Over the past week I went through my backlog of games and played through Batman: Arkham Asylum from start to finish, intro credits to end credits. Now while I say I completed it, that’s not really what the Arkham Asylum entry for my PS3 Trophy Profile says. According to the game I’m only about 3/4 from getting 100% and a Platinum Trophy to commemorate the occasion.

This is the double-edged sword of trophies/achievements for me at least. I’ve completed the campaign, found every collectable and solved every puzzle yet I haven’t mastered the last fourth of the game in it’s extra content of challenge modes. These are actually okay by me, the developer has a set of challenges and obstacles that push the player to get a mastery for the game after they beat the campaign and they reward that mastery with the corresponding trophy/achievements.

While I’m fine with that, there’s also the fact that most games offer trophy/achievements for completing a game on the higher/highest difficulty settings. Completing the game on normal earned me both the trophy for beating the game on normal mode and the trophy for beating it on easy mode, but the trophy concerning HARD mode will always be tempting me, the reason many will never get that coveted platinum trophy. Should gamers have to beat a game multiple times just to fill up a progress bar to 100% ?

At least in the case of good games like Arkham Asylum it’ll be a pleasure to go through the journey again someday in the future. And at least certain games like Half-Life 2 and it’s corresponding Episodes have a chapter selection option so I could go back and squish every Antlion Grub.

Achievements have come a long way since 2005 and the layout surrounding them has been settled mostly. I just wish that sometimes, the games didn’t always try to goad me into another playthrough right after the credits finish. But at least if I do make another journey through many of the current games with multiple difficulties, there will be a reward waiting for me at the end, making the journey’s worth a bit more sweet than it already is for a good/great game. – The Ben