Here’s another thing to consider; as I said upthread, I saw a demonstration of the game by who I’m pretty sure was the director at PAX 07.
The man’s a native french speaker, and his english, while certainly passable, isn’t the greatest. Could it be that part of why Ubisoft had her do so many interviews and appearances for it is because they felt* the other higher-ups (this is a Montreal studio) couldn’t speak english well enough?
Also, I find it interesting how the sources I’ve seen speaking of her background say that she programmed for Sony, directed and produced at EA for several years, worked for G4/Tech-TV, and now works with Ubisoft. nameless says he knows guys in the industry who vouch for her talent. And yet here’s Justin_Bailey with a very different story about her background. I’m not sure what to take away from that.
I think the comic was in poor taste and inappropriate, irregardless of whether it was just about the supposed Maxim spread or if it was in response to a win a date contest (both of which have been implied to be false in this thread at this point). I don’t think she “deserved it” even if she’s being carted out in front of the media only for a pretty face and having her name in the credits as a producer. I think it’s bad for the community to have people acting out in such a hostile, borderline vitriolic, response to a woman’s involvement based on hearsay.
*Please note I said they felt, not that I’m saying that’s the reality of the situation, just that the people internally might have felt she was a better candidate for the game for reasons other than her looks (ie, her experience working in the videogame press for G4/Tech-TV, & her presumably stronger english).
Our two sides are apparently not mutually exclusive. She did work at Sony (working on the browser-based version of Jeopardy) and she did work at EA (working on The Sims Online). I got this information from a Jade Raymond fan site, so I assume it’s accurate. If anything, a site like that would want to enhance her resume, so I’d guess her modest credentials are on the up-and-up.
I’m not saying she’s completely fresh out of college and this is her first gig, I’m saying there’s nothing in her background to suggest the “rock star developer” role she’s taken in the promotion of Assassin’s Creed. As you yourself pointed out, she’s not the director, and this sort of promotion never goes to anyone on the team that’s not the director. It’s odd as hell.
Basically, I guess I’m trying to say that David Jaffe didn’t become a highly visible loudmouth until after God of War shipped. And he created Twisted Metal before that.
Good point. I guess it just seemed like your earlier mention was a lot more dismissive of her credentials, and I found the contrast weird. IOW, it wasn’t meant as a dig at you, but expressing genuine confusion on my part.
But I (think I) get it; your point is not that she’s a hack, but that she’s being given much more face-time than her credentials merit, is that right?
I agree it’s a very good point, but in that case I’d even more strongly emphasize the press background too. I know most gamers don’t seem to give G4 much credit (I know I don’t ), but the [north american part of the] industry certainly does seem to. It strikes me as a very plausible scenario that Ubisoft may have decided she’d be better suited to hype their game. If both the Maxim story and the date contest are false, then I think it shoots a pretty big hole in the contention that it’s because of her looks.
And I don’t really think G4 is given any special place of honor with game companies. If anything, I think they’re at best fourth on the list after major game magazines, IGN/GameSpot and the Spike TV-MTV combo,
I have to say, it’s a gorgeous game. Amazing. All that. And the crowd AI is impressive as heck.
But I’m finding it in turns quite tedious or frustrating. I can’t bear to watch the cut scenes where the hero gets instructions on his mission. It’s like watching paint dry. And the missions are mostly not very interesting. And how many times do I need to hear “Thief! You’re a filthy thief! I’ll have your hands for this!” over and over and over?
I just think this is going to be one of those games that divides people. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I’m not blind to the repetitive elements and so forth. Perhaps the game suffers from being overly ambitious; I certainly think there’s still unrealized potential in the game concept, and maybe that’s part of why it’s so frustrating to some people.
Just about completed the game (2 more assassinations left, I think). I have enjoyed playing it, although I think when I’m done it’ll be consigned to the “overly easy and repetative games I play when I don’t feel like thinking” category.
I saw one video of this game and I couldn’t help but notice that there were all these times where the hero would encounter a group of knights and start sword-fighting with one of the knights while all the others just stood there doing nothing. I thought this was totally ridiculous. Like these knights all trained together, all received their knighthoods at the same ceremony, spent years jousting and sparring and practicing, and saved each others’ lives on the battlefield countless times. And now here they are standing around with their dicks in their hands while their fellow knight gets sliced up by the player’s “assassin,” waiting for him to die before another one of them steps in to fight him.
In real life, there would be five knights all attacking the assassin at once, and he’d be dead in seconds.
Really? Because I find that if I start a fight around a bunch of guards, they all fight me at once…kinda. They all stand around me and basically take turns swinging at me. At the very least, they’re not standing around, dicks in hands. It’s like a kung fu movie. They circle around and go one at a time. If they all lunged at once, the hero wouldn’t stand a chance.
I’m on the assassination on the dude on the boat right now. This has been the most annoying one so far. The programmers apparently didn’t quite figure out the mechanics of leaping from pole to pole over the water, as I’ve fallen in countless times, and that’s NOT due to hastiness. I could risk walking right over the dock, but those fucking drunks are too hard to deal with. I wish I could target them and just take 'em down from a distance with throwing knives.
Now that I think about it, this game has a rather high annoyance factor. If it’s not falling into water time after time, it’s the drunken sailors pushing you off the dock, the shirtless, blabbering crazies shoving you (and ONLY you, the discriminating assholes) into guards, or worthless beggars getting in your way while you’re trying to ice some dude. When those things aren’t happening, you’re hearing the same dialog from the crowd over and over again.
Other than that, I’m pretty much enjoying it. If they would eliminate these annoyances, I’d love to see a sequel.
Well, they also seem to wait until you get a few licks at the guy you’re facing, then they’re pretty good about have one stick you right in the back. Now you’re facing that guy, get a few licks in, and someone clocks you from behind again. So it’s not all at once or single, its a combination.
Oh, also: if you do the moves/countermoves right (I usually don’t, I’m still mashing buttons too much and need to adjust), then the circle of foes seems to get a lot more respectful of you, having seen you just slice up one of their number. So there’s a bit of give and take there.
Ok, just played a chunk of it at my FIL’s. I really wanted to like this game. The visuals are just stunning, although I agree that the DNA thingamabobs add nothing to the game. To me the game got repetitve very quickly. Climbing every minaret and helping every abused citizen in a medieval city is just too much like homework.
Beautiful, beautiful game, though. I hope this raises the bar and becomes the new baseline for future platform games.
I like it, but every time I save a citizen, the guards come running and I end up killing 3-5 of them. Not that that’s really a bad thing, but it just seems like I shouldn’t be able to get away with doing it a dozen times a day. I guess the game isn’t really like, say, Tenchu, where you can play through the game surgically without raising the smallest amount of suspicion while you take out your targets.
Though I suppose that the idea is to sow terror and confusion among your enemies.
So I guess I just wish that I could find more Templar to kill.
If you really mix up the moves you have available, combat can be pretty rewarding. If you sit there and mash X the whole time it feels stupid.
I got in a fight recently where I countered the first attack that came at me, one of the guards kind of panicked and let his guard down so I slashed him in the face, I threw a third guard into a wall, switched to the hidden blade, and countered an incoming attack with that, killing a fourth guard, and then finished off guard number three (who had just gotten back up) with the short blade. It felt epic and fluid, and it might not have, if I hadn’t been trying to switch things up.
But anyway, it’s like a lot of the time you have to consciously play in a certain way for the game to be fun. I have to make myself sneak around and assassinate people, since it’s possible to play the whole game just running at guards with your sword drawn. And I have to make myself use diverse combat methods since it’s possible to get through combat just by countering with the sword all the time. And I’m compelled to collect flags when I see them, because you can just ignore them and miss some of the fun of exploring. I think if you take the time to mess around with things and force yourself to play around with the options you have, it might become less repetitive.
After a couple of marathon sessions today and yesterday, I’ve finished the game.
The end of the game sucks, both in gameplay and story. I won’t say anymore without spoilering…
[spoiler]The last three assassination missions are Altair vs. Horde of Soldiers plus One Boss. What happened to the stealth? If one thing was making me forget about the somewhat tedious gameplay, it was the stealth assassinations. You don’t even get a chance to sneak up on the impostor Robert. Then, after King Richard orders Altair and the real Robert to duel, you have to fight a mob of his cronies first. Top that off with fighting the head Assassin dude x 9 at the end, and the game just falls apart.
Then they don’t even give you ANY closure at the end of the story. Not even a hint as to what the Templars were (are) actually up to. What the hell was that map that was displayed? Locations of assassins? What does all that writing mean? What the fuck happens to hoodie dude (who happens to be very compliant for a man who is being held captive and has been explicitly told he will die)?[/spoiler]
At the beginning of the game, I was thoroughly enjoying the experience. The missions and assassinations were very fun, but as it went on, I got tired of climbing up to viewpoints, rescuing peasants, and pickpocketing cronies. Eventually, each assassination felt much like the last, different only in surroundings. However, even as these flaws weighed the game down, I still enjoyed it nearly to the end. It’s in the last several missions that AC fails. After the diminishing returns-style bulk of gameplay, I was expecting a big payoff. What I got was some lousy swordfights and a severe lack of resolution.
These things notwithstanding, I will hold out hope for the inevitable sequel.
I’m still playing this, believe it or not, and I’m actually quite enjoying it. Once you get some of the basics, the exploration is fun, the missions are mostly OK, and the story is (almost) engaging, at least the hints of things are not as they seem. The “present day” story is really, really stupid, though. Hmmm, I guess that’s not a ringing endorsement, but I am enjoying myself.
I am, however, working on the mission that Team of Scientists mentioned here and it really is annoying to fall in the water and die immediately. You’d think I would have gotten some projectiles or something by now to take out both the drunkards on the dock and the soldiers on the towers.
So the videos that my wife did the costuming for as promos for Youtube have been nationally syndicated now! If you see a geeky dude running around in the Assassin’s Creed costume through the streets of New York, that’s one of them!
), but the [north american part of the] industry certainly does seem to. It strikes me as a very plausible scenario that Ubisoft may have decided she’d be better suited to hype their game. If both the Maxim story and the date contest are false, then I think it shoots a pretty big hole in the contention that it’s because of her looks.