Technically, this is in participating with the latest GS Chalk Talk, but for me personally, it's an excuse to ramble on about how I approach writing a review. Like most things I write about, I like to offer a brief introduction to the topic. Since we're talking shop about reviews, I'll begin with the most importing task: playing the game.

You'd be surprised how few reviewers give a game enough of their time. Heck, to be perfectly candid, I've worked for sites that have made it clear I am only required to play through an hour or two of a game before moving on to writing up my critique.

To be fair, as of late, I have been focused on iOS titles and Facebook games, and they actually require little more, if that, than an hour of play to fully evaluate. But generally speaking, I like to cover my a** and know what I'm talking about. There have been occasions where I haven't completely finished a campaign, but I always try to make it my business to fully discover all the ins & outs of a particular game.

This, of course, is referring strictly to my past professional (freelance) reviews. When it comes to reader reviews, I feel a player has the right to chime in at any point in their progress, so long as they intend to offer something of meaning to the community and how it relates to a game.

Once I'm done running a game through its paces -- and hopefully I've had some fun with it -- I like to focus on introducing the game, usually by way of a brief tour of said genre and/or the publisher/developer who has created the title. But this isn't a set pattern. I'll discuss anything relevant. I want to keep things brief, however, and by my second paragraph, I'm usually on to a description of the game's presentation and/or story.

After setting up some basics regarding what the player can expect in terms of progression, I tend to let the rest come naturally. I discuss whatever comes to mind, and that's usually the key elements of a game that have impacted me the most, whether it be the controls, leveling system, visuals, story, etc.

The one thing I try not to do is overstay my welcome. I know folks are after the meat, and once I've covered the gameplay, I usually wrap up by covering the visuals and audio. There are rare cases where graphics and such demand a bit more focus, but typically you know I'm headed for home around this time.

At which point I bring the whole thing full circle round, summing up what I've expanded upon earlier and giving a nod as to whether I think the game's worth your time and money. Sometimes, I have to leave all of the decision making up to you, expounding on the pluses and minuses without clearly settling one way or the other.

And that's pretty much my review process. A GS buddy I knew from the NSider forums landed me my first reviewing gig, and after finding my feet, I've been approaching it this way pretty much ever since. Sometimes my reviews read like Shakespeare, sometimes they read like ****. In either case, I always try to do my best to inform and offer something entertaining to read. The score always represents that which I cannot put into words.

Video game reviews are important because whether we agree with a review or not,they give us a general idea of what a game is like and without them it would be much harder to decide which games we should buy.

Much of the gaming community trusts reviews done by ''professional reviewers'' who work for Gamespot,IGN,Game Informer etc. because much of the gaming community think game professional reviewers are experts and have the best opinions on whether a game is good or not.However,reviews done by professional game reviewers are still largely based on their opinions and if a Gamespot staff member reviews a game and says they don't like the game's story or gameplay,it doesn't make it a fact the game has a bad story or bad gameplay.One of my Gamespot friends told me he met a professional game reviewer who doesn't like JRPGs and the person is a talented writer and can write well-written articles/reviews but he has given negative reviews to JRPGs because he doesn't like JRPGs.Just because he's a professional reviewer and talented writer does it make his opinions of JRPGs facts? Also,my friend told me that guy(the talented writer) played a JRPG named White Knight Chronicles and he sucked at it a lot because he kept dying and he used a fire spell against an enemy named a ''Fire Dragon'' (people who play JRPGs a lot would know most of the time using an elemental spell against an enemy that's based on the same element will heal the enemy).Afterwards he gave White Knight Chronicles a low score.Even though he's a talented writer,would you trust this guy's reviews of JRPGs?

This guy might be a good writer,but does it mean you will feel the same way about a game that he does?

I've also seen an Australian video game magazine review of a Madden NFL game,but instead of explaining whether they thought that Madden NFL game did a good job or giving the player a realistic or fun NFL experience or not,the reviewers just talked about why they don't like American football and gave that game a low score.

Even though some of Gamespot's staff may have played thousands of games in which they can used to draw comparisons and standards between games and how games should be,in the end their reviews are still based on their own personal opinions and not facts.

A prime example is how one of Gamespot's staff members reviewed a game named NieR and gave it a score of 5.0 and said it's story is not interesting until late in the game and it's music is overbearing.But,many Gamespot members who've played NieR love NieR and they've said they love NieR's story and think of it's story as very emotional and think NieR's music is beautiful and some people even downloaded NieR's music because they like to listen to it.This is why many player reviews of NieR(reviews done by Gamespot members)say NieR is a great game and those people gave NieR a high score.

This is why many people place big importance on player reviews(reviews done by normal everyday people).If a Gamespot staff member says in his review that a game isn't good but a majority of player reviews say the game is good,it will let people know there's many people who think that particular game is good despite the fact that Gamespot staff member says it isnt'.

I think professional game reviewers are helpful nonetheless because many people are casual gamers or don't always keep up to date with the gaming world and if they want to at least get a general idea of what a game is like,they can read an in-depth and properly written review from Gamespot because many player reviews don't address every area of the game (story,gameplay,graphics,music,replayability)or can be annoying to read due to bad grammar.

From a personal point of view,I choose to buy NieR because it received many positive player reviews and I found it for a cheap price and NieR turned out to be one of my favorite games from this generation as well as one of my favorite games of all time.If it had only listened to VanOrd's review,it would have missed out on discovering what is one of my favorite games of all time,so this shows why player reviews are imporant.However,some people only listen to what professional game reviewers say and if they saw VanOrd gave NieR a score of 5.0 and read some of the negative things he said about NieR,they wouldn't want to play NieR.

That brings me to my next point,I've seen many people saying they won't buy a game that receives a score of less than 8.0 from Gamespot.Some people think just because Final Fantasy XIII-2 received a score of only 7.5 by Gamespot it means FFXIII-2 is a bad game,when in fact,a score of 7.5 is a good score,but the reviewer just didn't that the game was amazing,but it's his opinion.Gamespot constantly give Halo and Call of Duty games very high scores but I'm not a big fan of those games and even though Gamespot gave Halo 2 a score of 9.4,Halo 3 and Halo Reach a 9.5 and Call of Duty games score around the 8.5-9.0 range,does it mean everyone is going to like those games? No it doesn't.Gamespot gave Lost Odyssey and Final Fantasy XIII-2 a score of 7.5 and they're both amongst my favorite games from this generation.

However,Halo and Call of Duty games sell very well,and part of the reason is those games constantly get high scores from professional reviewers(as well as lots of advertisement for those games).

I remember years ago when I was in a video game store,a staff member said ''Gears of War is a great game because Gamespot gave it a score of 9.6'' even before he had played the game.

Demographics come into the equation too.Many Japanese gamers have a different taste to western gamers.Many Japanese gamers love JRPGs and like games with anime influenced visuals and many Japanese gamers like visual novels,but FPS games are not as popular in Japan as they are in the West.Many Japanese games use male characters that have have ''emo'' or ''feminine'' features because in certain Asian countries,feminine features on a man are considered attractive.Where on the otherhand,western male characters tend to be more muscular or badass.In Japanese games,many of the female characters have a cute,bubbly personality which is common for women in Asian countries.But in many western games,female characters usually act more serious.My point is,you can't expect Japanaese people who've grown up and whom have lived in a country with their own distinctive cultural aspects to like a FPS game just because a western developer gave it a positive review and a high score.

A typical western video game character named Marcus Fenix

A Japanese video game character named Cloud Strife

I think people should listen to reviews done by both professional reviewers as well as player reviews because you shouldn't let the opinions of one person persuade or dissuade you when you're deciding whether to try a game or not.I'm a big JRPG fan but I decided not to play a JRPG named Unlimited Saga because it's received many negative reviews from professional reviewers as well as from many player reviews and this is an example of how I think game reviews have stopped me wasting my money/time on what most likely will be a game I won't enjoy.But like I said with my NieR example,if a game gets a negative review from a professional reviewer but lots of positive reviews from player reviewers and it's from a genre you enjoy playing,you should give the game a try,especially if you find it for cheap.

There was a time, that unfortunately seems to be long gone, when Resident Evil was a synonym for horror and thrill on every gamers' dictionary. By locking up players inside a mansion inhabited by creepy undeads, and by limiting the players' view of the scenes, like an incredible director that knows how to create suspense through camera placement, the game set the standards for how 3-D horror should be done. Its installments were anxiously awaited by adults who liked experiencing the feeling of being in a horror movie where you are the central character, and by teenagers who saw the action of playing a zombie-ridden game as an act of bravery and, most importantly, a overwhelming roller coaster of fear and suspense. Resident Evil, in its own frightening niche, excelled, thrived and mesmerized in its ability to terrify and freeze in fear even when scares were expected, and for years the franchise glowed under that spotlight.

The came an era where the gaming industry transformed into a geekier version of the movie industry, and where most of the blockbusters that created fortunes and made companies famous were first-person shooters. Lacking the mass appeal of those titles, the men behind Resident Evil decided that, instead of limiting the series to innovating inside its familiar space, the franchise should stretch its tentacles out of the horror realm and into the land of blood, gore, excessive ammunition and, consequently, big budgets and towering sales. Resident Evil could have remained a fantastic, albeit dangerous, oasis in the middle of a bland boring beige desert, but - carrying its signature name - the game slowly merged into an unrecognizable shape, becoming a rather generic face in the middle of a crowd whose kings and queens are too well known and have too strong of a grip on the market and critical opinion to be dethroned.

Resident Evil 4 started the mutation, but its little tweaks and changes were so nicely done that rather than stripping the game of its remarkable characteristics, it simply made them visible through a new perspective and added some extra action spices to punctuate the situations of sheer despair and fright. Sadly, Resident Evil 5 had such a poor control over how far action could be added without removing the franchise's face that the result was a game that tried to compete on a field where it clearly did not belong, and when compared to pure action games like Halo and Gears of War, the supposedly horror turned action software landed with a disappointing thud, failing to generate any reactions differing from I think I have seen this before, and in much better shape. And when things seemed like they could not get any worse, Resident Evil 6 is unleashed and, despite a campaign that does try (and succeeds to some extent) to revive the standard pacing of the franchise, it is a game mostly packed with so much absurd that some screens and gameplay sections feel like a watered down version of Call of Duty. Worse than becoming a bland action title, Resident Evil has turned into a humorous caricature of both its genre of origin, and its new niche.

In the midst of this horrifying debacle - not the good kind of horrifying, clearly - it is pleasant to look to the sight of the wreckage and notice that there are still honest survival games out there; titles that try to refresh the genre not by adding ridiculous action elements to the recipe, but by looking around and simply acknowledging the game design possibilities that naturally exist within the genre. It is a simple organic kind of game development, and the result - possibly - is one of those games that is so natural that it is hard not to wonder how come nobody else had tried to do something like that before. The game might be compared to Red Steel, Ubisoft's promising launch Wii game that ended up being a failure, but Zombi U seems to master the Wii U's control and use it in its favor, instead of fumbling with it while trying to use a capability that is simply not there, which in the case of Red Steel was trying to accurately map sword controls to the limited Wiimote.

The ability to use the game pad to scan your surroundings for items and other collectibles seems to go along perfectly with the game's lonesome and tense atmosphere, as removing the eyes from the screen can be awfully rewarding in terms of what you will encounter, but also positively dangerous in terms of who might be lurking around the corner while you examine the nearest cabinet. It is unquestionable proof that there is value on Nintendo's newly found control scheme, and what is even better, is that it is proof, effort and creativity coming from a third-party rather than from Nintendo themselves. And if control innovation is not enough to show that there is still fresh oxygen to be processed by survival horror games, the game also brings the fantastic mechanic of actually killing your character and turning him into a zombie that can be tracked down and killed by whatever character you gain control of next. Not only does it add an extra layer of tension, as players will probably lose a character and also be removed from the exact location to where they had progressed, but it is also delightfully cohesive in a thematic sense, walking side-by-side with the post-apocalyptic vibe the game oozes.

As a visible disaster occurs, it is always uplifting to look to the side and notice that, in the middle of chaos and destruction, there is still a bright spot and a possible escape for the situation, even if such escape features zombies, death and a not-so-touristic version of London. If Resident Evil 6 is the moral, maybe temporary, death of a franchise; Zombi U might be the dying last breath of a zombie that is about to get up, and provide some real thrill.

Still thinking about Resident Evil and the review fallout. Just saw Giant Bomb's review, which is 2/5 stars. That equates to a 4.0. GameSpot as we all know gave the game a 4.5, and Destructiod gave it a 3. A quick glance at the Metacritic shows RE6 to be at a 66, but a closer look reveals that although there are a lot of positive scores (22), there are also a lot of mixed scores (21) and five bad scores, which definitely has dragged the overall score down.

But, let's take a look at the really low scores:

• 4.5/10 - GameSpot
• 2/5 - GiantBomb
• 4/10 - Polygon (never herad of this one)
• 3/10 - Destructoid
• 1/5 - Quarter to Three (yeah, never heard of this one either)

So as it turns out, when it comes to the red scores, GameSpot is the highest. Doesn't quite seem so bad now, does it? But these five scores illustrate something: there is something wrong with the game. If there wasn't, these sources couldn't be able to objectively write about them, and this in turn raises the question: Why aren't the glowing reviews NOT writing about them?

I would put more stock into someone who has mixed feelings or just ends up hating the game more than someone who is dumbfoundly impressed by it. It's the former that usually has more interesting things to say, because someone who is being more critical tends to assess, anazlye and see things than someone who is more relaxed at playing and reviewing games. There's the kind of reviewer who forgives too much and thus everything is 8s, 9s, and 10s, and usually does a disservice to his readers. As for the readers....

It's easy to see why so many gamers are upset. You get 22 positive reviews, but 5 really bad ones. Yet, people simply don't want to acknlowedge the negative reviews and focus soley on the positive. Is it because they're afraid they'll read something in the review that will bother them while playing and not like the game? They were looking forward to this and went out and spent good money on the game and they just want to enjoy it. They want to read positive reviews and see high scores to reaffirm that they made a good purchase with RE6. In that case, stay off the internet. Don't log onto GS. Don't look at the Metacritic. Don't watch video reviews.

Now, this has been going on for a long time with long-running franchises. It seems that it's almost expected for a game to automatically do well. Case in point: The Legend of Zelda. Just because it's a Zelda game, it automatically means that each game released should be a 9.0 or higher and damn everyone else who thinks differently! 7.5 for Skyward Sword anyone? How about 8.8 for Twilight Princess? I love Zelda games, but even I had a hard time with Skyward Sword, and I liked the game less than Tom McShea did. I gave it a 6.5, and I view the game as the worst Zelda released by Nintendo. But, I'm in the minority, so my opinion doesn't matter.

I do believe it does, though. I believe that gamers who don't automatically give scores out of fandom for the franchise are more honest and interesting than those who give free passes. There are reasons why we are mentioning negative problems with these games, not to be jerks about it to piss off fans, but because they exist. They exist either out of problems that have never been addressed, or as new problems from the results of quirky game design decisions, but they're there. Even though we think our opinions have some importance, though, they're still merely opinions. If you want to love a game unconditionally, that is your right, and then you also shouldn't let our opinions bother you.

So the majority rules, and this results in mob mentality and behavior. When someone speaks against the majority, they are met with resitance and hostility. And for what? A difference of opinion. The gaming community cannot be taken seriously until these oversentive gamers stop acting like whiny self-entitled elitists. You might also find yourself in denial, knowing you bought a stinker, but since everyone else around you is having fun with it, it simply MUST be good. One of my favorite quotes is by William Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true." If you want to be of the majority, make sure you really do feel the way you do about the game, because if you lie to yourself, the majority rules over you. It's okay to admit that Resident Evil 6 sucks if you think it sucks. This is why I appreciate GameSpot; they call it like they see it, and they can give a flying fu ck if you disagree.

If there were no achievements/trophies for them?

So what are achievements/trophies and what can they do to change your gameplay experience?

What are achievements? A achievement is considered to be a special reward for gamers that play games. Achievements keep you compelled and motivated to continue playing games to earn them. The more achievements the more time a person is likely to spend playing a game to earn them. Some people think achievements are a waste of time. In my opinion they aren't. Achievements add replay value to games, they also inspire you to do things in games that you probably normally wouldn't do.

A fine example of this type of achievement is found in the game called borderlands. A person would probably never attempt this if there was no achievement for it. This achievement is called "You're on a boat!"


The Borderlands achievement "You're on a boat!" achievement/trophy

Description: I bet you never thought you'd be here.
Gamerscore: 15 points



To earn this achievement, one has to find a hidden boat on the game and simply walk on to the the boat. This immediately unlocks the achievement, "You're on a boat!"

Sounds simple right? Most gamers would probably skip out on doing something like this if there wasn't a achievement/trophy for it.

Before achievements/trophies existed, gamers bought games, completed them and most of the time set them aside and decided to play a different game. Some gamers even sold the game and used the cash to buy another game. Which that still happens today. But gamers now have more of a reason to keep the game/s and play through them again. If they are interested in getting the achievements/trohpies and seeing alternate endings, if the game has those.

How does achievements/trophies change the gameplay experience?
Achievements/Trophies motivate gamers to play games on a higher difficulty. Some games have achievements/trophies that can only be unlocked by playing on a hard difficulty or above. Like for example, the war hero trophy in Resident Evil 5. It can only be obtained, by completing the game on the Professional difficulty.



Trust me, that difficulty is a pain.
I do feel rewarded whenever I pursue a difficult achievement and I get it. Do you?

Coloured Gravity.

A physics based puzzle platformer. Really interesting, different colours have different individual falling properties. So being red might cause you to fall in one direction and blue objects might fall in a completely different direction. Also the gravity can change mid level when you push one of the buttons and those are also colour specific. It's pretty clear from the get go that this can get pretty complicated as it goes on. One thing to mention is that the vehicle you control is a bit floatier than is necessarily helpful. It makes doing some actions quickly a bit of a pain, so far it hasn't had moments where it requires dead eye precision with the jumps but it still acts a bit of an annoyance. That said there are different strengths to the gravity so there are moments where pressing a button lowers the force of the gravity so you can do higher jumps and so on, so that might be completely intentional. Regardless it has been the cause of some annoyance but never any real frustration.

Anyway this seems like a pretty cool game, hopefully I didn't sound too horrible and sickly while doing this but with any luck I will feel better tomorrow. I was going to record this yesterday but then I actually felt horrible so I just sat around and did absolutely nothing for a day. So that was awesome I guess, apart from you know the being sick thing.

People debate whether trophies/achievements are good for gaming.

Just like most things,they can be positive and negative for gaming.

Starting off with the positives:-

They can be used for bragging rights.You can show people you've beaten a game on the hardest level or have achieved every possible thing there is to achieve within the game.I remember when I was younger,many of my friends told me they could easily beat certain games without any difficulty,but when I actually saw them playing those games,they were worse at playing those games than I was(and these were games which I couldn't beat but my friends said they could beat those games easily),

If you've beaten a tough game such as Dark Souls,you can prove so with the trophies you earned doing so and if you haven't beaten it,you won't have the trophy for it and if you forgot to sync your trophies well than tough.When people see you've platinumed Dark Souls,it makes your gaming skills look impressive.If you find all 350 blast shards in inFAMOUS it shows you've explored every little bit of the city.

They add replay value to games.Sure,people will say ''you can still replay the game without trophies'' but trophies give you goals to work towards when you're replaying a game.In the past,after you beat a game,you could replay it for fun or try to go for a different ending,but with trophies,you're encouraged to try to play the game in more different ways such as using weapons you didn't use when you beat the game or trying to use a grenade to kill a certain number of enemies at once or you can replay Uncharted and try to find all the treasures and in RPGs,trophies give more incentive to do every sidequest and can add tens of hours of extra gameplay time to RPGs.

They give incentive to for you to play games that you wouldn't have played if they didn't have trophies/achivements.I don't normally like to play FPS games,but since trophies exist,I'll borrow and play some of my friends FPS games mainly to earn the trophies for those games because earning trophies for those games makes them more fun to play.Usually I can't play a FPS for more than 20 minutes without starting to get bored,but if trophies are available for those games I can play them for an hour before I start getting bored.Let's face it,not all games can be good and there's some games which borderline being good/decent or mediocre such as Dante's Inferno or Terminator Salvation and both of those games have things about them that I liked even though they're not good games (such as the atmosphere and good environmental detail in Terminator Salvation that made me feel like I was in a real post apolaytpic version of Los Angeles)and Dante's Inferno's version of Hell which has some interesting concepts and I found the gameplay in both games to be fun at least for a few hours.If these games didn't have trophies/achivements nobody would care about them,but since they have trophies/achivements people will at least give those games a try(maybe rent them,borrow them from a friend or purchase them very cheap) and experience them and might enjoy them somewhat while picking up some easy trophies/achievements in the process.

As for the negative ways trophies/achivements can effect gaming:-

In Gears of War,there is or was an achievement that's given for killing one of your own team mates during an online match.This type of thing will only annoy people and make gaming less fun.

Some people refuse to buy a game because it doesn't have achievements/trophies.I've seen many people say ''I've heard Valkyria Chronicles is a great game,but I won't get it because it doesn't have trophies''.

Do gamers really care about trophies/achivements?

A majority of the PS3 owners whom I know care about trophies because every one of them has tried to earn at least one platinum trophy at some point.There is no way I can give reliable statistics but I can honestly say I've met lots of and have seen profiles of many people who are trophy whores and want to earn as many PS3 trophies and platinum trophies as they can get.I've also met or have seen many PS3 owners whom aren't trophy whores but they'll try to earn a platinum trophy for a game/s they love a lot.For example,if they love Final Fantasy XIII they'll spend over 100 hours platinuming that game and it takes a lot of dedication but those same users won't try to earn many trophies for games they don't love(they won't even try to earn lots of trophies for games that they like,only the games they absolutely love).There's some users who don't care about trophies/achivements at all,but from my observations they're the minority because everyone on my PSN list and a majority of gamers I know have tried to or have earned at least one platinum trophy.

Other things worth pointing out:-

Some trophies are impossible to earn because they require you to play with/against other human players but they're trophies for games that are not popular and not many people will want to play them online(Chronicles of Riddick Dark Athena is a prime example)and some trophies can no longer be earned because they required online features that no longer exist(like some of FIFA 09's trophies).This doesn't effect gameplay in a negative way but these trophies were a waste of time creating(for the most part).This means earning 100% trophy completion for some games is impossible.

Some trophies require you to download DLC and pay for it,especially if you want to earn the game's platinum trophy.

There's also a level of imbalance with the trophy system.Bronze trophies are supposed to be the easiest trophies to earn,silver are harder to get,gold trophies are supposed to be harder or take longer to earn than bronze and silver and platinum trophies are supposed to be the hardest of all trophies to earn.However,some gold trophies are easier to earn than some bronze trophies.In fact,some bronze trophies are harder to earn than some gold trophies.And some platinum trophies are easier to earn than some bronze trophies.For example,Terminator Salvation gives you a gold trophy for each mission you complete,even if it's on easy difficulty.Infamous's rockhound trophy for finding every blast shard(which requires an enormous amount of time and searching)and certain very difficult quests in White Knight Chronicles only give you a bronze trophy but these bronze trophies are harder to earn than the platinum trophy for Terminator Salvation.Terminator Salvation might be an extreme example,but even a game with a fairly balanced trophy system such as Uncharted 2 has a platinum trophy that's easier to earn than certain bronze trophies.

The PSN trophy levelling system is also meaningless because people can play lots of games with easy platinum trophies such as Hannah Montana, Trivial Pursuit and Ice Age to get easy % points.However the trophy/achivement system is it shows what games you've played to earn your trophies so if you play games with lots of easy trophies,people can see.

Some people brag about how many platinum trophies they've earned,but if you're like me and mostly play JRPGs it will mean you're likely to have less platinum trophies than someone who likes to play shooters or action games.

Some trophies can only be earned by playing the game in multiplayer mode which kinda forces people to play the game in multiplayer mode if they want to platinum the game,even if they don't like multiplayer.

Some trophies are very hard to earn and require lots of skill or patience and this is something that is liked and disliked by people who refer to themselves as ''hardcore gamers'' .Earning a silver trophy for winning 10 ranked matches in a row in Street Fighter IV brought me a great deal of satisfaction but I honestly wish no other fighting games released in the future have such a difficult trophy requirement because it took months of practice plus 10 good performances in a row and luck(I didn't go against anyone who was a much better player than me for 10 matches in a row).But people who are extremely good at Street Fighter IV like the 10 ranked wins in a row trophy because it makes them feel elite.I like challenging trophies to exist to make me feel a sense of satisfaction(such beating a game on hard)but not trophies that put you at the mercy of how good/bad your online opponent is to such an extreme(maybe asking you to win 1 or 2 matches in a row against a ranked opponent but not 10).

Overall,I think trophies/achivements are for the most part,a good thing for gaming and have improved our gaming experiences and have added more depth to how we can play games and I think a majority of PS3 owners appreciate having the trophy system but I'm not so sure about how much Xbox 360 and PC owners care about their achivement systems.The trophy/achivement systems can be addictive to use but are also imbalanced.

Videogame achievements for Xbox Warriors and Playstation Pirates are in essence medals that show off their gamers skills. The thing is most games have either the simple ones you get just by either starting a new file or knowing the series by heart. The other side is the must collect every coin, weapon, data or picture in some just to unlock it. Fighting games to me have the most frustrating if not rage inducing achievements that make a gamer destroy their controller, television or their patience.

Street Fighter is one of the fighting games that make you wonder how can anyone accomplish these and yet they still play them? I see achievements as a way to enjoy the most of the money you spent to purchase the game and get your money worth out of it. For example, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim is the latest in the series and so far the achievements in it make you want to indulge in the universe. I purchased the Collector Edition since I never played a single entry in the series and I figured why not start with Skyrim.

The way the story has you choose which side of the Civil War, vampire or werewolf, what storyline to start makes the achievements worth it as you lose yourself in it. I like how you have to complete a storyline or certain mission in order to get the achievement of being master thief, craftsman, mage or siding with either the StormCloaks or Imperial legion. Still some people think this system cheapens the experience since gamers only care about getting the achievement out of the way. I say this makes the game more fun and make your brain burn on your choices and commands whether you did a finishing move correctly or performed enough headshots.

Some are tedious depending on the genre of the game and who created it. Still i wonder what do you with the gold you get for the Xbox Achievements? I mean besides showing how dedicated you are when spending the time to experience every single detail the game has to offer. I can why some have only 2 or no achievements on a game and yet some trade them in due to lack of patience. I see these as showing that you love the game, the series and the challenges you conquered to show off. Not to mention showing why you chose to be a gamer in the first place. So with this I say video game achievements are the extra push to show how skilled we are with our video game controllers

We have seen these meta-game elements before; achievements, trophies, accolades, whatever their names are, are meant to introduce some gameplay element outside of the game proper, if only to artificially lengthen the experience of the game, or to pad the "credentials" of some gamer's account on a proprietary service.

Personally, I find most of them to be superfluous, but some stand out as being particular noteworthy as they highlight some tricky things about a game, and/or nuances in its gameplay. However, to emphasize how much more entertaining these are compared to the other kinds of achievements, the others would have to be described first, if only for a sense of contrast.

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THE GRINDERS

These are the most unremarkable and most lazily-designed achievements. Typically, these require the player to be involved in some fundamental element of the gameplay, e.g. repeating certain actions over and over until a threshold is achieved.

One example of these kinds of achievements is the On-Call Badge in Tribes: Ascend.

Ask any Tribes veteran how they feel about this badge and they would likely say "easy" - but it would be doubtful that they would say "fun".

Repairing things in Tribes: Ascend, especially in Capture-The-Flag mode, is quite essential to winning in a match, as it helps the team defend objectives more easily. Unfortunately, repairing (without the convenience of repair kits) generally requires the player character to stay in one place for quite a while, which is very much against the signature gameplay of Tribes and also makes the player character more vulnerable to ambushes than he/she would be when moving about.

Then, there is the need to keep looking at some static building to repair, which can be quite dull (if there are no immediately apparent threats in the area).

Of course, the most efficient and fun way to achieve this badge is to unlock the Technician and unlock his Repair Kit, though at this time of writing, there are problems with the Repair Kit that had been caused by a recent patch that nerfed some of its exploits.

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THE FICKLE ONES

Next, there are achievements that can only be achieved with much luck - or lack of it. There is little that the player can do, other than to just wait and hope for RNGs or other kinds of digital dice to roll in his/her favor.

The first example of these that I would cite is an achievement that is associated with the Soldier of Team Fortress 2; this achievement is a cheeky response by Valve Australia to complaints that the luck-dependent critical hit mechanism favors the Soldier a lot more than the other player characters, as he (still) has some of the fastest-firing explosive weapons in the game.

(His chances at getting crits may have been affected by recent nerfs to the critical hit system that had lowered chances of critical shots to just a ceiling of 12% to every character, but no nerfs can ever change the fickleness of luck.)

You will never get this achievement on a "no random crit" server.

Another more recent example requires the player to have very terrible luck. This example is "Astronomically Low Odds" from FTL: Faster Than Light. It may seem amusing, but it is a stark reminder that luck-based game mechanisms are in the game, and the player has next-to-no control over this.

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THE EASIER-SAID-THAN-DONE'S

These achievements may reflect the tremendous skill and determination of whoever achieved them - but they also suggest something less kind about those who achieved them. I won't elaborate on this, but if you want to know what I mean, just find some blog or forum thread that some game fan started just to tell others that he/she has achieved a very difficult achievement - and then look for the negative responses.

Examples that I would cite include the rarer of achievements for Super Meat Boy, especially the ones where the player character has to complete the Dark World levels without dying.

Ironically, the effort that Team Meat invested into making these achievement pictures, which are mostly variations of each other, is not as much as the effort that a player would put into getting these achievements.

Another example of such an achievement (that is slightly less difficult) is Torchlight's achievements that are associated with the completion of adventures in Hardcore mode, and of course those of its sequel.

More weeping for completionists in Torchlight 2.

Now, I know of the accusation that people who are apprehensive of such achievements may be jealous or what-not, but I should note that not all players who achieved them would feel proud - myself being one of those that did not.

I will describe my experience with Torchlight's "Hardcore God" achievement here. I am not one that is brash enough to attempt that without some major research and looking up guides for it. Unfortunately it is through this research that I found about some flaws with the game, namely some issues with patches that made an enemy more than a bit powerful, and that any preparation that I may make would be scuttled by how fickle the game can be in populating dungeons with enemies.

This enemy caused a hell lot of problems after a patch that was supposed to fix an issue about its weakness.

Now, I have to say here that I had prepared for this creature too; having loads of lightning resistance through items, for one, as well as picking and developing the character with the skills that allow me to slay her before she even spots me - but this did not prepare me for the levels that are unlocked through portal maps.

These maps may immediately have the player character well within the reach of these creatures, who may be spawned a little too close to the entrance portal (which is a consequence of the fickle procedural map-generating mechanism of the game). I lost a Very Hard Hardcore character this way - and then another, to the same creature.

After I have gotten the achievement - through sheer luck of not having to face too many of these creatures and a lot of cowardly retreats - the only feeling that I have is regret. Doing another hardcore character again, with a mod that nerfs the Dark Zealot, made the impression that I have wasted my time even stronger.

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THE CLEVER ONES

I call the achievements that are obtained through skill and plaining the "clever" ones, for lack of a better word. These achievements either challenges the player's familiarity with the game's mechanisms, or provides hints about nuances in the gameplay to the player.

The examples that I would cite are some of those in the first Orcs Must Die! game, such as Deck the Halls and Ogre Bisque. These require the player to figure out the benefits of some trap upgrades and analyze the layouts for the levels that are best for obtaining these achievements.

Link to sumptuous definition of "bisque".

(Most of the other achievements in Orcs Must Die! are grinders, unfortunately.)

Other examples include most of the achievements in the Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, though many of these are actually spoilers too. On the other hand, they do highlight some options that the player have for dealing with obstacles in the progress of the story and the consequences of the solutions.

This achievement may be easy and short, but it is way more fun than killing 500 foes.

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Now, I have to acknowledge and insist on something here: despite my disdain for the majority of achievements in the meta-game aspects of present-day games, which are mostly of the "not-clever" varieties as described above, I say that achievements have come into game designs and they are there to stay, and they should, if only to have them evolve into something more meaningful than they are now.

The first step is of course to design achievements of the "clever" sort.