C

Reached level 100 on Space Giraffe.
Reached but not breached.
What will happen? Will the giraffe be in the damn castle? Will I get a telegram from Jeff Minter on completion? Will I stay sane long enough to find out?

Stay tuned.

Some Points.

1. The first time doing something, that you will then go on to repeatedly do throughout a game is not an achievement.
   First time finishing the game- achievement, first time killing a mid-level boss - fine, but first time casting a spell? First level-up? Congratulations you found the A button? WTF? what's the difference between the first time and all the other times you do that thing? What's so great about the first one? The thousand millionth time- that's an achievement, doing a basic action once- really not.
   
   
2. Completing the tutorial is not an achievement.
   Well duh - you haven't even started the game and you're already earning points? How is that? How the hell do you fail a tutorial? By definition it's the easiest part of the game - in fact it's not even part of the game - it's even easier than the game! If the tutorial in your game is a challenge then u r doing it very wrong!
   
   
3. Being player 2 is not an achievement
   This is unbelievable - yes I'm looking at you Gears of War - even tho I happened to benefit from this complete lack of logic ("Baggsy Dom!") - it really shouldn't be excused. Obviously having a friend is an achievement for most gamers, but really, they shouldn't have to pay them points.
   
   
4. Being crap at the game is not an achievement
   It may seem funny, Harmonix, it may seem oh so amusing at the time - how we laughed, when we saw it in the Guitar Hero II achievement list "Fail a song on easy" Har Har Har. Achievements are not jokes, Harmonix, they are not a way of showing how crazy and unconventional you are. Grow up.
   
   
5. Being bored is not an achievement
   If you can do the achievement, without even touching the controller, from the kitchen, making a cup of tea, it is not an achievement. The tea is more deserved than those points. GTA4 was particularly guilty, with it's long taxi rides and copter tours but any game that has "watched all the cut scenes" achievements...*shakes head* No. Wrong.
   

People say to me "Oh Judy," they say "What's your problem? Do you not like points? What does it matter that some achievements are a little easier than others?" Oh you fools. Oh you poor, blind, foolish fools.

We know where this leads. Giving out all these points for sub-prime achievements is dangerously devaluing the Live economy, and there's only one result - rocketing inflation followed by a gamerpoint crunch. That's right. Currently an xbla title has 200 points worth of achievements - conservative estimates say that if this devaluation continues a typical xbla game achievement will be worth 10,000,000 points. Independent developers just can't afford to put that many points into a game - they'll just go to the wall. This will cause a points scarcity that will lead to gamer self-esteem collapse, which will result in ever easier achievements for even more points and the whole system will be trapped in an ever decreasing spiral. Maybe the big boys will survive a little longer but with the value of gamerpoints circling the drain even the likes of EA and Ubisoft will come tumbling down.

We have to act now. All gamer points earned from any achievement that fits one of the descriptions above should be stripped from players' profiles immediately, and all developers should be provided with a dictionary with the definition for achievement underlined in red, with pictures and examples. Any game found giving points for non-achievements should be banned and the developer's point-distribution license revoked.

It's extreme but it's the only solution. It's the only way I can have more points than Tug.

Is Space Giraffe the best game ever?

Yes.

Well in a way yes -but generally whatever game I'm playing is the best game ever for it's duration - so it's probably not a very reliable declaration. I'm playing Apollo Justice on the DS and that's the best game ever too - so, pinch of salt, but the point of this is - 'raffe has been horribly under-rated.

Not least by me. Mr Judy downloaded SG on release. Wow! I said, it looks great. Crazy! Mad! British comedy references! Ow eyes hurting now, stop playing. What do you mean I've got no achievements? Give up.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. We're in the middle of one of the longest droughts in gaming history. Every day I scan the shelves for something new to play.
"Can I help?" says the teenage assistant
"I don't know - I'm looking for something good, something overlooked - something that is amazing and yet has somehow got past everyone I know and all the reviewers on the internets, something impossible, yet incredible.. do you have anything like that?"
"Um...TNA Impact?"
Even my inbetweeners are starting to pall. Edge is full of fascinating, complex, incredible games promised for the coming months that are still *weeks* away from release. And, tucked away in the "what we're playing now" section, Space Giraffe rates a mention.

Hmm never did get on with that - maybe time for another go. At least try and get the sneezing achievement....and an obsession was born. Then over nights of swearing, internet scouring, many varied attempts to reach the zen-like state you need to play- the obsession was tempered and formed into evangelical fervour. Time to spread the word.

Why you were wrong about Space Giraffe.
A lot of people give up after the tutorial. Which is not aptly named. Jeff Minter, a genius with light and music, has a lot to learn about pedagogy. Key terms are not defined. Concepts are not explained. Examples are not given. Don't get me started on assessment for learning. If he worked for our institution, we'd be having words. You get a vague instruction. Then a bit later it says "well done you did that" You wonder what just happened. I discovered I'd been playing the game completely wrong after reading a FAQ on the internet.

Of course, you could argue that the "tutorial" is deliberately bad, just as the level design is deliberately eye-bleedingly confusing, which is the next hurdle for the contemporary gamer. We've been molly-coddled by namby-pamby games in which you can actually see what's going on. Stuff like the things trying to kill you. The things you're supposed to pick up. Most games make these things stand out. Not SG - you have to visually wrench such information from the chaos on the screen and it's often unfair. I've played zone games before, the feeling of your muscle memory overriding your conscious mind - 'raffe is the first game I've really felt you need the Force to play. And we're not talking some weedy blast shield, it's like injecting your eyeballs with LSD and trying to split a gnat with a stick of spaghetti. With guns.

But I forget, I'm trying to convince people to play it, not put you off...well let's see -

Colours!
Most games these days have about three colours (brown, grey and browney-grey), SG has megabezillions.

Online leaderboards!
A mere 10,000 people bought Space Giraffe. You're pretty much guaranteed top 1000 by being vaguely competent. (currently 72, thanks for asking. Oh you didn't. Well I'm just happening to mention it then. It's my blog.)

Weekly online leaderboards!
Out of 10,000 how many do you think played this week?

Jeff needs the money.
Llamas don't come cheap.

CONGRATULATIONS!
You have finished this blogpost, but our giraffe is in another castle!
You are bored

The Sheep Speaks!

Apparently I am a sheep. Yes that's right - a sheep. According to a so-called gentleman of my acquaintance- I, readers, am a woolly, usually horned, ruminant mammal related to the goat.
And what prompted this attack? This slight on my character? Well, I mentioned that I read game reviews before buying them. Apparently the gentlemen in question regards this as sheep-like behaviour, that to read a review is to unavoidably be influenced by it.

Well it goes without saying I reject that accusation completely- so after thinking about it for a week, procrastinating for a week and dithering for a week - I got straight on the internet to correct his mistake. Here are some reasons why game reviews are great:

Game reviews are important. More important than other reviews - a film takes £5 quid and two hours of your time, a game costs ten times more in time and money. You can't just go wandering into HMV and get games based on the box art. Not if you value time and money.

Game reviews are great to read - a good review tells you what you need to know - i.e. how it feels to play the game - in an entertaining way. Check out Ste Curran's classic Monkeyball review [which he has irritatingly taken offline...grr], or Kieron Gillen's great EDF review. Avoid Playr style reviews that just list the controls. They're worse than useless.

Game reviews can cut through hype. One problem with deciding which games to buy is that games are seriously hyped to death - years of careful marketing - teasers, previews, fake websites, screenshots, viral marketing - all designed to get you wetting your pants with excitement, but it's all lies. None of it really matters until the reviews come out - which makes good unbiased reviews so vital. If a hyped to death game comes out with 4s and 5s then you know to steer clear no matter how amusing the trailer is.

It works the other way as well - game reviews can highlight great games that didn't have a multimillion pound advertising budget. I wouldn't own Katamari Damacy if it wasn't for the reviews, or Portal, or Okami or Phoenix Wright or Amplitude or well lots.

So we've all learned that game reviews are great. Without them we'd be lost in a sea of hype, all sitting and waiting for our friend to buy something so we can go round their house and try it out. And so no one would buy anything and the games industry would collapse and we'd all have to go out and find useful things to do with our time.

And no one wants that. Not even sheep.