Impressions: Assassin's Creed

[RK47]

This game is really beautiful.

Some elements of the platform play felt very natural and not a matter of 'quick reflex'. As long you pay attention to the context menu, you won't have those moments of 'misjump' deaths unlike Prince of Persia. Rooftops, wall climbing, rope walking, hiding is there, but sometimes you have to suspend disbelief a bit when the protagonist (his name is Altair) just jump from a really tall watchtower, to land into a haystack, unharmed. (this also has the bonus of 'unseen' (clears AI Aggro)

The suspicion level, unlike Hitman series is slightly simpler to understand. Either they are suspicious of you, yellow (you can still stealth kill them) or red for alerted. Flashing red implies combat is imminent. Since combat is slightly clunky and Altair can't take too many hits (4-5 at most early game) you probably want to avoid combat.

The array of mini-games and collect 100 flags are all over the place akin to GTA in Medieval times. Flags are around the place, as well as assassination targets (optional ones) encourages you to explore. I'm not a big fan of this sort, so I usually just skip them and gallop through guards outdoors. Yes there's horse riding, I never played Mount & Blade, but this is so far the best 3rd person horse riding I've had in a computer game. The horse felt responsive, and yes, you can fight while on the horse too. Take that, Oblivion!

The story is a little odd-ball at first, yes that explains the 'Initializing' on the above screenshot text. It's part of the GUI (Yes really). Apparently your character is actually strapped to a DNA memory machine. I haven't been far, but the basic premise is that you are reliving past deeds of your great-great-great-great-assassin-grandpa. :shock:

Overall it's above average game, but wore itself out rather quick if you're not a fan of the 'collectible' games. But if you want a tour of Crusades on horse back and roof tops, there's no other game like it. The story so far is on rail, I've not been given a choice on how to carry out a mission, in fact the reason Altair started out very weak is because he's such a douchebag that his superior demoted him and gimped his HP & gears. :evil:
What a missed opportunity for some char development. Instead we have something like Anakin Skywalker set in the Crusades.

Final Conclusions.
Swordplay: Reflex based. Probably the most taxing on your reflexes.
Platform Jumping: Not that frustrating, quite intuitive really. You can't fail a jump.
Grafix: Pretty good.
Gameplay: Pretty average scripted with somewhat freedom in getting from Point A to B (akin to Crysis), tons of collectibles shit if you're into that sort of thing.

Lack of subtitle and sometimes speech skipping is annoying. But I guess that makes me pay attention to what people say most of the time.

 

[sabishii]

I just rented the game a few days ago. I think the biggest thing about this game that makes me rate it down is the lack of depth in the platform jumping/climbing aspect. I agree that the intuitiveness is great, but it really doesn't get more challenging than holding down RT + A + RS forward. In comparison, Crackdown held me for a while because climbing took some reflexive skill in timing and strategic skill in planning which ledges to use, and the skill itself also improved so that you could climb new buildings - thus having new experiences - as the game went on.

 

[RK47]

Well I gotta praise the 'Counter' move in swordplay. I admit I was even 'fooled' by Altair's feint counter animation (Excellent work). I thought the enemy was gonna hit him when he suddenly sidestep the blow and spin to finish his opponent off ala Geralt the Witcher. It's the only worthwhile attack to use in combat imo. The slow attack is too slow, the fast strikes gets parried and leaves you open when you try to land the 2nd hit quicker. Aside from the fun counterattacks, there's not much fun playing the swordsman here.

The repetitiveness is apparent after clearing your 3rd misison. Every town has a number of townspeople getting bullied, dozens of flags scattered everywhere, viewpoints to tag and targets to pickpocket/slay.

At least GTA gave you different scripted missions that has unique 'fun factor'. A-C missions only gives different places to go without any different game play. You probably employ the same tricks as the streets and realize the gameplay doesn't change much after 2 hours into the game.

 

[Nael]

Yes there's horse riding, I never played Mount & Blade, but this is so far the best 3rd person horse riding I've had in a computer game. The horse felt responsive, and yes, you can fight while on the horse too. Take that, Oblivion!

Play it. Now. You can thank me later, especially if you like the idea of mounted combat.

 

[sabishii]

True on the combat aspect. I think it's okay, though, because combat isn't intended to be the main point of this game. On the other hand, more complexity in combat would've counteracted the lack of complexity in platforming, and probably would've been good on its own to increase the "GTA-ness."

Actually I kinda liked after the 3rd mission that viewpoints were no longer marked on the minimap and that those buildings seemed to get taller.

 

[RK47]

It could've been so much better if they had adopted something like Hitman Equipment style, where you actually plan what equipment to take with you. Spend your money on bribes to lower suspicion and buying information. Things like that spice Hitman up, despite having to use the same weapons over and over again till the last level. Every Hitman level is unique, the casino, hotel etc. I personally enjoyed replaying it over and over to see what sort of alternative solution can I come up with.

And no bows? Why not? Alchemy as well. I could see myself hunting for herbs in the wilderness or head to the marketplace to pilfer some herbs as healing or reflex booster or maybe poison my daggers or poison the target's food? Why not disguises too? There's so much more variety I can come up with just drawing ideas from Hitman.

In this aspect, A-C tried too hard to be a sandbox action game, and didn't manage to motivate me to explore. XBOX achievements? *sigh* What a waste of potential and setting. And beauty.

 

[psycojester]

It was a fun game to run around and explore the cities in. Beyond that it was an underdeveloped pile of shit.

I mean WHAT THE MOTHER FUCKING HELL WHERE THEY THINKING WITH THE ACTUAL ASSASINATIONS!. Okay, we've got a system where the assasin can blend into crowds and move stealthily into position in order to strike their target without being detected, what should we do with this? hmmmm..... OH I KNOW! lets have a fucking invisible wall around the target that forces the assasin to sit through a lengthy non-interactive scene before they're allowed to try anything, never mind the fact that the lengthy non-interactive scenes offer hundreds of oppourtunities for the perfect kill. And in fact, rather than letting them at least get into position for the kill during these tedious snoozefests, lets remove all of their advanced movement abilities, that way they'll be forced to focus on how fucking bad we are at writing dialog.

Also, the harbour assasination with the guy on the ship. What. The. Fuck. I seriously hope somebody lost their goddamn job for that shitfight, picture this. You've got a free running system that is based around the character effortlessly jumping and climbing from one point to the other, with its big draw card being that it never feels like its a static transition from one animation to another. Now lets take this system and use it to jump from awkwardly placed pole to awkwardly placed pole with no clear indication of where the character is going to land. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOTHER FUCKING HARBOUR!

Historical note: Master assassin where carved from solid lead, and will sink like a stone if brought into contact with water.

Also, the story is fucking stupid and would have been a lot better if they dropped the whole 'lol, future DNA memory machine illuminati crap, and just told the story of a band of assassin attempting to make a quick buck off the crusades and getting drawn into the surrounding political intrigue.

Fun concept, great engine and totally ruined by incompetent hacks and monkeys who code with all the subtly of an elephant raping a hedgehog.

 

[Kingston]

I thought you could choose how to kill your targets. Like setting up on a rooftop with a crossbow and shooting the dude in the eye or collapsing a wall on him or something.

Sounds like a shitty game to me

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yep. It's a huge disappointment. The free-style exploration is fun, but since it lacks purpose, it gets old and boring very quickly. The actual assassinations suck major "I can't believe this shit!" ass. Hopefully, they will be smart enough to license the engine to someone who can actually make a fun game with it.

PS. The DNA memory thing is absolutely idiotic.

 

[WalterKinde]

First impression i had was i am not going to be able to play the Pc version of this game when it comes out on my rig, 3gb of ram is the recommended amount of memory i only have 2 not to mention while i have a dual core cpu its not of the 3ghz variety as is recommended, i know its a "next gen" game but come on.
Then i watched Zero Punctuation's review of it, then finally read some serious reviews on the game.
Since its from Ubisoft canada theres the prince of Persia moves your character can do as well as new fighting styles seems an interesting game but i already own all three prince of persia games with the involved wall running/jumping/fighting combos, the only difference here seems to be is the game is sandboxed and not linear as POP.

 

[Vault Dweller]

PoP > AC

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

It's like Hitman strained through all the retardation of the Middle Ages/Crusades.

 

[Fat Dragon]

I always hated how when you assassinate your target Altair kneels down to talk to him, and the badguy's buddies are kind enough to just stand back and let you talk with him instead of fucking you up.

 

[Herbert West]

There was so much potential to this idea that was so methodically wasted that it makes me sad.

This game is flawed deeply. The whole sci-fi DNA memory shit is horrible. Wouldn't be so bad, but the whole user interface, those fucking "memory unavailable" walls, "glitches" constantly remind you that just behind this finely crafted medieval middle-eastern surrounding is a pile of poorly justified shit. Bear with me using this abused word, but it breaks immersion.
Standard quests are certainly no better than every other fed ex mission. There are how many? 5 or 6 varieties of them? And they constitute 95% of game's quests, repeating endlessly. Need I say more?

This game is a disappointment of epic proportions.

 

[psycojester]

I thought you could choose how to kill your targets. Like setting up on a rooftop with a crossbow and shooting the dude in the eye or collapsing a wall on him or something.

You fucking wish, the only was to assassinate targets is to stab them. The only ranged weapon are throwing daggers. You have no destructible terrain.

My favorite programming failure was climbing onto the roof of a market stall, hoping that i might be able to see over the impenetrable wall of peasants and then finding out that because it had now entered non-interactive cutscene mode and neutered my movements, because of this it had locked out all my climbing options and i couldn't get down from the roof of the stall. Unfortunately the game had also decided that since its dialogue was so world shatteringly epic it simply wouldn't proceed until i got close enough to bang my head against the impenetrable wall and hear every word of it. This mean that my master assassin could do nothing but pace backwards and forwards on the roof of a market stall and eventually die of old age up there.

 

[Zomg]

This high level designers snatched shittiness from the jaws of competence. I feel sorry for the guys that designed the low-level concepts and then watched their work framed by worthless fuckups. I wish someone would take all of the material assets of the game and use them churn out a budget title that doesn't machinegun itself in the foot.

 

[Herbert West]

title that doesn't machinegun itself in the foot.

It's not the foot. A bit higher, balls perhaps?

 

[psycojester]

jump on its own claymore?

 

[inwoker]

adhaira, play this game already!!!!!
and tell us how it's similar to witcher, starcraft, chess, unreal tournament etc.
we're looking forward

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This out for the PC yet? And will it start out in the bargain bin?

 

[Mr Happy]

Also, the combat was pretty ridiculous. Enemies only came at you one at a time, so you could defeat entire armies no prob, especaially once you unlocked that block-counter attack move or whatever. There was no reason to use all the jumping/hiding, because it was easier just to fight everybody off, at least for the part of the game I played.

 

[DraQ]

So, is the story really that horrible? I was consciously avoiding spoilers in case I might buy the game and that the storyline will be innovative in a non-retarded manner (it certainly looked this way), but if it is retarded/illogical/plotholy, I might as well seek spoilars on the web.

 

[RK47]

adhaira, play this game already!!!!!
and tell us how it's similar to witcher, starcraft, chess, unreal tournament etc.
we're looking forward

In a way the combat is very similar to the Witcher, but that's where the similarity ends. There's sort of 'MaxHP' granted from completing side quests and major skill upgrades for completing main quests, but the amount of repetitiveness makes it felt like a MMORPG grind.

 

[Fat Dragon]

This out for the PC yet? And will it start out in the bargain bin?

PC version isn't until April, I believe.

 

[Andhaira]

Ouch, what alet down. I had high hopesfor this, give howmuch I enjoyed PoP (which felt really tru to the originals of the 80's)

But come one guys, it cantbe THAT bad. I mean, Iam sure some assassination kills must feet gratifying. It did get respectable reviews.

Right?