When Microsoft initially unveiled its achievements system for the Xbox 360, it was seen as not only a way to show off your gaming skills, but as a means of lengthening the enjoyment and value that every game has to offer. "I'm going to get every achievement for every game I own!" cried enthusiastic gamers, eager to rack up the points and enjoy video games in an entirely new light.
Then the Xbox 360 launched and Perfect Dark Zero asked players to gain 1,000 kills with the sniper rifle. The dream was dead.
The Marathon Duo queue test ends as Bungie confirms its return in Season 2, with new experimental playlists already on the way.
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Its neat especially since not everyone might have two friends playing it. Makes it more personal to go at in duos.
It's 2026 and basic match making features in MP games are still being drip fed to an audience that still gets excited over said basic feature being implemented.
Check out Gamer Social Club’s Marathon Review to see what we thought of Bungie's extraction shooter. Can it go the distance?
Console Creatures writes, "If you give Marathon your time, it will reward your patience. However, between UI issues and unclear systems, there’s a lot of murkiness to parse through."
I have to admit I am addicted to achievements. Its one of the better points of Xbox Live.
Also all the compalining about the $50 yearly fee for Xbox Live has to stop. Its worth every penny.
I have found achievments to do pretty much what they said (means of lengthening the enjoyment and value that every game has to offer)....if the game is to my liking that is.
Perfect Dark Zero was a horrible experience and I had no need to get achievements in it. But other games like COD2, Gears of War, COD4, Mass Effect, Lost Odyessy, Bioshock and others I have played far more then I probably would have had their not been acheivements.
I loved these games but I tend to move on once I "finish" a game. With acheivements I never really "finish" the game until I get all the (single player) acheivements so I tend to play it a lot more times. Having a goal out there that can be acheived and marked as acheived does motivate me. I never played a game on the hardest setting in the past because there was no need. You beat it, the end. Now its like "did I get the acheivement for beating it on the hardest difficulty? No. I can beat that on the hardest, that wasnt so bad." and I play it (unless I think I have no hope of beating it on the hardest, or the game just doesnt hold my interest).
Acheivements are a little thing, but I think they were a stroke of genius. Not that MS was the fist to do it. It seems like the old Madden and NCAA games (when they were good) gave you ingame achievments and trophies. I see it as an expansion on that. Soon PS3 will have achievments as well. So people other then me must enjoy them.
That said the article is correct that not all developers use them correctly and there are a lot of cheap or unmotivating achievements that I tend to skip (like MP or absurdly long collect-a-thons that you cant complete without multiple replays of the same level)
Adding achievements was a dream come true tbh, it's best thing added to next generation.
Achievements have been around since the dawn of gaming, just in a much simpler form. Being able to put your initials in the high score list on arcade games was often enough draw to motivate gamers to practice up or keep playing... of course some guy named a$$ seemed to always have the high scores everywhere I went :)
Still, I think the best draw for an achievement is some type of in game reward. Flag collecting in Assassins Creed was just a waste of time.
I thought it would be easy to get all the achievements. But I realized I couldn't do it. I have 15000 plus achievement points out of maybe 56000. The worst was Blue Dragon, I finish the game and only got 60 achievement points out of 1000. But hey as long as the game is good achievement points is just a nice bonus. When I purchase a game I really don't think about achievement points.