As important as it is to have a game with a interesting story and captivating setting; I do feel it’s a great feature to have other goals to accomplish either on the way through a games campaign or after. I’ve recently been playing Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag and, as much as I could rave about the story line and its brilliant setting, I have to say that it’s a nice ingredient in games like this to be left with so much more to do.  the slightly overwhelming challenge I am left with is  upgrading my Jackdaw, island hideout and our protagonist, Edward Kenway, not to mention having to find the plans for certain upgrades and appearances. is there such a thing as too much content? I don’t think I could ever find a gamer that could say “good game but I wish there was less to do.” the more time I get to play a game the better I feel about the ever rising price we pay for games.

The downside to having such a vast amount of content is it really kicks me in my overly obsessive side to have every item or objective collected and completed. I spent hours, days and weeks wandering the Washington Wasteland in fallout 3 (and Nevada in New Vegas) picking up every new weapon, completing all the missions, buying all the houses/penthouse suites and hacking every terminal. I cant tell you how many times I heard Three Dog howling through that pipboy radio, but if i didn’t get everything, I didn’t finish the game. I blame my years as one of those overly obsessive Pokemon fans as a kid. Gotta catch ’em all! was plastered around my room and often “pok’e-Rapped” out from the TV. My brother joined me in the craze and would get the opposing copy of each generation. I had blue, he had red, i had gold, he had silver. We couldn’t not have all 150!…151 when a (not so) wild Mew appeared. I say not so wild as I remember the withdrawals I had after giving my best friend my copy of blue for a few days so he could get me my very own Mew. Alas, I never did quite get all 151, which still pains me today, even if you do only get a virtual certificate from professor Oak.

There’s no way I’ll let any game get by me without being finished as close to 100% as I can get. I wont even start another game until my Jackdaw is a monster and Kenway has every outfit in his inventory. just as my vault dweller had the best armor and weapons; so will the protagonist of the next Fallout game. It just has to be done. The other half, however, isn’t so understanding….

STEVE JILLINGS