Where Xbox's achievements went wrong.

“Bleep Bloop!” (or something like that)  Recognize that sound?  Accompanied along with an inappropriately placed onscreen message, “Achievement Unlocked.”  To most, the casual gamer, it’s an occurrence that just gets written off; congratulations you unlocked an achievement, you’re life hasn’t changed, you’re still the same person that you were when you started, and the game hasn’t changed.  But to the select few hardcore gamers, these “Bleep Bloops” are at times the bane of our existence.  Achievements are suppose to be just what the name implies, you achieved something in the game and here is the proof.  Before achievements your bragging rights have been solely on your word.  I can tell you that In high school I beat Final Fantasy VII, maxed every character’s levels, along with getting a gold chocobo, beat both Ruby and Emerald weapon, had master materia across the board, and maxed out the game clock.  But would you believe me?  Probably not because the proof was on a memory card that has been long lost in the trade-in policy of the Gamestop corporation.  But with achievements I would have an earned digital “trophy” of yes I did this, and yes I don’t have a life.

Since achievements were first introduced on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, it’s been a welcomed addition in the evolution of gaming and not to mention one of the most clever ways to hook a gamer.  Not only do you feel a little boost of pride (admit it even if you don’t care about achievements, when you unlock one, you kinda feel like the sh*t!) but it also makes you wonder what other ones you’ll unlock.  It‘s worked so well in fact that apart from Nintendo every console has mimicked it’s own version of the achievement system.  PS3 now has trophies, Steam has in game achievements that link to your profile, even the iPhone has an achievement system with Game Center.

I myself have fallen prey to these addicting little “bleep bloops.”  I constantly find myself in turmoil as stand before my tower of nerdy’ness trying to decide which game to game, and honestly majority of the time it’s become a deciding factor of which game can I unlock the most achievements in.  I’d like to brag that I have a gamerscore of over 50,000 on XBL(Xbox Live).  But thats under half the the overall possible score I could have if I unlocked all the achievements in every game I own.  And there are people out there with over 600,000 gamerscore.

But with greatness of course comes the the flaws keeping it from perfection.  The achievement/trophy system by all means isn’t perfect.  There are a lot of things wrong and have room be improved upon.  At the birth of achievements developers didn’t fully understand what the possibilities could be with these little “bleep bloops” and it showed with the launch games for the system.  “Peter Jackson’s King Kong” is one such game and one of the few games I have 100 percented in my gaming history on XBL.  Thats mostly due to that all you had to do was beat the game on normal difficulty(which is not a hard feat accomplish).  Now games have begun to integrate in-game unlockables and avatar awards, but only a few handfuls of games take advantage of this system.  A perfect example of this is “Halo Waypoint;” an app on the xbox that scans all the achievements you’ve unlocked in the Halo series.  Which then gives you a ranking and unlocks in game and avatar rewards pending on what achievements you’ve unlocked.

Like them or not achievements/Trophies have open the door to making gaming more social.  Attaching them to anything from killing “X” amount of baddies, finishing a level, to finish the game co-op, and win “X” amount of ranked online Multiplayer matches.  Not only do they promote the game’s co-op/multiplayer functions but they also give gamers a extra level of competition amongst their friends.  How many times have you played a game and decided to see which achievements your friends have unlocked in the same game just so you can go out and rub in their faces that you’re a better gamer.  Or so they can’t do the same to you.  

The problem with online gaming achievements is that some of them are so damn hard or next to impossible that the achievement feels more like a giant middle finger from the developer.  For someone who doesn't play games online they would only unlock half (or at times less than half) of the achievements for the game.  “Quake 4” included an achievement called “Number 1” and “Top 10” Which consists of being the top in the top 10 and  #1 on the leaderbords for all of the games online game types.  Which is impossible now that no one plays the game anymore.  It should be now since the game is so unpopular the leaderboards should be reset or the game should be patched so it just unlocks the achievements for you because honestly you’re never going to be able to unlock them. 

Another aspect of achievements that just doesn’t work is the meaningless number/point system.  For every achievement there is a value attached to it that should reflect and match the difficulty of reaching said achievement, for instance in “Dead Space 2” completing the game on “Insane” mode, which allows you only 3 saves to use throughout the entire game and every time you die you re-spawn back at the previous save.  Meaning you are constantly playing at least one third of the game every time you play.  Upon completion earns you an achievement worth 50 gamerscore points.  Which when you think about the task you had to go through to earn said achievement, doesn’t really seem justified.  Earning the same achievement in “Dead Space 2” on PS3 grants you a Gold trophy which honestly seems more worth your while than 50 measly points. On top of which on the 360 it just gets added to an over all pool of points that you’ve earned so far amongst all of your games. So you’re accomplishment just gets lost in the overall number.

The developers who are smart and know how get the ones who are achievement whores include this little tasty treat into their games, the achievements that are worth 1 whole whopping point, but then gives you the missing 4 points in an achievement that is much much more challenging.  “DJ Hero” has an achievement that does this you earn the 1 point achievement really easily and right off the bat, but you earn the other 4 by completing a song set with 4 stars on hard.  I don’t mind this because it’s making the achievement whores get better at the game but it’s annoying to look at your number and see that odd number of points you’ve earned.  On the PS3 you earn a bronze for the easy achievement and a gold for completing a set on hard.

DLC(Downloadable Content) also breaks the achievement system.  Because with DLC it adds additional achievements to the game.  Which is great!  Who wouldn’t want more achievements for a game that they love to play along with the new content.  But on the Xbox this now voids your 100% completion for that game unless you unlock all the achievements for the DLC as well.  Resident Evil 5 was an amazing game to play.  Even though it was a departure from the series(which is a topic for another post) it was incredibly fun to play and earn its achievements.  Then came the DLC for online matchmaking.  An aspect that is pointless, glitchy, and overall not fun to play.  I have no desire to play this mode as it was clearly an afterthought when the game was close to being finished.  But now I no longer have this game in my 100% completion list, which is just dumb.  Well if thats the case you could just not download the DLC right?  Nope.  Wether you download the DLC or not the game still updates for everyone and voids your 100% by adding the new achievements to games catalogue.

These are aspects the PS3 has taken, looked at, and made better; you don’t earn meaningless points on the PS3 you gain bronze, silver, gold and platinum trophies.  All of which work in a similar fashion compared to Xbox’s achievements.  Think bronze trophies comparable to achievements that you would unlock in the 1 to 50 point range, Silver the 50 to 100, Gold 100 and above.  This isn’t how it really is because thats not how developers use the achievement system on the 360 but it gives you an idea.  

DLC also doesn’t affect wether or not you qualify for the Platinum; In fact some games have the platinum trophy programmed to unlock if you earn a certain number of trophies rather than just the trophies that come with the retail version, i.e. you unlock 38 trophies regardless if it’s DLC trophies or not.  On the PS3 DLC just tacks on extra lower level trophies for the game, and doesn’t restrict you from getting platinum.  Not only does the PS3 keep track of how many of each different trophy you earn there’s also an unseen/unknown point value system which in turn you gain levels according to the trophies you earn.  So saying I have a gamerscore of 50,000 points could be equivalent to saying I’m a level 15 gamer.  Which to a gamer the later is more coherent.

Still its up to the developers to makes achievements/trophies a better working machine, but when you compare the achievement system of the PS3 to the Xbox, PS3 has the advantage and a much more workable system.  You never learn until you try, I’m very much looking forward to how achievements/trophies will evolve in the next generation of systems that will probably hit the market in the next 2-3 years.  I just hope that Xbox learned a thing or two and is the wiser from its competitor, as it is the system I game on the most because of it’s exclusive catalogue and personal preferences.