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Official Jade Raymond's Assassin's Creed thread of PATRICE BRISEBOIS
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beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
yeah, just last night i killed my 19th, and finally used the running assassination with the stealth blade to kill one. holy shit was that awesome.
how do you usually handle them?
how do you usually handle them?
Dr_Cogent said:I kick Templar ass.
It's great when you get to kill them without it being hacking them on the ground. It is possible to see great finishing moves with them, but it's hard to pull off.
Yup, one of the little joys spread throughout the game. I've only killed 5 or so. Is there a secret to attracting them? I seem to run into them accidentally when I'm trying to save a citizen or just fucking around with regular gaurds.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
Solo said:
they almost always see me first sadly. i am not the most inconspicuous assassin
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
was there some point early in that they actually taught you how to do the sprinting assassination with the stealth blade? it's probably the coolest kill in the entire game, and i had to actively seek out how to do it after reading here that it was doable in-game. it'd be a damn shame for someone to play the whole game and never do it
RSTEIN said:
No secrets to attracting them. Once you get close enough, they will spot you no matter if you are trying to blend or not. The best way to approach it is when you see one, sneak up from behind and assassinate them with your hidden blade. If you cannot, then just bum rush them and while they are carrying on you can get a couple of hits in.
I've pretty much killed using every single animation possible. You can even counter with the hidden blade, but I would only advise trying this if you have only one enemy.
One trick is not to lock on when saving a citizen. Just bum rush a guard and assassinate using the hidden blade. One dude is out of commission with no fuss and no muss. If you lock on, they will attack.
People who complain about the difficulty of the controls suck at gaming IMO as well.
Dibbz said:
Basically, as logn as you're not sprinting, most guards won't care.
The ones you need to look out for are the 'hit squads'. These guys are usually in a group of 8 or so, and their entire mission is to hunt you down, so you have to be sneaky sneaky when going by these guys.
Personally, I just sprinted everywhere , because even if they gave chase, I would simply ride past them and leave them in my dust. Jumping in a bale of hay once I neared my destination...
GauntletFan
Banned
I'm interested in seeing if Ubi can raise the visual bar for games even higher in 2008.. right now they have the best looking game on the market. Can Splinter Cell Conviction top it, I wonder?
First, read the guide.mrkgoo said:
Second, as I've said before, if you're playing "right," you should never be "just aimlessly wandering." Use the environment, use your memory log, use eagle vision, use your view points.
In eagle vision, blue and white can be difficult to distinguish, but this is part of the challenge. This was a conscious decision on the designers' part I'm sure since yellow and red are super easy to spot (enemies) and blue and white can be more difficult (allies). Flicking it on and off helps for the stealth assassination missions, but for the other ones, you should be doing most of your investigation from above and not wandering blindly through the streets.
I've gotten all of the missions this way. It's really not as difficult as it might seem.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
Dr_Cogent said:
When I go to save the citizens, I like to stealth kill rather than bum rush. I can usually get two kills before the battle even begins. I've been very close to three, but haven't quite been able to pull it off yet.
Kung Fu Jedi said:
How many assassinations have you gotten done? I think it gets harder to pull those off with guards so close in proximity the farther you advance in the game.
I also do it because I get much more enjoyment from the leap onto the guard and stab him in the throat animation.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
Dr_Cogent said:
I've only got one assassination left. I'm not done with the game only because I started going back to save all the citizens and get all the view points. And then of course Mass Effect hit too.
Personally, I haven't seen any change in the level of difficulty to get those stealth kills. I love the flying animation as well, but I've made it a bit of game to see if I can get three stealth kills before the battle begins. I've been so close a few times.
Lemming_JRS
Member
Yikes. GamesTM apparently gave Assassin's Creed a 4/10. So says Metacritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/assassinscreed?q=Assassin's%20Creed
Now, I definitely have some issues with AC, but 4/10 is way too harsh.
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/assassinscreed?q=Assassin's%20Creed
Now, I definitely have some issues with AC, but 4/10 is way too harsh.
Vyse The Legend
Member
Lemming_JRS said:
Why should we care about GamesTM again?
conman said:
I have read your 'guide'. i understand the clues, but the only objectives that seem clear to me are the eagle towers. When standing overhead, i find it difficult to really see anything. PS 3version if it helps. But yeah, Eagle vision is lower res - is this normal? And I mean not just a crazy effect, but like you can actually see the pixels.
I guess the only thing I wish I DID have was a compass, so I can orient myself a bit easier - but you know what? Having no HUD forced me to improvise somewhat, and I had to use the sun to navigate...lol. (it's always in the east at leas where I am)...and conversely, using shadow directions too. Am I hardcore, or what?
ANyway, I kind of stumbled into the "assassin" part of the first mission - is it possible to go back and do side missions?
I am still loving this game for the open-ness. I actually spent over 20 hours with GTA:SA, never even approaching more than 10% completion, because to me, the sandbox WAS the game. AC is the same. I make my own fun by getting immersed. I love seeing funny things happen too. Actually, one of my favourite things is actually "killing" people by using the gentle push and nudging people towards cliffs and pushing them off. Dozens of people standing around and noone noticing it was really my fault.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
Phthisis said:
Good to know! I still need the 25 kill achievement, which I don't have yet, despite some massive battles, and a survive 10 minute achievement already nabbed.
Altair's shadow makes a great compass - I use it all the time too.mrkgoo said:
Regarding playing without the HUD, I like to find the viewpoints just by looking for the bird, and in doing that I usually find almost all the save citizens and research missions. If I'm missing a couple of missions and I want to move forward, I open the map and look at the direction of the next mission and then head in that way to find it. I also use the viewpoints to check for flags - using eagle vision to double check for ones close to the tower as sometimes they are edge-on and eagle vision shows the sparkling really clearly if the flags are close.
It depends on the person - I have no problem with opening up the map. I'm about 20 hours in and just finished researching for the third assassination so the game is plenty long as it is for me, I don't feel the need to artificially lengthen it if my desire is to move on. Do whatever you want to enjoy it
Bildi said:Altair's shadow makes a great compass - I use it all the time too.
Regarding playing without the HUD, I like to find the viewpoints just by looking for the bird, and in doing that I usually find almost all the save citizens and research missions. If I'm missing a couple of missions and I want to move forward, I open the map and look at the direction of the next mission and then head in that way to find it. I also use the viewpoints to check for flags - using eagle vision to double check for ones close to the tower as sometimes they are edge-on and eagle vision shows the sparkling really clearly if the flags are close.
It depends on the person - I have no problem with opening up the map. I'm about 20 hours in and just finished researching for the third assassination so the game is plenty long as it is for me, I don't feel the need to artificially lengthen it if my desire is to move on. Do whatever you want to enjoy it
You're right about playing a game however you want that is enjoyable. I'm tossing up at the moment whether to play HUD off for added immersiveness, or on to have less aimless wandering. Maybe I'll do what you do...play as much as I can without HUD, and then referring to map when I get bored so I can move on.
I'm just indecisive. I'm still wondering about inverting my X-look. I actually prefer it inverted (MArio way), but when it does that, when in first person mode, I'd prefer it the normal way. Anyway, again, is Eagle Vision supposed to be lower res than normal? And do you use it to looka round in, or just flick it on and off to isolate targets?
I think I can see now why Ubi Montreal decided to add in the map and HUD elements. I bet when they were doing early play-testing, too many people felt like they were being asked to wander blindly through the cities. Judging by so many of your responses, I'm guessing this is exactly how that went down.
The developers couldn't find a convincing or compelling way to convince players to put clues together. And it sounds like a lot of people don't have very good internal compasses. Perhaps I (and the original designers of the game) took my own ability to always know where I am in the city for granted.
I've never needed to orient myself in the city because I always know exactly where I am, but it sounds like many people can't do this. It's just too bad the developers did such a piss poor job of solving this problem with a map/gps system that gives too much of the game away. I guess there's no way to win from a development/design perspective.
Maybe the game should have been broken down like this:
Difficulty 1 (for the directionally challenged): Simple HUD compass without map markers. Also, a city map with your current location only (no target markers).
Difficulty 2 (for the non-directionally challenged): No maps or gps thing.
Anyhow, more and more, it's clear that this game is obviously not for everyone. It's a testament to the marketing team and a very sellable core idea that this game has sold as well as it has.
The developers couldn't find a convincing or compelling way to convince players to put clues together. And it sounds like a lot of people don't have very good internal compasses. Perhaps I (and the original designers of the game) took my own ability to always know where I am in the city for granted.
I've never needed to orient myself in the city because I always know exactly where I am, but it sounds like many people can't do this. It's just too bad the developers did such a piss poor job of solving this problem with a map/gps system that gives too much of the game away. I guess there's no way to win from a development/design perspective.
Maybe the game should have been broken down like this:
Difficulty 1 (for the directionally challenged): Simple HUD compass without map markers. Also, a city map with your current location only (no target markers).
Difficulty 2 (for the non-directionally challenged): No maps or gps thing.
Anyhow, more and more, it's clear that this game is obviously not for everyone. It's a testament to the marketing team and a very sellable core idea that this game has sold as well as it has.
I think the issue is that the beginning of the game's tutorial seems pretty extensive and everything on screen about the Animus is explained but there's this whole other aspect that isn't even mentioned.
I'll be honest, I didn't even know about the memory log until reading about it in the thread. If it was mentioned in the game, I must have missed it or it should've been a bigger focus. After they take the time to tell you the obvious (the upper left hand corner is your health. don't die!) I wouldn't have expected there to be this enormous glut of information in the game that I didn't even know about.
That's okay though, once my friend's done borrowing the game I'll probably play through again and try it with the HUD off. I am glad I gave the game a chance despite the less than stellar reviews (thanks fry's for 39.99, couldn't have done it without you!) because I really enjoyed playing through all of it despite not knowing about the memory log or how the HUD options can really effect gameplay.
I'll be honest, I didn't even know about the memory log until reading about it in the thread. If it was mentioned in the game, I must have missed it or it should've been a bigger focus. After they take the time to tell you the obvious (the upper left hand corner is your health. don't die!) I wouldn't have expected there to be this enormous glut of information in the game that I didn't even know about.
That's okay though, once my friend's done borrowing the game I'll probably play through again and try it with the HUD off. I am glad I gave the game a chance despite the less than stellar reviews (thanks fry's for 39.99, couldn't have done it without you!) because I really enjoyed playing through all of it despite not knowing about the memory log or how the HUD options can really effect gameplay.
AKingNamedPaul
I am Homie
I really don't see how you can know where you are at all times when most of the areas of the game look the same and are fairly huge. The fact that each city is basically just tinted one color doesn't help at all either.conman said:
I will try this method you recommended but I still cant figure out the memory logs (when i go to memory logs it just shows a bunch of links that say something along the lines of "completed" and i don't see how thats helpful (maybe im doing it wrong). And how do you find assassinations without it? just wander till you find it or is there some easier way?
On timed missions like find all the flags in a limited amount of time how would you manage that?
Conman: just read your guide (and I played through the majority of the game without the HUD thanks to you) and I just want to say you are the man. It's a shame UBI didn't have the courage to stick to their original vision. This game needs a post-morterm interview with links to your guide STAT.
Let me describe some of the encounters I've had yesterday while clearing out all the "save citizen" marker around the cities.
First thing I do is run right up the the little pack of guards and plunge my knife into the head guard's neck with the jump-kill move. This sort of gives my position away so the other guards stop pestering the citizen and focus on me. At this point other guards in the area notice and join the fight. I switch to my hidden blade because I've gotten bored with old fashion sword combat. As the first guard bravely takes a swing at me I counter by catching him off guard and putting my shank through his ear. Some of the lower class soldiers get sick to their stomaches, the elite stand firm. The crowd panics and people start running for their lives. One of the guards tries to throw me to the ground, I twist his outstretched hand behind his back and kick him into a nearby kiosk. It comes crashing down on him, preventing him from getting up again... lucky. Someone behind me decides to take an overhead swing with his sword, I sidestep and plunge my knife into his lower back. The guard crumbles to the ground twitching, his spinal chord severed. Another guard stumbles around in shock, this time I don't waste the opening and finish him off. 2 more try to cut me down, one of them ends up with a knife through the left eye the other one I make a punching bag out of hitting him in the body with the free hand and stabbing him with the other. The last guard tries to run away, I don't blame him. A throwing knife to the back is all it takes. I talk to the "saved" citizen who seems oblivious to the massacre, she's happy, she's gonna tell her husband all about it. As I walk away I spot a guard walking towards me, he doesn't know what's happened yet but why take the chance? A stealth kill is seems very pc after what just happened. Behind me I can hear a man saying "who could of done such a thing?". I wonder if I should go back and tell him and maybe shut up some of the pedestrians that are running around screaming like chickens with their heads cut off.
I find that I don't even avoid guards much anymore, it's easier
to kill them than to waste the time getting out of their line of sight. AC is probably the most violent game I've ever played. It's shockingly violent if you fight with the hidden blade, it's harder too. The window for a counter attack is small, you can't react too early or too late like with the sword. The good thing is that everything is a 1 hit kill and guards get sick almost after every strike and you will have to take advantage of that if you want the combat to stay smooth. The bad part is there's no saving you if you misstime it. When it works, it works very well though. I've taken out up to 4 guards in what seems like a couple of seconds.
First thing I do is run right up the the little pack of guards and plunge my knife into the head guard's neck with the jump-kill move. This sort of gives my position away so the other guards stop pestering the citizen and focus on me. At this point other guards in the area notice and join the fight. I switch to my hidden blade because I've gotten bored with old fashion sword combat. As the first guard bravely takes a swing at me I counter by catching him off guard and putting my shank through his ear. Some of the lower class soldiers get sick to their stomaches, the elite stand firm. The crowd panics and people start running for their lives. One of the guards tries to throw me to the ground, I twist his outstretched hand behind his back and kick him into a nearby kiosk. It comes crashing down on him, preventing him from getting up again... lucky. Someone behind me decides to take an overhead swing with his sword, I sidestep and plunge my knife into his lower back. The guard crumbles to the ground twitching, his spinal chord severed. Another guard stumbles around in shock, this time I don't waste the opening and finish him off. 2 more try to cut me down, one of them ends up with a knife through the left eye the other one I make a punching bag out of hitting him in the body with the free hand and stabbing him with the other. The last guard tries to run away, I don't blame him. A throwing knife to the back is all it takes. I talk to the "saved" citizen who seems oblivious to the massacre, she's happy, she's gonna tell her husband all about it. As I walk away I spot a guard walking towards me, he doesn't know what's happened yet but why take the chance? A stealth kill is seems very pc after what just happened. Behind me I can hear a man saying "who could of done such a thing?". I wonder if I should go back and tell him and maybe shut up some of the pedestrians that are running around screaming like chickens with their heads cut off.
I find that I don't even avoid guards much anymore, it's easier
and more fun
LaserBuddha
Member
I'll ask this again, since I'm really hoping for an answer:
There is an achievement for killing one of your targets "like an assassin". I assume it involves the wristblade, but I havent been able to get the achievement so far. Anyone know how to do this?
Phoenix 2.0
Member
It's almost impossible for anything but the first main assassination, though.
Yeah. I'm starting to recognize that not everyone can do this. I'm not sure how I know where I am in the cities; I just do. I guess I must have some mental map in my head or something. I'm guessing the developers also took this for granted. Since they spent so much time with these city maps, they probably know them ridiculously well, too.FootNinja said:
The memory logs are full of information. Each individual mission hasFootNinja said:
a picture of the location
distinct architecture and landmarks in the pictures
picture also includes an icon in the lower left that tells you what kind of mission it is (pickpocket, eavesdrop, etc.).
The flags I didn't realize showed up on your gps. I never used it for that even when I first started playing the game using gps. You definitely don't need it for those. Look for the first flag, and each subsequent one is in direct view. Those shouldn't be an issue.
As for the assassinations, those are always in obvious places. If it weren't obvious enough, your bureau chief will tell you where he is. Your memory logs usually include multiple maps of the location. If you don't know where the assassination target is, you haven't been paying attention.
If you're referring to the "stealth assassination" targets, I've discussed how to find these a few times. Here it is again:
Enter Eagle Vision after you've spoken to the informant who intiates the stealth assassination mission. In Eagle Vision, you'll hear a loud murmur. Listen for the direction of the sound and follow it. Treat the eagle vision like a sonar device, and you'll find your targets very quickly.
You should never have to resort to aimless wandering.
LaserBuddha
Member
Undeux said:
Hmm, I did that with the Knights Hospitalier guy, but I think he was alerted to my presence just as I did it. Maybe thats why I didnt get it. Thanks.
Thanks. When I first heard of the achievement, I thought maybe you were supposed to mimick the trailer by charging at your target head-on, tackling him with a hidden blade strike before he could draw his weapon. That would be cool.
Started playing AC with a good pair of headphones last night and wow, what a difference it makes to be able to hear everything clearly. The sound design in this game is great, and it was exhilirating to do the 7th assassination (
) by going HUDless, and using nothing but eagle vision and listening for the chanting sounds in eagle vision mode and using sound to guide your way. Totally awesome.
Still, I am torn between GPS-less and using GPS... I really do get hopelessly lost without the GPS and continually flipping to look at the map really does kill the immersion. I'd rather know that I'm going in the right direction than having to wander all the time. I would have loved for you to pick an investigation, and then use eagle vision's sound tracking (or other form of meta-gameplay) to find your goal. AFAIK, using sound to track your target only works for assassination missions. Looking for informants is easy enough, but pickpocket and eavesdrop missions can be a real bitch to find sans GPS.
Anyway, onto my last couple assassinations and I'm going GPS-less again to savor it. Man, Acre is such a shithole. I love how the Persians/Arabs in this game are all civilized and clean looking, while the invading Europeans all look like they're homeless and dirty. :lol
the book burning guys
Still, I am torn between GPS-less and using GPS... I really do get hopelessly lost without the GPS and continually flipping to look at the map really does kill the immersion. I'd rather know that I'm going in the right direction than having to wander all the time. I would have loved for you to pick an investigation, and then use eagle vision's sound tracking (or other form of meta-gameplay) to find your goal. AFAIK, using sound to track your target only works for assassination missions. Looking for informants is easy enough, but pickpocket and eavesdrop missions can be a real bitch to find sans GPS.
Anyway, onto my last couple assassinations and I'm going GPS-less again to savor it. Man, Acre is such a shithole. I love how the Persians/Arabs in this game are all civilized and clean looking, while the invading Europeans all look like they're homeless and dirty. :lol
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
"Thanks for rescuing me. I'll make sure my husband knows what you have done"
*camera focuses on the rescued citizen's husband, who is maybe a few meters away talking with his buddies*
Why the hell was he shooting the shit with his friends while his wife was getting harrassed by guards nearby? What an asshole.
This happened ike 5 times in the first Acre mission.
*camera focuses on the rescued citizen's husband, who is maybe a few meters away talking with his buddies*
Why the hell was he shooting the shit with his friends while his wife was getting harrassed by guards nearby? What an asshole.
This happened ike 5 times in the first Acre mission.
I think an onscreen compass is really what's needed for the game to be playable without the HUD. Without that the game would be a pain in the ass to play, whether you're "directionally challenged" or not. It does you no good to be told to go look for clues in the market southwest of the bureau if there's no way to tell where southwest is, and no way to correct you course if veer off on a side mission. You'd otherwise have to wander around and learn the entire city quarter before doing any missions, which would be incredibly tedious.conman said:
I am really surprised the game is selling as well as it is. There's nothing about the theme, the setting or the core gameplay that would indicate big sales potential.
I guess sandboxy design plus ultraviolence is a good enough combo for mass-market sales.
I don't use eagle vision to look around a hell of a lot. Sometimes if I know I'm near a mission I'll flick it on and do a 360 to try and find the informant in the crowd. Or during an investigation assassination I might flick it on then off to highlight a target in yellow. On the towers I use it mainly to show up any flags that are near the viewpoint that I might have missed when just scanning normally. Flags that are very far from the viewpoint are easier to see without the eagle vision.mrkgoo said:
I use eagle vision a bit to try and find missions from the viewpoints but generally I can't see the missions, and also bright lamps and so on show up as white which means I have to flick eagle vision off to check what I'm looking at. I tend to find missions mostly while travelling from viewpoint to viewpoint.
And regarding low-res, I suppose eagle vision is lower res - I think of it as an extreme vaseline-on-the-lens job :lol
You can always use your shadow as a compass - your shadow always points NE. In terms of the appeal of the game and the resulting sales, I think it sells well because it's something imaginative and different - there's no game of this setting, style and gameplay type on the market.Rhindle said:
You know, it's strange. I have a lot more problems finding the informants (flags and stealth assassination) than the eavesdrop and pickpocket missions.JB1981 said:
Eavesdropping targets are almost always under eaves or awnings. Pickpocket targets are usually near very open and public areas, so they're not too tough to spot from above. If there are any interior spaces (churches, arcades, and such), a target is probably in there somewhere.
So, finding the eavesdrop and pickpocket targets wasn't a problem, even in the final stages (when the targets get a bit tougher to find).
Couple other useful things I've noticed:
1) Targets are rarely very close to one another. This includes saved citizens. If there's a saved citizen in the immediate area, there is almost certainly not also an information target.
2) As useful as view points are from above, they're just as useful from below.
A view point that appears in the background of a memory log picture should be a dead give away of your target's location. You can also use the shadows in the picture to figure out which way the picture looks.
Totally. I've never had such a strong urge to go visit the middle east. Virtual tourism ftw!chespace said: