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Are Assassin Creeds good games actually?

mbv123

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Only thing the series has going for it are the exploration of cities of various eras and their architecture.
Gameplay and story are absolute dogshit
 

Deleted member 7219

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Wow, lots of edgelords in this thread. Guys, if everyone else is being edgy, you're no longer being edgy...
 
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Divinity: Original Sin
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.

The other day I installed vanilla ass creed 1, and I felt that graphics and animation much more believable than the sequels. It was kind of "realistic". From AC 3 and beyond, the characters are like Spiderman, doing super jumps that defies gravity. Also, the drab look does feel atmospheric. The game felt less silly compared to the other installments. But it really is boring and repetitive. Every kind of mission is the same thing in every city: pickpocketing, eavesdropping, beat up, etc... were missions available to get info on the "boss" targets, and for each boss, they would all play the same way. No variations. Also, beyond the cities, there was a big open wild area that was very cool, but there was nothing to do on it, other than find collectibles.

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.

It's when they applied the GTA philosophy: all missions are "story" related, and there's some repetitive filler mini game type missions, but they all have a better integration to the main story. So it's like a GTA without cars. If one likes GTA for it's storylines and not because of silly dumb killings, you'll probably enjoy it. Also, aerial assassinations were present in the first game. What is new is the fact that you have new moves, like killing two guys at the same time and double aerial kills. And ezio can learn hot to climb higher.

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.

it's as good as AC2. It made things easier with the aid of brotherhood allies, and chain kills. Ezio is unstoppable. This is the game that they added side optional bonus objectives in every mission, like kill everybody undetected, o kill in a specific way, or complete the mission without fallin in the water, which was really challenging sometimes. every mission had 2 side objectives. This is kept for the whole series from this game on. also, this game introduces a cellphone minigame where you send your assassin's on missions around europe so you get money and improve their abilities. they could die in these missions, but there was a percentage of success before sending then on missions.

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.

It's the best looking game of the old engine, but it's a short game and feels more like an expansion. Ezio has now a hook that can be used in parkour and combat, there's a tower defense minigame. Every new addition to gameplay in the series is kept for the follow up sequels until now. Storywise, it ends the ezio/altair storyline in a way that was completely unnecessary to have a sequel, except there was that shitty present timeline.

Also, about this old engine, the cities felt more lively in a GTA sense, better that when they changed to the AC3 engine.

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.

the redeeming factor of this game is the introduction of naval battles which, though very arcade-ish, they were really fun. Also, they sold the game with picture a a protagonist that you only get to play with only in the second half of the game, making the whole beggining feeling like a huge prologue. Then, when you get to play the indian guy, you realize that the prologue guy is much more fun to play with. The game also brings back the "wilderness area" like the one in AC 1. But old USA setting is boring.

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.

It's simpler, but yet introduces the disguise/persona feature gameplay. but its also very simple and actually cumbersome.

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.

It's as silly as every AC game, but it is really fun, and I guess it was made because many people considered AC3 a huge disappointment, but everybody praised the ship missions in that game, that they run to make an entire game based on that feature. It still has on foot sequences, but the fact that they made it shorter made the game fresh.

The optional side objectives are present since brotherhood.

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.

very short

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.

More of AC IV, and you play with a guy who sides with the templar guys.

Assassin's Creed: Unity
Technical issues prevented me from playing it.

Horrible, more repetitive than AC 1. The worst AC game. Everyday is revolution day: they made crowds revolting in front of Notre dame, and from Arno's youth till the end of the game, which is years later, there was always that riot in front of notre dame. Also, in many other places/squares. The city is very beautifully remade though. The fact that there's no eiffel tower at the game time line made the devs create a bleeding effect in which present guy experience glitches in the animus that would merge othe memories/timelines, making you appear in the belle epoque or world war 2, so you can widen the scope of virtual Paris tourism. But the game is a shore.

Oh, multiplayer was integrated in the main game, so you could play mission's in co-op, but the novelty wears of after playing a couple of times.

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

Silly, but an improvement on unity, but it reached a point when the series is mostly bad by now. It's mostly a forgettable game, but some fun can be achieved from it. It feels like the devs noticed the series was stagnant and unity was shit, that you can see the effort they made to change it into a better game. It's also the 1st time an AC game doesn't take itself too seriously. It's now closer to GTA since you have chariots on streets that you can rob. Combat is more akin to batman games, and better than the whole series combat.

My favourites in order of preference:

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

Mine:

Brotherhood > IV(freedom cry is part of it) > II > Rogue > III > Revelations > Syndicate > I > liberation > Unity

In any case, I like AC games overall, because I like my open world GTA style games. I know they're popamole, I know they're silly. But I can get some enjoyment from it.
 

Deflowerer

Arcane
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Jesper Kyds soundtrack for AC2 actually sucks... Its too melodramatic and soapy, violins and some woman wailing something, WTF Jesper?

So he basically did what he was asked to do?

Also kek at the edginess comment. Am I supposed to like the series just to be a contrarian? OP asked if they are actually good, and most people answered. There's many instances where RPGCodex gets it wrong on games (most Jap action games etc) but AssCreed may be series where it's really hard to defend any design choice beyond just admitting that it's mindless entertainment.
 
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Catacombs

Arcane
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I only played up to Black Flag and thought the AC2 and AC: Brotherhood were the best. AC3, while having an interesting setting during the American Revolution, was riddled with bugs and borderline unplayable. Trying to 100 percent it, which I did, gave me cancer.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
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Sep 20, 2014
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I think the AC games can be good popamole fun with added sightseeing if you play them from time to time - but I hate the Assassins and their Creed so I like Rogue's story best.
 
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Gord

Arcane
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Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Only ever played AC2 because I liked the setting and got it cheap during some sale.
Sightseeing aspect is superbly done, it's a really cool recreation of rennaisance tuscany.
Gameplay however is boring, shallow and simplistic and writing isn't much to write home about either.

So - play it if you ever wanted to visit rennaisance italy and like shoehorned apparitions of just about every famous person from that time. Avoid it if you actually need good gameplay.
 

Drakron

Arcane
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May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
assassin's creed 1 has a muslim main character :salute:

Well unsurprising considering the origins of the word "Assassin".

The problem with the series was then having to spill their shitty fanfic all over it so instead of being say Hitman during the Crusades it became ANCIENT ALIENS PRECURSOR AND SAVING OF MANKIND BECAUSE SOLAR FLARES! plus the so called "factions" are hilarious good/evil binary to the point were the usual squeakily clean Assassins turn into Stupid Evil in Rogue because the protagonist switches sides, its shallow and doesnt allow anything to exist beyond the binary faction, its dull and boring as well shallow.

Only its gameplay can help because its story certainly dont and because Ubisoft milked it so hard the series just shat itself with Unity because it was more of the same, I think the reason it didnt after 3 was because Black Flag expanded on the ship mechanics that were in 3 delaying the inevitable, there were no real gameplay innovations in Unity and Syndicate and the "Ubisoft Open World" effect kicked in at the time.

GTA kinda does about the same thing but ... the writing is far superior, plus they arent putting out a game every year like Unisoft was.
 

Ash

Arcane
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Oct 16, 2015
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Only its gameplay can help.

Yeah, if your standards and expectations in gameplay are entirely absent.

Fucking cuckdex general gaming. Sometimes it's like browsing a slightly less retarded version of ign or [insert mainstream game press publication site here].
 

Belegarsson

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I think the AC games can be good popamole fun with added sightseeing if you play them from time to time - but I hate the Assassins and their Creed so I like Rogue's story best.
Same here, Rogue and Syndicate are the only 2 AC games I actually managed to finish. Rogue executed the revenge plot very well IMO. With Syndicate, I mainly play it because of its setting and architecture, there's not a lot of games that take place in Victorian London setting.
 

PulsatingBrain

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
As some people have said, I think Black Flag is pretty good if you're into pirates and ship warfare. I think some of the storyline is legitimately good and being a pirate is just fun. Hvaing said that, the recurring AC gameplay elements wear thin and I thiought the combat was a little too easy. I think if I'd played more games from the series, I may have gotten fed up and stopped playing it at some point, but since it was many only time with the series at any great length I managed to stick with it and enjoy the story and atmosphere
 

Fedora Master

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I recently tried Black Flag again but shut it off after getting to the retarded Aspergo (or whatever the company that makes the Animus is called) parts early on.
Great design there guys, rudely taking the player out of the action to show him your French office faggotry.
 
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I'm guessing when that Animus nonsense was pitched before first game it looked cool as fuck to the suits. The storyline that connects all games in the series and provides an excuse to milk the series endlessly? Holy fuck, that's genius. Except players ended up rightfully hating it because in practice that present day shit does nothing but interrupt the actual game. But they are stuck with it now, trying their best to make those sequences shorter and less anoying. That's at least from what I've seen in Black Flag, don't know where they went with it after that game.
All they really needed was historical settings, uninterrupted by that sci fi bullshit. They could've kept making as many games as they wanted to anyway and they would've been at least somewhat less crappy for it.
 
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hellbent

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Great design there guys, rudely taking the player out of the action to show him your French office faggotry.

Saw this in Black Flag as well, wondering if any games in the series allow you to torch the shithole instead of wandering about the Aspergo Aspie office, bringing people coffee and packages, and generally doing banal clerk / level I tech support.
 

Deflowerer

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I always thought that if they wanted to go with the global pan historical conspiracy angle, they could've executed it inside the historical settings, not by having it explained to you like a retard by the modern era characters.
 

Cyberarmy

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They are good for sight seeing. Good production values wasted on shitty gameplay.
Also first 4 games and their "expansions" had some good fatalities (without blood...)



 

Fedora Master

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Great design there guys, rudely taking the player out of the action to show him your French office faggotry.

Saw this in Black Flag as well, wondering if any games in the series allow you to torch the shithole instead of wandering about the Aspergo Aspie office, bringing people coffee and packages, and generally doing banal clerk / level I tech support.

They could have kept the modern day/near future parts of their story by just having people discover what Altair et al. did back then. Hell, make it Telltale-esque and have the modern people react to how you played each mission. Add a bit of Eternal Darkness perhaps ("My ancestor did THAT?").
Instead we get endless tours around the make-belief office that Ubisoft wished they worked in.
 

Falksi

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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.

:bro: Was just about to write a reply until I read this. Superbly summed up, no need for me to add anything.

This post ought to be tattood on every AAA dev from the past few years, and stickied to the top of every gaming forum.
 

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