Locked Achievement

I just finished playing Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, the video game based on the Lego toy based on the movie based on the series of books with my five year old stepson. This is one of the rare co-operative games on the Xbox 360 that doesn’t involve an internet connection. We can actually play side-by-side towards the same goal. It makes for some frustrating moments, however, when you discover that the character currently controlled by a five-year-old has to solve a puzzle, and he doesn’t have a clue how, or when the scrolling screen won’t allow you to advance any further because he’s off dicking around. But I digress. My point is, I played through the whole game, and in the end, got jack squat. He’s logged in under his avatar and I’ve got mine. The save file is in his name, hence, after completing all four years, I’m left with 0 Achievements. I actually did get one for a time turner spell, but that’s like 10 points our of 1000, leaving my score at 20,000 GP even, but I digress. Even though I’m carrying his ass through the whole game, I don’t get anything out of it. It’s called co-op, but it’s more like FU-op.
So, in order to bulk up my Achievement score, I have to go through and play the game again and get all the collector items every game on the 360 forces you to get. The collector is the most tedious of all known Achievements. In Crackdown 2, you have to collect 500 Agility orbs, 300 Hidden orbs, 50 audio logs, as well as numerous stunts. All of this involves bouncing back and forth across a city while being shot at. It’s 80% of the game play. It’s another game I’ve finished this year, and it’s also robbed me of my richly deserved Achievement points. I’ve finished various challenges, but received no credit for doing so, possibly due to a mix-up between systems. For I am no ordinary man. I am Philip Allen, owner of two Xboxes. That’s 720 total. One sits in my living room, connected to the internet by wi-fi. The other is in my bedroom, connected to the TV. If I want to play games on both and still earn proper Achievements, I have to move my saves from one system to the other via a docking station. The entire hard drive on my old 360 has to be disconnected and connected to the new 360 through an overpriced wire. If the two systems aren’t perfectly aligned, it confuses the fuck out of your profile. The date on my old 360, no longer connected to the internet, read as 2004, while the new one lives in the far-off year of 2011. Long story short, by playing on my old system, I missed out on about 400 GP. Again, I’m expected to start over to regain those Achievements.
Some games have different Achievements for playing through at different difficulty levels, while some straight-up make you play again through 30+ hours. That was one of the Achievements in Mass Effect 2. I almost went for it, except I realized I couldn’t play over as a woman without losing all the roll-over points I’d gained. Fuck that. Mass Effect 2 was worth like 75% of it’s sticker price as a trade in. I’m not sitting on that just to get one Achievement out of 50.
What also pisses me off is the whole, “Completed Games” section in Achievements. If you have 100% of Achievements unlocked in a game, the game goes up on it’s own special board so everyone knows what a stud* you are. (*”Studs” may not be considered studly by women, or get laid). I have 100% of the Achievements for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I don’t have it on the board. Why? Because I didn’t finish the expansion pack. The expansion pack cost an ungodly 2400 MS points. That’s $30 U.S.. The game itself cost $20 bundled with Bioshock. That’s $10 for the game itself. The expansion pack costs three times the game. Plus you’re buying it on an inferior system. Betheseda games are considered better on the computer, where expansions are occasionally offered for free, but there’s no Achievements. My completed game score is being held hostage by a pack that’s not part of the game.
What are Achievements for anyway? Some games have impossibly hard Achievements while others are all too easy. You can literally push a button in some games and get an Achievement. In others, you have to perform death-defying aerial acrobatics while scoring long-distance headshots during a nuclear explosion. People don’t even bother to look at them, even when they have the option of comparing their Gamerscore to another’s. To me, Achievements are just another thing to shoot for after the game’s done to get some extra life out of it. They’re like their own special Easter Egg.

LiveJournal Tags: xbox 360,achievements