I’m up to date on a lot of current games from the last generation, but I somehow did not play any Assassin’s Creed games. I’m a big Prince of Persia fan and also a big action-adventure fan(loved all 3 Batman Arkham games).
Anyway, I’ve just completed the first major assassination in the first game(the one in Damascus) and…it’s kind of not that great. Oh, I’m going to continue the game and will likely play it to the end, but it’s not as good as I hoped.
I’m on the PC, by the way, using an Xbox 360 controller.
I don’t find the controls to be too well done and I find that the sneaking is not very intuitive. During the actual first assassination, I felt like the guy I was killing was way hypersensitive to my presence, even though I was “blending in” during the kill moment.
Well, let’s not focus on the first game even. Do the sequels get better and if so, how? What do they refine and improve?
Wait, better than the first? Yes. The second improves ont he game immensely. But every sequel after that is the same old thing, making the same mistakes, stumbling over the same mechanics. There are places where iteration has yielded better results… But those places are few and far between.
I say play 2, watch the short version of the (horrible) storyline on youtube for the two exapnsions and AC3, and pick up AC 4 for the pirate shanties alone.
Commented on this serious enough times, so just a summary:
The biggest rookie mistake is to get completely hung up on the word “Assassin” and assume that you’re always supposed to be sneaky and stealthy and never ever get into a fight. Break that mentality, now. You will fight. You will fight numerous opponents. Many, many times. The entire ending sequence requires that you fight and kill over fifty opponents. Learn to counter, learn to punish dopes who taunt or twirl their swords or paw the ground, learn to carve up foes after you’ve knocked them down. These are required skills. Oh, and if you just need to get to safety, often the smartest thing to do is to just run like hell!
Yes, Assassin’s Creed 2 is a tremendous improvement, not only because it’s a lot more complex all around (you’ll have to use different tactics for the enemies, for one; can’t just sit and counter all day), but it took out what were BY FAR the three absolute worst things about the first game: The violent derelicts/lunatics/drunks/scumbags, the nails-on-a-chalkboard beggars, and the slow-torture endlessly repetitive lecturers. They got so bad that to this day they’re the only things I remember about that game, and when I first heard about AC2, the first thing I asked was if it had anything like that. Making Renaissance Italy vastly less irritating was an invaluable plus.
In future games the stealth mechanic is forced, meaning that if you’re spotted at all you desync right then and there. This only happens occasionally, though, and always in situations where its to be expected and feasible.
My advice: Get AC2 and see how much you like it. It’s been received very positively from nearly everyone (myself included) and should be a bargain now. If you become a fan, awesome. I actually recommend saving Revelations for last, as it has a lot of stuff to learn that never shows up again and the reward-to-effort ratio isn’t that great.
I’d call AC2: Brotherhood the best. Revelation was kind of just padding, and AC2 has a lot of “first implementation problems” with the mechanics they changed from 1.
I do warn you, if you get AC2 I would skip the DLC, it makes the game drag on mercilessly.
I do think AC3 improved several mechanics, especially the climbing. The combat also “felt” a bit better, but it was still dumb, easy combat.
The story is never amazing. The plot of 2 is nothing special, but Ezio is by far the best protagonist in terms of sheer personality and character. I’d say Altair had a more interesting story arc (if you paid attention to all the little bits of backstory), but it was undermined by him being cardboard.
AC3 had more story potential than I originally gave it credit for. The problem is that Connor kind of sucks, and could out-cardboard Altair. The plus is that the Haytham/Connor dynamic is really good. I give them credit for what they pulled off, the major issue is that the game is like 85% setup. You’re carted around from historical setpiece to historical setpiece and it drags the game out mercilessly. Ignoring the opening of the game, it’s not until after the Battle of Bunker Hill that the story is actually good, and that’s just way too far in.
I’ll add the disclaimer that I haven’t gotten too far in 4. Edward seemed to be a decent character, but I just got bored of the game. It almost felt like they WANTED to make a pirate game, but were told to make it an AC game so it would sell better. I honestly hated every second of it when it was pretending to be an Assassin’s Creed game, but the fact that it was also left the pirate mechanics a bit shallow and underdeveloped. It would have been a far better game if they had just said “screw it” and made it a next-gen Sid Meier’s pirates like it felt like they wanted to.
The main problem with AC3 - IMHO - is that it went from climbing the Florence Duomo, the Colosseum and the Hagia Sofia to climbing a bunch of shacks. I’m sure that they were a historically significant shacks or something, but come on - Assassin’s Creed is all about the architecture porn, and that element was completely absent from AC3.
I’ve been enjoying it… mostly. I’ve never played another AC game though. All the pirating stuff and open world stuff is enjoyable. The plot is okay but the forever-repeating “follow these guys and listen to them for five minutes” missions have sort of put me off the main campaign.
The “real world” stuff is terrible. I understand that the AC games are “simulations” or whatever but I could not possibly give fewer shits when I’m pulled out of pirating to play mini-games of Frogger in an office cubicle. That’s just stupid.
The ships and swords and pistols and shanties and all that is fun though. I even like the assassination stuff for the warehouses and contracts. Just the tedious stuff the plot puts you though that drags it down, sadly.
AC 4 was a huge surprise to me because I wasn’t really into pirates and had been soured to AC by AC 3 but ended up loving AC 4. It was one of only a handful of games where I enjoyed just tooling around exploring and whatnot. The seafaring was very fun and the game looks beautiful. The color pallette was a nice break from other games and it really made me “feel” like it was in the carribean in Ye Olde Dayz etc… The game was at it’s worst when they squeezed the Assassins Creed stuff in there and I agree with Jragon that its feels like they wanted to make a pirate game but were told it had to tie in to AC to ensure sales.
I’m actually disappointed that they are moving on from that story line without any sequels ala AC 2. The new AC is very pretty but it looks like more of the same old dull grey environments of non-AC4 releases.