If anyone were to peek into my life right now—or peek through my window enough times—they'd see a very boring person. For the past few days, I have been sat at my desk, watching as Forza 3 plays itself.
At first I thought that this behaviour highlighted a real problem with the game—and I was right—but Forza 3 isn't alone in including an absurd element of endurance. The absurdity in question? 770 races. Some of which last for an hour. At least you have the option to complete it passively, I suppose.
Which is more than can be said for FIFA 11, which requires that you play 500 games of football with your Virtual Pro, 100 head to head ranked matches, and 50 matches for the same online pro club. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 insists too that you kill 1000 online adversaries in front of six players—which still doesn't get you anywhere near Elite status.
It's no surprise that many of the aforementioned achievements are the subject of less-than-honest tutorials that have received hundreds of thousands of views.
Why is this necessary? If a game is anything other than mediocre it shouldn't need to extend itself so ungracefully. Indeed, endurance achievements seem to be a confession that a title can not keep your attention without the use of cheap tricks.