assassin's Creed

[Dorothy Mantooth]

I got it for 360 and it is one of the better games I have bought in awhile, time will tell where it stands long term, but very, very, very solid.

[ADK]

im bored already on the second map, so repetitive.. the view points, saving citizins, and the pick pocketing etc... zzz

[dibbs]

I'm three guys in so far.

Gorgeous world for the most part and I've had many "wow thats sick" moments visually, but it feels like the epic feeling of the world is totally inconsistent with the game itself. The kills are fun, the running and climbing is fun, but it just doesn't match up. It kind of feels like the world was made by a first rate developer and the gameeplay by a second rate one.

I can't help but get excited though at the thought that soon enough Final Fantasies/other RPGs will have worlds that look and feel like this.

That being said, I'm enjoying it, but I'm a huge sucker for games that give a good/interesting atmosphere, and this one sure as hell has that.

My biggest complaints are little things really, like how Ubisoft thinks I'm slow enough that they need to highlight all enemies for me, thanks guys, a simple cursor would have been just fine. The repetition of NPC chatter is REAL annoying too, every monk in different accents says the same damn things, and if I hear "YOU DARE STEAL RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?" or whatever again I'm gonna jab my eyes out.

Also, the "twist" is horribly gay, I know they have bigger plans for it or whatever, but it's so unnecessary and having to go to that stupid room just kills the flow of the game for me.

Altairs voice acting life tilts me too.

[dibbs]

The more I play this game the more I actually like it.

The kills get so much better. The structures and atmosphere just keep expanding and growing upwards and just has a crazy feel to it. Your limited bag of fight tricks get bigger. The viewpoint climbs start turning into these beautiful situations where the pure size of it feels pretty sick, just taking in the bricks and crazy view of the city. Casing the huge establishments you have to get into, stalking around roofs taking out lookouts, leaping through a ring of guards and nailing a target in the neck, it's a fun ride. The chases seem to get better too. Reminds me of Shadows a fair amount in the frequent "Wow, that's pretty dope" way.

That being said, AC feels like the perfect example of a tragically rushed A-List videogame.

Ubisoft created a breathtaking world of intense mixed creeds and cultures, that you can climb all over and lose yourself in visually, but you're basically looking at the image of it, that's it, no real interaction in it.

They show you a huge world that you can look at, then give you a checklist of pointless crap to do within it, that has nothing to do with anything, and then when you do that, they'll tell you who to kill, only so you can see more of their beautiful world and get some info on their story.

From a distance, the game is basically summed up like such, IMO,

"Here's a gorgeous world that we spent tons of time and resources on. Do repetitive Minigames while looking at it. While we cram the beginnings of a stupid pretentious story down your throat."

No matter how engrossing the visuals, and to a lesser extent controls are, the game feels hollow and amatuerish because there's no real interaction with the world, it feels like you're WATCHING a facet of it, not acting WITHIN it.

Why not make it so if you do the pickpocket mission, you learn one way to get in or take the target out, but if you do the eavesdropping mission, you learn another? This would give you multiple ways of taking out the 9 and make it feel like what you do in the game actually means something. As opposed to it not mattering what mission you do because it's just a check mark so a door opens for you.

What if you had some sort of commerce system?

What if the various cultures/creeds in the game had an alignment or opinion of you?

Your alignment in certain sectors would allow you lots of people helping you out (like the vigilantes), more safehouses, good informants and merchants. Your alignment in others would make your dealings in that area difficult, mixing up gameplay a great deal and opening the opportunity for worthwhile and interesting submissions. Money could sway influences, buy gear, create tons of sidemissions if you could use your climbing ability and stealth to steal. Subcharacters and story might make the world feel real, not just like an image, immersion is what makes game feel real and thus create great gaming experiences.

There's just so many things they could have easily (assumably) done that make it feel like a horribly squandered opportunity. One can't help but think if the game had a later release deadline, these things or something similar WOULD have been implemented, because taking the time to create a world like this just so you can basically do 5 mini games within it and kill nine bosses for the sake of a stupid story seems totally out of wack.

I'd say I have a lot of faith in the sequel, but my other biggest complaint, the incredibly stupid "twist", makes me question where they're going to take it.

I highly recommend it as a rental to anyone with a large HD television though, daaaamn. Or anyone who likes Prince of Persia or is into this kind of thing in general.

Random things:
~Altairs written lines/voice acting has to be one of the worst I can recall in recent videogame characters. Like what the [censored], seriously, I almost expect them to be joking. I can't even say how much I'm stunned by this.
~The William kill was by far my favorite as of yet, scaling that monster, slitting sentries from behind then slipping in and getting him from behind was so awesome, the chase line had great flow too.
~Guilty Pleasure: Sneaking up on a roof sentry, grabbing him by the back of his collar and shoving him over the roof then hearing a scream and getting a glimpse of the splatter surrounded by a crowd below is a HUGE guilty pleasure of mine as of yet.
~AS IS: lunging through store fronts and causing all kinds of minor havoc while running from guards
~The mentally challenged guys piss me off so much, I was bout to take out a certain target, one of the "slow" guys grunts something and shoves me, I topple onto a shelf and crap smashes all over the floor, as I try to regain my footing every guard AND the mark turn around stare at me and I get jumped HARD. I have a short tempter with the beggars too, I've gotten heat from clocking them because they're soooo annoying.

[dtemp]

Dibbs, good post. The alignment idea is really good.