Gimmick This - Achievements

Achievements - everybody has an opinion on 'em. And whether you love them or hate them they are here to stay. The system makes sense- you do something special and we give you a prize for going out of your way while playing our [the developer's] game. (It's all about the meta-gaming, right?) Now, I think that there are a lot of good things about achievements in games:

+ They show users many of the different options outside of the main game that are available. Little Big Planet has a lot of achievements within its level designer and when playing other designed levels. Fallout 3 has trophies for exploring different areas and doing side-quests.
+ They condone my compulsions to explore. Yes, all of my World of Warcraft characters have the Explorer title
+ They give extra reward to hard working people. Because SOME games now-a-days are really easy. *cough*Left 4 Dead*cough*
+ They make up for a poor quality campaign and gives people reason to play a terrible single player mode. OR it's a reward for managing to get through many of the sad excuses for a single player mode that we now have. NOTE: Some games don't even bother having a story anymore, achievements are a good fill for this.
+ They have funny names! Thanks Valve!
+ Without achievements I would have never known how to flip people off while playing Mirror's Edge.

However:

- Many times they inappropriately break the fourth wall during powerful moments of stronger games. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Dragon Age employ trophies and achievements because they have to. So they show up sparingly at the end of levels or specific areas mostly to remind you that you are playing a game. This frustrates me.
- Some people actually think gamerscore represents your value as a person.
- Others think that getting SPECIFIC achievements represent your value as a person.
- I'll randomly get an achievement with an obscure name and then have to stop gameplay to see what I did right just to find out that it was because I got my 327th kill on the game.
- The graphics for getting achievements on the Xbox 360 is annoying. Just sayin'.

It's a delicate balance and the list is equally good and bad just like there are games that use achievements well and other games that use achievements poorly. Steam and World of Warcraft have done a great job of using achievements in their games. Whereas many single-player console titles like Mirror's Edge and Braid (which I finally played the other day!) have trouble finding a happy medium between gameplay and story development, only to end up breaking character just to let you know you beat the third level. And with the slags who obsess over achievements it makes it even more difficult to care.

[[But then there is this...]]
It's all worth it now, huh?