I'll admit it -- I've always made fun of those XBox 360 owners obsessed with their Achievements and Gamerscores. I just could never understand why anybody in their right mind would play games of dubious entertainment value, purely for the purpose of pumping up their score, or spend hours attempting to achieve some mind-numblingly difficult Achievement just for the sake of being able to one-up their friends.

So it was with this frame of mind that I initially viewed Sony's announcement of the Trophy system for the PS3, with a bit of wariness. Not only was it a gratuitous knock off of Microsoft's system on the 360, it just didn't seem like it was really going to add anything to their games. Sure, it's always fun to show off your accomplishments to friends -- but do I really need to get a little trophy for completing the first level of a game? That's like getting a 'Participant' trophy at a little league baseball game; sure you could show it off, but why would you?

It didn't help that the first game to support the new Trophy system did exactly that; gave you trophies for merely beating each level. Shouldn't that inherently be the goal of the game in the first place? Why congratulate a player for doing what he should have been doing all along? Annoyingly, Super Stardust HD also hit the other end of the Trophy spectrum with a couple Trophies that were so insanely hard that you'd have to spend hours attempting (and failing) to achieve them. Sure, everybody likes a challenge -- but not when they're so hard that they suck the fun out of the game and make you stop playing it, there's something wrong there. A Trophy/Achievement system should add to the game, not hurt it or award you with little backpats for getting an A on your 1st grade spelling test.

So it was with much eagerness that I downloaded the Uncharted Trophy patch earlier today, and I must say -- what a difference a well thought out Trophy accomplishment list can do for both the game and the Trophy system itself. Suddenly, as I was playing through the first half of the game again -- I realized what all those 'crazy' Xbox 360 Achievement obsessed gamers found so attractive to it. There was this addictive pull to getting 'just one more' Trophy as I eagerly searched around each level looking for all the treasure, perfected my hand-to-hand combat, and tried to figure out the best way to blow three people up at once. Knowing that I could actually show off my accomplishments to my friends (and enemies) online actually made the game more fun.

It still seems unlikely that I'll ever stoop to the level of playing horrible games just to get more Trophies and get that ever elusive Platinum Trophy, but I finally have started to understand the attraction of the Trophy/Achievement system. When well thought out and well implemented, the Trophy system really does add something to the game. Here's hoping that more developers take after Naughty Dog's philosophy and continue to implement Trophy systems that reward players for truly experiencing a game in all its glory. Now excuse me, I must go back to Uncharted and hunt for more Trophies while I ponder the magic of the half-tuck.