Do you like game achievements?

I normally don't. Most of the time they are just obnoxious messages popping out disrupting gameplay.

But today I managed to work towards an achievement that only 0.7% of the players managed to get and now this really feels special.

It feels strangly good.

So what do you think?

I'm a completionist at times, and when there are 250 achievements left I don't care. When there are 10 left, I feel I have to just see them through. That's why I clocked so many hours on Mafia 2, because that last core game achievement I didn't have just through casual playthrough was to find all the wanted posters. One of those involved driving a car high speed off a bridge, and brakeing on a rooftop, took me bloody ages to do.

The best achievements are the ones that force you to play the game in creative ways though I can't think of any in particular as I don't really pay any attention to them.

Oh, in Halo:Reach there's an achievement for surviving a fall by assassinating someone. It took for-freaking-ever to get it but it did feel good once I finally did.

One of the few games I've almost maxed out on achievements is Portal, and I especially liked the challenges of finding minimum number of portals to pass a level.

That said, I was also never able to get the last three achievements because beating a level in as few steps as possible gets absolutely infuriating.

Like Wpegg I'm also a completionist. But I drew a line on achievements. I want to have fun not doing stuff over and over again for the sake of a damn badge.

I depends on the achievement.
The ones with search every spot and find little otherwise useless items....than no.
But if you reach a certain point and than mmmmh lock upwards and gains an achievement ...why not.
What i real hate is if the devs are forced to include achievements, those have most times nothing to do with
the game.
My worst experience is still L.A. Noire were you must find golden reels.

What I like about them is they can make me say "Hmm, interesting; never thought of doing that." But in general, I don't pay attention to them unless I'm starting to get bored with a game.

I try to get as many as I can, without going too far out of the way. Like if I can spend a few hours (maybe dozen hours) grinding stuff at the end of a playthrough I might, but if I have to beat it 3-4 times on progressively harder difficulties or I suck at a game or do something particularly ridiculous or grindy lol no.

also any more I often don't do extra crap if there isn't trophies/achievements for it, just to move on to the next game.

I generally don't mind achievements, especially as a way of encouraging you to try something new or solve a puzzle in a different way.

I dislike how an existence of achievement affects my in-game behavior sometimes. The experience becomes more "game-y". Lately, I became more accepting and when I care about the game, it gladdens my heart to get an achievement 5% or less players reached.

I am usually tempted by these requiring an attention or planning like mind control of ethereal then by persistent item collecting. The biggest motivator is a meaningful content, though.
For example, when Assassin's Creed 2 made it clear that by collecting feathers you unlock additional dialogues or help a certain character, it was very motivating to try (I hadn't made it because it was an insane chore). Or the achievement in The Last of Us where the point is to trigger all protagonists' comments and dialogues.

It depends on the game. Certain games bring out my completionist side, other times I don't really care. Case in point: Assassin's Creed 2. The thought of going for all those feathers just turned me off, and so I didn't bother with the other achievements either. Meanwhile, I did plat Disgaea 3 which involves a disgusting, disgusting amount of grinding as I'm sure anyone else who has done the same will attest.

Also if a game has multiplayer based achievements I generally won't go for them, unless I bought them on launch (which is rare.)

Right now I'm sinking a lot of time into Ys Origin grinding the last achievements, but it may be the first game I can remember in which I can't finish up due to a lack of skill rather than lack of motivation, nightmare boss rush on every character is a crazy challenge.

This. I like it when the achievements challenge me to play the game in offbeat ways or that help me to experience content I might otherwise miss.

That said, I *really* dislike it when games restrict the higher difficulties with achievements and/or second playthroughs. >.<

I just turn off the overlay. I actually don't know what I've achieved and I hope to keep it that way because I'm a completionist ;)

For the majority of the achievements which I would say constitutes 95% or more, I would say yes. These are either the storyline plot achievements that you will get as your game character progresses through the story or the reasonable achievements that you can get within a reasonable amount of time either by yourself or with friends. I do enjoy collecting the icons each achievement has when they are unlocked.

For the achievements that fall outside this 95% and are in that 5%, they are either in the broken category where you fulfill all the requirements needed to unlock the achievement, yet the game code fails to recognise that and doesn't unlock you that achievement, and the game is often no longer supported to change things and remove the broken achievement, or the achievement is basically considered lame or unreasonable by requiring your character to find a very large number of different players (not bots) to help you with those, requiring very large amount of practice or luck where very few can hope to get it even with a lot of effort or time spent in the game (Especially those that require your character to play the game in one sitting without dying or worse, without even saving game), or require you to spend hours by the hundreds to thousands in the game. For these achievements, I would say not enough thought or effort has been put into designing the game and their achievements and I may think twice or more before buying the game or going for the achievements without cheating.

In both cases, I do feel good each time I managed to unlock it, more so when other players or myself ask for help with the game and their achievements and have made invaluable online game friends, multiplayer and co-op partners in the process.

I don't care about most achievements, but I can understand why they are there. They are not there for us who are good at games and who have played them for a long time, but for the newer players. It is a constant stream of small rewards, telling them that they are doing good.

But there are achievements that might highlight special challenges, fun ways to play and so on and so forth. Like playing through Deus Ex: HR without raising any alarms (I did that one, not killing anyone & playing the game on the highest difficulty at the same time, which was an interesting and rewarding challenge).