The Omnivangelist

camisuke 28 July 2008 essays/articles, videogames 4 Comments

There’s no doubt that introducing the Gamerscore concept has netted big profits for Microsoft and it’s game making partners. A large population of gamers has moved to action. In small groups they gather for the purpose of running through games unlocking all the achievements to boost each other’s gamerscore. Lists of games are posted online marking the lowest hanging fruit for picking.

Being a primarily a PS2/PS3 gamer, early on I didn’t pay notice to achievements in the Xbox 360 games I was playing, nor my gamerscore. Later, I found myself at least looking at the achievements available in the games I was playing – such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Many of the games I was playing focused on achievements involving multiplayer modes. I never bothered with these achievements. It was Rainbow Six Vegas and Gears of War that got me more into achievements. I was taking a liking to the challenge of Gears of War, so I made an effort to beat the story mode on insane difficulty. I figured if I saw another gamer with that achievement I could find some sort of camaraderie with them as we’d both know we’d earned something not easily achieved. This continued with Rainbow Six Vegas. I was determined to beat the game on Realistic difficulty. Army of Two also made my list with it’s Professional Difficulty.

So today, I still don’t pay any attention to gamerscore, but I do try to unlock specific achievements – the ones that mean something to me.

The other day I went to my achievements list and tried to figure out which ones would really tell me if a gamer who had them was a skilled gamer. I wanted to remove any farmable achievements as well as “buddy” achievements. Farmable refers to achievements that require simple tasks repeated over and over. Buddy achievements are those that can be earned easily with friends in agreement, such as scoring 10 kills without dying in a multiplayer match.

To me these types of achievements hold no merit as a measure of a gamer skill level. Based on my observation, few achievements truly measure gamer skill so it follows that gamerscore must also hold little value to me. Gamerscore is simply a sum of points awarded for achievements that more often than not can be earned without necessarily having skill. Ironically, some of the more talented gamers I’ve actually played against had very low gamerscores – some were sub 1000. It may one day become a status symbol to be skillful and have a low gamerscore.

Back to when I was looking at my games. I was and still remain on a quest to find which achievements actually measure a gamer’s skill and record them. I was inclined toward Gears of War’s insane mode achievement but concluded that it isn’t as difficult to earn that achievement with a partner (who is good). I had beat the game alone and I imagine that is more difficult that earned through co-op, and the achievement wouldn’t tell me if another gamer had met that same challenge. Gears of War doesn’t make the cut; Army of Two neither because it’s a co-op game – sure, it takes skill but not necessarily yours.

Rainbow Six Vegas realistic level story mode makes the cut. The Rainbow Six Legend achievement distinguishes single player mode from co-op. I don’t see the same categorization for RS Vegas 2. But at least I had found one.

Hexic HD has two achievements I think have merit. The 3 and 6 piece black pearl cluster achievements. These are not easily achieved in my opinion. I have not spent the time and effort to get the 6 piece yet. If I see a gamer with this achievement, I know they have demonstrated a considerable amount of effort and thought – something I can relate with.

Recently I found what I believe could be a gamerskill standard. It is N+, often called “N game”. N+ is available as down-loadable content for Xbox Live Arcade. I’m convinced right now that N+ is a great measure of gamer skill and the best I’m aware of to date. N+ tests many areas of skill: finesse in controller manipulation, timing and execution, reflexes and speed, and tests psychological fortitude. N+ is a frustrating game at times due to it’s difficulty, but all of the above items N+ measures clearly. Looking at the leaderboards and watching the top player videos will show you skills that are undebatably awesome. I previously had thought Rez HD was competitive in the leaderboards but N+ is far more competitive than Rez.

I had watched carefully how I ranked on the N+ leaderboard as I progressed through the levels. There are 50 levels, and at the publishing of this piece, I am currently on level 30. 140,000 gamers have loaded up N+ and played it. At level 30, I’m in the top 5,000 gamers on the leaderboard. This suggests that less than 5,000 people in the world have actually completed N+ for Xbox360 while 135,000 gave up or are in progress toward the top 5,000. Completing this game puts a gamer in a small defined community of skillful players.

The only other real contender for measurement I’m aware of is Echochrome (PS3). N+ is more edgy than Echochrome, but Echochrome gets the nod in terms of brainpower exhausted in defeating the puzzles. When I had first looked at Echochrome’s leaderboards, for the last level only one person had even placed on the board; the puzzles are torturous at higher levels of play. Echochrome doesn’t test other aspects of a gamer as well as N+. N+ is more physical while Echochrome is more cerebral.

I’m making a goal to clear N+ as the achievements are worthy. If I see a gamer with them I know they are skilled, period.

I will be keeping a page listing achievements which have merit as true measures of skill across as many games as I can find. Here is the page.

Please comment with any achievements you believe hold merit as a measure of gamer skill. It’s time we set the standard.