JasonF

Lots of games seem to have this quest, particularly in the age of Achievements and Gamerscore. I mentioned flags because I've been playing Assassin's Creed, but looking at the games on my shelf, I see similar quests in Half Life 2 (Gamma Caches), Crackdown (two kinds of orbs), the Simpsons (one for each character!), Gears of War (graffiti tags), and Halo 3 (skulls), just to name a few.

Personally, I have mixed feelings. Generally, I like these quests, though I'll confess that when I've found all I can find, I will happily go to a awalkthrough or map to finish up the quest.

Michael Corvin

I usually don't mind. If the game is good (Crackdown, Halo, Gears), I'll take my time and look for them as it extends my time spent in that universe.

Draven

I couldn't care less. If I happen across one, great. But these are not fun ways to game, if you ask me.

Jeremy517

Depends on what the reward is for getting the item, and how obscure the locations of the items are.

jonw9

Ditto. If i see 'em i take them, but otherwise keep going.

Noow if it unlocks something, like I think it did in a early GTA on PS2 (tags or something) I will actively look, and use a guide. Plus on that kind of game it is better, since you can search for a while in between missions.

On COD4 I played through once and found about 10 laptops, and I may go back on easy to find the rest, using a guide.

lordwow

I wanted to get 1000/1000 on AC, but between Conversationalist (which I missed one of the first convos, thus another 8 hour run through to get 20 points), and the awful maps from the strategy guides, I'll pass.

I do try to get them on some games, especially if they're not annoying. For example, I really enjoyed getting the intels on COD4. They were easy to go back and get, and you didn't even have to finish the level once you got them. That's the way it should be done.

JasonF

Check out these maps:

http://www.firestorm.aquiss.com/AssassinsCreed/Guide/

I've only used the Masayaf one so far (couldn't find that damned 20th flag!) but I'm sure I'll break down and use the rest sooner or later.

tonyc3742

I don't like when they are very hard to find and required to open up some part of the game (other than a small bonus/side thing). I usually don't bother working at it because by the time I'm getting close to finishing a game, I like to go ahead and finish it, and sometimes 'catch em all' quests seem like they are artificially increasing game length in an un-fun way. I like them when you can get bonuses for just getting some of them, like the first three Ratchet and Clank games, I think the gold bolts helped you out but you didn't have to get them all to profit from them. I get really irked when I'm missing 1 out of 30 and have no idea where it is (like in Bioshock with the recorders).

PopcornTreeCt

I've gotten the 20 Teutonic flags from a district in Acre and flags from Masyaf but absolutely cannot find the rest. I've been using the pics in those guides and I've pretty much given up.

lordwow

Those are a lot better than the ones I had (scanned from a guide):

EDIT: Whoops, looks like they got taken down for copyright violations.

I started working on the kingdom, but it's just a lot of time, and I've got so much more to play. Thanks though!

movieking

I hate those damn quests, and usually avoid them.

xVladx

I don't mind them, as long as there's some way to refine your search a bit. For instance, in GTA:SA, there were something like 100 graffiti tags in one city, 100 "photo ops" in another, 100 horseshoes in the third, and then 100 oysters scattered randomly in the water.

I had no problem printing maps off of gamefaqs when I was going for 100% completion. There was just no way I was going to be scouring every inch of each city looking for all those things. However, if they had let you know when you had found all the items in a certain area (the cities were all divided up into smaller neighborhoods), then I could have seen trying to find all of the items without help.

Okami does a good job with that with the stray beads. I've only got about half of them, but I can see myself getting all of them one day, since I know I won't have to wander aimlessly in areas where I've already got everything.

Mikael79

I think as long as finding all of the items isn't required to finish a game - it's fine with me. I'll usually try to find everything, but eventually fail.

Goat3001

Same here. I tend not to care about my achievement score or any rewards. When I'm going through the game for the first time I just want to finish it. If I play it again, which is rare, I may try to find the hidden stuff.

CKMorpheus

I hate them. I'll grab them if I see them, but they only make me feel like I haven't completed the game. That bothers me. I tried using a map to complete the ones in San Andreas, but gave up. Totally pointless and a stupid way to get people to play some more. If you want us to play your games over and over again, give us some actual gameplay.

fumanstan

I ignore them if they're not necessary. I don't give two shits about most achivements, so I'm not going to bother doing them just for that.

boredsilly

I usually just ignore these kinds of missions/side quests, but in Crackdown it was integral to the game and I found it quite enjoyable looking for orbs. However, I probably shouldn't use "looking" because they were never really hidden. You never had to go too far before you found more orbs on rooftops.

If all the orbs were like the "hidden" orbs in Crackdown, I would have hated it. As it stands, it was never stressful finding another batch of orbs to go grab.

Giantrobo

I don't mind if they're not too out of the way. I think GOW's medals quest was well done. I still haven't found all of them but I have most of them. Then again I haven't even bothered with Halo 3's Skulls and Terminals. As a matter of fact I think I found 2 terminals by accident and haven't tried for more.

Marvel UA offered the Daredevil and Black Panther dolls that gave you playable characters and I thought was pretty cool. I still haven't found them all so that sucks but I still thought what they offered was pretty cool.

Michael Corvin

Never stressful until you only have 1 left. I'm still only missing one and that is keeping me from a perfect 1250 points in that game.

metalhead212

These types of quests were never an issue on the older systems so why is it an issue now? Because of gamerscore? Ridiculous.

Giantrobo

Dude, don't underestimate the obsessive compulsive nature of gamers.

Flay

Orbs were damn addictive. I just wished they had stretched out the agility scale a bit.

I've gotten bored with chasing after these types of items over the past year. Unless it offers a substantial gameplay modification, I just don't care anymore. Then again, I play so many games that I rarely have time to gather anything before moving onto the next title.

Save Ferris

I dont think it hurts the gameplay if its an optional achievement for those point hunters. I imagine all it takes is to have some intern programmer 'place' spots on the maps so it cant take too much development time.

Breakfast with Girls

I hate these, but feel compelled to at least give them a shot. I'll try to do all that I can and then if there aren't that many left I'll usually look at a walkthrough and pick up the rest—so long as I can go back to any area in the game. I'm not playing it through again just to get some damn knick-knacks.

The most recent one I completed was in Kingdom Hearts with the 33 dalmatian chests. That was about 2-3 months ago. I had to use a walkthrough for about five of them.

Giantrobo mentioned Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. For that game I just used codes to unlock each of the action figure characters. Life's too short.

matome

Hate'em. Finally got around to finishing the 1000 points on Tomb Raider Legend which required me to shoot away nondescript sections of wall to get to hidden artifacts. There is no way in hell you can find these things without a guide walkthrough.