Do the Acheivements in 360 games make you prefer games on the 360 over anything else?

[heybtbm]

I'll always buy the 360 version of a cross-platform game for the following reasons...

1.) 360 has a far superior controller (IMO).

2.) All my friends have a 360. Very few have a PS3. If a game has multiplayer or co-op, I'm going to get the 360 version for that reason.

3.) Achievements add to the overall experience. I always laugh at the "e-penis" jokes here on DP. It's such a transparent and silly arguement. I couldn't care less what other people think about my gamerscore. I've had a lot of fun going for certain achievements over the past 3 years and that's what matters in the end. Achievements are a small "reward" for challenging yourself.

[alxbly]

I see Achievements as one more bonus of buying a game on the 360. It's not always the thing that persuades me to buy a multiplatform game on the 360 though, if there's a superior version of a game on the PS3 then I'd be inclined to buy that. Usually I buy games for the 360 because the controller is just so much better. Farcry 2 is a good recent example; the PS3 controller is terrible for FPS's, so Farcry isn't even an option for me on the PS3. That said, I'm quite keen to build up my trophies as well, so I recently bought Dead Space for PS3 rather than 360.

Anyway...I'll take trophies cause at least I can earn 3-d renderings to view in Home, sure it's still kinda silly, but a trophy is more cool than just a number score, like anyone ever looks anyway and goes ZOMG you are the l33t for either..

I see what you mean but I found trophies to be a really badly implemented system so far. I only have seven PS3 games, but out of the seven only three of them have trophies implemented (Dead Space, Wipeout HD and Uncharted have trophies whilst Gran Turismo 5, Motorstorm, Resistance and Ratchet and Clank don't). And the ones that don't aren't exactly niche titles... It sounds sad but I find myself not playing the games that don't have trophies because I expect there will be an update at some point. Surely... ?

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I don't have a problem with Gamerscores in general, and while I don't personally ever aggressively go after getting them in any games I own, I won't take them seriously as a competitive badge-of-honor until Microsoft creates a TOTAL GAMERSCORE RANKING system.

It seems so damned logical to me, they obviously track all of our gamertags ... why is my Gamerscore and user ID ONLY available to people on my friends list, or people looking at it in the leaderboard of an individual game?

Wow ... your total gamerscore is 10,345 ... that's great ... but what I REALLY want to know is WHO has THE HIGHEST gamerscore in the world and what games did they earn all of their achievements in.

It's like MS created this great system of tracking achievements and crippled it all in the same development process ... we're so limited in how we share our gamerscores within the system.

If it weren't for external websites like MyGamerCard allowing us to put ID cards containing our gamerscores and last games played in forum signatures and elsewhere I doubt half of us would have a clue what each others scores are.

And, no, they don't influence my purchasing behavior at all.

[PapaStu]

The problem is that many of the 'highest score' Gamertags are glitched or hacked. People that have 1k in FF XI and a few other obscenely difficult achievement point games can only get them by cheating. So to try and compare yourself against those scores is a waste of time, because they arn't legit, and would sour the appeal of earning the points to many if they found out its just easier to hack their system and screw with the hex code for the game.


I think the highest 'legit' score i've seen is just a tad over 300k. But most of these guys that are going for most loaded games and highest Gamerscores legitely are double playing games in different regions (when they can, some games count, others don't) both for retail titles and XBLA titles.

[carlcarlson]

I want to be able to BUY stuff with my achievement points. If that were possible I would definitely go out of my way to buy and play more games. Make it happen MS!

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The problem is that many of the 'highest score' Gamertags are glitched or hacked. People that have 1k in FF XI and a few other obscenely difficult achievement point games can only get them by cheating. So to try and compare yourself against those scores is a waste of time, because they arn't legit, and would sour the appeal of earning the points to many if they found out its just easier to hack their system and screw with the hex code for the game.


I think the highest 'legit' score i've seen is just a tad over 300k. But most of these guys that are going for most loaded games and highest Gamerscores legitely are double playing games in different regions (when they can, some games count, others don't) both for retail titles and XBLA titles.

While I don't disagree that that kind of thing happens, keep in mind that that exists across all leaderboards for just about all online games.

And that kind of behavior is never going to go away.

It's not fair to those of us who would be interested in such a system if MS is citing the above reasons to NOT create one (I don't think that they ever have cited as much).

[SegaAges]

This topic has been beatin to death.

Anyway...I'll take trophies cause at least I can earn 3-d renderings to view in Home, sure it's still kinda silly, but a trophy is more cool than just a number score, like anyone ever looks anyway and goes ZOMG you are the l33t for either..

Really outside of the people who get achievement points, I don't think anyone really cares if you have a high one, it's just a self gratification I guess, one with little reward.

You know, when I play games, I love acheivements, but I will have to agree. The only people that care about the score are other achievement whores (that is actually the technical term for it) and yourself.

I don't own a ps3, but I do like ach's because they help you not just beat the game, but get every secret, hit everything, and not cheat (well, most of the time, and cheats as in cheat codes).

The points are also, normally, and indicator of how far your friends are in a game if you dont feel like reading through all of the acheivements. This is one thing I noticed.

It is not set in stone, but it is the what I have noticed wirh a bunch of the games (this is not counting xbl games):

0-100 points - played the game and that is about it
100-200 points - played some of the game, maybe about halfway through the game (possibly 3 fourths of the way through)
200-300 - definately 3 fourths of the way through the game, maybe more
300-400 - very close to beating the game (on rare occasions, the game is beat)
400-500 - completed the game
500-600 - beat the game, did some of extra stuff
600-700 - decided to hit some sweet secrets and stuff
700-800 - at this point, it is a point grind (unless you find something random here)
800-900 - same as above
900-1000 - not many people have 900 on a game. I have 900 on tony hawk, but the thing is that the points were easy, and then they dropped a uber hard ach at the very end for 100. those happen.

Don't hold me to that 1, as there are exceptions (sports games, blah blah blah), that is just an observation. So don't try to sit there and quote me on how it is wrong, it is an observation.

I like the points because it sometimes tells me how far through a game I am. It is also fun to see what others do in the games. Like, for instance, some of my online friends on xbl have rb2, and I am going through the challenges, while they went straight to the tour. Kinda fun to notice.

[Nature Boy]

The problem is that many of the 'highest score' Gamertags are glitched or hacked.

I don't see why that's a problem to be honest. Somebody hacked their score? That doesn't affect my enjoyment of them at all.

I totally think the idea is brilliant. It gives me another way to play if I want to. Like in GTA IV: some days I'd play to beat missions. Other days I'd try to find a way to get a new achievement (like blowing up 10 cars in 10 seconds - I *still* don't have that one).

On the PS3 I wouldn't have bothered with half of the stuff I did in GTA IV.

[mailman187666]

I like achievement points a lot. Its fun to compare with friends and kinda look at what kinds of things you were able to get that your friends haven't and vice versa. As far as which multiplatform games I buy, I've been buying PS3 for these reasons.

-I've had bad luck with the 360 hardware, so I like making sure its on reliable hardware.
-some games run a bit better that I've seen so far imo
-I prefer the dualshock 3 controller

I like both 360 and PS3 though. Recently I bought Fallout 3 for PS3 and that has no trophies for it. I don't mind it only because I like PS3 and while achievements are cool, I feel as some games run better on the PS3 imo. Whether fallout 3 does or not, I'm not sure, I'm just saying. I do wish, however, that Sony will make an update where every game has trophies. It doesn't really make as much sense only having certain games utilize the feature.

[s1lence]

Well, I think I can say with out a question...yes.

I have dropped buying any other game or game system unless its on the 360. I have 5 soon to be 6 systems as well as systems from Japan and EU, so I can play the games and get the points that you can only get if you have a import system. (There is even a Japanese version of NBA 2k8)

The highest legit gamerscore is Stallion83, he is around 264,000 now. Anything over that has been glitch,hex edited, gamesaved etc. Its something about leaderboards that I guess motivates people. The next closest legit score is Zakke Wylde (no not the guitarist) and he is around 243.

If you do like achievements there are a bunch of achievement sites like www.achieve360points.com and www.xbox360achievements.org. They offer guides, tips, what games to play or avoid. There are also achievement tracking sites like www.360voice.com and www.trueachievements.com that actually have achievements based on the achievements you get on your xbox.

There are point levels in every game and some are harder then others. Avoid Rumble Roses, Chromehounds, Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2 if you want points. Easy point games are in the form off all the 2k6 sports games and Avatar as examples.

Really, with out achievements there are a lot of games I would have never considered on playing and a large number of them, I glad I did. Its like a game within a game.

If you look at my gamertag, you see that I have 0 points in a large number of titles, thats because there is a games played leaderboard where I'm currently 7th.

[s1lence]

I don't see why that's a problem to be honest. Somebody hacked their score? That doesn't affect my enjoyment of them at all.

They get off on their placement on the www.mygamercard.net leaderboards, Japantop sold his account (he was #1), which is a violation of the terms of service, but they never reset his score.

If you want to see a gamertag what has been reset look up Sufoor.

[titanzguard]

I never really got into achievements from XBOX but over the past couple months I have been trying any game that supports trophies. I even found myself the other night stay up to 2AM playing high velocity bowling so I could get as many trophies I could. Up until a couple months ago I didnt care about either - achievements or trophies - But once I got started and they started adding up, I notice I want more and more games with trophies.

[Sudo]

They get off on their placement on the www.mygamercard.net leaderboards, Japantop sold his account (he was #1), which is a violation of the terms of service, but they never reset his score.

If you want to see a gamertag what has been reset look up Sufoor.

I don't get the point of buying someone else's gamertag. Isn't it the point of achievements to get them yourself and have something extra to do in a game? Why would you want a gamertag that has everything in most games worth playing already done?

[walrusmonger]

I actually rather get PS3 versions of games because I'll take the durable blu-ray format 100,000 times over acheivements that I will never care enough to unlock.

[chrisballer]

I'll always buy the 360 version of a cross-platform game for the following reasons...

1.) 360 has a far superior controller (IMO).

2.) All my friends have a 360. Very few have a PS3. If a game has multiplayer or co-op, I'm going to get the 360 version for that reason.

3.) Achievements add to the overall experience. I always laugh at the "e-penis" jokes here on DP. It's such a transparent and silly arguement. I couldn't care less what other people think about my gamerscore. I've had a lot of fun going for certain achievements over the past 3 years and that's what matters in the end. Achievements are a small "reward" for challenging yourself.

I could not have said it better myself ;this is exactly how I feel. I would also like to add that I could care less about people seeing the score. To me there is just something about unlocking or achieving something in a game that keeps me more interested in it.

[theChad]

Like a few others have said, I like achievements because they give you ideas of things to do in the game you might never have thought of.

On Test Drive Unlimited, I worked my ass off trying to drive on every single road on the island or getting the various "_______ Collector" achievements by deciding which Ferraris or Lamborghinis I would get to earn the achievement. It gave me a reason to want to do all those stupid "top-model" missions when I didn't care about the coupons or whatever the reward was. Achievements made games like Assassin's Creed or Fable II worth playing after I'd beaten the main story by suggesting these other things to do in the game, and I can see how the achievements would give you a reason to care about things during a game that would otherwise be totally insignificant (flags in AC, Hero Dolls in Fable II...). I'm not one to bother with achievements to inflate my gamer score because so far it's meaningless, but I just enjoy them for giving you different ideas about what there is to do in the games.

[Nature Boy]

They get off on their placement on the www.mygamercard.net leaderboards,

Good for them. It's nice to have hobbies.

They probably also get off on the fact that so many people are all over them for violating the spirit of achievement points.

It's better to ignore them.

[s1lence]

Good for them. It's nice to have hobbies.

They probably also get off on the fact that so many people are all over them for violating the spirit of achievement points.

It's better to ignore them.

Exactly, thats what most people do. The only time I even pay attention or notice is if I am trying to figure out an achievement only to find out that you can't get it unless you hex edit the achievement code. Thats when I get pissed off.