12.11.07
No news from the Western front
I finished Assassin’s Creed (AC) this weekend, and was tremendously pleased. I’ve heard from many people that it gets repetitive after a bit, but I think my fondness of the combat system and general exploration insulated me from that. It could be because I’m just more tolerant of repetition than the next guy, but I gave up on World of Warcraft relatively quickly because of the mindnumbing nature of the grinding, so I really think it’s just because I enjoyed the combat.
In one particularly cinematic fight, I attacked 5 guards who were harrassing a poor woman. Anybody who’s played AC will recognize that situation because there’s something like 10 of them in each city district in the game. I walked up to one of the guards keeping passers-by away and stabbed him covertly. Before his friend had turned to see what was going on, I jumped on him and stabbed him messily in the throat. The three harrassing guards immediately let go of the woman and attacked me, but I kept my guard up, waiting for the right moment. As the first of them struck, I activated a defensive counter that let me stab him in the foot and then slice upwards to put him out of the fight. Immediately I spun around and attacked the second guard, hitting attack again with perfect timing to activate a counter kill by which I kicked him in the guts, bent him over, and stabbed him in the neck. And just as he went down, I spun around again and threw a knife at the last guard, killing him as well.
That was a particular good fight, but in general I think AC’s combat does a good job of representing the need to know when to hold back and when to strike, like how I imagine a real fight to be. Especially near the end when you’re battling upwards of 30 soldiers at once, you feel pretty damn empowered. Speaking of the end, the conspiracy stuff reeks of Deus Ex / Da Vinci Code and really makes me anticipate the sequel (yay @ trilogy).
The reason I didn’t post about AC before is that I’ve been working on the small paper that constitutes the second half of our AV: Web project that was due yesterday. The site we produced was pretty much a digital university paper about Danish tv-fiction between 1960 and 1980 (plus a bit on either side) and was very well received by our teacher. He was especially pleased with the design, which he called very professional and impressive. As usual I must extend thanks to OiNutter for his invaluable help with the PHP and the more problematic parts of the CSS. And if anybody from the W3C is reading this, please get around to implementing float: center! PLEASE.
Boserup said,
December 11, 2007 at 18:09
I couldn´t disagree more with you about the AC combat system. I find it incredibly repetitive, and as soon as you learn how to do the counter moves, you will win all battles with ease. Also i´m one of the people who hate the whole idea of just being attacked by ONE soldier at a time. The game creators talk about “realism” and “incredible AI” - but in the real world a with 1 person on one side, and 30 soldiers on the other would result in failure. And theres no way in hell that 30 people would stand around waiting for their turn in the fight. The combat animations might look good, but i feel that the need to make it look good has completely removed the panicked feeling of being completely surrounded and outnumbered. In AC you can relax cause you know that as long as you time your counter attack fairly well, you will win - no matter how many soldiers are around you (they will only attack one at a time anyway). Actually one of the few ways you can actually end up dead in this game is by getting a cramp in your fingers while timing your counters….that will kill you…but offcourse, who cares about getting killed in AC. You just respawn anyway…
Jonas said,
December 11, 2007 at 20:54
I think the reason we disagree is because I never really play games for the challenge, I play them for the story, the atmosphere, and the shameless escapism. Assassin’s Creed does a great job of making me feel awesome while I’m fighting 30 soldiers, whereas if I got hammered into a bloody pulp any time I took on more than 5 soldiers, I would end up completely avoiding combat - and then what you got is Thief 4. Nothing wrong with Thief, but it’s just a completely different game.
I had a really good time with Assassin’s Creed. And I did manage to get beat up a few times, even towards the end when I did know how to time my counters. Maybe you need to go for some combo kills once in a while, that actually makes the game a bit more challenging because they can be pretty hard to time and if you don’t get them within a few strikes you’re usually either beat back or attacked from behind by one of the other soldiers
Smike said,
December 12, 2007 at 08:45
OMG DANISH!
Jonas said,
December 12, 2007 at 10:39
Yes I’ll admit the website is in Danish.
Smike said,
December 12, 2007 at 11:43
NO YOU WILL NOT ADMIT THAT!!!
Jonas said,
December 12, 2007 at 11:53
You’re right, I won’t. Psyche!
Smike said,
December 12, 2007 at 17:05
Oh yes you will! * shakes fist *
Smike said,
December 14, 2007 at 23:10
YOU ASSS!! YOU TOTALLY, FULLY, WHOLLY AND COMPLETELY INEXCUSABLY-UNABLE-TO-BE-EXCUSED ASS!!!
Smike said,
December 14, 2007 at 23:13
HOW DARE YOU GET ON THAT PLANE?!? You will come back here and present me with the full amount of respect that The Most Honorable Mr. Yippykins deserves! Even though he is dead! His legacy must be respected.
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 14:27
Aw man, who broke Smike?
Smike said,
December 15, 2007 at 17:41
Actually I do have one reasonable comment on the topic:
My dad briefly forayed into gaming when I was living with him, back when Diablo and Quake were the rage. His observation - a very acute and keen observation that holds quite true about gaming in general - was that with the easier difficulty levels, it was basically a feel-good machine. You’re not really getting anything out of it, it’s more like heroin. With the more difficult games and higher difficulty levels, you’re actually learning and improving in a semi-real way, but you feel like crap until you accomplish a major goal. This is unlike heroin and more like, say, sculpting or golf or writing a paper on why Elves tend to favor green, where as Dwarves just smell awful - those fat ugly bastards. Your reward doesn’t even come at the conclusion of the work, it comes days later when the person reading it comments on your powerful description of Trondheim’s fat ass.
In my opinion - and this was also my dad’s conclusion - it’s the difference between childish immaturity and the mature (if rather boring and often generally depressing) responsibility of being an adult.
In other words, Jonas, you’re a big baby!
Grow a pair, already.
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 17:55
“You’re not really getting anything out of it, it’s more like heroin.”
There is some truth to that, but by and large you couldn’t be more wrong. See, as Tycho has described in several well-written posts at Penny Arcade, there are two types of players. Some play for the challenge, others to “see it all”.
The former is not quite like sculpting or writing a paper - since you aren’t creating anything, that would be more like modding the game or making your own stand-alone game, which is obviously my cup of tea - but more like playing golf or any other sport or solving the daily Sudoku in the newspaper.
The latter is not like heroin (since it’s neither damaging to your body or your psyche nor physically addicting) but more like tourism or reading or watching a film - of course with the added interactivity and what have you. Saying that playing a game on Easy difficulty is immature is like saying that reading a book in your native tongue is immature because there is no challenge.
Finally, as I mentioned above, Assassin’s Creed did manage to challenge me a few times throughout the game, but it was never more difficult than I could beat it in 3 or 4 attempts. Generally, I like to adjust the difficulty depending on how hard a time the game is giving me, and I tend to lower the difficulty or even employ cheats (though as an anecdote I very rarely cheat these days). When I played Jade Empire, for example, I tended to lower the difficulty from medium to easy during the boss-fights when I had died twice. I think it’s problematic that there is no difficulty setting in Assassin’s Creed (that I found, at least), but luckily for me the game was balanced quite well for me.
In other words, Smike, STFU.
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 17:57
Perhaps your dad would have seen things differently if he hadn’t played two games with only a minimum of story in them. Quake and Diablo? Whoop-de-fuckin’-do.
Smike said,
December 15, 2007 at 20:21
What is it with you and your web log? You are totally incapable of having any kind of serious discussion on here. I say the same things here as elsewhere, but only HERE do you get defensive - and just plain weird… (continued off-site where you won’t be Mr. Hyde)
I think I must be right, web logs are bad for everyone!
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 20:43
If you don’t want me to be defensive, try not to be so aggressive.
And if you want serious discussion, try not calling me a big baby
Smike said,
December 15, 2007 at 20:56
IT WAS A JOKE!! OMG! AND HOW WAS I AGGRESSIVE OMG??? The whole tone was as light-hearted as can be, I was smiling the whole time! How do I get more light-hearted than making ridiculous references to Dwarves and Elves and reminiscing anecdotes about my dad??? HOLY CRAP, JONAS!
Stop being such a big baby! * smiley not used because I think they annoy you *
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 21:11
It might have been light-hearted, but you still seemed to mean what you were saying.
In order to facilitate a better tone if this debate is to continue, you could refer to the “immature” play as you call it as “paida” and the “mature” play as “ludos”. Those are the two different types of play: Paida is the free imaginative play of children and ludos is the rules-governed play you know from sports etc.
“Immature” has mostly negative connotations, as I’m sure you know.
Smike said,
December 15, 2007 at 21:31
MMMMmmm… that is unfortunately true, due to the misunderstanding of the meaning of the word by a vast majority of teenage American girls in the 70s and into the 80s, from what I can tell. Not sure how the word came to mean “stupid, dumbass!” But I’m pretty sure it has to do with the fact that teenagers are both immature, childish, AND stupid. You never want to give them control of your language.
In reality, “immature” simply means “not yet matured; inexperienced; not yet cognizant of or concerned with life’s deeper, adult issues.”
Smike said,
December 15, 2007 at 21:37
It’s much different than saying “childish”, which suggests ACTING like a child. Instead, it is the state of not yet BEING an adult. So saying “childish immaturity” is a short way of saying “a child acting exactly as a child should act, and exactly as it is expected to act.”
Jonas said,
December 15, 2007 at 23:03
You can explain it all you want but the fact remains it now also is a rather negatively charged word and you need to be careful when you use it. Clearly I interpreted it differently than you meant it, so it could’ve done with an explanation.
And even then I still can’t help but interpret the tone of your post negatively, disapproving. Like you want me to play games your way or it’s wrong. Which I don’t like at all.