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Achievements Counterproductive to the Story?


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I loved the game, the story, and the achievements. They were both hard, simple, and felt like riddles (and no multi-player achievements was a plus).

My questions is, does the presence of achievements counteract the story, where making what you think is the correct decision causes much more harm and hurts your squad, mind, and people of Dubai, but still being somewhat rewarded for it?

This is just a discussion

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besides criticizing the addition of the multiplayer, one of the developers had openly stated that the application of achievements to decisions in spec ops was a mistake. i think he believed that achievements kinda made the decisions less meaningful. i like the achievements, personally, only because i wouldn't have gone back and made different choices and see the wonderfully different outcomes without them.

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There might be a spoiler or two in here:

 

First off, you must realize that there are no "correct" decisions to be made in the game. Think about what your mission was supposed to be, how it ended and then back to the times you were asked to make decisions.

 

Considering you were supposed to have left after making contact with the 33rd, every decision you make is wrong. Even if it seems like the positive choice, you shouldn't even be there making it.

 

"But no, you wanted to be the hero."

 

I think the "achievement" moniker is the problem because it makes you assume that you're getting a cookie for doing something awesome in the game, when that isn't the case. It's similar to the Manifest Destiny achievement in Red Dead Redemption that nets you 5 whole G for exterminating all of the buffalo in the game, effectively causing their extinction. Some achievement. The choice achievements in Spec Ops: The Line are simply there to show which path you took and are not to be seen as accomplishments.

 

In fact, if you look around you can find comments by the guy who wrote the game who claims that there is a 5th ending that supports the only correct decision the player can make: set the controller down and stop playing.

 

Everything else leads to horror and heartbreak.

 

God. Damn. What. A. Great. Fucking. Game.

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  • 1 month later...
besides criticizing the addition of the multiplayer, one of the developers had openly stated that the application of achievements to decisions in spec ops was a mistake. i think he believed that achievements kinda made the decisions less meaningful. i like the achievements, personally, only because i wouldn't have gone back and made different choices and see the wonderfully different outcomes without them.

 

MP was useless, and I would have appreciate a achievement for a made decision itself more - not matter what you had chosen....

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  • 1 month later...

I've always viewed story related achievements as nothing more than a progress bar for how much of the campaign I've completed. Simply playing through the game like you normally would really shouldn't award an achievement until you've completed the entire thing. In Spec Ops, I feel the achievements guided people to experience different outcomes to your decisions, but nothing more. I think they could have utilized them elsewhere or not at all.

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