Game Completion

Sooo, what games have you 100% completed (including DLC/expansions)? This isn't a dick measuring contest* - I'm just curious about what games people considered worthy of completing.

To my recollection I've 100% completed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Kart Wii, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Fallout: New Vegas and Civilization: Revolution (probably in that order). I've got very close to fully completing Super Mario Galaxy 2, BioShock, Fable 2 and BioShock Infinite (damn the Clash in the Cloud DLC and it's soul destroying grind, I'm sure I'll get all the achievements on the unreleased last DLC) despite me appreciating the artistic merits of the latter three.

I guess in terms of old school games where getting to the end was solely the thing I guess you can rank the likes of Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Black & White 2 (never bothered getting to the end of Black and White, despite getting to the last land) and probably others (Dino Crisis 2 maybe, I'm not sure). I suppose with true RPGs things become spurious, there's not really any way you can consider yourself having 100%ed a classic like Arcanum.

I guess you can also comment on the idea of achievements as a whole, and whether you think it's a legitimate way to encourage gaming (i.e. is it better to have people scored so prohibitively, or should people be allowed to play free from such concerns)?

*By that I mean of course this is a dick measuring contest, and currently my gaming dick is so huge that it's poking you in the eye irrespective of what continent you're on.

 

I'm a completist, so I always finish any game I start. No exceptions.

Except for Age Of Empires II, which I just, I don't know, gave up on. It didn't really grab me from the begining, I was mainly playing it out of boredom, and finally found something better to do before reaching the end.

Oh and I started Rome: Total War recently, and stopped playing a few months ago, but since I'm intending to go back and finish it soon, I think it's too early to count it one way or another.

And Candy Crush Saga.

On the other hand, I count finishing a game as "reaching the end". In terms of 100% completions where it means completing all the sidequests, or finding all the secrets, or playing through as every race/class/character/civilization/etc, then I probably haven't ever completed any game ever.

Now get your dick out of my face.

 

A lot of 'em.

 

Metroid Prime, Kirby Super Star, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Kirby's Dream Land, Chrono Trigger.

Games I've simply beaten are too numerous to list. As far as achievements and scoring are concerned, I dislike that something which used to be a rather private affair is now so overwhelmingly public. Simply having a steam account or an Xbox Live membership puts your gaming penis up against millions of others. Though my concern in this matter may simply be due to my really enjoying certain games and not having the patience to get all of the achievements and secrets; playing a game, hating it, and having a goddamn wall of achievements I'll never hit because I'll never play it again; completely wrecking a select few games that people apparently hate and that I find incredibly fun (the Prototype series is all I can think of at the moment).

Gradually the single system co-op is being phased out, but the entire world has become a scoreboard. Whatever the case, I congratulate you, Jojobobo, on your massive dick.

 

Why imagine?

 

Well thank you, I really needed that ego boost.

I guess I simultaneously do and don't like achievements; it really depends on how they're implemented. Some game developers seem to put a lot of thought into achievements that push you to do interesting things - Fallout: New Vegas was a good example, particularly in the DLC where achievements were often used to highlight things that Obsidian thought were interesting about the new DLC. I guess they're also a good way to mark progress, which I always enjoy.

However some games don't even try and just throw them in for completely asinine things, Batmam: Arkham Origins was a good example as they threw in a load of achievements for a tacked on unbalanced multiplayer mode. Also there's a good few old multiplayer games I've inherited from relatives (one of the CoDs, Halo 3) that I've played when someone's visited and then never bothered with again, leaving entire games where I've only got one or two achievements.

I guess what I'm saying is, there may have some embellishment about the stature of my gaming prowess.

 

The most bothersome achievements are for things you'd do in the course of the game, even when not trying to achieve anything.

I've been playing Dead Island co-op because it was available for download at no extra cost above my gold xbox live membership fee. The game is fun, but I find myself irritated that I got achievements for decapitating 10 zombies in a row, or driving more than 10 kilometers, or hitting a certain number of zombies in a car.

Those three things I mentioned aren't difficult to do, they simply take time and timing. When the focus of your game is doing fetch quests on a tropical island full of shambling corpses and violent, feverish olympic sprinters, it comes with the territory that you'd attempt to kill things as easily as possible while putting yourself at the lowest risk.

All that being said, my only real downside to the game is the "just playing the game" achievement pop ups. It's like getting 30 trophies at the end of a foot race that all say "Participant."

I'm not saying the game is full of participation trophies, because there are achievements that take a certain level of skill to achieve. I'm simply annoyed at the presence of such blatant dopamine baiting - especially in a game that seems custom made to fit a nightmarish, violent fantasy I've had since the first time I watched Night of the Living Dead.

 

Ahem, "Warhead Hunter". Just saying.

Personally I can't stand achievements because they're so addicting. Sure, they're easy to ignore when there are loads and loads of them (Civ V with expansions comes to mind) because I'll only end up with about 15-20 % of them. My inner completionist will realize that it wouldn't be a worthwhile usage of my time to acquire the rest and will therefore leave me the fuck alone. But if I have about 80-90 % in the bag after playing a game normally (without a thought of achievements) then I want the rest of them as well. Before I knew it I was playing Mafia II, spending hour after hour driving around the city checking the odograph every fifteen minutes. Realizing I'd "driven" 30 miles (of the 1000 required for the so called "Explorer" achievement) in the last hour, I finally realized that something was very wrong with me and formatted the hard drive.

Hotline Miami had a few good ones though. I especially liked the appropriately named final one you'd acquire once you gathered all others. Played the GoG version myself, thank goodness.

 

Yeah I guess that does fall a bit more into the arbitrary achievement camp, however some locations - like the Women's Barracks in Hopeville where you can get a skill book - are only unlocked by exploding an entirely optional warhead. In a way, it also encouraged exploration which I approved of - not that I don't explore without an achievement being dangled in my face.

 

The game that comes to mind for me is 007: Goldeneye. O, the countless hours I spent replaying levels, trying to shave a couple seconds off my completion time so I could unlock a cheat. And let me tell you, unlocking the invincibility cheat left me with a real sense of accomplishment, because it was insanely hard to do.

Another video gaming feat I was particularly proud of: I was the first person in my high school to beat Halo on Legendary difficulty. And you can bet I dangled that achievement in everyones face.

 

Can't say I have ever bothered completing any game to 100%. Some maybe, but hell, I can't bother enough to make sure it's 100%.


Edit: I see me signature is back.

 

Now that is what I call an unnecessarily large and obtrusive signature.

 

Donkey Kong, haha good old times!

 

And some fairly lazy coloring, I'd say! Have you ever met someone with entirely transparent nails?

 

Re:

The problem isn't the transparency of that person's nails. It's the color of their nail beds - it indicates low blood pressure and the possibility that the gesticulator in question is suffering some sort of cardiac event or anemia - both of which can be symptoms of long-term smoking.

 

Re: Re:

Smoking is, among other poisonous things, a part-time activity of Spider Jerusalem, yes.

 

Re: Re:

From what little I've gathered during my feeble attempts to rectify my ignorance, it seems that the signs of anemia (as well as heart failure, liver disease and other paranoia inducing illnesses) are paling, almost white nails. (Which isn't exactly the color of Mr Jerusalem's nails, but nevermind.) Being something of a hypochondriac, I've naturally spent the the last few hours looking at my nails with a magnifying glass. Apparently I'm suffering from both pneumonia and heart problems (possibly even diabetes). Ah, the things you wish you didn't know...

Reading about Transmetropolitan did however inspire me to pick up Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas again. So far I've only watched the Terry Gilliam movie. At least something good came out of this...