Ten Achivment Commandments

[limpbizkit]

http://xboxfocus.com/columns/26-outside ... index.html

 

 

 

Its time to face facts. No matter how much players may protest their hatred of achievements, theres a small part of everyone that warms up inside when they do something really clever and are rewarded for it. The Xbox 360s achievements is a very cool way to deliver these rewards to players that lets them share their conquests and progress with other gamers. However, the inconsistency between games is a bit astounding. Fight Night Round 3 was the easiest 1000 points I ever got, while Marvel Ultimate Alliance still holds points hostage from me, and I know theres no way Ill ever complete the list for Gears of War. In order to help get this all straightened out, Ive created The Ten Commandments of Xbox 360 Achievements.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not Deny Player 2 Achievement Points

 

 

 

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a pretty standard beat-em-up game with some light RPG elements. Its like Marvel Ultimate Alliance lite. The game is completely enjoyable, though the joy of beating levels is soured a bit by the fact that only the person in the first player position gets rewarded for it. So of course, in the interest of fairness, the game must be beaten twice through. This is flat out inexcusable.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Allow the Second, Third, and Fourth Players Unlock Unique Achievements.

 

 

 

Gears of War had this one down. Allowing whoever played as Dominic Santiago to pick up a few bonus Achievements was a nice way to piqué some more interest. Players that had already beaten the game in single player mode were more than eager to help out friends in their playthroughs to get the achievement.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Give Easy Mode Credit For Hard Mode Completion

 

 

 

Why is it that anyone should be forced to play a game on easy? Sure, some people may be new and wish to play at a simpler setting, but what of the players who complete a game the first time through on harder difficulties? If a player can beat Rock Band on hard, Im sure they can beat it on easy and medium too. Stop making us play the watered down versions in order to get our scores up.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not Create Achievements Which Encourage Unnatural Play

 

 

 

Assassins Creed, Im looking at you here. The flags are really, really annoying. So are your pigeons, GTA IV. People dont find these naturally, they go online, find a guide, and then follow it. This isnt helping gameplay, just creating busywork.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Create Clever Secret Achievements

 

 

 

While playing through the final chapters of The Last Crusade, I, as Dr. Henry Jones, accidentally killed my friend, who was playing Indy. Much to my surprise and delight, up popped up an achievement for the act called Thats for Blasphemy. Recalling a classic movie line and surprising us both, this was a really cool achievement to earn. Of course, as soon as I switched to Indy, he quickly returned the favor.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not Create Achievements Which Ruin Online Play

 

 

 

 

 

As much as I praised Gears of War earlier, I must tear it down now for creating a truly awful online experience due to constant achievement farming. Were these more reasonable, or earned as medals like in Halo 3, the online competition would have been much more enjoyable.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Offer interesting ways to earn points online that benefit the experience.

 

 

 

The Orange Box gets some love on this one for its Team Fortress 2 achievements. Encouraging players to try their hand at each class is nice, but offering a special medic achievement truly helps the game. In a world so often bereft of players willing to take up the medic and help their team, Valve gives them a reason to try.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Create Achievements of Opportunity.

 

 

 

Those players that arent compulsive about their achievement points will agree: its cool to get something that no one else has. Being online with 1,000 in NBA Live 07 is one that will most likely never be earned again, and is a sort of mark of pride. Killing a developer in GTA IV is a great example too. Anyone with that achievement has some pretty great bragging rights.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not give 0 point achievements for legitimate things. (Im looking at you Kameo! 0 points for Co-op achievements.)

 

 

 

Who or whatever made the makers of Kameo decide that cooperative play should garner 0 point achievements needs to be hunted down and destroyed. Achievements are really just slaps on the back with an assigned point value; the amount of points isnt truly whats important, but its nice to see. 5 or 10 point achievements are fine, but 0? Thats just a bit insulting, isnt it? For those 0 point achievements, theres always the Halo 3 badge route.

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Give booby prize achievements.

 

 

 

Two games come to mind immediately. The Simpsons Game makes great parodies of the achievement system in general with its Press Start achievement. Until then, Id never laughed at an achievement before, though admittedly I did s[racist term] at My love for you is like a truck. NHL 2K7 also gives out a fantastic booby prize. Players exiting a total of 10 online matches while still in progress will unlock a 0 point achievement called Quitter.

 

 

 

Others:

 

Thou shalt not create secret achievements without reason -- I can understand that devs dont want achievement descriptions to be spoilers and thus they should be secret (for example, Bioshock), but unless there's a really good reason, achievements should not be secret. It serves no purpose (we just go to sites like this to look them up), and makes it difficult to compare achievements between gamers (for example, when I compare achievements with someone in Quake 4 it's difficult to see what achievements they have as most of the online ones are Secret).

 

 

 

Thou shalt not assume gamers have no life -- Achievements should reward a sensible amount of time invested in a game, they shouldn't be 2nd (or 3rd jobs). Seriously in Gears is the most obvious example, but there are certainly others. I shouldn't have to play a game non-stop for 10 hours a day for weeks on end to unlock an achievement.

 

 

 

Thou shalt not make "get XXXX kills with YYYY weapon" achievements -- Gears, Rainbow Six, and numerous others fall into this category. If you want me to play online then fine, put in a couple of "achieve this rank" or "play XXX matches" achievements. Don't force me to use a weapon I don't want to use.

 

 

 

Thou shall give a way to check progress towards achievements -- if you absolutely MUST include achievements like the above, then at the very least, give us a way to see how close we are. This is one of the few things that Quake 4 did right -- the leaderboard stats tell you not only how many points & frags you have, but also how many impressives, gauntlet kills, etc. Most games do not however (ex: Gears for some weapons, RSV for all, etc). The data is there (it has to be otherwise the achievement would never pop), just make that data visible to the user.

 

 

 

Thou shalt not have competitive online achievements -- some will disagree on this, but the fact that CoD4 didn't have any online achievements meant that the only people who play that game online are people who want to play it online. Unlike say, Gears or CoD3 where half (or more) of the people online are only interested in boosting.

 

 

 

Thou shall include co-op achievements -- as a comment to the last commandment co-op achievements OTOH are a great idea. Playing the co-op modes in GRAW2 was some of the most fun I've had online. Same for the campaign in Gears.

 

 

 

Thou shall allow achievements to be unlocked in player matches -- making things ranked only doesn't stop people from boosting. All it does is make it less convenient for them to get the achievments, and generally less fun to do so. As well, it means that ranked matches are used for boosting, whereas if people want to really play the game then they're SOL.

 

 

 

Thou shall not link achievements between games -- The new Hulk game has an achievement for having an Iron Man save on your hard drive. Madden 07 has one for having an NCAA Football 07 draft class. To get 1000 in a game, I shouldn't have to play other games. Doing otherwise reeks of corporate greed as companies are trying to use the achievement system to manipulate gamerscore junkies into playing games they otherwise would not play.

[adam_ross0]

Thou shalt never make easy achievements with ridiculously high scores -

 

 

 

Written for a certain THQ game that gives 1000 Points for hitting the B button 60 times...

 

 

 

 

 

#-o

[Riku3220]

Thou shalt never make developer achievements if the developers are only going to be on the first day :wall:

 

 

 

seriously, how can we kill or beat a developer if they never play!

[Bluejayfan94]

Thou shall give Homer achieveablez. Lol, sorry I just had to.

 

 

 

Thou shalt ever make an achievement for pressing a button.

 

Though i like getting achieveablez, I got one from pressing Y once (Transformers)

 

 

 

Thou shalt ever make an achievement for throwing things.

 

Once again in Transformers. I have to stand on a building, grab an object and throw it. and then another. I mean WTF????

 

 

 

Thou shalt ever make an achievement for a bleep bloop.

 

Uhh, Red vs Blue thing here, but if there was an achievement for unlocking an achievement, or doing something so stupid but its still part of the game shouldn't get an achieveable.

[Dizzle229]

Thou Shalt Not Make Achievements That Your 360 Isn't Capable Of!!!!!

 

 

 

Dead Rising, you killed alot of 360's with your 7 day survivor achievement.

[Bluejayfan94]

lol true.

[Dizzle229]

I have a better one.

 

 

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not Be Two For One

[Bluejayfan94]

I have a better one.

 

 

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not Be Two For One

 

 

 

Thou Shalt Not splatter someone with a mongoose on a small-[wagon] map. I mean really.

[Lionheart_0]

Thou shalt not make an achievement requiring pure chance.

 

 

 

One of spore's achievements is getting your creation featured on the spore.com website... Like thats ever gonna happen >.< .

[Dizzle229]

I assume you're talking about Ghost Town?

[Bluejayfan94]

I assume you're talking about Ghost Town?

 

 

 

Who?

[limpbizkit]

Thou Shalt Not Make Achievements That Your 360 Isn't Capable Of!!!!!

 

 

 

Dead Rising, you killed alot of 360's with your 7 day survivor achievement.

 

 

 

That done more dammage to my hands than it did to my 360. =[

[Dizzle229]

I assume you're talking about Ghost Town?

 

 

 

Who?

 

 

 

You.

[Bluejayfan94]

I assume you're talking about Ghost Town?

 

 

 

Who?

 

 

 

You.

 

 

 

No, the only way you can get mongoose mowdown is in Lone Wolves. I mean really, have you ever played a game that you could actually get a lot of momentum before hitting a guy? All it is is Blarging Snowbound, Blarging Epitaph, and Blarging The Pit. #-o If there was even a mongoose in that, you couldn't get enough momentum to kill someonw.

[InkofDeath]

Some of the type of achievements not to be done listed from the main post quote shouldn't even be on there. I think the guy was just complaining because there was so much to do, and some achievements were annoying to do, like doing Hard, Medium & easy for an achievement. Like...seriously, beating the game on all modes regardless of difficulty means you put time into the game, which deserves an achievement. Talk about lazy people.

[Bluejayfan94]

Some of the type of achievements not to be done listed from the main post quote shouldn't even be on there. I think the guy was just complaining because there was so much to do, and some achievements were annoying to do, like doing Hard, Medium & easy for an achievement. Like...seriously, beating the game on all modes regardless of difficulty means you put time into the game, which deserves an achievement. Talk about lazy people.

 

 

 

I agree that one is kinda stupid. I'm just glad that I didn't have to do heroic on halo, and Hardened on CoD4

[aquariusman]

Having achievements for each difficulty is a good thing, not everyone plays at the hardest difficulty. It is when you have to beat a lower difficulty to prove that you can beat it, after beating the hardest difficulty (I'm looking at you, Guitar Hero) that it gets stupid and annoying.

 

 

 

And Lion, I don't think that one if pure chance, it's being creative enough that it sparks the interest of the creators.