First came Achievements with the Xbox 360 and PS3 now has Trophies, but what exactly do these mean to you?
Personally I love them but I wouldn't say I obsess over them. They provide little challenges that can add to titles. I remember completing Stranglehold on the Xbox 360 (which didn't take too long) and started to look at the achievements. With no real online community, the achievements were the only thing that could flesh out the title and I attempted to earn quite a few of them (mostly I was successful).
Now with any title I find myself doing the same thing. That being said, I refuse to chase after achievements/trohies which I find to be dull. By all means, if I unlock them through the course of my normal play then fine but there's no way I will use the Gravity Gun to carry a small nomb through Half-life 2!
To me it adds a lot to a game I love and gives me an excuse to play it into the ground (Fallout 3 for example).
But the second I find a trophy annoying to get I stop and move on. I'm not going to frustrate myself doing some ridiculous thing over and over and over just to say I have the trophy. But, if I do decide to get a hard trophy for whatever reason it sure does feel good LOL
I think trophies are a nice add to games today. It adds to replay value. Plus if you want a challenge there are definately games that getting that trophy will give you that challenge and then some lol.
For me I'm definately not obsessed, I'm not really going out of my to get some trophies. For example, Resistance 2 has a trophy for 10k kills, I'm not gonna bother with that because R2 MP is alright (unless a bunch of people here wanna go play some R2 online I'd be down, because that would be fun to do), but I've definately killed more than 10k on CoD4 and 5 each, just because for whatever reason I love the MP in those games. So I'm not just grinding away trying to get some achievements that I typically wouldn't have gotten had their been no achievements.
I think for the game companies themselves they are great selling points. Simple easy game with easy achievements will sell more than they should if they didn't have simple "free" achievements :points to Avatar:
I am obsessed!!! lol well maybe not obsessed but I find that I would rather play a game that has them than not, and it gives you goals as far as completion goes. LOVE EM!
same here. I didn't get Ninja Gaiden Sigma because it doesn't have trophy support lol (I have played Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox though). I do find myself going out of the way for trophies often enough, doing things I don't really enjoy in games (ex. Street Fighter 4 online vs all the Ryus, Kens, Sagats, and Akumas).
I dont really like achievements. They are too gimmicky and I dont think they add any real replay value to a game. When I hear that people actually pay other people to play games for them so they can unlock achievements that they could not unlock themselves is just insane.
Theyre are a nice addition,but i dont mind them.Every now and then theres one that sounds badass so I might get that,otherwise if i love the game so F* much ill get the Platinum,like Motorstorm Pacific Rift.I hate whores of all kind(Including those in real life),its sad when people go for the trophies/achievements then rather appreciating the game for its own meaning.
They are a nice extra, but I would never try for the difficult ones, and I don't think I'll ever get a platinum trophy.
I agree, they're a nice addition. But would you really enjoy it? Is it really worth it? Is someone paying you to get that trophy you didn't wanted to? Well, asking this questions myself can tell you I'm not a big trophy whore at all.
Great responses guys! All valid view points. As Sith mentioned, those that are willing to pay for trophies and achievements really do need to reconsider what's important in life. On top of that, I don't understand why so many will buy terrible games purely for the trophies; Hannah Montana seems to popular among the whores but not one of them can actually enjoy it. It's rather sad to be honest as it's money that could have been spent on another game.
WOW! I haven't heard people paying someone else to get achievements for them. That is mind blowing. C'mon seriously its cool to unlock them but in this case it's like cheating on an exam, sure you get good marks but in the end you gained nothing. That is just disgusting people do that. Trophies are there to be like bragging rights or giving you sense of accomplishment, other than that they don't do shit for you. Would be cool if you could buy things or get something out of your achievements/trophies.
For me, it's all about the game, trophies don't come into my game purchasing decisions.
Yeah, most times I don't even know what trophies a game has until I buy it. So they don't effect my purchase decision, but they do encourage me to play games slightly longer then I would without them.
I am a trophy whore, i more or less played Uncharted for the 3rd time and i got over 60% of its trophies (this is the only playthrough i had with trophies)
do you guys generally look up achievements/trophies before playing a game or do you discovered them as you play the game?
Discover them as I play through. Only ones I eventually look up is if they are hidden ones.
First I will say that trophies are nice and do add replay value to a game. I will play a game again just to get the achievements/trophies.
The first playthrough I do is just to play the game. I usually don't try and get as many trophies as I can until the second playthrough of the game.
do you guys generally look up achievements/trophies before playing a game or do you discovered them as you play the game?
If it's a title I'm really interested in and if someone posts the list in the run up to the game's release then I'll take a look to satisfy my need for info. That being said, I usually just play the game through once (unlocking trophies as I go by chance). After I've played the game, if they are still some left that I can be bothered getting, then I will. Trophies are simply something extra for when I've completed the game.
To add to my point I don't buy games for the trophies, I do enjoy the reward and I will try hard to get them, not to sacrifice the gameplay, but if I'm playing SKATE 2 or Shaun White and I get frustrated with something I'll go try and get some trophies...
But on this topic can you imagine if our old favorites had trophies... I beat FF1 with 4 white mages that woulda been a platinum trophy for sure!
That is extremely impressive Sub. With all the rumours surrounding a FF7 remake, I would love to have a go at some trophies for that. Take down Emerald without any Materia!
Emerald and Ruby were tough bosses even if you didn't have some of the top end materia and didn't know the tactics. Although Emerald was managable with an average party that had the underwater materia, it just took awhile lol.
Yeah, I think the biggest factor in their difficulty was simply the gulf in power between both Emerald and Ruby and any other boss in the game.
I used to be a huge trophy whore now I whore just a lil bit. I'll play through a game & whatever trophies I get, I get & afterwards & if I enjoyed the game I'll find out what trophies I missed & try for them again. Then there are games like the new PoP that I'll probably never play again no matter how easy the trophies are. I'm big on helping other people get trophies, I helped a lot of my friends get their Burnout, Warhawk & LBP trophies. I do like to show off what I've earned though.
EDIT: WTF IS MY SIG???!!!??? 
Well, your embed code in your sig for some reason is now using [url=] etc style format. That is not HTML, but some bulletin board shortcut style which isn't supported here. Not sure how or why it's changed, i assume you didn't do that. Just go get your embed code from play fire again and get full HTML code embed.
Yeaaaa, ummmm, playfire seems to SUCK right now
I am obsessed!!! lol well maybe not obsessed but I find that I would rather play a game that has them than not, and it gives you goals as far as completion goes. LOVE EM!