Guides
Achievements are extra challenges added into games. Completing these challenges could increase your Gamerscore.
Xbox 360 / Xbox Live
Microsoft makes it mandatory that every game on the Xbox 360 has Achievements built into it. There's no set NUMBER of achievements, but the total number of gamerscore points MUST add up to 1000 for retail games (rare exceptions notwithstanding). If a game has less than 1000 gamer score 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 give you 0 gamerscore (TMNT 1989 Arcade – In The Dark), some achievements can be worth 300 points (Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth). 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. And the recent Halo 3 update that added 750 achievemnents which adds another 750 points to the orginal 1000. To make it the most achievements for one game. In addition, Microsoft has allowed developers to add up to 250 points worth of achievements in downloadable content for retail games, and an extra 50 points for Xbox Live Arcade games.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 30 hours (GTA IV), et cetera. Some developers give achievements that naturally unlock just by playing the game, such as completing a single mission. Others use it as a part of the game to make it more ridiculous, like the PRESS START achievement in The Simpsons Game or the CARRY THE GARDEN GNOME ABOUT FOR 7 HOURS achievement in Half-Life 2.
There are also Linked Achievements. When you unlock achievements from another game, you get bonus content in the current game. For example, in Gears of War 2 you unlock General Raam if you kill him in the original Gears of War. The only game that currently supports this is Gears of War 2.
Nobody has yet used the Achievements system to break the fourth wall and spook the player mid-game.
The addictiveness of achievements have led to people doing many things to gain that little bit higher gamerscore. 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 however, the problem has been far from eradicated.
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 Half-Life 2 and 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 achievments 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 you any points, but a Gamerscore like system could be in the works.
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, INSURGENCY: Modern Infantry Combat, Zombie Panic: Source and more.
Blizzard / Battle.net
World of Warcraft
Blizzard implemented Achievements in their Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying GameWorld of Warcraft in patch 3.0.2, shortly before the release of its next expansion Wrath of the Lich King. There are over 900 achievments 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 have a Gamerscore like system called Achievment Points, All Achievments exept the Feats of Strength achievments award points. These cant be used for anything other then 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. And they will unify all their achievement supporting games into one Battle.net/Blizzard account. Jeff Kaplan said: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.
