Cheat Codes. Those were definitely the days, when you could load up your game and after some clever and often confusing button presses you got infinite lives, ammo, money, whatever. You could overcome crushingly difficult bosses or get the boost you needed to finish that last level. Then a new set of consoles came along and videogames got more complicated; some still clung to the old ways of imputing them manually and others made you complete difficult tasks before rewarding you with new game modes and cheat codes. And cheat codes and bonus game modes became all the more satisfying; you earned these things, you had conquered the crushingly difficult boss you had beaten that last level by the sweat of your own brow and you had your reward. The game would proclaim to you "Congratulations player you have tread where we thought you would fail and you have come out the other side victorious. You have earned the right to become a god and crush foes who once instilled fear and dread in your heart. May your foes tremble and wet themselves at the coming of your shining glory.' Those were the days.
Then along came a spider and whispered in the ear of videogame designers 'What if we gave the illusion of accomplishment and reward? What if we gave them points and virtual trophies that don't do anything besides show to world than to show that they have indeed played a game?' Oh my dear readers I have a friend who has fallen for their trap and will not consider a game thoroughly beaten unless he has collected all the points for a game for no other reward than saying he has them all. When I first heard of the achievement system (on Xbox 360 and PC) I was full of wonder and I would say to myself 'This is a smart way to visually demonstrate a gamer's prowess. Oh how naive and foolish I was, so young and full of hope. I hadn't realized the impact that the achievement system was going to have on one of my favorite features in videogames.
By late 2009 I had finally chosen which current generation console I was going to purchase and I got myself a secondhand SONY PS3, the majority of my friends had chosen the Microsoft Xbox 360 and I would have gotten a chance to play videogames with my friends more often but what ultimately swayed my decision was Sony's exclusive games (God of War III and Metal Gear Solid 4 mainly). Back then those were the early days of trophy support some of the older videogames didn't have any trophies and the ones that did were well out of my budget. As time went on and the Sony mandate that all videogames support and include trophies in order to be Sony certified trudged on I noticed that more and more games had less incentive to beat the game and play it again; other than the trophies themselves. I first noticed it when I finished my first play through of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I had spent a good portion of that game hunting down the intel expecting some sort of reward and to be fair I did get a reward I heard the trophy unlock sound and I saw the notification in the top right corner of my screen and that was it. That's when it dawned on me the only reward I was going to ever see for collecting that intel was a virtual bronze trophy. It wasn't just the Call of Duty series, very few games offered me any real and tangible reward for beating the game or any incentive to play it again. Were we so busy collecting imaginary points and trophies to realize that games had lost a huge part of what made them worth $60 was missing? Adjusting for inflation past generations where about $10-$20 more expensive than they were today so games are cheaper but aren't nearly as impressive as they used to be.
There are however a few champions who still hold to the old ways like Naughty dog, Rock*, and Ubisoft to name a few but even then should you turn on a cheat code you can no longer save. Which is a shame since seeing how badly cheat codes screwed up your game was a blast in of it self. Maybe one day we will return to the glory days of yore but that is highly doubtful and incredibly saddening.
IDDQD
toodlekittens
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