A wee bit of Shakespeare to kick off this particular post – the first in a while, for which I am duly repentant.
So I’m a player of games and, until just recently, I thought myself a rather cosmopolitan kind of gamer. I’d play any game, kill any thing on any gaming platform. I’m not a biased person.
A few days ago though a rather worrying thought fleetingly danced across a synapse. I fired up the PC to renew my EVE Online subscription and possibly have a crack at some old X-Beyond the Frontier when I found myself thinking “Why bother…there’s no achievements.”
Well, dear reader, I was in shock and disgust at myself. Have I become….AN ACHIEVEMENT WHORE??
No, of course I haven’t – I love my PC too much to demote it to a jumped up blogging machine. I still love Hitman, and X-Beyond the Frontier and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all those good old titles that are pushing their teenage years. But it does raise a valid point.
Is the achievement and reward system on Next-Gen consoles killing the art of gameplay for its own sake?
There are of course people who will relentlessly chase achievements until they get all 1000 gamer points, even to the extent of hunting down like minded fok (Chievy Chasers, as I like to call them) to get the online and co-op points nailed. These are the guys who are killing gameplay for themselves. Maybe they enjoy it, but when you come across them in a lobby or in a random game they can quickly suck the joy out of the experience.
For most gamers, myself included, I think achievement systems make us better players. They encourage you to practice certain skills, they instill a sense of patience, and I think ultimately they keep many old games fresh.
I’m not an achievement chaser. If I accumulate points in the course of gameplay then it’s a bonus, but I don’t play a game until it’s exhausted. The first achievment I ever got was in Crackdown – I’ve still got many to get in that game and the sequel is out soon; hell, I don’t even have all 1000 points for Oblivion!
Hmm, all this talk of playing games has me in the mood now. Some Assassin’s Creed 2 might be just the ticket.
