Recently, I have noticed a trend in video games with collectables. I know they have been around for a couple years, but I just keep thinking to myself...are they really necessary? For example, I am playing L.A. Noire, an amazing game to say the least, but you have to collect 50 film reels, 95 (really?) cars, visit 30 landmarks, and look at 13 newspapers. I, for one, am a playstation trophy hunter. I love the feeling of the accomplishment of getting a certain trophy, like beating Black Ops on veteran, or Uncharted on Crushing. The collectable trophies are just a HUGE pain in the tail. Another example, I loved the game called Enslaved: Odyssey to the West...but to get the platinum, you have to collect all the masks and the tech orbs that are spread out through the game. It just makes it boring and you really don't want to go for the platinum. The only game that I know that got it right was Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom. Every area you went into had a hint for where the collectables are. I loved that. Why can't every game have it? I don't know about other gamers, but I don't want to go to a FAQ website to see where all the collectables are. I just wish publishers like Rockstar, Activistion, etc, would look into how better gamers can obtain the collectables. Instead of mindlessly looking for them or relying on a FAQ.
Collectibles can be fun to get. They can extend the life of the game and if used creatively can make the game more interesting and enjoyable. I used to spend hours going after everything in games, but my backlog is just so extensive that I have a hard time being compelled to do that anymore. I can't even be bothered to go after all the puzzle pieces in every level in Donkey Kong Country Returns.
You're right. They can be fun to get if done properly ( i.e Majin) or if it rewarded you somehow instead of a trophy. Sometimes they are just a huge pain.
When collectibles lead to real, tangible rewards, they are worth getting. When it's something like the Coffee Thermoses in Alan Wake, it's pointless in my eyes.
Depends on the game. I love collecting everything I can find in games like Banjo Tooie or DK64 but I hate the forced collecting of Sonic Unleashed. Then there are games like Ultimate Spiderman where you have a choice to collect tokens to unlock suits.
if you dont think the trophy wont be fun/challenging to get then why waste your time? why complain? just dont do themtheSteeeeels
It's a compulsion for some people. Right now, I have a friend who's playing on FOUR different Xbox 360s hooked together just so he can artificially get a rank SS and get one stupid achievement.
It's a compulsion for some people. Right now, I have a friend who's playing on FOUR different Xbox 360s hooked together just so he can artificially get a rank SS and get one stupid achievement. JustPlainLucas
While I am one of those people who simply must find every collectible and secret in a game, I don't think I'm that hopeless, and I certainly don't do it for the achievements :P I think that for me it started back on the Nintendo 64 days where good games were released few and far between and were really expensive for a 12 years old, so I tried to get my penny's worth out of every game by finding every secret. Obviously I'm more inclined to find the collectibles if there's a reward attached to it and even then I only do it for the games I really enjoy. I think Batman: Arkham Asylum, for example, handled the collectibles extremely well. @ TC: I also think that some Rockstar games have done good on leading people to collectibles. Red Dead Redemption's treasure hunt was neatly done, in Bully you can unlock a map with all the collectibles shown on it, and I think in GTA IV there was a website that showed the location of every pigeon.
I rarely care about collectibles, but I appreciate it when they give you some kind of reward other than 15G.
Infamous did a decent job with the blast shards, where you became more powerful the more you collected. 350 might have been a little excessive though, especially when you have 2 left and no clue where to look.
Also, been playing Sly Collection, and the bottles gives you new moves if you find all of them in any given level.
As long as there is incentive I have no problem, but 100 feathers for a goddamn cape? F-U AssCreed.
No, these things are just there to lengthen the lifespan of a game a bit. The pinnacle of such lazy game design was San Andreas, where on every island you had to collect a ton of arbitrary items you couldn't possibly find without a guide telling you exactly where they are.
I love collectibles. Take the bobbleheads from Fallout 3. They are fun to search for and then also improve your character. Dont even get me started on the Playboy magazines from Mafia 2 :D
I played Enslaved and those tech orbs really took a lot of the fun out of it. Instead of focusing on what I was doing in the game, I had to spend all my time searching every nook and cranny of every environment for those stupid things.
If they can make those collectibles into something that makes sense in the context of the game, that's one thing. But collectibles just for the sake of collectibles...rotten idea.
Well if you're a Ps trophy lover then you gotta just do the time man :P Although I do agree that it can be downright ridiculous and always ends up with me takin out teh internet
its works better in some games than others. i loved exploring the great sea in wind waker looking for heart pieces, extra bottles, ammo upgrades, and the like. exploration was already intrinsically rewarding and those extrinsic rewards were tangible.
collecting film reels in l.a. noire isnt much fun though. i think its telling that i only found 1 film over the course of my playthrough. the city is meant to be explored by car and you will practically never find and films that way. good thing its completely optional. newspaper collecting worked much better as those were in crime scenes that youd scour anyway. plus they tell a significant amount of the story, so you want to find them.
The only thing necessary in a video game are two sticks that are supposed to be players and a square that is supposed to be a ball. Everything beyond that are just details to make the game appeal to the audience. So are collectables.
Absolutley hate them.They ruin your playthrough , you miss out on things , last example was homefront , I know the story doesn't help but still , looking at the youtube videos and searching them in the screen made me completely clueless about what was going on.
i hate collectibles especially if you get nothing for them bar an achievements. the only games i have played that have done collectibles right is uncharted 1&2 and Batman AA. Every other game that does collectibles it just seems to be a choir
I'd say it depends entirely on the collectables and how they are incorporated. For example, the collectables in Batman Arkham Asylum were handled very well and so were the manuscripts in Alan Wake - they actually added more to the game and weren't just there for inflated replay. However, if it's something like the thermoses in AW or the flags in Assassin's Creed then it's pointless and shouldn't be included.
If the collectables are rewarding in some way then yes, they're an amazing addition. Look at Animal Crossing for a good example. I like also like item/material grinding in games to forge weaponry & armour; Monster Hunter is an amazing example of this.
Collectibles can be a viable addition to almost any game, if they're used wisely. They're making it possible for the player to decide mid-game, whether he/she needs more challange or he/she's fine without collecting things. You can also decide whether you'll just quickly run through the game (enjoying the mix of the story and action) or you'll dip deeper and work harder to achieve 100% (which will cause more satisfaction in the end). Though if you need to find large numbers of collectibles to complete a game, then it's likely you're facing some cheap tactics from the devs to make the gamelength wider without adding any serious content (similar to grinding in most MMOs).
I'm not really against them since I consider myself a die-hard completionist/perfectionist. And I guess their incentive varies between games: BioShock 2's Audio Logs, for example, are much more worthy of finding than, say, GTA IV's pigeons -- but completion aspects are a staple of Rockstar games and will always be there in some form. It all depends on the person, I guess, but there are some games where the implementation of collectibles could (have been) better. Like Assassin's Creed I... oh my goodness, I needn't elaborate.
I generally likes collectables, but a lot of games implement them annoyingly i.e. having no checklist or marker to indicate whether you've gotten a certain collectable item or not in certain areas. That manages to spoil parts of otherwise great games.
I like the addition of extras in games. I don't normally go for all of them, but I like to collect some of them before I eventually lose interest. I like the way Assassin's Creed went about it, with a bit extra, but nothing hguely major, for hunting down stuff in-game.
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