Do we need to finish games?
By kinackin 8 Comments
I recently rediscovered the joys of Chuckie Egg, a game which I haven't played in at least 20 years. Now, apart from the realisation that i may be getting old, another thought struck me. I never completed Chuckie Egg. Oh sure, I played it for hours and hours with friends at school and clearly I enjoyed it for the memories to be so ingrained, but I never actually got to the end. Now, that is probably down to me being pretty naff at games at that age, but i think its more down to the fact I didn't play it to finish it. It was about the journey, not the destination.
Admittedly my ten year old self probably didn't have such lofty philosophies, but I never remember thinking I needed to get to the end on any of the games I played. Games like Flashback, Midwinter 2 and Stunt Car Racer could have ended in all manner of bizarre ways, I'll never know and frankly, have I lost out by not knowing? It could be argued Flashback needed to be finished to find out why his memory went and why he was being chased by those low polygon biker police dudes, but really.. does it matter? Midwinter 2 was a massive game at the time, and ill be honest with you, i have no idea how you would finish it, or indeed if it were possible, and why would you want to anyway, when there's mid-air vehicle swapping to look forward to (on a side note, am I the only one that thinks Just Cause 2 would make for a really cool Midwinter 2 game?). I think Stunt Car Racer was probably more than doable, its just one of those games that was more fun to play than to finish, and no, I never got to division 1, and yes, I am bitter.
I find myself changing lately though, in the past year or so I have slowly given up my PC and forsaken it for the lure of the consoles, and with that switch comes the dreaded Achievement/Trophy. Now I find myself doing things I wouldn't have done two-three years ago, I feel dirty for it, but damn-it I need those Gamer Points, my friends are ahead of me and I need to catch up! If the leaderboard shows me in fourth place on a game, guess what i spend my night doing. If there's an achievement I haven't got that looks easy, I wont stop until I have it, even when it turns out it wasn't easy at all and in fact a pain the arse to achieve. The clearly inane achievements get loving too, I mean surely I need all those feathers or the designers wouldn't have put them in, right? And it goes without saying that the game isn't truly finished until Every..Single..Pigeon..Is..Dead..
Well, er, yeah so you see, this achievement based malarkey has had an affect on me, and I don't really care for it, but I cant help myself. I cant be the only one, surely there are others out there that were once like me, happy to just float along not knowing what happened when all five frogs made it across the road. No doubt all those people now sit there in badly lit living rooms, staring at the telly trying to get all those damn frogs across in less than two minutes.
The way people play has changed a lot since they wrote those old games, in my opinion at least. People's need for instant gratification is partly to blame for this, but I think Achievements play a part to. I would like to pose a quick question for the multi-console owners out there. When a game comes out on both PS3 and 360, which one do you get it on? and do the Achievements have anything to do with it?
All this could just be a result of me being rubbish at games, but some of my finest moments have come from moments within the game itself, rather than the moment I complete it.
Now, if you don't mind, i have to go finish Chuckie Egg.
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