Last one on plays as Dazzler
Not so long ago there was a very special day. Not my birthday (any gifts should be sent to me by June 15th), but a day that will forever go down in XBLA lore. On April Fools Day 2011, X-Men: The Arcade Game was reduced to only 200 Microsoft Space Dollars. For a few days the servers were packed with random strangers who had picked the game up on the cheap. I could jump from one random game full of 6 players to another with mutated ease.
However, this is not a tale of random games with like minded X-Men fans, but a warning for those who spend too much energy seeking achievements – if you live by the achievement, you can die by the achievement.
What exactly has Dazzler packed in her lunchbox?
Some time after the fabled “day of cheap X Men”, I finally found time to tackle the game with a friend of mine who could be termed a more ‘casual’ gamer. We decided to play the game on Expert as the game’s infinite credits meant that completing the game should still be easy enough and a nice 25G achievement would come our way. To further glean the game of achievements I left the game open for the general public in the hopes of unlocking ‘You Fell to Our Trap’ and ‘Master of Magnet’, both requiring all 6 positions to be filled. The theory was that we should both get an easy 80Gs out of the game, no problem.
But then the greed monster game to visit, my friend suggested:
What if we also get the ‘Grounded’ achievement? All you have to do is not press A on level 4
All this required was no jumping on level 4, another easy 10 Gs.
With the game started the pursuit of imaginary gaming credibility should have gone to the back burner. All of a sudden I was back in the arcades of my youth, but rather than having a measly 20p to work with, I had a pocket full of 10ps and no adult to tell me when to stop. Within moments 3 other players had entered the game bringing us up to 5. Which character was left? Dazzler of course. Who willingly plays as Dazzler?
Wolverine regretted the day he had the words "Press Start" tattooed onto his nipples
Even the thought of being the little known thrower of sparkly whatnots didn’t stop a final plucky player from partaking in our posse. Fully outfitted with 6 players on Expert difficulty the game was on, as was the hunt for achievements. All went well until level 4.
All you have to do is not press A on level 4.
My friend’s words echoed through my ears.
He failed to tell me that when you die you need to press A to continue and use another credit. I never pressed A, I never continued and I lost my place in the team. It was only a few seconds, but by the time I had realized my mistake I had lost credit for playing levels 1-3. Gone were the 85Gs I had longed for so cravenly. The rest of the game session passed in a blur as I strove to see through my veil of tears. A great game was being soured by the loss of imaginary tokens – a game that had been developed long before the achievements system was even a twinkle in Microsoft’s eye.
The moral of this story? Love the game and not the achievements. I may have lost out in achievement points, but I gained a lot more in terms of playing a great game with some great people. I can always go back and play the game again at a later date (and I since have). X-Men Arcade is the perfect example of old school gaming taking advantage of the modern online world.