The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I was never one for difficult games. I just don't see the appeal. I don't want games to be so easy that you don't even have to pay attention, but I get no enjoyment out of having to retry the same areas over and over and over and over and over again just because they're brutally unfair. I'm not masochistic. I have neither the time nor the interest for such things.

However, I always support the idea of map-making apps and general moddability in games. More content is always a good thing.

You mean you're actually playing "I Wanna be the Guy?"

Are you stupid or something? The whole point of that game is that it's too difficult to be played! It makes Ocarina of Time look like a sword fight in Assassins Creed II!

LOL, I love IWBTG. I'm at the Bowser boss right now (1st one) and I think you have to shoot the Bob-omb and each time you do it floats up higher, thus exploding in Bowser's face.

I like it when games are more difficult. Because then, it feels TRULY rewarding.
I don't know. Maybe someone like IanXO4 would understand better or something.
He seems like the type of guy that would like extra challenge in his games.

LOL, I love IWBTG. I'm at the Bowser boss right now (1st one) and I think you have to shoot the Bob-omb and each time you do it floats up higher, thus exploding in Bowser's face.

I like it when games are more difficult. Because then, it feels TRULY rewarding.
I don't know. Maybe someone like IanXO4 would understand better or something.
He seems like the type of guy that would like extra challenge in his games.

See, that's the part I disagree with.

If a person has to redo something many times before passing it just once, how is passing it any kind of an accomplishment when their overall ratio is like 1 in 20? Winning that one time doesn't erase the previous 20 failures. That only makes it about persistence, usually until they get lucky. That isn't something to be proud of, in my opinion. Anybody can pass something eventually if they just keep trying over and over – eventually they'll just get lucky. "An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters." Eventually one of them will write something better than Shakespeare. But would you call that an accomplishment? I wouldn't.

What sorts of things inspire people in life? Those who try to do something a dozen times and fail a dozen times before finally getting it right once, or those who succeed the first time? We cheer for the heroes, the ones who are bound to win. That's why they don't make movies where the hero gets beat by the bad guy 10 times before finally beating him once through persistence. Nobody would watch that. People want to see the hero kick ass and come out on top; they don't want to see the hero be a miserable failure the entire time and then eventually get lucky. People want a hero that inspires them. Video games allow us to be the hero, so why would we want to fail 20 times only to win on the 21st try?

In addition to the above, there's also the factor of comparison. If you've lost 20 times in a row and then finally won once, that record still proves that you're the loser in the exchange. You need to be able to succeed more often than you fail to actually say that you're good at something. But if it took you a handful of tries just to win the first time, you've already proven that you're not the better player/fighter/whatever. You're already well behind the curve and you've probably long since lost the interest (and likely the respect) of anyone who might have been cheering for you when you first began.

No offense to you or anyone else; this isn't directed at you but rather is just how I feel about the subject in general. Sorry for derailing the thread. I'll stop here. We should probably move any further talk on the subject of game difficulty to its own thread, if anyone feels the need to start one.

Hold on. Movies are completely different than games.
Obviously nobody would watch that, but would you rather play a game in which you feel like you're actually DOING something, or would you want to play a game that feels like a movie. This is why I did not enjoy Heavy Rain's gameplay, but I enjoyed its storyline.

To say to someone, I beat this, I was able to get through this, and you weren't makes you feel really good. To know that you can do something someone else can, or to beat a really difficult game and sadistically watch someone new try to do it, doing the EXACT mistakes you did, makes me feel kinda good. What I'm saying is, when I lose or something in a game, I want it to frustrate me. Not too much and not too little is what games these days need to find a balance of. Not to piss me off too much, but not to hold my hand, pull me up, then drop me on a ledge.

And sorry about off-topicking but Elika is TOO USEFUL. She's amazing, yes, but she's too useful. If she had some kind of limited number of uses that recharge automatically over time, that would have been better.

(Although that part where the Prince has to jump off to find out the real one was clever).

And another thing.
Boss battles back in the day in most 3D games were awesome. You had to do specific things to be able to do specific OTHER things. Like removing 4 artifacts while a boss was stunned, and then shooting him after they were gone to kill him. These days, it's more like "hit the guy until you win, good job, I hope you're proud of doing the same repetitive thing". Back then, you figured it OUT. Now, no need. The game tells you, pretty much. Risk vs Reward in level design has not been practiced well enough, it seems to me.

Back then, graphics, controls, and gameplay sucked compared to now. BUT. They had the IDEAS, the CONCEPTS. If those good mechanics of today's gameplay could be combined with the ideas from yesteryear's gameplay, that would be an epic game indeed.

And finally, this has nothing to do with anything else, but I REALLY want a 2D game on PSN or XBLA or something that pays more attention to gameplay than graphics.

I don't know, I'm going crazy here XD

Not so much, these days. They carry a great deal of the same elements and driving factors. I'm willing to bet that eventually the two mediums will be fully combined, much like the holo novels in Star Trek. But that's getting way off-topic.

Like a movie, absolutely! I want to feel like I'm controlling the main character(s) in something epic and I want to know that the character will win (or lose, if that's what's supposed to happen in the story). I don't want them to do it on their own; I want to be the one who guides their hand. But they should have the ability to win the first time, because in any other format (book, show, movie, play, etc) they would. So I should have the capability to guide them to success on their first time as well. I shouldn't have to fail a bunch of times first because that totally kills the mood, the pacing, pretty much everything good about the story.

As an aside, I liked Heavy Rain. The plot didn't get as deep as I was hoping and I had he killer pegged around the mid-point of the game. But otherwise it was a fantastic game. I want to see a lot more of these types of games.

See, that's exactly the kind of attitude I do not condone. I'm not a competitive person and I dislike it when anybody puts themselves up over anyone else for reasons like that. That's an aspect of society (primarily North American society) that I really hate. IMO, if a person has the need to feel like they're better than someone else, then they have self-esteem issues. And North Americans (generalizing) have a lot of self-esteem issues along these lines. It's in our society, we're raised to believe that we have to be better than everyone else. That's a terrible thing to teach children.

I've spent some time living in other countries and was really amazed at how different their societies were and how much more enjoyable life is when you can throw ego out the window. Life stops being a competition and becomes more about working together with people, rather than against them. It's like having this massive weight taken off your chest. It's truly amazing.

I believe that if a person wants to feel better about themselves, the best way is to get out in the world and find some real accomplishments. For instance, they could learn a new language or a martial art. Something that allows them to feel proud of themselves for learning something difficult and complex and genuinely useful. It's about what you can do to make yourself a better person, not about how you can be better at something than someone else. That's my philosophy.

That's the last thing I'd ever want. I get enough challenge and frustration out of every day life. I work hard for a living (two jobs), I support family, I'm a reliable friend and neighbor, I'm a very generous person, and I always try to do my best in everything I do. I'm really proud of who I am as a person. Despite that, the world around me has its share of selfish idiots. There's more than enough frustration out there. When I'm done with all that, I want to sit back and watch a great movie or enjoy a great game. The last thing I want is my medium for entertainment and relaxation making me feel upset or frustrated. That's completely counter-productive.

Anyways, I've been off-topic enough! I mean it this time! If you (or anyone else) wants to keep this discussion going, let's make a brand new thread.

I am not North American. I come from Bulgaria, and I moved to Canada when I was 5.
First games I played were there.
And anyways, all of those are excellent points.
I DO do something that is not competitive, that allows me to achieve something.
And in philosophy, it IS like a Martial Art, I train parkour, and have done it since I was 13.
I, too dislike the fact that competition is everything in North American society, but I guess I just got used to it.
I don't actually like competing in life, but in games, I do, because games don't actually matter, they're entertainment. Kind of like for me, Parkour is a form of entertainment. Before parkour, I got to Blue Belt in Tae Kwon Do, and then my grandfather made me stop (GRR) because he thought it was "dangerous" or something. I guess I rebelled because I started PK.