Deus Ex Alpha

Depending on your system of preference, PS3 and Trophies, Xbox/Steam and Achivements, whats your view on this "virtual game currency", waste of time, adds nice elements to the game, could be better etc?

Remove all of them.

Arbitrary points are the worst.

Steam has at least the best system for it, it's an understated standard of comparison between players.

I dunno, i think it depends on the game and how they implement the challenges.

Assassins Creed for example usually has a trophy/achivement for finding all the hidden memory segments, which is good i suppose because its pushes those people who are a little completetionst into wanting to find this stuff and find hidden story progression.

Altho it's also sad in a way that people need virtual "currency" in order to get the full experience from a game.

love them, spent evenings trying to get them all

It damages/influences individual opinion of what their own worth of completing a videogame.

They detract attention from the videogame itself, players would attempt unorthodox gameplay to reach their means to get 10 points. But what annoys me the most is the player who actually thinks that having more = a good thing. All it shows with points like Live and PSN is how much you play videogames, not how good you at at playing them. You're winning a reward for biggest nerd with no time, congratulations.

They're great at breaking immersion too.

What I do appreciate is simple achievements such as:
Completing a mode of a videogame.
Completing on highest difficulty
100% completing a videogame.
Multi-player milestones in a videogame.

What I do not appreciate:
Chapter milestones.
"*** kills with this weapon."
Unlock something.
Completing on lower difficulties.
DO SOMETHING WHACKY - Let the players create something whacky and surprise the community, stop making achievements that force sending gnomes into space.
Easter eggs/secrets/hidden methods - biggest offender, let secrets be secrets for the fans to discuss whenever it is intentional or not.

too long; didn't read achievements are bad

They make me frustrated (you guys can probably imagine this).

James wrote: stop making achievements that force sending gnomes into space

but it was fun

Imagine if someone did that and made everyone laugh at how original and.creative it was.

Imagine an achievement for DX to complete it like the guy at it he dot org did

it dilutes creativity

Taking turns with a friend to beat General Raam on insane difficulty was pretty fun. Otherwise, achievements are just really immersion breaking for me.

*Boss fight, dramatic cutscene, reflect on what just happe-* BOOP! (Horrible pun by developers) - 25g!