It has become a sordid addiction. Not like, ‘I must beat up this old lady for her purse so I can fund my McVities chocolate biscuit addiction’ but it’s a close second. Of course I’m talking about achievements (or trophies for you PS3 peeps).
Who’d of thought that this simple idea would grip many of us who the second you hear that achievement sound pop, you get a rush of endorphins flood your very soul. If you have listened to our podcasts, you would have noticed that both Kev and I are pure, unadulterated achievement whores. Though Kev does have me beat by the fact that he will play some shocking games just to get those easy achievements. King Kong anyone?
Achievements were one of the reasons for purchasing Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Xbox and not PC. It was also the cause of despair when Ben finally surpassed me after getting his own Xbox, and it caused a LOT of banter and baiting when Ben, his friend Ash and I decided to do an achievement challenge. The idea was to obtain the most Gamerscore over a set period. It soon became obvious that Ben would probably win due to the amount of games he had yet to play and having the time to do it. Also it looked like Ash would come second due to the fact his father owns a games/dvd shop.
However, due to some hard gaming over long nights and Ash deciding to go out and get royally tanked up meant that I managed to pip him to second spot. I felt such a tingle of joy especially upon hearing Ash drunkenly over the headset cry out ‘it’s not fair!’
They have been the root of many extra days on a game I would have ordinarily traded in and far too many lost hours researching online how to get the impossible ones. I’m sure that was one of the main reasons for Microsoft to come up with the system. Give games longer life.
How about you PS3 peeps? Has the inclusion of trophies given you as much joy? Or is it neither here nor there? After all it did take Sony 3 years to follow Microsoft to implement them and Nintendo still hasn’t bothered!
Well I for one think they are a great addition to my gaming hobby and long may they continue. I mean I need the time to catch back up with Ben!