Sunday 6 January 2008

Save Me

To Do:

Research Game Save.

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As I said before, players and non-players get sucked in by the life-like details. The FIFA player asks me to play just so he can watch. At some point watching isn't enough. The FIFA player wants to be Assassin's Creed Boy if only for a moment. I growl, but relinquish the controls.

He uses no tact. He storms through town on the back of a galloping stallion. Soldiers circle. They attack. The FIFA player cum Assassin's Creed Boy attacks. His play demonstrates a complete lack of finesse, which, although I've not gotten far I know is required.

I'm not worried. I figure I just won't save his progress.

Should I have been worried? It seems Assassin's Creed doesn't have the save options that I would hope it would have. Can't I have more than one game in progress (i.e. saved) at any given time? Did the FIFA player really steamroller over all my progress, and is there no way to go back?

I do not know the answers to these questions. So far the game save functionality does not appear to be as robust as I would expect it to be. If my I'm wrong on this point, then the functionality is not as intuitive as it should be, because a player should be playing his/her game, not researching it.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

Second Impressions

I've brandished my sword.

I've slept a sleep of death.

I've mounted a horse and scaled numerous buildings and eavesdropped on a conversation about a basket weaver. I've picked a pocket.

After all this, the promise is still a promise, neither confirmed nor repudiated.

My almost-initial impressions are this:

a. The graphics have me tongue-tied. AC is visually beautiful. So beautiful that I found it difficult to shake my audience: players and non-players alike get sucked into the life-like details: the swoosh of robes, the feathers of a bird, the clippity-clopping of a galloping horse. It's a compelling game to merely watch.

b. From a story/action/puzzle-completion standpoint, Assassin's Creed hasn't sucked this girl in the way my good friend Lara Croft did. One could argue I'm more mature now, and so less easily ensnared by a game, less prone to addiction. That would be a spurious argument: anyone who witnessed my alcohol intake this holiday season would know I have the makings of an addict. There is something -- or rather there is not something -- that hasn't pull me in as immediately as I had expected. I'm making no definitive judgements yet. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

First Foray

The FIFA Player laughed at me as I tried to handle the new Playstation 3. I found the main power button without difficulty. It's just just like a normal on/off button and sits right where it did on the PS3's predecessor. The Eject Disc and Reset Game buttons were the ones that caused me frustration. The FIFA Player and I are space conscious, and consequently have the new device set up vertically between a couple of fancy art books, which results in the already camouflaged futuristic, flat Eject Disc and Reset Game buttons in being more camouflaged. After some swearing on my part and chuckling on the FIFA Player's part, I figured it out. The game slid into it's slot. Our screen burst to life.

As I suspected, the intial familiarisation with the controls, the moves, walking, running, blending in, was dizzying. I lasted about 15 minutes before I turned the game off. Learning the basics is something you want to do alone, not in front of the seasoned fingers of a FIFA player.