Achievements were far and away the underground run away success of the Xbox 360 after launch. Our own Grim can attest to this. There’s a whole gaggle of folk who spend time playing through shit like Bullet Witch just to get those 1000 points. To say it changes the way people play games on the 360 would be a severe understatement. Now that Valve has placed achievements in their PC games (starting with the Orange Box) you’ll find servers and maps dedicated to people getting all those new Medic achievements. As far as I’m concerned it’s OK to try and get the achievements on your own terms but when it starts to negatively affect the game something’s wrong. Epic Games took note of this growing and alarming trend and decided to do something about it with Gears 2 so they’ll be limiting your progress per play per achievement. CVG conducted an interview with Dream Boat designer Cliffy B and he gave this example:

“If you’re going for headshots, you get one headshot that counts and any other headshots won’t count towards your Achievement, so players don’t just play to get headshots the entire round just to get Achievements.”

Sounds like a great plan to me. Sure, the AW’s are gonna freak but who cares? At least everyone will be forced to play a little more correctly than they might have otherwise.

[CVG by way of X3F]