By Jim Rossignol on September 9th, 2009 at 6:32 pm.
Head south for a sprawling walkthrough of Assassin’s Creed 2, courtesy of Destructoid. As well as detailing some of sprawling renaissance city, it shows loads of interesting mechanistic stuff such as purchasing equipment with the money you’ve earned, exploring secret locations, hiring mercenaries to fight guards for you, distracting people by throwing coins, and so on. There’s also fun-looking chase sequence. So the missions do indeed look more diverse than the original, and I wonder whether the new spread of equipment to be bought on the streets of Florence will make the possibilities for delivering assassinations more varied too? All this and flying machines… The game is out on November 17th.
Well, barring a fouled-up PC port this is definitely something I’m buying (or at least getting someone to give me for Christmas). That looks remarkable. I enjoyed the first one despite its flaws, this version looks significantly less flawed.
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I’m really looking forward to this. The first Assicrid was something proper special. The story was utterly barking but it was so beautifully told that it almost didn’t matter. The only real disappointment was the lack of resolution in the modern-day bits – that part of the story just seemed to stop, rather than end. The beardy bloke really deserved a neck-stabbing.
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To be honest I’m not liking that white wispy UI that comes up occasionally I think it intereferes a bit to much and makes some bits look horrible. but this definitly looks like an improvement to the first, i liked the first but ti had quite a number of flaws.
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“High profile free running”
Come on, it’s like playing gaming bullshit bingo. Now excuse me while I run my
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Ubisoft hasn’t made a game that plays well since Prince of Persia 3. No matter the variations they’ve added since AC1, the gameplay components are still obviously walled off” from each other. The design philosophy is still completely flawed.
Fortunately for them, their amazing animators, environmental guys, and marketing department are all that’s needed to sell a “game” these days.
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Yes, the first game was flawed, but I did finished it twice so…I guess that means I kinda liked it.
I hope this one as better performance.
One thing that I dont like about the first game and that Im not sure if they’ll fix on this one is the way that the investigation phase makes no sense.
You talk to some dude that is too lazy to do his own work, he tells you to collect some flags and when you return it gives you a peice of paper with some info that you cant even read. How is that supposed to help me assessinate anyone?
The other thing Im worried about is the fact that Enzio has no weapons and must always get them from enemies before enganing a fight.
Altair had several, the sword was fun, but the short sword provided some great stabbing fun. And when I realized that you could use the hidden blade in combat…Oh man, it’s incredibly violent, I loved that thing.
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Great! I liked the first one, but it got tedious after just a few hours due to the lack of refreshing content… But it looks like they’ve improved in that area. And as Vinraith said, as long as it’s not too messed up from consolification, this is a must-buy for me (crazy assasin inventions ftw).
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“Ubisoft hasn’t made a game that plays well since Prince of Persia 3.”
prototype? it plays pretty dang well.
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Wat? That’s some hugely crossed wires you have there. Prototype is by Radical Entertainment, published by Activision.
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So this is where i jump a mile off a building into a cart of hay, randomly murder a stranger in plain sight, jump out of said cart of hay in front of a bunch of nonplussed passers-by and proceed to buy a poison vial from a street corner merchant.
Within the first minute; Fuck this bullshit.
AC1 is still a source of some of the most hilarious moments i’ve experienced in gaming however. My favorite was a rooftop standoff where i methodically murdered over a dozen men before the remainder fall to their knees begging for mercy. I calmly make one step backwards in full sight and jump dramatically into a bale of hay. Immediatly everyone gets up and calmly leaves.
These games are fucking abortions. I have no idea what drugs these retards are on.
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Sunjammer, it’s just another example of dumbing it down to give instagratification next-gen kids something to make their parents spend money on.
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I think these games are fundamentally flawed on the basic design level. The first game was jam packed with theoretically interesting systems that are so walled off and poorly integrated they wind up looking absolutely ridiculous. This video gave me no guarantee they haven’t gone and done the same blunder again.
I’m franky a bit shocked. The AC flaws were incredibly dramatic. You don’t have to look far to see how ridiculous it is to have a safe haven in the form of a cart of hay under *every single high tower in the game*, or how groups of 4 monks will ask no questions whatsoever if a 5th one decides to join them for a few moments.
The games are utterly unbelievable. They make every stride towards breaking immersion with a confidence that makes me want to go and punch every single designer who ever worked on them, and give a good shin kick to every good review the games have gotten.
They have wonderful technology and brilliant art, but the game design is abhorrent garbage i’ve seen bettered in free-to-play flash games.
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@Sunjammer
“The games are utterly unbelievable.”
As is every Hollywood action movie. Who cares? I love a realistic game as much as the next person, but that doesn’t imply that I’m ONLY capable of enjoying realistic games.
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@Vinraith: I’d definitely agree with that. Assassin’s Creed‘s big problem – in spite of which I enjoyed the game – wasn’t that it was lacking in realism. It’s that the game was immensely repetitive. You do the same over and over and over again. The same may be true for many games, but they mix it up in small but noteworthy ways. AC‘s first kill is pretty much the same as its last kill, and the same’s true for all the side missions.
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I have no need of this, for I have Batman: Arkham Asylum.
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I’m of the opinion that a game trying to tell a story with gravitas taking place in a meticulously carved world based on real world historical locations, it’d be neat if it did not also include horse-riding where everyone will instantly want to kill you if you ride faster than a uselessly slow trundle, or otherwise portray events in its meticulous open world that make the underlying mechanics of the game open for all to see.
Nothing like murdering a guy while chased by dozens of guards only for him to calmly give you a 10 minute speech before death.
AC is no hollywood action movie. It has pretentions far greater than that.
When building a video game world open to player abuse, you can’t take an approach where the world will only hold up for as long as the player follows the script. The moment you mess around in AC, it just falls apart like a house of cards. Unless you are intentionally gunning for comedy, your goals for realism have to be gauged versus the opportunities you offer the player. Rockstar nail this part of game design by saturating their worlds with satire. Nothing is too ridiculous to fit into a GTA game.
But hey, let’s play AC2, parkour around meticulously crafted renaissance italy while meticulously passersby don’t give a shit whatever you do, and hey, the character is rich right, so let’s make throwing money into the streets an okay strategy (nobody would notice whoever did that right), and make “paying off mercenaries” an untracable method of murder.
If this is any indication of the direction of the full game, AC2 will be just as mechanical and retarded as the previous one. Once again, great art and tech for a bullshit game. Pearls for swine.
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Nope, do not want.
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I think anybody complaining that Assassin’s Creed isn’t “realistic” should remember the MST3K mantra, and then STFU.
As Thirith says, the game’s glaring flaw was its repetitiveness, a flaw they *seem* to have fixed in AC2.
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Bleh anyone thinking i’m attacking the realism of the game is missing the point entirely. I’m attacking the disconnect between its gameplay and its world. It’s total right hand not knowing the left hand stuff.
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*magically checks Sunjammer’s IP*
Nope, did not unknowingly clone myself to simultaneously rail on AC from two different bodies.
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@Thirith
I agree completely. Fortunately it looks like that particular problem is lessened, if not totally eliminated, in the new title. I’m looking forward to it.
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@Sunjammer:
I think the devs agree with you that the bale of hay’s role as an instant pursuit-ender was a bit lame, which is why apparently in AC2, if you’re being pursued and a guard sees you hide in hay they will stab the hay until you’re dead.
The expectation this time is that you’ll actually have to run and hide.
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@Sunjammer
I suppose the difference for me is that I perceive no disconnect. There’s nothing particularly realistic in the game, from the bizarre proximity of the cities to the guard behavior to playing a guy who can wipe out a city full of guards without breaking a sweat. It’s an over-the-top power fantasty with a Davinci-code (read: crypto-goofy) plot set in a quasi-historical setting and wrapped in a somewhat hokey sci-fi wrapper. I perceive no gravitas, so I have no problem with the silliness, and am free to enjoy the game for what it is.
That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of elements that need improving, but AC2 seems to be taking real strides in fixing a lot of the irritations of the original game.
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Wow, that gun shot was really subtle.
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The first game was the most genuinley boring pile of drivel I had ever played. They’d made a fantastic game world and filled it with total nonsense and arbitrary bullshit that ultimately bored me to fucking tears. The free running stuff really gets boring after a while but it was fun while it lasted.
So with that said, it seems they’ve really taken these crticisisms on board. I’m intrigued, for now. I just hope it isn’t as dull as the first.
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I’m with SunJammer.
I despise the AC games and the 90% style / 10% substance, Japanisized/consolized design mentality. It’s so shallow, patronising and well, just plain crap.
Example: In AC1 the first intro vids showed the character as a supposed stealth/hidden/disguised assassin who ‘blends in’ but the fucker was walking around the town square with a sinister hood over his head as he ‘Bitter-sweet symphony’ like shoulder barged every pedestrian out the way before he hopped onto a stage and offed a guy.
The average age of a gamer is about 30, this means that most gamers are well out of their teens and although ‘maybe’ the average gamer is still somewhat juvinile they are not Red Bull drinking, furiously masturbating 13 year olds. Game companies seem to think that all gamers are shallow, dumb as fuck retards. Sure, alot are but I despise the Gears of war/Assasins Creed/ halo game design ethic that has taken over since this gen of consoles took off. It’s infected the PC game world too largely due to ports.
Fuck, I hate Assasins Creed.
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From now on please refer to this game as ‘Ass creed’. It sums up the design philosophy.
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@ Poita:
Amen, brotha!
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That said, having just finished Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game that is everything Ass. Creed should have been and so much more, my WANT for this game has shrivelled.
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Batman: AA doesn’t have any free running, and certainly isn’t an open world. Maybe my priorities are simply different, but I don’t even understand the basis for the comparison.
That said, I fully intend to pick up both of them somewhere down the line.
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I want this game, but i’m prepared to wait for budget prices. Hopefully this series will learn from its criticisms, if not? We might not see a third and all that bullshit plot buildup will go to waste.
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Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice… I can’t be fooled again.
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I’m not sure I get the hate. I thought Assassin’s Creed was great fun – a free-form, open-world Prince Of Persia (The Sands of Time variety). I especially loved the sci-fi trappings and the little glitches in the memory were a great touch. I personally think that adds a hell of a lot more to the game design than just making another game. And if you didn’t play it on a console, the repetitive mission structure was somewhat improved for PC.
Also, I love PC games and there are some games I think are excessively style over substance, but there is some serious PC elitism going on in this thread.
And Poita: Assassin’s Creed is one of the most unabashedly intellectual games to come out in recent times if you paid any attention to the sci-fi storyline (or indeed Arab storyline for that matter). I hardly think you can blame it for being too stylized. I thought that jumping on people from behind with the wrist blades was great fun and took every possible opportunity to hear that glorious *SHINK* sound.
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I’m sort of seeing both sides of the argument, but I think I side more with Sunjammer and company. I’m all for easy going, unrealistic games. In fact, I absolutely must have them or my mind breaks. However, if a company goes through and recreates an entire city, and has all of these very detailed things in place, but then creates a series of shallow elements with which to interact in said city, it creates a rather large amount of disappointment. I don’t think it makes the game trash, but for me, in the original AC, it made the expectation to reality quotient too large. It was kinda disappointing, in spite of the whole repetitive nature of many of the “quests.” Maybe they’ll address some of these things, but the whole, throw coins on the ground, hire mercenaries 5 feet away from guards, having those mercenaries immediately agree without preparation, without any concern of themselves actually being caught/killed for attacking city guards.. I don’t know, it’s like they had all of these great ideas for things to do, but then made them as shallow as possible.
The problem isn’t that I need that level of realism in all games, or really any games, but they created an expectation for that realism when they meticulously recreated a city for me to play in.
All of that said, I will probably still buy this game, and enjoy the feeling of absolute power when I play it :)
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Ass Creed or Ass Greed; which is better?
Anyway, Dworgi. I get your point but it’s not that hard to come up with an interesting story and twist. maybe there story had some Davinci code complexity to it and a little historical info thrown in but as much as I like a good story in a game it doesn’t help when the game its self is treating me like a fucking retard.
How would an adult feel if his someone bought him a mountain bike but fitted stablizers on it. That’s the mentality of these game designs. Maybe it’s because it’s too technically difficult to create a real free and open game so every building is basically ladders with a building skin painted onto it but if they can’t really do it then don’t be giving me Rosie O’donel with a picture of Salma Hayaks features tatoo’d onto her face.
The fantasy with Ass Greed isn’t the story it’s the premise of the game mechanics.
Some enterprising gamer should do a series of vids where they see how far they can get through a level of each new game blindfolded by just mashing at the controls.
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@Dworgi:
Throwing around charges of “elitism” isn’t a defense against charges of terrible design. If anything, it’s surrendering the point and blaming the player for not accepting said terribleness.
<emAnd Poita: Assassin’s Creed is one of the most unabashedly intellectual games to come out in recent times if you paid any attention to the sci-fi storyline
What? What? Seriously, what the fuck. Making something complex does not make it intellectual, or else Hideo Kojima would have 100 Pulitzers by now. The storyline was an excuse for the memory gimmick, nothing else. Details were vague, explanations non-existent, closure to-be-created. All style, no substance, just like the rest of AC.
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@Sunjammer : I’m not sure what platform you play on, but I haven’t seen a single game in my life that doesn’t allow something in the line of what you blast AS1 for.
Yes, it’s a flawed game, but the flaws aren’t that you can act like an imbecile, as this isn’t a flaw, it’s a feature of most open world games.
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Addendum (to my previous post) : I didn’t like AC1 :) But not because you can act like a twat and no one cares, as I can do this in GTA and Red Faction as well. I hated it because it became repetitive exceptionally quickly.
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Its not about reality, its about immersion. The world of GTA is fundamentally silly. This is understood and permeates the world. Therefore the silliness leaves you unfazed, even makes the experience more immersive.
AC takes itself so seriously that the silliness is glaring and off-putting.
[Think of it in film terms: A Knight's Tale is so silly that they can do anything and I won't criticise the realism. The lack of realism is itself enjoyable. Braveheart pretended to be realistic and I mock it mercilessly as such. I just can't believe in it.]
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It feels good to see I’m not the only one who hates what Ubisoft have done with the potential of the franchise. They could’ve been great games, but instead they were and will be shallow repetitive pieces of shit with stupid so called “anti-heroes” and a weak story. Also I’m in total agreement with Sunjammer and Poita with the incredibly idiotic design decisions in Ass Greed 1. Haven’t they QA-tested it. Did nobody notice the unwieldiness of the horse control, the weak and largely unresponsive combat system or the fact that you have move like a snail in the horse between mission so that you won’t waste precious time with the (I repeat) abysmal combat system.
I know it’s not fair to slate a game that hasn’t been released and that I haven’t played, but I do suspect the usual Ubisoft utter bullshit PR scheme that consists of unrepentant lying. I bought Far Cry 2, Ass Greed, Prince of Persia and found that all the good things I had in store were or lies or fumbled up because of horrendous game design.
Fuck you Ubisoft, fuck you and your lies!
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Yeah, I wasn’t too keen on this video either.
It looks like they haven’t done anything to deal with how oddlly linear the game is. I say odd because it is an *open world* and you do play an assassin, a role I traditionally associate with formulating plans and strategising.
So, okay – that was a linear ‘platform’ level they showed there, but it was still quite odd.
– Why did the player *have* to fight those guards?
– Why did there than *have* to be a chase?
- And if he fails, why does the player *have* to “take on several guards”?
And what the hell was that puzzling reference to “I caught him, so I can slip past unnoticed!” Unnoticed? He just stabbed 2 people!
Ass Creed 2 still seems to have that horrible feeling where the world/story are pulling me towards being an assassin, while the actual gameplay is pulling me towards a randomly disconnected series of “cool” setpieces the designers insist I go through one after another.
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Admittedly I played the first Assassins Creed on the 360 so I can’t really vouch for the PC version but I found the game to be a solid if some what flawed and repetitive platform/stealth/hack ‘em up….thingy. The combat system was functional, if nothing special, and fun. Some what akin to Arkham Asylum’s one button system and complaining that that the game play wasn’t as realistic or didn’t match the word in which it was set seems rather petty. What detractors decry as over-simplification and “retarded” aspects of the game mechanics really are just stream-lined, admittedly overly so. I am hopeful for the sequel but I am coutious and it would be rash for people from either side of the argument judge the game, which is yet to be finished, from some teaser footage. It certainly appears that the game play has been diversified; an economy system, side missions etcetera, though how well these are implemented is yet to be seen.
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My comment was a bit mutilated by HTML tag stripping. It originally read “insert historical era game”, but so it goes. As for my comment about elitism – it’s one thing to say something was worse for including some given elements, but claims of “worst game ever” have already been tossed around. The problem is I hear this all the time of games that really aren’t the worst game ever – Far Cry 2, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed. These are by no means bad games, but they may not appeal to every gamer in the world. If you come into Mass Effect expecting Halo, you’ll be disappointed.
And yes, I still claim that there are more layers to the Assassin’s Creed story that are immediately apparent. I liked having some extra hints at future titles, and if it weren’t for the “modern day” subplot I wouldn’t be hugely interested in buying the new titles – because I found some elements of the historical missions repetitive, as did everyone else.
As for the claims of “Oh, it’s not realistic, so it’s shit” – I don’t want to play realism. I want to be able to power trip, because real life IS boring. GTA hardly takes itself any less seriously and provides a far more realistic simulation than AC does, yet AC gets the bad rep?
There were glaring flaws with Assassin’s Creed, but saying that I didn’t complete the game (and enjoy it) would be utterly lying. That said, I thought Far Cry 2 and Prince of Persia were both quite repetitive and don’t intend on ever completing them, because I don’t see the point.
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Additionally; a heavily armed man of undetermined origin, galloping full pelt on a horse, in the middle of a war zone would likely attract attention……and A Knights Tale was a magnificent movie.
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Gutter, that’s what i’m saying though. They have created a world that doesn’t work when you’re being silly in it, and, unfortunately for them, being silly is what people like to do in open worlds.
The game supporting their open world simply doesn’t hold water. It’s taped together at best.
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It might not be popular to say this, but I actually quite enjoyed AC1 despite its flaws, and I’m looking forward to AC2! Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the game is being back in the modern world, where a seperate plot is unfolding with the templars and assassins.
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I loved Assassins Creed 1 for what it was: A simulation of someones genetic memory. This alone explains MANY gameplay decisions.
Think about it: You don’t play Altair. You play Desmond. And he is lying in a machine that visualizes Altairs actions. He got some information by eavesdropping on some guards. The machine translates this memory into this rather simple “I sit on the bench and look at the guards” minigame. Same thing with the other actions, the combat, the assassinations, everything.
If you play the game through this perspective, it suddenly all fits together. And it’s great fun.
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Looks like they fixed the repetition part in “rambo with a hood and blades” 2 – guess I’ll give it a try. But then again, arkham asylum was definitively the better ass creed…..
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I’m with Andy. That’s how I saw it too.
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Well, as long as this is actually capable of being run on my ageing rig, I might be interested in it. Though the keyboard-mouse control set up for AC was highly aggravating, since it made combat a chore, rather than the joy it was on the xbox360 version.
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There seems to be a Blue Ray/HD DVD like struggle between the names ‘Ass Creed’ and Ass Greed’.
I lean towards ‘Ass Greed’ myself but i’ll go with the majority.
Oh, and If i have to see one more fucking scene of the tit swan diving then flipping mid plumet into a hay stack I’ll go nuts. Can’t someone write a virus/hack and replace the hay with a big metal spike.
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“There seems to be a Blue Ray/HD DVD like struggle between the names ‘Ass Creed’ and Ass Greed’. ”
I can see why Assassin’s Creed isn’t “mature” enough for you guys.
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I share a lot of the frustrations with AC, which I’m playing for the first time right now after picking it up on Steam sale awhile back. It’s absurdly repetitive, despite an impressive world design. But some folks missed the point of the rewards for saving citizens. Scholars and vigilantes both side with you not because they’re fooled by your clever disguise, but because you saved a citizen who was their ally. Notice that scholars show up after you save a scholar, and vigilantes show up after you save…well, anyone other than a scholar.
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I never finished assassins creed, but I still liked it loads, conceptually, artistically, and even the core gameplay. I just have a really short attention
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ONE word for ass creed/greed 2 : SKIPABLE CUTSCENES.
Without that, i shall not touch this game. I’d understand being an asshole to the player the first time he sees a cutscene, but not letting him skip the second time is just…a douchebag move.
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Tbh, the game can’t know when its the first time. Skippability must be constant. But not just left click or “whoopsImissedthecutscene” becomes an issue. I did that in many games and never went back thus missing content. So make the player press escape or something.
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I don’t understand why people that hated a game and won’t buy a sequel hang out in comment threads for the sequel, watch videos of it, etc, just so they can hang shit on it. Are your lives really so empty?
I can understand being skeptical — I really enjoyed the cities and free running in the first game, but like most hated the repetition, but it seems they’ve taken the criticisms on board.
Incidentally, I feel sorry for you if you couldn’t get anything out of Far Cry 2. It was not a perfect game, but it had some of the most fun combat moments I’ve had in an FPS for years.
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you know, it’s weird, some of the funnest moments I’ve had in recent gaming experience are from far cry 2, but it’s a game I’ve never gone on to finish, though I have reinstalled it many times. I preferred the first part of the game though, before the trucks started mounting grenade launchers and any mission you embarked on was an unending tide of diving around dodging mortar fire. Some of the scenarios that sprung up were fantastic though. I remember hiding in a 3 roomed hut in the middle of a junkyard fending off everyone who came through the doors with a broken shotgun, panicking as I heard enemies poking through the 2 rooms I wasn’t in as I unjammed the thing. But yet… you can get most of these experiences right at the beginning, rather independently of the story, which is why I reinstall it frequently. I feel far cry 2 falls -just- short of being something truly seminal. I understand the intent was never to make an RPG, but a less fanatically hostile environment, some more npc dialogue, and radio stations would have helped immensely in the immersion factor. Far Cry 2 is so beautiful, and the sounds and little ambient effects (the clunking sound of your beaten up car, the little backlights on the displays when you drive at night) just bring it so close to an experience, rather than a game. Maybe we’ll get there soon.
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“GTA hardly takes itself any less seriously”
Really? Have we played the same games? GTA is utterly moronic on purpose, whereas AC is utterly moronic unintentionally.
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@luminosity – I feel the same way. It seems that some people have forgotten that games are meant to be fun, and instead just use them as something to latch onto and be furious about, as if there aren’t enough imporant things in the world to hate.
The fact that we can get a lengthy comments thread where the majority of the comments are ‘Game sucks, do not want HERE IS A WALL OF TEXT WHY I REALLY DO NOT CARE’ is just sad.
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@Unlucky Irish
“a heavily armed man of undetermined origin, galloping full pelt on a horse, in the middle of a war zone would likely attract attention”
But a heavily armed man of undetermined origin, riding sedately on a horse is totally unimportant and gets completely ignored?
The lack of [i]realism[/i] was never an issue for me; it’s a game, etcetera etcetera, but what gets to me is the lack of [i]sense[/i].
The Hitman games aren’t [i]realistic[/i], as such; no-one notices that the clown has a permanant grimace and a barcode tatooed on his head, guards are startlingly incurious about what’s in the toolbox of that handyman walking past, and no-one but the intended victim ever eats the poisoned cake.
The thing is, that’s a level of silliness that’s made unavoidable by the limits of the technology; nowhere near on a par with the inexplicable haybales, or passersby who completely ignore someone getting dragged bodily backwards into a haycart, or the way in which everyone pays no attention at all to the guy pushing his way through the middle of a sudden armed melee.
Now, I actually rather [i]liked[/i] the first Assassin’s Creed, and I’m planning on getting this one as well, but I’ll always wish that they were as good as they [i]could[/i] have been.
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*facepalm*
Also, damn BBCode for getting me into bad habits.
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Oh, right, i forgot. A rosy red positive fantasy world where nobody will counter a game’s hype is a good one.
The “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing” mindset is utterly nonsensical on the internets. Homogenaeity is not a good state for the webnet textwall.
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Not saying that everyone should agree and all comments should be homogenous.. just saying that putting so much time and effort into hating on a videogame is just sad.
I mean, that time could be far better spent playing something you DO enjoy.
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@Crane: Innocent men don’t run, innocent horses don’t gallop…..
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I agree with all the comments about its stupidity, lack of substance and probable lack of common sense but, damn, it looks so purdy! As much as the “gameplay” of the first turned me off, the sheer beauty and technical acheivement of creating these highly detailed medieval cities that felt alive were enough to keep me playing. I got more enjoyment from looking at things than i did from any of the banal and frustrating set pieces.
The example of the poison at least hinted at a departure from the beat em up assassinations of the previous game. If they can buld on that and maybe channel some of the Hitman spirit into allowing multiple types of takedown, then there might be a decent game there. Regardless i’m going to buy it because i’m a sucker for how it looks. Even if all else sucks my screenshotting fetish will impel me through the game.
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Hating a game can be very pleasurable. It’s kind of like when a certain species sense some genetic pollution in one of their own so they go on the attack and banish it so it can’t infect further generations. Keeps the gene pool healthy.
Shite like Ass Greed needs to be attacked, not just ‘not bought’. It is our solemn duty to attack shite. If we enjoy it a little then so what.
Down with Ass Greed.
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And thanks to Poita for helping me draw another line in the sand.
Obsessively hating on a game is sad, but turning it into some kind of bizarre nerdrage-fuelled moral crusade is insane, and probably indicative of some kind of disorder.
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I think it’s important to discuss the positives and negatives of any game, while ignoring the zeal of the haters and worshipers. For myself, I didn’t come into this thread thinking “I can’t wait to bash this game,” but it did come up in the conversation, and I brought up some points (for discussion) that I didn’t like about the game. I could just as easily offer some things that I loved about Assassin’s Creed. Anyway, people naturally gravitate towards what they love and some people love to be douche bags. That’s the internet.
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Finally watched the vid, and I’m most struck by how much the game looks the same as AC1. Not excited about that, honestly; AC’s big problem was that everything was by-the-numbers, totally unemergent, and it’s frustrating to see signs that AC2 carries over the same mentality but with just more numbers. Otoh, AC’s strongest point was its free-running and parkour-like “platforming”, and it looks like AC2 devs actually grok this and are allowing its use in more diverse scenarios, so I am genuinely interested in that.
It strikes me that AC and Mirror’s Edge make an interesting parallel. They both have wonderful movement systems, but in both cases it seems that the devs had no idea whatsoever how to transform a wonderful movement system into compelling gameplay. The movement system in each game is so significantly better than anything that came before, tho, that I’m hopeful they’re at least striking a blow for innovation in character movement which will last long after their unsatisfying gameplay is forgotten.
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Still, I really liked Mirror’s Edge much more, although it didn’t have much “real” freedom, too. (the routes were mostly given, except for the choice to climb up a few more meters to the left or to the right). Probably because the gameplay itself didn’t feel as repetitive as in Assassins Creed 2.
The video didn’t make me rejoice, but it looks at least slightly improved (less repetitiveness) although the partially oversimplified mechanics (hiring mercs, etc) still seem there.
But I have to agree with suibhne, that those games were pioneers in the movement field. After playing Mirror’s Edge I’ve been playing other games and always thought “heck, even for an untrained hero it would be possible to climb up there or jump over this ‘ME-style’” and so on. Hope other games will take some ideas and improve on them with better games.
But I definitely want a Mirror’s Edge 2 soon :)
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Not “Huge Ass Creed 2 Walkthrough”?
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Still, I really liked Mirror’s Edge much more, although it didn’t have much “real” freedom, too. (the routes were mostly given, except for the choice to climb up a few more meters to the left or to the right). Probably because the gameplay itself didn’t feel as repetitive as in Assassins Creed 2.
Well in ME it mattered how you moved, and it was much more interactive and skill based than simply choosing a stance and holding a direction. The time trials really bring this to light; choose to triangle-vault up the side instead of jumping and climbing, save 2 seconds; time a swing perfectly, skip a section completely and save 5 seconds, etc. It was very engrossing and made you feel like a skilled roof runner.
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Dom what’s the diff between hating Ass Greed or Michael Bays work such as Transformers one and poo?
The fucking vapid shit that Bay puts out drains vast, massive amounts of resources from what could be attempts at great movies. It’s so fucking bad that even Terminator 4 was lame. I haven’t seen District 9 yet but it looks pretty bad ass. If shit like transformers keeps getting releases then people who love movies are gonna piss all over it. Why is it that bad to decry the same garbage stuffing up the games scene?
Sure we don’t have to play it but when that bland crap is so prevailent then it’s natural to rant about it.
By the way. i live in Korea and ‘gu’ (pronounced ‘goo) is the word for area or district and coincidentally ‘gu’ is the chinese word for ’9′ (koreans use ‘gu’ or the korean ‘ahop’ depending on the situation. ) So a direct translation of ‘District 9′ would be ‘goo goo’. ;)
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Polta, hate it if you want. I just find it sad that you spend so much effort & energy hating it. I determine that I don’t like something like a Michael Bay film so… I don’t watch it. I don’t follow news on it, I don’t discuss it. I spend my time following & engaging in things that I enjoy and make me happy. Surely you have better things to do than keep up to date with things you hate?
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Lumi,
I’m not a Smiths fan but i do find the whole Morisey phenomena interesting. Now, if you know anything about the flower twirling grump you will know that he was vehemently bitter about many things in his pre-internet correspondence with the music press of the day. When he launched his own attempt he had great sucess. This was because of the passion he felt. If you don’t feel passion dude then that’s fine. You can let the games world go to shit in a hand basket but others like to fight the good fight.
As it’s the internet we can relax our critical and litterary standards and enjoy a good deal of slagging off of things we hate. Evolution was driven by such passion dude, whether it was an ingrained genetic hatred for either inbred or waaay lax re-expressions of the gene set or all the way up to cultural stuff. Ass Greed manages to be both inbred and lax so it deserves/merits a double dollop of vitriolic hatred.
There are a lot of dumb asses that will happily watch Transformers and play Ass Greed for the rest of their life. Unfortunately the overall direction of any evolution, be it genetic or cultural, is determined by the majority (didn’t you see Idiocracy) and not the descerning minority. The only thing that redresses the massive imbalance in the ‘shit to gold’ ratio is passion. Much like a 1kg weight can not tip the scales against a 2kg weight but if add inertia and drop it from a few meters it will tip it.
Here is the equation for you:
Discerning minority + passion > sheep + shit shovelers.
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@Poita
“There are a lot of dumb asses that will happily watch Transformers and play Ass Greed for the rest of their life.”
Whoa, whoa. Transformers is about as cool as a bag of dicks. I’m with you on that one. But I’d rather find another high spot in a city in AC than listen to that annoying Leboef guy bitch and moan about Megan Fox not telling him about her “Juvie record” again. Game had flaws but there was still fun to be had, which =/= Michael Bay.
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I enjoyed both Assassin’s Creed and Transformers, and I’m looking forward to Assassin’s Creed 2. I’m sure that, even if it’s as flawed and infuriating as the first game, I will still find enjoyment in it.
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Looks to me like they’ve learned their lessons from the first. Hopefully they also learned about sensible menu choices…
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i liked the first one. Repetitive yes but all in all a good waste of a few hours. My problem with it is that there was not enough stealth in it. this one seems to look exactly the same so i wont be bothering with it on release , maby later when i can get it cheap but really its nothing special
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On PS3 : Great game so far! Graphics great, voice acting actually believable!…controls get some getting used to. Excellent so far!
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Fucking losers.
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WTF Are people whining about? if you hate the game go cut your wrists or something instead of whining here. I love the game, been playing it for a while and really enjoy the gameplay, storyline and so on. It’s no longer repetitve and very amusing.
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I am currently playing the game and an stuck! When Desmond has his weird dream you are required to climb the tower to reach the target, howver when i reach the balconay he will not reach for the wooden post above him?????
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I got stuck there for a few moments too. Just keep trying – you are in the right place. Try finding a hold to the post’s side and then launching across instead of jumping straight at it? Or run up the wall to the post’s side, the press ‘A’ button and the direction towards the posts for a wall jump that might get you there.
I think I just did it by pressing buttons randomly, but I got there. Keep trying – there’s nookie as reward!
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Wow. LULZ at you losers bad mouthing this series. Does it suck being so wrong now that the sequel is actually out and universally praised? I feel bad for you.
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“LULZ”
Go back to 4chan. Also next time you want to whiteknight a series, try doing so for one that’s actually had more than 1 good game in it. The original sucked, the spinoffs and ports sucked, WHAT AN AMAZING SERIES AMIRITE GUYS?
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You came all the way to 2 months ago to shout at a guy who said lulz?
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Yeah shit man, it’s really hard to click frontpage comment links. I’m like some kind of superhero.
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Look at that response time! Its a little bit heroic at least.
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Assassin’s Creed II received largely positive reviews, with critics praising the game’s stronger emphasis on open world exploration and interaction, nonlinear gameplay and greater mission variety compared with the first Assassin’s Creed. The game was also credited with improved non-player character AI, a new in-game economy for buying items, weapons, and armor, and a deeper, more finely-tuned combat system.
For more on this you may visit at:
http://www.techarena.in/video/23036-assassins-creed-2-downloadable-content-featurette-video.htm
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