Roderick

Assassin's Creed: Mohawk

Recommended Posts

So now that AC4's been out for a while and AC Unity's coming out at the end of this year (?), I just finished Revelations. I want to know why AC3 is bad and why I shouldn't play it, because the setting really appeals to me. For context of how I might feel here are my opinions of each game, which are probably not too surprising...

 

AC1: Good but pretty flawed, by the end I was super excited for the sequel if it happened (and it did).

AC2: Very good, a huge improvement over the first game, didn't find much to dislike.

Brotherhood: Basically more of AC2. Not bad by any means but disappointing I guess because it didn't feel fresh and new.

Revelations: Wanted to be more of AC2/Brotherhood, but felt super rushed and mashed together and the tower defense stuff was stupid so I just ignored it.

 

I know in general people seem to hate AC3. But I don't know why. I mean I COULD go back and read the thread (and I might/will), but I'm wondering if, a while later, people have a different grasp on the game, or if it's still just all hate.

ALL RIGHT! GIVE IT TO ME! IF... I mean... if you want to I guess.

 

Also full disclosure: I enjoy the dumb story in Assassin's Creed. It ain't the epitome of writing greatness, or even close, but sometimes I want some dumb sci-fi bullshit. (Though I would probably enjoy the games more if that stuff wasn't there. Which is a weird position to take. I like it, but I'd like it more if it didn't exist? Whatever!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

AC1: Good but pretty flawed, by the end I was super excited for the sequel if it happened (and it did).

AC2: Very good, a huge improvement over the first game, didn't find much to dislike.

Brotherhood: Basically more of AC2. Not bad by any means but disappointing I guess because it didn't feel fresh and new.

Revelations: Wanted to be more of AC2/Brotherhood, but felt super rushed and mashed together and the tower defense stuff was stupid so I just ignored it.

 

I know in general people seem to hate AC3. But I don't know why. I mean I COULD go back and read the thread (and I might/will), but I'm wondering if, a while later, people have a different grasp on the game, or if it's still just all hate.

ALL RIGHT! GIVE IT TO ME! IF... I mean... if you want to I guess.

 

My enjoyment of the AC games seems basically identical to yours. 

 

With AC3, I have 2 main problems that I think made the game actually quite bad. First, the environments you're running around in are simply not dense enough to allow for the fluid movement that I loved above all else in the previous games. And second, you end up having to do a ton of loading between your base and other areas for missions and other stuff. This made playing the game just kind of a hassle, and after my first few sessions I was too bored to start it up again.

 

The stuff in the trees was kind of cool at first, as was the introduction of ship combat, but it wasn't enough for me to make the overall experience enjoyable.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

By base you mean the homestead stuff? I heard it was pretty isolated from the rest of the game, almost to the point that it's basically a separate game within the game. Which is a shame 'cause I always thought it sounded interesting enough, like it had potential.

Lack of fluid movement would definitely be a buzzkill.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd imagine you can get it for dirt cheap now or you probably already own it. I'd say its worth a few hours of your time just be sure to quit it as soon as you've had your fill. The game just isn't particularly fun. Tutorial that last for like 10 hours :/ and the homestead stuff, I got 3/4 of the way through the game and I hadn't even touched on it really, I found it a bit confusing and ultimately extremely boring.

AC4 is the shit though!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Assassin's Creed III is probably my least favorite game in the series (note: I have only played the "main" series, excluding Assassin's Creed I). The setting of the game simply did not really appeal to me and I found the main character supremely annoying at times. The crafting system was pretty much useless and not fun, and unless I missed something essential, the trading simply wasn't worth the effort because there were much easier ways to earn money. Building the homestead could have been interesting, but it was not. I spend a lot of time relatively early on on the homestead missions because I figured that I'd get cool weapons and armor, only to notice that the final tasks are locked to the progression in the main campaign.

 

It's still an Assassin's Creed game, so if you enjoy those and especially if the setting appeals to you, it might still be worth a go. You can probably get it relatively cheap already.

 

Assassin's Creed IV was a vast improvement on III in my opinion.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
 

So now that AC4's been out for a while and AC Unity's coming out at the end of this year (?), I just finished Revelations. I want to know why AC3 is bad and why I shouldn't play it, because the setting really appeals to me. For context of how I might feel here are my opinions of each game, which are probably not too surprising...

 

I think if you're really into the American history then you might well enjoy it. Being from Euroland (an off shoot of Legoland) I can't say I found it particularly gripping and in large part the game makes no effort to really introduce the various historical characters the game throws at you versus assuming you'll take the time to read through the codex entries. Instead you find yourself constantly engaging with people who seem all too familiar with you 'Connor do this' 'Connor do that' with little explanation as to the why of things. 

 

There's also a lot of 'stuff' to the game. You need to build up your estate in order to harvest resources to then manufacture/trade goods (using a really tedious UI that defaults at every stage), in order to make the necessary money to upgrade your ship and it's a lot of tail wagging when all is said and done. Plus there's the obligatory assassins management as well.  

 

The ship stuff is pretty great, but feels very detached from the rest of the game.

 

Albeit Connor isn't the personality vacuum that was Altair, there's no real sense that he's anything other than easily lead and often times he comes across as a petulant boy even though he's much older. 

 

Ultimately I only powered through ACIII because I wanted to see where the main story went and so get into ACIV, which so far has been pretty enjoyable in comparison.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The worst thing about all of the recent Assassin's Creed games is not the sci-fi backstory, but the stupid minigames they cram in there, especially the "strategic" ones like fleet missions in IV, the trading thing in III and the assassination contracts in the ones before. These things are just a waste of time, making a long game even longer, with no real tie-in to the rest of things, just a way to earn money while there are other more effective ways. Yet some why I keep engaging with that part, as if wanting to experience the game as designed. Maybe I'll try to resume playing IV without doing that shit.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay. I'll wait for the next big Steam sale for the game, then. I'm in no rush to play it, having JUST powered through Revelations, but I'm curious enough if only to see how they manages to go downhill from the excellent AC2. Thanks!

 

EDIT: Oh, wait, how's the DLC? It looks sufficiently stupid!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay. I'll wait for the next big Steam sale for the game, then. I'm in no rush to play it, having JUST powered through Revelations, but I'm curious enough if only to see how they manages to go downhill from the excellent AC2. Thanks!

 

EDIT: Oh, wait, how's the DLC? It looks sufficiently stupid!

 

I'd say get ACIII when its 70% off. ACIV is a pretty fun and well worth getting when it's 50% or so. Haven't tried the ACIII DLC, but in large part as it seemed to be an alternative history I couldn't really see how it advances the main story so avoided it. Given there's 3 parts I imagine it's fairly substantial, but I'd say hold off until you've played III through before deciding.    

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't think it's supposed to advance the story. It's just a dumb alternate history take on the American Revolution, which is probably why it appeals to me so much.

It just occurred to me that the most logical conclusion to said DLC is to assassinate George Washington. Huh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nope!

Close though. This is Ubi's game scripting style we're dealing with, remember.

Also, Connor gains four new powers in a blatant reference to BraveStarr

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I liked ACIII, and finished the DLC earlier this year. It's a pretty good game, I thought, just not up to the standards of the rest of the series. Being Canadian, and originally from the area where it takes place, the setting was great and seemed really evocative of the actual place. I got the same feeling that I had only previously had from the last chapter of Red Dead Redemption, where the character returns to the Northern Rockies (his home, and also my current one) and I had this connection with the setting that I don't normally get from a game. That feeling made the game for me. I did all the side stuff and got 100% as well, because I am a sick sick person. I don't recommend doing that. If you can make it through the (WAY TOO LONG) tutorial stuff, the game really does pick up as it goes and get a lot better, it just spends far too long spinning its wheels at the beginning and lost a lot of people because of it.

 

As for the DLC, it's a dumb dream sequence, but lasted about 6 hours and each chapter gives you a new spirit animal power thing, which is a bit problematic but really fun to play, so I was conflicted. The powers do change the game and add some really cool traversal stuff though, and I found myself wishing I'd had them in the main game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Whoa someone had something mostly positive to say! What's going on! I'm still planning on waiting a long while before I finally get around to it. At least, at the moment. Maybe in a week I'll change my mind, but probably not!

 

I looked up the price on Steam after last time I posted in here and laughed when I saw that the DLC bundle is more expensive than the main game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's not like it's a bad game - I finished it and even played a lot of the side content. I really think if the series dropped the ridiculous homestead/trading/fleet/assassin management mini games it would improve by 23%. And I actually enjoyed the part of building the homestead, just not the part where I had to navigate layers of menus to send out carts. I also think the wilderness was kind of cool, even though RDR did it much better.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I bought this and have been playing it (because Dark Souls 2 hasn't been a daily sale yet)! It's definitely got a terribly long tutorial. Like completely awful. But once I got through that I started enjoying it quite a bit.

 

The biggest problem is how incongruous all the different pieces of the game end up feeling. There's no cohesion between the homestead, the ship, the frontier, and Boston. It all feels incredibly segregated, like each piece was developed by a different group of people and then duct-taped together at the end. Which is probably exactly what happened, based on the number of different Ubisoft studios that touched the game. A common problem with Ubisoft games in general, these days, I'm sure.

 

It's also extremely unoptimized and has framerate issues out the ass.

 

But I'm still enjoying it a lot more than I expected to, so I'm okay with it.

 

Most importantly there's a mission where you ride with Paul Revere (which is lame for various reasons), and you can ask him directions. When you do so, if you're already heading in the right direction, he will raise his hand in that direction... and throw up the fucking horns, like he's some metal god.

 

 
(Gotta link it, instead of embed, 'cause it's a long video and I wanted to link the timestamp.)
 
Like check that out. That's nuts! How did that even happen?!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I beat it! My takeaway is that it's pretty good. Doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. But it's also not great. Nowhere near the sublime experience that was AC2. Okay, maybe sublime is too strong a word, but AC2 was such a great game after AC1. Anyway... As I said before, AC3 was a game built by a million different studios, and you can tell.

I also beat the Tyrrany of George Washington... It's basically Assassin's Creed fan fiction, written in such a way that it can also be canon to the Assassin's Creed universe. I mean I guess all of Assassin's Creed is basically fan fiction starring historical figures, but this takes it a step further. It was fucking weird. The cool powers were cool, though.

 

I didn't realize the protagonist of AC4 was also part of Desmond's bloodline. That's a little disappointing, since I thought it was a completely bonkers standalone thing. Oh well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tempted to pick this up since it's like 5 bucks right now, or Liberation.  Really enjoyed IV a lot which I burned through this week as well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Burned through Liberation...had some neat ideas that it really failed to execute on.  Liked the chain kill thing though, straight out of Splinter Cell: Conviction.  Actually encouraged me to use something other than the wrist blades.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was curious about Liberation. Is it worth playing? I was hoping it was a shorter game, since usually AC is like a million hours longer than it really needs to be, and I think it was a PSP game first, so maybe that lends to a smaller, or at least more condensed game. (Mostly because I can't help but collect shit.)

 

Didn't actually buy it during the sale, but it's on my list.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It was a vita game.  It's...ok.  It's way shorter but super linear.  No outside plot really, but it is presented as an abstergo product like assassin's creed IV is, the whole video game meta thing.  The character could have been interesting in a bigger/better written game.  The combat has a few more bells and whistles with the chain kill, double counter, and occasionally context sensitive counter kill animations.  There's a persona system thing where you can dress up as a slave, a high class lady, or assassin.  Each outfit is seen differently by guards and npcs and has different advantages/disadvantages.  In theory it's cool because you can Hitman it up and go in to a high society party and then shoot your target discretely with a crazy james bond-esque parasol that launches poison darts!  In reality they basically just tell you which outfit to wear when a mission needs it.  Character feels a little bit like if Batman were a mixed race high class woman from 1700s new orleans.  I wouldn't pay full price at all, if it's on sale it could be worth a look.  It crosses over with AC3 briefly towards the end but plot wise it's completely stand alone.

 

On side content, it's barebones.  There's something about seducing men as a lady to get gems? I never did it but it showed up on the map.  A small handful of assassination missions, a smaller version of kenway's fleet for making money.  There's a lot of upgrade weapons but you can make it through the game without ever getting any of them, wasn't enough of a big deal to me to do the side stuff to afford them.  A small amount of collectables that I didn't bother with either.  Most of them aren't all that in your face like in other asscreed games.  There's shop buying from brotherhood in there but you really don't need to do it at all, no reason to other than a convenient weapons shop if you happen to be near it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All that combat stuff is also in AC3 (which makes sense, as Liberation was probably built off that engine).

Character feels a little bit like if Batman were a mixed race high class woman from 1700s new orleans.

well that sounds boss

 

The shop buying from Brotherhood is my least favorite addition, but it's also entirely skippable so that's good. I'll probably nab Liberation in the next big sale. I like asscreeds.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yea the concept of the character is fun, but the story is pretty lame even compared to other asscreeds

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Haha, he is not a great character. He's pretty fucking selfish.

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