Wednesday, 16 December 2009

• Achievements Need More Fanfare

  
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  I was reading a post on Kotaku recently that discussed the issue of in-game achievement notifications coming up at inopportune times. For instance, maybe one came up during a cut scene in Gears of War, obscuring part of the view or the subtitles. Essentially, the argument is that those pop-up messages can detract from the game experience by diverting a player's attention from the actual game or scene.
  
  I think that point is true. After all, do we like it when television shows have distracting advertisements at the bottom of the screen during our favorite show? Absolutely not.
  
  So, what's the solution to this problem? Showing achievements, unlocks, milestones, etc, etc, during transitional scenes, like loading screens. Personally, I like the idea, but there are some inherent problems.
  
  For example, there are some gamers who really go after all the achievements. In their case, a quick notification during gameplay that they accomplished one of their goals is a good thing. I very much doubt they'd want to wait until after the level to find out they won something.
  
  

  
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  Secondly, and this is more of a problem with achievements in general, I think players ought to be rewarded MORE for earning achievements than they are. For the sake of argument, let's say there's an achievement in Fight Night after you've won your 100th match. Rather than just getting a quick message informing you of your fighting prowess, why can't there be some gorgeous, albeit digitally rendered, ring girl who hands our victorious character his trophy? Hell, maybe she should give him a nice little peck on the cheek.
  
  Obviously, this method wouldn't work in all games, but I'm sure there are many more ways to make a bigger spectacle out of reaching certain milestones. Still, I'm reminded of games like JetMoto on the PS1 that had hand drawn images of race winners receiving their trophies from inappropriately dressed women.
  
  Any way you look at it, though, achievements are a sort of dead end. It's nice to be able to say you've unlocked every milestone in Left 4 Dead, but at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is if you play well and have fun doing it. If there was some true, tangible benefit to scoring over 1000 kills, then I might arch an eyebrow.
  
  

  
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  For instance, in Resident Evil 3, each consecutive play through of the game would unlock an additional 'epilogue file'. There were eight of them in total, each one showing an image and brief text blurb explaining what happened to most of the major series characters after Raccoon City was overrun. They didn't exactly add anything to the gameplay, but at the very least each one expanded the story a little bit, giving the player a good reason to work their way through the game again.
  
  Gaming achievements are absolutely a positive step for the industry. It gives players a sense of accomplishment and adds replayability to titles that otherwise might become repetitive or boring. As far as they've come though, they still don't add a whole lot besides arbitrary reasons to keep playing, and while that may be enough for some people, I'd prefer to have my achievements handed to me with a whole lot more T&A, or at least get something more than a pat on the back.
  
  What are your thoughts on achievements? Should they be made to matter more?
  
  
  

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