Why trophies can ruin your game

By Dave Snell
GameZone.com

Trophies and Achievements are a great idea; lengthen your gaming experience by finding all the little things the developers want you to see, and get credibility points along the way. Many gamers find themselves replaying titles to find all the nooks, crannies and hidden points, and the breadth of difficulty is well documented ranging from a full score just for beating the game (King Kong on 360), to some truly tough challenges (one achievement for the original GRAW was to get to the very top of the Universal leaderboard – WORLDWIDE!), and everything in between.

Why, then, is this article titled the way it is? Well, first let me clarify – I love me some achievements. Getting Keys to the City on GTA4 was great fun (despite missing out on the promotional key pack), and the first time I got a coveted platinum Trophy on PS3 (gained for unlocking all other trophies available), I did the obligatory “little jig” and felt happy for the rest of the day. But I am starting to find a worrying habit forming in my game playing – that is the need to score maximum points per run-through of a game. I caught myself doing this during my first play of Uncharted 2. Rather than follow the plot, taking the tension and need for urgency seriously, after every fight I was scouring every corner of each section looking for the telltale sparkle indicating a treasure. Why? Because I need the points, man…….

And therein lays the problem – once you are hooked, you can’t switch off the compulsive need for points. It is all well and good saying, “Worry about it on the next play-through!” but most gamers feel compelled to start collecting immediately and start scouring from the first button press. Using UC2 as the example, I found myself using specific weapons throughout the game, just to unlock the necessary kills. I died repeatedly to get my “Hangman” kills up in one section seemingly tailored for my needs. And don’t start me on “Steel Fist Expert” – I lost an entire afternoon in one early level trying to get the 10 kills back to back. What’s a bloke to do when the dangly carrot of bragging rights is tantalizingly close, apart from swing in for a bite?

The problem with all of this is the fact that it kills immersion. If I really am a Big Daddy, looking for my one and only Little Sister, I would be unlikely to start researching cameras and turrets just to get my points. Realistically, I would either hack it or blow it up. Nathan Drake wouldn’t stop midway through a chase to look for relics, and realistically, the enemy would just get away. And even in multiplayer, there is nothing more annoying than when your well-planned attack fails because some dopey fools are trying to kill each other with a knife to farm an unlock.

The point is, yes, it’s all just a game, and it should be fun, but sometimes, the achievements get in the way of a full experience. UC2 lost its impact somewhat because of my trophy grubbing on the first play-through – it wasn’t a bad game, but where I should have been following the plot and bonding with the characters, I was truffle-hunting for sparklies. Same goes for a myriad of story-based others – less directed titles can get away with more, but on average more game achievements do harm than good. So, how do we solve this, and what can the developers do to help?

I (and I bet I am alone here) would love to see developers implement some sort of system whereby collectables are only available after you have finished the game once – beat the game, and the treasures become available. Another idea would be to find ways of making more achievements tougher to get in the first play-through – instead of 30 Uzi kills, why not make it 300? That way, I can go for the points on a later game, and still enjoy the story for what it is, safe in the knowledge I’m not going to get the trophy no matter how hard I try first time round. Or how about just adding some innovation – one AC2 achievement is to spend 5,000 florins on courtesans – am I the only one who basically farmed that one? Why not at least make it so that the achievement is a bit more challenging – “Use courtesans to sneak past 5 guards simultaneously,” for example? But please, don’t give us the lucky trophies – you know, those lovely sports ones where your AI-controlled team have to get it for you. Also, how about everyone adopts Valve´s handy little stat counter, telling us how far we are through an achievement? And finally – please don’t drop my completion percentage for downloading some extra content – I nearly wept when this happened to me with UC2.

The real gripe behind all this most likely stems from the lack of thought put into the trophy system by the developers. It’s far easier to add in some straightforward challenges and then bump the numbers, but how about a little care and attention? Mirrors Edge did a great job of tailoring the trophies to the actual game achievements, instead of creating a farm-a-thon, and Burnout Paradise actually added to the challenge with theirs, too. So, yes, we all love achievements, but the system is far from perfect. Admittedly the gripes are often down to each gamer’s lack of self control, but the development teams could help us out too – after all, the system increases the time we spend with their titles anyway. Or maybe, we just need to learn some restraint, and learn to play a game instead of farm it?