Impressions: Assassin's Creed

[MetalCraze]

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

PC version isn't until April, I believe.

there's this beta... you know where...

 

[Burning Bridges]

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

Right?

This game turned out linear, consolified garbage as was to be expected. Fuck the respectable reviews!!

 

[RK47]

it has a chance to be better. They got all the setting down right to the jumping parkour element but forgot people are not exactly playing Tony Hawk Medieval Acrobat Crusades. I'm quite surprised why they even put collectible flags in if not for the retarded XBOX achievements. Something is obviously amiss when the informant demands that you collect 20 flags he has hidden around the city within 3 minutes before he gives you the information you need.

A deeper economy model needs to be implemented in game, by giving bounties. None of the kills felt particularly exhilirating if most of them are executed nearly the same manner as killing a passerby.

You can:
1. Bump into him and draw your wristblade, performing a stealthy kill.
2. Jump into him while he is unaware, drawing your wristblade in midair to execute a high profile kill.
3. Beat the target in swordplay while his henchmen take turns poking and throwing you silly.
4. Throw a knife and pray for the best.

That's it. That's all your assasination options. Compared to Hitman Blood Money's remote detonator, sniper rifle, garrote, silenced pistol, push down a building, poisoning or environmental accidents, A.Creed simply lack the 'replay' factor.

 

[MetalCraze]

Something is obviously amiss when the informant demands that you collect 20 flags he has hidden around the city within 3 minutes before he gives you the information you need.

really? this shit is there? fuck this game

 

[psycojester]

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

Right?

This game turned out linear, consolified garbage as was to be expected. Fuck the respectable reviews!!

Protip: Don't talk to Andhaira, just talk around him.

 

[Andhaira]

Is diplomacy a valid option?

Assassin to Mark:

A:"Dear Mark. I have to kill you. But I abhor violence."

M:"I respect your respect for life, oh Assassin. I shall therefore accept the inevitable and drop dead." *drops dead*

 

[DraQ]

There are respectable reviews?
:shock:

Is it still Codex?

 

[RK47]

Is diplomacy a valid option?

Assassin to Mark:

A:"Dear Mark. I have to kill you. But I abhor violence."

M:"I respect your respect for life, oh Assassin. I shall therefore accept the inevitable and drop dead." *drops dead*

Every 'chapter city' is divided into 3 phase.

1.Gather Information.
You basically play one of the mini games:
Informant challenge: Assassinate 1-2 targets/Collect Flags.
Eavesdrop: This is too easy, you basically sit down on a bench and eavesdrop on a specific target. (That's right, you can't get anything valuable from a random passerby)
Pickpocket: You tail the target and pickpocket him for information.
Interrogate: You follow him to a dark alley and punch him till he talks.

How do you locate these? You climb up tall view-points around town and once there you can 'synchronize' that gives you a bird's eye view. It auto-marks the important NPC.

2.Report back
Return to your City HQ, talk to the branch head he'll let you start the assassination.

3.Assassination itself
You reach the place, treated to an in-game cutscene where you can't do jackshit but watch, despite having a clear shot at the guy. Usually a crowd forms around him as he do some despicable shit. Only after this cutscene pass you can actually move in and slay him. Once killed, the alarm will go off. You have to return to your HQ to complete the assignment; but before that you must make them lose sight by heading to the rooftops and hide.

4.Mission Complete
Congrats, proceed to the next town and repeat step 1 to 3 again!

 

[sabishii]

Informant challenge: Assassinate 1-2 targets/Collect Flags.

Eh? I didn't see these. Although I only did all the investigations for the 1st mission; I only did the bare minimum for the 2nd and the 3rd and I quit after that.

There will be 4 new types of investigations in the PC version (archer assassination, rooftop race challenge, merchant stand destruction challenge, escort challenge)... though I'm skeptical if they are any more involving.

 

[DarkSign]

Now tell me they aren't glad that fucker drew that cartoon about Jayde.

 

[RK47]

Merchant stand destruction? ....It reminds me of that Mercedes Benz Street Fighter stage.

 

[The Exar]

The game is great in the first 2 hours, then it becomes extremely repetitive and eventually boring. Although the cities are very well made they look all the same on the rooftops. At first the variety of the tasks you receive looks astonishing but after two or three major assassinations I've lost all interest in doing them all over again for the next mission.
And then the game is full of the main character`s illogical behavior. It happens so, that a humble man who had the bad fortune to possess a big mouth ends up beaten, interrogated and killed in a dark alley by your own hands, and in the next moment you heroic attack 4-5 guards who are bullying a poor man just to save him and attract unnecessary attention. How stupid.
This game had the opportunity to become a real jewel but it is full of flaws both minor and major. I didn't have the nerves to go over all these repetitive tasks so I spoiled myself and read the plot on Wikipedia.

I hope you'll have a better experience.

 

[RK47]

One of those dialogues:

Hero: The dude I just killed, he said....the cheeseburger he made tastes awesome.
Leader: Did you believe him?
Hero: No....the place is a shithole, I can smell rat poop all over the floor and the spaghetti sauce tastes bad. But some patrons praised it like it's the Jew's Meat.
Leader: Why are you saying this?
Hero: I don't know.
Leader: Then why are we having this conversation?
Hero: Never mind, just forget it.
Leader: I already have.

Very deep indeed.

 

[Suchy]

So I guess it's not worth the hassle of downloading vista and fucking up my comp?

 

[doctor_kaz]

This game might be the industry's greatest marketing masterpiece of all time. Ubisoft used a variety of behind-the-scenes strongarm tactics and a hot chick out front to make sure that this game would sell, and it worked. Expect every major publisher to adpot the "Jade Raymond" strategy from now on.

 

[MetalCraze]

wait... just don't tell me this shit is actually a vista exclusive

also - who cares about Jade Reymond?

 

[bozia2012]

Merchant stand destruction? ....It reminds me of that Mercedes Benz Street Fighter stage.

LOL that's what I thought

 

[Serious_Business]

The plot looks like it sucks the penis. I mean, "wow look at this, set in the crusades and shit, religious conflict, well-depicted medieval" - no this is sam fichier and you will kill the bad guy, but in a totally unconventional way. There will also be a sequel. And Thief was better

 

[Balor]

Vista Exclusive? I'm playing it on my Win XP... at least I WAS playing it untill I got bored.
Great idea, great mechanics, awful implementation. Way to make shit out of candies.
Hopefully, the engine will be used for more then this consolitis-infested crap.

 

[Suchy]

I read somewhere it was supposed to be DX10 only... might have been wrong though.

 

[The Exar]

Great idea, great mechanics, awful implementation

Exactly.

Also it's not DX10 only.

 

[Suchy]

I gave a try to this not-so-legal beta...
Consolified medieval GTA

Combat system was fun though, except for the fucked up pseudo-cyberpunk target marking... Wtf are those chemical diagrams flashing around up for?

 

[nowanmai]

Sorry, but being a dumbass on the Codex seems to be the new style.

Their weapon of choice being a dagger or a small blade, they rejected poison, bows and other weapons that allowed the attacker to escape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashishin
And, it fucking seems, that this answers your questions about why there's no bow's and distanced shit like that.

Really, nobody even tried to read and search about historical Assassin's before playing this? And, yes, it is shit, I do agree. They fucked up way too many good ideas.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Combat system was fun though, except for the fucked up pseudo-cyberpunk target marking... Wtf are those chemical diagrams flashing around up for?

that's because you relive the absolutely perfect and mostly accurate genetic memory of one of your ancestors in something similar to a vr machine, which is explained to you even before you start the fucking tutorial.
guess even listening is teh hard.

the combat system is a friggin rhythm game and pretty darn close to pm's one button combat system dream, which means it sucks. not to mention that balancing multiple foes by only allowing one of them to attack at once, while giving you the ability to instant kill someone isn't that good.. especially in a game supposedly about stealth and route planning, where getting noticed should be punished instead of being the quickest solution to a problem.

the things that the game does really well are crowd flow/physics, animations, and the freedom of movement (although they do artificially restrain that for no reason at all), and had they bothered to put some substance behind that, it might have turned out something more than just a fancy expensive tech-demo which isn't going to sell many units.

 

[Crichton]

Sorry, but being a dumbass on the Codex seems to be the new style.
Quote:
Their weapon of choice being a dagger or a small blade, they rejected poison, bows and other weapons that allowed the attacker to escape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashishin
And, it fucking seems, that this answers your questions about why there's no bow's and distanced shit like that.

Really, nobody even tried to read and search about historical Assassin's before playing this? And, yes, it is shit, I do agree. They fucked up way too many good ideas.

Recourse to historical assassins doesn't make any sense in this case. No one wants to play a hopped-up kid on a suicide mission any more than they want to play a game without any options. The whole point of an rogue's game (thief, Hitman, Splinter-Cell, whatever) is subtlety and the best part is making a clean getaway. Obviously this doesn't work if you're just going to stumble out from behind a curtain, frothing at the mouth, and gank someone in public before being rended limb from limb by his bodyguards. Real life sucks, that's why we have games.

I followed the game's development since I really like the Hitman games, but it was pretty obvious from the get-go that all the "crowd-AI-simulation" talk was just lip service. The conversations with the victims in plain sight are particularly obnoxious-sounding. Still, if it hits the bargin bin at just the right time, who knows? If I'm dumb enough to pay $10 for dungeon lords, I'm probably dumb enough to pay $10 for this.