Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A new Assassin’s Creed 2 trailer, once it gets past its, “Look, a bit like The Da Vinci Code which is a book and film you know!” tedium, shows off some of the melee combat in the game. Which looks mighty meaty. Of course, mighty meaty melee combat is going to be all rather put in the shade as a result of Batman. It’s going to be interesting to see if the Dark Broody Knight’s amazingly visceral fisticuffs will have the same effect on action games as the Persian Prince’s introduction of reversing time: make everything else feel like it’s missing something important.

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I know I’ve used that headline before, but hell, it works. I really do need to find a way to recharge my pun batteries, however.

Assassin’s Creed was one of the most Angry Internet Men-angering games last year, and, like Bioshock, it refuses to go away. This time, there’s a piracy problem. Aaargh. I’m terrified that Assassin’s Creed + Piracy is the secret formula that will cause RPS readers to rise up and destroy the entire planet, but here we go….
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I keep seeing this story doing the rounds, and originally didn’t deem it worthy of a post, but seeing as this week seems to have inadvertently been Hot Button Issue Week on RPS, may as well give you folks a chance to have a shout about Assassin’s Creed too. I know you do like to.
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Somewhere there’s a list of things you really shouldn’t do in game design.

Via Kotaku.

Assassin’s Creed, expanded and revised for PC, is now out there in shopping land. We had been hoping to get round to some serious Assassin’s Creed discussion this week, but the RPS team are too busy trying to sort out missions to San Francisco or Shoreditch to actually get around to it. Therefore I’m going to throw this one open to the comments and see what you all think.

I’ve already had a good old shake of the game on 360, but I expect I’ll get around to it on PC too. While I’m in agreement with most folks about the horrible, horrible cutscenes and the ill-advised backstory, I did genuinely enjoy the running/climbing/hiding/fighting parts of the game. There’s so much value in Assassin’s Creed that I think it amplified our indignation about how awkward the rest of it was. It’s my feeling this it was a beautiful, slightly clumsy game that became a victim of its own hype. And I don’t think anyone would deny that we’d like to see that city tech used for something more satisfyingly RPGish.

I’d really like to hear from people who’ve played this game on PC, but console-based opinions are also sort of valid. Go!

[Also, read Tim's review on CVG.]

Much info appeared in Ubisoft and Take-Two’s press releases that appeared last night, which were full of words like “fiscal” that confuse and scare me. They also include the slippy-slidey nature of a bunch of their PC releases. So what do we know?

Ubi’s Assassin’s Creed is going to take an extra couple of weeks before it’s on our machines. Sneaking out of March, it’s now hiding in a hay cart until April 11th.

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Assassin’s Creed for PC has been dated and redated and is now scheduled to arrive on our beloved Chaos Boxes on 28th March. Is that right? Oh it’s April 8th in the US for some reason. Oh and it’s already out and number one on Bitorrent, except that’s a broken pre-release version that won’t load half the game, so you might want to wait until it gets pirated properly comes out in the shops before you start playing.

Anyway, the PC version is also going to have new stuff! You’re actually going to have more tasks to do before those assassinations can happen, young man. No shirking on the pre-kill investigations. And no shirking on the system specs: Assassin’s Creed needs a monster PC. Beyond the jump: everything is permitted.
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Much-debated man-stabbing game Assassin’s Creed is set to come out on PC at the end of March. Ubisoft’s latest transmission has revealed a few details about the beige-box version:

Following in the wake of the critically acclaimed and worldwide console hit Assassin’s Creed, the PC version entitled “Assassin’s Creed™, Director’s cut edition” will feature four brand new exclusive types of investigations, thus providing even more ways for players to explore the various locations of the Third Crusade.

Woo. I have to say I’m actually kind of looking forward to playing it on PC. No particular reason, it’ll just be interesting to see how time and a port will have treated the old fella.

One title that’s not currently on our Big Games Of 2008 Wot We Should Post Many Words About list is Assassin’s Creed. Mostly that’s because it’s already available on console, and across the sinister mass of the internet you’ll find many a proferred opinion on it, filled with love, hate, hate towards people who love it, hate towards people who hate it or, most commmonly, bitching about its cutscenes. Judging by regular mentions in our threads, it’s a game that causes strong feelings amongst you lot too, so perhaps you don’t need us to give you the skinny on this one. But you do still need us, right? Right?

Also, we really don’t know whether there’ll be much, if anything, different about the impending PC port. Until now. The first truly concrete piece of information’s just in, and it’s a stonker. The minimum system requirements for it are, well, a little shocking.

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What the UFC pugilists make of Assassin’s Creed:

Thanks, Game Trailers. I think…