Achievement Unlocked 10.24.08: Do Developers Care?

Posted by Rod Oracheski on 10.23.2008

411mania's Rod Oracheski takes a look at Red Alert 3 and Left 4 Dead. Two franchises that feature numbers in their name, but sport wildly different Achievement lists - but is that difference because one set of developers just don't think it matters?



Two franchises: Red Alert and Left 4 Dead. One is well-established and the other is brand new. One has a weak Achievement list and one has an excellent one, but is the difference related to the need for publicity and desire to get people talking, the difference in genres, or simply the respective importance that each developer has put on their Achievement list?

Tons of units? Check. Great Achievement list? Uh...

C&C: Red Alert 3

Now this is a bare-bones list. All but 14 are awarded for completing single player levels, with those 14 devoted to multiplayer - primarily online and in ranked play. Given some of their other games, it's easy to see a pattern here.

To be fair, the RTS genre is a little more dificult to create a good Achievement list out of than, say, the FPS genre. Out of the admittedly limited handful of RTS titles on the 360, only Universe at War has had a good list.

Still, it would be nice to see these guys churn out something better here. After all, they've had tons of practice... Maybe they've hit the wall in terms of Achievements, or maybe they think a franchise like Red Alert doesn't need much in the way of promotion to sell.

I would actually expect the opposite would be the case - a franchise with the fanbase of Red Alert probably expects better. Throwback mentions to past games, something that honours the history that the franchise has in some way. If you've been buying the games in a franchise for a few years, it seems rational to expect the development team for the new title would share that love.

When you have an established franchise, perhaps it's easy to start taking some things for granted. You don't need to go that extra mile to attract fans when you're satisfied there's a deep pool to draw from, after all. Maybe that's why we see long-running series start to stagnate? (Smackdown vs Raw, I'm looking at you...this year's update better be good.)

Lists this good should be contagious.

Left 4 Dead

It's entirely possible that Left 4 Dead isn't going to be the amazing multiplayer experience that it seems to be, though personally I doubt that. I think this is going to be a game that lingers in the top 10 most-played titles on Xbox Live for quite some time. The one thing that might hold it back is continued support - the title is the work of three companies: Valve Software, Turtle Rock Software, and Certain Affinity. That list is actually only two now, as Valve acquired Turtle Rock some time back, but it still poses additional concerns for ongoing support.

Still, regardless of what the future might bring, the game brings with it an excellent Achievement list. The Achievements are inventive ('Dead Stop' rewards you for punching a Hunter as he pounces, for example), reward skill ('Clean Kill' requires you shove a Boomer, then kill him without anyone getting splashed on), and provide a clear challenge (kill 53,595 infected to get 'Zombie Genocidest'). It's funny to see them take a little shot at Dead Rising that way - Dead Rising, of course, sported the 'Zombie Genocider' Achievement, for slaughtering 53,594 zombies - the entire population of the town the game was set in.

The Achievements also get some pretty decent artwork. I'm a particular fan of 'Man Vs Tank' and 'Stand Tall' pics. Sure would be nice to get those as Gamerpics...though I suppose with the new dashboard coming it doesn't really matter too much.

Valve has said in the past that the Achievement lists for their titles are given a lot of consideration, and that's been very evident. They churn out lists that are consistently innovative and humourous, as highly polished as every other aspect of their games.

That seems to be the biggest difference between the two respective Achievement lists. Valve cares about their lists. Whether that's because they believe it's good publicity or they simply want every facet of their games to be polished, it doesn't really matter. You can count on them for an Achievement list that's not lazy and that's good enough for me.

Trophies coming soon!

The biggest thing in Trophies this week was the rumour that Sony might start rewarding Trophy hunters. The rumour wasn't very specific, or sourced, but speculated that rewards like early beta access or themes might be in the works.

I've said in the past that Achievements, and Trophies by extension, should reward gamers who 'complete the set' with something. An exclusive icon, an exclusive theme - some sort of in-game reward perhaps. I just don't think it's likely that Sony's going to do it any time soon. They just introduced Qore this year, which offers up the same early beta access and themes, only for a price. With Sony's financials tanking along with everyone else, removing a revenue stream - however small - seems like a poor choice.

While I'd still back the idea of rewarding gamers with in-game items, I'm not sure I'd be happy to see a 'Trophies for betas' idea put in place. That's the kind of thing that will really ramp up the boosting for Trophies, something that's already prevalent in some games (Warhawk, for one) and hurts the experience. Give me an exclusive skin for my character, vehicle, or weapon - the flashier the better - and I'm happy.

In any case, Sony's time would probably be better spent making sure every developer is including Trophy support at a game's launch, not six months later.

In other Trophy news, PixelJunk Monsters will be receiving a Trophy patch at some point in the near future - possibly by Halloween. The list has been revealed and actually isn't bad for a downloadable title. There are a number of interesting challenges there that will shake up the way some people play the game.



Something occurred to me following the 'controversy' over a song's lyrics in LittleBigPlanet, the ensuing recall to remove it, and the new counter-protest from some other group upset about it being removed - it doesn't really matter at all if that song is in the game or not...Sony's going to have trouble, sooner or later.

Probably sooner, given Dateline's need for ratings.

Because let's face it, a few words from the Qur'an don't measure up to the shock factor that some user-created levels in LittleBigPlanet have. During the beta, which I believe will prove to have been relatively clean compared to the widespread release, you could already see the beginnings of it.

What's more offensive - the song, or little eight-year-old Billy firing up his PS3 and downloading a level that has him sending a plane flying into the Twin Towers, which crumble and burn as he 'wins' the level? Two snippets of the Qur'an, or Billy grabbing a level tagged as 'Funny' that features a Hitler-like person telling you to push a button that starts a bulldozer to push the little guys labeled "Jew" into the waiting oven?

Yes, it's user-created content and Sony's not really responsible for any of it - but that's not going to matter to Dateline or other mainstream media, is it? Jack Thompson might have to come out of retirement (forced or not) for that case.

In happier news, the new TV schedule continues to impress. Life on Mars is getting better, The Big Bang Theory continues to stay solid, and Chuck's had some interesting situations of late. I haven't heard if Reaper is making a return, though it'd be a shame if it didn't. Heroes is in the middle of its annual 'this is so confusing and slow-moving' pacing, though it should be picking up soon and has built a framework that could be interesting.

I've also been catching True Blood from time to time, though it comes on at a bad time for me and I'm terrible at remembering to set the DVR to record it. That last one is interesting enough that I'm considering the eventual release on DVD already. The same goes for the new season of Dexter, which I'm consistently missing due to other commitments.

On the 360 side of things, I've been playing a lot of Fable 2 and loving it. My first guy was a goody two shoes who had a sudden change in alignment when...well, here's what happened - directly from the forum post about it:

OK - I did something very, very bad.

I got a quest to find a date for this guy. His father was worried about him not having a wife yet and I agreed to find him a woman. Then I talked to the kid and it turns out he doesn't want a woman...

OK, whatever - so I had to go to the nearest town to find him a suitable "person" for him.

Got back and it was dark, so there was nobody on the streets. I figured I'd go see my family, who happened to live in the same town. The wife was looking for sex, as always, and I figured I'd nail her and then it'd be daylight.

Walk in and she's not there. Start walking back downstairs and my son comes up and talks to me. I do the sock puppet expression for him to bump his 'YOU'RE FUNNY' response up and we go outside to look for mom, that whore. What's she doing out at this hour of the night?

Standing in the street I see a new icon on my d-pad quick select for expressions and actions. So I push it...

It's the 'find me a date' thing...gets the details from whoever you have selected.

My five year old son.

OH HE LOOKS PERFECT! it says...GET ME THOSE DETAILS.

I realized I just pimped my kid. To a gay pedophile.

So my guy, who has his righteousness pinned to the max and is holier than the Pope...went and killed that guy, his father (who gave me the quest) and some dude who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You show me another game where that can happen...

I've since swapped things up and started a magic user who'll be going evil right from the start. The goody goody can linger where he is. To be honest, when that happened I felt a little sick - it was such a bizarre thing to have happen, but it had such an impact after trying to keep my guy on the straight and narrow for so long that I've had less eagerness to play him again.

It didn't help that the adventuring life doesn't lend well to marital bliss, and I'd lost a pair of wives to divorce already. PRO TIP - when the wife/husband wants sex, drop what you're doing and run back there. It doesn't matter if you're giving them a thousand gold a day and they live in the nicest place in Albion, if they're not getting bedded down on a regular basis they're outta here - they don't care if you're saving the world.

In other games, I've got a boxed-up title sitting here that I really need to get to. Starts with an 'F' and rhymes with Allout 3 - but more on that next week. I need to get that outta the way fast, or as fast as you can get through a game with a reported 200 or so endings, as Gears of War 2 is supposed to be hitting my desk in the next week.

This holiday's lineup of games looks pretty strong already, and we're not even into November yet!