(Note: I'm going to use
Spore as an example throughout this post, since the PC game has 102 of the dang things and will almost certainly get more when
Galactic Adventures is released.)
Achievements are everywhere nowadays (except the Wii). You've got your Gamerscore on Xbox Live, your Trophies on PS3, and several systems on PC -
even Flash games have jumped on the bandwagon.
I think that achievements, when properly balanced, are one of the best things in gaming today. By "balanced," I mean, for example, that you shouldn't get an achievement for buying a game (
Eternity's Child, lolololol) or completing a simple goal in a game's story mode (finishing the Cell Stage in
Spore), but you shouldn't have to play the game in a completely unfun way to earn one, either (
Eternity's Child, lolololololololololololol). As far as points received for achievements go, I don't think there should be points awarded unless they actually
do something (such as in
Spore's Space Stage, which has specialized badges - mostly separate from the game's achievement system - that grant points required to reach higher Master Badge levels;
Spore Creatures takes this to a higher level by having you trade in badge points for special creature parts and weird cheats like big head mode). Achievements that do something (
Team Fortress 2's class achievements, required to unlock new weaponry) are better than regular achievements, but must still be balanced - I'm not going to play through a game on its hardest difficulty using only, say, a super-weak melee weapon, to unlock a super-powerful melee weapon that can only be used on a completed file. (In the other direction, TF2 has several achievements that are overly easy to earn, and the new Scout set will add more to that group.)
I also hate the idea of secret achievements such as those seen in
Guitar Hero: World Tour. What the heck?
What do you guys think of achievements in video games?