As promised, albeit a week or so late, this feature is based on those infernal online achievements/trophies /anything else they go by nowadays. While it’s been a long time since I actually ‘achievement hunted’, I’ve been able to recall some deeply repressed memories to moan about, so thanks, guys.
When I got round to playing Naruto: The Broken Bond, there was a distinct lack of people online making it ridiculous to get achievements on this mode. In my wayward youth I enjoyed nothing more than a couple of hours playing this game beating up some ninjas. Mainly because all the other fighter games were me just pushing what I thought were combos, when all I was doing was making a series of slow jabs, which were at least consistent. In contrast my opponent seemed to be Mr. Miyagi, doing combos I’m pretty sure aren’t even in the game. It’s just my luck that I seem to always go against this same person. Obviously, not my skill level.
Anyway, the point. I decided to get all the achievements, as they looked easy enough. No ‘mile high club’ achievement here. And I was mostly right. Mostly. The achievement I speak of is called “Hokage”. Basically, you needed to get to a certain point up the leaderboard. Oh, and it was worth 0g. So, this was only for those people who actually like things to be complete, not just living an entire life of lies. The 0g is meant to be nice, so people don’t feel pressured and can still get the full 1,000g, but it just feels like a massive middle finger. The problem was I had to hope for a string of coincidences. I needed to find enough people to fight and then enough in a row that I could actually beat. Thankfully, I did get it, and I’m proud I did. So, maybe Ubisoft did good after all.
The Assassin’s Creed online always had the perception of being fun. It’s just a shame that’s all it ever was. Some will disagree, but I just can’t get into them. A game most people have a 100% completion of under their belt is Assassin’s Creed II. I don’t know why. Sure, it’s a good game, but why did everyone seem to agree that it would be the one to complete? I suppose it was just out at the right time. However, all the games after this one had online and achievements to accompany it. Since then there has not been a huge wave of Assassin’s Creed 100 percenters. Coincidence? I think not. I assume online achievements were to entice people to actually play the game over the internet. People do seem to have an irrational fear of playing online; that’s why games like Call of Duty do terrible.
Overwatch is a chink in my chain. There are online achievements and stupidly difficult ones. Most of them revolve around you being in the right place at the right time. Fate is the only way you can get these. But I like them. Sure, there are ones in Overwatch that annoy me, like Zenyatta needing four kills/assists within six seconds, ridiculous. I can only imagine those who have unlocked this achievment found the rare games where people like to just randomly form a police line-up. I thought the Sombra achievements were equally impossible. After only a couple of hours trying, I got them both, and I felt super proud. It was probably boosted by the fact it’s the only cute spray my friend hasn’t unlocked, but all these achievements gave a strange sense of accomplishment, or achievement, if you will.
When a game makes an achievement hard, it always feels better once you get it. Would I still be happy with them if I couldn’t get any of them or even care about them had they not given sprays? No, probably not. But if Overwatch didn’t have online achievements, they wouldn’t have any at all. I suppose they could have linked one to the practice range. Kill 1,000,000 bots. Oh, those stupid number of kills achievements. Difficulty is a hard one, as anyone who hasn’t gotten it will complain they can’t, but those who get it will love the prestige. Though when it’s something like shooting the wings off a fly while you’re freefalling from 10,000 feet in the sky and all you have is a knife, then they’re a tad annoying.
Online is there for people who haven’t got anyone to play with or those who don’t want real people in their houses. Who would even want that? They come in and touch things and then silently judge us. Why is there a need to associate an achievement? Offline co-op rarely get any, are those friendships not worth as much?