I hope you are all
well. No casualties since my last words I hope.
Maybe a limb or two taken. But hopefully, no fatalities. Today I wish to
moan, I am sorry if you don’t like the sound of this. I understand this is the
beginning of the week, and things couldn’t get any worse, but I feel this is
something close to all of our hearts and would like to address the elephant in
the room.
I am adamant that at one point in all of your lives, you
have had to do something against your will. Something you would never dream of
doing because you would rather flay the skin from your ass and clean the area
with salt. My example is having to watch Les Miserables with the, er…uh wife. I
can tell you now that those were the longest few hours of my life and I will
never, ever, ever watch that again, I tell thee. Basically, Wolverine stole a
loaf of bread, and shit went down. That’s it. Then Maximus spends all his time
trying to capture Wolverine, but Wolverine then takes Catwoman’s baby and
brings her up like his own. And then some Borat/Ali G/ Bruno in your face for
shits and giggles.
'Really, no image at the top of this post? (admit it, you thought that too)'
The reason I’m telling you this, is because this feeling of
“doing what you don’t want” resides in a lot of games today, and the one I’m
thinking of in particular, is Assassin’s creed 3. Yes, now I will say firstly,
it has been one of the more entertaining chapters of the AC collection so far.
I’m glad they finally decided to move away from Ezio Auditore Da Firenze,
because they saturated the fuck outta him. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been
surprised if the next AC had been called “Assassin’s creed: Retirement” where
an 80 year old Ezio gets taken to day care centers, feels up the nurses, and
includes a quick time event where you change his catheter.
The biggest problem I have with AC3 though, is the whole
tutorial integrated into the beginning. And by beginning, I mean most of the
game. I haven’t played it in a while to be honest, but I’m a good couple of
hours into it. And I’m still doing missions that introduce new game mechanics.
And there’s nothing I can do about it. Les Mis flashback hits me and I get the
sweats. Fade out.
Coming back to the real world though, and I know that these
tutorials can be handled very well. Look at Gears of War 1 and 2, you could
choose to either jump straight into the fight, or go an easier root to try out
the controls. The new Devil May Cry has a training area in the main menu where
you can try out the new gear and new combos you have unlocked, the actual game couldn't give a flying head butt whether or not you know what you’re
doing….half the fun is in uncovering how to progress.
What’s more is that there are certain aspects of the game
that I will probably never use again, a bit like in AC: Revelations, with the
whole bomb creation, (not that I even got close to completing that one) I used
the mechanic in the tutorial mission and never looked towards that section
again.
To finish off my rant then; Oiiii, games developers,
NOOOOOOOO. If you are going to include the infamous tutorial section, either
make it unique and entertaining, or give me the choice to take part. I don’t
want to play a game I've spent £40 on with you feeling the need to explain
every single thing to me. Leave me to my own devices, Give me room to breathe,
and I will enjoy every second of it more.
Over and out y’all.
Jam Master Jamie
