So when the folks at Propaganda Games were amused by recklessly killing their own teammates during the making of "Turok," they thought it might be funny and different to include an Achievement for doing so.

They were wrong.

After a backlash from angry Xbox Live gamers late last year, the company recently decided to patch the game on release day to exclude the teammate-killing reward. With "Turok" out in stores this week, I got Associate Director Tim Lewinson on the phone yesterday to talk about the controversial Achievement. Here's a taste:

Multiplayer: I'm assuming you guys play a lot of multiplayer games on Xbox Live. It never occurred to you that gamers might find that kind of Achievement irritating?

Lewinson: Well, here's the thing. A lot of folks got uptight about it when the Achievement list was leaked. They were yelling on the forums about how we're awarding anti-social behavior. Won't somebody think of the children and all that nonsense so, you know, to our credit we listened to the fan-base, and we patched the Achievement to remove that team-killing portion, so everything's well in the universe once again. Never let it be said that we won't listen to the fan-base and if there's something that they feel really strongly enough about, we're always willing to go back and take a second look.

Read on to learn more of Lewinson's thoughts on taking feedback from gamers, how Public Enemy sneaks into the game and what a romantic guy he really is...

Multiplayer: How did you come up with the Achievements for "Turok"?

Lewinson: We wanted to dial back on the good-boy, pat-on-the-head style Achievements where you get points just for bashing through the game. There's not a lot of skill involved with that. Basically what it came back down to was we wanted our single-player Achievements to involve beating certain levels without using specific weapons, for example, or fighting off numerous dinosaur mauling attempts. When it comes down to multiplayer for first-person shooters, I mean that's a long tail. That's where people tend to just spend most of our time, so the majority of our Achievements are slotted towards that, to reward people who are spending a lot of time playing online. And in fact, the attentive player will actually notice some Chris Cornell and Public Enemy shout-outs in a few of the Achievement titles 'cause I'm a huge fan.

Multiplayer: What's your process for Achievements in general? When do Achievements come into the game design picture?

Lewinson: They kind of come around organically. Achievements, good ones anyway, should come out organically as an adjunct to the process of game design. So if you have an imaginative take on what might be fun and challenging to pull off and then your game has the strength and the open-endedness to support cool, imaginative gameplay styles, then the Achievements can pretty much write themselves.

Multiplayer: What do you think makes a good Achievement in general?

Lewinson: One that has a degree of challenge, of course. I mean if you can figure out a way to work skill and humor to the Achievement, [that's good.] But you should always have at least one or two hardcore Achievements that take a combination of skill and luck to complete, like the "Pacifist" or the "Primitive Weapons" Achievements that we have. And always some low-hanging fruit so everybody feels like they can get some points.

Multiplayer: What do you think about multiplayer Achievements in general? [Propaganda Games VP] Josh Holmes seemed a little bit ambivalent about them...

Lewinson: Yeah, well Josh and I have butted heads on this issue before so... I like them. Not as a way for people to sort of sit around and "Achievement-whore" them out, but sort of reward people who are going to be spending a lot of time playing online anyways. You just create opportunities for people to go out and get these Achievements and get these extra points while they're enjoying your game. Like I said, for first-person shooters, the long tail of that is multiplayer, that's where most of the sales come from and most of your key customers come from so you want to make sure that people who are spending a lot of time online have a chance to sort of get a little something extra. You can hit the single-player anytime, but you're spending a lot of time on multiplayer, and we want to reward that.

Multiplayer: What's the most difficult Achievement in "Turok"?

Lewinson: Oh geez. Probably a tie between "Multiplayer Master-Class" which is finishing a ranked match with all headshots and at least five kills. And the "Pincushion" Achievement, which you actually have to pin 50 enemies to the wall with a bow during the single-player campaign. It's not easy.

Multiplayer: Have you done it?

Lewinson: [laughs] I'm about eight enemies in, so I'm still working on it.

Multiplayer: And what about the easiest Achievement?

Lewinson: The easiest is probably "Loud Love" where you can actually kill three soldiers with the rocket launcher at once in the single-player campaign. Get three guys together and just drop it in the middle and watch 'em fly. Very satisfying.

Multiplayer: Let's talk about the infamous "Grab Bag" Achievement, the one that used to have teammate-killing involved. How did the idea for that one come about?

Lewinson: [laughs] Well, during our multiplayer games just here in the office, people would spam grenades willy-nilly, like try to blow up their enemies and sometimes they'd end up taking out, not just their opponent but somebody who was a teammate by accident. And there was a lot of screaming and cursing and hilarity; people screaming at each other from around the office so it was pretty funny so we decided to make an Achievement for it. Not so much to reward team-killing as just to reflect what was occurring naturally in the game at times.

Multiplayer: I'm assuming you guys play a lot of multiplayer games on Xbox Live. It never occurred to you that gamers might find that kind of Achievement irritating?

Lewinson: Well, here's the thing. A lot of folks got uptight about it when the Achievement list was leaked. They were yelling on the forums about how we're awarding anti-social behavior. Won't somebody think of the children and all that nonsense so, you know, to our credit we listened to the fan-base, and we patched the Achievement to remove that team-killing portion, so everything's well in the universe once again.

Never let it be said that we won't listen to the fan-base and if there's something that they feel really strongly enough about, we're always willing to go back and take a second look. So that's what we did in this case and as it turned out it was a change that we were able to make fairly easily so we did it and it's done.

Multiplayer: Have you ever taken gamers' feedback and actually changed something in a game before?

Lewinson: No, not really. My career goes back to like 1995 when I first broke into the industry and at that time it was mainly the original PlayStation, Sega Saturn so we didn't really have the opportunity to [add a] patch. So once the game is on the shelf, that's it. On PC games that I've worked on, like certain RTSs like "Company of Heroes" or ["Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War"], on the multiplayer side, you're always looking at the forums and "Oh, this is imbalanced, this is too strong, this is too weak" and so that genre sort of lends itself to multiple patches. First-person shooters, yeah not so much. This is probably one of the first times where we've gotten this kind of response where we took a look at it and said, "Okay, let's do something for day one."

Multiplayer: It seems like you guys wanted to do the "Grab Bag" Achievements because it was different.

Lewinson: Oh, it was different. [laughs] Yeah, it was definitely different. It was just one of those things where we were like, "No one's done this before." Well, maybe there's a reason why no one's done it before, but when you're looking at a much smaller group, like I said, it was pretty funny to us and to have it in there and to be honest, we've actually gotten a few e-mails from people saying, "Why did you take the team-killing portion out? That was actually pretty cool because nobody else had done it." But at the end of the day, not that the majority rules all the time, but in this particular one we're like, "You know what? It's not that big a deal to make the change, so we made the change." Like I said, never let it be said that we at Propaganda don't listen to the people.

Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the Achievements yourself in "Turok" yet?

Lewinson: I've earned 29 out of the 42 Achievements in the game, and most of them on the multiplayer side. I just got my hands on the retail version last week so I wanted to get online anonymously and see how people were enjoying the game, hear what they were saying. So I've been playing multiplayer almost non-stop. I've barely touched the single-player campaign. I'll track those Achievements down at my leisure but those can wait.

Multiplayer: And what have you been hearing over Xbox Live?

Lewinson: People are loving it. I mean the fact that we can throw these dinosaurs into the mix as this neutral AI that will go after you or your opponents at any time, it just makes things chaotic and tons of fun. And we support all the main tenets of multiplayer so we've got death match, team death match, capture the flag, but with our war games, a multiplayer component as well, which nobody else has. I mean, it's just one more thing that people have come into "Turok" and said, "Wow, this is awesome."

Multiplayer: Why do you think gamers care so much about Achievements?

Lewinson: I was actually thinking about that, and there's this author named Stephanie Williams, she wrote this really great article on the need to have, and the nature of collecting and obsession. And there's this really good quote from there from a Ph.D in psychology named Gerald Pollack where he says that the internet has created more obsessively-driven collectors as opposed to people who collect things. And that's a huge part of what makes Xbox Live's Achievement system such a huge success. I mean, you have gamers as a group who are naturally inclined to complete games to 100 percent, then provide a casual way to measure that success, and then on top of that, you put up this global leaderboard where you can see where you stand against everybody else. And it's ridiculous. It's digital crack and Microsoft nailed it.

Multiplayer: What are some of your favorite Achievements that you've gotten or seen so far?

Lewinson: To be honest, my all-time favorite Achievement is the "Romantic" Achievement from "The Darkness" by Starbreeze, the makers of "The Chronicles of Riddick." It's just awesome. It's imaginative, there's no killing involved. You're just sitting down, watching a movie with your girlfriend in this game on the couch. It's like the complete anti-thesis of the game and of the genre as a whole. I love it.

Multiplayer: I think you should try to incorporate something like that into "Turok"...

Lewinson: Unfortunately, we don't have any girlfriends or couches or televisions in "Turok." [laughs] Who knows, we might get people to raise some other questions, and not just about the Achievements. Who knows. Maybe if we do a sequel. You'll be the first to know.

***

Want to know more about the origins of Achievements? We're trying to find out, one game at a time. Check out the rest of series here.

But we also wanted to know how the team came up with the Achievements for the game. Continuing our series of finding out where Achievements come from, Teasdale answers our questions about "Rock Band"'s range of Achievements, including how they differ from "Guitar Hero II"'s Achievements and the possibility of Achievement-laden downloadable content.

But for Teasdale, personally, he said he'd like to see a new kind of Achievement:

"I'd love it if there was some form of additional Achievement-like system in the future that was more like a badge of honor or a way for people to see your play style... Imagine if you could view someone's Gamercard and see that they'd beaten me in a "Meet the Developer" tournament, or chosen to team up with the Scryers in "World of Warcraft," or even was an "Early Adopter" and played a certain game in the first week of release. You can't do these with Achievements, since you could never get 100%, but with a badge of honor system as well as Achievements, things could be much more flexible."

More material like that follows in what may well be our last "Rock Band" post of 2007!

Multiplayer: How did you come up with the Achievements for "Rock Band"?

Teasdale: The design team here at Harmonix all have Xbox 360's, so we already had a good idea about what kinds of Achievements we liked getting and what Achievements we hated. We took those experiences and came up with some guidelines to form our list. We wanted to provide incentive for all kinds of gamers, whether you're an explorer who likes diving into every nook and cranny in a game, or whether you're a hardcore player that wants to try and do insane things like complete the "Endless Setlist" on expert or get 100% on Expert vocals.

Multiplayer: The Achievements in "Guitar Hero II" are more based on things such as scores, streaks and stars (and buying stuff). Why did you decide to change that for "Rock Band"?

Teasdale: I think a lot of this comes from the depth of "Rock Band" compared to some of our previous games. We have four instruments to track stats for instead of one, as well as a big non-linear campaign mode that involves traveling around the world and reaching a bunch of milestones as a band. When you have a 50 Achievement limit, it's sometimes hard to justify having 20 drum-specific Achievements. I think we've achieved a good balance between these in "Rock Band."

Multiplayer: What do you think is the hardest Achievement in "Rock Band"? The easiest?

Teasdale: The hardest Achievement in "Rock Band" would definitely have to be the "Platinum Artist" Achievement, which requires all players in your band to finish the "Endless Setlist" (58 songs back to back) on Expert. We actually give the player other cool stuff beyond the Achievement because of its difficulty. The easiest depends on your play style -- if you're a pro, then five-starring a song comes pretty easily, whereas if you're an explorer then the "Play in a Big Club" in Solo Tour or "Win a Van" in Band World Tour can be grabbed by playing only a few songs.

Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the Achievements yourself in "Rock Band"? Why or why not?

Teasdale: On my Xbox at work I have all 50 Achievements, but at home I'm about a third of the way there. One of the cruel realities of video game development is that making games leaves you less time to play games, and with the amazing line-up that's come out over the last few months I've been spending that small amount of time racking up Achievements in games like "BioShock" and "Mass Effect" alongside my "Rock Band" band's progress.

Multiplayer: What's your general process for choosing Achievements in general? What makes a good Achievement?

Teasdale: What makes a good Achievement depends on what kind of experience you want to deliver. My favorite Achievements are the ones that reward the player for playing the game differently, or that give positive reinforcement for choosing a particular play style. The example I keep using here at Harmonix is the "Don't die for 60 seconds" Achievement in "Geometry Wars" -- it suggests a way to experience a completely new type of game without the game having to provide a brand new mode to play.

Multiplayer: Some say Achievements are a cheap way to make a game replayable. Do you agree or disagree?

Teasdale: I agree if the Achievements are badly designed that they can be cheap and just end up promoting Achievement grinding, which goes counter to the whole reason Achievements are around in the first place. Designing Achievements requires real design skill and isn't something you can just phone in. Much in the same way you can make cheap gameplay concessions to force replayability in gameplay by adding in things to grind, designers can also use Achievements as a tool to promote that.

I think that's the core to the whole achievement debate: at the end of the day, Achievements are just a tool that designers can use. They can greatly enhance a game if they do it well, and they can make it feel worse if they abuse it.

Multiplayer: Are you yourself a fan of Achievements? Why or why not?

Teasdale: I'm a big fan of Achievements, but my play style doesn't really fit with the Achievement grind or the desire to get 100% completion of Achievements in a game. Personally, I'd love it if there was some form of additional Achievement-like system in the future that was more like a badge of honor or a way for people to see your play style, and even allowed people to be badged with things that were time-limited or impossible to get both of.

Imagine if you could view someone's Gamercard and see that they'd beaten me in a "Meet the Developer" tournament, or chosen to team up with the Scryers in "World of Warcraft," or even was an "Early Adopter" and played a certain game in the first week of release. You can't do these with Achievements, since you could never get 100%, but with a badge of honor system as well as Achievements, things could be much more flexible.

Multiplayer: Are there any plans for additional "Rock Band" Achievements in downloadable content?

Teasdale: We haven't announced anything like this, but we're looking into how we can extend the "Rock Band" platform. I think that if we were to do Achievements in DLC it would have to be in something that everybody had access too, or were Achievements that were mechanically big enough to justify them rather than just "beat this song."

How could you not: Capcom's zombie action-adventure title was one of 2006's bestsellers, enamoring gamers with its classic storyline and everything-is-a-weapon, sandbox-style gameplay.

Another thing the Xbox 360 exclusive had were amusing and fun-to-get Achievements. How did they come up with them?

Game designer Goda Hidehiro gave us his answers via e-mail (which were translated from Japanese). Here's an excerpt about the easiest Achievement in the game:

Hidehiro: It would be "Freefall" or falling 16 feet. I imagine that those Achievements are achieved without the player knowing about them. I'm glad that [one] serves as a good hook to draw people's attention, so that the player might think, "This game has some weird Achievements."

Read on to learn about Hidehiro's favorite Achievements, why he thinks gamers are obsessed with Achievements and what he'd like to see in "Dead Rising 2."

Multiplayer: How did you come up with the Achievements for your game? Did you look to other games' Achievements for inspiration?

Hidehiro: I remember that the system [we went with] just came to mind when I first learned what the Achievements were. This is because the Achievement system is very similar to the "Solvo List" system found in "Shadow of Rome," which I worked on in the past. The "Solvo List" had a list that contains about 200 kinds of skills called "Salvo" and each Salvo was unlocked once you used it.

When we were considering the Achievements for "Dead Rising," we went over "Salvo List" and tried to come up with Achievements to match the game. Since "Dead Rising" had a bunch of zombies and a tremendous numbers of items in the game, we already decided to prepare as many Achievements as possible. The maximum number of Achievements for one title is 50 [Note from Multiplayer: this has changed since then], so we already knew how many Achievements we'd use in "Dead Rising." Also, we thought that we could utilize Achievements as a means to convey the variety of gameplay to gamers. By presenting lots of way of playing, we believed that we would be able to appeal the nature of an "anything goes" world. As the elements of ideas were everywhere in the game, what we had to do was to sift through the ideas.

Multiplayer: What makes a good Achievement?

Hidehiro: Unlocking Achievements are linked to the player's effort. On top of traditional Achievements like "Clear Chapter 1" and "Beat down 100 enemies," we wanted to have actions that the gamer does off the top of their head to link to an Achievement, which we believed would help expand the range of play style.

The difficulty of unlocking goes up in a stair-like fashion:

[EASY] Can be unlocked if you are just playing.

[NORMAL] Can be unlocked if you aim for that Achievement.

[DIFFICULT] Requires in-depth strategy unlock.

If such challenges are well organized in the game, you will have new goals when you clear the game and thus enhance the replay value. If only a couple of Achievements are unlocked when you completed the game the first time around, you would not have a lot of incentive to play through the game again. On the other hand, if 40% of the Achievements have been unlocked with one playthrough and you find that you could unlock more, it would surely motivate you to do another round.

You receive bonuses for your Achievements. Unlocking Achievements itself brings you delight. The bonus element would motivate you even more. I imagine that you would be more pleased to get a good item that would add fun to the game rather than only getting 100 gamer points.

Multiplayer: What's the easiest Achievement in your game?

Hidehiro: It would be "Freefall," or falling 16 feet. I imagine that those Achievements are achieved without the player knowing about them. I'm glad that [one] serves as a good hook to draw people's attention, so that the player might think, "This game has some weird Achievements."

Multiplayer: What's the hardest achievement in your game? Have you gotten that Achievement yourself?

Hidehiro: It would be "7 Day Survivor," where you have to survive for more than 7 days. It is a more physically demanding Achievement rather than being [just] a difficult one. I myself have unlocked it only once.

Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the Achievements in your game?

Hidehiro: I had to check all the Achievements to make sure they were unlocked properly, so I've gotten all the Achievements. It was really tough, though!

Multiplayer: Why are all your Achievements worth the same amount (20 points)? Why give the same amount of points to someone that survived 7 days as someone who fell 16 feet?

Hidehiro: We imagined that gamers would keep challenging themselves to get the Achievements at their own pace if we succeeded in making them feel that they are progressing step by step. So we decided that we didn't need to give them a high amount of points per Achievement. We thought that it'd be ideal if we could make the player aim for an Achievement on the list one by one, starting from simple ones and then aiming for more challenging ones according to their level of proficiency. Also, we wanted to give enough points that gamers would be pleased, even for trivial Achievements. I am sure that getting only five points for the Achievement would halve the pleasure. Therefore, we took the plunge and decided to set 20 points across the board. That being said, honestly I feel that we could have given 30 points for those tougher Achievements.

Multiplayer: Do you think Achievements are a cheap way to make a game replayable? Why or why not?

Hidehiro: I admit that the replay value of the game increased a lot thanks to the Achievements. However, it would not be very effective if you only list plain Achievements like "Complete Chapter 1," "Complete Chapter 2" and "Complete Chapter 3."

Multiplayer: What kind of Achievements can we expect in "Dead Rising 2"? More of the same, or will you try to do something different?

Hidehiro: If I ever had a chance to work on "Dead Rising 2," I would like to think of about a hundred Achievements. We are allowed to set a maximum of 50 Achievements for one title but I heard that we could add Achievements by distributing additional downloadable content, and hope this is true.

Multiplayer: Why do you think gamers care so much about Achievements?

Hidehiro: It's simply gratifying. It's always nice to get a good grade; especially when it is given after you've given it your all. In addition, your efforts would directly lead into more and more points. I'm sure that nobody hates that.

- Compete with your friends: On top of the overall gamerscore, it is quite fun to compare the score for a specific title with your friend. I myself often compete against my friend who bought the same game for how many Achievements we can get. I imagine that sharing the experience with someone would make people feel good.

- The desire to complete the list: After you beat the game, gamers would look over the remaining Achievements, and they’d think, "Oh, this will be easy." "I should get those two all at once" or "In order to unlock many Achievements in a most efficient way with one playthrough..." Then they'd find themselves playing the game again.

Furthermore, after someone has played the game so many times that only a couple of Achievements were left, they may think, "After I've gone this far, I don't want to leave a couple of them." Then they wouldn't be able to stop until you complete them all.

They say that this is a psychological effect called "Zeigarnik." I suppose that it has no small effect on everyone.

Multiplayer: Do you care about Achievements yourself? If so, what are your favorite Achievements in any game?

Hidehiro: Of course, I care about the Achievements when I play Xbox 360 games. In addition to the game itself, I am interested in how each Achievement gets unlocked. Once I complete one round, I always check the remaining Achievements.

I have many Achievements that really amused me in other titles. Here are the ones that I remembered the most of all:

- "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter" -- Assassin (Multiplayer): Find and kill a player who has the Assassin Achievement.

I really felt the ruthlessness of Isshi Souden, which in Japanese means the teaching of the secrets of art from father to only one child. Actually this Achievement is easily unlocked without trying. I just found it interesting.

- "The Darkness" -- Romantic: Real guys stick around for their ladies.

This got unlocked when I flirted with the girlfriend. I just laughed when I saw the description.

Also, it hasn't been released yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the Achievements in "GTA IV."

But the one game that got me thinking about how Achievements are chosen in the first place was "Double Dragon." Earlier this year, the classic, quarter-eating brawler made its way onto Xbox 360 consoles. While many a gamer has no doubt conquered the title countless times, could they get all 12 Achievements in the XBLA version?

I'm guessing -- no. There was one in particular that got my attention: "Untouched: Complete mission 1 in a single player game without being hit." It's worth 20 points. And some of the other ones are nothing to sneeze at either. "Hero" requires you to play the entire game without using a continue.

So I decided to ask Razorworks, the U.K.-based developer who ported the game, about how they picked the Achievements.

Last week, two programmers from the company answered my questions via e-mail (and declined to be named for unspecified reasons).

They did tell me that only 8% of people who've bought "Double Dragon" have gotten the "Untouched" Achievement.

Read on for the rest.

Multiplayer: When porting a game over like Double Dragon, how did you go about choosing Achievements?

Programmer #1: In games like these that weren't originally designed with Achievements in mind, the risk of being repetitive is high: Achievements like "score X points" or "finish level X without continues" are common spread. It's fine having a couple of those, but one should not overdo it, otherwise they becomes boring and unappealing. It's better to try and be creative, thinking of ways to provide the player with new challenges.

A game like "Double Dragon," born as a "quarter eater", can lose some of its appeal when played with unlimited continues. Achievements can add some spice, forcing the players to go beyond what they'd have to do to simply finish the game. Even a simple Achievement like "No Swimming" (which requires to jump over a broken bridge without falling in the water, or being thrown there by enemies) can take novices a few tries before getting it right, and when they do, their ability with the game will be improved.

Multiplayer: What's your process for choosing Achievements in general? What makes a good Achievement?

Programmer #1: The most important quality of good Achievements is variety, especially in a Xbox Live Arcade game that has only 12 of them. There should be different tasks, of different difficulty, evenly spread out throughout the course of the game, and covering both single player and multiplayer games. Achievements should motivate that player to improve their skills and play the game in different ways, or more focused on a specific task. For example, "Bare Hands" requires finishing the game without using any of the available weapons, while at the opposite end of the spectrum "All Tools" requires to pick up every kind of weapon during a single game.

Multiplayer: Why did you put the "Untouched" Achievement in the game?

Programmer #2: It's a challenging Achievement that encourages players to experiment with different ways of attacking enemies to find out the best method. If you can obtain this achievement, then you should have no problems getting "Invade the Base," "No Mercy" or "Hero."

Multiplayer: Have you gotten the "Untouched" Achievement yourself? If so, how?

Programmer #1: I got the Achievement by using the elbow smash. It's reasonably simple that way, but it took a few tries. It can be done without using the elbow smash, but it's tricky -- it requires precise timing because even being grabbed once (without being hit) will cause your energy to drop and you'll fail to earn the Achievement. That's one of the reasons why we put it in Mission 1, so players could try it a few times without getting too frustrated.

Programmer #2: Yes. The elbow move (face away from your opponent and press Jump + Punch). It's the most powerful move in the game and is the key to completing "Double Dragon." It also helps if you set the game difficulty to Easy.

Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the achievements in "Double Dragon"?

Programmer #1: Personally I haven't, but our valuable testers did (multiple times). Yeah they're good.

Programmer #2: No, not yet.

Multiplayer: What do you think is the hardest achievement in your game? The easiest?

Programmer #1: The hardest Achievement is probably "Hero", which requires to complete a single player game without continues. One good thing is that in "Double Dragon," Achievements are not tied to a specific difficulty level, so a novice can play on the easiest setting and have a more relaxed experience, while a hardcore fan that routinely beat the game in the arcades can play at the hardest settings and still get a challenge. Try "Sneaky" (avoid the wall traps in mission 4) on the hardest difficulty! I don't know if anyone has managed to do that -- it's insanely difficult.

One piece of trivia about that Achievement. The original arcade game had a bug, which makes it handle the difficulty backwards in that part of the game. When the game was set to easy difficulty, the wall traps would actually be at their hardest difficulty, while when the game was set to the hardest setting, wall traps would not appear at all! We fixed that bug, so players of the XBLA version of the game can play it as the authors originally intended.

The easiest Achievement is certainly "Good Score", which requires scoring 20,000 points. It can be earned playing the game casually. Just don't lose all your lives too soon and you'll get it. This is the only Achievement in "Double Dragon" that can be earned that way. All the others require some degree of dedication, from the simple "All Tools" to the devilish "Third Base" (finish mission 3 holding a baseball bat) which doesn't seem to be possible at first sight, requiring [players] to think "outside the box" and exploit the game mechanics.

Multiplayer: Some people say Achievements are a cheap way to make a game replayable. Do you agree or disagree?

Programmer #1: I don't agree. They can be "cheap" if done unimaginatively, but if done with creativity they can add real value to the game. Looking at the description of an Achievement can make you think something like "Hey I can do that? I hadn't thought about it!" or "That looks like a good challenge, let me try!" In the end, good Achievements simply make the game more enjoyable.

Programmer #2: Almost all good games have always had a form of Achievements, although they've usually been things like unlockable content or secret areas, etc. With the 360, you are given a little extra reward in the form of gamer points and the Achievement so that your friends can see how good you are at that game. Also, although Achievements are a way of adding replayability to a game, a good set of Achievements will also teach you different ways to play the game, and encourage you to get the maximum amount of gameplay.

Multiplayer: How do you feel about Achievements personally?

Programmer #1: I think Achievements are a brilliant idea. They add new dimensions to the games, add replayability and give new challenges to the players. Gamers can compete over them if they like; or just earn them for personal satisfaction. In the end, it all goes to make the games a more worthwhile experience.

Programmer #2: If the Achievements are well thought-out and balanced, then they give extra life to a game and can make it more fun. Previously, I'd complete a game and it would then just go back on the shelf and rarely get played again, but now I have Achievements I go back and play games more thoroughly and in different ways.

Got an Achievement on your mind that you’d like to know more about? Let us know!

About two weeks ago, a video made its way around the Internet showing how one can get 1,000 Achievement points in "Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth" ... in about two minutes. The player was shown performing a 50-hit combo, and in the process gets all five Achievements.

After learning about the tough Achievements in "Call of Duty 4" and "Gears of War," I decided to ask THQ what was up with the easy ones in "Avatar." Jon Cartwright, Director of Production at THQ's Australia studio, lays it out for us.

An excerpt from Cartwright's responses:

We weren't overly surprised that adults could get the Achievements as quickly as they did. If someone's been playing fighting games for years then the Achievements in "Avatar" are not going to challenge them too much. But again, we're not targeting that gamer. We tried to focus on the thrill a young kid would get when he/she receives his/her first Achievement.

Multiplayer: How did you come up with the Achievements for "Avatar"?

Cartwright: The game teams talk about these things themselves, we talk with our marketing partners, and of course we talk with Microsoft about it.

Multiplayer: What is your general process for choosing Achievements? What makes a good Achievement?

Cartwright: You have to look at the target market to a large extent, as well as what the game is about and what the player is going to do whilst they play. Whilst a game like "Saints Row" that's a huge open-world experience may reward the player for the number of hours they play or the distance they cover on foot or in a car, that's irrelevant for a linear kids action-adventure game like "Avatar." A lot of titles have very hardcore Achievements that are totally appropriate for the type of game and target market that they have, but with "Avatar" we needed to make the Achievements more accessible for a younger audience.

Multiplayer: Did you think it would be that easy for someone to get all the Achievements so quickly?

Cartwright: Certainly the achievements were set out with kids in mind. Whilst we know there are a lot of older folks who enjoy "Avatar," the target market for the game is kids who love the show! We weren't overly surprised that adults could get the Achievements as quickly as they did. If someone's been playing fighting games for years then the Achievements in "Avatar" are not going to challenge them too much. But again, we're not targeting that gamer. We tried to focus on the thrill a young kid would get when he/she receives his/her first Achievement. We feel having some easier Achievements make the whole Achievement system more accessible to a younger audience.

Multiplayer: In retrospect, would you have made the Achievements differently?

Cartwright: We were happy with the Achievement system for "Avatar" and are glad that people are talking about it. While the Achievement system has proved easy for some gamers, we are happy to have made a great game for fans of the TV show. At the same time, we are always reviewing customer feedback regarding all aspects of gameplay. And we certainly will take any feedback we receive on the Achievements in "Avatar" and will use it to continue to improve on future titles.

Got an Achievement on your mind that you’d like to know more about? Let us know!

First we had Robert Bowling, Community Manager at Infinity Ward, explain to us how the development studio came up with the Achievements for "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare."

Now continuing our on-going Achievement series, Cliff Bleszinski (a.k.a. "CliffyB"), Lead Designer at Epic Games, gives us a brief rundown via e-mail on the Achievements for the best-selling title "Gears of War" (which recently came out for the PC).

While Bowling was a fan of skill-based Achievements in "Call of Duty 2" and "Call of Duty 4," Bleszinski wanted to spread the Gamerscore love to not-so-skillful "Gears" players:

"A good achievement is one that rewards experimentation or unique behavior. Even giving players an award for even attempting to play a game in a cooperative fashion at its most rudimentary level is a great motivator for inexperienced gamers to share a title with others."

He also talks more about the hardest "Gears" Achievement and how there should be real-life rewards for high Gamerscores...

Multiplayer: What was your process for choosing achievements for "Gears of War"?

CliffyB: We wanted to encourage players to attempt a wide variety of play styles in all of the offered modes while reinforcing a good rewards system. Also, we wanted to make the gamers giggle with the names we picked for the achievements.

Multiplayer: What makes a good achievement?

CliffyB: A good achievement is one that rewards experimentation or unique behavior. Even giving players an award for even attempting to play a game in a cooperative fashion at its most rudimentary level is a great motivator for inexperienced gamers to share a title with others.

Multiplayer: What’s the hardest achievement in your game? The easiest?

CliffyB: The hardest achievement to acquire in "Gears" is the "Seriously" one. It is given for killing 10,000 foes in a ranked match and it takes a fair amount of time and dedication to accomplish. The easiest achievement in the game would have to be "Prison Breakout" – simply complete the tutorial level.

Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the achievements in "Gears of War"?

CliffyB: Over the course of developing the game I've acquired most of them several times.

Multiplayer: Do you agree or disagree with the opinion that achievements a cheap way to make a game replayable?

CliffyB: It's up to the individual developer to decide how to reward the player; if some choose to give points out to repetitive or boring actions then that's their design choice. I hope that designers will encourage fun and varied play from the players out there on Xbox LIVE.

Multiplayer: How important are achievements to you? Your game? Gamers?

CliffyB: Achievements are a nice gravy for Xbox gamers. Gamerscore provides a great way of sizing up and measuring which player is the most hardcore. From there a lot of community peer pressure arises and that keeps players playing our games which is a very, very good thing!

Multiplayer: Do you think real-life awards should be offered? Or are bragging rights enough?

CliffyB: I think it'd be interesting to win some sort of a real-life item for acquiring a certain Gamerscore – kind of like a frequent shopper club. But, alas, it's not my decision – this choice lies with the folks in the LIVE department at Microsoft. We'll have to wait and see what happens!

Got an Achievement on your mind that you’d like to know more about? Let us know!

First up, the Achievements of "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." Last week I asked Infinity Ward's Community Manager Robert Bowling via e-mail about the Achievements in "Call of Duty 4." A fan of Achievements himself, Bowling and the team behind the best-selling title take Achievements very seriously:

"I don't agree with Achievements that don't require skill, like 'Play multiplayer for 8 hours straight.' That's not an achievement, that's a pain; it's one of those Achievements people will typically get simply by starting up a game and just leaving it sit while they sleep."

Bowling also goes on to talk about the lack of Achievements for online multiplayer, the hardest Achievement in "Call of Duty 4" and his own "Achievement-cation" he recently took...

Multiplayer: Why are there no online Achievements for "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" (or "Call of Duty 2" for that matter)? Wouldn't you want to encourage people to try to play all the different online multiplayer modes?

Bowling: Our motivation behind multiplayer is to encourage people to play all the different multiplayer modes, which is why we make every single mode in multiplayer fun. Play a fun game type -- you're going to tell a friend, and then he's going to get his friend to play it. Now that's how you get people to try out different aspects in your game, just make it appealing and fully enjoyable. For players hungry for unlockables and rewards in multiplayer, we have more personal goals called Challenges, which encourage you to use a variety of weapons and score you more XP and challenge-specific rewards. For example, use the M4 Carbine a lot and unlock more accessories for the M4 Carbine.

Multiplayer: How did you go about choosing Achievements for "Call of Duty 4"?

Bowling: We went about choosing our Achievements for "Call of Duty 4" by going with what we knew worked, and adding on top of that. In that sense, we brought back the staple Achievements of completing single-player missions, and then the homage Achievements of beating the game on Veteran difficulty which is our "honor" badge for our hardcore players. In addition, we wanted to lighten it up and throw in plenty of action-specific Achievements, as well as throw something in for players like myself who love seeking out hidden items throughout the campaign. Essentially, we didn't want to stray from the classic Achievements we had in "Call of Duty 2," but at the same time wanted to add variety that appealed to a wide variety of gamers. So you can find all the hidden Enemy Intel and score an Achievement, and then also reward those who are quick on the reflexes for saving a certain soldier being ambushed, or stop a civilian from being executed to more typical "take down an enemy chopper with an RPG"-type rewards.

Multiplayer: What's your process for choosing Achievements in general? What makes a good Achievement?

Bowling: Essentially Achievements fall into the same decision-making process as anything that goes into the game. Here at Infinity Ward, we like to get feedback from just about everyone, so we browse the forums, put out an open calling card around the studio to send in ideas, and essentially just play through the game as is and think of what deserves recognition. So say you're playing through the game, and you get into one hell of a fire fight, taking guys down, run out of ammo, start using your pistol, run out of pistol ammo and start to knife melee your way out. You'd feel like a pretty big bad ass and would probably want to be awarded for such an achievement of skill. So we make note, talk about it later, see if it's Achievement status-worthy and then decide.

Multiplayer: Some people say Achievements are a cheap way to make a game repayable. Do you agree or disagree?

Bowling: Achievements can totally be a cheap way to add replayability, but they can also be an legitimate way to expand the enjoyment of your game and reward the player for doing awesome things in the game. Just like with anything in game development, it can be done cheap, and it can be done right. It's just a matter of making it right. For example, I don't agree with Achievements that don't require skill, like "Play multiplayer for 8 hours straight." That's not an achievement, that's a pain; it's one of those Achievements people will typically get simply by starting up a game and just leaving it sit while they sleep. I'm a big fan of skill-based Achievements, Achievements that require you to put effort forth and that you honestly feel accomplished once you've completed it. You feel like it was a hell of a fight, and you deserve every point you get for it.

Multiplayer: What do you think is the hardest Achievement in your game?

Bowling: The hardest Achievement in the game by far is the Mile High Club Achievement where you have to "Sky Dive to Safety on Veteran Difficulty." Where typically, the Deep and Hard Achievement would be the hardest because it requires beating the entire game on Hardened or Veteran difficulty, the Mile High Club requires you to beat the most difficult level in the game, only on Veteran difficulty, in a very short amount of time. You essentially can't miss a shot, no time to reload, and need to make zero mistakes to survive it.

Multiplayer: How do you feel about Achievements personally?

Bowling: I personally am in love with Achievements; I'll do anything for that delicious score to rise on my gamer card -- with the exception of playing sports games simply to boost it. However, children's games are not above me. I love the feeling of playing a game, beating a level, or doing something that was really challenging in the game and then being instantly recognized for it with that "Achievement Unlocked." I think they've added an awesome new layer of ways to pull the player into the game, giving players' goals and things to look forward to. I recently had a vacation, which I lovingly dubbed my "Achievement-cation," where I had one simple goal -- to take the time to conquer all the games I had half-finished or never opened throughout development of "Call of Duty 4." Achievements were a great way to gauge that progress.

Got an Achievement on your mind that you'd like to know more about? Let us know!