A History of Violence

The rise of the achievement during this generation of games is a fascinating thing. Their usage and potential for both good and evil towards games and the people who play them will be debated for a long time to come.


I have no desire to talk about them in that context today, though!


Achievements, especially how they're usually implemented on the Xbox 360, tend to be little more than a meta-game. They're something to keep track of in addition to the things you may naturally do while playing. I was highly amused when achievements themselves started going meta. Well known achievements began to be referenced by other achievements. Without further ado, here are my two favorite family lines of meta-achievements on Xbox Live:


SERIOUSLY

Gears of War
US Release: November 7, 2006
Seriously... 10,000 kills in multiplayer
50 Gamerscore

The Club
US Release: February 7, 2008
No, Seriously 10,001 ranked kills in multiplayer
40 Gamerscore

Battlefield: Bad Company
US Release: June 23, 2008
Beans Bullets Bandages (Online) Get 10002 kills
30 Gamerscore

Gears of War 2
US Release: November 7, 2008
Seriously 2.0 Kill 100,000 enemies (any mode)
50 Gamerscore


ZOMBIE GENOCIDER

Dead Rising
US Release: October 8, 2006
Zombie Genocider TYPE: 1 Play REQ: Defeat at least 53,594 zombies.
20 Gamerscore

Left 4 Dead
US Release: November 20, 2008
Zombie Genocidest Kill 53,595 infected.
30 Gamerscore

Dead Rising 2
US Release: September 28, 2010
Z-Genocider 2: Genocide Harder Kill 53,596 zombies
20 Gamerscore
Zombie Genocide Master Kill 72,000 zombies
20 Gamerscore

Rock Band 3
US Release: October 26, 2010
HOPO-cidal Maniac Kill 53,596 Hammer-ons and Pull-offs
25 Gamerscore


Were you to complete all of these achievements, you would net yourself a paltry 265 points! I hope it was worth it.

Your Love is Like Bad Medicine Company

I won Battlefield: Bad Company in a raffle. It's not something I would have bought on my own, but I had my pick of any game. This seemed like it would be a nice diversion for a week or so.

Having never played a Battlefield game, I wasn't too sure what to expect. This is the first game in the franchise with a true single player campaign, so as always, I was more interested in playing that than the multiplayer. Things have taken a surprising turn, however.

I started the game on Normal difficulty and immediately began giggling at the dialogue among the characters. The banter between the Sarge (squad leader), Sweetwater (soft spoken yet talkative techy), and Haggard (loudmouthed and talkative explosives expert) is highly entertaining. You play as Preston Marlowe, a bland and quiet new recruit to B Company. While my playable character didn't excite me, the rest of the characters gave me high hopes for the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, as soon as I actually started playing I started to have misgivings. The enemies blend into the scenery a little too well. This may be realistic, I dunno, but I became very frustrated when I was being shot at and couldn't find the person shooting at me. I ended up having to stand still and look for muzzle flashes, all while continually losing health. Thankfully, you can restore your health at pretty much any time, and while you do respawn when you die, any enemies you've killed are still dead. The shooting itself didn't really excite me either. So far, none of the weapons have had any real oomph to them. Perhaps later weapons will feel more deadly as I find them.

I jumped into the multiplayer with some friends to try it out, and at first it was as unfulfilling as nearly every other multiplayer shooter I've tried. As we all know, human opponents in a game are the bane of my existance, and I find the mindless killing of deathmatch to be boring. However, once I tried the sniper and demolition classes, something clicked. Much like the two Ghost Recon games on the 360, there is some undefinable quality about the game that makes me enjoy playing, even when I'm dying over and over. Playing as a run and gun class was typically frustrating, but being about to sit still and snipe, or sit still and fire rockets at vehicles, was much more fun. Maybe I should stick to that for all my multiplayer gaming.

I'll keep hacking away at the single player unless I get totally bored with it. However, if you're lucky, you may actually get the unique pleasure of playing a multiplayer game with me. Assuming you have the game, of course.