Last weekend while I was playing Resident Evil 5, the desire to collect achievements struck me for the first time since I've had a 360, which has been over two years now. It was lazy Sunday afternoon, and I was working on my second play through of the game on veteran, nearing the end. I really enjoyed this game, and I didn't want to stop playing, so I looked at it's achievement list. Happily, many of them looked well thought out, fun, and not cheap. I got to "work" on what looked like the easiest achievement that I'd missed, and worked my way up, unlocking a bunch.

This is when the awesomeness of achievements first struck me personally. They're great for going back into games that you've already beaten but still haven't gotten sick of, and are looking for more to do. Even better, many well implemented achievements will help point out gameplay elements that you might have missed the first time around. When I went back to Dead Space, I was enticed to try a few of the guns that I had never touched, and they were all fun and new (except for the flamethrower which sucks).

Achievement points serve as a sweet meta-game to make great games even richer, plus its also satisfying to unlock one in a not so great game, strangely making your time spent playing it seem more valuable. Plus that "ding" noise that plays after unlocking one is frickin sweet!