Achievements in Games

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I’m currently playing Alan Wake, and keep coming across coffee thermoses. Apparently if you collect them all, you get some sort of notation in your Steam account. Big whoop.

How do you feel about achievements in games? While in some respects I can see the appeal, personally I can’t be bothered going out of my way to try to get them. They generally don’t add anything to the gameplay, they don’t typically give any in-game benefits, and they can often be massively tedious (flags in Assassin’s Creed come to mind).

Then again, I might be missing the point. So what do you guys think – love ‘em, hate ‘em, or don’t care?

 

Sometimes it will give me something to try, like for instance the achievements in DA:O. Other times, it might give unlocks, like for instance in STALKER: Call of Pripyat. In the former case, I might do it if it's not too far out of the way. In the latter case, I will try to get as much as I can.

In GTA:VC and SA I did get 100%. The benefits were also substantial in those games if you managed to do everything.

Nowadays most achievements get logged through Steam or whatever, not offline, and since I don't use Steam, I will never even know they're there.

 

Depends on how much I like the game. If I like a game enough I'd usually get to a point where I'd start experimenting with it extensively, trying out different rules/strategies/playstyles and using different methods to deconstruct it so I learn as much about how to beat the game as possible. I'd play it over and over to the point that I'd start remembering even trivial stuff like how much silver/gold I should be carrying by the time I arrive in and leave Honnleath (for DA:O).
Completing achievements along the way is just a bonus, though to skip tedium after my first few runs I'd probably start using mods. I'd never cheat outright though, except for fun.

I usually ignore achievements for games I enjoy but that would never make my "favorite games" list, like Diablo 3.

I hate Steam. I ignore Steam achievements.

 

Can barely live without them anymore. When I killed Firkraag in BG2EE and received no achievement for doing so, i was so angry that I hurled my gaming PC through the Window. That's why I'm writing this post from my phone.

In retrospect, I may have overreacted.

 

^hehe

Personally don't care much.
I like it, if some of them are witty and fit well. But the gaming world without them is no worse off.

 

myself I like the achievements cause it is like little side quests that IMO add more depth to the game. just my

 

I don't even know what Steam is, so that probably puts me in the Don't Care camp.

 

Steam is evaporated water.

 

I do however think BoM's achievements are the best!

 

Generally, I'm not too bothered. But some games use achievements better than others: for example, Dishonored's give you cues as to how you can approach the game (e.g. by not killing anyone); whereas Skyrim's are pretty uninspired, usually being "complete mission X" or "do X 100 times", which I'd do anyway.

 

I think the only game I play where the achievements actually matter to me is WoW. Some of them give rewards, like pets or titles, occasionally mounts... and for me, they are like a tracker of all the different and fun things I've done in that game.

I don't think I play any other game where achievements actually DO anything for you.

I am thoroughly indifferent to the Steam achievements.
I am actually not a big fan of Steam in general.
I am still bitter over the fact that I bought Civ5 in a store and I still have to play it through Steam.
I use Steam (because apparently it's unavoidable -.-), but I still don't really LIKE it.
And I think their achievements are silly and pointless.

 

Sometimes they add to the gaming experience sometimes they don't but even when they don't it is not like they bother me so all in all I find them to be something positive.

 

I normally try to obtain achievements when they are difficult and fun to do. The three half-life 2 games on Steam had some fun ones and I managed to obtain all of them.

 

Rome 2 Total War has an interesting achievement that you gain from declaring war on ALL factions that you encounter in the game. If you can win a campaign while doing this, you get the achievement.

An achievement for playing the game in a way that is totally insane and hardcore, and something that most people wouldn't likely do otherwise... kind of cool.

 

How is that much different from any other campaign? Ok, you can't just assassinate a faction away, and you have to be a bit lucky that some random faction isn't destroyed on the other side of the map without you being able to do anything about it, but other than that I tend to end up at war with most factions anyway.

 

Pretty different from my campaigns actually. I tend to have a lot of trade partners and perhaps an ally or two. Being at war with everyone in the late gem isn't such a big deal, but this would make your early game pretty darn challenging. Especially in Rome 2 where so much of your income typically comes from trade.

 

Actually, the achievement is to declare war on every other faction as soon as you meet them. Also in the first turn, you have to declare war on all your initial allies, client states and satraps. It's obviously different from a normal campaign as truces, alliances, trades etc. are no longer possible.