Achievements for playing online in single player games

I game solo. I do this because most of the people that one finds online aren’t the sort of people I want to talk to. I also don’t really like playing games with other people for the most part, because they tend to ruin my fun. Even friends do this. I stopped playing the Lego games with people that I knew because while I was trying to do something, people would run off and I’d end up falling off of cliffs. That’s not fun to me. I like to explore, I like to see what’s there. Sometimes I like to just run around on my horse and kill animals for the whole time I’m playing, it’s pretty rare that anybody I know is willing to do whatever I want whenever I want to do it, so I play alone.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, of course. I got Monday Night Combat to play with a couple of friends (which I haven’t done since probably the first month I had it), I bought Viva Pinata: Party Animals with the intention of playing with others while inebriated. And I have a friend who I play the Fable games with. Other than that, however, my games are bought for me to play, and to play alone.

The newest trend of single player games such as Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Red Dead Redemption and others having a co-op doesn’t bother me. I’m not stupid. I know that other people in the world enjoy having a friend along for certain things. I’m not saying that they can’t make it, or have it, or use it. I don’t understand it, I won’t ever be in that number, but I can ignore it for the most part.

What I can’t ignore is single player games that have achievements attached to them for playing online and/or in co-op. I have games that I will never be able to get all the achievements for because I won’t ever play them with others. These don’t encourage me to do so, either. They just irritate me. Those nagging little empty slots holding achievements that I won’t ever get.

I’m unsure why I should shoulder this punishment because I don’t want to deal with other people. That’s what it feels like, to me. A punishment. It’s like the game industry is saying “Hey, since you’re a loner loser with no friends and antisocial to boot, you don’t get to have as much fun”. (I’m not really a loser with no friends, but I am antisocial and a loner.)

Sometimes I get really frustrated with games that are single player because I look at the list of achievements and see that so many of them are for co-op. How is that possible? Why should that be? In fighting games, in racing games, that makes sense to me. Those are games that you imagine playing with other people. But in no way does it make sense to me to be running around in Mass Effect with a partner of any kind to be getting any sort of achievement. It’s a single player game. While I know that there are games out there used for co-op purposes that have single player stories attached to them, like the Halo series, I can’t think of very many people that I know that go for those games FOR the single player story. They might do it, because it unlocks more things for their co-op, but it’s not why they got it.

Now, let me say here, I’m not opposed to the achievements being there, but can’t there be some kind of option? Some kind of add-on that people who want to play online and in co-op can get? A dollar or two shelled out so they can have these achievements and my slots can be filled with things that I can do alone? The game companies are free to have their cake and eat it too, but there has to be some other way. We unlock many things with DLC, more stories, more missions, more characters, clothes, weapons, random objects, so why can’t co-op be another one of them?

Games are allowed to have a certain amount of achievements attached to them. They have to add up to 2000 points total, it doesn’t matter how they’re distributed. DLC can add more when you buy them. So it makes sense to me to have co-op something that you unlock, something that ADDS those achievements to the game at the end of things. That’s fair to me. A lot of people don’t buy DLC because they’re not interested, so they don’t get those points. I wouldn’t get the points for the co-op DLC because I’m not intersted. It shouldn’t be shoved down my throat that I don’t play games with others when I look at achievement lists and see that there’s a huge chunk of them devoted to something I’m not even interested in.

There are 9 achievements in the main pool of Red Dead Revolver that I’ll never get. On the flip side of that, there’s an entire DLC story that seems to be strictly Co-op (I did buy this, but it was on accident, because I got the special sale that gave you all the RDR DLC for a low price), which is exactly what I’m talking about here. It highlights my idea perfectly. I’m sure lots of people bought this DLC (on purpose), so why couldn’t all of those RDR achievements be in that DLC? Or more than one?

Leave the single player people with the ability to get all the achievements in their game if they can, if they’re interested. Give the co-op people what they want, but keep it something separate. Really easy, in my mind. Really easy.

An Open Letter To Netflix

Dearest Netflix,

What the fuck.

No, seriously. What the fuck is going on with you? Why is it that you don’t seem to fucking function anymore? Not even in the “I hate the way you tried to ‘streamline’ your shit” kind of way, either. But in the “I don’t think your employees are actually doing their jobs” kind of way.

I guess it started a while ago, maybe even before you decided to start charging more for shit. Splitting up the DVD and Instant services was just an asshole move. But things were rocky before then, weren’t they?

You started suggesting things that you thought I might like that were NOTHING like the movies and shows I had just watched or were in my history. Okay, I can see that I suppose. Maybe there’s something in this romance movie I might like even though 70% of what I watch is drama or horror, and 20% of it is comedy. Maybe somebody dies, I don’t know.

From there it went to what you were comparing with what. In your “More Like ___” sections, I started to find more and more things that were NOT alike at all. Not in any way. That got paired up with the fact that you started grouping things wrong. Care Bears in science fiction? That’s not how that works.

Then it was like a trainwreck happening, one that’s still happening. One that I just don’t even try to understand anymore.

– You say there are new episodes in a series when there aren’t any.

– You list things on the New Releases tab when they’ve been out for four or five years. If you just got it, and are just now able to let us see it on Instant, it should go under Just Added.

– There is no longer any way to search by actor if you’re not online doing it. It just tells you that shit doesn’t even exist. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure that Marilyn Monroe did a couple of movies and that you’ve got them all stashed somewhere. The fact that I have to search each one by title instead of being able to bring them up by her name? What the hell?

– Your copy is wrong. More often than I would like, I find myself watching something because of the description I read. And hating it. Or, on the flip side, not watching it because it sounds like something I would loathe, and then finding out later that I would have loved it.

– Your employees aren’t paying attention to what they’re doing. Did you know that for a really long time after you added Life to Instant that you had Charlie Crews’ name completely wrong? Hm? You did. Shouldn’t have happened.

– Episodes for shows are actually skipped over during regular play. When I watched Supernatural, it skipped over half of a season when I was hitting “play next episode”. When I watched Ugly Betty, the first few episodes of the first season had the wrong information tied to them, and weren’t in order. A couple might have even been missing, but since I don’t know the series, I couldn’t say. But it was all very confusing.

– Recently Watched randomly just doesn’t show up at all. Doesn’t seem to be any reason for it. I’ll just turn on my 360, fire up Netflix, wait to see my Recently Watched so I can easily pick up where I left off, and … it’s not there. The whole goddamned field is just gone.

Now let’s add into the things I’ve spoken of before, shall we? I’ll just copy and paste it to make things easier for both of us.

“To make it worse, Netflix also changed their dashboard to coincide with the Xbox change. And the Netflix dashboard is so goddamned useless sometimes that I want to throw things. They show you movies you might like to see during the last bits of movie you’re watching (some movies have stuff going on during or after the credits, so I’m not particularly happy that they reduce the screen) but they don’t give you a description of the movie, you have to seek it out after to see what it’s about. There’s no way to rate a movie without playing it. There’s no longer any way to mark that you’re not even interested in the movie anymore, so stuff you really don’t want to keep seeing pop up will, unless you go to the site. For tv shows, you can’t go in and pick an episode unless, again, you start playing the series. So if you haven’t watched in a while and want to see if the “new episodes” they’ve added are really and truly new, you have to start playing, then go to the episodes list. This is completely stupid.”

That’s just something I tacked onto a rant about the 360 dashboard. I think it’s good here, too. Since it’s about you. And the things you’re slacking on. Or forgetting. Or just don’t care about anymore.

The money I shell out to you for this service might not mean much to you. But it means a lot to me. I’m on a really strict budget. Netflix is one of the things that is completely unnecessary to life that I allow myself. A fun little thing that I enjoy having quite a bit.

It might not matter to you that all this shit is broken, but it matters to me, because of this money I hand to you every month. I know it matters to other people as well. Maybe they don’t use Instant as much as I do. Maybe that 10 bucks isn’t a really big deal to them. But it still matters. You know why?

BECAUSE WE PAY YOU FOR THIS SERVICE.

It’s not something that you give us for free. It’s not an add on to DVDs like it used to be. It’s a stand alone service that shouldn’t be as fucked up as it is. It should work. It should be functional. It should be valid. It should be fun, and not frustrating.

I’m not going to threaten to not use your service, because that’s unrealistic at this point. But I am going to ask you to fix your shit, because I’m tired of it, and there’s a good number of people I know who are also tired of it. It should be seen as a courtesy to us, your paying customers.

To sum up?
Get your shit together, Netflix.

-Mila.

Wit’ch Storm

Sigh.

Alright.

I don’t remember the first one being this grammatically bad. There was a reiteration of my hate toward apostrophes being placed into words that didn’t need them, which seemed to me to be more rampant in this book than in the other one. But it could just be that the story in this book wasn’t as engaging or entertaining as it was in the first one. There was nothing there to take my attention away.

Actually, there was a lot to hate about this book that has nothing to do with characters or story. Like the fact that it seems as if this man has never been introduced to a thesaurus. Not once. In his whole life. I’m willing to bet, in fact, that he wouldn’t know what a synonym was if I beat him over the head with it until he was unconscious.

Every goddamned paragraph was so tragically repetitive. Once he found a word he liked to describe what was going on, he never strayed from it. This is how elementary school kids write. This is not how grown men with a book series write.

Where I was interested in what happened to everyone in Wit’ch Fire and was anxious to get the next novel to keep on with the story, in Wit’ch Storm the story was flat. The characters somehow lost all of their life. The new characters that were brought in did nothing to enrich the tale, the new information heralded no excitement. The battles felt more like hissy fits.

I am lost as to how this took such a nose dive. It’s as if the first book is sitting on a nice plateau and this one just fell right over the edge of the cliff. Maybe the first book nudged it.

I have no idea if I can bring myself to read any of the following books in this series. I haven’t a single nagging urge to find out where things go next. I don’t even care that I’m potentially quitting in the middle of all of it, not even my OCD can be bullied into giving a shit. It’s just as willing as I am to give up now and call it good. It’s a sad day when not even my OCD can prod me into finishing something.

New new new

Thanks to a friend, I have the newest Koontz book waiting for me to read it.

Unfortunately, it has to wait until I’ve finished Wit’ch Storm. Which I’m kind of wishing I’d waited to read until I could dig up the first one to re-read because I sort of forgot what’s going on.

But I can’t stop now.

It’s the OCD, you see.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (Frustrations)

I cannot even tell you right now how long ago I got this game. I borrowed it first from a friend, then decided that I liked it too much to not own it, and that it was going to take me a fairly long time to play through it, so holding onto his copy wasn’t really nice.

I have this frequent problem. Or I did. I am trying to correct it. It’s a bad habit, and it’s how I ended up with a giant fucking stack of games that were only somewhat played through. I would be in the middle of a game and something would come out that I was more interested in. Now, instead of buying said game and waiting until I finished what I was working on, I would play the new game, leaving the other sad and alone. Crying. On my shelf.

While I did this with Silent Hill: Homecoming, I did manage to pick it up again fairly quickly after I finished whatever wondrous thing had floated my way. I was playing along quite happily, too. Enjoying myself. Yelling at the television when things wouldn’t die. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a potty mouth. It’s not just when I write.

Then the most horrible of horribles happened. The one thing that every gamer dreads and curses the sky for.

I got stuck.

I did it to myself. I can wholly admit that. It was all entirely my doing. No question. I went into an area with maybe two bullets, a quarter of my health, a crowbar, an axe, and a flashlight. No medical kits. No health drinks. Just wandered on in, didn’t even think about it. Didn’t consider that I’d just found something pretty significant and maybe, just motherfucking maybe, I should take a moment to gather myself so that I wouldn’t be walking into the massive clusterfuck of assrape that I did. No. Not me. I’ll just go right down this pretty creepy ladder here, and… oh. What’s that? Boss you say? Can’t go back, you say? Fucked myself, did I?

I did.

I literally spent weeks trying to find a way to defeat Scarlett with what I had on me. I can admit that I didn’t even come close. Not even mildly. It’s actually pretty laughable how not close I came to killing her and proceeding with the rest of the game. I would laugh, except it’s my problem. Laughing at yourself often gets you a white padded room and a special jacket. Or maybe that’s just how hard I would be laughing, and with the release of emotion might come some added screaming and…

Let’s move on, shall we?

I have previously talked about my quest to wrap up the above noted games, bringing my backlog into some realm of sanity. Coupled with the vow that once I have picked up a game, I will complete it before starting another. (This vow is hard to keep. Obviously I was not made for vows. Or with much willpower when it comes to video games.) The time for Silent Hill: Homecoming did roll around, and lo, I picked it up and with heavy heart did erase my previous game, thus confirming the restart that was fated to occur.

I’ve been enjoying it… I suppose I should say that I had been, had being a very key word here… I had been enjoying it during the replay. There had been enough time and enough other games in that time that I didn’t remember the story perfectly, I didn’t automatically know how to solve the puzzles. It was a little new despite how far I’d gotten. It was okay. It really was.

Until I started thinking about getting to that boss level with the goddamned giant fucking puppet of massive sphincter bleeding. Then I started to get upset. Not with the game, though, with myself. I kept thinking of all the things I could have done differently to prevent this replay from happening. Replaying because you want to is one thing. Doing it because you’ve shoved your own head up your ass is entirely different. It’s just aggravating.

I had to stop playing again. Now it and GTA 4 are the ones staring at me from my shelves, asking me why they aren’t yet finished. SH:H pleading with puppy dog eyes and little whimpering noises. “Just finish me, I’m a good game, I’ll show ya, you enjoyed me before, just pick me up, we’ll have a good time together, promise”. Bastard.

I’m just so annoyed with myself over things that I’m taking it out on the game. I have to get over it, that’s what it comes down to. I have to, and I will. Somehow. Because I cannot just let it linger. It will drive me crazy (obviously we’re significantly down that street, aren’t we?).

There will be another update on this when I finish the damn game.

Kameo

Let me tell you a little bit about my history with Kameo. It needs to be said, or I don’t think it’ll make much sense, my feelings about this game. My inability to truly feel much about what’s going on.

Once upon a time, I decided to try GameFly. I thought that it might be a good idea, renting games, getting to see what I might like and what I might hate without paying for a whole game. In theory, it’s brilliant. I suspect that for most people out there, it’s a wonderful tool. For me? Utter failure. Complete waste of time. Even though I didn’t pay anything at all for my two week trial with them, I feel like I wasted a lot of effort.

I tried games that I thought I might like, and when I did like them, I went out and bought them anyway. With my track record of games I like when I buy them VS games I hate, there’s not a lot of risk there. I could see where it would be risky for people who just pick up every game they see and give it a try. GameFly would be great for them. So you can see, effort wasted. Time wasted.

One of the games that I tried with GameFly was Kameo. I did like it pretty goddamned quickly, and it also happened to be at the very end of my trial. So I sent it back, went to the store with the intent to buy it and promptly saw something shinier. I can’t tell you now what it was, just that I had to have it more than I had to have Kameo.

Months later, I was back in the store, and lo – Kameo. Cheaply. So I picked it up. Why not? I’d had fun the first time, though I hadn’t gotten very far at all. I took it home and put it directly into my machine, happy as a clam.

And I shit you not, the next day something came out that would once again eclipse my playing of Kameo. And once again, I cannot tell you what that thing was, just that it was bigger and bolder, and called to me so deeply that I ignored the small cries of this newly bought game as I pried the disk out of the tray and shoved it back into it’s case, then onto the shelf. I should note here that I got exactly as far through the game as I had the first time.

A year later. Kameo again. Again it is usurped.

Forgotten in the stacks of games to play, I finally came upon it this year in my quest to finish every half touched game that I owned. I decided that now was the time to let this game shine. Now was the moment. I placed it where it needed to go and sat my ass down on the couch, ready. I restarted my game, because by this time, I had no memory of what I’d learned – however little – and what had happened in the story.

After about a half hour, I realized that I hadn’t gotten very far at all and caught up to where I recalled leaving off very quickly. Kind of sad, really, given all the efforts I’d gone to previously (*cough*). It also occurred to me that not once in my former tries had I ever gotten further than this into the game. Always, something more had come forward and taken my attentions away. For a few hours, I played with fear and trepidation. What if something fantastic were to fall into my lap as I held the controller in my hand? What if it demanded to be played instantly and once again Kameo was thrown to the wayside?

And then I got over it, because I realized I am my own downfall, and if I didn’t go seeking new shiny games, they would not appear.

It didn’t take me long to get through this game. And I did have fun with it. But I just have this kind of apathy going on about it. I don’t care that I played it, really. I guess I’m glad I did, it’s done with, it’s not on my shelf anymore. It’s not waiting for me and mocking me every time I walk by. But I have no sense of satisfaction. I have no feeling of accomplishment. I didn’t put down my controller and think to myself “Holy shit, that was a good game” and I didn’t by any means desire to play it again. It wasn’t a bad game, it really wasn’t. Plus, I am an avid, nearly insanely so, replayer, thus my lack of desire to go through again was and is surprising and confusing.

I don’t know where this feeling – or lack thereof – comes from. Is it because I just let it sit for too long? Is it that I tried too many times to get into this game and it never happened, thus leaving me with an empty hole where my enjoyment should be? I don’t know. I just don’t.

I have passed this game on, a thing I don’t really do, as I like to keep them around so I can play them again at a later date. But I know that I will not ever pick up Kameo again. I won’t ever give it another go round. PLEASE. SOMEBODY EXPLAIN THIS. My world is upside down (I’ll get over it).

BioShock (oops)

It’s been a while since anybody played BioShock for the first time, I know. I’m behind in some areas of gaming like nobody’s business. I have a stack of games (that’s going to be it’s own post) that I have yet to touch and some of them are ancient in the terms of game life.

BioShock is one of them, and I’ve been finally playing it. Thanks to a friend, I managed to finally find it at a price that I could afford and when I actually had money. (I’ve been having this issue where every time I found this game for sale, it was more than I was willing to pay, or I didn’t have money to purchase it.) And I am enjoying it. Now, I did get to play a teeny bit a long time ago, but I didn’t get very far at all. Like most games I only get to play a little of, I’ve been itching to finish it off since.

My oops comes in to play with the Little Sisters. I really, really intended to save them all, no matter the personal cost. I did. I wanted to see what the special prize was at the end for saving all of them. I really liked the doctor who was encouraging me to save them, and wanted to be on her good side.

I saved one.

Then came the next one. Accidentally or instinctively, I harvested her. Same goes for the one after that. I gave it one more try, and harvest I did. Which, at that point, I realized was what was going to happen for the rest of the game. No need to try to save them all now, was there? I’d already ruined it with the doc.

I think it really goes to show that I’m brutal by nature. Evil to the core of me. I just cannot for the life of me be good without a whole hell of a lot of effort. And sometimes, it’s just not worth that effort.

At least in a first playthrough.

The Virgin Suicides

I only recently got to see the movie adaption of this book. I read it a few years ago and discovered that I really liked it. It wasn’t until after I finished that I made the mental connection of the author of this book being the author of Middlesex. To say that I enjoy his writing is an understatement. Since I read Middlesex, I’ve gone actively searching for things Jeffrey Eugenides has written. Which means that at the time that I picked up The Virgin Suicides, I likely knew exactly what I was doing, but by the time I actually got to it (through my large stack of books-to-read) I’d forgotten.

I wish now that I’d seen the movie before I’d read the book. It’s the only way I can come up with that I might possible have enjoyed myself while watching. If I hadn’t known how it was supposed to feel, maybe I could have felt anything at all.

This really makes me sad to say. Considering how much I love the writer and I love the book. It really kind of hurts. But this movie really fell flat.

The insertion of real people into the characters went well. They picked some very good faces to fit into what I had imagined. So I don’t know if it was their acting, or if it was the directing that caused the problem. I hate to say either. But considering I’ve seen these particular people in other things where they aren’t lifeless and empty, I think I might have to lean toward the directing.

I don’t want to insult Sofia Coppola, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.

The book made me actually cry. I was dry eyed through the entire movie. The book moved me, it made me feel things. I kept wondering how much longer the movie was going to take. I felt I knew the characters when I read the book. Watching the movie was like stepping into a crowded room full of strangers wearing masks of my friend’s faces. Everything the book was, the movie lacked. I was not interested in the story as I watched it play out on my television screen. I was not intrigued with what the characters were doing.

So much was left out. Not just scenes, but emotions. Key things. Hints. Clues. Knowledge. A life of it’s own.

The emptiness of this movie was really rather astounding. How can somebody take words that have such presence to them and steamroll them into something so dull?

I don’t know.

I wish I had the answer.