This week’s “Hacked Off” may not resonate with everyone, as it’s a problem only Xbox players have. As I’m sure most of you already know, most Gamerscore for Achievements end in either a five or a zero. These allow for Gamerscores to look neat and tidy as they are good, clean numbers. Then you get those sadists who think it’s funny to put Achievements with numbers like seven or three. This means if you get one of those, your lovely Gamerscore is ruined until you get the other.
Achievements and Gamerscore used to be a widespread badge of honour, though over the years its novelty has appeared to ware off. This is not to say people are bored with it, but the average person has become less focused on Achievement hunting. This seems to have also killed off the fascination of Gamerscore being something other than a five or zero, but I’m sure there are gamers who still do it.
I understand the reason for doing it, but it takes a cruel and twisted person to actually go ahead and do it. See they prey on the weak, like me, who enjoy having their Gamerscore look nice. If they give an easy Achievement at the start of the game worth only four Gamerscore, then make the one ending with a six really difficult. It forces the player to spend an excess amount of hours on the game trying to get that Achievement to fix their score.
You hear the stories of it happening to others, but you never think it could happen to you. But it can and it does. The game that sent me on this dark, scary, and shameful route was FIFA 09. There was an Achievement worth nineteen Gamerscore for scoring in the 89th minute, which is not difficult. In order to get the other one, you had to play for fifty hours. That itself is daunting enough, for it to then be glitiched. I never got awarded this Achievement, even though I spent much longer than that on the game. Who knows, maybe the Achievement only unlocks if you play dead on fifty hours and then never play it again?
It took me around four years to fix this monstrosity. During this time I couldn’t even bare the site of my Gamerscore, it just sickened me to my core. Nice round numbers were a distant memory – I had to endure scores like 34,999. Look how disappointing that number is, one more measly point and it would have been glorious. To fix my score I had to pick and choose what Achievements to get in Halo 4 and Final Fantasy XIII-2, so that their weird numbered Achievements would set me back on that glorious road to happiness and good numbers. There was a rocky moment when I played Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, but I 100% completed the game, so its attempt to ruin my life, I mean Gamerscore, failed.
I remember people who thought it was cool to have a weird number Gamerscore, but they were clearly just delusional, turned to madness after their suffering. It just looks so disgusting and messy – I bet the person who first decided to put this in their game soon got fired for sadism. I think that’s a fireable offence, if not they probably resigned for bringing such cruelty to the world.
People who decide to put Gamerscore that doesn’t end in a five or a zero in their games, should have their privileges of making Achievements rescinded. Instead, they can make tea and coffee for those who make the game fun and enjoyable. It just disregards the standards put in place, we should just stick with the system and not try and change it in an attempt to be an edgy game.
There are some of you, well more like most of you, who don’t understand my qualms with this issue. This might be because you either own a different console, never cared about Gamerscore, are not a perfectionist, or are a normal person. But I know there are others out their like me who agree this is one of the worst things that can happen to your gaming life. I just want to let those people know, that I feel for you and we are not crazy.