Games are virtual. When you turn on the console, a world appears; when you turn it off, no trace remains. Except for the achievements you earned -- which fortify your Gamerscore and self-esteem, blip by blip. The Underachiever tracks the productivity of one gamer playing to catch up to his peers. What do games feel like when they're used for work?
The Flow of Stillwater
Achievements fit sandbox games like a glove. Open worlds leave ample room for fun off the beaten path, and so reward exploration and experimentation -- enough that following the main narrative in a sandbox game can feel beside the point. After finishing Crackdown last month for a cheap 115 achievement points, I started to realize that achieving isn't fun when it feels mandatory.
Which made my recent return to Saints Row 2 particularly ironic. The game isn't generous with achievements. It doesn't dangle Agility Orbs or feathers above your head, inviting you to transcend your worldly concerns. Instead, Saints Row 2 keeps to the street. It's about the scuffle that breaks out between you and the pimp you accidentally elbowed on the sidewalk, the squeal of tires across pavement and broken bones, the filth that comes out of your own mouth. Saints Row 2 packs dirt into every nook and cranny it can find. But it's also, amazingly, a game about responsibility.
Achievements here are real work. I learned this the hard way when I hopped into my first Stillwater car after months of being away. I'd unknowingly hijacked a taxicab.
Only in this game would you stumble into a job. Every corner you turn in Saints Row 2 offers something to do. Ten seconds into the game and I was driving as a cabbie. I didn't know if achievements were involved. But unlike Pacific City last month, Stillwater made me a part of its rhythm. I got quickly caught up in the cycle of picking up passengers and carting them to different addresses.
People like to say the things that happen to you in a game "actually" happen, and I sometimes write this off as wishful thinking. Grand Theft Auto isn't any more real than Scarface just because you happen to play one of the written parts, right? But driving this cab around Stillwater wasn't anything like acting. It didn't feel like role-playing -- and it also didn't feel like a meaningless grind. It just felt like going to work. I tried not to ding my car up too much, I followed directions, and I kept at it for a while.
I never found out if cabbing hid an achievement; I ran my cab into one too many telephone poles, and had to bail out as it exploded into a fireball. The reason I'd embraced Crackdown and Assassin's Creed II, and eventually quit playing Saints Row 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV, I remembered, is because having to drive to go places always ends with me in flames.
