When do Video Games Have too Much Content?

riddler-arkham-city

Between bouts of Battlefield 3 multiplayer, I’ve been going back into Arkham City to try and collect all the Riddler trophies and challenges into order to finish off his sidequest and save those poor doctors. Now, if you’re not familiar with this particular aspect of the game, the Riddler has captured five doctors and hidden them all over Arkham City and the only way he’ll allow you to save them is by collecting 400 plus trophies and riddles and combat challenges. It also doesn’t help that he’s kind of a dick and taunts you the entire way through.

Now, I’m not one to shy from completing any game to 100% (that’s become a bit of a running joke around here) but even I think 400 something collectibles is a little much. I mean, they’re not incredibly well hidden, but just the sheer volume of the things makes this a daunting task. This is a problem endemic to open world games where I imagine the developer is kind of tempted to hide these things all over to justify the massive game worlds (although Call of Duty has hidden collectibles as well).

So here’s the thing: while I don’t blame Rocksteady for having Riddler challenges in the game, I just think there’s too damn many. No offense to the guys who went in and designed and placed all of these things, but didn’t they break 200 and start thinking “wow, we’ve sure put in a lot of these things. Maybe we should stop?”. Have you guys run into a similar sort of fatigue with collectibles, or just games with a lot of content? Which game was it? How are you getting along with the Riddler challenges?

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mitch@gamersushi.com Twitter: @mi7ch Gamertag: Lubeius PSN ID: Lubeius SteamID: Mister_L Origin/EA:Lube182 Currently Playing: PUBG, Rainbow 6: Siege, Assassin's Creed: Origins, Total War: Warhammer 2

6 thoughts on “When do Video Games Have too Much Content?”

  1. I completed all 440 of the Riddler’s puzzles in Arkham City. I’m not usually one to bother with collectables but I did it here and in inFamous 2 for the same reasons.

    Both of them A) Showed you where everything was hidden with minimal effort and B) Were fun as hell to move about in. In both games I finished the story and found myself messing around in the sandbox world for a bit; two to six hours passed and I had all the collectables.

    In fact I just finished InFamous 2 Festival of Blood where I did exactly the same thing.

    The only other games that come to mind in which I collected things were Assassins Creed II and Lego Harry Potter but those were just because I wanted the platinum trophies 😛

  2. I think if they didn’t have the Riddler thugs that you could find I would be extremely frustrated, but otherwise I don’t have too much of a problem with them, I know I’m going to get them anyway because I have to 100% the game lol. Oh and to Mitch and the rest of the gang, I find your lack of podcast disturbing…

  3. That does seem like a lot, but at least they’re not difficult. At least just adding some cheap extra playability is better than a poor online deathmatch component.

    I only collected the laptops in Modern Warfare because it unlocked cheats, and playing with bullet time / guys exploding into hundreds of tires every time they die was absolutely awesome. Fun cheats (on your +1 playthroughs) is the only time they’re appropriate.

  4. Really, I have no idea why so few games these days add mod support. That is a way of adding near infinite amounts of play-ability to your games in a way that does not seem cheap. I still keep coming back to Oblivion and we almost have Skyrim already…

  5. I got all the collectables in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, but that’s mostly because you can buy maps to find the collectables. I started to get tired and bored near the end of my 100% of Red Dead Redemption. It’s rare when I even try to find the collectables in games, usually, if there’s a faster way that will at least show where the collectables are, like in Ass. Bro., I might bother with it.

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