<![CDATA[Scraping the bottom of the awards barrel]]>

Achievements. I like ’em, and so do a number of other gamers. They add extra replay value to certain videogames, as well as reward you for doing something out of the ordinary or, in the case story-related Achievements, just continuing to play the game. Often times, they have fun titles or reference pop culture or a neat picture attached to them.

However, there’s also an entire population of gamers that ignore them and see them as nothing more than graphics to measure one’s e-peen with. Which I totally understand. Really, I do.

To me, getting all Achievements in a game is more of a personal mission rather than a bragging one. It’s something I want to accomplish because I want to see if I’m able to do it. That’s all. As you can see from my list to the right, it’s mostly LEGO games. I’m clearly not an Achievement whore. I just like getting them and talking about the hows and whys.

That said, soon after Achievements became all the rage, other systems and non-Xbox 360 games started looking into ways to hop on the trend wagon. PlayStation 3 introduced Trophies, which are, most of the time, exactly the same concept of Achievements. Little pings awarded for ping hunters.

And then came the Nintendo DS games. With no shared online community, they were less worried about branding a new concept than just coming up with tasks and rewards for players playing their games. Spore Creatures had Badges, Touchmaster 3 had its own versions of trophies, Scribblenauts had Merits, and now we come to Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, which is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with…Accolades.

–noun

1. any award, honor, or laudatory notice: The play received accolades from the press.

2. a light touch on the shoulder with the flat side of the sword or formerly by an embrace, done in the ceremony of conferring knighthood.

3. the ceremony itself.

4. Music a brace joining several staves.

5. Architecture

a. an archivolt or hood molding having more or less the form of an ogee arch.

b. a decoration having more or less the form of an ogee arch, cut into a lintel or flat arch.

Hmm. I guess I can’t argue with that first definition there, but something about this word screams ridiculous to me. I mean, maybe calling them Honors would’ve been a better fit. And it fits the medieval fantasy world, but I think Nintendo needs to just get the ball rolling and solidify some kind of in-game rewards system for both their Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS/DSi/DS systems.

Just think about it. You’re playing Mario Kart DS, you’re in second place on the final lap, and you just zoomed through an item box. Lucky, lucky you…it’s a red turtle shell! Waluigi is a few feet in front of you, and you let the red death fly, zipping by to seal the deal and win the race. <insert catchy musical sound> Laudatory Notice! Shell Shock

ac·co·lade