Roderick

Assassin's Creed: Mohawk

Recommended Posts

I'm a few hours into the game- at the part where young Conner gets into the open world section. I don't want to progress the story at all because I'm enamored with the idea of playing "Native American Being A Kid On The Frontier." I had the same thing with Red Dead Redemption where the only reason I pushed forward was to open up all the areas and have access to all the guns so I could play the game i wanted to, 'A Cowboy Goes Hunting and Gambling.' I'm already kind of disappointed knowing that the game is going to turn into National Treasure or whatever. Blegh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I'm usually a proponent of games trying to have some kind of narrative structure, but it's baffled me, Remo-style, since day one that Ubisoft just doesn't make the series a historical sandbox that the player can fuck around in as a badass assassin. When my friend played through the second one, after I swore off the series, he blazed through the bog-standard revenge plot to unlock enough areas to play the game he was actually interested, "Free-Running Around Renaissance Italy".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I must be the only person on earth who wasn't bored to death of the opening hours of the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It did't help that I didn't realise I could whistle for a horse for the first few hours. Lots of wading slowly through snow :(

I love the stats that keep popping up. You have started 1 riot, you are in the top 50% of players. There must be a a lot of people they gave up on this game early on.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't understand why an 18th century guy still wears a fucking eagle hood. It only really made sense thematically for Altair, whose name meant eagle or falcon or egret somesuch. Fraaanchises! Braaand identity!

Sorry, I am going to rant for a moment.:

Assassin's Creed, I'm really ready to be let out of your endless hour-upon-hour-upon-hour-upon-hour tutorial so I can actually play the awesome game you guys hid in there somewhere.

Also, I know I'm not a published writer, and I'm certainly no game designer, but a general narrative rule of thumb is,

don't tease me by making the villain and starting protagonist far more nuanced, original, unique, and interesting than the dull-as-unpolished-rocks "hero" with the back story we've seen/heard/read and played countless damn times already, pretty much since the beginning of traditional narrative as we know it today. Oh what, the paradisaical village/house/homestead/resting place I called home since I was a small child burned down while I was off wanking about? In 2012, one year out of what have now become a great many that have contributed greatly toward narrative progress in Video games, you decide to feature an opening wherein my quaint, traditional, paradisaical village is burned down while I was off playing hide-and-seek with some other kids (read: a tutorial on how to find enough glowing white markers in the environment so I can figure out which glowing green markers in the environment are the correct glowing green markers to walk into)? Really.

Also this the last thing, I absolutely swear,

how come Haytham's cohorts, guys that were super normal, average, and entirely relatable for the first half of the endless tutorial segment suddenly become power-hungry violence-hungry douche-nozzles the moment the plot requires it of them? The writers just spent two hours showing the "enemy" as pretty much totally noble, normal good guys. Why not use this as a perfect opportunity to show that both sides are equally wrong and right in different ways and they should just reconcile their differences and work together, but such is the nature of man etc. etc. But no, the series is called Assassin's Creed and the Assassins (yeah, Assassins) are the heroes of this tale. We're five games in and I still don't know what either group stands for or what makes them different, other than that occasionally a Templar is a slaveowner or a brutal asshole.

Can anyone seriously tell me what makes the Templars different from the Assassins? Because I have no idea, except that they're the baddies.

If you want your heroes to be heroes and your villains to be villains, this game has neither. It has a seemingly endless series of closed tutorials, a grand total of one interesting main character it ditches (I can only assume) because he's too British for us Americans. Lord knows, we all HATED playing as the somewhat Italian Ezio Auditore, hero of the last three games.

Okay, Jesus, I'm done ranting. Right now, AssCreed 3 is a deadly rattlesnake pumping vile venom into my veins, and I need to expel it all out there. I hope someone disagrees with me, or tells me how and why I'm all wrong. I really do want to like this game. I want to play the game hidden inside this game. I hope I'm all wrong. I just feel way too right. :(

Edit: Wow, a lot of people already said what I said, only better and less angrily. UNNECESSARY POST AHOY.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man. This game better not be as bad as you're all making it sound, this was going to be my Christmas total immersion game of choice like AS2 was a few years ago!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I sunk a couple of hours into it last night and it was alot better, you just have to get through the linear handholdy first 6-7 hours. I would actually recommend not exploring or anything just go straight to each objective. The world is completely empty until you don the assassin outfit with Connor

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man. This game better not be as bad as you're all making it sound, this was going to be my Christmas total immersion game of choice like AS2 was a few years ago!

I really enjoyed a whole lot of Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood and even got a decent bit of fun out of AC: Revelations. This one feels like the first game in a lot of ways, where it just keeps the shackles on you for as long as possible and refuses to let go. That said,...

I sunk a couple of hours into it last night and it was alot better, you just have to get through the linear handholdy first 6-7 hours. I would actually recommend not exploring or anything just go straight to each objective. The world is completely empty until you don the assassin outfit with Connor

...I have yet to get through the hours-long, bone-dull (I should say, I really did enjoy the

Haytham stuff.

If the tutorial section had ended there, I think we would have a much more easier-to-digest game on our hands) opening mission section yet, so hopefully once the game opens up I can take a breather and start to enjoy it the way I enjoyed the previous games in the serious. Fingers all twisty-crossed!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This ultra-long tutorial sounds like madness. AC2 didn't do much in that respect and its 'sequels' even less, so why do they feel the need to hold the hand of a world where surely even the most poverty-stricken souls in the heart of Africa know how to play Assassin's Creed?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I guess they are assuming that casual gamers will suddenly start playing this instead of Spider Solitaire.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I guess they are assuming that casual gamers will suddenly start playing this instead of Spider Solitaire.

That or maybe this is just the result of dozens of studios across the world working on one game and not having clear enough communication. They all designed a tutorial section and then every one of those was put in the game! :D

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Y'know, I would actually go to bat for Assassin's Creed 3 for what it is in broad strokes, but in general defense of the game I totally forgot one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in my life (my life is not so bad, really) - that last goddamn chase sequence. So, mild spoilers in this post so don't click the link if you haven't finished the game and plan on playing/beating it. Anyways, just total shit level design, the ultimate learn by failing but not having enough time to learn by failing because FUCK YOU INEXPLICABLE TIMER/PROXIMITY LIMIT thing, and a total exposure of the worst elements of the game all in one two minute to two hour sequence depending on luck -

http://kotaku.com/5967220/assassins-creed-iiis-final-chase-sequence-was-the-worst-thing-i-played-all-year

Also, this is pretty much the only time I'd ever link to Kotaku, if that gives you any indication of how serious I am.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was planning to buy this on Steam when it goes on sale, but saw it in a local store for only 30€ so got it. I'm expecting to be disappointed and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So far so good. At least not as disappointing as I thought. I decided to turn off the HUD this time, and only enabled SSI, which also shows where you need to go. That seems essential as without it I'd either be constantly switching to map or wandering aimlessly.

The new environments, different time period, and slight changes to character movement make it seem new & interesting again. But of course, after a while I recognized that many elements are still much the same, just look a bit different.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I decided to turn off the HUD this time

If you can, turn off the side mission text that's displayed/over takes the whole of the top right quarter of the screen. That shit was the worst. Oh, and if you fail one of there very specific side quests (which is very easily done if you intend to have any freedom with the game) the text turns fucking RED which is even more obnoxious. ON THE SCREEN. THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME. TELLING YOU yOU'RE A FAILURE. Just give up Conor! The screens covered in red text and crosses! Why even bother finishing the mission, you're a failure!!!!! Fuck this game

Worst

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You mean the thing that's in the top left? Apparently that can't be turned off, but it is annoying.

 

Enjoying the game so far. I didn't even mind the long time it takes before the game opens up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just beat this a week or two ago and found it enjoyable over all, despite a lot of the complaints mentioned already. That said, the one thing that really stood out to me which doesn't that doesn't seem to be mentioned here, is the lack of ambient music for a good chunk of the game. If I remember correctly, the only time any music of this sort appears is in the Frontier map and even then, it's a rare occurrence. Which is a shame since I've always felt the music helped a great deal in establishing an overall tone when exploring the vast cities of the series. The music from AC2's Venice section stands out in particular. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The mission where you chase Charles Lee. Video game garbage right there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished the game. It seemed promising at first, but then after about half the game devolved into regular Assassin's Creed where I was collecting things and constantly looking at the map for the next thing to collect. I think I got everything or most in New York. It was surprising how few missions there was in NY, but at least I got my fill of the side content there. I probably don't want to repeat that for Boston.

 

The wilderness often made me think how much better Red Dead Redemption was. Maybe this game just lacked horse persistence technology.

 

The homestead things, with multiple levels of workers, sending convoys and so on was incomprehensible. I never saw how to get more workers beyond the 1st level woodworker guy. Was that built for DLC? Seems strange that someone would play this during the regular game. Of course, the previous Assassin's Creed had the same pointless stuff in slightly different form.

 

I'm glad

Desmond died

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Few more notes:

 

I think not being able to murder civilians was a good idea. In the last game I did it just out of boredom occasionally and it kind of ruined the mood.

 

The tree climbing was cool! I'm impressed they managed to make the whole wilderness so easily climbable, although it did kind of all look the samey thanks to that.

 

I think the story of two secret factions endlessly fighting each other is getting boring by now.

 

[EDIT]Also:

 

Worst bow of the year.

 

The credits were probably longer than even Far Cry 3's. Next year I'm expecting an hour full of credits. I wonder how many people have jobs putting together the credits, and whether they are credited.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The mission where you chase Charles Lee. Video game garbage right there.

 

That was seriously the worst gaming moment of last year for me. Black hole for momentum and excitement.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now