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I stopped playing Assassin's Creed: Revelations because the game would not shut up and just let me explore its mechanics. But not everyone feels the same way. Exactly how much in-game help is too much? Too little? Contrasting the Minecraft approach with MAG and Advance Wars, Jarrod concludes that the answer lies somewhere inbetween.
The sun was quickly vanishing behind the horizon as day transformed to night before my eyes. The sudden realization that not only had a friend and I failed to build ample shelter from the horrors the night would bring but that neither of us had eaten a thing all day. Thunder blasting overhead as rain poured down on us while we desperately sought out some form of protection.
I was entirely out of my element here. My buddy, Travis, was my guide to this alien world; however, at the moment we were both at the mercy of the encroaching night. When Travis paused to franticly build a tool that might aid us in our fight for survival, I did the only thing I could think of: I climbed a tree. Travis soon followed as monsters spawned around us, and together we managed to survive the night hidden high atop a tree. This was my first night in developer Mojang's Minecraft.
Actually, I should take that back as that wasn't my first night in Minecraft since I had been involved in the beta for some time. This was my first attempt to truly learn what the game had to offer via Travis who had spent 100s of hours playing. I was completely lost, knew very little of what I needed to survive, and Minecraft wasn't about to teach to me anything. That's why Travis was there.
This has been a growing trend in video games recently. Dumping a player into a world with little to no instruction of what is going on before they are left to their own devices. I had made several attempts to find my way through Minecraft, but each ended the same; digging a hole and hiding until day light.
Sure I could have looked up information online. There are numerous guides, wikis, and other resources at my disposal, but I wanted to just play the game not learn how to play the game.
I encountered this same problem in From Software's Demon's Souls, which did me the courtesy of teaching me to attack and block before I was left for dead. Here was an amazing role-playing game that plenty of my friends were enjoying and talking about nonstop, yet I felt completely lost every time I booted it up. My character never leveled up, I spent nearly all of my time in spirit world, and I felt as if there were key elements that I had missed.
Education found its way to me though thanks to an online forum where I made an offhand comment about being lost in Demon's Souls. An online friend took the liberty to fill me in on the vital details From Software had left out of their masterpiece, and suddenly, I too was sucked into this amazing game. I was blown away that the process for leveling up your character was buried in the game and how much had been left out. Some call this sort of experience rewarding, but I tend to find it annoying.
Now don't get me wrong here, I don't want a game to hold my hand leading me along through everything. Some direction would be greatly appreciated here. For some reason, video games tend to either hold your hand far too much like Criterion Games' Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which made me sit through a 10-minute video that I couldn't skip. It explained what every mode was for the game; this was extreme overkill. I didn't need to know what multiplayer, single player, time trials, and other things like that were. I've played plenty of racing titles over the years.
