Post by Pex on Aug 8, 2013 12:49:54 GMT
Well, recently in another thread I explained that I'm too busy playing Assassin's Creed II Brotherhood to do much else on the computer. As it happens, I finished the game the other day. Not only it gave me time to start a thread here, but it also inspired me to choose the topic. The Assassin's Creed series are one of the rare games that I played from the beginning to the end in one go, not having a break to play something else or just giving up on computer games in general for a few weeks then getting back to it. Nothing like that - instead I would buy a game from the series (and so far I plaid AC I, AC II, AC II Revelations and AC II Brotherhood) and play it any chance I get until I finished it, including all sub missions. So, I wondered why? Why do you love these games so much compared to the others?
My first thought was that they were really cool - I mean, you are an assassin, you can do all these moves, jumps, different types of assassinations, combo killes, killing streaks and such, you can complete a mission by sneaking, killing only your main target or you can barge though the front door and kill everyone in the building. You can use all different weapons. You can do a 'leap of faith'. But, other games are cool too, if not in a same way and allow you to do other cool things that you can't do in these games. So that wasn't the answer.
The next obvious choice was the story and the truth is that the story in the AC series is really good. You are in the present time (or slightly futuristic) but you use this machine to access the memories of your ancestors that were (surprise surprise) assassins. Then you travel to all these wonderful places (medieval Middle East in AC I or Renaissance Italy or Constantinople in AC II) encounter historical characters (and sometimes kill them) and uncover mysteries. At the same time, the story in the present time has its own plot. So yes, very good story, but after the first AC, you already get an idea of what's going to happen - there may be twists and turns, but you know you will end up assassinating the main villain in the end. There are other games with equally exciting (or even more exciting) stories. So, it wasn't the story either.
Graphics? They are superb and you get to experience walking through all those places I've mentioned before and experience what they looked like in the past (or at least what the game developers believed those places looked in the past). Medieval Jerusalem was great, but after playing AC II Brotherhood based in the renaissance Rome I told Belinda that we need to plan to go to Italy soon But all modern games offer superb graphics and many have beautiful locations to visit. So it wasn't the graphics either.
Than it hit me. Instead of thinking why I kept playing AC games until I finished them, I should think why I didn't do it with the other games. And the answer became obvious. The games in AC series are created so that you enjoy playing them without making them too hard to finish or the gameplay getting too repetitive or just taking too much time to finish a mission to the point of making me wanna have a break from the game. You can't die, well you can, but that just mean the game getting you back to the last checkpoint. If you fail the mission, you just try it again. Don't get me wrong, some missions do get challenging, but not to the point where playing gets frustrating. And in AC II, the extra challenge is added by creating a sub objective in the mission (like don't lose any hit points or finish the mission within 8min, or kill only the main target, or don't use any ranged weapons). So if you want to challenge yourself, try to achieve the side objective, but if you don't, you can still finish the mission and continue with the story. Then you can replay the mission later if you want to do the side quest. Next thing I like is the game balance, which is very good, so the missions get more harder the more you progress, but you get access to better weapons and equipment, additional moves, more hit points or some other options (like summoning other assassins to assist you). And finally (though this could be only me) you can't save the game - it saves automatically when you reach a checkpoint, by either performing an action or reaching a location. For an obsessive game saver like me, this enhances the experience because I don't have to go to the game menu every 5 sec to save it and ruin the play. Trust me, if there was a save game option, I'd be doing this "move 5m without being detected - save; kill a guard - save; climb over the wall and reach the door - save before entering." Yeah, I'm afraid I'm like that, but with the option taken away from me, I can play without interrupting myself and enjoy it.
I will now compare the AC series here to some other games I played and gave up on or had long breaks (sometimes months or years) before going back to play and finish them.
Heroes of Might and Magic V and VI - great games, great graphics, not a bad story, nice side quests, but after a while no matter what the main goal in a mission is, it becomes repetitive - build an army, break the enemy's main force (usually one main battle in the mission) then keep doing side quests and killing creatures on the map to reach experience cap for the mission, since you can transfer one or more heroes to the next mission. In both of these games (and their predecessors too), I play a few campaigns, then give them a break for a while, then go back to them.
Fantasy Wars - Another great game, but tends to get too challenging. Although you can finish every mission relatively easy, trying to achieve a gold victory (better rewards after the mission) or preserve your best troops (since you can progress them into the next mission of the campaign), gets too hard to the point that it becomes really frustrating. Your success can depend on AI fluke, rather than your strategy - like instead of finishing off your main hero and make you lose the mission that way, they attack some other irrelevant unit in that turn.
Warhammer: The Mark of Chaos - similarly to the previous one, you would want to keep your troops alive through the mission, so they get experience and you will need them for the next mission in the campaign. A factor that adds annoyance to this game is that unlike the previous two it's a real time action, not turn based. So, while you are about to win a very tough mission since you already killed the main threats in the enemy army and all you need to do is secure a couple more objectives, some enemy unit that you thought routed rallies in the last moment on the side of the map that you are not paying attention too and comes and destroys your cannon. Or the same cannon misfires and destroys itself. Unending frustration having to replay the mission (since you can't save the game during it).
Baldur's Gate - no need to introduce this game. Great, revolutionary, everything we waited for. My main hero just died. Oh crap, I forgot to save the game for the last hour (even obsesive game savers forget themselve occassionally when the game gets too exciting). I have to replay it again including that big fight I barely managed to win in the first place. Noooooo
Port Royale - Wow, the start was really great, I "discovered" all these cities and got new ships and experienced captains, built some productions, finished a few cool missions... but now missions get repetitive, I have too many convoys to remember where did I send each one and what should it carry, my production run out of raw materials since I have too many to manage, pirates get too tough - I still defeat them, but then have to repair my convoy for ages and how I'm bloody supposed to reduce population of the enemy city if I'm not allowed to attack it? I bought all their food at ridiculously high prices to cause the famine in there, I tried bringing goods from a port that has some plague in it, I'm chasing off trading ships coming in there and still nothing happens.
Mount & Blade - I love this game, so cool, fighting is great, so many different weapons, sieges, siege defences - but now I'm just too strong, my warband is top class, I can't lose a tournament, I can conquer any city or castle I want. Actually, I'm not sure the game has the end and to keep playing it offers no new challenge.
I could continue this list and I'm sure a lot of you can find things you don't like or you find off putting in the games that you generally like and play. But there are that one game or those few games that you really love and can't stop playing till you finish them. And it could be a game from 10 years ago. My question is which game is it (or games)? And what is it about them that you love that other games don't have?
My first thought was that they were really cool - I mean, you are an assassin, you can do all these moves, jumps, different types of assassinations, combo killes, killing streaks and such, you can complete a mission by sneaking, killing only your main target or you can barge though the front door and kill everyone in the building. You can use all different weapons. You can do a 'leap of faith'. But, other games are cool too, if not in a same way and allow you to do other cool things that you can't do in these games. So that wasn't the answer.
The next obvious choice was the story and the truth is that the story in the AC series is really good. You are in the present time (or slightly futuristic) but you use this machine to access the memories of your ancestors that were (surprise surprise) assassins. Then you travel to all these wonderful places (medieval Middle East in AC I or Renaissance Italy or Constantinople in AC II) encounter historical characters (and sometimes kill them) and uncover mysteries. At the same time, the story in the present time has its own plot. So yes, very good story, but after the first AC, you already get an idea of what's going to happen - there may be twists and turns, but you know you will end up assassinating the main villain in the end. There are other games with equally exciting (or even more exciting) stories. So, it wasn't the story either.
Graphics? They are superb and you get to experience walking through all those places I've mentioned before and experience what they looked like in the past (or at least what the game developers believed those places looked in the past). Medieval Jerusalem was great, but after playing AC II Brotherhood based in the renaissance Rome I told Belinda that we need to plan to go to Italy soon But all modern games offer superb graphics and many have beautiful locations to visit. So it wasn't the graphics either.
Than it hit me. Instead of thinking why I kept playing AC games until I finished them, I should think why I didn't do it with the other games. And the answer became obvious. The games in AC series are created so that you enjoy playing them without making them too hard to finish or the gameplay getting too repetitive or just taking too much time to finish a mission to the point of making me wanna have a break from the game. You can't die, well you can, but that just mean the game getting you back to the last checkpoint. If you fail the mission, you just try it again. Don't get me wrong, some missions do get challenging, but not to the point where playing gets frustrating. And in AC II, the extra challenge is added by creating a sub objective in the mission (like don't lose any hit points or finish the mission within 8min, or kill only the main target, or don't use any ranged weapons). So if you want to challenge yourself, try to achieve the side objective, but if you don't, you can still finish the mission and continue with the story. Then you can replay the mission later if you want to do the side quest. Next thing I like is the game balance, which is very good, so the missions get more harder the more you progress, but you get access to better weapons and equipment, additional moves, more hit points or some other options (like summoning other assassins to assist you). And finally (though this could be only me) you can't save the game - it saves automatically when you reach a checkpoint, by either performing an action or reaching a location. For an obsessive game saver like me, this enhances the experience because I don't have to go to the game menu every 5 sec to save it and ruin the play. Trust me, if there was a save game option, I'd be doing this "move 5m without being detected - save; kill a guard - save; climb over the wall and reach the door - save before entering." Yeah, I'm afraid I'm like that, but with the option taken away from me, I can play without interrupting myself and enjoy it.
I will now compare the AC series here to some other games I played and gave up on or had long breaks (sometimes months or years) before going back to play and finish them.
Heroes of Might and Magic V and VI - great games, great graphics, not a bad story, nice side quests, but after a while no matter what the main goal in a mission is, it becomes repetitive - build an army, break the enemy's main force (usually one main battle in the mission) then keep doing side quests and killing creatures on the map to reach experience cap for the mission, since you can transfer one or more heroes to the next mission. In both of these games (and their predecessors too), I play a few campaigns, then give them a break for a while, then go back to them.
Fantasy Wars - Another great game, but tends to get too challenging. Although you can finish every mission relatively easy, trying to achieve a gold victory (better rewards after the mission) or preserve your best troops (since you can progress them into the next mission of the campaign), gets too hard to the point that it becomes really frustrating. Your success can depend on AI fluke, rather than your strategy - like instead of finishing off your main hero and make you lose the mission that way, they attack some other irrelevant unit in that turn.
Warhammer: The Mark of Chaos - similarly to the previous one, you would want to keep your troops alive through the mission, so they get experience and you will need them for the next mission in the campaign. A factor that adds annoyance to this game is that unlike the previous two it's a real time action, not turn based. So, while you are about to win a very tough mission since you already killed the main threats in the enemy army and all you need to do is secure a couple more objectives, some enemy unit that you thought routed rallies in the last moment on the side of the map that you are not paying attention too and comes and destroys your cannon. Or the same cannon misfires and destroys itself. Unending frustration having to replay the mission (since you can't save the game during it).
Baldur's Gate - no need to introduce this game. Great, revolutionary, everything we waited for. My main hero just died. Oh crap, I forgot to save the game for the last hour (even obsesive game savers forget themselve occassionally when the game gets too exciting). I have to replay it again including that big fight I barely managed to win in the first place. Noooooo
Port Royale - Wow, the start was really great, I "discovered" all these cities and got new ships and experienced captains, built some productions, finished a few cool missions... but now missions get repetitive, I have too many convoys to remember where did I send each one and what should it carry, my production run out of raw materials since I have too many to manage, pirates get too tough - I still defeat them, but then have to repair my convoy for ages and how I'm bloody supposed to reduce population of the enemy city if I'm not allowed to attack it? I bought all their food at ridiculously high prices to cause the famine in there, I tried bringing goods from a port that has some plague in it, I'm chasing off trading ships coming in there and still nothing happens.
Mount & Blade - I love this game, so cool, fighting is great, so many different weapons, sieges, siege defences - but now I'm just too strong, my warband is top class, I can't lose a tournament, I can conquer any city or castle I want. Actually, I'm not sure the game has the end and to keep playing it offers no new challenge.
I could continue this list and I'm sure a lot of you can find things you don't like or you find off putting in the games that you generally like and play. But there are that one game or those few games that you really love and can't stop playing till you finish them. And it could be a game from 10 years ago. My question is which game is it (or games)? And what is it about them that you love that other games don't have?