Feature: Achieving Greatness?

In a gaming generation of innovation and new ways to play, what has been the biggest change? Blistering high-definition visuals? Intuitive motion controls? An endless stream of user generated content? More importantly, which of those features has actually changed the way we play games? In the end, many of these features just alter the way games look or control, but not the way you actually play and think about what you’re going to do next.

It’s remarkable that the most ground-breaking feature is not a visual or gameplay specific, but something that simply records what we play. Achievements, a numerical representation of gaming prowess, have changed the way many of us play games. By completing a level, discovering a hidden item, or by beating the game in a fast time, points are added to a global Gamerscore for us to show off to the world.

It’s a simple concept but a clever one; by deploying achievements in every game since day one, whether it be retail or download, you are rewarded for playing through points. Granted, these points yield nothing, but since when did we need an active reward for participation? Players are actively going out of their threshold to experience different things in games, even going to the extent of playing more games to better their score. And with friends, it’s become a digital way of keeping up the Joneses.

Gamasutra recently unearthed stats that over 2.5 billion achievements have been unlocked, adding up to 52 billion points in total - they mean serious business, and the competition knows that. Sony has recently made Trophies mandatory in all PS3 games, and even MMO behemoth World Of Warcraft has introduced them. They have become a powerful metric for both gamers and developers. Not only can developers track how games are being played to aid how they are designed in future, but they can be a virtual guide for those wanting to explore off the beaten track.

There are varying schools of thought of what achievements should be for. The most basic type is for mere progress or completion, with the next step for side missions or hidden extras - Halo 3’s metagame scores or hidden skulls, for example. While it’s argued that gamers would be playing the game anyway, it’s an added bonus for just putting the time in to play. Then there are tasks to extend replayability under certain conditions - Braid features a rock-solid achievement for finishing it under 45 minutes, and Mirror’s Edge asks you to complete the game without firing a single bullet - tough challenges, but they're simply reminiscent of what bored kids used to do when all they had was two new Mega Drive games a year.

The other more revered type of achievement is for rewarding experimentation within the realms of the game. Fable II is one the best examples of paying out points for curiosity; playing fetch with the dog, kicking chickens, jumping off cliffs, stealing from houses, taking part in orgies - all seemingly random tasks but are led to the player through an achievement, and enrich the experience through finding them. It’s for this reason that designers love achievements, as an indirect means to guide players to try things that they would often miss.

Online achievements are more of a grey area, uncomfortably straddling the line between what designers want people to want and think they’ll play. It makes sense to reward players to play 100 ranked games, especially for those who enjoy the game, and attempts to sustain an online community. But in practice, gamers have the attention span of a child at Christmas, flicking between games like TV channels, moving to a new one every week. Very few games maintain persistent online communities over time, and those that do have goals that take the biscuit - Gears of War’s ‘Seriously’ achievement of killing 10,000 players will take literally hundreds of hours to obtain.

It’s these types of achievements that put gamers off playing or completing them to their fullest. Why bother doing the rest if one or two remain uncompleted, sticking out like a sore thumb? Should achievements be an easy means to draw the player to playing, drip feeding them as they play, or should they only be available to the few who are talented or dedicated enough to win them (or many cases, the ones with enough time to spare?) While some games understand the importance of achievements and their effect on the player, others see them as a means to unfairly exploit the player's enjoyment for racking up points, and is something which designers need to carefully consider in future.

But in the end, achievements merely tap into the competitive and completionist nature that’s always been there in games; from topping the scoreboard in Space Invaders to finding that last Skulltula in Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, players have always strove to see and do everything there is on offer. Achievements offer a helping hand - a virtual tourist map of things to see and do - and reward the player for doing it. Even if the idea isn’t necessarily a new one, there is no denying the colossal impact of achievements have on how we play games.

Most Notorious Achievements

One with Combat (Avatar: The Burning Earth)

Perhaps the most infamous set of achievements, the game allows players to obtain all 1,000 points in thirty seconds by holding the B button to initiate a series of combos. Cue thousands of players borrowing the game from their local Blockbuster in order to boost their Gamerscores. It’s a good job, because apparently the game is a little on the rubbish side.

The One Free Bullet (The Orange Box)

The idea here is to play through Episode One by firing no more than a single bullet, which is required for an padlock in order to continue. (You’d be screwed if you missed, eh?) Luckily kills by other means - crowbar, gravity gun, flying toilet - don’t count against you, so just put down the lead and flush away the enemy.

Press START to play (The Simpsons Game)

Described by the game as the ‘Easiest Achievement Ever’, pressing Start at the opening menu gives you five Gamerscore points. Soul Calibur IV’s ‘Start of a New Era’ almost pips it by giving you an achievement for literally doing nothing but watch the opening cinematic, but we believe all achievements need to be earned, even if it is just by one button press.

Vidmaster Challenge: Annual (Halo 3)

To get this, you must complete the last level on the hardest difficulty with three others, set up so it resets the party back at the last checkpoint if someone dies. Plus, you have to end it in Ghost vehicles hidden in the level, and it won’t unlock if someone falls off at the last second. (I name no names.) Best of all, it yields no points for completion.

Seriously… (Gears Of War)

The aim is to kill 10,000 people total in ranked matches, meaning you can’t ask a friend to leave their console on when they go to work. It can take months to get this if you wanted it that much. The most staggering thing is that while only 6% of users at trueachievements.com have unlocked it, that amounts to 1,682 players. That’s the power of achievements!