Assassin's Creed(360)

[Canelek]

Picked this up today...

Visuals/gfx: Fucking great! They have really taken advantage of the (somewhat limited) 360 guts. Wonderful smoke, dust, shineys. Wind, textures, movement lighting all A++!

Gameplay: I really like how they are using the 360 controller here. Not too fancy, but a bit wacky until you go through the builtin tutorials. That said--when do the tutorials end?? Fuck sake, I played for a couple hours and felt I was never out of a tutorial...may be able to turn that off--not sure!

That said, the plot and action scenes are VERY engaging...good stuff! I will feel better when I figure out how to play without the constant tutorial-like help options and constant steering. Not sure how long this game is, but it better be REALLYFUCKINGLONG to make up for what seems like an eternity in "beginner" mode. Once again, I may have missed a setting to turn these things off...

That complaint aside, I am really looking forward to getting into the guts of this game--simply sick action and genuine edginess to the intense climbing--much more realistic than Crackdown or the like as far as jumping/climbing/interacting to get around.

Once I get it set up right, I am hoping the limited amount of game I have experienced begins to shine. This has a chance easily to be game of the year unless my complaints are valid.

[Funkmasterr]

Picked it up yesterday as well and holy shit, this game FUCKING ROCKS!!!

The game is supposed to be 12-14 hours depending on your play style, and I believe that estimation is if you only collect the necessary amount of investigations for each assassination, I completed one assassination (black market guy in Damascus) last night and I did all of the investigations, climbed all of the high reach points, and got a good number of flags/dead templars.

The climbing is bad ass, the combat is bad ass, and I actually really like the different control scheme (the y button controls actions related to your head, x button your weapon hand, O button your free hand and A button your feet).
I really like how the combat system is more than hack and slash, you can use footwork, counter-attacks, grabs, counter-grabs, stealth kills, throwing daggers!!! And all of the combat, running, jumping, climbing etc flows together flawlessly (as far as I've seen, at least).

Not only did they take the time to make awesome graphics/game mechanics, but the plot, the voice acting, the characters actions/emotions are all very well done. Depending on the area you are in, you will hear strong (and well done) accents in all of the people talking.

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The cut scene as you are about to kill the black market guy in the poor district of Damascus is brutal. The guy your target is talking to tells your target that he can't do something. Your target proceeds to pull out his blade and slice him in the stomache. The guy begs for him to stop, and your target replies with something along the lines of "I'm just getting started". He then proceeds to slash him in the shoulder, chest, back, arms, etc before he stabs him about 15 times in the back. He stands up and tells everyone around to use that as a lesson about what will happen if you tell him something can't be done.

The little "moment" you have with your target right after you slice them up was pretty cool too. After seeing that the dude tried to tell me he wasn't a bad person, lol!

Overall so far this game is definitely game of the year for me (mass effect might give it a run). The complaints I heard about it in the reviews were that it gets repetitive towards the end, but honestly this shit is so cool I could care less how repetitive it gets.

[Animalor]

Read Gabe's post on yesterday's PA blog. It's interesting thing about how he put himself in the reviewer's shows looking at AC.

http://www.penny-arcade.com

[Animalor]

This game is just WoW.

I absolutely love the presentation of it all as well.
I've only played for an hour or two and am just getting comfortable with the controls but I'm loving this.

Huge kudos to Ubisoft Montreal.

[Ryuda_69]

i'm sorry but if halo 3 wins game of the year over assassins creed... i will fart in my dinner that same night. THIS GAME RUULLLLEEESSSSSS.

I Jade Raymond~

[Sylvus]

I picked this up last night, it's pretty fun. I like the mechanics of the game a lot. Pretty easy to run around, jumping/climbing everything. So far I've beaten (the first?) Damascus and Acre. I highly enjoy the animations for counter kills and some of the assassinations. Last night I did a really cool one in Acre when I was sprinting along a rooftop, equipped the hidden blade, and tackled a guy from behind and stabbed him in the neck and got up and kept running.

I normally don't like doing all the side missions in games, but I find myself doing all of the information-gathering missions and climbing all of the tall buildings to expose all the maps in this one. Hasn't seemed too repetitive or anything so far.

I didn't realize that the game wasn't going to be entirely set in the past. Interesting to see how this all pans out.

If you haven't read Gabe from PA's review linked above, he mentions that you should sit through the credits when you beat it. I'm (hopefully) not anywhere close to beating it yet.

[Funkmasterr]

Ok, I beat the game last night, and I have every achievement besides finding all the flags and killing all the templars, so I think I am ready to give it my full review!

Again, the controls fucking rock, at no point were they cumbersome or hard for me, I actually found that they made controlling things more natural than in other games. A couple of things I found out that others might not know (few of my friends didn't):

1- Combo Kills - you perform these by attacking WITHOUT holding down the right trigger, just hit attack once, and just when your sword bounces off of theirs, hit attack again. If you time it right there will be an animation like there is for counter kills, but there are different animations for them! Besides there being an achievement for them, I found these to be more useful in the first half of the game. In the second half, once you get more powerful and your enemies are more powerful and in larger numbers, you run into more of a challenge with them. Either you try to do one and end up killing the enemy in 1 hit without the combo, or if you are surrounded by a lot of enemies, they leave you too open for the others to get free shots in.

2- some of the combo/counter kill animations you don't actually kill the person. Well what I found out is, if you actually time it right (depends on which animation) and hit attack during these, you will kill them in new ways and get new animations, some of them are pretty badass!

At no point during the game did I find things to be repetitive, I stayed interested and wanted to do everything, not only for the achievements but because I was having fun.

I am going say that in my opinion, the storyline in this game is the best in years, maybe ever. There are a ton of plot twists/turns, it never seems corny or boring, and the voice acting is superb. I actually like how in the different cities, the guards/militia will speak the language that fits, I think it adds to the immersion factor quite a bit (although I would like to know what the sob's are saying to me! hah.)

I also actually like how there is only one difficulty setting, and the game just progresses in difficulty as you progress through the story. As you get better with the controls, and get more powerful weapons/attacks, the enemies pose more of a threat, like they should. I liked this because I feel like they put more time into making the game challenging, and giving it good replay value, instead of just throwing in an "insane" difficulty like most games do to try and give it replay value.

One suggestion I will make is this: when you learn advanced battle techniques like dodge/defensive break, etc - learn them and use them. You can play through most of the game without worrying about them, but for the last bit of the game you will find counter kills harder to pull off because of enemies performing defensive breaks/dodges on you and you will kind of be forced to start using those skills.

I do plan on going through again and killing all of the templars/finding all the flags, but I will probably print out maps for those because some of the flags are ridiculously hidden (kind of like the hidden orbs in crackdown, it just wasn't possible to find them all on your own, lol.)

Also, you should sit through the credits. There aren't anymore cutscenes or anything, but for xbox 360 people you will get an achievement. After the credits you are just back in the animus room, and you can enter it and go to any point in the game that you want.

Such a cliffhanger ending, I'm going to be counting the days until AC2 ! damnit!

[Winnow]

Played for an hour tonight. Had to stop right now because Rock Band is almost done burning.

Graphics are outstanding, climbing is lots of fun, visuals are the kind you stop doing what you're doing and look around for a bit.

I haven't used much strategy in fighting yet. Pretty much X X X X X with some counters thrown in but it's fun and I'm getting more comfortable with the controls.


They did a good job with the interactive parts. Nice being to move around at least a little during the "cut scenes".

Fun Game.

I'd take Bioshock over Assassins Creed for Game of the Year so far. I need to play a little more Mass Effect before I rank it. So far, it's in contention for Game of the Year IMO as well. Halo 3 should win a different award for best online game play but not Game of the Year. The story is way too boring. Online and Solo should be equally weighted Game of the year categories.

[Janx]

Yeah, I was less then impressed with Halo 3. Played it once and haven't touched it since.

[Animalor]

Just finished AC last night.

What an absolutely fantastic game. This one has earned a permanant spot in my collection as I'm never letting it go. I'm absolutely looking forward to the next chapters in this series.

Here's a link with a huge amount of spoilers that explains a lot of the stuff happening at the end of the game.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=175552

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Best online play would go to Shadowrun or Call of Duty 4....possibly even Rainbow 6 Vegas. Halo 3 is fucking weak compared to any of the 3.

[Funkmasterr]

Best online play would go to Shadowrun or Call of Duty 4....possibly even Rainbow 6 Vegas. Halo 3 is fucking weak compared to any of the 3.

I disagree, I had a lot more fun with halo 3 than I had with either of those three (I own shadowrun and rainbow 6 vegas, and played a fair amount of both). The reason for that is this - most of the time I would end up playing with at least a partial team of people I didn't know, if not all people I didn't know - and I don't have the patience to try and play a tactical team game with people that don't want to play as a team. Shadowrun would have been better if they either A- didn't make the achievements so you had to play ranked matches or B-allowed you to team up with friends in a ranked match. I got sick of being on a crappy team and getting obliterated, and gave up on that game pretty quick.

[Animalor]

I'm going to have to side with Kilmoll on this one. Other that the phenomenal stat tracking that H3 does, I by far prefered the stype of game that Shadowrun and CoD4 brought to the table.

Had Microsoft allowed Shadowrun to cook for another year or so, it would've gone from a good/fun title to something that would've been a phenomenal experience.

The best thing about H3 IMO is the level of stat tracking that you get from Bungie.net. Aside from that, It was really a meh title for me.

[Funkmasterr]

I'm going to have to side with Kilmoll on this one. Other that the phenomenal stat tracking that H3 does, I by far prefered the stype of game that Shadowrun and CoD4 brought to the table.

Had Microsoft allowed Shadowrun to cook for another year or so, it would've gone from a good/fun title to something that would've been a phenomenal experience.

The best thing about H3 IMO is the level of stat tracking that you get from Bungie.net. Aside from that, It was really a meh title for me.

Yeah, It's not that there is anything wrong with those games in my opinion, I am just impatient and prefer super fast paced games like gears of war and halo to games like ghost recon and rainbow six where you have to do too damn much waiting. I have fun playing them too - but most of the people I play with also go for the faster paced shit so it's either play with them - or play rainbow 6 (or whatever) which is completely based on strategy - with a team of people I don't know, and generally don't want to use teamwork.

And I am boycotting CoD. I have said it before and will say it again, I feel it is bastardizing the way shooters should be and I refuse to be part of it

Edit: I would also say that the forge, and the ability to download other peoples videos/screenshots/maps is another huge upside to halo 3 as opposed to other shooters (particularly on the consoles.)

[Aardor]

Plus, Halo 3 has the Mongoose.

[Funkmasterr]

Some mod-type should maybe split the last half dozen posts or so off into a "game of the year" thread? I just don't want to derail the shit out of this thread because it's a kick ass game

[Animalor]

Started a new game of AC last night for the stuff I missed like the Conversationalist and that

[Show]

"view 85% of Memory Glitches"

acheivement and in literally the first 30 minutes of the game, I had found some stuff I had missed

[Show]

in the sequences with the Dr and Lucy outside the Animus.

Love this game.

[noel]

I've recently completed this on the PC. I loved the game for all the reasons mentioned, and didn't find it overly repetitive at all. Graphically it's the one of the best game ever or close to it, the same for the audio.

Storyline stuff:

[Show]

While I appreciate what they were trying to do with the Abstergo/Ainimus/Future setting, but in practice I really felt it served no purpose in the game and was boring as shit. Additionally it required a huge suspension of disbelief... Specifically to paraphrase:
"Oh by the way Desmond, after you're done helping us take over the world, we're going to fucking kill you almost immediately and there's nothing you can do about it, even though you were trained as a modern assassin."

"That's cool by me, I'll just sit here and whine about it and hop back into this machine for you as many times as you like, even though it's totally clear to me that whatever it is I'm doing is going to fuck up the entire world!"

Even if you're the ultimate fanboy of this game. Seriously consider whether or not you'd have liked it less without all the future stuff. Would you have minded just an adventure game set in the time of the Crusades? I realize that they may or may not be making a sequel to the game where the future stuff will play a more prominent role, but taken on it's own merit as an individual game, it was just annoying.

Still, I'd give the game a 5/5. Fantastic in almost every way. Also no surprise it came from Ubisoft Montreal who gave us the original Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

[Fairweather Pure]

I haven't played it since I got it at Christmas. I kind of got a lot of games at once and have been focusing on them one at a time, but AC will have it's day in the sun soon. I played about 2 hours of it and from what I saw I loved it. I'm currently wrapping up CoD4, which I bought last month and just started playing the other day.

[Animalor]

I tent to agree. The only porpose of those whole sequences was really to establish a relationship with the girl and position Abstergo as the badguys.

The e-mails in both the doctor's and the girl's accounts were interesting.

The game is planned as a trilogy so this isn't the last you've heard of any of these characters. I just hope that it doesn't pan out like The Matrix in the last 2 chapters..

It's funny that this thread popped up again. I just finished my 2nd run through the game this week and nabbed the rest of the achievements that aren't related to Flags or Templars.

[Funkmasterr]

I tent to agree. The only porpose of those whole sequences was really to establish a relationship with the girl and position Abstergo as the badguys.

The e-mails in both the doctor's and the girl's accounts were interesting.

The game is planned as a trilogy so this isn't the last you've heard of any of these characters. I just hope that it doesn't pan out like The Matrix in the last 2 chapters..

It's funny that this thread popped up again. I just finished my 2nd run through the game this week and nabbed the rest of the achievements that aren't related to Flags or Templars.

I have been thinking about playing through this (and bioshock) again recently. I think I have all the achievements for AC besides conversationalist (I missed the first conversation with her ) and the flags/templars ones... I have been trying to decide if I think those are even worth trying to get and I'm not sure they are. I guess maybe if you print out a map to at least make it a little more realistic.

[Animalor]

Here's a link with the location of all the flags.

http://www.assassinscreed-maps.com/Maps.htm

You choose which district of which city you want, then click on the numbered circles to see a screenshot of there the flag actually is. Also, the green dots on the maps are templars...


It helped me out as I have a few of the flag achievements(the ones in Acre where the achivements are tied to the districts and not the whole city.)

[noel]

I tent to agree. The only porpose of those whole sequences was really to establish a relationship with the girl and position Abstergo as the badguys.

The e-mails in both the doctor's and the girl's accounts were interesting.

The game is planned as a trilogy so this isn't the last you've heard of any of these characters. I just hope that it doesn't pan out like The Matrix in the last 2 chapters..

It's funny that this thread popped up again. I just finished my 2nd run through the game this week and nabbed the rest of the achievements that aren't related to Flags or Templars.

The emails were really interesting. I think at a minimum, the future setting needed the ability to run. That would have made it far less annoying. Also the repeated click on character ad nauseum until Lucy says, "aren't you tired?" was a fairly bad game mechanic in my opinion. Seconded on the Matrix... god what an abysmal end.

Anyway for anyone reading this, I almost feel like I'm nitpicking because the game was SO damn good.

[Funkmasterr]

I tent to agree. The only porpose of those whole sequences was really to establish a relationship with the girl and position Abstergo as the badguys.

The e-mails in both the doctor's and the girl's accounts were interesting.

The game is planned as a trilogy so this isn't the last you've heard of any of these characters. I just hope that it doesn't pan out like The Matrix in the last 2 chapters..

It's funny that this thread popped up again. I just finished my 2nd run through the game this week and nabbed the rest of the achievements that aren't related to Flags or Templars.

The emails were really interesting. I think at a minimum, the future setting needed the ability to run. That would have made it far less annoying. Also the repeated click on character ad nauseum until Lucy says, "aren't you tired?" was a fairly bad game mechanic in my opinion. Seconded on the Matrix... god what an abysmal end.

Anyway for anyone reading this, I almost feel like I'm nitpicking because the game was SO damn good.

I kind of see where you are coming from, I just think I am more willing to let it slide under the hope that they will do more with it in the next couple games. However if that doesn't happen I will be irritated as well.

[Fash]

It's funny that this thread popped up again. I just finished my 2nd run through the game this week and nabbed the rest of the achievements that aren't related to Flags or Templars.

I was thinking it was funny this thread popped up because I just moved it to the top of my GameFly queue last night and it shipped this morning. I finally get to see what all the fuss is about!