Assassin's Creed

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I love how in AC you get this drab, grey environments with a serious and trying-to-be-innovative plot, and then you go play the new PoP and everything is completely different.

[Rosbjerg]

I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed. I think it could've used some kind of RPG levelling system, where you got to pick your upgrades after each assassination, but then I think that about most games.

 

Ugh, that would've ruined it for me..

 

I thought it was much more interesting that you intially started with all abilities unlocked - in fact I was really dissapointed that they took them all away after the first mission. The Prince of Persia approach is much more appealing to me in these kind of games.. (I haven't played PoP, but I heard that you start with all abilities and then you have to discover them yourself)

 

RPGs and their levelling systems are great too, I just don't like to merge them with action adventure games.

[Calax]

I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed. I think it could've used some kind of RPG levelling system, where you got to pick your upgrades after each assassination, but then I think that about most games.

 

Ugh, that would've ruined it for me..

 

I thought it was much more interesting that you intially started with all abilities unlocked - in fact I was really dissapointed that they took them all away after the first mission. The Prince of Persia approach is much more appealing to me in these kind of games.. (I haven't played PoP, but I heard that you start with all abilities and then you have to discover them yourself)

 

RPGs and their levelling systems are great too, I just don't like to merge them with action adventure games.

Are you referring to the sands of time trilogy or the newest PoP? Because the newest one simply leads to boredom in combat because of the amount of QTE's and the fact that you don't get any new combos or differences between areas.

[Niten_Ryu]

Assassin's Creed looked incredible.

 

also running, climbing and jumping over rooftops was fun.

 

and it had Kirsten Bell.

 

these things were almost enough to overcome endlessly repetitive quests, irritating combat, a bloody silly story, and unskippable, tedious cutscenes filled with pretentiously bad dialogue that made you long for death.

 

almost.

 

if Eidos had any sense, they'd scrap work on a sequel, fire the folk who came up with the story & dialogue and instead retool the engine to make Thief 4.

 

I don't think it could be said better then this

 

I rarely get angry about silly story and I've read some extremely horrible books and seen some real crappy movies but damn... It's hard to imagine worse way to botch Assassin's Creed storyline then to tie to crusader era to "near future". And to do it with something as stupid as "DNA memory".

 

I wonder who's idea it was to think - "Hmmm. I don't think story about arabic assassin during the crusader era is interesting enough. We need to spice it up.. the teh MAX !!!". I wonder if John Romero, Brad McQuade or some other hack was visiting Ubi that day.

[mkreku]

One thing I don't understand is the constant attacks on Assassin's Creed's dialogue. If you don't count the dialogue in the contemporary times parts, I thought the dialogue was excellent! And I really liked that you always got a chance to talk to your victims after the assassination. Get their side of the story, instil a seed of hesitation and doubt in the player. The only times I ever noticed that anything was unskippable was during the lab dialogue.

[newc0253]

One thing I don't understand is the constant attacks on Assassin's Creed's dialogue. If you don't count the dialogue in the contemporary times parts, I thought the dialogue was excellent!

um, when i described the dialogue as 'tedious' and 'pretentiously bad', i was referring to the stuff during the crusades.

 

i could also add 'long-winded', 'heavy-handed' and 'dull beyond all human belief'.

 

what made it worse was the voice-acting for Altair himself. the other voice actors were actually pretty good, which made Altair's super-wooden qualities stand out even more.

 

by contrast, the stuff in the modern day was pretty standard fare: Kirsten Bell was given some fairly dud lines but nothing too terrible (i'm ignoring the content here btw).

 

And I really liked that you always got a chance to talk to your victims after the assassination. Get their side of the story, instil a seed of hesitation and doubt in the player.

yeah, i really liked that too! it was soooo realistic that after i'd stabbed a guy in full view of twenty guards and a hundred bystanders that i'd have the opportunity for a two-to-three minute heart-to-heart with him as he lay dying. it really added that personal touch for an otherwise impersonal assassination!

 

i also really enjoyed hearing their side of the story, especially seeing how it was always some variation on "yes, i know i look evil to you because i'm enslaving all these innocent people and torturing them, but trust me it's for their own good in some unforeseen metaphysical way that is in no way explained by the time you reach the end of the game". it kinda reminded me of those wall street bankers explaining why they just spent $30,000 on a wastepaper basket despite losing 2 billion dollars last quarter. except it was a cutscene in a stupidly-designed game!

Edited February 11, 2009 by newc0253

[Gorgon]

Assassins Creed 9/10 for graphics and combat

 

1/10 for unskippable story dialogue and cut scenes

 

Total score 4.5.

[Gorgon]

It is almost as if the left hand not only had no idea what the right hand was doing but was also unfathomably incompetent. It would have worked better with completely linear progression and no dialogue options at all.

Edited February 11, 2009 by Gorgon

[Slowtrain]

It is almost as if the left hand not only had no idea what the right hand was doing but was also unfathomably incompetent.

 

 

 

[mkreku]

...soooo realistic...

In a game where you follow hawks to jump off the highest buildings possible and land unharmed in shallow haystacks, your biggest problem is that dying people can utter a few words? Genius at work.

[Rosbjerg]

Haystacks were very sturdy back in the 10th century! Due to the enourmous amount of cow feces, which made it extra spungy.

[Darth Jebus]

...soooo realistic...

In a game where you follow hawks to jump off the highest buildings possible and land unharmed in shallow haystacks, your biggest problem is that dying people can utter a few words? Genius at work.

 

This.

[newc0253]

...soooo realistic...

In a game where you follow hawks to jump off the highest buildings possible and land unharmed in shallow haystacks, your biggest problem is that dying people can utter a few words? Genius at work.

an adventure game in which you leap off tall buildings into haystacks doesn't stretch plausibility.

 

but a stealth game in which you the assassin hang around for several minutes to listen to the dying speech of the guy you just killed in full view of two dozen guards?

 

you don't have to be any kind of genius to see how badly that breaks credibility.

Edited February 11, 2009 by newc0253

[Matthew Rorie]

...soooo realistic...

In a game where you follow hawks to jump off the highest buildings possible and land unharmed in shallow haystacks, your biggest problem is that dying people can utter a few words? Genius at work.

an adventure game in which you leap off tall buildings into haystacks doesn't stretch plausibility.

 

but a stealth game in which you the assassin hang around for several minutes to listen to the dying speech of the guy you just killed in full view of two dozen guards?

 

you don't have to be any kind of genius to see how badly that breaks credibility.

 

But you weren't ever actually in full view of two dozen guards - you were in your own head, strapped into a giant machine that was specifically designed to allow you to interact with your memories. You were essentially in the Matrix, so the rules are a bit loosey-goosey, especially since they weren't ever really told to you.

[newc0253]

But you weren't ever actually in full view of two dozen guards - you were in your own head, strapped into a giant machine that was specifically designed to allow you to interact with your memories. You were essentially in the Matrix, so the rules are a bit loosey-goosey, especially since they weren't ever really told to you.

yeah, that's about on par with 'a wizard did it'.

[Tigranes]

I was really excited about this game before they told us ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD.

 

I mean come on. Apart from how silly it is, why couldn't they make a good story in the actual setting?

[Pidesco]

I was really excited about this game before they told us ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD.

 

I mean come on. Apart from how silly it is, why couldn't they make a good story in the actual setting?

 

Because AC's writers didn't think their own writing was good enough to create empathy between a medieval Muslim and the player, without artificially turning Altair into generic present day bloke #37.

 

Or maybe I'm just guessing.

[Hurlshort]

I was really excited about this game before they told us ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD.

 

I mean come on. Apart from how silly it is, why couldn't they make a good story in the actual setting?

 

Because AC's writers didn't think their own writing was good enough to create empathy between a medieval Muslim and the player, without artificially turning Altair into generic present day bloke #37.

 

Or maybe I'm just guessing.

 

Yeah, that was crap. Totally ruined the sense of immersion for me.

[Musopticon?]

Yeah, I remember reading about the game in it's alpha and beta and going "wow" just based on the team(Two Thrones was goooood) and the setting and then seeing a preview video which had these scifiy video errors and I started to wonder whether the game was something else entirely or the people at Ubi had awkward notions about staying true to the spirit of the medieval setting.

 

Then again, it could be just Warrior Within syndrome all over again. They'll get it right eventually.