Achievement/Trophy Issue

[Xprimentyl]

First off, I appreciate all those who might say achievements and trophies are meaningless, they don't care about them, they play the games for fun, etc.; I know, I know; thank you, but that's a tangential issue. I too enjoy games for the fun of them, but I appreciate the meta-game that is achievement and trophy hunting. I'm not a whore about it; I won't grind through a game I wouldn't normally play just for gamerscore and I can rest easy not getting the full compliment of available achievements or trophies.

But what brings me here today is an issue brought to light during my second playthrough of Deus Ex: why doesn't every game offer some in-menu tally or achievement progress tracker? This isnt just informational either; many games sport achievements that are ambiguously worded so you're never quite sure what they're asking of you. I'm driving myself nuts because I don't know if I've set off any alarms or not; I'm not even sure what constitutes an 'alarm' per the game's logic. Sure, I can prowl through forums and ask other gamerscore, but what an unnecessary step when the game already knows and just isn't telling? I think Gears of War 2 did it correctly and thought games wouod naturally follow suit, but its still hit or miss, mostly defering to the miss side!

 

[manythings]

Because on the other side if they came out and told you the issue would be "Norms can get trophies now, I want to be better than n00bzorz ghey fagz and I need ambiguous life wasting achievements to do that".

For every person saying X is too difficult there is a person saying X is too easy.

 

[Magicmad5511]

A lot of games do this to help add a layer of mystery and to add a bit more challenge to the achievement.
Also they don't normally have enough room in the description to put in depth analysis on what are the exact parameters of the achievement. Remember these things are supposed to be a challenge to begin with. That's why it's called an achievement or for PS3 why you get a trophy for it.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I got all the trophies for Deus Ex. I do like being able to track my progress from the menu, but it's not vital for me. Just a bonus if I can.

As for what counts as an alarm, it's if the alarm goes off. The way this happens is if a camera spots you for too long--switches to 'alarmed' status--a guard runs to an alarm panel and hits it, or you walk through one of those laser grids. The way to tell if you didn't trigger any alarms is if, at the end of the mission, you get the 'Smooth Operator' bonus exp. If you do, then you KNOW you didn't trigger any alarms. If you don't, I suggest replaying the mission just to be safe.

 

[Avaholic03]

At least for Deus Ex, I can't think of many incremental achievements that need to be tracked. There's the Scholar achievement that's essentially a collectable achievement. Aside from that, most of them are either you have them or you don't. Sure, it would be nice to check if you had killed anyone (aside from inspecting every body lying around) or if you had set off any alarms, but you can always go back to a previous save and try again.