he first achievement I ever really noticed was one in Half-Life 2. I was wandering around the city of Ravenholm when I pulled up the game's achievement list and saw one called "Flushed" — an easy, five points for killing an enemy with a toilet. Of course, I found myself looking around for a toilet in the battered apartments, and when I found one, I used it to smash a few zombies by flinging the porcelain seat with a gravity gun. Short, simple, and amusing. Its only real purpose is to suggest that it would be fun to kill someone with a flying can.
In a similar vein, a friend at school was playing Left 4 Dead at school and was upon an achievement for punching back some sort of zombie as it attempted to jump him. Not a big thing he was trying for, but the little pop-up to point out his actions did cause some enjoyment, mostly of the "How did I manage that?" type.
While a lot of the achievements in World of Warcraft are more serious, and I discussed some of the issues with them previously, there are ones that are just fun.
Consider "But I'm On Your Side." Buy a specific item, and beat up some enemies while showcasing the same appearance as one of them. Other fun ones with no actual rewards would be "Second That Emotion," which requires eating four different types of food, each of which gives an emotion buff, and "To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before," which involves finding various critters and using the /love command on them.
Back in The Burning Crusade, there were only a few ways to tell someone had killed a boss.Another noticeable benefit from some achievements is having a solid record of kills. Back in The Burning Crusade expansion, there were only a few ways to tell someone had killed a boss. Some of the titles required kills of specific bosses, and then gear. Wearing a piece of gear from Illidan or Moroes was a sure way to prove you'd brought down that foe.
Now, you can pull up someone's achievement list to check what bosses they have killed, what instances, etc. This leads to some replacing of gear checks with achievement checks, at least when the intent is to ensure a player's experience with the instance. Whether or not this really does help with providing a smooth experience for the raid group, I'm not so sure on.
Achievements for boss kills are useful, though not nearly as fun. The ones I appreciate the most are the quirky, little things that I'm not obligated to do — even if they sometimes result in confusion on my part of how to complete them.
