When I first bought my Xbox 360 in the summer of 2007, I wasn't all that interested in the Achievements that could be unlocked from playing games and 'achieving' a certain preset target. It hadn't been something that I'd paid much attention to prior to my purchase and, as I was unable to hook up to Xbox Live until early 2009 (*waves fist at BT's inadequate broadband provision*), comparisons with XBLA friends was not an issue either. Consequently, the achievement 'hauls' of the first few games that I played through to completion - Crackdown 2, Bioshock, Battle for Middle Earth 2 - were quite paltry in comparison to games that I played later on. I did not bother to check what Achievements those games had and paid little attention to those that I had achieved.
This attitude continued until at least my first 360 bought the farm, around Easter 2008. After Microsoft replaced my 360, crafted, like the last, with a heat sink carved from the purest Belgian chocolate (destined to last for nearly two years - way to go MS), I began to pay more attention to the Achievements (or 'cheevos') available in games. This slow process picked up after BT finally deigned to provide barely-adequate broadband to my street ('customers, welcome to the late 20th Century with our 'up to 2MB' broadband', I think their sales literature went) at the beginning of 2009. Although, I didn't - and still don't - play much online, I became more aware that there was a large community, with each member having a gamerscore totalling their Achievements and, with a certain school-playground-competitiveness, took to consciously trying to build my gamerscore (as I believe I've mentioned in earlier posts).
Whereas initially I'd played games as and how I wanted, taking the Achievements as and when they appeared, over time this shifted to encompass looking through the list of Achievements and changing the way I played solely in order to unlock them.
My attitude began to shift with the brilliant Assassin's Creed II, which I received for Christmas last year. It is quite free and easy with its Achievements and, in the latter stages of the 43 hours that Raptr says I'd spent on the game, I began to realise that I could, for the first time, 'max' out a game - get all of the 1000 points available (I had around 900). I had a look at the 'missing' Achievements and one that stuck out for me was for collecting every feather found in the game (Renaissance Italy was, apparently, strewn with white feathers left in inaccessible places). Collecting all of the feathers would have been an extremely boring and repetitive process. I play games for fun; I go to work for 'extremely boring'. I saw no reason why I should 'work' for Microsoft, Ubisoft or my gamerscore in my free time.
This attitudinal change continued over the subsequent months and reached a head with the sublime Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar games are very frugal with their distribution of Achievements - I was a third of the way through GTAIV before I gave up in frustration at the lack of checkpoints, yet had under 100 gamerpoints - which I don't have a problem with (they really are Achievements). RDR was no different and, having put over 20 hours into the game, I still had under 200 points-worth of Achievements from it. I had a look at those that I didn't have and considered actively seeking them out, or in changing the way I was playing the game - favouring a certain weapon, or only aiming for headshots for example - and I checked myself. I was really enjoying the game - one of the best this year and easily my favourite Rockstar game - and I didn't want to deliberately play it in a less enjoyable way, simply to boost a featureless number attached to my gamercard. At the time of writing I have 415 gamerpoints from RDR (in 39 hours of gameplay), all of which were obtained 'enjoyably'. I'd like to think (and this is certainly my intention) that I will try to avoid 'working' (rather than 'playing') to build my gamerscore in future games too.
The only exceptions to this new policy are Avatar Awards - items for your Xbox Live avatar, won in game. I think I will still actively seek these out, probably as they provide a tangible (albeit virtual) reward for in-game success, rather than simply adding to an impersonal score - I feel I actually am being rewarded for achieving something.
I've by no means become anti Achievements over the last few months - when one pops up, I always check to see what I got it for and I still compare those that I've received to those that friends have received on the Raptr site. Last night (technically early this morning) I unlocked 5 Achievements at once (a record for me) on Red Dead Redemption multiplayer and that was enjoyable (but I was only expecting one, or possibly two, as I hadn't checked the list beforehand). I'm still attracted to the idea of Achievements generally - I'd sooner that they were there than not - but I will no longer undertake laborious in-game task for the sole purpose of unlocking an Achievement.
Unless it unlocks a funny hat for my Avatar...
Showing posts with label Assassin's Creed II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assassin's Creed II. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Monday, 15 February 2010
The Climb
I started playing Uncharted 2 over the weekend. I'd received it, along with Assassin's Creed II, for Christmas but I'd not had a chance to open it before now, as I was playing through ACII. I'm about a quarter of the way through the game and I'm really enjoying it. As with the first game, the story and the voice acting (does Nolan North ever say no?) are spot on and it is probably the best looking game that I've ever played.
However, after 30 hours of ACII, I found the lack of freedom in my climbing quite jarring. I'd been used to having Ezio climb all over the buildings of Renaissance Italy with impunity but found that Nathan Drake was very picky about which bits of scenery he was prepared to shimmy up. A few times over the weekend I couldn't work out which way to go and I used the 'hint' button, to hear Nate say stuff along the lines of "I reckon I can climb up that signpost". To which my reply was "well, what's so wrong with that nearby wall that you'd want to climb a rickety, free-standing lamppost?".
I think, to a certain extent, this difference is explained by the environment being somewhere that the gameplay takes place in ACII, whereas in Uncharted 2 the environment is part of the gameplay. In ACII there were a couple of areas where planning your route was challenging but, on the whole, Ezio's free-running was quite straightforward (though never a chore). In Uncharted 2, pathfinding is a big part of the game and there are 'right' paths that you have to follow. Sometimes this 'corridor' effect is well-hidden - the opening 'train wreck' level did this excellently - but sometimes less so, as in the jungle levels. Logically a jungle should be a playground of climbing opportunities but that wasn't what I felt when playing them.
This isn't a criticism of Uncharted 2 - it is a great game and the combat is particularly enjoyable - but it does seem a backward step for games that Drake can't leap up to what seem perfectly good handholds on ruined buildings.
However, after 30 hours of ACII, I found the lack of freedom in my climbing quite jarring. I'd been used to having Ezio climb all over the buildings of Renaissance Italy with impunity but found that Nathan Drake was very picky about which bits of scenery he was prepared to shimmy up. A few times over the weekend I couldn't work out which way to go and I used the 'hint' button, to hear Nate say stuff along the lines of "I reckon I can climb up that signpost". To which my reply was "well, what's so wrong with that nearby wall that you'd want to climb a rickety, free-standing lamppost?".
I think, to a certain extent, this difference is explained by the environment being somewhere that the gameplay takes place in ACII, whereas in Uncharted 2 the environment is part of the gameplay. In ACII there were a couple of areas where planning your route was challenging but, on the whole, Ezio's free-running was quite straightforward (though never a chore). In Uncharted 2, pathfinding is a big part of the game and there are 'right' paths that you have to follow. Sometimes this 'corridor' effect is well-hidden - the opening 'train wreck' level did this excellently - but sometimes less so, as in the jungle levels. Logically a jungle should be a playground of climbing opportunities but that wasn't what I felt when playing them.
This isn't a criticism of Uncharted 2 - it is a great game and the combat is particularly enjoyable - but it does seem a backward step for games that Drake can't leap up to what seem perfectly good handholds on ruined buildings.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Strange Behaviour in Venizia
After a brief flirtation with FIFA 10 last weekend, I returned to Assassin's Creed II today (I had the day off work). I'm currently plying my murderous trade in Venice, probably the largest of the cities in the game. Venice is a fair way through the adventure and I'm beginning to wonder if the playtesting was frontloaded into the opening areas. I was wandering around Venice this afternoon, between assassinations and I came across a small group of Venitians all standing at a 45 degree angle from the floor. They were staring intently at a small patch of wall, murmuring to themselves (and I thought it was the assassin sect that were so named for their consumption of hashish). I stood Ezio in front of them (obscuring at least one) and took the picture below.
Earlier on (no photo this time), I had been swimming in the lagoon (a death sport, if ever there was one, be it in the Renaisance or now) and a gondola rammed me. The gondolier fell into the water but the gondola itself passed through Ezio, leaving him (me/Desmond) lodged inside the body of the boat. All that could be seen above water was the top of Ezio's hoodie. After much flailing around, attempted dives, high/low profile switches, I had to give up and quit the game.
Fortunately, the game had saved a couple of minutes before, so I didn't lose much progress but I hate any bug that forces me to quit a game (talk about breaking the illusion).
I didn't have any similar problems in the first 24 hours or so that I'd been playing the game. I do wonder if developers think that, as only maybe half of gamers get to the latter stages of a game, they can cut corners on bugfixing in that area, particularly if they are struggling to meet deadlines ahead of release.
This shouldn't put anyone off though - even with little niggles like this, ACII was one of the best games released last year.
Earlier on (no photo this time), I had been swimming in the lagoon (a death sport, if ever there was one, be it in the Renaisance or now) and a gondola rammed me. The gondolier fell into the water but the gondola itself passed through Ezio, leaving him (me/Desmond) lodged inside the body of the boat. All that could be seen above water was the top of Ezio's hoodie. After much flailing around, attempted dives, high/low profile switches, I had to give up and quit the game.
Fortunately, the game had saved a couple of minutes before, so I didn't lose much progress but I hate any bug that forces me to quit a game (talk about breaking the illusion).
I didn't have any similar problems in the first 24 hours or so that I'd been playing the game. I do wonder if developers think that, as only maybe half of gamers get to the latter stages of a game, they can cut corners on bugfixing in that area, particularly if they are struggling to meet deadlines ahead of release.
This shouldn't put anyone off though - even with little niggles like this, ACII was one of the best games released last year.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
The (many) ways in which Assassin's Creed II is better than the original
As I posted previously, I received Assassin's Creed II (AC2) for Christmas and I had intended to write about my first impressions of it but, as I've played over twenty hours to date, it seems a little late for that. I reckon I'm only just over halfway through the story, so this isn't a full review (which may - or may not, to be honest - come later) either. Rather, this is a comparison with the first game, which was also a Christmas present from a couple of years ago (what is it about Christmas that makes me want to assassinate people?).
I will say at the outset that AC2 is better than the original in pretty much every way. While I enjoyed the first game, I had the feeling that it had been a little rushed, probably in order to hit the Christmas market and that it did not live up to the pre-release hype that Ubisoft had generated for it. AC had looked and sounded like it was going to be a benchmark in gaming but in the end turned out to be a better than average (and therefore disappointing) action adventure game.
This time around -
There's more to do
In the first game, just like in Celebrity Big Brother, you could experience all it had to offer in the first hour. After that it was just repetition of those same experiences. Now, those experiences included killing people with a hidden blade in your wrist guard and jumping off tall buildings, so it wasn't unpleasant repetition but still..... Anyway, AC2 has many different types of side missions to keep you occupied when you want to veer away from slavishly following the story.
There's less Desmond
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the central conceit of the AC games is that there are a couple of secret societies that have battled each other for hundreds of years. The player's experience of Altair/Ezio (the main character in the first and second games, respectively) is actually via a present-day member (Desmond) of one of those societies (and descendant of those individuals, I think - sometimes I drift off when being told the plot through cut scenes) replaying Altair/Ezio's 'memories' using some sort of pseudo-tech time psycho-time-travel device. At regular intervals during the first game you'd be transported back from Outremer to take control of Desmond instead. Desmond wasn't in the least bit interesting and there wasn't really much you could do with him, other than wander aimlessly around a couple of rooms, be told the plot by the NPCs present in those rooms, completely fail to use the toilet or shower (and believe me, I tried) and eventually be transported back to the 'proper' part of the game.
This time around, after the initial scene-setting Desmond-age, he is mercifully absent for much of the game. I next took control of him after I'd played nearly twenty hours and that was just about bearable. Admittedly, I'd been faffing around with the side missions a hell of a lot (treasure map + treasure chests + my collecting OCD = twenty hours to get to halfway) but even if you'd raced through the story, you probably wouldn't get too fed up with Des.
Personally, I'd be happy if there was no present day aspect of the games at all and Desmond was just a discarded idea from the development process, nestling in Ubisoft's waste basket alongside giving Ezio a jetbike, or turning him into a rentboy (Ass Assassin's Creed, if you will. Ahem). Being able to play as an assassin in Outremer or Renaissance Italy would have made for fine games on their own, without the science fiction trappings.
There's more internal logic
In the first game, when running away from guards, you could only blend in with the crowd if walking with a group of monks - normal city folk obviously becoming transparent when you are in amongst them. AC2 remedies that - you can now blend in with any group of 3/4 or more people wandering through the streets. This is just one example, there are plenty of others - the cities that Ubisoft has created seem more 'real' in how their inhabitants behave and how you can interact with them.
The platforming is more difficult
The free running of Altair looked fantastic but was actually very easy to achieve - pull the left stick in one direction while pressing a button. There is still an element of that in AC2 but you need to give far more thought to your pathfinding up the side of a building; this makes for far more rewarding gameplay. There are also several sections (no spoilers) that are actually straight indoor 3D platform sections, like Prince of Persia (particularly Sands of Time). These can be quite tricky and are a welcome break from the majority of the game, which is set outdoors.
There are more weapons
The first game had a limited number of weapons. In AC2, as the game develops, Ezio becomes more tooled up than than a Basildon chav on Saturday night. Special mention goes to the use of poison and your ability to use it to create 'Georgi Markov' moments.
More familiar surroundings
A selfish one, this. I've never been to Jerusalem or Acre; I have been to Florence and Venice. I like playing games set in 'real' places (although none of the settings are carbon copies of an actual city) that I have visited. I liked PGR (even though I was really bad at it) because I could zoom through the streets of central London where I work, thinking things like 'Ooh, that's Horse Guards Road', as I span out and the opposing cars flashed passed me.
and
They haven't thrown out the good stuff
Unlike some sequels (Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, I'm looking at you), the developers haven't discarded the good parts of an original game in their desire to make the sequel different. The central idea of being an assassin and killing folk is interesting and that is maintained. As in the first game, the graphical style is very impressive and they've also kept climbing towers to better ascertain your surroundings; jumping from high places into haystacks and the hidden blade weapon, all of which were great in the original.
Hopefully, I'll complete the game in the next couple of weeks and then be able to post a full review.
I will say at the outset that AC2 is better than the original in pretty much every way. While I enjoyed the first game, I had the feeling that it had been a little rushed, probably in order to hit the Christmas market and that it did not live up to the pre-release hype that Ubisoft had generated for it. AC had looked and sounded like it was going to be a benchmark in gaming but in the end turned out to be a better than average (and therefore disappointing) action adventure game.
This time around -
There's more to do
In the first game, just like in Celebrity Big Brother, you could experience all it had to offer in the first hour. After that it was just repetition of those same experiences. Now, those experiences included killing people with a hidden blade in your wrist guard and jumping off tall buildings, so it wasn't unpleasant repetition but still..... Anyway, AC2 has many different types of side missions to keep you occupied when you want to veer away from slavishly following the story.
There's less Desmond
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the central conceit of the AC games is that there are a couple of secret societies that have battled each other for hundreds of years. The player's experience of Altair/Ezio (the main character in the first and second games, respectively) is actually via a present-day member (Desmond) of one of those societies (and descendant of those individuals, I think - sometimes I drift off when being told the plot through cut scenes) replaying Altair/Ezio's 'memories' using some sort of pseudo-tech time psycho-time-travel device. At regular intervals during the first game you'd be transported back from Outremer to take control of Desmond instead. Desmond wasn't in the least bit interesting and there wasn't really much you could do with him, other than wander aimlessly around a couple of rooms, be told the plot by the NPCs present in those rooms, completely fail to use the toilet or shower (and believe me, I tried) and eventually be transported back to the 'proper' part of the game.
This time around, after the initial scene-setting Desmond-age, he is mercifully absent for much of the game. I next took control of him after I'd played nearly twenty hours and that was just about bearable. Admittedly, I'd been faffing around with the side missions a hell of a lot (treasure map + treasure chests + my collecting OCD = twenty hours to get to halfway) but even if you'd raced through the story, you probably wouldn't get too fed up with Des.
Personally, I'd be happy if there was no present day aspect of the games at all and Desmond was just a discarded idea from the development process, nestling in Ubisoft's waste basket alongside giving Ezio a jetbike, or turning him into a rentboy (Ass Assassin's Creed, if you will. Ahem). Being able to play as an assassin in Outremer or Renaissance Italy would have made for fine games on their own, without the science fiction trappings.
There's more internal logic
In the first game, when running away from guards, you could only blend in with the crowd if walking with a group of monks - normal city folk obviously becoming transparent when you are in amongst them. AC2 remedies that - you can now blend in with any group of 3/4 or more people wandering through the streets. This is just one example, there are plenty of others - the cities that Ubisoft has created seem more 'real' in how their inhabitants behave and how you can interact with them.
The platforming is more difficult
The free running of Altair looked fantastic but was actually very easy to achieve - pull the left stick in one direction while pressing a button. There is still an element of that in AC2 but you need to give far more thought to your pathfinding up the side of a building; this makes for far more rewarding gameplay. There are also several sections (no spoilers) that are actually straight indoor 3D platform sections, like Prince of Persia (particularly Sands of Time). These can be quite tricky and are a welcome break from the majority of the game, which is set outdoors.
There are more weapons
The first game had a limited number of weapons. In AC2, as the game develops, Ezio becomes more tooled up than than a Basildon chav on Saturday night. Special mention goes to the use of poison and your ability to use it to create 'Georgi Markov' moments.
More familiar surroundings
A selfish one, this. I've never been to Jerusalem or Acre; I have been to Florence and Venice. I like playing games set in 'real' places (although none of the settings are carbon copies of an actual city) that I have visited. I liked PGR (even though I was really bad at it) because I could zoom through the streets of central London where I work, thinking things like 'Ooh, that's Horse Guards Road', as I span out and the opposing cars flashed passed me.
and
They haven't thrown out the good stuff
Unlike some sequels (Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, I'm looking at you), the developers haven't discarded the good parts of an original game in their desire to make the sequel different. The central idea of being an assassin and killing folk is interesting and that is maintained. As in the first game, the graphical style is very impressive and they've also kept climbing towers to better ascertain your surroundings; jumping from high places into haystacks and the hidden blade weapon, all of which were great in the original.
Hopefully, I'll complete the game in the next couple of weeks and then be able to post a full review.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Christmas Presents!
Well, I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas. Father Christmas (videogame division) was generous to me this year, though I had been very good. I received Assassin's Creed II on 360 and Professor Layton and Pandora's Box on DS from my lovely wife (ha - I know she reads this) and Uncharted 2 on PS3 from my smelly brother (I know he doesn't).
Getting a videogame for Christmas has been a a regular part of the festivities for me since the mid-eighties. I particularly remember getting Knight Lore in 1984 or 1985. I knew (before Christmas) where my Mum had hidden it (as yet unwrapped) and, most weeknights when my stepfather went out to pick my Mum up from work, I would sneak it out from its hiding place, load it up and have a pre-Christmas sample of Ultimate's finest, making sure to turn it off as I heard our car approach. Of course, whether my Mum would have recognised the Christmas present game had I left it playing after her return is an interesting point. She might have had an inkling on Christmas morning though, when my 'new' game looked suspiciously like the one I'd been playing (weeknights only - no weekend illicit gaming opportunities presented themselves) for the previous few weeks.....
I've only scratched the surface of ACII so far but it is shaping up to be an excellent game (when I've played it some more, I will post on it). I haven't sampled the other two yet but I am sure (or as sure as you can be by relying on reviews) that they will both be great too.
I'll make a rare non-videogaming comment and mention getting one of Lisa Snelling's Poppets for Christmas as well (second on the left, reading a copy of Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Book'). Cool.
EDIT - Since I first started drafting this 'Christmas present' post, my Mum, mentioned above, has died from cancer. Shit. She (and my stepfather, also now fighting cancer) purchased my first gaming platform, the ZX Spectrum, back in 1983, starting a hobby that has given me countless hours of enjoyment over the last quarter of a century. This is one of the many, many things that I have to be thankful to her for and the world is a worse place without her.
To quote from Dylan Thomas, 'Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' The rest of the poem is available here and is well worth a read.
Normal service - and my membership of other virtual spaces - will be resumed soon.
To quote from Dylan Thomas, 'Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' The rest of the poem is available here and is well worth a read.
Normal service - and my membership of other virtual spaces - will be resumed soon.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
How much? No, really, please tell me
As I've mentioned before, supermarkets have taken to giving new release games super discounts in the first week of sale, often bringing the sale price below their cost price. As major (read: hyped) releases sell an enormous amount of copies in that first week (Modern Warfare 2 sold more than one MILLION copies in the UK on its first day alone), supermarkets can drastically increase their customer footfall by doing this. The 'losses' on the games are recouped by the profits on the other puchases made by gamers when in store and everyone's happy.
Except the specialist game retailers.
Left 4 Dead 2 is out this Friday, 20 November (as is Assassin's Creed II). I've pre-ordered through Game and popped in yesterday to see what the retail price will be but the sales assistant said that he didn't know yet. Last weekend, Gamestation told me that they would not know the instore sale price until the afternoon of Thursday 19th but that it would be between £38-£50 (thanks guys).
I don't know if this is standard practice, though I do remember knowing the Fable II price, for which I had similarly pre-ordered, well before release. I think that it may be the case that specialist retailers are being more cagey. If a new game is going to be what I will term 'price bombed' by a supermarket, it doesn't matter what the specialist retailer sells it at, as they can never price match. They could, in fact, add another £5 on their normal new release price (say £45 instead of £40), for as long as supermarkets are price bombing, with little effect on their sales. I think Left 4 Dead 2 (and probably Assassin's Creed II) is too much of a niche title to rouse the supermarkets to this type of behaviour but you can understand the specialist retailers' circumspection.
The market is clearly not working here but I'm not sure how it can be resolved - supermarkets will try to make money, gamers will try to save it and specialist retailers will be left in the middle. A download-only future would end this but, in that event, all of those parties will lose out.
Except the specialist game retailers.
Left 4 Dead 2 is out this Friday, 20 November (as is Assassin's Creed II). I've pre-ordered through Game and popped in yesterday to see what the retail price will be but the sales assistant said that he didn't know yet. Last weekend, Gamestation told me that they would not know the instore sale price until the afternoon of Thursday 19th but that it would be between £38-£50 (thanks guys).
I don't know if this is standard practice, though I do remember knowing the Fable II price, for which I had similarly pre-ordered, well before release. I think that it may be the case that specialist retailers are being more cagey. If a new game is going to be what I will term 'price bombed' by a supermarket, it doesn't matter what the specialist retailer sells it at, as they can never price match. They could, in fact, add another £5 on their normal new release price (say £45 instead of £40), for as long as supermarkets are price bombing, with little effect on their sales. I think Left 4 Dead 2 (and probably Assassin's Creed II) is too much of a niche title to rouse the supermarkets to this type of behaviour but you can understand the specialist retailers' circumspection.
The market is clearly not working here but I'm not sure how it can be resolved - supermarkets will try to make money, gamers will try to save it and specialist retailers will be left in the middle. A download-only future would end this but, in that event, all of those parties will lose out.
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