Assasins Creed

[Havok]

So I bought this game and have yet to play it due to opening Mass Effect first.

Has anyone played it yet? Thoughts? Reactions? Is it good? How does it compare to Mass Effect, as those are the only two games I have bought for the 360.

[CaptHawkeye]

I thought it was ok. The sheer idiocy of the AI and some of the weird writing almost ruin the game. "Hurr, don't worry guys i'm sure that scholar with all the KNIVES AND SHIT all over him isn't dangerous. And he sure as hell isn't that Assassin we're looking for."

"Hey, we'red he go? He just disappeared! Hmm, I should probably stick my sword into that stack of hay nearby just to check. But I wouldn't want to disturb that poor farmer's haul."

Combine that with the repetative tasks, some of them boring, others annoying, only few genuinly fun.

On the plus side, traveling around the cities and basically just exploring them is fun, especially for a dude like me who loves his explore-em-ups. The Assassinations themselves are pretty cool, since you can *kind of* chose how you want to do it.

What's also weird is that the opening trailer depicts Altair using a crossbow. Yet no such weapon exists in the game.

[Erik von Nein]

Don't forget the absurd storyline "Genetic memories! HUR HUR!" or the game-breaking bugs. Though, maybe it was just my friend's copy of the game, but watching him play it one night the game literally froze (but didn't, only Altair was stuck mid-air) three times. Then, later, when he got to one of the towers to look for more missions none of them came up so he couldn't actually advance the story. Oh, and apparently there's a "fall out of the game world" bug late in the game that causes two Altairs to appear and run around and kill things.

Serioulsy, though, other than that (and the above criticisms) it's got a pretty good setting as well as some geniune fun to it. If you can, though, rent it.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Playing through it for 10 or so hours now has left me with a quite positive attitude towards the game. Despite some minor complaints, I've enjoyed the exploration and general sandbox feel quite much. Overall the game seems to divide opinions largely to the hate and love groups.

[Stark]

It's repetitive and easy, but it's hell fun. Unlike Mass Effect the repetitive tasks are a) climbing and b) stabbing, which are fun and not 'drive for 5 minutes' and 'get 66 minerals lurl'. If you like the action it's fun, if you don't I doubt it's worth a look. In my opinion the stealth is just as lame as every Hitman game, but it's clearly an attractive arcade game and not some ninja-simulator.

Once I get sick of achievement-whoring Mass Effect I'll probably never play it again, but running around in Assassin's Creed is fun and accessible.

Is it wrong that I totally ignore the ridiculous story? I fear that if I paid attention it'd ruin my fun.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Genetic memories?

[Stark]

The premise of the game is that you're in a simulation exploring the memories of an ancestor. Frankly, while it's ridiculous it's 100% irrelevant to the game so I can't get worked up about it. It allows resetting of failed missions by handwaving 'resetting simulation', unlike GTA with it's '50th attempt to rob bank' silliness.

[Gaidin]

I'd like to see a hitman game in this style. Not so much the running and jumping, maybe. But the sandbox like world is great, and the idea of having to actually case the target before the hit is fun. In hitman it was always essentially trial and error until you get that method for Silent Assassin. It was a lot easier to come up with good ways to kill the targets when they didn't just send you in, but gave you the option of 8 or so of those investigations to suggest different ways in and methods to get around the building.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Eh, well as long as they don't mention morphogenetic fields.

It's actually really interesting to me. It's sort of based on the research that's sort of happening now, about the fact that your genes might be able to hold memory. And you could argue semantics and say it's instinct, but how does a baby bird know to eat a worm, as opposed to a cockroach, if its parents don't show it?

That... is not that bad a question. And in the realm of softy video game sci-fi, not the worst of premises. Though I'm fairly certain birds don't give a crap about what insects they eat.

[Stark]

I'd like to see a hitman game in this style. Not so much the running and jumping, maybe. But the sandbox like world is great, and the idea of having to actually case the target before the hit is fun. In hitman it was always essentially trial and error until you get that method for Silent Assassin. It was a lot easier to come up with good ways to kill the targets when they didn't just send you in, but gave you the option of 8 or so of those investigations to suggest different ways in and methods to get around the building.

The game is emphatically not Hitman. It isn't even Tenchu. It's an arcade stab-and-climb-em-up. I kinda like that, since the Hitman games are boring to me. If you can get a giggle out of being the Wandering Shiv-lord, then the game will be fun. I find it's poor AI and 'simulation-resets' to be quite amusing: you're reliving someone's memories, so of course you can't be defeated! It's an action movie without regret.

I've been playing it a bit after work for three days, however, and I've nearly finished. Not just finished the story, but done everything except the silly 'get eight million flags' shit. It's not a long game.

[Ford Prefect]

Spoilers follow:

I really like this game. It is really fun, being able to climg like a monkey and have foot chases across the rooftops. While it might seems odd that you can instantly become anonymous in a group of four scholars, or by diving into a stack of hay, I also recognise that it's a video game. I can go along with game mechanics designed to actually make the game playable - if guards searched roof gardens with their point swords, it would be pretty much impossible to do anything; certainly you couldn't scale right up a tower and wait it out, even though the gaurds can scale the same surfaces you can, as they'd knock you down with stones and arrows first.

The genetic memory lulz aren't nearly half as insane as some of the stuff I've enjoyed in other mediums, so it's not like that kookiness bothered me any more than the Illuminati-esque Templars and the Crusades Conspiracy, or the mind-control device. As far as a game plot goes, it was fairly predictable, though I thought it was pretty well handled; more so because it wasn't totally black and white. If anything, the mysterious nature of Abstergo at the beginning really drew me in. Though it helped that the gameplay was really rather fun, and the cities actually seemed like cities.

It's not long, though it's been longer for me than Stark (he's a machine).

[Covenant]

I'm actually pleasently suprised when a game doesn't roll over and die in the span of a single weekend. The 'epic content lulz' of some of these modern games seems to be as epic and deep as the frosting on a cake made of of cement. There's so many gorgeous graphics, relatively cool concepts, and fantastic game engines being made but the actual gameplay is unusually short, mundane, and kinda boring. HL2 is a great example of a game I enjoyed but felt was horribly underutilized. Making a physics-engine is great, but using it merely to fuck with a few lever puzzles and stacking thingies? C'mon. There's so much more to do with some of these games that you'd think they're deliberately avoiding them. Sometimes just making them harder would be good. It seems dumb, but honestly, throw more enemies at me. At least it gives me stuff to do.

[Gaidin]

The game is emphatically not Hitman. It isn't even Tenchu. It's an arcade stab-and-climb-em-up. I kinda like that, since the Hitman games are boring to me. If you can get a giggle out of being the Wandering Shiv-lord, then the game will be fun. I find it's poor AI and 'simulation-resets' to be quite amusing: you're reliving someone's memories, so of course you can't be defeated! It's an action movie without regret.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying 'make it hitman'. I love the way this game doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as Hitman does. It's nice that I can fuck up, and 30 seconds later be running around like nothing happened without having to restart and kill all the archers again.

This just happens to have one of those features I want in hitman. I want to have half the mission be casing the target in Hitman because I hate the way they drop you in head first and make you blindly feel your way around.

As for the game, I've managed to get to part 4, but I'm collecting 8 million flags so it'll take me longer. I pussed out and went to gamefaqs because no way in hell was I getting them without a big "HERE THEY ARE" set of directions. It gives me an excuse to climb around like a monkey and explore the city, nevermind get in accidental fights with Templars I didn't know were there ten seconds before.

[Stark]

I did everything but collect the eight million flags. It gets harder towards the end, but it's never really hard.

The Templars who are on the rooftops confuse me no end. How'd he get his little chest up there?

I can't really comment on the Hitman thing, since Hitman is 70% AI exploits/failures and 30% puzzle game, which isn't satisfying to me.

[The Yosemite Bear]

maybe this guy is part jedi?

this isn't the assassin we're looking for, move along

[Stark]

No, it's a simulation that constantly re-syncs to a set series of events. Later in the game the guards are far, far more alert, and just throwing a beggar into a fountain is enough to get them killing you.

[The Yosemite Bear]

so how would they compare to the guys that Garret (Thief) has to deal with. (asking as a non Box, PC & PS2 owner)

[Stark]

They're nowhere near as persistent, they don't as readily identify Altair as an enemy, but they're far, far more agile, able to follow him across rooftops with ease. They're stupid but athletic. The two games are totally different in stealth: in Thief you're hostile by very presence, but in AssCreed until someone sees you do something you're just a regular guy, and nobody has a radio so the next lot of guards don't know jack about you.

[Ford Prefect]

The Templars who are on the rooftops confuse me no end. How'd he get his little chest up there?

I'm not exactly sure what they're doing, but they were fun to fight. Even with maxed out skills, they were good at punishing mistakes. Admittedly, even the normal soldiers could punish you if you were stupid - I remember getting gang-banged down to half-health by a surprising burst of competence.

[SylasGaunt]

I love the counter kills in the game, and could spend hours just running around the rooftops..

That and I like sneaking up on rooftop guards on tall buildings and giving them a nudge off the side.

The guards are a bit dim but I suppose this is what the 'ninja vanish' effect you see so often in movies is like for the other guy.. just waiting to break the line of sight long enough to duck into a nook.

Also I haven't read up much on the Assassin's but wasn't the way you pull most of the kills off the sort of thing they encouraged? Namely killing the target in public and up close instead of using things like poison and arrows?

[Stark]

The assassins involved almost always died, though. That's why they were effective: a cult that had 'suicide shankers' who were prepared to get into your confidence and then kill you in public with no chance of escape. I think by 1191 the period of greatest Ismaili success had passed.

[CaptHawkeye]

Yahtzee reviews, Assassin's Creed.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yahtzee reviews, Assassin's Creed.

ROFL! Makes me want to get it now.

If only I had a damn console for it...

[Jaepheth]

ROFL! Makes me want to get it now.

If only I had a damn console for it...

It'll be out for PC in a few months.

And who knows, maybe they'll do a bit more polishing before then.

[Stark]

Unless they're going to improve the variety or make it 'lol Hitman', it's not going to make any difference to people who don't like it. The game's problems are *not* 'polish' related, it's confounded expectations and arcade-style play.