The thing is that I want to play the new Ghostbusters game. I wasn’t the hugest fan of the movie, but I did enjoy it enough that I think I would have fun with the game. But because of the mediocre average review score, I decided to hold off until it was cheaper. $60 is just a bit too much for a game that I’m so unsure about. However, $30 might be the magic price. On PC’s Steam, the game is available for half the price of the console versions. While it lacks multiplayer, it’s completely worth spending only have the price. So why I haven’t I bought it yet?
Other than the fact that I have three games to play (Red Faction Guerilla, Earth Defense Force 2017 and Prototype), I couldn’t push myself to it because… because there are no achievements that carry over to my 360 account. It’s not to say that I think achievements are worth the additional $30, but that I’d rather wait the many months or even years until Ghostbusters is $30 on console just so I can get those achievement points.
The thing about achievement points is that it makes me feel accomplished. It makes me feel like I played my money’s worth. When I look at my score on Guitar Hero 3 and see that I barely broke 100, it suddenly feels like I barely played the game. Let’s ignore the fact that I played a ton out of the game and that I didn’t get most of the achievements because they’re damn near impossible to get.
I also like the fact that it gives me more to do in a game than I normally would. I actually collected all those damned flying rats in GTA4 whereas I wouldn’t even been bothered to do so in the previous GTAs. All that time spent just for achievement points…
It’s just that for some reason, these days, I need proof that I played the game. For some strange reason, if I play a video game and there’s no way of tracking what I’ve played, how much I’ve played, then it feels like I haven’t played it at all. It’s like that saying, “If a tree falls in a wood and no one is around, does it make a sound?” The answer is actually no according to science and the definition of sound. In terms of video games, it does feel like I haven’t actually played the game if there are no achievements associated with it.
Now, I’m happy that I fall into a strange category of achievement whores. I’m one who needs it to track my gameplay habits, to see if that $60 was well worth the money spent. I’m a ratio guy. I need to see, of the games that I’ve played, that I have over 50% of the possible achievement point’s total. I’ll let Guitar Hero 3 go if I can get over 500 points in another game to make up for the loss. My current ratio is a little over 2:5 right now. If I ever finish Dead Space and bother with some various achievements throughout a game I could easily be at 1:2. Then again, I have two 360 games coming today so I’m going to need to work that off.
Thankfully, I’m not one who necessarily needs a high score. I’m actually glad that I don’t aim for the 30k+ because frankly, what would that say about me? That I’m a gamer or that I have no life? No offense to anyone who actually is that high right now. I just think that it’s a lot of wasted time is all, though I am sort of a pot calling the kettle black in terms of wasted time… So, I’ll just move on.
It’s strange though that if a game isn’t available on the 360, whether it be PC or PS3 exclusive, I don’t care. Hell, PS3 trophies, while I might try and aim for some of them, I don’t really care for them. I don’t get why, but those numbers… Those damn achievement points mean a lot.
I think I can safely pass up Ghostbusters now though. I’m realizing that I have way too many games to play and when I’m ready, hopefully the 360 version will have lowered in price. If not, I’ll go through the whole “should I, shouldn’t I” process again.
