What do you hope to "Achieve"?

[Kikosemmek]

I was six goddamn grubs away from Get Some Grub in HL2: Ep. 2. The other six, I later discovered, were behind that Antlion Guard; if you go to kill them, you're cornered and it'll be waiting for you at in the tunnel. It's a ***** and I've still not done it.

I like achievements, overall. I think they add a bit to a game, if only an arbitrary set of optional goals or milestones. I ignore them based on how much fun or how much of a challenge I consider them to be. The more challenging they are, the more I'm inclined to go out of my way and get them.

TF2's achievements are some of my favorite.

 

[unholy vagrant]

My only problem with Achievements is that most games don't do interesting things with them. Most are play through the game, or do this stupidly hard thing in the game that usually isn't much fun. Look at the achievements for Guitar Hero 3. The Orange Box was the only game I've played that I had fun getting achievements.

 

[j1-2themax]

I thought Dead Rising was an example of Achievements done both well and poorly.
Poorly: They were all worth 20 points. ALL OF THEM. That means killing a whole town's worth of zombies is worth as much as taking a picture of a dead psycopath.
Well-done: Some of the Achievements were really creative (i.e. wearing every piece of clothing, killing a whole town's worth of people, putting novelty masks on zombies, etc.)

What makes them even better is that there are tangible in-game rewards just like gathering all the packages in the GTAs. The achievements not only encouraged playing in a different way, but some of the rewards given take that notion a step further.

How did I forget about that part? Sometimes, I wish more games would do such a thing.

 

[stompy]

Mass Effect had good achievements... 250 assault rifle kills.... that was fun to get.

I think Mass Effect had some pretty good achievement. It was nice of them to let you use the weapon/skill you got an achievement for your next character.

Also, I reckon The Orange Box's achievements were awesome. I've actually gotten 'The One Free Bullet' and 'Zombie Chopper', and they were pretty fun to get.

Overall, I think achievements are a great thing to add repeatability to a game.

 

[The Wooster]

The Medic achievements in TF2 are crap. They require you to play not only badly but to ignore the very purpose of the medic in the firstplace. What's worse is you have to do them to get better weapons.

 

[the monopoly guy]

I just want to unlock ONE item for TF2, ONE, that's all I ask

 

[Jonathan Hexley]

Guitar Hero II had some funny achievements. They added a bit of a challenge to it to.
Like the "Kick The Bucket" one. "BEat Jordan on Expert"
And to think it only gives you 20G.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

This is not a thread to discuss the merits or hatred toward achievements.

OH damn, I guess I'll be going now because I can't fucking stand the things, and now escapist has it's own version.

I've always thought of achievements and rewards of the like - as a "good in theory" but "bad in practice" - and now it's a new thing this generation gets, that will forever annoy me.

I think I'll go to the "everyone loves them except you" thread and add that to the list.

(Mass Effect had a decent achievement system though, the rewards are pretty good but not good enough to make someone HAVE to do it [EXL Medic TF2 achievements - CoD4's multiplayer] - you were basically rewarded for playing the game the way you wanted - and trying new things, and you got more than a frikin' e-penis extension)

 

[BlueMage]

Wow, here I was thinking this might be about real achievements.

You know, like running a marathon, or getting to your target weight.