#46: The Distressing Implications Behind “Hepler Mode”

A long time ago (at least 350 internet years, which translates to around one year ago on October 2011), a writer at Bioware named Jennifer Hepler was the object of immense controversy. At the time of this incident, one statement is particular was brought to light that she had made six years ago: She had told interviewers that she wished that developers would more often include more “casual” difficulties for people like her that do not necessarily enjoy playing video games, but like to be engaged in a good story, in which the gameplay sections are skipped in order to go from dialogue to dialogue. Though at first I was in support of this “Hepler Mode,” in time I began to change my mind. This is not to say that I am against making easier difficulties for new players. In fact, quite the opposite is true in that regards. In the past, I have been vocal in my support of simplifying systems and allowing for adjustable difficulties to facilitate a variety of player skill levels. No, the problems with this “Story” mode are related to the underlying assumptions that are implied by the idea.

The fact that this has even come up in discussion is proof of a fundamentally poor design principal which is prevalent in the gaming industry (and honest probably has been for quite some time), which is that story and gameplay can and should be allowed to exist separately. This line of thinking is prevalent in video games of all types, from shooters like Call of Duty, to open-world games like inFamous, and even Western-style RPGs like Mass Effect, which have choice and consequence as major themes and mechanics. In many of these games, there is a clear divide between the moments where the player is engaged in the story and is advancing the plot and the other moments that consist of mostly shooting mooks or other gameplay elements. These sections where the game is nothing but intense combat seem to have no real impact on the outcome of the events and exist merely to extend the length of the game. Mass Effect is a clear example of this in action. In every Mass Effect game (and many other Bioware games if what I am told is true), despite the choices the player makes and the changes to the overall timeline as a result of these choices, the player will always play through the same levels with the same enemies. The only thing that the player can do to change up these encounters is to play as a different class and/or bring different squadmates along. The opposite of this phenomenon is also true. No matter what class the player chooses, who they bring on missions, and what they do during combat scenarios, the story will never be affected by it. Each of these two sections of the game exist, for all intent and purposes, independently of the other. This is not how games should be designed. The gameplay and the story should exist to supplement each other. They should be so entwined as to be nearly inseparable. Interaction and choice are the biggest strengths of the medium. In order to use it to most effective tell a tale, designers need to keep this in mind. Spec Ops: The Line is a fantastic example of that (which will be left vague because of spoilers).

The other error in the underlying assumptions of “Hepler Mode” is the question of who this kind of mode would be aiming for marketing-wise. What I mean by that is that Jennifer Hepler notes that one of the reasons this kind of mode of play would be needed is that there are people out there that do not like video games, yet are interested in a good story. Ignoring whatever opinion you may have of Hepler, why would a game developer or publisher even make an attempt to capture a market that literally has no interest in their products? What would be gained from that? Any interest this non-gamer market would have in video games would be superficial at best. This is not the same thing as attracting people who may have an interest in games, but are put off by the (admittedly high) barriers of entry like consoles/PCs, price of games, and complicated control schemes aimed at those familiar with other games. That makes sense. What does not make sense is marketing to people that literally have no interest in the medium at all. Doing so is a recipe for disaster and one of the easiest ways a developer can piss away the good will of its fans. If the target demographic has no interest in playing games, then the odds are that they will not even know the publisher is marketing to them, let alone have any interest in the games being marketed.

This problem with “Hepler Mode” is not that it is an unsound concept, but rather that it should not be. If the combat system wears down most players so much that the vast majority of them are asking to skip it entirely, then it may be a good idea to revamp the systems of the game to make it more entertaining. It is up to designers to make tough calls like editing, revising, and even removing features or parts of levels in order to improve the overall experience because that is what they are paid to do. The gameplay is just as much a part of the experience as the storyline. To give players the option to skip gameplay is to concede the video games are nothing more than movies with playable segments in between shots. That is not acceptable! It goes against the very strengths of the medium. Games are at their best when they embrace their nature as interactive media and utilized it to the fullest. While this is an old issue, it is still an important one nonetheless and I hope that lessons were learned from it.

#16: Realism in Games

Any game enthusiast who goes onto the internet is familiar with this particular topic. Everyday, someone, somewhere in the world argues that “games are not realistic enough.” Although this assertion is made often, it is a somewhat disingenuous one. When game players say that they want games to be more realistic, that is not exactly what they mean. They are referring to a similar, yet together different topic. This week, I am going to discuss realism in games: Why realism is an unrealistic goal and what gamers are actually asking for.

First off, I am going to start with a statement that will sound like common sense when I say it: A truly realistic game is never going to exist. Furthermore, nobody truly wants realism in games. A truly realistic game would be a game where the protagonist would die after taking a few bullets, health regeneration would take weeks, the player would have to maintain some source of income and pay bills/rent as they go through the story, etc. This would not be an extremely compelling game. This would be real life. This would be a chore. Also, programming and rendering this would be a complete nightmare. It would take many years before we got close to completely realistic and commercially available simulation programs. Players do not want to play through real life, they want to play through interesting and dramatic, yet believable stories.

That is the key. The audience does not want a realistic story. They want a believable story. That is a subtle, yet distinct difference. A believe story is one that might not be in line with the rules of the real world (and indeed, often will not be depending on the genre), but it does have its own internal logic, or continuity, that is rarely, if ever, broken. Even if it is broken, it is only in small, minor ways that do not have a significant impact on the world. This applies not only to the world itself, (as in, how its technology/magic works, political alliences/treaties, national pollicies, etc.) but also to the characters how populate the world and take part in the events of the story.

For example, in Fallout: New Vegas, the NCR, who is equipped with guns and hi-tech combat armor, is in a battle against Caesar's Legion, who is equipped with machetes, chainsaws, and football equipment (as armor). In real life, the NCR would dominate against Caesar's Legion. There would be no question: A bunch of semi-trained marksman would destroy a group of the best-trained melee specialists in football pads in a straight fight. However, by the systems in the game, this makes sense. Using melee weapons and/or unarmed are perfectly legitimate playstyles in New Vegas and many players use them (myself included). So when the Legion is shown to be in a stalemate with the NCR, players will not question it. While unrealistic in the real world, this still makes sense by the game's internal logic. We might question the motives and rationale behind the two factions, but we do not question that such a stalemate is possible.

This continuity extends to the factions for the most part. Going back to New Vegas, this is mostly done very well. The NCR has a believable motivation because they wish to annex New Vegas to both spread their democratic ideology and to gain the resources of the area, notably Hoover Dam and the electricity generated by it. However, they have a streak of over-expanding and spreading themselves too thin. Meanwhile, Mr. House wants to keep control of New Vegas in order to keep making profits from the NCR and use that profit to advance humanity technologically and possibly space-ward. The trade-off is that he will not tolerate any faction who openly opposes him and will instruct the player to eliminate most of the minor factions in the game. These are both interesting motivations, goals, and drawbacks that the player can wrap their head around, understand and possibly support.

However, the Legion does not have a similar consistency. Caesar's Legion is a faction that subjugates tribals and adds their men and women to the army and the slave workforce respectively. They are also known for rejecting advanced technology in favor of primitive weapons like machetes and chainsaws and basic firearms like repeaters and SMGs. The tradeoff being that while the concept of individual liberty and freedom does not exist, the people are generally safe because bandits wouldn't dare to cross the legion. With regards to behavior, members of the legion are taught the ills of the society of the NCR and of New Vegas. They shun anything to do with these things in favor of a less advanced, and more demanding lifestyle, hoping to destroy the NCR and Vegas. With regards to their soldiers and general populace, this is fairly consistent. However, when you get into the upper echelons of Legion society, it begins to falter. Firstly, something that the player is able to discover as the game goes on is that the Legion utilizes systems of spies in both Vegas and the NCR. Far from shunning these places and demonizing them, the higher ups place people in places where they can influence the people there and possible steal some of the intel/technology in the area for themselves. As if that was not enough, with a high enough Medicine skill, the player and diagnose Caesar with a brain tumor. His response to this would naturally be to avoid modern medicine and try to heal himself through more primitive means or even to prepare a successor. Nope! Instead, we asks you to fix his Auto-Doc (Its a robot doctor.) so that he can use advanced technology to heal himself, going against his core anti-technology principals.

Going on the anti-technology front again, this continues to be illogical when the player asks why Caesar does what he does. He wants to use the ancient Roman Empire as a model to form his own. Thus, we reverts to using old technology. However, this does not make sense to those who have even a surface level understanding of history. The ancient Roman were not anti-technology. In fact, they were about as pro-technology as you can get. The shamelessly ripped off any good/useful technique/technology from their neighbors if it meant that they could do better. So by abandoning technology, Caesar is spitting in the face of the very system he is trying to emulate. Everything he does seams to contradict something else he is doing. The net result is that he breaks his own internal logic and becomes a caricature that no sane person would get behind. For a world as beautifully crafted as the one in New Vegas, this is tragic.

Realism as the dictionary describes it will never be a part of video games and for good reason. However, this does not mean that gamers are wrong to keep asking for games to be realistic. In fact, it is important for the audience of game developers to keep them honest and make them abide by their own internal logic. It is still very important to maintain a level of consistency and believability with the world and the characters. This is just another part of storytelling. Game developers would be wise to remember this.

#11: Games and Storytelling (Part the 2nd)

(Major Spoilers for the Assassin's Creed series and L.A. Noire abound.)

Last week, I discussed how games could be used as a storytelling medium. I talked about the benefits of using games to explore philosophies and scenarios in a free form way: That player choice was an important concept and that it is vital to show the consequences for those choices. After the article was posted, a friend of mine pointed out something to me. In hindsight, I may have unintentionally snubbed linearity in video games. It is absolutely possible to have a strong linear narrative using video games. I would argue that doing this well is much more difficult. It has to be done in a certain way. A developer must tailor the experience to the medium of video games in order to make it work.

Again, video games have strengths that can be played with. By default, video game players are more likely to sympathize with the protagonist because they are the protagonist, at least on a superficial level. The main character (at least a well-written one) has a good backstory and motivation for his/her actions. With that, they are allowed and encouraged to have preconceived notions of morality and ethics. A good way to help further define and flesh out the character would be to use the mechanics of the game. The original Assassin's Creed did this incredibly well. The player did not have a health bar, it instead had a “synchronization meter” which showed how much the player was in sync with Altair's, the protagonist, memory of what happened. This mechanic allowed the game to inform the player of Altair's morality without bogging him/her down with exposition or allowing for Gameplay and Story Segregation. When the player kills an innocent person, the synchronization bar is immediately reduced by 33% of its maximum value. This shows while Altair is an assassin and known for killing people, he still has a degree of morality and was not a complete psychopath. It is also possible to increase the maximum synchronization by doing things in line with what Altair would do like analyze the city from high building or by saving people from corrupt guards. This avoids Gameplay and Story Segregation as well because in the story the events of Altair's life occurred very long ago and the player is simply playing a simulation created using his memory.

In the case of Assassin's Creed, the mechanics are more than a way for the player to get from point A to point B. They are used to reinforce the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood also did this in a particularly powerful scene at the end of the game. At the end of the game, the player character, Desmond, finds and ancient artifact called the Apple of Eden with the help of his friends. Someone from behind the scenes uses the Apple's power to control Desmond's body and freeze time for the other three people with him. The cutscene has Desmond extend his hidden wrist-blade and begin to move toward his love interest, a fellow assassin named Lucy. When the player regains control, he/she (if they are anything like me) will try to steer Desmond away from her. However, when the player moves, no matter which direction they point to, Desmond will move towards Lucy. When Desmond is close enough, then the player will be directed to press attack and he/she will have no choice but to comply. This is a powerful scene because it helps the player to empathize with Desmond. It demonstrates his complete powerlessness and inability to stop his body no matter how hard he tries to. This moment is made powerful because the mechanics in play support the narrative and brings the player into the story.

While a linear story can be significantly bolstered if in a video game, there are dangers to attempting to do so. If one does not keep the story and its central themes in mind, there is a strong chance of the gameplay weakening the story. A storyteller can risk undercutting the whole story with the mechanics of the game if they are not extremely careful. As much as I love the Uncharted games, they are prime examples of this. Naughty Dog has constantly said that Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the series, is the everyman. He is the person that the player can relate to. This is very hard to take seriously. The reason for this is that the Uncharted series is a third-person cover-based shooter. For the uninitiated, that means that the player, as Nathan Drake, is almost always slaughtering tons of nameless, faceless pirates/soldiers. Furthermore, he has the tendency to talk... and snark... a lot... during each engagement. The overall image of him (at least during gameplay, the actual story is significantly better) is one of a murdering psychopath who has no concept of mercy or remorse. This runs contrary to the kind of character Naughty Dog wished to make and the type of narrative they intended to weave. While they are fortunate that the overall story and gameplay hold up, many more like them have similar problems in their games and fall into this trap.

Other pitfall in making a good, linear narrative in a video game is that players will be inherently more critical of the plot. This is because the strength of having instant sympathy with a protagonist can also be a weakness. When the players feel like they are the character, there is the potential for a disconnect with the character if, at any time, the character begins to exhibit unreasonable or irrational behavior. I had a personal example of this when I was playing L.A. Noire. In L.A. Noire, the protagonist is a man named Cole Phelps, a marine recently returned from World War 2 who decided to join the LA police force and quickly ascended to the rank of detective. He is shown to be a happily married man with two daughters. The game introduced Cole to a German singer who escaped to America before the war started. In the second half of the game, Cole visits the singer in her apartment for an undisclosed period of time at night. I did not think much of it when I saw the scene (I was being pretty dense there, admittedly) until later, when Cole is accused of cheating on his wife and is demoted to Arson as a result. At first, I thought he was set up. I thought that there was no possible way that Cole would do that because it seemed out of character. As it turns out, Cole really did “pork that German whore.” I was stunned. I sat there and thought “Cole! What the f**k were you thinking!? I saw you at the beginning! You f**king kissed your wife that morning! Are you KIDDING ME!?”. This one scene completely broke the game for me. I could care no longer about the story or what happened to the characters because I felt that the game betrayed both me and any conceivable notion of common scene. Finishing the game became more of an endurance test. That is the power of interactivity. When the story makes sense, it can bring players closer to the characters and the world. When it does not, then the player can feel betrayed by the plot and disconnect from the whole mess.

Linear storytelling is a perfectly valid form of narrative in video games. It relies much more on the writer's skill than free-form games do. The key is once again to use the mechanics to reinforce the narrative. Developers and writers need to get together and stay on the same page throughout development. It is difficulty simply because it requires a great deal of synergy between all departments of a game development studio. While an amazing story is difficult to pull off, when it is, it is extremely gratifying, both to the player and the developer. I would hope developers, either in the present or future, would take a minute to think about how a narrative can be woven into and reinforced by a great game.

#10 : Games and Storytelling

This is a topic that I have touched on in the past, but recently, I have been given the opportunity to talk about it. A couple of weeks back, David Jaffe, creator of Twisted Metal and God of War, said, regarding to storytelling in video games, “If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?” While that sentence is taken only slightly out of context, and the underlying point that developers should focus more on gameplay is sound, I would have to partially disagree with Mr. Jaffe. If a developer wants to have a tightly woven, complex, extremely linear narrative, then I would agree that said developer would be significantly better off by writing a book or making a movie instead. However, if the developer wishes to explore a particular philosophy or a “What if?” scenario, then a video game would be the perfect method of expression, and here is why.

The main reason that a linear narrative does not work so well is also one of the main reasons that games continue to flourish: Games are interactive by their very nature. People who play games always make decisions and affect the game world, even in linear games. What type of weapons will I use? What is the best way to defeat all of these enemies? Should I play it safe or go all out? These decisions are constant being made, consciously or not. Games thrive on ability to thrust players into situations they are not used to and force them into the actions. Linear stories are the antithesis of this. Linearity suggests that there is only one, proper way to go through a player's journey and every other possibility is incorrect. Some games even have sections where there is a trap in the room that is dead obvious, but the player is forced to trigger it in order to advance the story. In an environment where interactivity and decisions are everything, this is the kiss of death of any serious story. Movies and books can get away with this because the readers/viewers are not insert themselves into the situation: They are passive observers watching a story play out. In a video game, this is not the case. Players of video games are active participants, affecting the outcome of events through their inputs. It is easy for a video game player to project their own emotions onto the protagonist of the game because, in a way, they are. The character becomes a culmination of the decisions and actions a player has made to that point. When somebody asks a reader of book how far into the book they are, they respond with “I'm at the part where the protagonist does X.” However, a gamer would respond to the same question about a video game with “I just did X, and I'm about to do Y.” For an interactive narrative that takes player choice into account, this is a huge boon and be taken advantage of to great effect. For a linear story, this can spell doom if, at any time, the player is forced to do anything that runs directly contrary to their logic or beliefs. There is a term for this: Railroading. It can even get worse when a story directly contradicts what is happening in the gameplay. Either of these circumstances can break immersion with the game and bring the player back into the real world. While I cannot be sure, I would imagine this is why Mr. Jaffe suggests that writers with sprawling narratives in mind should visit another medium.

Does this mean that I think video games should never have stories? NO! However, a game's story does need to keep the nature of the medium in mind. The most important thing to consider is that players will want to have a sense of agency. That is, they want to be a part of the world, they want to have their actions affect the world, and they want the world to respond to the effects of these actions. Again, if at any point a player loses his/her sense of agency on the events of the game, they go from active participants to passive observers, losing the one advantage the writer has: The fact that the player will care about the protagonist because the protagonist is an extension of the player and the ability of the player to assert his/her own will. The key is to use this concept of player choice and player influence to encourage the player to explore. I will use Fallout: New Vegas as an example.

While I have a few criticisms of New Vegas (chief among them how Caesar's Legion a little too evil and hard to sympathize with), this is one thing it did very well. In the game's first half, the player travels to New Vegas. Along the way, the player is introduced to all the major factions of the game at one point or another. The New California Republic(NCR) is the stand in for old school American politics, with all it pros and cons. Its leaders are shown to want the best for the people, yet they are incompetent on many levels and often do not understand the plight of the common folk. The opposition of the NCR, Caesar's Legion, has opposing ideals. The Legion subjugates tribes under its rule. The tribes lose all their heritage, the men forced to become soldiers, the women and children forced to become slaves. (The boys are conscripted when the come of age.) Furthermore, they reject all kinds of advanced technology, in favor of old school “Roman” ideals. However, they are all united and a sense of order can be found in the Legion. Between these two factions is Mr. House, the enigmatic leader of New Vegas. After the player has been given a chance to meet and learn about all three major factions, they are given a choice. He/she can choose to side with any of the three major factions, or reject all three ideals in favor of a completely independent New Vegas, overseen by the player character. The game and the ending radically change depending on both which of the major factions the player works with/against and how he/she deals with the other sub-factions in the game.

While it is far from perfect, this is an excellent example of how video games can tell good stories. Inform players of different ideologies and let them learn about and explore them. Once they feel like they know enough, allow them the chance to pass judgment. Let them say “I believe that X is the best choice, and as such I will support them.” It does not even have to be the grand, arching narrative. Even on a small-scale, such as with a side quest, this ability to choose is what makes games unique as a medium for storytelling. This is why so many people still laud Deus Ex as an excellent accomplishment in gaming, even though it was made all the way back in 2000. The main crux of the game was that it encouraged the player to make choices, both in the way the story unfolded and in the way they play the game. The game explores transhumanism, both in gameplay and in story. It the story, it talks about the positives of transhumanism, like how augmentations could drastically improve people's lives. However, it also explores the negatives, such as the fact that it can essentially render certain people obsolete when newer, better augments get released. The game ends by having multiple factions give you their opinion on what to do and having the player decide which is best. This sense of exploration and choice extends to the gameplay, allowing the player to go through the game as an expert in combat, stealth, hacking, conversation, or some combination of the four, and beat the game his/her own way.

While I say that games can be used as storytelling devices, that is a little misleading. What I really mean is that games can be used to explore philosophies and concepts and give the player an environment in which he/she can discover the pros and cons of particular ideologies without causing any sort of real-world harm. If a game developer wished to do this, I would advise them to go for it, but to do his/her best to not insert their own biases into the game. The point is to let the players form their own opinions, not to feed them opinions. It is important to avoid veering into the unfortunate category of “propaganda”. For better or worse, games can be used as tools to learn and explore.

#2: Story Versus Gameplay: An Assassin's Creed Anecdote

(Spoiler Warning: This article discusses the first two Assassin's Creed games in great detail.)

Story and gameplay are two essential parts to current generation games. People play games not only to have a good time, but also to be immerse in breathtaking narratives and interesting worlds. Many developers struggle to find a balance between these two core pillars of game design. Hideo Kojima has been criticized for his over-emphasis on the storyline of the Metal Gear Solid series and many people believe that the most recent games in Bioware's Mass Effect and Dragon Age series had weaker plots than their predecessors, in exchange for vast gameplay improvements. In this article, I will be using Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2 as my examples for story emphasis and gameplay emphasis because while I believe Assassin's Creed 2 is a better game, the first one had a much better plot.

But before I get into that, it is important to provide background information on the premise of Assassin's Creed. The series takes place in September of the year 2012. Most of the action takes place in a machine known as the Animus, which allows its user to relive the memories of his/her ancestor in a computer simulation program. In the first game, protagonist Desmond Miles is kidnapped by the Abstergo Corporation to access the memory of Altair Ibn La-Ahad, an Assassin who fought against the Knights Templar the Third Crusade, for an unknown purpose. Altair is at first shown to be an arrogant and egotistical Assassin with a blatant disregard for his order's ways. After his transgressions allow the Templars to find the location of the Assassin brotherhood and attack, Altair is disciplined and brought down from Master Assassin to Novice. To restore his rank and his honor, he is assigned nine targets who bring harm to the people of the Holy Land (modern-day Syria). These people are later on revealed to be Templar Knights on both sides of the Crusades and who have their own designs upon the Holy Land. During the game, it is revealed that Abstergo is the modern-day front for the Templars and that the war between the two factions never ended.

In the sequel, the modern-day Assassins rescue him and recruit him. To acquire Assassin training, Desmond relives the memory of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Italian noble who joined the Assassin order during the Italian Renaissance. His character arc begins with the death of his father and brothers as the cover up for some sort of conspiracy. Ezio embarks on a quest for revenge beginning with the men directly responsible. During his journey, he is made aware that his father and his ancestors were in the Assassin order and that his father's death had something to do with the Assassin/Templar war. Ezio's quest for revenge eventually becomes a quest for truth and he finds himself traveling to many major cities in Italy and bringing many cruel people to justice by killing them.

In my sincerest opinion, the first Assassin's Creed has an excellent story. One reason is that the player is given sufficient motivation to go after his targets. The way they do this is fairly interesting. Because Assassins are never allowed to just go out and kill their target, they first need to gather information on their target. Before each kill, the player learns both the why as well as the how: The crimes these people have committed as well as the method in which to dispatch them. This gives the player a context for their actions and begin to empathize with the Altair and the people whose lives are to be enriched with the death of his intended victim. This also highlights another reason I love this game's plot: There is a distinct moral ambiguity between the two factions. As Altair slays his targets, he learns many things from the conversations he has with them as they succumb to their wounds. What they say reveals the big dichotomy in the game. Both factions wish for world peace, yet they disagree with the methods with which to attain that peace. The Assassins believe that peace must be earned by educating the people and celebrating the diversity of the world while removing the arbitrary labels that separate us. To this end, they would murder prominent figures who seek to keep people divided and fan the flames of war. They will also vehemently protect those who would spread knowledge. The Templars, on the other hand, believe that it is impossible to dissolve the barriers between people through normal means. They believe that people cannot know true peace so long as free will exists. To that end, they try to find ways to force people to adhere to a strict order so that they might find peace. Because the player is an Assassin, the story will obviously be told from that viewpoint, but at no time is the player ever told that either side is right or wrong. In fact, it is made very clear that both sides are in the right. This allows the player to ask himself the question: Is it possible to obtain peace and if it is not, is it worth the price of free will? Any story that can get people to think has, at least in some way, succeeded in telling an interesting tale.

On the other hand, where I found that the first game had a strong story, the sequel's plot was much weaker in comparison. First of all, the Templars in Assassin's Creed 2 lack the ambiguity of their predecessors. While the Templars are seen committing many of the same crimes the Templars in the previous game, they are never given any redeeming qualities that justify their actions. Not once is it mentioned how these things further the cause of the Templar order. Furthermore, when Pope Alexander VI (He is the leader of the Templars and the final boss. Just go with it.) eventually tells Ezio why he is going to all this trouble, he tells him that he was hoping to open a vault underneath the Vatican and, using a super advanced mind-control device, bend God to his will and conquer the world under the Templar banner. This is a stupidly evil and ridiculous motivation that could never possibly make any sort of sense. Which transitions nicely into the other gripe, many plot points in the game are completely, ridiculously rife with plot holes. Take the Carnival segment for example. Ezio has to kill his target, but he will only come out during his party in Carnival. The party he is throwing is a masquerade ball with special golden masks. He cannot steal a mask because they have numbers on them (Which does not make sense, but I digress.), so he has to win a mask by winning four games. The games are stupid games like Capture the Flag and footraces (Which are not really fun either, but again, I digress.). When the games are rigged and someone else wins, he has to STEAL the mask to get into the party, which he should not be able to do, because they are numbered. And during the segment, Ezio is a wanted man, so he blends in by putting on a silver mask, despite not changing his absolutely, flamboyantly, bright white robes. It was the eyes that gave him away, not the distinct and very easy to see Assassin's robes. This is the most extreme example, but there are others like a fistfight with the pope, etc. Bottom line, I find the first game's story to be much better.

With that in mind, it is time to compare the gameplay of the two games. Assassin's Creed laid out a good groundwork for the game, but it was not perfect. The investigations, while they helped flesh out the story, began to grow repetitive around the time of the third assassination. The player quickly begins to realize that they are playing the same five or six missions over and over again, only in different locations. Players with low tolerance for repetition will be immensely turned off by these missions. This is not the only issue that crops up. Towards the end of the game, the combat system begins to grow tiring and the guards WILL attack the player at the slightest provocation. It can take a very long time to get through fights because the player can easily have over twenty guards fighting them at once. Fights like this can take several minutes and running away from them can be almost as long, if not longer because other guards will spot the player as he/she runs away. This is exacerbated by the end sequence where they throw waves of enemies at the player and enclose the area so that he/she cannot run away.

The sequel did well to improve many of these aspects. There is a variety of missions throughout the game so that it never feels repetitive to the player. There are platforming sections, chariot chases, theft missions, beat-up events, etc. Assassin's Creed 2 also improves the guard detection system of Assassin's Creed. The game features a notoriety system so that the player is not bombarded by guards unless he/she deliberately goes out of their way to attract attention. Items like smoke bombs can allow for quick escapes when the player feels overwhelmed and can also be used offensively to blind enemies, leaving them vulnerable. Other new tools like poison, throwing money, and a hidden gun also give the player options when dealing with encounters and assassinations. Combat has also been overhauled and the guards are far less likely to swarm the player. The sequel's gameplay is vastly superior to the first game's gameplay.

While Assassin's Creed has a much better story, Assassin's Creed 2 greatly improves upon the gameplay. While being in the same series and telling similar stories, the two games each have separate things to add to the table. Both are great games in their own right and future game designers should study these games to perfect their craft.