The Video Game Critic

I actually have the table tennis game and love it! It is crazy addictive! It's good to have a game you can pop in, play for 20 minutes and feel you get something out of it. A great buy for $40. My gamertag is NewMdlArmy if you guys want to add me on your friends list that would be cool, just let me know who you are if you do so. I also play GRAW and a host of other 360 games. Thanks!

 

Shawn

[QUOTE=Shawn]

I actually have the table tennis game and love it! It is crazy addictive! It's good to have a game you can pop in, play for 20 minutes and feel you get something out of it. A great buy for $40. My gamertag is NewMdlArmy if you guys want to add me on your friends list that would be cool, just let me know who you are if you do so. I also play GRAW and a host of other 360 games. Thanks!

 

Shawn

[/QUOTE]

 

Shawn, I get the following "The gamertag you entered does not exist on Xbox Live." 

Argh! I forgot about the spaces, my gamertage is New Mdl Army

 

It stands for New Model Army, which is one of my favorite bands. I hope that works!

Hey all, what do you think about achievements now that they're more-or-less a standard feature? Does it detract from the Wii U at all that it doesn't feature them? Most Nintendo games are designed with "100% completion" in mind, and even contain some inbuilt systems of recognizing this achievement, but you can't display your prowess for the world to see, short of posting screenshots on Miiverse.

I'm not a fan of the Achievements system. I have friends who became very competitive over their scores, and actually bought certain games simply because they knew it was easy to get 100% achievements on them and boost their score. I empathise with the point that it can encourage you to play games more than once and get more out of them, but equally I found that it involved overly monotonous tasks that removed much of the spontaneity and exploration that you would experience without them.

It hadn't occurred to me that the Wii U doesn't have achievements, which pretty much sums up the fact that I haven't missed this feature whatsoever.

I wish Nintendo would go all in with their achievement system (stamps are the Nintendo achievement system by the way). If every game had just a few stamps to unlock, that could then be used in Miiverse everywhere, you'd actually get something of value for every achievement. I already use the ones I unlock in Mario Kart 8, and I'd LOVE it if I were getting Batman ones from playing Origins. Imagine, Metroid ones from VC Metroid games, Star Fox ones from the new game, Tekken and Street Fighter ones, etc. across each of the 3DS and Wii U Miiverses. Awesome. And they could then give every profile a sticker album, where you could display your achievements however you like (most difficult first, or best looking ones highlighted, etc.).

I've only experienced the Playstation trophy system but I believe it works in a similar vain. I'm a fan of them if implemented correctly. They help explore the game more deeply and also try various tactics. In Killzone because I was chasing trophies I actually went from thinking it was a average game to thinking it was a very good game as the trophies made me delve more into the Killzone universe plus as I got more familiar with the levels and weaponry it enhanced my appreciation of the level design.
The negative is online and DLC achievements/trophies there is really nothing more disheartening to platinum a game then a DLC arrives and reduces your percentage. Or the online mode is dead and/or just full of arseholes.
They should have subcategories for games ie single player, online and DLC and rank them as separate trophy runs.
I'm currently playing through Metal Gear Solid 2 HD on PS3 and the trophies again have led me to explore the game more deeply and I'm really enjoying revisiting this game and attempting to earn all the trophies.

To me Achievements/Trophies are the modern equivalent of high score tables and with a bit more thought put into the online/offline/DLC part. I think they are great and add to a games longevity.

I still don't understand the point of achievements but my friend is really into it. It seems like he's always talking about completing more achievements. I don't understand what all the fuss is about. Still... I'm the type of person who strives to collect items in platformers so I guess I can somewhat understand what the deal is. It just seems to be a step further.

I find Achivements to be a mixed bag, sometimes it's fun to go out of my way to get them, but other times they're so frustrating and hard to get that it's really not worth it.