Achievement Points and Me

I have just recently bought my Xbox 360 and I was introduced to these Xbox 360 Achievements. One poster at xbo360 site forum says it’s a new form of crack, maybe he’s right. Once you hear that sound that you have unlocked an achievement you get that feeling that you have accomplished something, that the game acknowledges it, and that it’s there for your friends to see and brag about.

One of the positive sides of achievement points is it expands your game play, encourages you to perform tasks that you normally wouldn’t do and the result is you experience more of the game that what you have expected. One good example is finding the skulls in Halo 3 and then playing thru the campaign again with the skulls on and same time get enough points in and finish it in a decent amount of time, I think that kicks it up a notch and takes the game to a new level.

The negative effects are playing mediocre games that you wouldn’t even touch if I wasn’t for achievement points and there is a good amount of them out there. Reading spoilers/sites that helps u get as much points in one run, which ends up you ruining a great game’s story for you. I have sometimes countered the latter by running thru a game w/o spoilers then come back again for the achievements that I missed. But sadly this is not always the case.

There is a competitive side of me that wants to join the ranks of the 1337 players who has their gamer score way up there. Play as many games regardless of quality and get as much achievements while enduring dull/grueling/unforgiving game experience on the process, although I’m sure there are a good amount of games that can be done in less than 8 hours, still that’s 8 hours.

And then there is the casual player in me that says points will come along. Just play the game for fun, don’t worry about the score that really doesn’t mean anything except boost your e-penis. But the thing is I’m not really your typical casual player; well at least right now. I’m in between the hardcore and casual players, I’m a hardcore/power gamer that has not enough time. I know that when my wife finally gets here my playtime will be reduced. And even then I’m still a competitive/power gamer who just plays casually.

My wife recently told me that I play games like there is no tomorrow and my usual response when she asked me to rest up abit is "can I just finish just this level/quest/match?" which leads to another one and another one. I’m really grateful that my wife understands and lets me be who I am.

After reflecting on my current dilemma, I know I’ll still play games with or w/o achievements because gaming is just imprinted on my genes. In the end my stance on this issue is, I want my gamer score to go up but without the feeling of being constrained by playing games that doesn't interest me plus I'm also a PC gamer(MMORPGs, FPS) so it's easier to let go of the 360 controller when games like WaR comes out for pc.