Today i’d like to talk about something that is just wrong.
Call of Duty (5) – World at War on the Xbox360 has all the typical Achievements you would expect, including winning missions. As it’s predecessor it has Achievements for completing each mission. Actually there are two: one reads “awarded by completing Mission X on any difficulty” and the other replaces “any difficulty” with “Veteran difficulty”. So you would expect that, like Call of Duty 4, you would get both Achievements by playing on Veteran right away. Wrong! Apparently, for this game “any difficulty” means “any difficulty but Veteran”. Ouch!
Unfortunately, vaguely or even incorrectly detailed Achievements are quite common and not including the information wether an Achievement is gained by playing on the exact difficulty level, or if you get the lower difficulty Achievements by completing the missions/game on a higher difficulty is the most common flaw in Achievements.
I urge every Xbox360 developer to carefully phrase their Achievements. Too often you are left wondering “what the heck?”. Don’t label your Achievements “Ka-Booom!” with a description like “This one is a mystery.” … Achievements aren’t about viral marketing, i don’t want to invest time to figure out how to get a certain Achievement. I also despise Secret Achievements because i know when i see one it’s not a secret at all. It’s just a description i’ll have to look up someplace else, and it’s been a loooooooong time since i last saw a Secret Achievement that actually gave away something about the game you shouldn’t know unless you’ve played it (aka spoilers).
Please!
