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First Assassin's Creed Review ( GameInformer )

TheJollyCorner said:
I dunno about you guys but I'm glad (most) magazines/websites warned me about LAIR before I dropped money on that fucking turkey.

Sure, trailers, music, graphics, and concept made me believe it could be a GotY candidate... but those critical elements you don't get until the game releases, such as broken gameplay, glitches, unfinished or forced mechanics, etc. usually show up in reviews.

Instead of dropping $60 on it, thanks to reviews I only had to drop $6 to rent it. :D
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this shows much more potential Id say...lairs problems were evident quite early on actually. The control isnt actually that hard to familiarize, its just the game could have done with about 9 months more dev time....its really rough
 
deepbrown said:
And passive is good because? And climbing buildings and doing whatever you like to complete the mission is simplistic how?
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Passive is bad. It's boring. And the passivity and simplicity in Assassin's Creed comes from tasks like planning attack and escape routes, observing character routes, and eavesdropping. At least from what I gather based on the previews.
 
GremlinInTheMachine said:
Passive is bad. It's boring. And the passivity and simplicity in Assassin's Creed comes from tasks like planning attack and escape routes, observing character routes, and eavesdropping. At least from what I gather based on the previews.
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Like Hitman. Like Splinter Cell. Like Metal Gear. You know, like stealth games.

No one likes those games, RIGHT?
 
Vyse The Legend said:
Code:

My only concern with this game is that it's too short. Can you comment, at all, about it's length? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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In the official thread there were talks that it's like 20 hours. It sounds like a bit much, but even 15 hours for this style of game is good.
 
TONX said:
wtfatkid.jpg

9.5!
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:lol
 
DenogginizerOS said:
Like Hitman. Like Splinter Cell. Like Metal Gear. You know, like stealth games.

No one likes those games, RIGHT?
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It looks like an evolution of stealth games. Splinter Cell became stale with its trial and error linearity. AC has open world that gives you a lot more option.
 
6x1jxc5.gif


You get to stab people in the head, using a retractable blade strapped to your forearm that you had to have a finger removed to fit properly. That alone is worth 5 out of 10 points of any grading scheme.
 
Awesome score :D

Its stunning visual style, high concept story, and wildly open level design are like nothing else, even if too much repetition begins to frustrate in the later hours.
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Bit worried about that though :(
 
Tieno said:
It looks like an evolution of stealth games. Splinter Cell was became stale with its trial and error linearity. AC has open world that gives you a lot more option.
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Agreed. This is why I am looking forward to AC. I really enjoyed some of the Hitman games and all of the Metal Gear games. AC looks like a new and fresh perspective on the genre.
 
k79 said:
Awesome score :D



Bit worried about that though :(
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It might be a bit like Crackdown in that regard. Like Crackdown your main quest needs you to elimate a list of persons, repetition might strike in depending on how good the sandbox is and how much you can tolerate/like sandbox gameplay like this.
 
AstroLad said:
For as much crap as they get on here, game reviews/impressions can be real money and time savers. I know I'm thankful for this thread now, as I was on the fence earlier (not much of an adventure gamer).



That oughta be more than enough for the next few weeks. :D
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why the hell isnt mario galaxy there, I thought you had a Wii.
 
greendublin said:
And that is why I love 1up. Skip, can you say when to expect said 'talk'?

Else, what negatives did the review bring up?
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I believe the embargo is up on monday, but I'll have to double check. can't go into the good/bad specifics yet, though. :-/
 
GremlinInTheMachine said:
Passive is bad. It's boring. And the passivity and simplicity in Assassin's Creed comes from tasks like planning attack and escape routes, observing character routes, and eavesdropping. At least from what I gather based on the previews.
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It's optional. You can storm in like Conan and murder everyone, you even get achievements for it.
 
Majik said:
6x1jxc5.gif


You get to stab people in the head, using a retractable blade strapped to your forearm that you had to have a finger removed to fit properly. That alone is worth 5 out of 10 points of any grading scheme.
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Neatly lifted from Tenchu 3, in fact. ;)
 
DenogginizerOS said:
Agreed. This is why I am looking forward to AC. I really enjoyed some of the Hitman games and all of the Metal Gear games. AC looks like a new and fresh perspective on the genre.
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This.

and my excitement for Splinter Cell: Conviction has been growing a lot as well.

It sounds more like a Splinter Cell/Hitman/AC hybrid.

hopefully anyways :D
 
skip said:
I believe the embargo is up on monday, but I'll have to double check. can't go into the good/bad specifics yet, though. :-/
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Thanks. Sorry I missed the earlier posts; opened the thread and forgot to refresh by the time I posted.
 
Hold your horses on the Crackdown comparison. Really where do you get this from, because you can climb buildings in both?

If this game executes on what I've seen so far, it will be very VERY good. It comes from a good pedigree, it has an unlimited budget and it looks to be pushing the genre forward with innovative ideas.
 
skip said:
people complain about the "short" 8-10 hour action games...it's longer than that. not epic length, unless you try to collect everything maybe, but a decent time investment.
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Thanks, skip. That's all I needed to know.
 
DenogginizerOS said:
Like Hitman. Like Splinter Cell. Like Metal Gear. You know, like stealth games.

No one likes those games, RIGHT?
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Metal Gear doesn't fit into the catagory because you can play it balls out if you want.

The other two do fit into that catagory, and they're polarizing because of it. And Assassin's Creed appears to be even more passive then they are. That isn't to say no one likes stealth and survalliance gameplay. It's just that AI is still so crude that a lot of people find them dead and empty tasks.
 
TTG said:
Hold your horses on the Crackdown comparison. Really where do you get this from, because you can climb buildings in both?

If this game executes on what I've seen so far, it will be very VERY good. It comes from a good pedigree, it has an unlimited budget and it looks to be pushing the genre forward with innovative ideas.
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Like Crackdown it's a new IP that pushes the genre forward even though it polarizes media outlets. There is a big chance that if you liked Crackdown you'll like AC as well because it takes a dump on videogame cliches and genre boundaries.

They simply do what they want and hope that it's fun (they take a risk) instead of sticking to a well established formula that everybody gets.

EDIT:

Once again, most of the investigation can be skipped. All but two tasks (don't know which but I guess pickpocketing and interrogation) are optional, if you don't like stealthy or passive gameplay that's fine.
 
TTG said:
Hold your horses on the Crackdown comparison. Really where do you get this from, because you can climb buildings in both?

If this game executes on what I've seen so far, it will be very VERY good. It comes from a good pedigree, it has an unlimited budget and it looks to be pushing the genre forward with innovative ideas.
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Both games focus on platforming in an open world environment, both games have you killing a list of people. Although AC is more detailed (graphics, variety of gameplay, sidequests, story etc) and less fantastical, more down to earth.
It has a lot more in common with Crackdown than you think and it's not a bad thing. Where Crackdown is more focused on pure sandbox, AC is probably more structured and meaty.
What really attracts me in both games is the verticallity and going around the city. The best thing about Crackdown was getting on top of a really high building, I imagine that'll be the same for AC and going to the top of a medieval Chathedral.
 
Well, I don't know about most of you, but I happened to like Crackdown.

Sure it was really repetitive. I mean, there was only really one thing to do story-wise (take out bosses).

And you did a lot of climbing (although this was really fun).

But there was no story, like, at all.

And even though I did like Crackdown, I do have higher expectations for AC. Perhaps a coherent story? Or maybe SOME variation in gameplay? I don't mind some smaller, side-portions of the game being repetitive, just hopefully not the whole game (a la Crackdown).
 
GremlinInTheMachine said:
If that gets confirmed, and you can efficiently do it right off the bat, I'll buy it.
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Already confirmed, just not feeling like it to find out where :P. Search and you will find..
 
Regarding the length, it was said in an interview that a tester ran through the game doing only the minimal stuff necessary to kill his targets, and it took him 8.5 hours to complete.
 
I don't know what people were expecting from this game when they call it repetitive. They've told us what this game was going to be the entire time.

1. Find and track the target.
2. Kill the target.
3. Escape.

It's up to you how much you do of step 1. How you complete step 2. How you complete step 3. There's a certain amount of effort you have to put in here people. If you keep killing the targets the same way, keep jumping into piles of hay, and end up getting bored, isn't that your own fault?
 
DrBo42 said:
I don't know what people were expecting from this game when they call it repetitive. They've told us what this game was going to be the entire time.

1. Find and track the target.
2. Kill the target.
3. Escape.

It's up to you how much you do of step 1. How you complete step 2. How you complete step 3. There's a certain amount of effort you have to put in here people. If you keep killing the targets the same way, keep jumping into piles of hay, and end up getting bored, isn't that your own fault?
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Very very true. So much other games are probably much more repetitive than this game can ever be.

LukeSmith said:
Good score! Congrats to Ubi Montreal!
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Are you going to get it? :)
 
dirtmonkey37 said:
Well, now that Luke's in here...

Yay, I'm excited for Assassin's Creed!
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I haven't played it or anything, that's just a nice score for those folks up there who I'm sure have been working tirelessly on the product.
 
GremlinInTheMachine said:
Passive is bad. It's boring. And the passivity and simplicity in Assassin's Creed comes from tasks like planning attack and escape routes, observing character routes, and eavesdropping. At least from what I gather based on the previews.
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So it's stealth rather than run out shooting everything in a highly unrealistic manner?

Here's what I'm trying to understand: How is the mild repetition of AC (you get to fooking free-run!) worse than the excessive repetition of shooters?

Is it that you have 9 lengthy sections that are repeated (killing nine enemies...finding out the information, freerunning or ANY other way you please to get to the person, assassinating) compared to the one big section of repetition that is a shooter?

And anybody else think this is a kick in the balls? The game gets a great first score for a developer who has been working on this game for four years, only to be shot down by a guy saying "Oh uh, that's way to high...everybody don't get excited, don't praise this game so much, it doesn't actually deserve it".

ps. Maybe people like repeating free running (platforming)...it was always about the platforming for me in POP, and I would have preferred them to strip the rest out of the game and just have lengthy platforming moments throughout. There's something about platforming which is fun, just like there's something in shooting and killing people that's apparently addictive. SO if you don't like the repetition, maybe this game isn't for you.

pps. or is it that they didn't have guns in 1191ad? Yuh guns and shooting people...that's more fun than freerunning accross roofs like a bad ass and assassinating people.
 
deepbrown said:
So it's stealth rather than run out shooting everything in a highly unrealistic manner?

Here's what I'm trying to understand: How is the mild repetition of AC (you get to fooking free-run!) worse than the excessive repetition of shooters?

Is it that you have 9 lengthy sections that are repeated (killing nine enemies...finding out the information, freerunning or ANY other way you please to get to the person, assassinating) compared to the one big section of repetition that is a shooter?
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Excactly. This game will probably change the way that 3rd person action games work.

The FPS genre is getting stale as hell...Its genre hardly evolves..They keep doing the same stuff with a different coating on it.
 
Tieno said:
Both games focus on platforming in an open world environment, both games have you killing a list of people. Although AC is more detailed (graphics, variety of gameplay, sidequests, story etc) and less fantastical, more down to earth.
It has a lot more in common with Crackdown than you think and it's not a bad thing. Where Crackdown is more focused on pure sandbox, AC is probably more structured and meaty.
What really attracts me in both games is the verticallity and going around the city. The best thing about Crackdown was getting on top of a really high building, I imagine that'll be the same for AC and going to the top of a medieval Chathedral.
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That was my point. It would be like comparing Need for Speed to GT5. The games may be alike in a basic sense, but one is just on a completely different level.
 
LukeSmith said:
I haven't played it or anything, that's just a nice score for those folks up there who I'm sure have been working tirelessly on the product.
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Oh.

Well, as for positive impressions, people in this thread should check out the official one. The user with a smiley-face avatar is professing the game to be absolute genious in every conceivable way.
 
GremlinInTheMachine said:
If that gets confirmed, and you can efficiently do it right off the bat, I'll buy it.
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As far as I know you have to complete two investigation tasks as a bare minimum. I don't know which, but there is pickpocketing, eavesdropping, interrogation (beating up some guy to get information), exploration (to update the map) and planning escape routes. There are 9 targets and 5 parts of investigation I know of, which would make for 45 maximum or 18 minimum investigation tasks that have to be completed.

The game will likely get much harder if you simply murder everyone as soon as you see them without any plans to fall back on.
 
LukeSmith said:
Not getting to play games early anymore = :(
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Even after Bungie's project is finished, you still don't have time?

EDIT: Oh, I thought you said you aren't getting to play games anymore (I missed the key word "early")
 
deepbrown said:
So it's stealth rather than run out shooting everything in a highly unrealistic manner?

Here's what I'm trying to understand: How is the mild repetition of AC (you get to fooking free-run!) worse than the excessive repetition of shooters?

Is it that you have 9 lengthy sections that are repeated (killing nine enemies...finding out the information, freerunning or ANY other way you please to get to the person, assassinating) compared to the one big section of repetition that is a shooter?
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I've already explained it three times. It's the passive and simplistic nature of planning attack and escape routes, memorizing character routes, and eavesdropping.

Should I write it in crayon for you? Said with love.
 
Visualante said:
Skip man, you've saved me before. For that I'm thankful.

But you're screwing with me now :/
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review text and blogs will be available before you can buy, to better aid your purchasing decisions.
 
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