The first game I played when I got home from a year overseas was Assassin's Creed 3. I was in the mood for it. I posted a couple days ago that it was fucking awesome in the beginning. And it was to some extent, very impressive visuals and the early missions had some traditional AC gameplay that was great.

Now though, now it is terrible. Why? Bloat.

Endless side stuff. Mini-games, collections, whatever. It goes on forever, it never ends. I don't mean normal side quests that use the normal game mechanics, those are fine. I mean the completely new mechanics they introduce or focus on every five seconds that totally take away from the core game experience. I already thought the AC2 games were bad at this but AC3 takes it to a new level. I am finally at the point where it is done making me do random side bullshit and can just run around the city killing fools and climbing buildings... it took me NINE FUCKING HOURS to get to that point.

Consumers seem to want this. AC1 focused on the core gameplay and people called it repetitive. GTA4 removed the bloat that was in San Andreas and people said it was boring. People seem to want endless side distractions that puff a 12 hour game up into a 40 hour game.

I do not. I miss games that didn't have all the bloat taking away from what they were really about and really good at.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GTAIV (which I only played for an hour) only had a city environment, whereas GTA:SA (which I've played ALOT) has a huge variety of environments, including country, mountains, desert, beach, etc. (That's what makes San Andreas superior in my mind.) But as far as things like weightlifting, dating, and the "side distractions" go, yes, I didn't give a crap about that. I just wanted to explore, drive fast, go off kickass ramps, etc.

EDIT: That's why I'm hoping GTA5 is alot like GTA:SA when it comes to environment variety, but maybe doesn't focus so much on side stuff.

Yeah, sure. I just know I try to start playing San Andreas again and I have to deal with 2 hours of introductions to nonsense, then more spread throughout the game afterward. All I wanna do is steal cars and shoot people! Let me do what your game is about!

I can't imagine playing AC3 again ever. That 9 hour tutorial slog will prevent me from ever doing so, I bet.

I didn't like it at all.

I agree. I gave up about 10% of the way through on taking the game and story seriously, and just went straight for the cheats. (http://www.gtasanandreas.net/cheats/pc.php, http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/pccheatsg/a/gtasanandreaspc.htm) I don't know if you only play games for the story (or are against cheating), but if you're willing to look at it as a "faffing about" simulator, you might enjoy it. There's a large variety of cheats to use. (For example, want to feel justified in shooting people? Use BGLUAWML for "Peds Attack You With Weapons" or IOJUFZN for "Riot Mode".)

I've never managed to complete the final mission in GTA:SA (it's goddamn impossible), but I've played the shit out of that game over the years. One of my favourite things to do is simply to cruise around one of the towns on a motorcycle, blasting my own custom radio station of 90s hits.

I've done much the same with GTA:VC (which is the best of them IMO), except the radio station was playing 80s hits.

To clarify the 10% part I said, I actually got as far as I could to unlock the other towns/areas of San Andreas that had been "blocked off" by the earthquake originally. So I got to the airplane mission and couldn't get pass that, eventually giving up and just focusing on the messing around.

But YES, just cruising around, listening to say "Young Hearts" while rain falls or the sun is setting - there's almost a magical quality to doing that in your own little digital world. There are times I wouldn't even ride; I'd just walk through the park, checking out the view until I got to the top.

But of course it works best as a "doing stuff I'd never do the in the real world" simulator. ;)

I found GTAIV to be even fuller of it: TV Shows, Minigames everywhere, "Let's go bowling, Niko!", "Let's go see beeg american tee-tees, Niko!", Some missions can only be acessed in a specific time while wearing a specific dres etc...

Sure, most of the stuff isn't really necessary, but you can't deny it's there. I thought the two expansions had much better "bloat" and were generally superior too.

As for bloat in general, it it's well done I generally like it, if it's some halfassed minigame designed to pad out the game I don't.

I remember that stuff but remember it being really optional and light. Much lighter than San Andreas anyway... could be fault memory I guess, not sure.

I'm playing Dishonored now and it exemplifies the difference. Within 5 minutes I was sneaking and stabbing. Within an hour or so I got powers and started exploring large environments. The game is right there, introduced slowly but naturally and knowing people who buy stealth action games probably know how to play video games.

It's just ten times better design.

I found a weird dissonance between the bloat in AC3, as you call it, and the really patchy, rushed approach to establishing the setting and characters.

It starts off well, with Haytham and that, but when it gets to Connor...

"I MUST BE ASSASSIN BECAUSE I SEE IN CRYSTAL BALL"

Really? I know Assassin's Creed has never been plausible, but...what?

And then when it takes you from the Boston Massacre to about 4-5 years later with absolutely no context or indication that any time passed at all, apart from Connor looking older. Also, we only ever get told that Connor was trained to be an assassin, it's literally him speaking in a room about how he was trained. Not even a montage or anything.

At least in AC2 the time leaps were spread out and only 1 or 2 years at a time...

But yeah, the thing about the extra stuff in AC3 was that basically it was already done for you, all you need to do is look at the map and go and collect it.

If it weren't for all that, I would have loved it, but...I wonder at what kind of person enjoys that over the gameplay Assassin's Creed 2 (and indeed 1) set up.

And I didn't find Assassin's Creed repetitive at all; and I'm also one of the minority that really enjoyed GTA IV.

Ya I'm not a fan of loads of meaningless sidequests either. Seems a negative effect of the popularity of "open world" games. (again not my thing)

If people complain about a lack of padding it's usually because the core game itself is just plain boring. With a good game that does only one thing but does it really well no one will be asking for mini games and puzzles (the bad kind that doesn't require you to actually think). The problem with this is that it doesn't really add anything to the game, it's like taking disgusting fast food and applying artificial aroma; it might smell better, but it's still the same garbage. Of course it's easier to just slap artificial aroma on something and call it a day than to put actual effort into the dish. Same thing with games, it's easier to put in some poor block pushing puzzles and lock picking mini games than actual work on interesting game content.

I think I have the exact same problem. I know doing these mini games isn't necessary, but I'm always stuck at finding hidden items, scanning planets etc.

Even though I know I don't have to do this, I still do this and after a longer while I drop the game because of that.

I understand why companies fill their games with such shit - it's cheap, it looks like the game is bigger and has more content and you can write "20+ hours to complete!" on the box.

Btw. I went through a lot in GTA SA, but then there is that part where you have to take over the city, because while you were gone, rival gangs took over. And this was fucking enough for me. Capturing small pieces of a city to only see them being under attack a few seconds later and you have to drive there and defend it...

NO. DELETED.

Should make it more like MGS tutorial style. Hop straight into the again, with the mechanics being introduced gradually along with the main story. But then, the game was bloated with long cutscenes.

Yeah, it feels like I had to be tortured for 9 hours to get to the game I wanted. I am assuming (hoping?) it sticks more to formula from here on and I can avoid the side shit.

I'm capable of ignoring them, which is why I mainly bitched about long setups and tutorials. If I could completely ignore crafting, hunting and naval combat in AC3 I would, but they don't let me. Worse yet they pile it all into the beginning. It's mind-numbing.

I really liked AC when it was a 10 hour medieval exploration romp with stabbing. Now I have to play a 40 hour life sim just to get that 10 hour game out of it.