My wife plays computer games, must mostly the ones that do not require you to react quickly: Point-and-click adventure games, mobile puzzle games, and the like. She says that in a PC or console game like Assassin's Creed, she never manages to push the button at exactly the right time, and then ends up missing the attack or the jump or whatever was required. So when a few months ago I started playing Assassin's Creed Rebellion, I didn't show her the game. I was drawn to the mobile Assassin's Creed game by having played several of the series' games on PC, and thought as she hadn't played those, she wouldn't be interested. Today my wife by chance looked at my screen while I was playing, and contrary to what I had thought was very interested in the game. She doesn't know the characters or the series, but she likes the cute graphics of the mobile version. And, as it turns out, she also like the gameplay.

The gameplay in Assassin's Creed Rebellion is turn-based. You can still make tactical decisions, like whether you want to sneak past a guard, assassinate him, or attack him head-on, but you never need to press the button at exactly the right time. You just have a percentage chance for things like assassinations or jumps, and combat is also just a numbers game. Which means that you have a lot of the tactics of an Assassin's Creed game, without needing to bother getting the execution right.

Sometimes I wish there were more games that would get the real time to turn-based conversion treatment. I'm still playing World of Tanks, I'm still not very good at it, but my trouble clearly is with the execution, not with the tactics. That is why I prefer tactical games like XCOM to shooters or platformers. Many games seem to be designed for the typical reaction times of teenagers, and I just can't keep up with that.

- posted by Tobold @ 5:16 PM Permanent Link