Boo on THQ!

First video game publisher THQ started off the year announcing they wouldn't be continuing the Stuntman or Juiced franchises... and now they're responsible for giving me 1000 embarrassingly easy achievement points.

I had heard that Avatar The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth had easy points... but I presumed that meant the game was short and easy, thus you'd get completion points quickly. I had never imagined someone would release a full retail game where you can get all the points available within the first two minutes of the game by just pressing the B button about fifty times.
But that's what happened.

Now, what's the point in continuing the game? It seems to be nothing more than a cheap, generic licensed game. The three minutes it took to complete Chapter One were quite dull. Even if I were to finish it, I wouldn't have anything to show for it. No one would be able to see that I beat it. I have no record to see when I beat it. As far as I know, I could have beat it and simply forgot.
Thanks a lot, THQ, for being a bunch of lazy jerks and catering to your kind. I'd like to put some effort into being rewarded.

This should not have happened so far into the life of the 360. At launch, sure. Achievement Points were a new concept and developers gave them out for basic tasks. But there's no excuse for that any more.

Points should be given out for completion of each game mode, as well as occassional level rewards to string players along. These points should total no more than 600. The rest should be for completing tasks above and beyond the requirements for completing the game.

Finding hidden items: sure.
Exceeding a certain amount of damage: yeah.
Dying an extraordinary amount of times: why not?

But the only time any achievement should exceed 50 points is the completion of the game award, which should top out at 150. That means... game publishers & developers... it is your responsibility to the gaming public to be creative. Let us see at least a couple dozen of unique and interesting Achievements on every game from here on out, lest your name be mud.

****

An Update on my Completion Quest:

Finished: Rock Band Jan 27, 2008
Actually, I probably should have listed this one before because my requirements were to beat one game mode... Being given the credits counts as the "end"... which happened after I got into the Hall of Fame in World Tour Mode. But I hadn't played the Endless Setlist yet... but now I have. So Achievement Achieved.
(Side Note: I was disappointed that the Endless Setlist did not include any downloaded content. I'm glad it didn't include ALL of the DL content, but I would have liked some to be in there... in place of the "bonus songs" anyway.)

Finished: Mass Effect Jan 30 2008

Total Xbox 360 Games Finished: 25
Total Xbox 360 Games Played: 114
Average Achievement Points per game: 188

Now Playing: Saint's Row (ironically, a THQ game), Tony Hawk Proving Ground & Burnout Paradise