ahead- just separate them out. If I’ve gotten all the singleplayer achievements, give me my 100%. If someone else gets those and the multiplayer ones, give them two 100% ratings, and good for them.

Again, I understand the solution to both of these is “don’t care about achievements.” It’s come to be an aspect of the game, though, so at least make it work better is all I’m saying.

Thanks for listening to me gripe. As promised, here are three cat GIFs:

 

 

 

Tags: Achievements, cats, gripe, tGIF

Written by: Mark