Assassin's Creed

I don't think I trust early reviews, they sell magazines, and who would pan something if they get that early crack at it? They'd be blackballed from ever making money like that again. It does sound pretty cool, though. I dunno if I can fit another 360 game in, though. It's fucking SATURATED right now.

Mass Effect the week after too, right?

The lack of GTA and the overabundance of first person shooters has me craving a more open game, like Assassin's Creed looks to be. Even if it ends up being semi-broken - some of those games can also be quite a bit of fun (see Dead Rising). Those cities do look pretty amazing - if it can play half as good as it can look...

I does make me a bit skeptical when the publisher only hand picks a couple of mags for reviews and makes everybody else hold up till after the game is already out (or the day it comes out, I guess). It seems to possibly show a lack of confidence in the game. You don't see Nintendo bothering to do that with Mario Galaxy, for instance.

The boy wants this bad. My guess is that it's plotless no-depth platform bullshit with pretty graphics.

They say that the thing about it is it's kind of non-platform platform, because you can climb anything and jump from anything to anything, or anything plausible within ordinary logic and physics. I can see the novelty of that, essentially the shininess of new technology, wearing off and winding up being same old shit.

something about the marketing of this game really seems to have rubbed people the wrong way. if the platforming and exploration are at least as good as crackdown i'll be happy.

I'm just bitter cos I thought it was gonna be a Crusades RPG and now I just think it's gonna be a next-gen Prince of Persia.

prince of persia was perfectly pleasant

Positively praiseworthy!

All true, but not the intense in-depth political history spree that I thought for 3 seconds this might be.

Isn't there some kind of omg it's the future!!1 or time-travelling gimmick in this game?

I heard that yeah, that put me off too.

hey will you see the cover of my rag this week

no i won't

this guy thinks he's funny

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6g86OhiMy50

the sci-fi bit people are talking about

hooray, genetic memory!

i don't think i did see the cover yet! i will look for it today... do they have them anywhere near cote-vertu metro? i am in there daily, but i never see a copy... maybe they're behind all of those people giving out jesus magazines that i try to avoid

First 45 minutes or so were up on youtube yesterday (maybe still there?). I didn't watch it, since I'm probably going to pick up the game, but you may want to check it out..

Oh here's the link (still up)...

http://video.google.nl/videosearch?q=The+Beginning+of+Assassin%27s+Creed&so=1

Someone put 45 minutes of gameplay on the Internet?????

What the hell.

I have watched speed runs on youtube about that long. I am sad and lonely.

Hmm... the real reviews are coming in. Eurogamer starts off very positive, but with every paragraph gets a little more negative - eventually claiming Crackdown is more fun (well, I liked Crackdown too, but..)

"a game that starts off brightly, wriggling elusively as you try and grasp what's going on, delighting in the mechanics and beautiful visuals, before sinking into a pattern that, while fairly gratifying, never evolves and ultimately becomes a bit boring, and quite amazingly repetitive."

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87432

saw the mirror, good cover! the article on AC is pretty neat too. can't remember writer's name... erik? i didn't like his review of the orange box at all though :(

Gamespot...

"Assassin's Creed will stay with you long after you finish it. Here is one of the most unique gameworlds ever created: beautiful, memorable, and alive. Every crack and crevasse is filled with gorgeous, subtle details, from astounding visual flourishes to overheard cries for help. But it's more than just a world--it's a fun and exciting action game with a ton of stuff to do and places to explore, rounded out with silky-smooth controls and a complex story that will slowly grab you the more you play. Make no mistake: Assassin's Creed is one of the best efforts of the year and a must-own game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners"

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/assassinscreed/review.html?sid=6182795

now I'm completely confused...

When was the last time a big-ticket title got panned by gaming journalism? Doom 4 or whatever it was? That wasn't even a pan.

(tho this game shouldn't be it, it's really good)

Have you picked it up? Impressions?

the little mobile game is kinda fun, at least. Heavy on the prince of persia, tho.

I'm into it so far. It looks incredible, which is becoming less and less of a reason to recommend a game, but it's just a world I want to be in, and can't see myself getting tired of jumping and climbing around in. Which is good 'cause that's most of what you're doing. I love how much it feels at the end of the day like a platformer, just a super next-gen style platformer, in the same way that parkour guys treat cities like a level of Super Mario.

Seems like most of what people are saying is it gets repetitve and the killing isn't nearly as fun as it should be, and I can definitely see that happening. At its worst it feels like a game you're directing rather than playing, which can make for great eyecandy but i'm sure it becomes a drag.

Also what's up with the caveat at the beginning about the game having been made by people of all ethnicities and religious backgrounds? Is it because the good guy's a muslim and most of the bad guys are 3rd-crusaders? Or does the story get crazier? I'm not into some threads that look like they might turn into Dan Brownery in the plotline.

Here's a couple specific questions I have...

When you're gathering intel for an assassination attempt, eavesdropping, etc - as you gather that info does it mark it off on a menu as you collect it, or do you have to remember (write down?) the various info?

What's the game's save system like? Can you save at any time, or just at the end of missions or specific locations?

If it ever gets to the point where you're pursuing the information through your own research, I haven't gotten there yet. So far it tells you who to eavesdrop on, you get information to pursue, and the location of your target shows up on the HUD. I was a little disappointed at how conventional this is, but maybe it gets harder.

And it's an autosave system. The framing device kind of justifies where the saves are in the narrative, and once or twice it's been a little awkward, but in general it's saving as often as you need it to, and you don't need to do much backtracking.

Thanks

So it looks like Ubisoft is threatening SA with a lawsuit again, since somebody reposted some comic on the forums depicting EA/Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond sucking off gamers in order for them to buy the game.

Got this last night and so far I'm enjoying it (just got to the outskirts of Damascus). Very different in feel from the other games out right now - seems to be all about going slow, taking you time and blending in and exploring. The look of the game is amazing, except for some slight v-sync problems and small glitches, which is forgivable when dealing with such a large, detailed, crowded world. There are so many people on the streets - walking around does feel more like your in a living place than any other game I can remember.

So far, the little combat there has been has reminded me of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time - which was the worst thing about that game - but fortunately - it seems like you can avoid a lot of the combat here

Every crack and crevasse is filled with gorgeous, subtle details

gansha?

DAAAAANNNNNNN

thank you, urbandictionary.com, for explaining what that meant

I seen a review that makes this look dead sexy again. Is it deep or repetitive, eh?

Every crack and crevasse is deep and filled

I'm only just starting the second (of nine) assassinations, so I can't really speak to the repetitive aspect, but so far I'm really enjoying the game - it's dead different in feel than anything else out there right now, that's for sure. At least to start - it has been really slow - for one thing - and that's something I'm enjoying (that others might not). A lot of the "play" is wandering around looking at things, trying to climb buildings, collecting hidden flags. It's not exactly a stealth game (I think), but you do sort of have to take things slow, blend into the crowd, wait for your moment. In some ways, because the graphics are fairly realistic and detailed - and that the cities feel alive with crowds - some of the gameplay elements seem a little weirder than if the game had a more cartoony look. For instance, to escape from a chase, all you have to do is break the line of sight of the guys hunting you - so far that has been pretty easy to accomplish - and once you've broken their line of site and your wanted meter goes back to normal, you can walk right back past the same people who were hunting you five seconds ago but now they won't recognize you.

So, it's an arty, slow game - the kind of game for people who like exploring, wandering around and collecting stuff - more than straight up action and explosions. At times it reminds me a bit of Shadow of the Colosssus - you're on your horse, wandering around looking for something - and when you get there you collect info on your target by observation - and then you kill it - over and over again.

I meant to mention I came across a pretty weird glitch in this game yesterday - I don't know if it was the game, or my 360 screwing up with loading in streaming stuff - but I was climbing up a ladder in the first little hamlet, when the ladder disappeared from underneath me. I fell to the ground and then a lot of the textures on the side of the house started to disappear - so I walked up for a closer look and got sutck in the wall of the house. Looking through the house (my head was half-way inside) I could see through the whole world - down to water a hundred feet below. Suddendly I couldn't get myself unstuck from the house - thought I was going to have to restart the game - but then managed to drop down through the ground - fell into whiteness for ten or so seconds, then the memory bank re-initalized and I was back at my last save. Most weirdly, then an achievement popped up for getting into one hundred fights in a row without losing one (20 points)! Note: I'd only been in maybe twenty fights at that point - if that (and I'd lost several times, at least).

I bought this today, only to be greeted by a lovely ring of death when I got back home to the Xbox. Lovely. Will Microsoft be able to ship me a new one in time for Guitar Hero on Friday?

No - I hear they've gotten a bit quicker lately - possibly down to two weeks, but I wouldn't count on it. Mine took exactly three.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_8cmPZ7hfE

I played the hell out of this game yesterday and got about a third of the way through, when the difficulty ramps up incredibly all of a sudden and it really turns into a stealth game, rather than basically a sandbox brawler. I'm kind of disappointed that it seems like the exploring part of the game is over, and the fighting mechanic, which is after all basically single-button button-mashing, is not very satisfying when you get to the point where you're fighting thirteen guys at a time.

Also, fuck the cutscenes in this game. They're terribly written, you can't skip them, and the interactivity in them is the worst, most boring shit. "Oh boy, this is the part of this ACTION GAME where I have to walk slowly into my bedroom and lie down and go to sleep!"

However, there is a LOT of fun in this game. I cannot get enough of sneaking up behind archers and throwing them off rooftops. Or, to my shame, shoving beggars into merchant stands.

I was straight up stabbing the fucking beggars until I found out there was an achievement for shoving them.

Is there? What is it? God this game seems so wrongheaded in so many ways. Like I'm playing this game and it charms me and compels me so much because I'm transported to a world so unlike my own... And then I have to spend half my time being hassled, like aggressively, by beggars and lunatics. And you can't even pay them off! It starts off like one of these games where you're moving though a living indifferent city and you have to make moral choices about the things you do... But as far as I'm concerned the game is unplayable unless you spend a lot of time slaughtering beggars and desperate lunatics! Considering how much time they spent with the environment it's inexcusable how little dialogue there is for the ambient characters. "Please, sir! You don't understand! I have nothing!" and she follows you and follows you and you CAN'T EVEN GIVE HER MONEY TO SHUT HER UP. The idea of creating a moral imperative in a game with NPCs is a cool idea but having them be completely fucking unbearable, even if that may be realistic, kind of misses the point.
Are you supposed to find some moral

... rant rant

Shove 25 beggars for "Enemy of the Poor" achievement. Already got it, guess I'll go back to stabbing them.

unity is dope so far

lol ubi have announced the next instalment already: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/12/02/next-years-big-assassins-creed-set-victorian-london

how long until the world war 2 entry

Weimar republic would be cool

I think there's some ww2 action in unity isn't there?

So I just read the synopsis of Unity, and small spoiler, perhaps, but is the plot of the game that the assasins try to prevent the revolution?

not really

I don't know about the gameplay but Unity looks very cool. And many reviews, here in France, were raving (including historians experts of the revolution era !).
I guess I'll get it… when I'll make the jump to the new gen consoles...

Feel like next summer it might be Arkham Knight that tips me over into getting a next gen is I'll play this then. For now I'll consider Rogue.

paris looks great, just the detail in the natural lighting when going inside to outside or vice versa is crazy. the combat/parkour overhaul is good too. seems like the weapon variety they've added is very dark souls influenced. claymore?! ac4 was fun but felt like more a pirate spinoff. unity goes back to feeling like ac2. if they can just fix the floating npc glitches...

the ac unity patch blog is pretty lolsy for the comments. reminds me of the good ol days when ilx had random googlers posting

joseph55 2 hours ago
how do I get a patch 3 for ACU. game sucks. VERY POOR PORFORMANCE.

liongeek 2 hours ago
how do i clame my free game

RangoDj801 9 hours ago
i Assassins creed for the creew change. Thanks

grand_ekinoks 11 hours ago
Hi, my accounts are in Assassins Creed Unity Gold. Far Cry 4 free I want from you ...

Has anyone tried Rogue? Tempted!

so it seems this giant new unity patch has solved the problem of crowd pop-in by, uh, adding an animus highlight to it to make it a feature rather than a bug?

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/350/9/9/ignor_by_chabbles-d8a3ukh.gif

good job ubi, keep on keepin' on

i was given an xb1 copy of this as a gift. i've played a couple of hours and it's both beautiful and boring as fuck.

heh, i actually like that effect

it falls somewhere between ingenious and shameless

it's both beautiful and boring as fuck.

played a good amount of it and this is accurate. i tried the latest patch last night and didn't see any weird pop-in like that

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/vljtyqnqmm0rlzta13hr.gif

just got home to a 39gb patch for this on my xb1 ffs

good job ubi, keep on keepin' on

i guess this could have spoilers but who gives a shit. its hilarious this can happen in a cutscene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DzsFMsIZPM

http://abload.de/img/1415715578-ulol2cskj.gif

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/12/17/what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-tetris-ps4

LOL

that is pathetic

what the hell, that's nuts. how can anything get released like that?

my colossal unity patch is still downloading btw

If Tetris blocks are too hard to render no wonder they couldn't do female player characters.

lol

Well, this is a thing. Who knows enough about Renaissance-era Spanish history to figure out how he's going to fit in? He's a contemporary of Ezio and has all of his fingers intact.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/assassins-creed-first-look-heres-michael-127715456582.html

https://s.yimg.com/cd/resizer/2.0/FIT_TO_WIDTH-w1200/09e65040c3fd16923aab811d4da2522ff4dc3a71.jpg

Meet Michael Fassbender as Callum Lynch in Assassin’s Creed.

Based on the massively popular — and prolific — video-game series of the same name, the movie version is set to open in theaters Dec. 21, 2016.

Before hardcore Assassin's Creed gamers start scratching their heads (and filling up the comments) about how exactly Callum Lynch fits into the game world, we can tell you that Fassbender’s character was created specifically for the film. (The movie isn’t retelling any of the existing games, but rather introducing new characters into the same world.)

Lynch discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he’s poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day.

Also starring Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises), Michael Kenneth Williams (12 Years a Slave), and Ariane Labed (Before Midnight), cameras start rolling for Assassin's Creed on Monday. Filming is set to happen in Malta, London, and Spain.

that's a baffingly competent cast for what is sure to be a terrible movie

this scene will be a challenge even for fassbender

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--yz7qRVtQ--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/n18tgsjmf9vwk2gjdj2m.gif

not even a fassbender bends that fast

Solid reviews is enough to tempt me back to this generally disappointing franchise.

Has there ever been more time and effort put into something that absolutely no-one gives a shit about than the futuristic bits of these games

after six years of posting on this thread I finally played AC2 & now am playing Brotherhood. & they are worth the wait. just bought the rest of the AC games available for 360, when I finish those maybe it'll be time to get an xbone/ps4. the setting of AC3 still seems lame to me but as long as there's exploration and little dinky tasks and killing I'll be good.

Black Flag is the one! so so fun.

Yeah, Black Flag is the standout of the series, though I remember being really pleasantly surprised by Brotherhood. Before Witcher: Blood and Wine was released I was playing AC: Syndicate, which looks wonderful but is a bit of a drag. It's huge but feels really small.

Had quite a bit of fun with AC: Syndicate until I leveled up way beyond what I needed to complete the game.

I am 2/3 through AC3 lol & yes it more or less sucks but I want to get the trading system going so I am faithfully doing all the dumb homestead missions. but all I really want are some good assassination missions! instead I ride around on a dumb horse telling my soldiers when to shoot which is basically "as soon as I arrive". I'm in the prison sequence which is quite fiddly & restrained: I want to fuck up the guards calling me a half breed but I don't see how I can fulfill the mission when doing so, so I hold off and pickpocket some moron. but it's not as bad as the war segments. I'm not gonna bother getting all the highpoints since the urban ones are terrible ( I don't give a fuck about the northeast usa) & the frontier ones are mostly just the same tree! hunting is ok fun because I guess I like killing animals by stabbing them in the head. also I haven't figured out how to upgrade anything yet: I guess I can't get more health than I started with? so when I try to fight more than 3 people at a time I die a lot. I want to level up but I don't see how. whatever, it's not that hard. the naval parts have been very fun so far & I'm looking forward to playing black flag next.

Best thing about AC3 is that Black Flag was built off of it.

ok finished AC3 tonight, what a bummer. such inept writing, such a dreadful lead character, such misconceived gameplay. all these complicated systems for crafting and it's good for making a couple of cool weapons and for making money that you won't need once you have the cool weapons, since you get enough money to upgrade your ship without crafting/trading. & it ended abruptly. the BEST part of the game was Haytham, a jerk with flair, unlike Connor, a boring jerk. the naval missions were pretty good so yeah Black Flag should be a joy. I'm gonna play Mass Effect 2 & Dragon Age 2 first though (trying to finish out my 360 games before choosing bw xbone & ps4 for Origin etc

I've never played any of these games but the new one looks promising.

they're always available for like 15 bucks not too long after release which is sometimes enough for the privilege of futzing around a big open world for a few hours before getting bored

Good to know!

Viking rap battles though!

I'm gonna play Mass Effect 2 & Dragon Age 2 first though

(I miss JLV.)
A crapload of Ass Creed games are on sale at Best Buy right now for BF/November; what are generally considered the good ones these days? I've only played the first. I assume the Ezio games are still held in high regard, but everything after that is a mush to me.

I liked Odyssey. Sun-drenched with a charismatic protagonist. Origins a slightly less good version of that

The London one is boring imo

I played them all up to Syndicate. Yeah, the Ezio games were great. 3 was ok, could have gotten most of the fun out of just Freedom Cry though. Black Flag was ok enough, Unity was disappointing (& I love the setting), didn't bother with Syndicate because I don't really care about London. I got Origins pretty cheap, I guess I want to try it, not sure about the Greek one, really these all sound exhausting these days.

Odyssey is great fun if you just like wandering around endless gorgeous landscapes solving tons of sidequests, a la Skyrim. The main character is cool like Biscuits said, and some of the historic Greek characters they've included are surprisingly fun. The main plot is a bit meh/predictable, but there are several intriguing subplots. I know some people dislike the Fate of Atlantis DLC because it sidesteps the relative realism of the main game and takes you to straight inside Greek mythology; there's a sci-fi explanation for all that, though it's rather flimsy... But I like that one too, it's visually quite inspired and fun to play.

origins, odyssey, valhalla are the new rpg-style Definitely Not Witcher 3 ones if that appeals

Sun-drenched with a charismatic protagonist.

Alexios or Kassandra?