5. Focus On Campaign
Can you remember those days when the campaign was all you got? When you traversed Hyrule in search for the princess? When you single-handedly fought all the invading demons out of Mars? Drama and compelling narrative was thrown at you by the bucket load, until all creativity kind of dribbled out of existence and the Age of Multiplayer kicked in. Thankfully not all developers have chosen the path of a sacrificing a game with a shoddy campaign for an outstanding multiplayer yes Call of Duty, were always looking at you for this one. Ubisoft quite clearly devoted a significant amount of time, money and thought into the creation of Rook Island and the mishaps you undergo as the story unfolds. There does not appear to be any coincidence in your results; you dont HAPPEN to be good with guns in the beginning, you dont HAPPEN to just go against Vaas because hes an asshat, and mostly you dont HAPPEN to just become the almighty Rakyat warrior goddamn you have to earn that title. Whilst this goes into further defining in another point, the developers really have succeeded in pulling off a game that breathes by itself. One example of this comes from my Solid Snake approach of liberating outposts. I chose my hilltop of sniping, watched the patrol routes of all the marked and unknowing fools wondering the grounds, and as I lined up my crosshairs and held my breath a bloomin tiger popped out the wilderness and tore everyone a new asshole for me. Why was this impressive? ITS NOT SCRIPTED.
There is (with obvious exceptions to missions in which you to use an obscene amount of C4) no Michael Bay/melodrama to the island, the people or the plot. It just is. Rook Island and the time you spend on it are achieved so well because you BELIEVE that this is possible. This focus and attention to detail, I believe, purely stems from the devotion spent on its creation and not on some dreary map type with lunatic 14 year olds running about all over it.