Games free-running

Recently I've had the good fortune of playing three different games that all feature, as a... feature, really, the act of Free-running. This is basically going over and around an Urban environment at great speed by use of acrobatic activities and general agility. For all of them, this free running was a quite important selling point as it allowed rapid transit from point A to point B in an open-world sandbox. When done right, it can alternate between feeling quite relaxing and cathartic, and being a breakneck, fast paced, enjoyable gameplay addition. When done wrong it feels like the game is stretching out the little amount of gameplay present with making you run across the map to do it.

Let's discuss these games on a scale of "semi realistic free-running" to "completely bananas free-running."

Assassin's Creed: Yes. I know I'm about a bajillion miles behind the band wagon. This often happens to me, and it is yet to bother me. Alot of people criticise the repetition of the gameplay, but I'm loving it. Still, I digress from the free-running.

Assassin's Creed is the most realistic (and I believe I stretch the term in saying that) example of Free Running of the three games. Fall far enough and you will get hurt (which gets magically healed over time), you need to find genuine handholds to use to climb (albeit there are LOTS of these handholds all around the place), and it is relatively easy to misjudge a jump when pressed for time (E.G. being followed by three legions of city guard with the intent of face-stabbing you. Whether that's stabbing you in the face, or stabbing you with a face, I haven't decided)

Despite these 'restrictions', it's good fun. Leaping from one side of a street to the other, misjuding slightly and being left dangling by your fingertips from a window, clambering up and continuing on your way adds an element of risk to it all. It feels like a gameplay element rather then just another method of walking from point A to point B. Without considering it you find yourself thinking about the most efficient ways to get to your location, factoring in the speed of climbing up the side of that building versus using the handy ladder on the building across the street, which happens to lead to a hostile archer posted on the roof. It adds another factor to consider that makes the game genuinely more interesting for me.


Infamous: I admit I have only briefly played the game fully, most of my experience is linked with playing the demo (which I believe I got an impressive feel of the free-running from. It's most of what I did in the demo). This is a step along the scale from Assassin's Creed. While in Assassin's Creed you were incredibly fit and agile, none of it seemed genuinely impossible for a sufficiently athletic and trained person to do. Infamous though, has the character step across the threshhold into superhuman territory. It's appropriate, considering the subject matter IS superhuman, but it adds a certain flair to the movement.

However this does sort of work against it a little. The movement is much easier, so in my view it steps it slightly away from gameplay mechanic and moves it towards 'bothersome timeconsuming movement". However, this step is tiny at best and the movement is still incredible. You still need to think a bit (not as much as AC, however) about how you will get from point A to point B, and the game is deliberately designed to make the movement as easy and enjoyable as possible. Try jumping on a very narrow ledge and in the air nudge the movement stick slightly to one side. You'll see the game autocorrect so you land on the ledge rather then plummet. Very handy little device.

So, the final verdict of Infamous movement? Good value, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the full game.


Prototype: Aaaand collapse. To be honest I was, at times, having trouble distinguishing between Prototype and Infamous during development. Both of them had me excited, being third person action-with-RPG-elements games featuring super-powered main characters locked in a quarantined city surrounded by hostiles, both of the main characters using free-running/'Parkour' (as they specify for Prototype, a French art of moving) to get around the city scape. Prototype is on the Banana's side of the scale, exact opposite of Assassin's Creed.

Unfortunately playing Prototype so far has not excited me. It just hasn't been fun. Avoiding most of the gameplay issues and focusing specifically on the free-running, it can be boiled down to one, single issue.

It. Is. Not. Fun. It doesn't feel like a gameplay mechanic about making decisions that help you, it feels like "Hold down shoulder trigger to move". I find myself holding the shoulder trigger which puts you in 'parkour' mode constantly, never releasing the poor abused little thing. Here's an idea of how ridiculously easy the free-running is.

Hold down Parkour button, run at building, run up side of building indefinately. Seriously, that's what happens. It doesn't feel like Free-Running, it just feels... cheap. It's like I'm cheating, or something. Sure, it looks super-powered (which is the point, I know), but it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like an enjoyable side of the gameplay, it feels like a game mechanic you use to avoid having to think about travel.


Currently Assassin's Creed and Infamous are tying for awesome free-running. When I get Infamous I'll be able to decide which works better.