2007-12-02 14:12:02

Stop teasing!! It's taking forever for me to finish it! So, anyone who's played both, is the ending on par with Sands of Time? :O

2007-12-02 14:29:11 In reply to SimonM7 (2007-12-02 14:12:02)

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Bring on Lost Odyssey!

2007-12-17 14:13:07

Okay, I finished it this weekend and this post will be spoiler ridden from top to bottom, so read on at own risk.



First off, I reckon Sands of Time has a more satisfying finish for sure. Perhaps if bookended by only its sci fi themed wrapping, this might've been on par, and perhaps if its revelations weren't all questions and obvious setups for a sequel. Not that I'd WANT it to be that way, because this ensures that a sequel is sought after not only on a refined gameplay level but also from a narrative standpoint.

However there are still issues with the story as contained within this first episode in my opinion.

All of the stuff that takes place during the Altaïr segments is a wonderful commentary on religious beliefs and their hopeless inherent contradictions. I really enjoy the unspoken themes of.. we don't know anything for certain, good and bad don't really exist, it's all gray area regardless of intentions. When all of this adds up and starts to make sense, when one of the last targets is burning books to END RELIGION and set people free to start over without being POISONED by a manipulated and manipulating "truth", it's on track to become a surprisingly unconventional - and in a way controversial - story.

Well, then they take all that and go "WELL, ACTUALLY.." and this treasure is unveiled to be the cause of the fucking miracles of Jesus. :O

So okay, let's repeat this to ourselves.. The game makes a huge thing out of how nobody is right, then goes "THIS is right" and goes all sci fi freakout. It becomes a mere additional "religion" among those that claim to be right, making its commentary useless. This "piece of Eden" is made out to be the one truth and renders the previous statement without weight. Nobody is right, not because they can't BE right or can't provide PROOF of their beliefs, but because they are WRONG. This is nowhere near as powerful a message. In fact, this is no different from the ramblings of a fanatic - at least from that fanatic's perspective.

This of course benefits the overall story of Assassin's Creed, but I reckon it throws away what authencity it achieved through its setting. Jerusalem especially feels really convincing and really puts weight behind every statement, weight that wouldn't be there if they were put forth as undertones or analogies buried in a modern sci fi story.

As we (presumably) put the crusades behind us and move on, it's less of a loss to see the story told through those segmets fed to the vultures of semi-generic sci fi story, but it's nevertheless with sadness I witness the deflation of this potential meaning.

It's worrying that Desmond is alive though.. Or perhaps that Altaïr is. It'd be a waste if the next game is set in the same time with the same characters and the same settings. Unless of course they intend to Altaïr to their hearts' content this gen, then bump it up to another DNA person after this initial trilogy. That's what they're doing with Prince of Persia after all.

2007-12-17 17:01:17

Without getting too cryptic you were pretty much being led along to think these people were all terrible, corrupt people and you were on the righteous or just side of the fight only to realize all these people were working to in a way to prepare or be ready for what they knew was coming and how bad it would be.

Just because you may have been an angel of death working for the devil himself in this story doesn't mean the people you killed didn't deserve to die, but it was one corrupt power hungry SOB double crossing everyone because he found himself in a convenient power position and took advantage of it and relied on your confusion to accomplish his goals. So yes these people may have been terrible and all pretty much mocked you for how naive you were for believing everything you hear without question, but it was interesting to learn that by killing these people you were pretty much gift wrapping the world in a nice little package and leaving it to its fate on the doorstep of a madman.

For all you know it could take place in modern day with desmond gaining more and more of altair's abilities as a result of genetic bleed. There is the holy grail hints written in blood on the wall in your room and throughout the lab. Altair couldn't bring himself to destroy the piece of eden. We don't know the true extent of its powers or the powers of the OTHER pieces of eden. He saw the map just like everyone else. How do we know he didn't seek out the others? What if he got his hands on a piece of eden that could preserve him in his current form living longer than he was ever meant to? It could be an interesting twist if you end up fighting Altair himself which in itself will be something that wasn't meant to happen and it could have a devastating effect on desmond if desmond kills altair.

Abstergo is afraid of any piece of eden that affects time. There was a ship from long ago that appeared in present day for a good 10 minutes then disappeared. We don't know what the holy grail is capable of (which abstergo foolishly decided to call off their search for because they don't believe it exists) The test subject who wrote all those messages in his own blood likely knew the location of the holy grail.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-12-17 22:46:57

I like Assassins Creed.

That said, my complaints are probably in-line with what has already been said:

Too much repetition: Its not so much that you're saving loads of citizens all the time, its that there are only 3 or 4 voice actors for them that say EXACLTY the same thing over and over. When there are 60 odd citizens and they all seem the same, I just want to kill them in addition to the guards!!

Counter, Combo, Counter: I quite like the fighting system, a rather welcome change to endless button combos in other games. But when you get the ability counter an attack really easily, all the others seem void. Especially the "dodge" one, which (I think) you get AFTER the counter. Entirely pointless when the counter is stronger and (IMO) easier to pull off.

Aimless Wanderers: The crowds are fairly good at reacting to your presence, but they really just seem to wander around aimlessly. No conversations, passing of parcels, random arguments what-have-you. Just wandering around the streets getting in your way. The only good thing is that they never seem too similar to one another (at least to me) and there are some areas that they congregate, usually listening to speakers.

Indoors: You can apparently throw guards off buildings to create new routes of escape through buildings, but this has never happened to me. For all the awesomeness of outside, i'd really like to take the fighting (and free-running) inside a bit more.

Me legs!!: More often than not, Altair will jump from incredibly small precipices to other little poles and the like, often when its not needed. A lot of the time as well, it would be outright painfull to perform some of the jumps. I remember a time when I jump off a high ledge, onto a pole, then onto this small washing hanger - when that would be pretty suicidal in real life! As some who has dabbled in free-running, it just seems wrong when the movement is striving to be natural.

Apart from those, its a fantastic game! I really love the way free-running has been integrated (apart from aforemetionted) and is just the sort of movement system I've always wanted. Albiet with some minor alterations.

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Ignorance is the true enemy of all things.

http://www.x10hosting.com/index.php?rid=6230 Best free webhosting

2007-12-17 23:17:21

Ironically, an absolutely fool proof way of killing everyone in the game is by getting kicked in the nuts over and over.

Seriously! Later on in the game when enemies aren't AS daft and actually do shuffle their turns to attack a bit, the best way to kill everyone is to grab and throw them to the ground. Now this results in kicks to the nuts 10ish or so times by more powerful foes, but after Altaïr seemingly completely undoes Desmond's chances of existing at all, they will eventually be thrown to the ground. Then you just spike their face and presto, insta-death to them. "Bosses" fall for the same thing. It's not particularly fun to fight like that, but towards the end you'll get preeeetty fed up with fighting, and when that Robert guy kills you for the 111th time you'll pretty much just wanna kill him back.

I agree that the re-use of samples just seems out of place in an otherwise INCREEEEDIBLY well produced game (oh apart from those clouds of spritey dust.. what's up with those?) but it really wouldn't hurt to have.. oooooh... 20 or so more variations of things to do. I mean why even bother with a GTA style setup if your gameplay is gonna be as rediculously linear as this anyway?

It does sort of lend itself to DLC though. Just add it as additional memories to the Animus and off you go.. but that's.. not gonna happen if we're honest with ourselves.

2007-12-17 23:20:47

Ohhh Assassin's Creed was getting some healthy air time on CNN quite a bit today.

They were showing some good amounts of gameplay footage and even calling it by name not bad :)

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-12-19 15:12:05

Finished it last night, got it 3 days before launch but been playing in small chunks every few days as I knew it'd get very repetitive this was the best way to deal with it.

Really enjoyed it, loved the chases, often i'd easily be able to find cover and end the chase but decided to let them catch up and carry on!! :D

My favourite moments are when you string some really good jumps and swings together and it all feels so natural like a monkey in a jungle! haha

Favourite kill has to be the German dude on the boat, in and out, stealth, not spotted... strut back to the safe house feeling invincible!

Ending went a bit sci-fi for my tastes, and I'd not read any spoilers but knew there was a kind of secrecy about the ending I was half expecting desmond to break out and you'd have to do a quick small mission outside in the modern world... thought he'd pop his hood up and off you go... but never mind.


It was clearly rushed out which is a shame... I think they could have implimented some simple but brilliant multiplayer mini games... such as a giant game of TAG (how cool would that be) or Races from one side of a city to the other, with no obvious easy direct route... again that'd be superb.

Anyway, glad I bought it, and got my £35 out of it by making sure I did all the investigations... not sure i'll get the flags, but maybe.

2007-12-19 15:29:46

You know what I personally got really annoyed about and what I think has a great deal to do with the repetition people do mention?

The viewpoints... it was cool the first couple times you climbed up to one and then saw that circular panning of the entire environment, but later on it becomes so damn annoying you just want it to do its thing then give you damn control of the game already.

I say for the sequel they make that process of using eagle vision ontop of a viewpoint a lot quicker. Just give us a really cool and quick matrix like glitch effect or something else, but don't trap us in that annoying circular pan. The removal of that circular pan alone I feel would decrease some of the frustration.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-12-19 15:45:40 In reply to Optimusv2 (2007-12-19 15:29:46)

2007-12-23 07:56:55

this game has no point to me

2007-12-24 14:11:35 In reply to Optimusv2 (2007-12-19 15:29:46)

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Ignorance is the true enemy of all things.

http://www.x10hosting.com/index.php?rid=6230 Best free webhosting

2008-01-22 01:03:32

Phew finished this finally today. Was plodding along one assassination at a time until it was rudely interrupted by The Orange Box and Mass Effect and couldn't drag myself out of those until now.

Decided yesterday to get it done and went from Memory block 4 1/3 complete to just before going after Robert on Sunday and finished the rest off tonight. Strangely the repetition didn't bother me doing 5 assassinations in a row (doing ALL investigation each time no less!). I don't find the repetitive nature of the investigations too bad generally but I thought a mammoth session might have skewed that somewhat. Happily not the case, at least for me.

Anyhow, I quite liked the ending with the visions though like Simon alluded to above, I'm a little disappointed it cheapened out with the master betrayed you all along - object of power type plot. As the first game in a triology, they really could have kept the ambiguity there and left a hell of a lot of questions to keep the fanbase ticking over. The sci-fi angle doesn't bother me so much.

I also thought they nailed the parkour and combat. Sword fighting was a lot of fun. The atmosphere of the cities was great and at times you really did feel like an assassin.

What they didn't nail was two things. One; they did need a bit more variety in areas, most obviously dialogue. Hearing the same phrase over and over again really broke the suspension of disbelief, as did the second point. The world is not always consistent and believeable. There are somethings I cannot climb and at times I can not push through the crowd. Sometimes I'm recognised straight away, other times the soldiers are blind. Drunk people seem to have the eyes of a hawk, the reactions of a fox and the strength of the bear. It's like walking past Bravestar, pissed off and just wanting to ruin your day.

Oh and Altair CANNOT SWIM WHAT? Make the water give you leprosy or something at least if it's that bad!

The good news is that this is fixable and they've done many things right at the first attempt. If they can get the consistency of the world up to say the level of Crackdown and maybe even mix in the levelling up mechanic the sequel(s) will be awesome.

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XBL/PSN: deftangel. Views are my own and not representative of my employers. Boulets aren't the end of the world, you will get over them! Reading and constructive discussion classes are available, enquire via PM :)