Achievements: some people love them… and nobody hates them.
But for all the love that people have for achievements, sometimes I find them so… boring. Finish the levels for 10 points each. Finish the levels on a higher difficulty for another 10 points per level. Repeat on insane difficulty. Yawn. And, yes, while sometimes I find them boring, sometimes they really add flavour to the game, and I love them all over again.
Good achievements should cover some practical considerations. I don’t mind achievements per level. They help me gauge which friends are ahead or behind me in the game. That lets me know who I can go to for help, or whom I should watch my conversation around, lest I spoil an ending. So these are useful… but don’t make ALL the achieves about the levels. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was guilty of this. Considering how big the world is, I would have thought there could have been a few more “off the beaten path” achievements. Something to add more flavour. An achievement for picking flowers would have been a welcome change over all of the steps up the guild ladder achievements we got.
After the level achievements, I like off the beaten path achievements. These could be for various things, excellence in aspects of gameplay (getting great combos for instance) or for exploration. I view these as signposts. If I get all of these achievements, I will have developed my skill at the game, and I will have experienced everything that the developers wanted me to experience during the course of an (above) average game. These could be romance quests, side quests, alternate endings. Things like that.
Now get me the funny stuff, or the stuff that adds flavour. The Easter Eggs. Something where I am surprised to get them. Call of Duty franchise does an excellent job with this, you may have to save a fellow soldier, get around some dogs undetected or whatever, but all of the sudden: PING! “Oh, I wasn’t expecting that!” Viral achievements “caught” during on-line play are a new way of adding to the flavour of the game. Fable II did a good job of it with the doll trading mini game: it emphasized an aspect of the game that was clearly important to the developers, i.e. on-line trading and gifting of goods.
Finally there should be a few points allocated for the stupidly hard achievement. And don’t make it a “100% completion” achievement. That’s dull. Make it worth bragging about. Make it so that people are proud to have that achievements, there is a buzz about it.
What are your favourite achievements? I am woeful at achievements, I get maybe 40% of the achievements in any game. Sometimes I get more. But so far, I have never got 100% on any game (XBLA included!) What games do you have at 100%?