I had a very strange thing happen to me this week. I went back and re-played a game I hadn’t previously enjoyed. Only this time, a year removed from my first experience, I actually enjoyed it.
The game in question was Assassin’s Creed Revelations. With Assassin’s Creed III out this week, and being a fan of the game’s fiction (if not the modern-day stuff’s wooden presentation), I figured I’d give the thing a second chance, if only so I’d be up to speed on events for the beginning of ACIII.
I’m glad I did, because a year later, the thing that had put me off first time around — the derivative nature of Revelations — wasn’t really an issue. In 2011, I’d pulled the pin around three hours in, because it had been so damn similar to the entry in the series before it, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The side-missions, the weapons, the perks, the whole thing. Constantinople felt like a re-skin of Rome, just without the horses. I’d only just played this game! I got bored, saw other games around I’d rather be playing, and that was that.
Yet when I started playing it again this week, that wasn’t a problem. Because I hadn’t really played it last year, it had now been two years since I’d sunk too much time into Brotherhood, and my Assassin’s Creed fatigue had abated. I could enjoy the little things about the game again; the new city, the historical fetishism, the face-stabbing, the superb voice-acting. By the time I’d finished the game I’d go so far as to say that, surprising even myself, I’d loved it.
While this made me happy I could enjoy the thing again, and be primed for ACIII, it also made me feel a little guilty. How many other great games had I disliked or failed to fully appreciate over the years that hadn’t been given such an opportune chance for redemption? I thought back to Fallout 3, which had bored me since I’d still been playing Oblivion right up until the point it had been released, so Washington’s wastelands and inhabitants felt strangely all-too-familiar. Maybe now, a few years on, it’s worth another shot (or maybe not, since in a post-Skyrim world it might feel even worse).
What about you? Is there a game, whether it be an RPG, shooter or even sports title, that you once dismissed as being just another version, or a tired update, that you might now be able to go back and enjoy?
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