Noyb

You Can't Spell Assassin Without...

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Also, it's patriarchical bullshit that having a front woman would somehow tell you something about the quality of the game.

It's not about her being a woman, it's about how she presented the game, never going deep into any topic, always focusing on the superficial. Ah, nevermind, I don't really want to go there...

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]t's not about her being a woman, it's about how she presented the game, never going deep into any topic, always focusing on the superficial. Ah, nevermind, I don't really want to go there...
it should have been obvious that this game was going to be somewhat shallow, by who was chosen to present and hype it to the public -- Jade Raymond, a really cute girl who never really seemed to have much of a clue.

The fact that you used the words "cute girl" argues otherwise. It comes across as a little dismissive. I mean, this is an industry filled with socially awkward nerds. MOST producers, male or female, -- save for a few outspoken exceptions -- come across like that. They're focusing on the superficial because, well, most games are superficial. How else would they have presented it? God forbid the producer of the game can't talk about it because she's not an awkward looking nerd (and is, instead, an awkward good looking nerd).

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Jade Raymond, a really cute girl who never really seemed to have much of a clue.
She certainly is awkward in front of the camera and I don't know if she has a clue about producing, but she does know her stuff about games and programming. A lot of people assume she randomly came out of nowhere just because she's good looking, but as far as I know that is not the case. So I don't think what she says has to be taken differently than if anyone else from the industry says it.

Also she did a second opinion on Thumb so I think that establishes massive quantities of street cred right there. :shifty:

Sorry, have to jump to her defense a little. I often feel sorry for the position she is in right now.

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Ooh, could you manage a quick link to the article she second-opinioned? Massive quantities of interest, right here :tup:

It's pretty ironic that Raymond fronting Assassin's Creed is both extremely positive (a lot of attention) and negative (folks don't take her as serious because she's a woman). Both are pretty much a pity because they take away from the importance of the game. That said, I always thought she did a pretty good job trying to guide attention away from her and onto the game. I don't think she ever spoke a lot about stuff not related to Assassin's. And having a charming frontman is never a bad thing.

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But taking the PoP: Sands of Time sequels and now this into account, I'm really really disappointed in Ubisoft. To ruin such potential... I just hope there won't be a more Xtreme sequel to Assassins Creed.

Frederick Raynal is working on a secret project. Not sure what Ancel is currently doing. But there is still some hoe for something new and interesting.

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Ok, maybe you're right. I didn't/don't really have enough info to say that. So it's actually me who's being superficial... :eathat: (we need a smiley for embarrassment) Sorry, Jade.

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Thumb was ahead of its time in everything.

Did time catch up now?

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Ryan: "Before this game I was afraid of heights, now I'm just sick of them."

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This game disappointed me so much, I felt compelled to write a review*. I didn't even go into the game with particularly high expectations. Some of my worries turned out to be unfounded (e.g. they pulled off the free running), while other fears came true and then some.

Also, if any of you would like to critique my writing, I'd be honoured. I've written very little before, but Idle Thumbs' features were pretty inspiring in getting me to start (admittedly it was a somewhat delayed reaction). This post by Marek stuck in my mind as well, for some reason.

*Hosted on a slightly less stupid domain once the DNS changes go through.

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I'm always hesitant to ressurrect a thread like this, but I just got AC under the tree today. I gotta say, I was expecting not much, and I'm completely smitten with this game now. Entering Damascus and just looking around and doing random things was wonderous, and it wasn't until I'd wandered for an hour and a half that I realized I was fulfilling mission requirements while I was doing it. I'd just stumble upon someone and do what I thought should be done in that situation, before I knew it I'd worked my way up to the main assassination. So much fun, and I think this is the prettiest game I've seen yet. All the games praised for their graphics that I've played over the past few months are being trumped by watching the shadows cast from the trees play over citizens walking around a completely believable city. So good. I'll be blitzing this one and hopefully completing it before the winter term starts up on the 14th.

So yeah, not the best game ever, or even of the year, but I'd say that if you want to see a series of amazingly rendered cities with beautiful animation, really satisfying swordplay and a ton of side-objectives, check it out soon. I wouldn't have bought it for myself, but now that I have it I'm amazed at how easily I could have skipped this one given my reaction to the mixed reviews. The missions may not be so good, but they make up a remarkably small chunk of the actual game, so in a move that's not really like me at all, I'm actually willing to let that pass.

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I finally gave up waiting if it will be available on Steam and bought it from a store. Have played it for 4-5 hours and so far it's pretty much what I expected -- quite fun to play actually, although everything is a bit repetitive and somewhat shallow.

The high/low profile thing doesn't work that well -- sometimes you may stand near a soldier and "blend", and the moment you let go of the blend button, he will react. They should have taken a few cues from the Hitman games concerning how the alertness of guards and stuff like that is implemented. The current system comes across as a few generations behind the times.

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I played through Assassin's Creed a little while ago and I was pretty disappointed. For a game that must have taken enormous amounts of time and manpower to create it sure feels lazy. It's like they created this gorgeous world and some fun controls for free running and then just phoned in the rest.

One thing that really stood out for me was the lack of variety in the voice acting. At the end of the game I must have heard that damn beggar woman say "No, you don't understand, I have nothing!" hundreds of times. It just seems so lazy. There's something like a hundred citizens around the world that need to be saved from soldiers and it felt like there was maybe six replies they could give for you saving them. How hard is it to record a hundred different replies? This is a game with a massive budget we're talking about.

For me, this made it feel very transparent as a game. While the world is beatiful graphically, the repetetiveness of the sound, not to mention the missions and gameplay, really brought me out of any immersion it tried to create.

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currently playing the game, and it's seriously repetitive and some parts even annoying.

it's the same thing over and over again, climb some buildings, kill a shit load of guards to save a civilian. The same assassin tasks (kill a few selected people without being seen, run through part of the city to collect flags (easy), run through the city to get to a different guy (easy), escort a guy, pick pocket (very easy), eavesdrop (very easy), beat up some guy (usually easy), destroy market stands (usually difficult)). And then the main assassination, which is sometimes quite difficult.

The crazy people and beggars are extremely annoying. And they only bother you, nobody else. The side "missions" are quite tedious, collect 100 flags scattered through an enormous city... why would I even bother to find them all. It doesn't look like there's even a reward for it (unlike saving civilians and climbing towers to "sync"). (I found all but 1 flag in the home town, only 20 flags needed, but I can't find the last one).

oh... and the forced camera angle you get after completing certain tasks (like saving civilians) is just plain annoying because you can't make an easy get away before the damn guards find the bodies you left.

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Played this game's intro and long winded turorial...

From a game play standing point seems fairly competent but there are simply too many unskippable cutscenes and the plot seems completely hackneyed.

I turned it off after an hour and a half and will not be returning.

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While I agree with Halgwet's and elmuerte's critisism, I really enjoyed the game -- just finished it after playing for two whole days. Somehow I managed to not let the annoying parts get in the way too much. Never bothered to collect the flags or the other optional stuff that didn't show up on the map, except in the assassin city:

the last one I found was in the middle of the courtyard behind the palace

The game is not up to standards in many aspects though, so there was definitely more potential there. Thief and Hitman have done a lot of things better, and many years ago by now. But on the other hand it seems somewhat understandable that while they had their hands full creating those awesome cities and making the environment work so well with free-running, they neglected other stuff.

Things which were most noticeably lame:

* after running really-really far from those that chase you, whether you get away or not is determined by whether you jump into a haystack or not.

* haystacks are the new crates?

* insta-death water

* the scenes outside the animus, where you had to walk around really slow compared to Altair's movement

* the story could have been better

PS. the cities reminded me of running and climbing around in the desert city in Outcast, which is cool.

PPS. i think once game devs in general get a better hang of this parkour/free-running thing, we'll see some really awesome games. Totems and Mirror's Edge already look quite promising, except the stories.

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Thief and Hitman have done a lot of things better, and many years ago by now.

To me, AC never really tried to be the assassin's simulation that is Hitman and it never is close to be a Thief-like, so I think the comparison is totally unfair. But you know how sometimes people say something is good in its own right ? Well, I'd say AC is 'bad' in its own right : it doesn't fail because it mimics badly other titles, it fails because the principle of linear sub-missions within such a dynamic looking environment* feels really frustrating and dumb.

I'm really surprised they haven't released downloadable content/cheap sequel to cope with this limitation.

*at least superficially, because maybe there's not much going on when you look for a while

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* insta-death water

Gah! That damn harbour in Acre. I think I died maybe 20 times throughout the game and at least 15 of those must have been in that place. The free running totally breaks down and your reward for failure is insta-death. Nice.

It may seem like I'm very negative towards the game, but that's not really fair to it. I mean, I played it to completetion, so I didn't hate it or anything. I just thought it had so much potential that it wasted and that's the thing I'm going to remember about it. If they announced a sequel I would be pretty excited for it, at least if they say they're going to focus on gameplay and story and that they aren't going to rush it out in time for christmas.

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Yeah, the harbour is a nightmare.

They've already said its going to be a trilogy, though I haven't seen any official confirmation of further titles in development.

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ugh... just did the harbor part of acre...

jfc... it was almost Meat Factory Episode 2

it's just amazing how suddenly the game thinks: "fuck you, you're simply going to miss this jump and fall into the water"

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