Achievements

In what appeared to be act of extreme genius, with the release of Xbox 360 also came the ideas of the Gamertag and Achievements. For those of you who aren't familiar with video games, a Gamertag is your gamer name in the land of video games. Think of it as the equivalent of an AIM name only you sign on under your Gamertag to keep track of your game achievements and save files. You can also play online under your Gamertag.

The Gamertag also keeps track of any achievements you have accomplished during a video game and gives you a score for the achievement. For example, to receive the Bad Nanny achievement in Dante's Inferno, you simply have to kill 20 Unbaptized Babies. In doing so, you receive 10 points towards your Gamer Score.

For a perfectionist like myself, achievements are a Catch 22. First, it's a way to acknowledge that you have accomplished a specific goal, such as defeating a secret enemy or beating a game. It also becomes a way of bragging to other players that you were able to find all of the holy relics or secret characters in a game. The major problem with achievements is the introduction of online achievements. For example, Fable III has about five achievements which require you to play online. For example, Cross-Dimensional Conception requires you to have a child with another Xbox Live player.

I have and never will have a desire to play a video game with a complete stranger who lives in East Bumblefuck. Why should my Gamer Score be effected by whether or not to play online. Of course, the real reason Microsoft devised this sneaky plan was in hopes that players like myself would be suckered into actually paying for a membership. A silver membership is free to everyone and allows you to download content from the internet and view your friends Gamertag and Gamer Score, however a gold membership is required to actually play with your friends online. The gold membership used to cost $50 for the year, but recently the price went up.