Saturday 7 February 2009

Escape from Castle Gamerscore.

I have an achievment that almost nobody else has!

Sadly, it does not appear on my gamercard. There is no direct evidence that I have done it, anywhere. There is only indirect evidence, and even then you need to know what you're looking for before the connection can possibly be made.

So, what is this mystical achievment, I hear ... er, me ... ask? Well, I shall tell ... um ... myself! It is this :



For the last couple of years, I have willingly subjected myself to the torture of this overly annoying system. I have actively chosen to spend more money on a game purely because it has achievments! (Lego Star Wars II for 360 rather than the cheaper PS2 version.) I have also denied myself the opportunity to play some other games because they don't have trophies. I realised how stupid this was in the case of Ratchet & Clank : Tools of Destruction, which I am yet to play. I decided to wait for the trophy patch, and now that I have discovered that there won't be one I suddenly feel somewhat stupid.

Why have I done this to myself? Why has an arbitrary and even random reward system become one of the dominant factors in my gaming life? Why do I CARE that I have 910 on Halo 3 compared to the 760 that Mrobjob has? (User chosen because his total gamerscore is the next one I could pass if I were still playing that particular game.) Why do I allow that missing 15 on Braid to even bother me at all?

Having a higher gamerscore does not make me a better gamer than somebody else. I know this, and yet I still trawl through the gamercards of people to see if I can justifiably make the claim. "Ha, you may have 50,000+, but you don't have a million in Geometry Wars! You don't deserve your score..."

But, recently, I just stopped caring. It helps that the 360 can no longer be relied upon to ever actually read the disc that we put inside it. Eventually, you just tire of restarting, opening and closing the tray repeatedly, and instead switch to a console that works! Further to that, even if playing a Live Arcade game, and therefore not using the DVD drive at all, it still takes 1 minute and 13 seconds from switch on to moving your ship in Geometry Wars Evolved 2. Compare this to the 25 seconds from switch-on to Secret of Mana on the Wii, and you see why the 360 has taken the back seat recently.

Going a month without any noticeable change in gamerscore was cathartic! It freed me, allowing me to once more not care about what anyone else sees, just what I do. It has allowed me to dust off the PS2 once more, and play God Hand, which shall be getting a review-me-do soon enough.

I do still wish that the rest of the world could see what I am playing. I would also love for there to be a "Beat Fat Elvis without using Roulette" achievable, or "Spank 50 women". For now, though, I will content myself with the knowledge that I have done both, until some smart arse invents an all-format 'Achievment Aggregator' that tells the world everything in every game!

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