Achievement Unlocked 10.31.08: Pointless Points

Posted by Rod Oracheski on 10.31.2008

411mania's Rod Oracheski takes another look at C&C: Red Alert 3 with developer feedback, and wonders if the Avatar Store might offer Microsoft a chance to make Gamerscore worthwhile. Plus impressions on six titles, including Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, and Quantum of Solace.



This week we'll take a look at Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 once again, this time with feedback from one of the developers, as well as taking a stab at how Microsoft could make Gamerscore worthwhile, using the Avatar Store. Battlefield: Bad Company gets a sort-of retroactive Trophy patch, while I take on way too many games and give impressions.

ZEPPELINS OF WAR

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

After I talked about the Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Achievement list last week, I received an e-mail from world famous Greg Kasavin. Okay, wait...world famous? Maybe that's reaching a bit much... Greg Kasavin, Internet celebrity? With "people" like Tila Tequila using that title, that seems like a slam against the guy. Greg Kasavin, just a guy that some people know while most don't?

All kidding aside, Greg (or Lord Kasavin as he's rumoured to make his bitches call him) was a GameSpot editor-in-chief at one point - and I mean almost two years ago, aka back when the title actually meant something.

Greg got his foot in the door at EA and took his chance (one of many to have done it these days) to jump across to the development side of things and begin working on Command & Conquer - starting with the tail end of Tiberium Wars, continuing with Kane's Wrath, and most recently Red Alert 3, as it turns out...

I don't want to post the whole thing, but Greg raised some points I hadn't considered about the development side of Achievement list creation so I'll bring those bits to light:

Greg Kasavin:

For what it's worth, we designed the list deliberately and set aside a good amount of time for implementation because we felt it was an important part of the game. We wanted a full 50 achievements and for them all to be thematically consistent and feel rewarding to earn.

We also wanted the achievements to be well-balanced across the game's modes of play. Our goal was to reward thorough or skillful play, and enhance the core gameplay. We chose not to put in any gimmicky achievements since we had a lot of ground to cover between three campaigns and three playable factions.

Personally I don't like it when I sink 20 or 30 hours into a game, finish the campaign, and wind up with like less than 200 points to show for it; I also generally don't like when games put a disproportionate number of points into challenges that are at odds with the goals of the game.

We wanted to reward players for getting through the experience, and our story-specific achievements should be entertaining and satisfying once players reveal the descriptions. There are additional achievements for completing the campaign thoroughly and for playing missions through cooperatively. We purposely don't force players through the campaigns multiple times to earn all the campaign achievements, though.

Looking back over the list in question, I have to admit that he achieved (no pun intended) his goal there. Of the 50-Achievement list, 30 are dedicated to finishing campaign levels in single-player with another three for completing levels (9/18/27) in co-op. Three more are unlocked by completing all the bonus levels in each campaign, with four more unlocking based on various skirmish fights.

I still don't particularly like any of those Achievements, though I do admit that just by beating the game (assuming that by 'beating the game' you mean beating all three campaigns on hard) you'll come away with right around 500 Gamerscore. My problem isn't with coming away from a game thinking I didn't get enough points, it's thinking the list was easy or boring.

To be fair, there are 10 or so Achievements that are pretty good. Look at Achievements like 'Bloodsucker' for leeching seven different weapons using Hammer Tanks, 'Short Work' for winning a battle in five minutes or less, or 'Day of Judgement' for destroying 30 enemy units with an ultimate weapon attack. Those are the kind of Achievements I'd like to have seen more of in the game - specific objectives that are completed at random (or by people looking to get them) and feel rewarding for something other than the utterly pointless Gamerscore*?
* - more on that later

Here's another snippet, this time on something they definitely did very, very right:

Greg Kasavin:

As you saw, we also have a number of challenge-based achievements that are split among the game's three playable factions and accessible either through the offline skirmish mode or in ranked online games. They're meant to be really rewarding and interesting for players more invested in the game.

However, we didn't want to taint the online competition with highly specific achievements that would affect the way people played competitive matches, so we made these challenge achievements available in offline modes as well. And the reason some of the descriptions may seem dry is we wanted there to be no ambiguity about what's required to earn all the achievements.

I wish more developers would remember that Achievements that can only be unlocked online tend to cause every other player in the game nothing but headaches. I have no problem with a game, even one that's got a heavy focus on the online multiplayer, avoiding online-only Achievements entirely. It worked out pretty well for Call of Duty 4, after all.

In any case, it's obvious that my criticisms of the game's Achievement list have more to do with a different philosophy on what's important about an Achievement list than the team's desire. I have to admit that the focus on putting out point-heavy lists (lists that would generally be considered easier to hit the 900+ point level in) makes me wonder what the general focus is for the common gamer - the Achievement, or the points you can't do anything with*?
* - again, more on that later. No really - any time now.

I spent my Gamerscore buying a racially diverse group of friends!

The Avatar Store - Microsoft's Chance to Make Gamerscore Count

Now I know that the Gamerscore Whores out there are howling at that one - but let's face it, outside the competitive aspect of having more Gamerscore than your friends there's really no point to the Gamerscore at all.

Don't get me wrong, I hate seeing a game that I haven't played in a while languishing at the 150-200 point range (I think Oblivion is one - just too many distractions!) but that's not because of the missing score - it's because it shows me I didn't really put much time into the game.

At the same time I love to hit 1,000/1,000 in a game, but that's not because of the point total being added to my Gamerscore. It's the feeling of accomplishing something, and in some games it's accomplishing something that not many people will. It gives you a rewarding feeling - assuming it's not like Avatar's five-minutes-and-done Achievement list, of course.

In one of the first columns in Achievement Unlocked, I talked about making Achievements count. In that column I talked about in-game rewards that are unlocked via Achievements, citing the Mass Effect Achievement list specifically.

What I didn't talk about was making Gamerscore count for something. Oh sure, there's always going to be the e-Peen contests over who has the most Gamerscore - but does that really count for most people? I don't think so. There have been a couple contests that required gamers to increase their score in order to qualify, but not much has been done on that front either. Abusers of the system, including those using blatant cheats to increase their Gamerscore, made sure of that - though the system has been locked down a bit more since then.

So what does the Avatar Store announced this week have to do with Gamerscore? Maybe nothing, but it'd be a great opportunity for Microsoft to make those pointless points count for something - use Gamerscore as a currency in the Avatar Store.

You buy or rent games and earn Gamerscore. You trade that Gamerscore for items in the Avatar Store, using Microsoft Points if your Gamerscore just doesn't cut the mustard. Seems simple, right? Just need to decide on the Gamerscore-to-Microsoft Points conversion ratio!

Hold on...there are a couple of obvious holes here - chief among them being third-party content. While it's entirely possible that Microsoft would be willing to live with the tradeoff of people spending hundreds on games to get Gamerscore just to avoid paying $1.50 for a new outfit for their Avatar, it's not likely that a third-party would be willing to spend time and resources making Avatar-specific items if there's no payout.

I know, I know - you might also say "But Rod, what about the cheaters with hundreds of thousands of Gamerscore? They'll have all the nice things?" and I thought about that. Here's the thing though...it doesn't really matter if they buy everything. After all, you won't see their blinged-out Avatar unless you have them on your Friend list, so it's like cheating in a single-player game...why would you bother? Plus they'd still have a small penis, so there's that.



Battlefield: Bad Company received a Trophy patch this week and it's retroactive - after a fashion. You'll need to go back through and fulfill the single-player list of Trophy requirements again, but the multiplayer Trophies are retroactively rewarded. It's a pretty good Trophy list, though in the past I've talked about some things I'd change about it.

I never tried Battlefield on the PS3, though I played it on the Xbox 360 for a while. Fun game, but it was run over by the Call of Duty 4 juggernaut. I think some new maps were also released, so apparently the game's done well enough for EA to continue supporting it.



The pre-Christmas rush is in full effect, and that's most evident by looking at my desk where Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, and Quantum of Solace are all fighting for attention - plus there's the Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Mirror's Edge demos. I've played five-six hours, at the very least, of each game and here's some quick impressions.

Fable 2: The combat seems pretty simple, but as you pick up abilities like Flourish it gets quite a bit better. The spell-slinging system is good, with the multiple tiers of spell slots offering up a modicum of strategy there. I tried Time Control in slot one, so I could tap the B button and get a brief slowing of time to charge up a level two or three spell. Slots two and three are generally occupied by Inferno or Shock, with four being a rank four Time Control, and five pretty much reserved for Inferno's fiery destruction. The setup gives me decent crowd control and access to high-level power - a good mix.

I love the dog, which is extremely well animated and used within the story. Moving through the woods, the dog sometimes runs ahead with that weird 'looking backwards and running slightly sideways' gait that dogs have. It's strange, but the dog has more personality than the supporting cast of most games. When you see it get kicked, you're bound to want to kick someone back.

Fallout 3: If any of the people who threatened a boycott when Fallout 3 was revealed to be a FPS-perspective game actually refused to buy it, they're really missing out. The original creators of the Fallout franchise consider the game to be canon, but you have hang-ups about the gameplay camera angle?

The game has a lot of the dark humour from past games and the combat system is really more turn-based than twitch-based in any case. Using V.A.T.S. is just addicting, whether you're using a ranged or melee weapon. I highly recommend getting the Rock-It Launcher - killing a Super Mutant with a critical hit Teddy Bear to the face is hilarious.

Motion blurring and depth of field are used to good effect.

Gears of War 2: Almost every complaint I had about the original game (poor implementation of storytelling, repetitive gameplay through the missions, etc...) has been fixed in a big way. There's more story, or at least more delivered to you in a meaningful way, in the first five minutes of Gears of War 2 than there was in the entirety of the original. New characters are introduced and you get to see more of the motivation for some of the regular cast, and the game's ending - while not a cliffhanger in any way - leaves you with as many questions as it does answers.

The gameplay changes pace on you continually, which is a great change. It's not all 'stop-and-pop' gameplay, though you'll spend a good amount of time under cover. You'll also find regular vehicle sections, along with several 'holdout against a horde' moments that provide a change of pace from the routine.

Horde mode is a blast and though I wasn't a huge fan of the multiplayer in the original game, I can see Horde mode eating up a lot of time. The new screenshot function is kind of cool, but ultimately too limited to be a major timesink. You can't record and replay gameplay - instead you need to control a camera when you're dead, trying to keep up with the action enough to get a good shot. I'm guessing the difficulty in getting a good screenshot that isn't set up in advance is going to keep most people from playing around with the functionality.

Maybe next time, and yeah - there better be a Gears of War 3.

Quantum of Solace : When this one arrived on Wednesday I didn't expect to play it much at all that night. Instead I wound up playing until 3:30 a.m. without realizing it. The game starts slowly, but continues to improve as it goes in almost every aspect. The later levels look better, they play better, and you get way cooler weapons. I'm a little confused as to why a game called Quantum of Solace has me going through scenes from Casino Royale though. I'm halfway through the game and have very little clue what happens in Quantum of Solace...

I haven't fired up multiplayer yet, though I've heard it's decent. Hopefully by next week I'll have more on that front.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts: The game looks amazing, but I expected that after seeing what Rare did with Kameo. The platforming parts are, at least in the demo, somewhat limited. You can do a ton of platforming, climbing a castle and a few local buildings - but your move list is limited to jump, high jump, and wrench hit.

Fortunately, the vehicle creation has a lot more depth - even with the limited parts available in the demo. Beating the various challenges isn't hard with most of the stock vehicles, but you can only really excel at them with a custom craft. The soccer ball challenge, for example - you can get a Jiggy by loading the soccer balls into the starter trolley and driving them across the line. Or you can use the pre-made Pusher vehicle (no relation to Pusher robot) to shove them across the line.

The best way, however, is something different entirely - and different for each person, no doubt. I experimented with a few V-front cars that I felt would push the soccer balls more efficiently, but couldn't get the TT Trophy that way. Then I thought 'outside the box' and created a soccer ball launcher - basically a flat section with walls to contain the ball and two springs to launch it up a ramp made of wedge blocks.

Sitting in front of the ball dispenser, I loaded the launcher and hit the spring release - boom...goal. Loaded again - boom...goal. Way too easy!

Mirror's Edge: When it works, Mirror's Edge works really well. You get into a rhythm of racing through the level, avoiding obstacles and continually moving faster. When it doesn't work, however, Mirror's Edge becomes incredibly frustrating. The aiming for jumps seems very twitchy, with seemingly identical leaps ending in either success or death - almost randomly.

The game looks very good and the sound work is awesome, but I'm not sure that in a Fall that's so packed with games I'm going to give Mirrors Edge anything but a rental.

Until next week, I'm out.