Assassin's Creed And the Future of Sandbox Games

Wired's Game|Life blog, and the site of gaming academic Henry Jenkins, discuss sandbox games and the impact of Assassin's Creed . The relevant discussion on Jenkins' site is actually written by GAMBIT lab supervisor Matthew Weise. He argues that open-ended worlds, by their very nature, require some restraints on the player's avatar. Otherwise, the game's meaning is diluted. Likewise, if you're going for a 'sandbox' world, allow that limited character unlimited opportunities. "When I think of open-ended world design I tend to think of worlds that don't involve such limitations. Call it the result of a childhood playing Ultima. I think of worlds in which, if you need to kill the dragon in the cave and you happen to have a drill, there's no reason you can't just drill straight down, bypassing all his little traps, and kill the bastard. That's open-ended to me. That's sandbox. The pleasure of such incredible agency is much more satisfying than any forced narrative structure."

Comments

boring

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I find open ended games to bore me more than structured ones. I mean sure I get the new sword and the new shield and now I can goto another area, but I have no sense of progress. Instead I'll get bored and just give up, where as a game with a focus or several paths I can follow happily feeling I'm achieving stuff rather than just wandering blindly grinding to level up stuff.

Re:boring

[Deltaspectre]

It works well if there are a lot of fun distractions and "sidequests" to do. Just look at GTA: San Andreas... "I'm taking my towtruck to the do...AIRPLANES! LETS GO FLY AIRPLANES!"

Re:boring

[Deltaspectre]

I just use it once in a while to tow the random unsuspecting person at the stop light and drive them into the water.

Re:boring

[toleraen]

Your mother. The real question is: who's the developer?

Assassin's Creed was no sandbox...

[PrescriptionWarning]

Sims, Black & white (the first 1), Morrowind, now those have more in common with the sandbox style of play. Assassin's creed has fairly open levels to be sure, but I heard with all your wall climbing abilities there are still far too many walls the game limits you from going beyond.

Sandy Assassin's Creed

[hansamurai]

Having played through Assassin's Creed, the best thing the game has going for it is its open world. The game is the single most repetitive game I have ever played, partly from how open it is. While its openness is beneficial for exploration (finding and climbing viewpoints is awesome), going from point A to point B should only take X number of minutes, but actually takes 5X because guards are spotting you from a 100 feet away because you're not walking as slow as possible. I really had high hopes for this game and while the first few hours are fun, if you get through them you have basically beaten the game. Here's my full review here.

I've never read Henry Jenkins but I totally agree with him that Metal Gear Solid and Mario 64 are really good sandbox games, even if they aren't the typical open game.

Re:Sandy Assassin's Creed

[flitty]

This is how I feel about Assassin's Creed: If you want it to be the most repetitive game ever, it can be. Same with GTA. You can use your sword in every battle, only doing counter-attacks and the combat then sucks. However, you can force yourself to swap weapons in the middle of the fight to fight a different style, and it becomes fun. You can solve the quests (of which there are about 5) the same way each time, or you can find new ways of completing the tasks, adding variation to the game.

Yeah, some people might complain that you can play "massive gaurd slaughter" Creed, but is that worse than a game that fails you out of any mission where you break your cover? And, If I were Ubisoft, I would patch the game so when you were in the "Kingdom" horse riding could be done at full speed. That's my only major complaint. It's a nice solid game though, at least as good as Mass Effect. However, I find myself playing COD4 more often than AC.

Re:This came up in GTA other day.

[Chris Burke]

But, naturally, they would never follow you into a spray shop, nor would they realize that the same model car coming out, but repainted, is you.

I have always found it pretty funny how the cops are perfectly capable of tracking you when you get out of your current get-away car and steal a new one, but are completely baffled by you driving the exact same car in a different color.

Especially when the car in question is a tank. ;)

Okay you can't drive a tank into the pay-and-spray, but you can leave the tank running right outside, drive another car in, and then drive off in the tank without the police minding one bit.