Concerning PS3 Trophies, 360 Achievements and Nintendo not joining the party

I had to confess recently to being something of a Trophy Whore.

For the uninitiated, Trophies (on the Playstation 3 - the XBox 360 equivalent is Achievements) are a ticklist of tasks which can be completed within a game. However rather than simply existing within the game itself, these awards are connected with your online profile. Even if you uninstall and sell on the game, the legacy of your actions in that game live on through your ID.


There is a great variety between titles as to the kinds of trophies offered and the skill required to achieve them (more on that later), but they typically involve awards for getting through certain parts of the game, completing the game on different skill settings, unlocking all in-game features and trying all of the game modes. Genre-dependent, other trophies are for things like winning a set number of online matches, beating a target speed-run time, getting all the women in the game to like you...

Then there are the random trophies which are even genre dependent, but based upon the title itself: I've got trophies for everything from "flipping the bird" to a cop in Mirror's Edge, performing a successful barrel roll in Wipeout HD, flying a helicopter under all the bridges in GTA IV to spending a target amount of money on courtesans in Assassin's Creed II.

Generally speaking, gaining all the trophies for a particular title will gain you the Platinum trophy on PS3 - or similar accolade on XBox.

The top trophies are meant to be an indication of real skill, but sometimes that doesn't work and the skill required to beat all challenges varies greatly from game to game. Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time (HD re-release) features a platinum trophy which can be gained in a few evening's careful play. Wipeout Fury, on the other hand, features trophies which are pretty painful. Complete 20 Zones without hitting the sides of the track? I should co-co!

My PSN card. I have a surprising number of trophies for a fitness game.

I can generally tell at a glance if I'm going to try for the platinum having taken a look at the trophies on offer. I'm currently playing Brutal Legend and I'm pretty sure the challenges offered aren't for me, heavily reliant as they are on multiplayer success: not something at which I excel these days and also a viral trophy dependent on find another player who already has it.

I didn't think I was a trophy whore for a while, because in my mind trophy whores are people who play, buy or download games specifically because they offer a cheap or easy Platinum trophy. There's something very arbitrary about playing simply to boosts one's own player score.

However I did find myself recently choosing to not bother playing a game because it didn't offer trophies. That sounds a bit trite - actually I had a choice between two games in a series and I chose the title with trophy support over the older title without. I also felt a little pang of disappointment when I realised that neither Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light or Costume Quest offered a platinum trophy for 100% completion. (especially since Lara Croft GoL presented a steeper challenge than many other games!)

It led me to wonder where my own fascination with trophies comes from. Also, having read recently that the Nintendo 3DS will not feature an achievements system I found myself disagreeing with the sentiment, feeling that the system will be somehow incomplete without this peripheral feature.

In that article, Nintendo's Bill Trinen is quoted as saying "When they create their games, [Nintendo's designers] don't tell you how to play their game in order to achieve some kind of mythical reward... Basically, the way the games are designed is they're designed for you to explore the game yourself and have this sense of discovery."

I disagree with that statement for the first reason I love achievements and trophies. I find they encourage me to attempt things in the game it would not have occurred to me to try unless someone had suggested it. That's not to say that the trophy system diminishes my sense of intelligent exploration - it just shapes it into a target to hit.

Costume Quest + Platinum: What I'd like to see

Take GTA IV for example. It doesn't take a genius to realise that one of the first things you are going to attempt when you first grab a helicopter is to fly under one of the city's bridges. That "sense of discovery" comes naturally to gamers - it's why we love the medium. However, without a pointer (and a system to keep track of progress) would I have spent a very entertaining hour or so flying around the city to try and fly under all the bridges in the game? Probably not.

Similarly, GTI Club+ offers a couple of trophies for the following: get a carwash and still win a race and win a race by turning around and reversing over the finish line. This adds a great sense of fun to the experience and really enhances the challenge available.

Done well (and we'll all played games with trophies clearly added as an afterthought) the trophies available for a game add to the game experience - they integrate with the gameplay, provide additional replay value and expand your skill with the game. Batman Arkham Asylum is a great example of Trophies implemented well. The combo achievements encourage you to raise your game in terms of melee fighting accuracy, and some of the trophies help expand side plots featuring the ridder and the Spirit of Arkham.

It is true to say that you can implement these kinds of objectives and rewards in-game. Batman Arkham Asylum would be the same game without trophies - you could simply move the achievements to an in-game menu and live without a unified achievements system.

But what is fun about the trophy system is sharing your achievements with others. If I have a friend playing the same game as me I can look at their trophy list and gauge how far along they are with a game - even provide a bit of help if they need it.

Sure there's an element of competition - but isn't it nice to be able to add a bit of friendly competition even to games with little or no multiplayer element?

Metroid Prime 3 had quite a nice idea - when you complete the game it posts a screenshot of the "game complete" screen to your message board on the Wii with a percentage of completion. Unfortunately, the Wii's message board is a bit useless and can't be navigated with ease or readily shared with friends. But I like the idea - beyond trophies or achievements - that you can take a snapshot of your experiences with a game and record them for posterity.

You only get a view like this through trying to get all the trophies

I think my love of trophies comes down to a feeling of completeness; of closure. This is purely a personality issue, but with so many games offering replay value and open worlds to explore (even after the main game is completed) I often feel that there I some games I never finished - just abandoned. Having a checklist of specific tasks to complete does at least give me a sense of closure with a game.

It's also a way of recording memories. We all play so many games and have so many experiences. If you have trophies, take a stroll down memory lane and take stock of some of the things you have achieved and experiences in the games you have played.

I'd like more games to capture memories. I'd like to be able to play back what I just did and take photo snapshots of incredible moments I witnessed, hilarious mishaps I encountered or poignant beats that spoke to me. To quote Blade Runner, "I have seen things you people would not believe ... all those moments will be lost like tear-drops in the rain."