I came into the grips of the Assassin's Creed series roughly when the first game was released. I don't always get my games right away and I waited a bit to get AC. But when I got it, I played it intensely for days, systematically assassinating Templars and uncovering the secrets of the illusive Pieces of Eden, not really knowing what it all meant and how the evil Abstergo Corp (a templar organization, if you weren't aware) fit into the puzzle. There's something to be said for how innovative the movement is in that game and how easily Altair flows from one part of the vast, middle eastern cities to the next, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The core of the game play is fun, engaging and though some of the missions got a bit redundant, they were increasingly challenging and fit into the story and the assassinations. Plus if you didn't want to do most of the missions, you didn't have to. They were for the most part, optional.
Optional in video games isn't a word that I subscribe to. I like to maximize my game play value. I paid $60 for a game and I'm going to squeeze every last penny out of it. Some games this is easier to do than others. Madden has a style of game play that you can pick up randomly, put in a few games, maybe play with friends and then put it down to move on to something else. Modern Warfare and similar first person shooters have a singleplayer portion, but mostly that is skipped over or sped through in order to get to the rich and addicting multiplayer aspects of the game. Assassin's Creed is third-person action game with no multiplayer aspects to be found. You can beat that game and you can beat it completely, completing every objective and leaving nothing left to accomplish in the game.
With Assassin's Creed (the original) there were literally hundreds of flags to locate around 4 cities and a "world map." More than 400 flags in total, plus 60 templar soldiers to kill. All of this was in addition to completing all of the objectives in the game. I didn't complete all of these. As new games came out and caught my attention and my completion of the core of the game, I decided that it would be best to put the game to the side and move on to something else, leaving hundreds of flags to sit, unclaimed around Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem.
Assassin's Creed II came out, improving on many of the aspects of the previous game and bringing around a much more interesting character with more twists and turns than a San Francisco suburb. The game was incredibly amazing, gripping my attention and several hours of my time as I followed Ezio through several locations in Italy, gaining revenge on those who murdered my family, simultaneously learning more of the legacy that he was born into and unlocking the twist that revealed a major plot point that will drive the series on further past just two games. I could probably talk for pages upon pages of how awesome the game was. How incredibly the movement was over the last game and how much more engaging it was because Ezio was FAR more interesting than Altair as a character. But that's not what 1000G is all about. 100G is about achievements.
For the uninformed (who are you and why are you reading this?) achievements are the way for Xbox 360 games (they're called trophies on the PS3) to gain some extra re-play value by creating objectives that players can accomplish and gain the almighty currency of the hardcore gamer: G or gamerscore.
Let's be clear about this: gamerscore has no value. Initial investigation may lead one to believe that "G" or gamerscore is the same as a Microsoft point, the actual Xbox currency which is used to buy new games, game add-ons, and even clothing for your avatar. Yeah, clothes for the virtual version of yourself and people spend real-life money on this. Sheesh... G is a completely different concept. It has no actual value other than being equated to pride and bragging rights for those who really put stock in that kind of thing. There is a whole class of Xbox 360 players called the "achievement whore" who spend their game time trying to maximize the number of achievements that they obtain to get the highest gamer score possible. These people will cheat the system and perform unspeakable acts of sleeplessness and enter a state of social stasis in order to amass as much of this valueless "currency" of the hardcore.
I'm not one of these people. I'm a completionist for sure. I like to do as much in a game as I can, again to maximize the value of the game for myself. $60 is not going to waste on me and I'll do as much of the game as I can without it getting annoying. To recap, I didn't get all of the hundreds of flags in Assassin's Creed the first because I moved on to bigger and better things. Assassin's Creed II is a different story. Most of the achievements in the game were easily obtainable during the course of the game. The familiar and heartwarming "bloop" and the flash on the screen of a message telling you that you've achieved something appeared regularly and at key moments of the story. The occasional message that was out of place because I had achieved something that was aside from the normal course of the game was also something to keep me going. As I got to the end of the game, I realized that there were a few simple achievements that I had yet to obtain.
Most were fairly simple to achieve: kill a couple guys in a special way or grab a couple statues from ledges. Those were easily taken care of and provided my bloop and message. Then there were the feathers.
For some background for the uninformed, Assassin's Creed the series uses the eagle as a symbol of the assassin. It makes sense since your character flies across the buildings and there are so many opportunities to leap off of buildings and into carefully positioned hay bails which will save you from any a fall from any height. Eagle feathers in the second Assassin's Creed were a favorite of Ezio's younger brother. Upon his tragic demise which fuels the story of the game, his mother goes into a state of silent prayer and mourning for her son. Ezio tasks himself with collecting eagle feathers to help his mother cope. This is where the player, i.e. myself, comes in.
I had collected a good number of the feathers just from running across rooftops during the course of the game. Considering it was one of the last goals I had in order to achieve the all mighty 1000G and get 100% completion for the game, I figured it couldn't be too hard to find a map on the internet and move around the game's landscape collecting the last bit of feathers. It should be all too easy, or so I thought.
MS XBox World provided a fantastic map for me to follow with maps of all of the locations of the flags. I knew this would be my ticket to completion of Assassin's Creed 2. I set off on my quest with my friend Chris and my computer, knowing that it would be a fast task. It wasn't at all. I went through 4 days of searching maps and scouring the landscape of Italy to try to find these feathers. After finding out that the map I was using had the ability to click a feather location and see a photographic image of where exactly the feather was located, I collected 98 of the 100 feathers in the game.
I went through the maps multiple times, wringing my hands with each pass as I couldn't find the stupid 2 feathers that I had left. While distractedly running around the city of Venice and talking to one of my roommates at the same time, I gasped with triumph as I stumbled upon a feather randomly. My interest in my task was renewed because I knew that I only had 1 eagle feather left to obtain. It couldn't be that hard could it?
I went back to randomly searching rooftops, hoping to stumble across the final feather. After a few hours of fruitless and aimless wandering, I tasked Chris with helping me go through the maps, bit by bit until we had definitively searched every feather location listed. After roughly 10 minutes, a triumphant yell and high fives were had when we located the 100th feather.
The feeling was fleeting. I realized how ridiculous it was that I had just worked so hard and spent so many fruitless hours of my time trying to find virtual eagle feathers just to get pointless points that can be redeemed for nothing. Considering I don't get a sense of pride from amassing gamer score, my hard work, heartache and triumph was all for not.
After writing this, I'm not even 100% sure how to culminate this little story and really put an important message behind it. I guess my message would be to not put too much emphasis on completion in games. Try to get your money worth and put your best foot forward, especially when you're not getting a lot of new games and you need to make the best out of what you have. But when it really boils down to it, small tasks and achievements aren't really worth much and aren't worth wasting time and effort to obtain. But really, I don't care and if an achievement is possible to obtain, I'm going to do that. This wasn't for me to turn a new leaf or send an important message. It was for me to vent about the past few days of my free time being spent to find a stupid feather.
Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. I know the story had fractured flow and that it has no real ending because I'm not sure how it should have ended. If you feel so inclined, write me a better ending in the comments. Either way this story was from my table to yours, eat up!
