PlayStation Trophies: My Unhealthy Addiction
Note: This was originally an application piece written for a job as an amateur game reviewer. To no one’s surprise, there were about 30 applicants and I didn’t get the job.
I don’t hold any trophies for sport or physical achievement. It’s not like I didn’t try, my brain would tell my foot that it needs to swing into the round thing to provide the necessary kinetic energy to move it on to one of my team-mates, but somewhere between the dark recess behind my eyes and the ball the message would get lost in translation and I’d often end up flat on my backside.
This is where the marvel of technology has truly brightened my life: digital trophies! All the personal achievement and none of that nonsense of having to buy some cheap timber for shelving from the local DIY store1 and going through all the malarkey of applying said wood to the wall to store your coveted prizes. Now you can recognise your gaming prowess via the medium of a small jpeg accompanied by a small dinging noise that is the audible cue for “give yourself a pat on the back”.
On the other hand, trophies are a bit of a nuisance. Now I’m obliged to play through the game on very hard “dead on arrival” mode, if I ever want to complete the collection. It’s an obsessive-compulsive’s nightmare – all those games lined up with numbers that aren’t all 100%…it’s probably just easier to not play the game at all and leave it on 0%. For example, I’ll never get the all of the combo trophies on Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. I managed to earn two of them but gave up on the rest before I crippled my fingers and developed early onset arthritis in my hands. Then there’s the small matter of Bioshock – I completed the game fully and did everything but that’s not good enough for the taskmasters! Oh no, I have to collect the ones from the DLC as well if I want to retain 100 percentiles, and all for the nominal fee of £7.00 that I’ll never fully feel was worth the expenditure.
Overall, I am glad that Sony decided to borrow (read: flat-out steal) Microsoft’s achievement system for their console. I am certainly getting more out of games than I used to, and that’s crucial as next-gen games are arguably a lot shorter than their younger siblings of the 128-bit era, and we’re all a bit poorer since the economy decided to take a short trip off a long pier. You may call me sad, but then you’re not the one who beat [PROTOTYPE] on hard mode, are you?
Postscript (16/03/2015)
I’m still mad about collecting trophies, and I have two accounts on social media sites designed to track game progress. You can check out my PSN Profiles Page or my Playfire Profile.
- As the hefty tradesmen behind the counter tut and roll their eyes as you purchase the wrong wood for storage and the completely inappropriate nails for the job. ↩
Post by Sean Patrick Payne+ | January 11, 2010 at 9:54 pm | Articles, Trophy Hunter's Club, Video Games | No comment
Tags: achievements, PS3, trophies