Immersion and Prediction in Videogames

Picked up Assassin's Creed 2 last week. Since Amazon has it for $30, I talked a roommate's brother into selling it for $25. Good deal for both of us, I'd say. In any case, I've been enjoying the game quite a bit, but felt the need to talk briefly about something that I've noticed a lot in current gen games that seems especially prevalent in this one.

With graphics technology and processing power ever-growing, games are becoming more immersive experiences. Whereas, in days of old, limitations on what you could do or where you could go or even just the way things looked created an obvious layer between you and your avatar, games are slowly breaking that barrier down and providing experiences that are less wish-fulfillment and more like, to borrow a phrase from former SCE honcho Kaz Hirai, lucid dreams. And just like when something happens to suddenly break you out of a dream, moments that restore that barrier between the player and the game are disconcerting. In AC2, this happens most often while free running:

One moment, you're running across the rooftops of Renaissance Florence, smoothly moving from perch to perch, feeling like the ultimate bad-ass. The next, you're flailing around in midair and slamming into the side of a building instead of running across the wire bridging the street that you were obviously aiming for. Considering that this isn't a platform game and all of the jumping is handled for you, the only player error here comes from having the angle a degree or so off -- which can simply be the result of trying to wrangle the camera back into alignment.

The frustration of the break in immersion is compounded by frequently having to deal with in-game consequences for a failure that was hardly yours, whether it's losing a target or attracting the attention of guards. Suddenly, you find yourself doing something a game designer should never want the player doing: getting irritated with the game itself. Not the difficulty of the scenario or a twist in plot, but the fundamental design of the game. Once the player starts thinking about the game as a game, something of the magic disappears, and it's hard to win back -- at least in genres like this. In strategy games or JRPGs or other styles of game where the player sits above the action, the issue isn't nearly so severe.

The best way to fix this situation seems like it would be the implementation of some sort of predictive measure, trying to determine what the player most likely intends to accomplish. Would a master assassin casually throw himself off of the steeple he'd been climbing for no good reason? No? Then that's probably not what I want to do, either. So, if I'm climbing a high building and still holding the A button because I expect it to speed up my movement the way it does everywhere else in the game, for the love of god, don't register the release of that button as a command to leap to my doom. Just recognize a simple press and release in that situation! If the player is running across a rooftop towards a gap across which is another rooftop, and there is some piece of geometry intended to serve as a bridge over that gap, gently nudge him or her towards it (and break off the assistance if they make a move away from it). Maybe even simplify the design a little bit if the over-abundance of strange angles and elevation changes makes it hard to efficiently navigate.

Assassin's Creed isn't alone in this problem. I ran into it from time to time with Mass Effect 2's cover system, where any time I tried to aim anywhere but directly over the object I was crouched behind, I would stand up and expose myself needlessly. I died or nearly died on a number of occasions because of this, and it doesn't make much sense for it to happen. It's really about the only complaint I can leverage against the game (besides, perhaps, the mildly ridiculous final battle).

As it stands, I'm enjoying AC2 quite a lot. But that doesn't change the fact that when I first started learning the ropes of free running, I felt liberated and amazed with the fluidity with which I could traverse the amazing city-scape before me; while now, if an actual mission, rather than my own whims, has me racing around, that sense of freedom is overwhelmed by anxiety, as I worry about when I'm going to just barely misdirect a leap my character should make and spend valuable game time rescaling walls and adjusting my route. It's an unnecessary, moment destroying frustration, and I hope Ubisoft can fix it come the third outing.