Trophies and Achievements...

[MrEco]

How do you feel about them? You find em' good? Bad? How much importance do you put in them?

Personally: I hate trophies and achievements. Why? Because I believe I'm quite literally addicted to them. Not kidding. Nowadays I find a serious lack of accomplishment if I don't get a lot of the trophies in a game. Example: I bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 a while back. I didn't like the game. The multiplayer was fun when it worked (Almost never), and the single player was a wasteful snore fest. I returned the game a week after purchasing. But you know what? I felt regret at returning the game because it had really easy trophies and I only got 57% of them. Because of this I find myself often playing on harder difficulties or buying games known for there difficulty in order to still feel accomplished. I also find it hard to buy any PS3 games that don't have trophies because they came out too early (Valkyria Chronicles, Devil May Cry 4, etc...). Seriously, I think I need rehab or something for this bullshit.

What about you guys?

[Opa Opa]

I hate Trophies and Achievements because they are not accomplishments. You killed 50,000 zombies? So what. You beat the campaign mode? Who cares.

I would like them if the points you earned could get you free downloadable content for your games or other rewards. Otherwise, pretty useless to me.

Edit: Could you imagine Super Mario Bros. with achievements? "Achievement unlocked- Goomba Stomped"...and then five seconds later "Achievement unlocked- Mushroom Collected". (Man I'm glad old games don't have these.)

But some people do like them so more power to them I guess. But I'd like an option to disable notifications that I've obtained an achievement/trophy. I detest boxes popping up on screen while I'm trying to play a game.

[Jerkface Killah]

I think Achievements are that smartest thing Microsoft did in this generation of games. They knew that gamers have obsessive, completest personalities. I'm sure they did research and had focus groups to figure it out. They computed that since I love Resident Evil and collect all the Resident Evil games, that I would do my best to obtain all the achievements in, say, RE5. And they were right. (For the record I do love RE but have barely played RE5).

It's also an easy way to artificially extend how long you spend with a game. Take Oblivion for example. You can finish the main story without too much trouble. But there are achievements for reaching the top rank in each guild. You don't have to do that, but it makes you feel like you haven't completed the game unless you do.

I personally go for achievements on my favorite games primarilly in Single Player modes. Bioshock 2 for example. I have all of the single player "chievos" but few multiplayer ones.

In conclusion, Microsoft obviously had the right idea as shown by Sony adding "Trophies" after the PS3's release. Try not to focus on them too much because they can be just plain insulting. I will never get 100,000,000 points or whatever in Geometry Wars.

[irixith]

I like them simply because they give me a purpose when playing a game other than just beating it. In some cases, they actually encourage me to actually finish a game I might otherwise not. Not all games utilize them correctly (Kill x amount of enemies, play a level in co-op online), but every so often they actually add to the gameplay. Anyone want to carry a gnome with me?

[Ack]

I like them simply because they give me a purpose when playing a game other than just beating it. In some cases, they actually encourage me to actually finish a game I might otherwise not. Not all games utilize them correctly (Kill x amount of enemies, play a level in co-op online), but every so often they actually add to the gameplay. Anyone want to carry a gnome with me?

Yeah, some of these do make the game a little more interesting. For instance, I picked up the One Gun achievement in Dead Space for only using the Plasma Cutter. And in Half Life 2, I managed to earn Zombie Chopper, where you only use the Gravity Gun to make it through Ravenholm. These are things I might not have necessarily considered if the achievement hadn't been there, and they made the games both more challenging and interesting.

[scarper]

I can see why people would like them. They sort of give a sense of completion. But I don't think that trophies and achievements give a very competitive feeling, like hi-score boards do. Sure, there's Gamer Score on Xbox, but all that does is show how often you play video games.

I feel that trophies/achievements have become this generation's "hi-scores." Someone having a higher score than you in Game X actually means that individual is better than you at Game X. It motivates you to get a higher score than that person so that you become better than him at Game X. Billy Mitchell and Steve Weebie.

Whereas if I got 150 headshots throughout my lifetime in Game Y, it just means that I spend more time with Game Y, and am not necessarily better than someone who hasn't gotten 150 headshots.

[Jerkface Killah]

Upon further consideration, achievements are also helpful in seeing how far a friend is in a particular game. Most games unlock achievements as you complete the story. Its neat to see where a friend is by their achievements after you've completed a game.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

I really hate the whole mentality behind it, and could care less for them now.My most dreaded achievements is the 1 credit clear type ones, as all SHMUPS are just copy pasta'ing with one credit clear and the like (doesn't help that North American deathsmiles has way way less lag on level 999 for the bloody jitterbug and score achievements).

Don't even get me started on true endings.

my profile for anyone interested.

http://profile.mygamercard.net/ChuChu%20Flamingo

[tommyboy8689]

anybody ever played the game acheivement unlocked 2? it really pertains to this topic, whether you enjoy or hate "acheivements" you just gotta try it
http://www.silvergames.com/game/achievement-unlocked-2/

[MrEco]

I like them simply because they give me a purpose when playing a game other than just beating it. In some cases, they actually encourage me to actually finish a game I might otherwise not. Not all games utilize them correctly (Kill x amount of enemies, play a level in co-op online), but every so often they actually add to the gameplay. Anyone want to carry a gnome with me?

Yeah, some of these do make the game a little more interesting. For instance, I picked up the One Gun achievement in Dead Space for only using the Plasma Cutter. And in Half Life 2, I managed to earn Zombie Chopper, where you only use the Gravity Gun to make it through Ravenholm. These are things I might not have necessarily considered if the achievement hadn't been there, and they made the games both more challenging and interesting.

This is something I agree with. There are certain achievements/trophies that genuinely add to replay's by forcing you to play the game a certain way that you normally wouldn't even consider doing (I got that same One Gun trophy in Dead Space you mentioned).

The problem I have isn't with the trophies and achievements themselves. It's the fact that they hold so much weight in terms of "beating" the game. It use to be that if you wanted to complete the game you just beat the singleplayer and all the extra stuff was just to bleed out some extra hours of optional fun. For me at least it's gotten to the point where I involuntarily consider that optional stuff to be somewhat necessary for a feeling of accomplishment.

EDIT:

anybody ever played the game acheivement unlocked 2? it really pertains to this topic, whether you enjoy or hate "acheivements" you just gotta try it
http://www.silvergames.com/game/achievement-unlocked-2/

I tried the first one. It was pretty funny.