Tell Me I’m Good

When I make a headshot, I want the word ‘HEADSHOT!’ to flash up on screen. I want everyone else in the game to know of my skillful kill. I want it recorded, the date, the map, possibly a screenshot, so that I can look back on it one day and think to myself ‘Hmmm…every now and then, I’m a little bit good’.

Remember your first achievement? I’m sure you do. Mine was ‘Prison Breakout’ from Gears of War. Didn’t mean much back then. It kerplinked onto my screen, I read it, thought ‘huh?’ and carried on til the end of act one when it happened again – Kerplink! ‘Complete act 1 on normal difficulty’, cool. I enjoyed these little virtual pats on the back so much that Gears of War became the first game that I ever completed on the highest difficulty setting.  When I finally killed RAAM on Insane and the ‘You’ve done good’ notifications popped up, after what felt like fifty THOUSAND tries, I almost cried big, fat, geeky tears of happiness. It’s not enough for me to earn achievements though, they have to be worth earning. I have to have struggled, fought, and battled my way through a game for them to mean anything to me. I don’t want rewarding for something that was easy to get and that goes for real life too, the harder you work for any win, the more enjoyable the prize.

I recently prestiged in Modern Warfare 2 for the first time. It was an agonising decision. Took me ages to actually press the button that would reset me to rank one, and strip me of all but the game’s default weapons and perks. I’d grown rather attached to my pretty, blue tiger camo M16, with it’s little red dot sight and stopping power pro for that extra added ‘punch’. My god, that thing pounded bad guys into the floor! But I’d maxed it; I was the M16 master. And of course I’d also maxed my Exp. No more match bonuses and no more levelling up. Most of the challenges that I was gonna be interested in finishing had been done. As much as I knew I was going to miss my higher level guns and equipment I knew I would miss the screech of the various in your face ‘challenge completed’ notifications flashing up, letting me know that I’d done something full of win or was closer to improved perks and attachments, even more. So I did it, I prestiged. Now, it’s as if every game is filled with encouragement again! It’s as if I can’t crouch without completing a challenge. I’m getting congratulated for falling off buildings, praised for making 5 kills with a new gun and I have an excuse for noob-tubing, I’m completeing challenges, durrr – cheap, I know, but still so, so much fun.

I still play games that don’t ‘cheerlead’ me through them. They’re still a lot of fun and I still play them as well as I can. But no matter how well you think you’re doing, whatever games you’re playing it’s still nice to know that you made a ‘Nice kill from a distance!’, scored an ‘A’ for a particular combo or fight or quite simply, that ‘YOU ROCK!’