Scoring Points: Difference between revisions

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While today many games don't even keep track of score - and the ones that do keep track do it for no reason whatsoever - most [[Muggles|outsiders to the gaming world]] still believe points are our coke. The truth is, score was never a big deal. Even ''[[Pac-Man]]'' players were more interested in what the new fruit in which level was.

About the ''only'' genres where scoring actually was—and still is—relevant to any significant portion of the player base are games with short, replayable levels, most commonly [[Shoot Em ~~Ups~~]] and [[Rhythm Game]]s, where beating another's high score or getting a good rank/grade is one of the main points. Then there were the endlessly repeating games where score was the only practical way to measure success: Activision's Atari 2600 games always would have specific guidelines in their manuals for what score you should aim to attain to get their special patches or t-shirts for having become a pro at it if you could send them proof. Pinball is a good example that has survived (somewhat) into the modern age. [[Casual Game]]s are also very score-heavy; you'd be hard-pressed to find a ''[[Bejeweled]]'' or ''[[Peggle]]'' player who ''isn't'' trying to beat their best scores.

About the ''only'' genres where scoring actually was—and still is—relevant to any significant portion of the player base are games with short, replayable levels, most commonly [[Shoot'Em Up]]s and [[Rhythm Game]]s, where beating another's high score or getting a good rank/grade is one of the main points. Then there were the endlessly repeating games where score was the only practical way to measure success: Activision's Atari 2600 games always would have specific guidelines in their manuals for what score you should aim to attain to get their special patches or t-shirts for having become a pro at it if you could send them proof. Pinball is a good example that has survived (somewhat) into the modern age. [[Casual Game]]s are also very score-heavy; you'd be hard-pressed to find a ''[[Bejeweled]]'' or ''[[Peggle]]'' player who ''isn't'' trying to beat their best scores.

Games nowadays use "[[Cosmetic Award|achievements]]". Now ''those'' are [[Serious Business]]. They started with Microsoft's Xbox Live service. All online Xbox owners get an online account, and MS decided to design their system so that accomplishing specific objectives in a game would result in earning an "achievement" that can be viewed on that player's online account, by themselves and other players, even when not playing the game. The idea proved popular, and similar functions were added to the Playstation Network (where they are called "trophies") and Steam. A certain few gamers are hell-bent on getting as many of these as possible, but most understand that anyone can buy a crappy game and get the achievements for it, so for most gamers, it's used to simply compare one's stash of achievements with another, especially across the same game.

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* In the multiplayer mode of ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', you earn points for killing enemies, assisting others with killing, and completing the wave's specific objective. In the first case, you earn more points the more powerful the enemy (killing an [[Boss in Mook Clothing|Atlas]] is far more rewarding than killing a random [[Mook|trooper]]). In the second, you earn more points depending on how much damage you did to the enemy. In the last, the amount of points a player can earn depends on the specific objective in that round. A player can also earn bonus points for certain tasks (''x'' kills, surviving ''x'' waves, ''x'' [[Boom! Headshot!|headshots]], etc.). At the end of the match ([[Total Party Kill|if you get that far]]), all players earn more points depending on the difficulty level of the match, whether you got a full or partial extraction, and whether you played an "Unknown Location" and/or "Unknown Enemy" match. These points do have a purpose: at the end of the match, every player's point total is added up, and that number of [[Experience Points]] is rewarded to their characters. This happens even if your party doesn't make it through to extraction, discouraging [[Rage Quit|rage quitting]].

== [[Shoot Em ~~Ups~~]] ==

== [[Shoot'Em Up]]s ==

* The whole [[Shoot'Em Up]] genre has a lot of fans fixated on getting the highest possible score, to which end they spend hours upon hours of practice improving their reflexes, dodging skills, and game-specific scoring tactics. Sometimes they go a little too far, and "counterstop" the game, which means the in-game score hits a [[Cap]] and literally won't go any higher.

* ''[[Geometry Wars]]'' is entirely about how far can you crank up your score. No less, no more. Actually addictive thanks to its blazing fast pace.

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[[Category:~~Scoring Points~~]]