Achievement Roundup: Puzzle Fighter, Wing Commander, and more
I took some time to finally look over the current state of achievement coverage for unreleased XBLA games over at xbox360achievements.org and here's a summary of what I found:
Wing Commander: Arena Achievements
A nicely varied and level distribution of points here. Paladin (Shoot down 1000 pilots on Xbox LIVE) will take some time but anyone can do it with enough perseverance. I will probably never get an achievement like Untouchable (Reach wave 10 in Gauntlet without ever taking damage to your hull) just because I like to live hard, fast, and reckless. At least in my video games.
Street Trace: NYC Achievements
All seem easily doable with a little time. Tracer Veteran and Tracer Champion will be the only real challenges here, with Veteran taking skill over the long haul and Champion requiring tons of skill in the Battle Royale Tournament.
These generally look good but Did I just Win…AGAIN?! (win 10 straight matches in ranked play) is a little crazy. Can't wait to see all the "full girl outfits" and yet hear bass voices over the headset while people try to get the Girl Power! achievement. And finally,
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Achievement Preview
Just a tease with 4 listed but without their scores. Playing as Akuma (Power Made Flesh) and winning any mode without continuing (Quarter Miser) will net you achievements here.
I must say that the art in the achievement pictures is getting much more interesting than previous games. I like that a lot. So, now that we're all caught up, here are some questions for everyone out there reading.
Do the achievements ever push you over the edge into an XBLA purchase? What are some of your favorite XBLA achievements? Least favorites? How could the design behind XBLA achievements (images, text, requirements) make them more appealing? And finally, would you like specific coverage of XBLA achievement announcements here at XBLArcade?
[via x360a.org, thanks to everyone tipping me on achievements]
Comments
McLean78
72409
I can't think of a specific case where the achievements tipped the scale, but good or bad achievements always make a game a little more or less appealing.
Some of my favorites:
Black Belt Grandmaster (Mutant Storm Reloaded) - my Unicorn achievement. it could keep me coming back to MSR for years
Survivor (Prince of Persia) - challenging, and even though it sounded like a frustrating achievement, it was really just tons of fun
Spartan Blitz (RoboBlitz) - the real fun and innovation in RoboBlitz isn't really apparant until you play it without any upgrades. Thank goodness there's an achievement to encourage that
My least favorites:
Infection (Jetpac) - loved the game, but what a sorry attempt to half-copy Six Degrees of Small Arms
Sharp Shooter (Zuma) - 5 seconds? Seriously, wtf?
Survivor (Assault Heroes) - Just frustrating because the complete requirements were not clear (or it was just buggy)
It might be cool to have more posts about achievements so we could discuss which ones we like or don't like. Not a big deal though.
LunarDuality
36370
Great list McLean. I still have to get to Blackbelt before I worry about the grandmaster achievement. LOL.
Thanks for the feedback. Talking about achievements it certainly something I'm considering as both a discussion topic (like the stuff you posted) and also in the "this is news" function when info gets released.
For me, getting Survived 1,000,000 in geo wars is still one of my favorites. Sad thing is that even though my high score is 3.8 million, I have yet to duplicate the survive 1,000,000 achievement.
LunarDuality -- "Indie is where it's at!"
JDUDE11
9884
DaKing240
64017
Well, I am glad you all enjoy the sneak peaks and exclusives we get, sure makes a hobby much more enjoyable. Well, we have some more games on the way, and we are working with publishers to secure more lists. So, I guess my question is, what games do you all want to see. My GT is below, so be sure to keep me in the loop.
Some games that you should see soon on X360A include Sensible Soccer, and also have more games that I can't announce yet, just going to keep it undertow for a little bit. I am also looking forward to seeing the rest of the Puzzle Fighter achievements (for the record, we only got a list of the 4 so far, otherwise everyone would have saw the full list, no sneak peaks)
LunarDuality
36370
I coulda sworn that I already SAW the Sensible Soccer achievements yesterday while flipping through my RSS feeds. So, maybe you wanna release them now? LOL.
(And no, this isn't just a ploy. I did see them in a jpg. All 12. )
LunarDuality -- "Indie is where it's at!"
JDUDE11
9884
DaKing240
64017
No, no you didn't!
Ha, anyway, while asking for achievements, I was sent that image, about a few days ago. Well, we wanted nice looking images for our users, so we didn't put those up. Well, that image got out somehow, and now everyone knows. Either way, we are still waiting for our set of images to put the achievements up on our page :D