Because achievements make every game better, right?
It’s hard to go back to old games sometimes, even the ones we used to love, because after years of evolution they can feel really dated. In most cases those issues are irreversible without some serious coding or even a fully-fledged remake, but there’s one recent feature that’s created an indelible mark on the way we play games, and could theoretically be added to any game without screwing with its original gameplay at all…
That’s right, we’re talking about achievements.
The audacious group of ROM-modders at Retro Achievements have started adding cheevos to emulated versions of SNES and Genesis/Sega Mega Drive games to all of your 16-bit favorites. Though the site’s creators are definitely focused on the 16-bit era, they’ve also added achievements to a smaller set of NES, Game Boy and GBA titles.
The site goes beyond merely coming up with a built-in list of challenges for players to complete: The ROMs send users’ achievement to the site and produced statistics and leaderboards based on the community’s data, producing the information you might get from third-party gameplay tracking sites like Raptr or True Achievements. As you might expect of mod-centric site, the Retro Achievements scoring system is far less standardized than Xbox Live’s system or the PSN trophy system. Each game has a different number of achievements, which are worth a different number of points.
As intriguing as this idea may seem, It’s important to recognize that emulation sites like Retro Achievements live in an ethically grey area and are technically illegal. If you want to throw caution to the wind and download them, that’s your business, but we’d appreciate it everyone behaves responsibly while on the site, as dictated by our Code of Conduct. The Escapist does not condone digital piracy or illegal activity of any kind.
Source: Retro Achievements via NeoGAF
