Just bought cars as I felt like it... Bit like a fat girl at a buffet.
Only used about 200 of the cars I've bought (Got about 1300 I guess) after patching the game the little you have not got this one marker is like a mole that needs to get malleted.
- What are the point of the tropheys in the game anyhow? human stopwatch and the like... Just a virtual carrot to dangle for low attention span gamers? Or do they have a more subtle meaning?
Achievements / trophies are a sort of "requirement" in modern games. Done well, they're there as "badges of honour" for impressive feats of skill, patience, cunning, or just time spent - at a higher level, they actually influence your "gamer score" or whatever the equivalent on the PS3 is, that sort of sums your achievements across every game you've played, and is really just a measure of how many games you've played. Basic bragging rights, really, or just self-satisfaction.
The very best achievements are usually borderline glitch-like, tongue in cheek etc. (e.g. the
gnome one in HL2:Ep2) and the very worst are along the lines of "you inserted the game disc into console, you rock" or "yay, you pressed a button!". See "
Achievement Unlocked" for a fun(ny), interactive satire (although, it actually does have some "good" achievements, too.)
Generally, they're there as another way to play the game, and cynically, as a way to hold your attention, yes. They are entirely arbitrary, really, since you cannot ever reward every possible "feat" in a game, so you have to wonder if it promotes imaginative ways of playing, or potentially stifles it.
With regards to the 1000 car trophy in GT5, it might have been better to actually just
play the game and you will eventually accrue 1000 cars just buy scouring the UCD for interesting stuff. That's the fun way to do it, in my opinion. You could argue the trophy serves to promote the UCD, as some people went into the game with the mindset of ignoring the Standards, which is a shame, as there are a lot of gems.
