Over the last few years I have consistently played every team multiplayer game that has come around and I am sad to admit that I am getting a little bit bored of hopping online and playing the same games over and over. What can one do when they are bored of their gaming? The answer for me lies somewhere deep in XBOX Live, the answer for me does not necessarily lie in changing the games I play but changing how I play games. The answer for me lies in the War of Achievements.
You might ask WTF I am talking about, and that would be a great question. What I am talking about is playing games a new way, playing games in a way that re-generates fun for me with my games while not having to spend a boat load of money on new ones. To tell you the truth I came across this on accident and the award winning game Bioshock is to blame. Bioshock was the greatest single player game that I have encountered thus far, the graphics, the game play, the sound, its all done with such quality that I instantly fell in love with the game back in July when the demo came out way before the game even hit store shelves.
One day after beating the game I found myself browsing my achievement list and I checked out how I did with the game. I figured since every game has a total of 1,000 achievement points I would see how I did. I was shocked when I saw that I only gained 465 points out of 1,000. How could this be I asked myself? How could I spend roughly 25 hours with a game and only receive not even half of the achievement points. This started the Battle of Achievements for me, at that point I vowed never to lose the War of Achievements. I vowed to try to get all the achievements I could muster up while enjoying even the crappiest of games.
Playing games this way brought a new excitement to my play time and Timeshift was the first game I tried winning the War on. I thought that Timeshift would be a good experiment for me because I knew that the game pretty much sucked but at least it has a cool game mechanic. In Timeshift you can slow, stop, and reverse time whenever you want. This mechanic in the game is fun and helped me get through the first level while gaining a massive 45 achievement points. I got ten points for beating the first level of the game, I got ten points for nabbing ten weapons out of ten enemies hands while using my time stop powers, I threw a sticky grenade back at an enemy, I got five points for walking on water, and I shot five weapons out of my enemies hands. I did all that and now I sit at 45 points, how gratifying.
Timeshift was the first game that I used this new found strategy but my War of Achievements started way back on November 23, 2005, when I completed the Basic Training in Call of Duty 2 which I gained 50 points for. Back then I didn't give a shit about achievements, I didn't care that I got those 50 points but now I think its the coolest thing ever. What do they achievement points get you? Nothing at all, but I still think its a blast to play the games with the achievement list in front of me and try to get all the points I can. Just yesterday I plopped COD2 in my 360 and gained the Veteran of the Winter War achievement which upped my Gamerscore by 60 points. It's not necessarily the gamerscore that matters to me now but the fact that there are challenges in each game that make the game more fun to play. Whoever thought of the idea is a genius, these achievements add tons of replay value to your games.
So now every game I play is a Battle for me. It's a battle to win the War of Achievements, if I can gain at least half of the achievement points in every game then I will have won the Battle of Achievements for that game which gets me that much closer to winning the War of Achievements. So when you see me playing Madden 06 and you wonder WTF is he doing, just remember that to get 400 points in that game all I have to do is complete 30 years in the franchise mode, a small feat for someone who simulates all thirty years.
This article was originally posted on January 9, 2008 on our original gaming blog.
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