As some of you may or may not know, I've been pretty much obsessed with gamerpoints and the status symbols attached to them. After hitting the fabled 10,000 mark last month, the only thing on my mind has been achievements. And that's bad. I have come to realise that those damn things have become and blessing and a curse.

I used to really enjoy the games that I played. Loved immersing myself into the world at my fingertips and watching the story unfold in front of my unblinking eyes. Occasionally I heard a strange beeping sound and a message appeared in the corner of my screen, 'Achievement unlocked...' it said and with it my tally of points grew larger the more I played. I then began to notice other people had a similar score system...however more often than not, their score was much larger than mine. I felt small. Insignificant.

Upon signing up to Xbox Live I found, to my horror, that I became jealous of these people. I wanted to have more points, more credibility...more awesome. I became more aware of what I was playing in a different sense. I started to concentrate on the games that I already had in my collection so I could get the most out of them and refused to buy anything else until I had maxed them out as well as I could. I read through screen after screen of achievements on the Xbox dashboard and achievement websites like some servant searching for orders from his master. Outrage would follow if those orders were out of my reach. I became a slave to that seemingly insignificant beep-beep sound I had heard all those months ago.

Upon noticing that I was only a couple thousand off 10k, I set a goal within myself to hit it before the end of the month. I imagined that this goal would not only make me look better in the eyes of others (I was appalled at how shallow I had become) but might herald the end to fruitless chase of perfection that is achievement hunting. So I set out on the quest. Checking the dashboard, checking the sites...endlessly updating and searching through my collection for the easiest and quickest to the achievements. I stopped taking in the plot, didn't give a crap about the characters and I sure didn't care if your best mate betrayed you in the final scene. I was on the point of obsession.

I did it, and with hours to spare. And I felt nothing. No elation...I didn't even do a happy dance. I knew that in the big scheme of things I was a grain of sand in comparison to others. If you remember, in my previous posts, I have mentioned 'Stallion83' who is trying to hit 1,000,000 points. Now that IS, an achievement. He's currently just past the 400k mark and the mind boggles as to how he's done it, completing games as fast as I eat peanuts. Even the majority of my friends on Live had beat my score, and they were probably as bothered about it as I was bothered at the new releases on the market. Not a jot.

I recently bought Borderlands, and I thought I could break the stranglehold that achievements have upon my weak and feeble soul and finally enjoy a game. But unfortunately, I was back scrolling through the green screen of death trying to see how I could squeeze the last remaining points out of its frail storyline and unrelatable characters. It didn't help that the plot was almost non existent so I had very little to concentrate on unfortunately. That said, it is a really fun game and one I would recommend.

On the face of it, achievements were, and still are a great idea. They are a great way of extending the life of a game and shows you there's more to a game than just the main plotline. It's also a great tool for developers and game creators as they can really show off certain facets to a title such as how it fares online against others. It's an idea that has since been copied (to varying degrees of success) by Sony for the PS3. Even though it means nothing in the big scheme of things (they don't count as currency on Xbox Live for example), and because of that the only other use for them has been some sort of virtual penis-measurer...it kind of leaves me feeling a bit insignificant.

Achievements are a great idea. It just gets worrying when your Xbox plays YOU more than you play IT.

Oh, and by the way.I promise that this is the last time I will go on about these bloody achievements.

Maybe.