Achievement Unlocked 05.16.08: Odds and Ends

Posted by Rod Oracheski on 05.16.2008

Even without much happening outside of Liberty City, there's still a lot going on in the world of Achievements. Epic declares war on Achievement whores and their match-ruining ways, Toddo thinks Achievements are selling out, and we play 'Let's Look Ahead' - all on this week's Achievement Unlocked.



I'm sorting through some odds and ends this week, including some big news, where Achievements could (let's say should!) go, and one that a regular reader brought up last week. I'll try to keep it from being too disjointed.

Hah, good luck with that one!

Let's start things off with the big Achievement news of the week...



Epic cracks down on boosting

If you play online regularly, you've probably encountered this scenario at least one or two times: the game starts up and you're immediately verbally assaulted by the guy who pleads for assistance with an Achievement.

"DUDES, just let me get 10 kills in a row! PLEASE, it's the only one I need!" he begs in that whiny voice that sets your nerves on edge. He whines and pleads until the match starts, only shutting up if everyone agrees to let him do his boost. It's a small thing, the boosters argue. Let him do his boosting and get out of there, it's not really hurting you or your fun.

Apparently Epic disagrees. Though the game is months away, they're planning some methods to curtail Achievement-boosting in Gears of War 2's multiplayer, according to an interview with CVG.

Boost aborted...
"If you're going for headshots, you get one headshot that counts and any other headshots won't count towards your Achievement, so players don't just play to get headshots the entire round just to get Achievements."

~ Cliff Bleszinski

Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer on both Gears of War and the upcoming sequel, no doubt dashed some Achievement Whore's hopes with his thoughts on boosting, but it's undoubtedly a positive for those of us who just play the game and let the Achievements fall where they may.

Epic is looking out for the online experience this time around, actively trying to dissuade boosters from flooding games looking for easy points. It's not going to stop them entirely, of course, and there's no doubt that they'll still have their "Must Do This Game" list of tasks to complete - but it should help keep the pre-game whining to a minimum.

There's also a downside here, which is fairly typical of any moves made to dissuade those doing 'things' they shouldn't be doing in a game without directly punishing them for doing said 'things' in the first place. (SEE ALSO: botting/macroing in an MMO, etc...)

In this case one downside is that it will take everyone - booster or not - longer to get those Achievements. Seems kind of unfair that it'll take me longer to get it just because 'those guys' boost every Achievement they can, doesn't it?

The other downside that I see here is that this move will keep the Achievement Whores 'playing' the game's online portion far longer than they otherwise would. It always seemed, regardless of the game in question, like Achievement Whores didn't really want to play that game - they just wanted their points so they could move on. Now I have to play with those guys - both against them and with them - for longer? Awesome. Hopefully Epic thought ahead and has set it up so you don't get credit for the headshot (or whatever multi-game Achievement they have in mind) unless you finish the game - otherwise I foresee a lot of 'got the headshot, time to drop' players in our future.

This tiny look into the Achievements aside, Gears of War 2 looks pretty good. Hopefully it has what it takes to back up the visuals, but the first game was pretty decent for a first effort at it.

As a side note, just because I'm not a booster personally, don't think I'm really that down on those who boost. Though they have this annoying habit of interfering with other gamers (seriously, just set up a boosting session with your buddies, for crying out loud) they're not 'cheating' at it, in a strictly technical sense. I don't think there's any way to defend the practice against the 'not playing the way it's intended' argument, but they generally aren't harming anything but their own enjoyment of the game.

Toddo hates sellouts...

Regular commenter Toddo mentioned last week that Need for Speed: Pro Street had some 'sponsored' Achievements. It was something I hadn't heard about before, and I haven't played the game - the demo was more than enough for me - so I looked into it.

Turns out Toddo wasn't crazy - there are actually four Achievements that read as though they've been sponsored by two different companies. 'First Big Crash' (Awarded for crashing and totaling a car.) and 'Safe Driver' (Finish 5 Career or Ranked Race Days with no car damage.) both read "Brought to you by Progressive Insurance!" 'Horsepower Challenge' (Increase your Car's HP by 25.) and 'Performance Upgrade' (Modify a Tier 1 car into a Tier 3 car.) both mention K&N Air Filters as a sponsor.

I'm not certain that Progressive or K&N paid money to be mentioned, though I tend to doubt EA threw in those mentions out of the goodness of their heart. I sent off an e-mail to EA, but it's gone unanswered so far.

Thinking about it though, these aren't the first Achievements I've seen that carry sponsorship - and the rest are all SEGA games.

All-Pro Football has the 'Stride Gum... long lasting drive' (Near end of the 2nd qtr or later, score an 80 yard TD.) though it doesn't carry the ultra-blatant "sponsored by" tag. Another Achievement that carries a name, but no sponsorship tag, is 'Sprite Slam Dunk' (Win the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest using LeBron James.) from NBA 2K8.

More subtle are a pair of NHL 2K8 Achievements: 'Five On Your Side' (Score a goal on a Gillette Fusion power play.) and 'Tourney Champ' (Win a Dodge tournament.) which also has the Dodge Ram symbol as the associated artwork.

These are the only ones I can think of, but if you know of some others feel free to leave a comment to clue the rest of us in. Feel free to weigh in and let everyone know what you think about the concept of selling - assuming that's what companies are doing - off an Achievement or two.

Personally, I don't think it's that big of a deal providing it's designed as a good Achievement first and sold afterwards. I don't know that I'd dismiss any of the ones I found as 'bad' Achievements - the weakest is probably the Dodge tournament one and even that's still a decent throwaway Achievement.

Good catch, Toddo! Thanks for reading.

Let's Look Ahead...

With Epic trying to raise the bar for Achievements, it seems like a good time to play the 'I wonder...' game - and of course I'm wondering what's next for Achievements.

I think it's pretty obvious that this year's wave of games needs to do Achievements better than games have in the past, if they want to get that extra bit of attention that a good list will attract, but what do they need to do?

Feel free to chime in with your own ideas, but here's a few things I'd love to see considered a base:

• Stage tracking: If the Achievement is one of the 'kill [X] number of [X] creatures' type, even though those would be great to leave behind entirely, let us know when we hit milestones like 10, 25, 50, etc... Keep letting us know the carrot's not eternally out of reach and we'll keep walking along after it.


• Achievement-related unlocks: Giving us unlocks - whether it's bonuses, skills, or items - for unlocking an Achievement not only makes us covet that Achievement, it makes us want to keep playing the game even more afterwards. Seems win-win, doesn't it?


• Reward 1,000/1,000: DLC has a bad reputation and though that might be largely due to the panicky 'the sky is falling' crowd, that doesn't mean there can't be damage control done. Why not offer up some free DLC to gamers who hit 1,000 points in a game - even if it's just a theme and/or gamerpic?


• No more 'beat [x] level' Achievements: These are lazy, lazy, lazy - and you don't want to be thought of as lazy do you? That goes for the Achievements given out for beating bosses that you have to pass in order to continue the storyline. Achievements for optional bosses? That'd be OK - but still a bit on the lazy side.


• Find the Fun: Try to find what people enjoy about your title's gameplay and make that an Achievement. If testers are having a blast running down pedestrians in your open-world game, include that. If they spend all their time setting up huge chain reaction explosions, make that a goal. Find what people like to do and reward them - that kind of encouragement keeps us playing.

What's your top five? Are you happy with the way things are, or is there something that you just can't stand to see on an Achievement list? Comment away!



Still playing Grand Theft Auto IV, and still finding just the most bizarre things happening and an incredible amount of freedom to do things the way you want.

I got to a mission that I finished at my friend's house, something about knocking off a guy for some reason or another - to avoid any spoilers. I was given a sniper rifle for the job, but the guy was in his apartment and not visible from the rooftop the mission perched me on.

There's a way to lure him into view, but this time around I decided to explore my options. Hmm...what have I got here? Sniper rifle, of course. Pistol...nah. Assault rifle...boooring. RPG...wait, now that has possibilities!

So, from the rooftop opposite his apartment, I fired my RPG through his window and into his room. *BOOM* and out he came, running for his car. One shrug and a second RPG later, the mission was over. Totally different from the first time around, but every bit as satisfying.

***MINOR SPOILER***

I had a similar experience on one of the Assassin missions, where I had to kill a target who was heading to a helicopter to take off. I pulled up the first time, jumped out of my car and ran down the alley to the helipad. After blasting a bodyguard or two I capped the target as he ran for the chopper.

I was curious as to how else that could play out, though, so I reloaded an old save and hit the mission again. This time I parked my car and zoomed in with my sniper rifle from a distance. I spotted the target quickly (the arrow over his head helps) and with one shot the mission was over.

Reloading again, I instead sniped the chopper pilot. The target ran for his life, diving back into his car and tearing off - though the alley brought him my way and to a quick end. Reloading yet again, I waited until he was in the chopper and going airborne - then a shot through the canopy and into the pilot's head brought a fiery end to the mission.

The next time I grabbed a small car and burned down the alley to the helipad. Taken by surprise, he was halfway between the car and helicopter - easily run down. The last time, I brought my RPG to the party. I casually strolled up and blew the hell out of the entire group.

Six tries, six totally different play experiences. I have no doubt that there were at least a half-dozen more ways it could play out. That's the kind of thing that continually amazes me when I talk to friends about the game - nobody's story about how they did a mission is exactly the same.

In between bouts of GTA, I checked out footage and pics from Microsoft's Spring Showcase held this week. Banjo Kazooie looks pretty good, and I'm pretty interested in the whole 'platform to gather parts to build your vehicle' thing. Some of the vehicles looked pretty amazing, but I wonder how easy that part is going to be.

Fable 2 looks amazing, and I hope Molyneux can deliver on the scope he wanted to have in the first title. The game already looks like a worthy successor though, so I'm adding it to the 'must play' list right now.

Too Human also had the coop shown, including hands-on time. A bit disappointed to see the coop cut from four-player to two, but as long as it plays well I'll overlook it. It's pretty hard to get four players to commit to regular games anyway, so maybe this'll be for the best. Definitely getting this one, based on the feedback.

Until next week, I'm out.