Part One: A Descent Into Madness. Exploring what it takes to become a whore for those sweet, sweet gamerpoints. Hints, tips and commentary from Peoww’s very own lady of the night.
Rich
Do you remember your first? The first time the words ‘Achievement Unlocked’ flashed up onto your screen. The first time you heard the ‘ping’ that now quickens the heartbeat of many a gamerscore whore (usually followed by the crushing disappointment of finding out you’ve actually been invited to yet another Halo 3 session). For me, a self-confessed whore (more on that later), it happened during my first game of ‘Dead Rising’. As I was wrestling the controls and squinting to read Otis’ first transmission I fell off of a shelf.
‘Achievement Unlocked’ – Freefall (20), Drop from a height of at least 16 feet.
What? Fuck off Capcom.
It didn’t click for me at all. I felt like an amateur smoker taking their first drag and realising that breathing lungfuls hot smoke instead of air is a really fucking bad idea. I looked at the rest of the achievements and realised that some of them were going to be impossible, or at least so I thought at the time. Ah well, forget it.
So what went wrong? Well, it was actually Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. As a long-term fan-turned-critic of the series I’d always displayed frankly obsessive tendencies with these games including finding all the gaps in the first three games (for some bizarre reason).
The idea of fully completing the game appealed to me, especially as the series had returned to basics after the spackfests that were the two ‘Underground’ games. Maxing-out ‘THAW’ involves beating the story and classic modes twice and finding all the gaps in the game. It gets tedious but eventually that final achievement popped up on the screen and it was there 1000/1000. Maxed-out, for her pleasure
Fall off a shelf or rescue fifty people. It's all the same to Frank.
Since then I’ve amassed a tidy 30000 or so points in roughly one year. Not as high as some, but it’s legit and it’s the highest on my friends list. Although that is thanks to me booting anyone who has blatantly used gamesaves. As with anything on Xbox Live, someone is always going to try to cheat the system.
So instead of merely trying to chase points for the overall leaderboard, I look to complete games. I’ll never play the likes of THAW again but it’s there on my record. 1000 points and that’s what I want. Especially as I have a habit of trading in my old games.
My whore-status is confirmed but that title, coined by Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb is a little too generic for a column like this. You see, there are many types of achievement whoring. From the high class cortizan who just wants to keep their completion percentage up whilst playing decent games, the parlour-worker who isn’t too fussy and will have 1000 points on Oblivion but will also have score on King Kong, the street-walkers who rent out the likes of NBA2K6 just to fuel their addiction and finally the groupie who sucks off So-Solid Crew for crack rocks who uses game saves and has all the achievements on Rumble Roses or EDF unlocked on the same fucking day.
I’m strictly a street-walker. Not too fussy but with an occasional ‘heart of gold’ moment that makes me question what I’m doing. Sure, I’ve gotten into a car with the wrong punter before (PES6… maxed out) and been knifed up by my pimp (10 out of 1000 on Dead Or Alive 4 before lashing it onto eBay) but it’s still how I choose to play my games and I’m more than happy to keep chasing those points.
Sure I can be treated like Julia Roberts by some games and occasionally I’ll find myself gobbling off EA in a sordid back alley for a crumpled 1000-point bank note but as long as I keep telling myself it’s to pay my tuition fees, who am I hurting?
It could be worse. I could be playing a Playstation 3 instead.