The End Times: Achievements For Minesweeper

Until today, I've been of the opinion that anyone proclaiming the Mayan apocalypse will strike in 2012 was a half-witted knobhead, but now I too have the incontrovertible proof of impending doom for all humanity.

Windows 8 is odious for many reasons - specifically because it's an inept mangling-together of three different interfaces, a disturbing attempt to turn the PC into a walled garden and it stealths a shopping channel into the heart of the OS - but hearing that PC game stalwarts Minesweeper, Solitaire and Majong will be re-released and infected with Achievements as part of it drove to me true despair. All hope is lost. The Earth will burn.

'Xbox Windows' is a title Microsoft's hoping we'll see a lot more of, as it tries to mash its two most famous brands into one in the hoping of direct-selling games on Windows 8 PCs and tablets. Under this new banner come Win, Minesweeper becomes the Metro-styled Microsoft Minesweeper and offers Achievements and Gamerscore points for such highly tactical endeavours as losing the game. Solitaire and Majong (that latter admittedly not much of a PC staple) will similar treatment, report the strange scientists on Xbox360Achievements.org.

It is the modern age. Such things are unavoidable. I am simply a grumpy old man, I realise this. But I do agree with the prevailing industry fear that Windows 8 is an attempt to restrict the freedom of the PC, and stuff like this only cements my ill-feeling about Microsoft's upcoming OS refresh.