you ranted 19 times without using the word 'squeegee.'

You know something? I hate achievements. I hate trophies. I hate them because they reward me for doing or finding little buried things inside a game, they push me to do things that I might not have thought of on my own, or even better, getting them while I'm just messing around in a game and unlock something on accident, then I scream a high pitched "EEEE!" in delight, and I can't wait to get the next one.

"EEEEEEEE!"

I hate them because I love them, some of you may understand what I mean, and might even know where I am going with this – and hats off to you, because I'm not entirely sure myself yet, but let's just see where this train takes us.

I see nothing wrong with this picture being taken out of contex.... oh.

On the minor points, as I said before, it's great that you can see this list of goals and things to do outside of the normal play, but I have a problem with them being listed out for me, games have a tendency to give out achievements/trophies for completing the game over the course of the story, which is fine. Some of them have clever titles that are silly, but still somehow sum it up in a few words. Whoever decided it would be a good idea to have these listed out BEFORE you've achieved them, and why everyone around them agreed is beyond me. You get a cliff notes version of the game and you risk spoiling plot points for yourself if you decide to check it out to see what you get if you collect the 8 billion shiny pebbles scattered throughout the game. I hate that, and it IS getting better, but still, this seems like a no-brainer, or maybe a little bit of brainer.

Pictured: Very little brain.

This one is more game specific and requires a bit of background first: I've let a good friend of mine move into my spare bedroom while he saves up some money and gets himself back on his feet… being a primarily (read: ONLY) single player gamer, I don't have much in the way of two or more player games, on top of that, he himself is the absolute definition of casual gamer as far as I'm concerned. He doesn't himself own any consoles, and to my recollection he has only had a PS2 in his possession once for about a month like 6 years ago. IF he games, it will be a current gen Madden game. Personally, I hate sports games, as I've no interest in them. The only sport I can even follow is Baseball, and even then I'm not thrilled with it. I just don't care and I doubt that I ever will. In any case, in an effort to cheer him up a bit as well as give us something to do, I went and bought Madden 2010 and an extra controller for my PS3. This was the second game I had ever purchased for my PS3, the first being Infamous, which I managed to get ALL the trophies for (something I'm quite proud of for inexplicable reasons beyond me being easily pleased and sating my need to see that 100%) I had decided at that point that I would not buy any more games for my ps3 until the current games were beaten, the idea being to not have a shameful backlog like on my 360. And PS2. And Gamecube. And Xbox. And PC. :cry:

I didn't think about this when I put the game in, I SHOULD have created a new gamer account, I SHOULD have just not bought the stupid thing in the first place. I SHOULD have stopped after that tequila s—wait what was I talking about? Oh yeah – so my friend is a very skilled Madden player, his knowledge of the sport AND the game is frighteningly encyclopedic, I tried but it was just too much for me. (To me, all those lines and squiggles mean zilch, usually when I state this, I'm accused of being gay… remember, I live in Texas, and there is a whole different breed of stupid down here. Fortunately they tend to stay out of the cities for the most part. However, I find it immensely amusing to point out to these angry redneck homophobes out there that they are themselves getting a little too excited about a sport where large men in tights jump on top of each other as much and as often as they can manage. This also gets me into a lot of trouble…)

No comment.... orgy.

Anyways, he gets plenty of use out of the game. However, not.one.bloody.trophy has been earned. We've had this game for over 3 months and the big fat goose egg is an eyesore to me. It's not like he hasn't tried either - I looked at the list, not only is a large portion of them online only, a lot of them are RIDICULOUSLY specific. Things like a certain player intercepting a pass to another certain player. WHILE it's SNOWING. There's several like that – and that annoys me, and the rest are earned online. I will never play the game myself, I know I won't – and he'll be moving out soon. Bah.

Now, let's get to the nitty gritty. The whole reason for this nonsense and what I believe to be my initial gripe, although there's no telling with me. This is kind of a dual blog, single player games and their online modes and the trophies and achievements that can only be gained through online… *groan*… 'multiplayer'.

I've said this many times, I hate, hate multiplayer. Specifically the online variety… I don't mind a co-op every now and then, and I've done my share of death matches. However, once again, something in Kelly's blog pushes me into a seething rage – not at her, mind you… just call it angry enlightenment, like "Yeah. …. YEAH. DAMNIT. EXACTLY! #*&$*$!!!1!"

If Kelly got me started, it was our own soapboxed JohnSteed (congrats by the way, it's a good read and glad it got out there) that knocked me over the cliff with his take on Dragon Age, and his theory on the split of MMOs and RPGs vs. say the FPS games which more and more rely on a multiplayer element as a primary game play function and tack a SP mode on incase Xbox live is down that day.

No indeed.

Lengthy, meaningful and VALUABLE single player experiences are hard to come by. Value is key, in Johns blog, he talks about paying full price for Dragon Age, and getting more value out of it than games he waits for the price drop. I'm paraphrasing, but that speaks volumes to me. This is not a cheap hobby we all share, I don't want to think about the thousands I've spent on it over the years. It's a money pit, and we all know it. If you didn't, well – now you do…also, PM me your bank account information. So getting value for my dollar means a lot. Multiplayer means nothing to me, I detest it and it's disheartening to me to see the online modes starting to take up so much of the spotlight. I'm looking at Dragon Age myself. It is SINGLE PLAYER ONLY. How often do we get to say that anymore? Sure there are always some in the pipeline, the next few months are actually starting to look really good to me, which contradicts everything I've just said, but this is an oddity rather than the norm and the majority are sequels – so let's talk numbers. The ratio given to me by the highly paid research team that I just pictured in my head is 34 to 1. (citation needed)

"Okay, but let's go ahead and make the velociraptor way more dangerous. We're kind of stupid that way anyhow."

Okay so I don't have "real numbers" per se to back that up, but its "common knowledge." You can't argue with me on the grounds that putting things in quotes makes them "vague enough to mean several things."

Not Pictured: Sharks with frikken laser beams attached to their frikken heads.

More often than not, I buy a game because it looks to be entertaining, (except Madden) I'm not one to pick up a crappy game on the cheap in a bargain bin for easy points a la 'Barbie's Super High Fashion Adventure on a Pony II'. (Part I was better anyway) For example I picked up Brutal Legend, played through it, beat it, and like many games, it has this BS multiplayer element tacked on. I'm fine with ignoring that, nothing says I HAVE to play it, and god knows I don't want to - unless of course I want those %&*$# Trophies! This, friends, irritates me to no end. Place 1st in a ranked game, Compete in 100 matches, Beat Opponent in some specific and frustratingly difficult manner 10 times. I get that this is a pointless gripe – I'm not holding my breath for a change, but am I alone here? Why must I allow a 10 year old (boy?) to scream into my ear how awesome his mommy tells him he is so I can have 100% completion on one of my games? I would submit the solution is to keep multiplayer trophies separate. Playing within the SP mode will allow for 100% completion and the multiplayer can have its own set beyond that. That makes sense right? Play the game to completion and its reflected on your card, and multiplayer is separate, as it's not part of the main game anyhow, so it stands on its own. If you don't play it, then you just never see it. Makes sense to me anyways. Right, that will happen. :roll:

Achievement Unlocked : Went online for an ultimately meaningless trophy, now your girlfriend hates you.

Cursed chastity belts.