Achievements in PC Games

I would like to start this by saying; I have never played on the Xbox 360 other than for a brief time in Lost Planets, Gears of War and Halo 3 beta on my cousins’ console. So what I say here might not be entirely accurate and it’s all based on my opinion.

As a PC gamer I have started to notice achievements popping up in a few games. This of course is nothing new to the 360 crowd but it is fairly new for us PC gamers.
Personally, I think even though it’s obviously a stolen idea, that it’s a great addition to the games I’ve seen that has them. Aside from the unlocks you get in Team Fortress 2 with achievements there’s not much to them other than a little notification that you’ve done something special or pursued something you normally wouldn’t do. They do add that little extra gameplay element where you feel you’ve achieved something and now you have proof in case someone doubts your “mad skills”. There also aren’t that many games with them yet.  You find most of them on Steam and a few on games for Windows Live.  With the latter, points will be added to your gamer score if you already have a gamer tag(?).

Some people don’t like the idea of achievements in pc games though, saying it’s a cheap way to add replay value to a game. Maybe, but I don’t see what’s so wrong about that.  I’ve replayed Portal just to get the achievements. I didn’t have any less fun the other time around. It’s not like adding achievements means instant replay value.  If a game is bad, you won’t get away with just adding them thinking people will come back to play your game.

Okay I guess I lied a bit.  This isn’t entirely ‘new’ to us.  We’ve had some similar stuff in a few MMORPG’s like Lord of the Rings online titles and City of Heroes/Villains badges. I’m sure it’s been featured in many games before but I either don’t remember or don’t know about them.
Another fairly well known MMORPG is joining the trend, namely World of Warcraft. With their upcoming expansion: Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will introduce achievements to the game. This is perfect for the kind of players that play WoW as they are no stranger to long, tedious work in order to get something they want. By the look of it, they have their work cut out for them.  At the time of my writing this, there are almost 700(!) achievements in the game and it’s still in beta.

I appreciate any constructive criticism or suggestions you might have for me to use in the future. I also want to apologize for any grammar errors that made your eyes bleed.