Fallout was a game where I was ok with it at first, kept playing, and then just loved exploring every nook and cranny.

Oh and speaking of shadowrun, if you guys do ever feel like playing a game just send me a message on xbox or something. We have been playing it a bit more lately and we might even have a couple of more friends we know getting the game. If that is the case we could have a decent game without having to play online with other people and just have fun on our own.

Yea if I didn't have the group of friends that I do online I would not care nearly as much about achievements as I do.

I am just glad I didn't pay 60 bucks for it. It was a christmas gift. I would have been even less happy with it.

First off great article, hope to see more from you at some point.

The 'No Russian' thing is a very touchy subject. I can see the reasons behind why it is in the game and I can see why people are in an uproar about it. Other games have you killing civilians, so I'm not sure why this one stuck out to people. GTA is one games that come to mind. Civilians are basically an obstacle in that game. You hit someone with a car and you just think "Whoops."

I can see why some people could get upset by it. It is not something for everyone. I would never expect a 13 year old kid to play this game. If you don't like this kind of stuff then don't play it/buy it/ or whatever.

When I got to that level I had no idea what the fuck was going on at that point. I didn't understand the whole story of that game. (Apparently I was playing as 3 different people! Who knew?)

As lost as I was on it I still understood that the game was telling a story. People need to understand this. People who complain and fuss about sex and violence in games usually will never play the game they are talking about in their live. I remember something I heard recently about Adam Sessler saying to a girl complaining about alien ass in Mass Effect if she had even played the game or understood the context of the scene, to which she replied "No of course not, games are for children."

To me it all comes back to the public being completely ignorant to what is happening and when someone tells them something is bad it is BAD. People seem to still cannot grasp the concept that video games are in many ways a story telling medium. They are not something that kids do when they are bored.

I don't know what to say about this anymore. I just bothers me that people can not see things through anything but their narrow view.

I hate online CoD. I am proud to say I have 0% multiplayer completion. So for me the game is a short campaign with some co-op. Not happy with this game. Just a side note.

I'm not sure how to react to your opinions of achievements. I agree on some level that there should be more for doing a certain activity or whatever in game. Like how in Brutal Legend you get more health and stuff along side the achievements. But that doesn't mean all the other achievements don't have a point. I said this in a comment on another article. To me achievements work as a way to show off what you have accomplished in a game. I hope I am not stepping out of line here, but you guys don't seem to have a very strong connection to the xbox live community as I do. Everyday I am on there talking to friends and seeing what games they have and are playing. When a major game comes out and we are all playing that game the best way to see what the other person has managed to do in the game is through their gamerscore.

Achievements are as good as the developers want them to be. When I bought shadowrun I had a couple of friends buy it to play with, and the achievements in that game basically tell you to play the game a fucking lot. This pushed us into playing the game more and more until we played 100 games as each race and that turned into a love for the game. Now we have all 1000 gamerscore and still go back to play it just because we fell in love with it. I And I guess you could say some achievements are pointless but it gives you something to do. No matter how small.

Microsoft knows that the achievements and gamerscore system is a huge part of the xbox live experience.It is a major selling point in a lot of games for a lot of people. I know people who will not buy a game solely based on its achievements. Like Troy said, if a game decides they want to add the most insane challenging achievement in a game it loses value to a large group of people. I was looking to getting the assassin's creed 2 DLC but with no achievements for the DLC it lost its value to me. I will not pay 10 dollars for an hour long extension with no replay value and no achievements. I have a lot more to say about this but I don't want to have TOO long of a comment. Oh and Calin, everyone hates the achievements in assassin creed 1.

I guess it is just disappointing to see you guys miss the real fun and enjoyment of achievements and the value they could have in a community of friends.

I'm done ranting.

Man oh day. I don't even know what else to say about this.

Art in video games is always a hard topic to discuss. There are way to many different aspects in a game to consider. With other forms of art there is usually one sense that is needed to appreciate it. Whether that is sound, vision, or audio. Video games have all of that and then you have the story telling power of a movie or book AND the interaction between you and the game.

First game was pretty good. Would probably pick up the second one. My only issue with the first one was it got very repetitive.