Achievements
Achievements is a concept that appears in 688 games
Achievements are extra challenges added into video games that sometimes carry a point value or unlock bonus materal, and are sometimes solely for bragging rights.
Xbox 360 / Xbox Live
Achievements are a bonus feature included in Xbox 360 games that unlock when the player completes a certain task, listed on a screen accessible through the Xbox Guide button. Achievements range from simple tasks the player would do anyway, such as completing a level or defeating a boss, to more complicated challenges, such as killing a certain number of enemies in a specific way or completing a level without firing a gun. Microsoft makes it mandatory that every game (except Indie Games and Xbox Originals) on the Xbox 360 has Achievements built into it. There's no set number of Achievements mandated, but the total number of Achievement points MUST add up to 1000 for retail games (rare exceptions notwithstanding). If a game has less than 1000 Achievement points in total then they cannot charge Microsoft points for the remaining Achievements (Crackdown is an example of this). The maximum number of achievements seems to be around 50. However there have been exceptions, such as The Orange Box, which had 99 achievements. Arcade games are required to have 12 Achievements before an expansion is released and the achievements must be worth a sum of 200 points. The developer can choose how to assign these points. Some achievements can grant zero Achievement points ( Street Fighter IV – Unbeatable Fist); some achievements can be worth 350 points ( Need for Speed: Most Wanted - Defeat Clarence Callahan "Razor"). Either way, it almost always adds up to 1000. Exceptions include Condemned: Criminal Origins, which only has 970 points worth of achievements. Or Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II, which only has 705 achievement points. Microsoft has allowed developers to add up to 250 points worth of achievements in paid downloadable content for retail games, and an extra 50 points for Xbox Live Arcade games. Microsoft revised their policy to allow extra DLC-related Achievement points for certain high-profile games, up to a possible total of 1750. Fallout 3, Halo 3, and Gears of War 2 are among the games that have surpassed 1250 Achievement points. Some developers use it to make advanced challenges in their games like stun a hundred enemies instead of killing them or find 50 of <x> item or complete the game in less than <x> hours, et cetera. Some developers give achievements that naturally unlock just by playing the game, such as completing a single mission. Others make deliberately silly achievements, like the Long Road Ahead achievement from Guitar Hero II, which asks players to fail a song on easy difficulty, or the Little Rocket Man achievement of the Half-Life 2: Episode Two segment of T he Orange Box, which requires players to carry a lawn gnome with them throughout the entire game and stick it into a rocket bound for outer space. On the other hand, some developers put very little thought into Achievements. All of the points in 360 launch title King Kong are unlocked by completing levels; so beating the game once grants the full 1000 points. Far more notable, however, is the case of Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth, which only features five achievements with the full 1000 points spread between them, and all involving the player getting their combo meter to a certain number. It was infamously discovered that it is possible to earn all 1000 points from the game in about two minutes (including menus and skipped cutscenes) by running to the side of the first screen and spamming the B button.
There are also Achievements that affect content in other games. When players unlock achievements from another game, they can receive bonus content in the current game. For example, in Gears of War 2 the character General Raam is playable in multiplayer after killing him in the original Gears of War. Games that currently support this are Gears of War 2, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and Castle Crashers.
The addictiveness of Achievements have led to people doing many things to gain that little bit higher Gamerscore, such as trading wins online. A large group of people found ways in games to essentially gain achievements without completing the requirements. In 2008 Microsoft became aware of this and punished the cheats by reducing their Gamerscore to 0 to try and stop this. This involved the top Gamerscores in the world being reduced to zero and stopped a lot of the cheats. Some players also downloaded other people's save games and used them as their own, allowing them to more easily gain achievements. Microsoft stopped this exploit by tying save games to individual Gamertags so different Gamertags cannot use the same save.
The extreme popularity of Achievements on the Xbox 360 console has led to other publishers and developers including their own variations; Playstation 3 games, for example, now feature a nigh-identical system where players unlock " Trophies" for completing certain tasks. The Nintendo Wii does not feature achievements of any kind , but the specific game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has its own internal "token" system. Other notable Achievement systems without their own pages are detailed below.
Steam
With Valve's Release of The Orange Box on Steam, Valve added Achievements to the new games in the package including Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. Valve stated that the PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One will have Achievements added at a later date. Team Fortress 2 initially had only 17 Achievements, but Valve has since added additional class-specific Achievements for the Pyro, Medic and Heavy. This totals to 132 Achievements for Team Fortress 2. Valve has also added Achievements to Day of Defeat: Source after its release. Valve will add more Achievements to Team Fortress 2 and future games like Left 4 Dead and Half-Life 2: Episode Three.Unlike the Xbox 360 Achievement system, Steam Achievements does not award players any points, though they are viewable through a player's profile.
Valve has released a set of development tools named Steamworks, these tools let developers add Achievements to their games among other things. Audiosurf was the first game to feature Steamworks Achievements. Other games include: Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode One, Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition and more. A few Half-Life 2 modifications have had Steamworks Achievements added to them, including D.I.P.R.I.P, I NSURGENCY : Modern Infantry Combat, Zombie Panic: Source and more.
Steam Achievements stats:
For a complete list of games with Steam achievements and stats how hard or easy they are, visit http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Blizzard / Battle.net
World of Warcraft
Blizzard implemented Achievements in their Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game World of Warcraft in patch 3.0.2, shortly before the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack. There are over 900 achievements in World of Warcraft, in the different categories, General, Quests, Exploration, Player vs. Player, Dungeons & Raids, Professions, Reputation, World Events, Feats of Strength and the upcoming Account Achievements. World of Warcraft also features a Gamerscore like system called Achievement Points; all Achievements except the Feats of Strength achievements award points, because the Feats of Strength are usually time-sensitive in relation to things like in-game holidays and other special events. These are purely for bragging rights.Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan said:
We found that players are always looking for bragging rights and recognition of their past accomplishments, It’s more to feel like you got a trophy for doing something special, but in no way would this increase your character power. We didn’t want to force you into weird sorts of gameplay that you wouldn’t be doing anyway; we wanted it to more be sort of a reflection of what players were already doing.
At first we were coming up with other names like accomplishments, goals, medals — anything to not call them Achievements, We sort of came around to the conclusion that all players call them Achievements. Steam has a great Achievement system, Xbox has a great Achievement system; it’s almost just like this weird game at a certain point to not call them Achievements.
Upcoming Blizzard games
Blizzard will also implement Achievements in their upcoming games Diablo III and Starcraft II. All these achievement-supporting games will be unified into one Battle.net/Blizzard account. Jeff Kaplan said:
Battle.net achievements in Starcraft 2
For now the points are just a ‘WoW’ character score. As we graduate to that Blizzard Account system, which is right on the horizon, it will switch over to a Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played StarCraft and he was mediocre in WoW.’ That sort of thing.
Other Games
Other specific games that have their own Achievement system include:
Achievements games
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