A few decades ago the masses believed video games were a waste of time for lackadaisical youths to pacify themselves while ignoring their responsibilities as both kids and young adults. As more and more people started understanding the benefits of gaming so too did the perception of what a video game is and, most importantly, the benefits gaming can bestow on a person’s life changed. Hi, my name is James Bullock and I am a gamer who has spent the better part of his existence testing the laws of physics, exploring the vastness of a world ruined, and been a champion inside various arenas courtesy of digitized worlds both driven by reality and created through pure unbelievable ingenuity unlike anything seen by human eyes. And as a gamer I’ve discovered something else video games provide: life lessons. Today I examine a game that proved not all collectible rewards in video games are created equal, “Assassin’s Creed II”.
Sometimes the Reward isn’t Worth the Work
“No pain, no gain” is a phrase that is usually associated with working out and getting in those gains as someone builds up their strength & cardio through great efforts. But in truth making great gains in life goes beyond simply exercising as the struggle to be successful at anything has some sort of pain or tremendous amount of effort attached to it; making the reward/gain worth it in the end. Then there are situations where no matter how much time, effort & energy a person puts into a task the end result is very much lacking. A very good example of hard, tedious work not paying off in the end is none other than “Assassin’s Creed II” where main character & assassin extraordinaire Ezio Auditore da Firenze has to help his brother acquire bird feathers. While the idea of collecting a bunch of objects anyone in their right mind wouldn’t see any value in, the typical purpose of collectibles in a video game is to reward the patient player with some incredible, one-of-a-kind item. Well, in an effort to be a good big brother even after poor Petruccio passes due to some unspoken-of illness Ezio goes about the task of retrieving these feathers; returning him to either Petruccio or their mother after his baby brother dies.
Scaling walls, buildings & even breaking into guarded areas where Ezio would have to fight through enemies with the system’s incredibly rough combat design (especially compared to the later “Assassin’s Creed” games). To top it off, the amount of bird feathers is ridiculous at 100; meaning you’ll definitely need some type of guide, map & checklist to keep everything in order. But the prize … the prize has to be incredible, right? Nope, not at all. The reward for collecting & delivering all those feathers is the Auditore Cape. Instead of being granted, say, infinite poison darts or having better health stats while wearing the item, Ezio succumbs to violence as the Auditore Cape sets his notoriety level to max with guards and even townspeople attacking Ezio on sight. What kind of reward is that – did Petruccio actually hate his big brother? For those who found out the end result of a very time-consuming activity wasn’t worth the gamerscore or trophy associated with wearing the Auditore Cape in every town of the map it just further emphasized why the player shouldn’t even bother.
Sometimes all the hard work you put into a project doesn’t pan out as you would’ve hoped and the end result is severely disappointing. And then there are other times people jerk you around without telling you the reason why they need you to help them – seriously, a street smart assassin couldn’t figure out some punk kid wanted him to get his butt kicked around the world?
Have you learned any major life lessons from playing the “Assassin’s Creed II” or any video game for that matter? Leave them in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.
