Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Metagaming – n. A fancy word game developers use to refer to what everyone else calls Achievements: a beguiling endeavour that's really just a hunt for that bling sound. How many recent additions to gaming have been this awesome? As if getting fun out of a game isn't reward enough, now you get fun and a medal. "Everyone will love it," they said. And everyone did. Subsequently, it's a concept that's been taken to the edge of reason and, as is traditional in the world of satire, well beyond.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with Achievements. Implemented correctly, they impart both additional motivation as well as additional reward. "Kill 50 guys"? Cool. "Kill 50 guys with the Deathlaser 500k Mk. II – The Avenger"? Great, let's do it! But, in an effort to either be original or appeal to pale-skinned basement-dwellers of Eastern descent, developers have grown increasingly demented in their Achievement designs to the point where it is entirely counterproductive to the entire purpose of a game: to have fun. In one of the worst examples, Red Lynx's Trials HD had an Achievement that was so improbable that fewer than 40 people ever earned it. And far, far more controllers than that were doubtless sacrificed in the process.

So, in an effort to highlight common failings in Achievement design, I have dedicated innumerable hours (read: 20 minutes) into the development of the Achievement Entertainment Rating System™, a scale that will gauge how much fun you'll have chasing that next award:

Start at 60 points. Add 10 if the Achievement is worth more than 10 Gamerscore. Add another 5 if the title is a pun or reference. If the Achievement description has the words 'play', 'shoot', 'fire', 'win' 'defeat', 'complete', 'perform' or 'beat', add 10. Add 20 for 'kill' or 'execute' and 35 for 'decapitate', 'main', 'dismember' or 'slaughter'. Lose 2 points for every word in the description, and 5 if it contains 'without'. For every occurrence of the words 'endless', 'marathon', 'impossible', 'insane', 'endurance' and 'invincible', lose 40 points. Lose an extra 10 if the word is in the title. If there is a number in the description, lose 2 points for every time you can divide that number by 100, up to a maximum of 50 points. If that number was less than 50, gain 5 points instead. Cap your answer between 0 and 100. Earn an Achievement for going through all this trouble for something so meaningless.

Real-world testing of the Achievement Entertainment Rating System™ resulted in the following classifications:

• Seriously 2.0 (Gears of War 2) – 30
• The Bladder of Steel Award (Rock Band 2) – 17
• Little Rocket Man (Orange Box) – 58
• Butcher (Dead Space) – 79
• Marathon (Trials HD) – 0

It's obvious that RedLynx eventually employed this classification method to their game because they did end up changing the requirements for the Marathon Achievement. At least 50 people have it now. So, to curb any future unfortunate blemishes like Marathon, I urge developers to adopt the Achievement Entertainment Rating System™. Otherwise, when Project Natal comes around, there'll be an Achievement for killing 500,000 guys with the Deathlaser 500k Mk. II – The Avenger while standing on one leg, holding the controller behind your back and facing away from the screen. 2 people will get it.

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