The other day I came home from work to find my girlfriend playing Hexic on the 360. Not too unusual for her, she loves playing the XBLA games, what was unusual was the conversation that ensued.

"Hey honey, what you up to?"

"Playing some Hexic,"

"I see,"

"I'm trying to get this stupid achievement, I've played like three games in a row and I keep getting so close, I know I can do this,"

The achievement was the 75,000 points in a timed game, but that wasn't the important thing, the thing I found interesting was that she was playing the game, not just to play, but for the achievement. Now I'm sure everyone knows those people that play just to inflate their Gamerscore, and she is not one of those people. The achievement just kept her going. I'm sure she wouldn't have kept playing or tried to get to that score, if there wasn't an "award" for doing so. Some of the old-school gamers might set certain markers they want to get to in some games, but for the most part games that give you nothing to shoot for have the least amount of replay value.

In my opinion this is the magic of the Xbox 360. It has quickly become one of my favorite parts of my newest console, and one of the reasons I chose it over the PS3. Built into every game there are things to actually accomplish. Just beating the games is not the end of the fun anymore. Most achievements encourage playing longer and artificially make the games longer. This is especially important to the budget minded gamer. When you only have a few bucks to spend on your gaming addiction, it's vital that you get your money's worth.

Now I've heard the argument that achievements are evil and people are playing bad games just to up their Gamerscore. I have no reason to defend these people and I won't. Instead I'd encourage people not to judge others on their Gamerscore. While a 20,000 score is impressive, if you look deeper into that score and find it full of Avatar and King Kong achievements you would be less impressed knowing how easy those achievements are to get. I think it would be a great idea to be able to highlight your favorite achievements, the ones you're most proud displayed for everyone to see.

Balancing the achievements is more important than just putting them in the games, I think. I mean it's great to get the achievements throughout the game, and most of these are good. Achievements for taking out each of your assassination targets in Assassin's Creed are a good example. However, some achievements feel like they're just put in there to make the games have an even 1000 points. One of the first achievements I ever got was a complete accident. I was playing Dead Rising and I fell off of one of the shelves in the warehouse. When I heard the noise that is now synonymous with achievements, I thought to myself, "What did I do," later finding that I got points just for falling a certain distance. Other good examples of these are most of the achievements that come with sports games. Why would I get an achievement for making an interception? I didn't even do it, the computer did!

Other types of achievements I dislike are the ones that require you to play for ridiculous amounts of time. Even Super Smash Bros. Brawl gives you awards for just playing for hours, so it's not only a 360 problem. After awhile you will get bored with any game and you shouldn't continue playing a game you're not enjoying anymore just to unlock achievements. Achievements should be just that, something you achieve. If you just hand them out freely, they become meaningless. Love or hate them, I think they are good for gaming. If they get different people playing and help out the sales of our favorite hobby, you can't be too upset.