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Are Assassin Creeds good games actually?

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Care to go bit further?
You asked is they are good as games and as games they are complete failures, they are alot similar with walking simulators but more developed as they were made by an AAA company with a real budget. You go sightseeing, virtual tourism, on a really, many times, really good looking open world with really impressive art direction but that is it. Gameplay mechanics however are akin to a series of disconnected social media games than a truly under developed and don't form a well thought out system. This is valid for ALL Assassin Creed games. There is facebook base building, facebook investment on real state, facebook game where you send your assassins on "missions", facebook loot system and on the very few systems that come close to be a game, you can't fail on them and to me a game where you can't fail isn't a game.

The combat is a joke since Ass Creed 1 where they try to disguise bad mechanics with flashy animations, the Parkour is pretty much automatic requiring little thought. The stealth mechanics are something of a first stealth game for kids that fail to be challenging since the start as you can pretty much murder everyone with ease. The only gameplay mechanic on all Ass Creed games that came close to being good was the ship mechanics, that is why many people mention Ass Creed 4 as being good but that is kinda wasted as you will fully upgrade your ship way before reaching the halfway point of the game and the game utterly fails at presenting a challenging curve to keep the last half of the game remotely interesting.

They can be fun if you expect alot of virtual tourism and is entertained by the historical time machine bollocks on renaissance Italy or the Caribeans but don't expect any real gameplay from them.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Don't play AC 3, the protagonist is a half wit american indian with no sense of humor that could only come from the mind of a hack writer trying to disguise his inability with white guilt for the poor indians, it is so predictable on its cliches that made me asleep and the american colonial cities are boring. If you truly wanna play those games, start with AC 2, Brotherhood jump for AC 4 and that is it, AC 2 has Italy and AC 4 has boats all you will ever need from those games, the rest are a waste of time coming from Ubisoft corporate shithole. If you wanna truly play all of them, I advise alot of vodka, it makes all the ugly bitches look beautiful, it surely must work for games too.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Actually AC3 had boats, in fact they were pretty much the only thing good from that shitshow as AC4 and Rogue had the same boat mechanics ... so good in fact the same studio that did the boat mechanics in 3,4 and Rogue is doing a game called Skull and Bones.

If you are really interested in Colonial America instead of 3 just go with Rogue, better one and being on the *right* side for once in the series.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
AC2 and its spin-offs (brotherhood, revelations) are good for sightseeing, though the characters and writing gotten on my nerves rather quickly.
AC3 is so shit it's quite possible to uninstall this turd long before you get to the sailing part.
AC4 has the most tolerable protagonist of them all and I'd say pretty decent mission design. I actually had the most fun with this installment.
Rogue is a rehash of AC4 with more added clutter and very derivative at that. I never finished it, I think I ragequit on a bug that prevented me from finishing a sidequest.
All in all, the characters felt very bland and at some point I felt that I've seen and done it all before (I get this a lot with this series, but especially so with Rogue).

I didn't play the later ones, so can't say much, Unity seems shit, but I'm not sure how much of it is due to the bugs which may or may not have been fixed by now. Mate says Syndicate is all right for AC game.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
I still don't know why AC3 turned out the way it did.

How do you decide to use the American Revolution as setting in a series known for parkouring across city blocks when there were barely any of those, or big cities as seen in Europe, across the pond? It's like such an integral poor decision that it leaves me baffled. And no, wilderness roaming was not a good substitute seeing as there were probably half dozen tree models you could actually climb on and they were not suitable stand-ins for actual architectural works. Not to mention series always loved to screw around with historical aspects of real events, but AC3 basically turned into sightseeing everyone of note during the Revolution as conceived by writers in their fan fiction.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
I still don't know why AC3 turned out the way it did.
Seems like they wanted to pander to amerikwans. Let's put an unhealthy dose of SJW into the mix (correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't 2012 the year when gaming was about to be hit with the full force of this crap?) and there's that recipe for disaster.
 

Mark.L.Joy

Prophet
Joined
Sep 11, 2016
Messages
1,278
As much as I hate to say it I had fun with black flag, the rest are at best walking simulators in historical sets, 0 difficulty or gameplay but they do look good and sound good.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
My thoughts on the series:

Assassin's Creed

This has not aged well. The series has come a long way since. The game mainly consists of repeating the same activities - street assassinations, flag collecting, eavesdropping, pickpocketing - across city environments. You don't have to do all the activities, just a few, to access the main story missions in each chapter. These tend to be ok but are simplistic compared to how they developed for the rest of the series.

Some of the areas, like Masyaf, still look good if you use the overhaul mod. Make sure you use PCGamingWiki for tweaks. The game looks horrible unless you put the multisampling on max (3 in the config file). Other areas like Acre and Jerusalem look drab, grey, boring.

The parkour gameplay is frustratingly inaccurate. Many walls which look climbable can't be climbed, or have an obstacle half way up which looks like you should be able to get around it, but can't. Often you'll be stood at the top of a wall or a tower and press the jump button towards something else and you jump in completely the opposite direction. This makes some sensitive sequences like chases an utter nightmare. We've been spoiled by games like Uncharted which do it so much more fluidly, but that has come with time.

Play if you're interested in the Crusades setting.

Assassin's Creed II

A much bigger emphasis on story this time around, with a much more likeable protagonist. Most of the boring side activities have become optional. The parkour works better and you can do more kinds of assassination like aerial assassinations, allowing for more varied gameplay. There are some spectacular setpieces. The soundtrack is outstanding. The Codex soundtrack thread is littered with examples of Jesper Kyd's work on this game. The modern day storyline is also a lot better and there's a little bit of town management as Ezio builds up his family's stronghold.

Play it - it's one of the best AC games.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Direct sequel to AC2, it expands on the town management of the first game to allow you to buy up and develop all of Rome. The soundtrack, again, is outstanding. Systems from AC2 have been built upon and refined. Animations are better, even more ways to assassinate people, and there's a great brotherhood mechanic where you hire and develop your assassins - all the best AC games have copied this since.

Play it - it's one of the best AC games.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

I didn't enjoy this one as much as it felt a bit pointless. Ezio's story seemed kinda done with AC:B but they found a way to keep it going, only with him now as an old man trying to find love. It's set in Constantinople, and there are flashback sequences with Altair, so it feels like a mix of AC and AC2. Not much else to be said. I don't remember it that much compared to the other games.

Play it if you're a fan of the previous games.

Assassin's Creed III

Haytham Kenway is one of the best characters in the series - and a lot of the game still looks good today, especially the wilderness sections. Some parts of the story are good even though it portrays a one-sided view of the American Revolution (rebels good, British bad). The modern day storyline gets more attention too.

Assassin's Creed III introduced the ship mechanic which was built upon and refined in AC IV and Rogue.

Play it if you're a fan of the previous games.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation

A PC port of a PS Vita title. Set in New Orleans around the same time that all the AC3 stuff is kicking off.

Play it if you're a fan of the previous games.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

The game is outstanding. Missions have optional side objectives which increase the difficulty somewhat. There's a huge continuous, open world to explore by ship and by land, and doing the random shit now actually help you upgrade your character and your ship, the ship battles are excellent, the soundtrack is pretty good (although still not a patch on Jesper Kyd's work on AC 2). Edward Kenway is a pretty interesting character. The modern day stuff gets a bit shit, unfortunately. But everything else works so well, and with a high degree of polish, and doesn't seem to have aged at all.

Play it - it is probably the best AC game.

Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry

A standalone expansion to AC IV which expands on the character of your first mate. He goes around killing bad guys with a machete, freeing slaves, and building up his own ship. You spend a lot more time on the ship with this one, so play it if you like AC IV.

Assassin's Creed Rogue

Mechanically the same game as AC IV, with the open world and ship gameplay that made that game so fucking great, but the setting is more akin to AC 3. What I love about Rogue is you finally get to play as a good guy - a templar, basically, who's more or less aligned to the British cause. You see why he thinks that way - he has valid reasons for seeing the assassins as scumbags. Would have liked to see this developed more in the series. Still holding out hope for a sequel of some kind.

Play it - it's one of the best AC games.

Assassin's Creed: Unity

Technical issues prevented me from playing it.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate


Technical issues and the fact that my CPU isn't up to par have prevented me from playing it.

My favourites in order of preference:

Rogue > IV > Freedom Cry > Brotherhood > II > III > Liberation > Revelations > I
 

Deflowerer

Arcane
Joined
May 22, 2013
Messages
2,052
They're shit and only barely interesting if you do some heavy LARPing, ie turn off minimap and navigate based on landmarks, and ghosting (kill only the main target).

And of course for virtual tourism.

Main thing that pissed me off (and I played until Brotherhood) was how shitty all the scripted missions are. I particularly remember an episode in Assassin's Creed 2, where you have to assassinate some dude who is planning to escape by a boat. So what did I do? Well, I inferred he'll be at the boat so I climbed on that side of the building and hanged above the boat, waiting to strike the moment he sets his foot on it.

GUESS WHAT? DESYNCHRONISED aka failed the mission because the guy escaped according to game logic the moment he sat on that boat. How the fuck did he escape? He's in the map boundaries, I can see him ffs? I was in midair doing an execution to boot.

And this shit happens all the time.
 
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spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Well, if anybody wanted this series to be something like a low-tech hitman game (I know I was one, it was sorta-kinda marketed as such) I am sure a quick stint with AC1 quickly gets you over that idea.
It's a swashbuckling action-adventure with parkour, architecture and tacked on conspiracy metaplot.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
God there's a lot of molepoppers on the dex. Thankfully it's only a mild infestation.

No, OP. The Assassins Creed series is the epitome of decline. I'd even readily recommend sitting through Bioware trite over this.
 

Uncle Skull

Educated
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
75
Revelations made me want to nuke Canada. Never touched this horrid series after that, and never will.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,307
It's been said more than once here already - Batman Arkham City is the best Assassin's Creed game.
Some people actually like AC III? :lol: It's one of the most boring pieces of shit I've ever played, even by modern Ubisoft standards. Complete with the most boring protagonist you could ever think of.
 

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
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Staff Member
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Messages
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Location
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Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Assassins Creed is seriously bad and I have no idea how anyone can like it tbh. The one button climbing gameplay is enough to make it super boring and bland and it's an insult to the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy where you actually had to control your jumps and climbs.

Also Assassins Creed started the awful ubisoftian open world formula with endless side missions and eternal boredom that spread to every other game and made them super boring too.
 

Deflowerer

Arcane
Joined
May 22, 2013
Messages
2,052
Also whoever said that AssCreed 2 introduced air assassinations is wrong. What it did instead was make it effortless. Air assassinations were a thing already in AssCreed1. Despite having less content, in terms of purity of the game design AC1 is probably the best. Unfortunately, when people complained about not having enough to do and the game being repetitive, Ubisoft responded with shittons of filler bullshit and mobile game money sinks.

That's the biggest problem, it tries to do everything and excels at nothing. I don't mind traversal, I think especially in 2007 the parkour was novel enough in open world games that using it as traversal was great. However, that's the thing, it's a mode of traversal. But then in AssCreed2 they started introducing those Tomb Raider style tombs where the main idea is platforming, and all those were piss easy because the parkour was always there for traversal, not actual challenge. Then, although it was prevalent already in AC1, they focus a lot on combat situations where stealth is not viable. But then the combat is boring trite shite even worse than in Batman games because in Batman, the Simon Says was at least elegant enough to punish button mashing (even though I dislike all the combat systems of that type), while even in Brotherhood you could just spam counter, leave the room IRL for a few seconds and come back with all the enemies dead. I actually did it, I went to take a leak during midcombat and kept countering on my Bluetooth controller, came back, the pack of about 10 enemies that I left at were all dead. It abandoned pure Assassin-style stealth that it at least aimed at in AssCreed1 and kept introducing new shit without focusing on fundamentals. So if every gameplay mechanic is so childish and easy to execute, maybe have interesting problems to solve? Nope, all you have to do is always told you, checkpoint after checkpoint. And boy, fuck all those investment and assassin guild management bullshit. You literally make no interesting choices whatsoever, just buy random shit and send assassins on random missions, it's not like the blacksmith you bought will go bankrupt or assasin's die on their missions.

All you're left is beautiful locations and architecture, but that's it. Worst part is that it's such a missed opportunity. You have these fantastic historical settings and locations to take advantage of, something you rarely see in non-strategy games, and what do you get? Buckets of shit.:negative:

And then they waste settings like October Revolution Russia and Ming Dynasty China on 2d sidescrollers.
 
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Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
Jesper Kyds soundtrack for AC2 actually sucks... Its too melodramatic and soapy, violins and some woman wailing something, WTF Jesper?! He used to make something unusual, but now its like something from those new edgy tv shows. A far cry from Hitman 123.:decline:
 

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