December 2016 and I’m a little flustered… I’m in danger of unlocking more Trophies for the year than Achievements… the difference is only 13 and I’m at the end game of Bioshock Infinite… the “Burial at Sea” DLC awaits and I can already hear the mocking laughter of NREAL wringing in my ears as a former Xbox stalwart has become a Trophy machine.
I will argue the toss with anyone who labels me an Xbox fanboy or an Xbot (and I truly hate that word) as some of my finest gaming memories are on PlayStation consoles, that I failed to buy a PlayStation 3 last generation was partly out of protest, partly because I couldn’t see enough games on the system to interest me to the point where it would merit a purchase… and shortly after I decided to pick one up we had the announcements of the new (current) generation of consoles so my PlayStation 3 fund rapidly became a new console fund.
When I hit 1,000 Trophies in around 16 months of owning a PlayStation 4 the same friend quipped that I’d soon be catching him up.
Sounds like a Challenge.
Now I make fair use of two gaming websites away from IGN… both offer a more realistic value to Achievements/Trophies that seems considerably more fair than the value assigned by Sony/Microsoft… for example there is not a world out there which should value the Platinum Trophy for “The Witcher 3” as being the same as the Platinum Trophy of “My Name Is Mayo”.
These sites (TrueTrophies.com and TrueAchievements.com) allow a user to set themselves a target… a goal… to strive for… at the start of 2016 my goal was to hit 150,000 by the end of the year, something I managed with the DLC for Forza Horizon 3… now I have a new goal.
“To surpass the number of Trophies won by NREAL by 31 December 2018”
This gives me two years to equal and pass his total… and I’m currently 719 behind.
Unlocking 720 Trophies isn’t the issue here… I unlocked 983 over the last two years and one of those the console was definitely my secondary gaming machine, buy the target will be ever changing… there will be times when I blast through a handful of games in an Indiefest (and the four games in Indiefest III are all PlayStation 4 titles) and catch up rapidly… there will be times when I’m playing something huge on the Xbox when he’ll pull away.
A prime example here will be Mass Effect: Andromeda which we’re both looking to buy… only one of us won’t be getting the PlayStation version.
He’s also got his three kids playing stuff on his old PlayStation 3 on his tag so he’s already (effectively) cheating.
Yet I’m game for a challenge… so if, heaven forbid, I somehow find myself with more Trophies than Achievements in 2017 there is the (small) consolation that it’s all in a good cause… VICTORY!
To keep my mind on my Achievement game I’ve also set up a Gamerscore target… to hit 170,000 by the end of 2017 which is an increase of close to 20,000 on what I have now.