LAG Content Explained

Born from the mass graveyards of ET on the Atari, the Lonely Achievement God has never been able to return home. His shiny finger has been altered so as to not distract him while gaming in the dark.

Walkthroughs may also come in bullet point lists, though I’m still experimenting with the validity of it.

Where walkthroughs may have multiple parts for the entire playthrough, Guides will likely have multiple videos showing different strategies.

The God’s Thoughts were originally called Mini-Reviews, but I decided against it because that implies a structure and/or score. They will just be comments about how a sequel improved or got worse, fun or annoying sequences, etc.

Previews will TRY to be the first 30 minutes of me playing a game, however, there will be quite a few where I have already completed the game before recording the 30 minutes of footage.

Still a little fuzzy on if I’m including numbered scores on things or not. Numbers tend to create expectations. It today’s reviewing world, a 5 is basically a 0. On a real 1-10 scale, 5 should be where most games end up, and I don’t care for the idea of being bound by that system.

Every Game that I make Walkthroughs or Guides for will have a personalized Achievement List.

The Achievement List Review DOCTS^TM system is original to the Lonely Achievement God, and is inspired by my personal preferences.

Diligence is about showing the gamer everything you’ve made using the achievement system.

Originality doesn’t mean that original is bad. There are games with simplistic lists that do what they need to.

Challenging lists can be fun, but not everyone wants a challenge.

If achievements are going to be a part of the game, they should always be available. But are there achievements that require you to play on a certain day?

Stylish achievements make them fun. Not every game has the ability to give you an achievement for tying a girl to the train tracks, but lists should give their games a chance to shine.

Walkthroughs, Guides, Reviews, Previews. What does it all mean?

Walkthroughs and Guides

For the purpose of this website, Achievement Walkthroughs are essentially going to take you step-by-step through the game, from beginning to the end. They will have text, controls lists, hints and tips, etc. The first game taking advantage of this description is Calico. Calico is an open-world Life Sim. While there is a small bit of randomness, the tasks you follow can be repeated over and over no matter who starts the game, so a step-by-step walkthrough can be used to get through it.

Guides, however, have a different place here. Guides are for describing games that change, such as a roguelite, or the first game on the website to be described as needing a Guide, Wilmot’s Warehouse. In Wilmot’s Warehouse, packages get delivered and you need to sort them, and then find the packages that your customers want. The problem is that the deliveries are always random, so while I can give tips and tricks, I can’t give you a step-by-step guide. Both formats will often have a video and text option, though, so you can use whatever version works best for you. Admittedly, there will be some games that are better served with text over video or vice versa, but I’d like to give both options.

The God’s Thoughts

Games that are not being covered by the Lonely Achievement God for Achievement Completion but are being played will be created with a “The God’s Thoughts” section. These will be very informal discussions that simply touch on my thoughts in each game. Each game that is covered through The God’s Thoughts will also get an Achievement List Review, and may get Gameplay Previews as well.

Game Previews and Reviews

Pretty basic stuff, right? Unlike Walkthroughs and Guides, Previews (which will be called “A Lonely Look at <insert game name>” on the Youtube Channel), will come in video form, usually in what will be approximately 30-minute first impression videos, whereas Reviews will be written in text. If a game has a video review, it will likely just be a recitation of the written review. Game Scores will be included in Reviews, but are meant as a representation of where the game is out of where the game could have gone. If I feel as if nothing could be improved to make the game better, then the game will get a 10/10. If I give one game a 8/10 and another an 8/10, it doesn’t mean the games are equal to one another. I have zero tolerance for using review scores as a way to put down other titles as being inferior. Reviews are meant to represent how well a single game was made to the reader, nothing more.

Achievement List and List Reviews – DOCTS^TM Ranks

Have you ever looked at a game and wondered if the achievement list is worth it? Most websites give you the ability to browse the achievement list, and some even give you generalizations, but I have yet to see a place that succinctly gives you a representation of the achievement list, and that’s why I developed DOCTS^TM. I will be giving a brief personal recommendation on the Achievement List Reviews, but my preferences on the game will be mostly in the Game Review itself.

Something else I will be including that other websites don’t, is the estimated time a single achievement takes to unlock. For example, if you have a game that takes 50 hours to get the 1000, but the last achievement takes 40 hours of grinding, that’s useful to know beforehand. On the Achievement List Review page for a game, each Individual Achievement will be listed with its GamerScore amount, and the time it should take you to unlock it. For the sake of simplicity, I will be using the longest estimated completion time to determine when achievements should unlock. i.e. Wilmot’s Warehouse has 3 viable strategies at the time of launching this website. The first estimates a 50 hour completion, the second is 25 hours, and the third is 4 hours. I will be estimating achievement unlocks based on the 50 hour completion, in this case. Lists will also have summarized solutions for each achievement.

DOCTS^TM stands for the 5 categories I consider when looking through an achievement list, and each category will be rated along a scale:

Very Low –> Low –> Below Average –> Average –> Above Average –> High –> Very High

—–Diligence – Do the achievements help the gamer explore the game and other modes? Very Low indicates it does a poor job of this, Very High means it does an excellent job
—–Original – Is the list standard story completion, or are there unique achievements? Very low indicates the list is very vanilla, very high indicates that it has unique achievements
—–Challenge – How Easy or Difficult are the Achievements? This will be rated by time and by skill, by Challenge Overall. So ChallengeTime could be Very Low meaning within an hour, but ChallengeSkill could be Very High meaning might be hard to master.
—–Timeless – Will the achievements always be available, or are they tied to multiplayer servers or some other time restriction? Very Low indicates many online or server-based achievements, where Very High means all achievements should be available forever.
—–Stylish – Are the achievements fun? Very Low means that achievements are quite boring, though not necessarily vanilla (there could be a case where you need to play a certain minigame 1000 times, which would be considered boring) where Very High would be a list with numerous interesting applications of the game’s content.

However, just because something is marked Very High, does not mean it is recommended. You should use the scale to figure out where your tastes lie, and you can use it to predict your enjoyment of a game’s list. You may prefer a game low in Original Achievements, or with a Low Style. It is preference, not meant to indicate my recommendation. You’ll get my recommendation from the Game Review itself. The DOCTS^TM system is simply designed to give a little more information about the achievement list.

A little more explanation on each category:

—–Diligence – Many games fail to utilize the achievement system to get gamers to play the entire game. While there is debate to be had about whether or not achievements should require the top of the skill levels, if there is content in the game, let me know about it. Show it off. There was a puzzle game I played last Autumn, called Batu ta Batu. It was a fun little game, which had tons of different modes, but you only had to play 2 of them to get all of the achievements. This would be an example of a low Diligence level, because you aren’t using achievements to get players to experience all your game has to offer. A game like Yakuza 0 would give a high Diligence rating because you have to play all of the side quests to get the achievements.

—–Original – The low-Originality game has an achievement list where you have 15 achievements for beating the story, and 15 for playing multiplayer and ranking up. This may seem slightly overlapped with the Stylish ranking, however, the Original ranking is simple; its rated low if it sticks to lists with nothing but story and multiplayer ranks, where it would be high if it blows conventional achievement lists out of the water.

—–Challenge – How difficult are the achievements? Difficulty is a relative measure, but for the sake of this, Difficulty encompasses length of time and skill needed. Star Balls 250 hour achievement would be difficult for the time necessary to reach it; where as Yakuza Climax Battles are difficult for the skill required. If a game gets a lower rating, expect to spend less time grinding and less time pulling your hair out.

—–Timeless – This is the category most important to me. I despise playing a game only to find out that some achievements are no longer available because of a timed exclusive or a server shutdown. Very low means that there are multiple online or server-based achievements that will likely be unobtainable with a shutdown. Very High indicates no achievements should every be missable.

—–Stylish – While similar in theory to Original, this goes more indepth to how interesting the achievements are. If they point to side quests, are the quests fun? Are you pickpocketing someone and planting a grenade? Or are you just collecting 15 golden orbs for the sake of it? The higher the rating, the more fun the achievements are.

All beings have some susceptibility to lust….except the Lonely Achievement God. Despite being Lonely, all he ever wants is more Achievements.

Eros, God