Allow me to paint a picture here (not literally, otherwise we'd be here all day for an crudely drawn image of a laser shooting shark).
The game is Shadow of the Colossus.
It's the bird colossus, Avion. You're holding on for dear life, crawling desperately across the wing of a bird roughly the size of a 747, which is flapping like mad and barrel rolling in an attempt to throw you off. You finally get to the glowing glyph on the tip of the wing, but you can't hold on much longer. Do you hold on for dear life, or do you take the chance that you can last long enough to deliver the killing strike? You go with the latter, raise your sword and plunge it into his wing, inky blood pouring out of the wound, just as you run out of grip and start to plummet towards the earth. Suddenly the world slows, and you see the bird fall to the earth. Finally, you took him down, but the mix of emotions you're feeling right now make you unsure of how to react - do you rejoice at your triumph, mourn the death of a magnificent creature whose only crime was merely existing (he wouldn't have attacked you if you hadn't ridden into his domain and shot an arrow at him), do you....
BING!!
Obtained Trophy - Killer Of Giants (Kill 5 Colossi)
Thank you very much, I can see I killed him. Hello crappy incentives, goodbye overwhelming immersion.
People have wondered why I am against a SotC remake. Partly it's because I want Team Ico to do what they do best, ie make unbelievably good original games, but also because if it were to be remade on the PS3, it would have to have Trophies. Which would create the above scenario, and completely ruin the game. For those who have yet to play it, SotC is the undisputed master of immersion and purity of game design (some people will disagree with me, but unless they say Ico, which I haven't played, they are wrong.). The average GTA nut would have hated it because there was nothing to do except explore and kill 16 enemies. But by sticking to just that, they created a game world which sucked you in and occasionally threatened asphyxiation. Tacking on sidequests would have distracted it from it's purpose, adding a Trophy/Achievement system would have ruined it.
Which leads me onto my point. I don't hate Trophies. They can make a short game slightly less short, and even become fun little extra challenges (I still haven't managed to Beat Zico, but that doesn't stop me trying). For multiplayer games, racers and arcade games, it's not too bad. But what about the corner of the gaming market that craves a gripping story and atmosphere, areas like the survival horror and adventure genres? Don't even bother. If the average gamer is anything like me, well, for starters it would be an unwritten law that purchasing a Syphon Filter game is a prerequisite for ownership of a PSP, but we freaks would also pass over these new games, because that feeling of immersion we crave would be lost because game was insulted that we had the audacity to kill five enemies without taking any damage and decided to take its revenge by pulling us out of our little world with the subtlety of neon pink airhorn.
Let's use Dead Space as an example. Sure, it was derivative and not exactly scary, but it did manage to keep the player immersed. They even went so far as to make the HUD a part of the character. So when you first boarded the Ishimura, you felt like you were really a part of the game. It might have even managed to become scary, with groups of Necromorphs coming at you from all angles as you ran low on ammunition, but then.....
BING!!
Obtained Trophy - Doesn't matter which one, it's still pulled you back into the far more horrid real world.
This is actually the biggest concern I have about Heavy Rain. It's looking fantastic so far, and if Quantic Dream can make the game reach the ambitious goals its set for itself, then it could not only be something truly great, but it may change how we think about story and interactivity in gaming. But all that goes down the drain the moment the game decides you to pat you on the head for hiding in the closet rather than pulling a knife. The sad truth is that it'll probably happen, with Trophies being mandatory.
Sure, there may be an option to turn off notifications (I think), but if we have to have them, how about a better option than just showing them right when you're getting into it? Why not make it work like the awards in Metal Gear Solid 4, in that you only see them after you finish the game? It may not appeal to the Trophy/Achievement whores out there, but frankly, if you're playing games like this just for an useless ranking, then as far as I'm concerned you're a lost cause, because now you are essentially playing for a high score. Immersion, intrigue, character development, they now mean nothing to you, as long as your Gamerscore keeps building up. Which means that now we have a corner of the gaming world which has regressed back to the arcade days of showing off your high scores to mates. Not that bad a concept in itself, but not the kind of mentality that has a place in a story driven game.
The truth is the best games I've played don't feel the need to reward me, the player, because just experiencing them is reward enough. Helping a humble wolf become a revered deity by restoring the world to its natural beauty, unearthing a conspiracy to ship innocent people off the planet to become an energy source for a parasitic alien species, terrorising a city of talking lungfish and plenty more would probably have lost a lot of their impact if the game felt the need to give me a condescending "aren't you a good boy?" in between sections where it ties me to a table with heavy duty chains, cracks the whip and......sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought.
OH LOOK, A DISTRACTION!!!
*runs*