Trophy Whoring

< ![CDATA[

In gamer terms, this is a borrowed phrase from the Xbox 360, with its “achievements.”  A system wherein, games become a meta-game.  The way it works on the 360 is that Microsoft mandated that every game have a list of specific, in-game achievements which, when accomplished, would add to an overall “gamer score.”  Every game has 1000 gamer points, with the difficulty of the achievement scaled to how many gamer points you get.  So basically someone with a gamerscore of over 100K is either very, very good, or simply buys a lot of games.  People that play games with an OCD need to get maximum score for its own sake, or simply for the less charitable need to have bragging rights are referred to as “Achievement Whores” in today’s gaming circles.

Now last year, the Playstation got more or less the same concept, but instead of using Achievements and gamer points, they use trophies, and–to an RPG nut–the irresistable concept of “levels.”  In Playstation 3 terms, all games now have trophies, with bronze being the easiest to get, silver being moderately difficult, gold being freakin’ hard, and platinum for those that are stubborn enough to get every single trophy in the game.  As you accumulate trophies, you get invisible “experience points” which adds to a bar on your Playstation Network profile and when you get get enough, you “level up.”  Of course, you don’t actually get new abilities or anything like that, but it’s an interesting way to get a cursory glance at the gaming ability of people.  Since the system came out only last year–and it’s only THIS year that Sony has made it mandatory for ALL games to include trophies–the general progress of most gamers is pretty low, with level 2 or 3 being the average for the not hardcore, and level 5-6 being the average for fairly regular gamers.

Which is a round about way of me saying that I’m playing through Bioshock
again for trophies.  But least now the exact mechanics and motivations are more clear.

Another Day

And Done

< ![CDATA[Round 1 of Bioshock is finished and I have to say that I found it a remarkably thoughtful trip.  Not only did the game take its much promised critique of Objectivism and pepper it throughout the experience, but it also managed to pull some interesting twists on the idea “agency” and how acting on your own in videogames is rarely anything but.  But it managed to do it within a fairly sensible context within its own story, so everything actually adds up when you stop and put the pieces together.  All in all, one of the smarter games I’ve played in years and I enjoyed the experience immensely.  I think I probably got more out of it theme-wise than most FPS fans who probably just enjoyed the variety of weapons and tactics on hand to play with, but beyond the elegant game design, there was clearly a mind at work that had read Ayn Rand and… well, was kind of pissed about it, and put that sting into a game.  VERY impressive indeed.  Now for the replay to finish collecting those trophies…