Well, it's been a week (and for some, a few hours) since firmware 2.4 was released for the PlayStation 3. Of all the sweet new add-ons, what I was really waiting for were the "achievement clones", or Trophies. However, I didn't expect trophies to be more addicting than the Achievements. I still love the achievement system, but from the start, it had it's flaws. For starters, the gaming community is sometimes the worst community on the internet, complaining that some achievements were too hard. I personally have always thought the achievements should be very difficult to get. I mean, they're called achievements for a reason, right? One of my personal favorite achievements is the Quake IV achievements. They're all very hard to obtain, but I feel pretty special when my 300+ is beating out most of the XBox 360 community. But then easy with crappy little no-sale games like this one. So everyone ended up playing games that they'd never intentionally buy because the game sucked, but it had easy achievements. It cheapens the experience. I mean, what's my 25K Gamerscore if almost everyone can get it?

Trophies can follow that same boat, but I'm hoping it ends up being different. The leveling up process is pretty cool, and a good start for me to want to obtain achievements. It's more mental than anything, but it feels like my trophies count for a hill of beans when I notice I've 'dinged' my profile. The other obvious benefit is when PlayStation Home is released and we can step inside our own Trophy Room. As for me, I did what 90% of PS3 owners did. I bought Super Stardust HD and the expansion to get those Trophies, trying out this new system. I love it. It's just like the Achievement system with it's pop-ups, but it feels so much better to see a set of Bronze to Platinum trophies on my profile rather than a meaningless number. The numbers don't really mean the achievement was hard. To get a gold trophy is bliss, but the unknown platinum trophy is going to show who's the gamer gods, and who's just out for leveling up their profiles. By the way, I wish I'd have bought Super Stardust HD before trophies. It's madfun when I'm bored (but not as fun as PixelJunk Monsters co-op)

The downfall? Well, even with the current list of games out there, there's still not enough. I'm hoping game companies wise up to the benefits of patching their older games (as well as future games) to support trophies. Me personally, I'm no longer buying multiplatform games on the Xbox 360. I'm switching over to the PS3. I finally have some real life friends that own one, including Jman, my favorite of favorite cousins. But I'm still hoping that the games that I currently own, including the arcade games, are patched sooner or later. I'd replay Call of Duty 3 and 4 for the Trophies. I'd even replay the most god-awful PS3/X360 game in the world. So please, developers, if you want to cash in on your older games and watch sales shoot through the roof, just patch your old games with Trophies. I have a healthy wallet and I'll gladly slam some bones down for older/newer games with Trophies.

I personally thank Microsoft for introducing such a great feature to the gaming world, and Sony for giving us a reason to now buy multiplatform games on their system. As a multiplatform gamer, I'm glad to see that my PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 all have introduced this system. I hope Nintendo opts to make this apart of a future update, joining the bandwagon of "replay".

-dryvby, level 2 PSN player and too lazy to format (the game was that Avatar game...youtube it).