You mean those tutorials where you can't move until the game tells you you can, and then you can't jump until the voiceover tells you how to do that? Man, i hate those too...

Ultima, Bard's Tale, Wasteland - pretty much all the cRPG's of the mid-to-late 80's were the least patronizing and hand-hold-y. In terms of BT/WL/Ultima you spent most of your time just wondering around huge maps trying to figure out what's next, with absolutely no idea where to go (or without even an automap), you speak to NPC's using keywords in a puzzle-game-like way and there's no "quests" in the way we think of them today, every bit of info from an NPC is a small hint, a clue which you need to think about, take notes, and follow (hopefully) to the next breadcrumb. For example in Bard's Tale you might talk to an NPC, and all he'll say is "This bad-guy is causing trouble, go take care of it", nothing else, it's completely left up to the player how to handle it, or even more cryptic messages like "It's said that X item is sacred and powerful". Yes you get xp if you finish these "quests", but the player is never really made aware on a meta level that their on a "quest".

I really think the only way to save computer games (and RPGs) is getting back to this old method in a radical way.

I'm obviously in the minority here but I like a game to hold my hand throughout. A prime example was playing Max Payne 3 on easy, with auto-aim. Why? Well because I treated the game like an interactive movie. The story was intriguing; Max himself was a messed up piss-head and his employers were rich playboys. I don't want to continually die a horrible death and run out of ammo - it gets in the way of progressing and I still feel some satisfaction by killing multiple enemies against all odds. I don’t want a game to be realistic – I want to be almost super-human.

The latest POP game allows seamless leaping, sliding, climbing and swinging without it even being possible to die. I get a lot more pleasure than I would in Tomb Raider where a simple slip or misstep results in certain death and having to replay the section from scratch.

Finally, AC2 was even better. Press a button, direct Ezio forward, left or right and wow – watch him climb impossible heights and leap gracefully between rooftops.

So to conclude, games should have the option to hold your hand and it’s not patronising. It just appeals to a wider market. If you don’t like it, then if available, crank up the difficulty or skip tutorials.

While I can't say I'm in either baskets, hater or lover of hand holding, but the way you describe it I must say I'm leaning towards what you like. A tutorial should in fact be patronising because it should assume you play this game for the first time. Obviously it should be skippable, I hate it when that's not possible just like unskippable cutscenes.

I finished the tutorial today in Hostile Waters and it had one of those older tutorials where the dialogue and helping is spot on, straight-forward and simple and gives you the information needed. Everything is skippable except for the tutorial missions themselves (I think they count towards the campaign, they're just easier) so ideally I would have wanted the tutorial missions to be skippable entirely for someone who understands what to do from the beginning or have played the game before.

Also in your example about Tomb Raider, the slightest mistake and you have to replay the entire mission again - I'm dealing with this in Splinter Cell Blacklist, it's horrible. I find the game design weak, at least when you don't have to option to play without that kind of setup (IMO).

You know, I started studying English so I could understand my computer. But by the time I got good enough with it, my computer was speaking Spanish :(

Not that I regret learning it, though.

I always felt that when a game does too much instead of you, it gets further and further from actually being 'interactive'. That only applies to the Max Payne 3 example really, I feel it really should not have even been a videogame - I just can't see any benefits MP 3 would be drawing from the gaming medium. Ass Creed moves the interactivity towards where[/ i] you want to go and [i]what you want to do - you get a fairly big world to explore, and you are free to go where you wish and do what you want to do (in the boundaries of what the game allows you of course) - it would be quite difficult to call that not interactive. On the other hand, that's also the reason why I disliked Ass Creed so much - I felt bored. Most of the time, I was holding down a couple of buttons and kind of didn't really do anything, nothing was actually happening most of the time, and so all I was left with was watching a couple of pretty animations. Quite simply, the gameplay felt incredibly uninvolved. On the other hand, I did like the 2008 version of Prince of Persia - you constantly had to watch your timing while exploring, at least.

I don't think of the Ass Creed games as open-world so much as "a big open film set to play around in and do cinematic action stuff".

Seriously, they could make the twist of the Ass Creed series that every game was just a movie, and you played the lead actor, with cameramen constantly following behind you.

It feels fake and scripted, like Far Cry.

Except that he's not talking about tutorials. He's talking about game design, and that isn't optional. No matter how much you crank up the difficulty, that won't make the platforming on POP or AC any less automatic.

As for quick retries, that's not handholding. When you die on Rayman Origins you only need to retry the current room you're in and not the whole level. When you die on New Super Mario Bros. Wii you get kicked back to the level select screen. That means that despite Rayman being a much, much harder game, it's not nearly as frustrating NSMB Wii.

And that wasn't much of a problem on POP either, the issue with that game was that it several seconds would go by between button presses, you'd just sit there and watch the game do everything itself.

That's the problem - you don't play the lead actor. If they wanted to make that twist, you would be the cameraman, and due to budget limitations, you would happen to write small bits of script as well :-P

I beg to differ - it's about patronising players. So to put a slant on my post, Max Payne 3 would slow down the action when you’re in particular difficulty. This would give the player an opportunity to recognise the threat and act accordingly. Another example would be when “press R2” flashes up on the screen and you have a delay to register and do just that.

The AC example was in direct response to the OP’s point. I marvel at the fact that I’m able to control a character so easily with impressive results.

Finally, the OP specifically mentioned tutorials….so again, I think my points are valid. I like games like that. They’re completely intuitive for us less capable gamers and preferable to me. It’s about having fun and those kind of games tick all the right boxes for me.

Maybe if it was up to the difficulty that would be fine, but more often than not it isn't, it's part of the core game design and it's forced upon all players.

Regarding AC, I consider controlling that character one step above pressing play on a movie and saying I'm controlling it, but if you find it satisfying, fine.