Xbox Living

Now, I know the Achievements system on the Xbox 360 has its flaws — some games can be cheated, and some gamers are obsessed with boosting their Gamerscore with these achievements. This obsession with Achievements is why they’re such a great idea for Microsoft, though, since they’ll get anyone with a touch of obsessive-compulsive behaviours grabbing up extra games just to raise their scores. (I don’t believe in boosting, but I have been known to keep playing a game just to snatch some extra gamerscore when I may have put it down otherwise.)

Anyways, Bioshock was released yesterday, and I picked up my copy. As I mentioned in my recent Bioshock preview, this game is fun, and just… awesome. It’s among the top Xbox 360 games this year, along with Crackdown, presumably Mass Effect, and certainly Halo 3.

But one of the things this game got right is the Achievements. Bioshock has 50 achievements, and many of them are small. I liked this a lot about Crackdown, as well. Both games have tons of little tricks to get, items to collect, or character upgrades to acquire that make getting your Achievements that much more fun.

By contrast, some other games only include Achievements that are part of the normal gameplay (You beat the first level! Here’s 100 gamerscore!) or rewards for keeping their online gaming going (Congrats, you’ve played 10,000 online matches!) . Sure, it’s nice to be rewarded for progressing in the game — but these achievements aren’t nearly as fun to get.

Now, many of the Bioshock Achievements will be yours just by playing through, but there are enough extras to give you some extra playtime chasing the last bits of Gamerscore. Other developers should learn from 2K on this one - Bioshock got achievements right.