Assassin's Creed

[B1gBeard]

I've found this to be a broken masterpiece.

I've spent hours just reveling in the freedom and flexibility of the control system. It truly feels next gen to me and should be the benchmark others are compared against. I've never felt frustrated or limited by it and there always seems to be a route or an option to show off Altair's dexterity.

The visuals are stunning but what has amazed me more is how they have accurately captured the feel of a living, breathing city. Wandering around at ground level can be just as exciting as free-running over the roof-tops. From the beggars and insane folk to the hawkers and preachers it creates a wonderful atmosphere and again is another leap forward.

If it wasn't for the American accent, Altair would be one of my top 5 most favourite game characters. The guy oozes cool and is just so great to control. The story and voice acting are also generally of a high standard.

I quite like the investigations. The tasks do become repetitve but I never get tired of moving around a city and so a pickpocket or intimidation along the way is just icing really.

Unfortunately some of the games core mechanics are flawed.

The AI of the guards seems consistantly shocking and it can be difficult at times to tell who, why or what an attack is initiated. The need to use blend so regularly can really be frustrating.

The stealth nature of the game seems at odds with Altair's amazing abilities. Stealth generally requires nothing more than pressing blend or running away and hiding. Considering that Altair can easily take on ten guards without breaking a sweat fairly early on in the game or the fact that the guards fail to notice you hiding on a bench or don't bother to check that convenient haystack detracts a lot from the experience.

Combat. The Thief series got some of it right. Garrett was deadly when you couldn't see him but very vunerable when engaged. Altair is almost super-human. I wouldn't have minded too much in another game but seeing as he is a stealth based assassin (or at least thats the impression the game tries to give) then it renders a lot of the need to hide and stealth pointless. You can play the game as it was probably meant to be played and I've tried to play it with a mind that Altair should be more vunerable in melee. I'd rather be forced into playing this way though than having to force myself to play it this way.

Overall the good far out-weighs the bad and if they can iron out some of the kinks then it'll be a series to remember.

Just a quick addition. Either its my imagination or the 2.01 system update seemed to have an improved impact on tearing and framerate.

[momobeast]

Im only on the 5th assassination. Just hope your not discovered as part of any future assassin custscenes. I want the perfect strike!!!!!! grrrrr. Makes me angry

[112]

blummin hell, the game crashed on me again last night, it happened on the loading screen where you can still move Altier around in a limbo like state whilst it loads yah next bit. I was stuck in this vortex like realm for about 5 mins before he game froze and i had to reset. GRrr.......

112

[momobeast]

Mine crashed only once when i was leaving the kingdom on my horse. white screen of death

[cavalcade]

I finally saw the ad for this on TV.

To be honest, you could put up pictures of various types of beetroot and put Massive Attack's Teardrop over the top of it and it would appear to be cool, but fair dos. I think I can see where some of the sales came from, as even I wanted to go out and buy it, before realising I already owned it.

Nice gigantic "ACTUAL GAME FOOTAGE" slapped on the bottom of the screen too. How times have changed.

[momobeast]

I really like the advert - makes me want to buy it even tho i have it too!!

Problem is it gives the viewer there is a degree of freedom/planning in the assassination. But so far there hasnt been as much of that as i'd like.

[Nembot]

One massive problem for me is that you get all these maps etc of where the guards are going to be, and im always after the perfect kill. Get in, get out un-noticed.

But they insist of having a cut scene when you first see your target. In the case of 2 assisinations so far i have tried to get the perfect kill, only to have a cut scene take over, the target sciptedly spot me and run away, or a target having his guards kill everybody.

I noticed this yesterday on the first kill. As he was waxing lyrical I was standing very close, then once the scene was over I was erm, seen!
One thing I did notice was that the cut scene started when I landed on the roof of the stall in the square. I wonder if I would have been able to go unnnoticed if I had stayed out of sight on the roof.

As with Hitman, the concept of Assassin`s Creed is similar in the fact that you have to blend with your enviroment until you get the oppertune moment to strike.

With all of the assassinations (with the exception of William) as long as you don`t get in the blokes face when the "Memory Recording" message comes up you won`t have an issue. Just mingle with the crowd but stay a fair distance back, remember if you need to see the action close up there will be periodic glitches.

In the case of the first target,

->Open Spoiler<-

as soon as he stabs the old man to death and the cut scene is over, he`ll walk straight over to a stall, just stealth kill him when his back is turned, easy!

edit - Also don`t worry about been spotted on rooftops by archers, just take them down quick with throwing knives or whatever means nessesary. As they are fairly spread out any alert sounded will end when the archer is killed.

[momobeast]

But do you have to be standing close to the target (on the ground) to get the memory recording message? Why cant you be on an adjecent rooftop???!

Can you kill a target with throwing knives?? Or does it have to be close kill (as cut scene after kill suggests)?

[Nembot]

But do you have to be standing close to the target (on the ground) to get the memory recording message? Why cant you be on an adjecent rooftop???!

Can you kill a target with throwing knives?? Or does it have to be close kill (as cut scene after kill suggests)?

When you are at the target location it`s probably not best to be on the roof, you want to be as close as you can get to the target without the alarm sounding.

At the end of the day, the only way to get the "perfect assassination" is to get up close and personal. Just stay in the crowd and then break from it when you the oppertunity arises to complete the job.

You can`t kill a target with throwing knives.

[Dazzyman]

Finished this last night and it took 5 hours in end from mission 7 onwards its actually quite abig game and must have clocked 18hours on it. Got so sick of it by the end though I could have cried of what they did to the game later on and such a discrace of how good it could have been.

Ive had 3 assiniations break on me from 5onwards for no reason, had the target fall thru a non existent flooring and had to restart it, thru a wall and had to restart and then another of stuck in a collapsable wooden section.

Summing up for me I liked the last two levels but as a stealth game I found the whole thing utterly pathetic and trully broken. Due to the game messing up with me on the assasinations all but two I had no choice than to stand and fight or just run after him and hunt him down with a jump shiv in the street (due to the camera you cant watch the scenes on a roof etc.. for alot of them you have to move down into the crowd and I wanted to be able to stealth jump em but instead it just turns it int a brawler). I wanted hitman with swords and all I got was a hack and slash with the same boring routine of counter over and over and over. Where was all the great assasinations promised? Why cant I go do them how I want instead of a set way with a long drawn out cutsecene then a very pretermined route of the way it ends. The intro looks fantastic in this game but you never do out like that its just whack a mole with a sword. Also why when you kill the target and you have loads of soldiers after you do they sometimes just turn and walk off when their right next to you and it goes onto town alert instead of wanting to give you pain?

I thought the whole story was a joke and sussed it by act 3 what would happen. The backwards and forwards bits didnt bother me as I didnt think they happened that often (ive done alot of the side quests) but the actual story surounding it I had no interst for and was tedious. Same with the killing speeches. Alot of that for me is down to the main character, he just seems a arsehole and got sick and tired of him saying the same things over and over with what seemed to be venom and teenage grunting attitude. Saying erbs wanted me to puch the telly as well and just shows it was built for a USA market. Where is all the lush story of that time, all the confilicts and struggles why couldnt they have concentrated on that instead of such a 2min scrawling of a story. Why didnt we get a better script, voice acting and why instead did we have to have one of the most apathetic character voicing of the main character, stuff like that for me either makes the game soul inducing or destroying and on this one it left me very cold.

The side quests did my head in, some of the achievements are broken on 360 version and the same voices over and over from the same skinned beggers, soldiers etc.. tired very quickly. I also found the game very easy and only died twice in the entire game, both times from death by water.

Good bits I enjoyed was the running about and climbing (still thought it was too easy) and up to level 5 the fighting (but then I reliased it was way too easy) and the graphics are nice.

I played up till level 4 as stealth and it failed miserably for me, then I enjoyed it as a hack and slash running about but then that got tedious. The series has promise if they can sort out the missions and the broken areas with scrpting in a patch and make it a proper stealth game.

I felt they showed the best bits too early (I found the first 3 assasinations to be the best) and from then on it went way downhill. They need to make their mind up if they want a stealth game or not, if so give us proper assasination missions on one life and get rid of the side quests let us learn which house it is for ourself where we creep into their houses, knock lights out, kill guards quietly etc.. and get rid of the hide in abit of straw next to 10blokes who saw you run into it but walk off anyway attitude.

Frustrated 6/10 for me (as it could have been a 9 or 10/10 masterpiece)

[Nembot]

I finished the assassination that isn`t an assassination near the end of the game, but before I took on Robert I decided to get the remaining hidden templars out of the kingdom.

In some places I found their belongings and no templar knight but after riding around through a couple of checkpoints and returning the templar had reappeared. This happened a couple of times until I reached templar number 60 (the last one) who was nowhere to be seen so I decided to reload the game, when it restarted I was missing 30 templars!! Anyway, got em all now but it was like they knew I was coming to kill them and they were ****ing off.

I really enjoyed this game and just finished my second playthrough but that`s it for me now. I really hope that there is going to be another one, that`d be wicked!

For anyone that is interested, I think CEX are still paying ?30 cash for AC at the moment.

[Charlie]

Assassin's Creed and Mario Galaxy fell through my letterbox this morning so I figured, with all the supposed disappointing aspects of Assassin's Creed, I'd be foolish to start playing it after what many are calling game of the decade, Mario Galaxy.

Anyway, my initial impressions are mixed to say the least. As has already been mentioned, it looks absolutely stunning, Gears of War stunning, and the archiecture and general look and feel of the environments is really classy and full of atmosphere. Controls-wise it feels ood too, initially rather complicated but you soon pick it up. But why oh bloody why did they make the main character an annoying and arrogant American (who's, to make matters worse, voice acting is pretty bad) and what's with the whole you're actually a modern-day bartender reliving out the actions of his ancestors? It really tarnishes what should be a sublime experience.

[Nembot]

why oh bloody why did they make the main character an annoying and arrogant American

They didn`t.

Altair is indeed from the middle east and would be speaking as such, it`s the Animus that gives him the annoying american voice so Desmond and everyone else can understand what he`s saying.

It`s not Altair`s fault, give the lad a break.

[Zaki]

Assassin's Creed and Mario Galaxy fell through my letterbox this morning so I figured, with all the supposed disappointing aspects of Assassin's Creed, I'd be foolish to start playing it after what many are calling game of the decade, Mario Galaxy.

Anyway, my initial impressions are mixed to say the least. As has already been mentioned, it looks absolutely stunning, Gears of War stunning, and the archiecture and general look and feel of the environments is really classy and full of atmosphere. Controls-wise it feels ood too, initially rather complicated but you soon pick it up. But why oh bloody why did they make the main character an annoying and arrogant American (who's, to make matters worse, voice acting is pretty bad) and what's with the whole you're actually a modern-day bartender reliving out the actions of his ancestors? It really tarnishes what should be a sublime experience.

I'd put spoiler code on the last bit of that post

[Nembot]

I'd put spoiler code on the last bit of that post

Eventhough this is the plot that Ubisoft kept secret until release it is exposed in the very first scene in the game so eventhough it is a spoiler I suppose, it`s only a tiny one.