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[BlueTsunami]

When you hit an enemy and he goes into a stagger where he's vulernable, WHY THE FUCK does the autotargeting system CHANGE FOCUS TO SOMEONE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SO YOU CAN'T HIT THE GUY WHO YOU JUST STAGGERED?

Jesus christ, this game is good, but there is some god damn stupid shit in here

You should be able to focus on the staggered enemy by keeping the analog pointed towards that enemy but yeah it is annoying how it'll switch mid combo to another guy.

To those who said Counters are the best way to kill large groups of enemies, thank you. I was doing this earlier with the short blade and hidden blade. I downed so many enemies very quickly, the few that were left scattered in fear :lol

 

[beelzebozo]

I played HUD'less for a while on my parents new 65" DLP and its fucken fantastic. The HUD elements really take away from the beautiful vistas of the game, you tend to not appreciate what your exactly looking at when your always referencing to a HUD.

The game also feels very much more like an Assassination Simulator. Aside from the logs you need to look at, your pretty much relying on Sight and Sound to guide you. Awesome stuff.

how much aimless wandering do you do? are there enough sight and sound clues to nudge you in the right direction?

 

[BlueTsunami]

how much aimless wandering do you do? are there enough sight and sound clues to nudge you in the right direction?

I'm trying to do it without any HUD elements at all. So I'm relying on sound at first. You should be able to hear people you need to interrogate and citizens you need to save. The harder ones being Pickpocket missions and informants. In those cases, I'll use my Eagle Eye to scan a walkway and scan each sector.

As far as the viewpoints? I just look up and you can easily spot the areas you need to get too. All of this makes the game much more engulfing.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

This game really is a roller coaster of amazing and flawed, isn't it? No middle ground; amazing environments marred by sluggish performance, typically great (main) character animation countered by jittery and low res shadows, and so forth. They nailed the atmosphere though, the music, ambient sounds and atmospheric effects really come together to make it feel like a plausible or at least tangible world. But the modern day stuff really highlights the flaws in a way I could live without. Characters in particular; it's all masked well by the attire and set pieces, but the modern day setting really makes it clear how much work Ubi needs to do on character models.

Combat feels awesome though, as does the free running; very fluid.

edit: yikes, the chatter between my dude and the other characters in the interactive cutscenes is kind of shit, isn't it?

 

[Sho Nuff]

The combat system in this game is utter garbage against 4+ opponents, and

Spoiler

it's made painfully obvious in the atrocious "Assassinate Robert" portion. If I wanted to run down narrow trenches with shitty frame rates and invisible walls and kill hundreds of dudes one after one, I'd play Heavenly Sword. BTW, I like how Robert is invincible during his stagger animations.

Also, I just found a bug where you beat Robert once and the game loops back to the beginning of the fight and you have to do it again.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

Ok, this interactive cutscene shit is starting to get on my nerves. Either leave it scripted and remove any movement whatsoever, or let me move around as much as I please. This shit with being able to move a few feet in any direction is just fucking dumb.

And for fuck's sake, why would you put a fucking animated piece of cloth there if you are just going to let it clip, clip and clip some more?

 

[DrBo42]

This is a thread of crying. Anyway I just beat it, can't wait for the sequel.

 

[TTG]

This game really is a roller coaster of amazing and flawed, isn't it? No middle ground; amazing environments marred by sluggish performance, typically great (main) character animation countered by jittery and low res shadows, and so forth. They nailed the atmosphere though, the music, ambient sounds and atmospheric effects really come together to make it feel like a plausible or at least tangible world. But the modern day stuff really highlights the flaws in a way I could live without. Characters in particular; it's all masked well by the attire and set pieces, but the modern day setting really makes it clear how much work Ubi needs to do on character models.

Combat feels awesome though, as does the free running; very fluid.

edit: yikes, the chatter between my dude and the other characters in the interactive cutscenes is kind of shit, isn't it?

Jaggy shadows seem to be a problem with a lot of games. It's definitely not pretty to look at. On the upside, they're very well done for such a large environment. You could have an eagle flying over one of the towers and it will cast a shadow on everything below from that high up and ofcourse the higher in the air it is the larger the shadow, the same goes for Altair himself. Self shadowing is also on pretty much everything, same with bloom lighting. You also get a lot of reflective maps or whatever the fuck you call it, gives all the materials like stone and wood much more depth. Most structures will have sides where the sun falls on them reflecting a lot of light and others that are in the shade. They get it spot on too, just look at Acre and Jerusalem, huge difference. Just about every surface in the game is spot on.

The first thing I thought when I saw character models was "there are about 50 of these fuckers on screen and each one has a better modeled face than captain Keyes."

Every once in a while I'll get a problem where the game won't recognize a foothold or a handhold and I'll have to climb around it or something. Other than that I haven't seen many bugs at all, hasn't frozen once on me yet(I'm probably 3/4 of the way in). It's far from perfect, but it's running relatively smoothly for me on xbox360.

 

[TTG]

I love the combat in the game, it's wonderful.

I think the key thing is not to forget about the step/dodge button. So, instead of just waiting to counter whoever gets to attack next you can either dodge them or step+x to knock them off balance, then attack.

 

[White Man]

Yeah, jaggy and "squarey" soft shadows just appear to be a problem with games that use them a lot. Games that don't have to worry about casting so many shadows generally don't have the flaw as badly. I didn't find the shadows in AC that offensive though.

In most games, the buggy soft shadows don't get me that much. I realize that it's a big technical leap to fix that, and it's never all that terrible, anyway.

 

[reilo]

This game really is a roller coaster of amazing and flawed, isn't it? No middle ground; amazing environments marred by sluggish performance, typically great (main) character animation countered by jittery and low res shadows, and so forth. They nailed the atmosphere though, the music, ambient sounds and atmospheric effects really come together to make it feel like a plausible or at least tangible world. But the modern day stuff really highlights the flaws in a way I could live without. Characters in particular; it's all masked well by the attire and set pieces, but the modern day setting really makes it clear how much work Ubi needs to do on character models.

Combat feels awesome though, as does the free running; very fluid.

edit: yikes, the chatter between my dude and the other characters in the interactive cutscenes is kind of shit, isn't it?

Yep. My thoughts exactly.

Especially after just beating Uncharted a couple of days ago. Sure, they are completely different games, but the one thing that AC desperately needed to be was a game that immerses you into the experience like Uncharted did, where you are just engrossed in the entire world.

The constant in and out of the Altius [or whatever it's called], plus the sci-fi dongle, highlighted characters [while nice, how about just a red X under the character? Actually the camera in lock-on mode works just great but no need for the icons], dialog is a bit iffy from Altair, but nonetheless, a very fun game that does a lot of things right, but that could do a few things better.

For a sequel I want... upgradeable weapons/being able to buy weapons ala RE4. The graphics engine optimized and character geometry improved/crowd animations improved because Altair's animation set are very nice and fluid that it takes you out of it seeing the crowd be very stiff and simple. More combos! Let me choose how I want to stealth kill someone. An Assassin should be able to switch clothes/appearance for obvious reasons.

Nonetheless, this game is well made and very fun to play. The concept is great, too.

 

[TTG]

Yeah, jaggy and "squarey" soft shadows just appear to be a problem with games that use them a lot. Games that don't have to worry about casting so many shadows generally don't have the flaw as badly. I didn't find the shadows in AC that offensive though.

In most games, the buggy soft shadows don't get me that much. I realize that it's a big technical leap to fix that, and it's never all that terrible, anyway.

Yep. Take a look at COD4 for example. A lot of the shadows they use aren't done real time, so they're perfect. Most of the AC stuff is done on the fly and with so much stuff going on it's hard not to notice sometimes.

 

[quetz67]

Yeah, jaggy and "squarey" soft shadows just appear to be a problem with games that use them a lot. Games that don't have to worry about casting so many shadows generally don't have the flaw as badly. I didn't find the shadows in AC that offensive though.

In most games, the buggy soft shadows don't get me that much. I realize that it's a big technical leap to fix that, and it's never all that terrible, anyway.

The shadows are better than I expected. Come on guys, this isnt a PC with some 2gig + 512mb video memory. With all the stuff drawn it is a great feature to have this good shadows at all. Have a look at crysis shadows if you dont have the uber-machine, they only start looking really good on very high, even then they arent perfect.

Uncharted has better shadows (after they fixed them), I am still in awe how they freed the memory for that. But then they havent those view distances.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Just finished it.

Spoiler

Ugh, that kind of sucked, didn't really end on a high point. I thought most of the storytelling in the modern world was really abrupt, like the whole "Oh btw we're Templars and stuff" and "Oh there are bad guys attacking downstairs but I guess everything is okay now, go to sleep." BTW, wtf was the purpose of me stealing the access pen from the professor? I kept going towards the doors trying to sneak through, but nothing.

Edit: OH WAIT SECRET ENDING! (Was typing this during credit scroll). Is there anything I can do aside from access the laptop in the other room?

All in all it was a good game, some tremendous aspects to it (animation especially) but a lot of irrirtating stuff that should have been caught.

 

[OmonRa]

Spoiler

You can go to the CVG site and get a break down of what all the shit on the walls means. It's not just there for show! You can also read the conference room computer if you have Vidic's pen and the access code to learn more about what the Templars are doing. You can also re-enter the Animus and check out the little attachment where Altair talks about the aftermath. The future stuff is meant to be vague. You're a prisoner. They're not going to sit down and spell it out for you. You gotta put the pieces together. But the pieces are there.

 

[Tieno]

Wow. Just seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_8cmPZ7hfE

Co-op confirmed

And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_C2zXzgu8&feature=related:lol

They wanted to do co-op but they axed it early one because it'd require so much additional resources and work.

 

[DrBo42]

I just turned the HUD off and am going through again. I gotta say it's almost like completely different game. You don't really see how gorgeous this game is until it's off. I have no idea how you guys find anything without the GPS though. Any tips so I can find the investigation points without walking around the city for 4 hours? :lol

 

[conman]

I just turned the HUD off and am going through again. I gotta say it's almost like completely different game. You don't really see how gorgeous this game is until it's off. I have no idea how you guys find anything without the GPS though. Any tips so I can find the investigation points without walking around the city for 4 hours? :lol

Eagle vision is an invaluable tool. Start at the viewpoints using eagle vision, then troll the plazas and arcades. Look for suspicious pairs of people talking or listen for political pundits. It's not as hard as it might seem. You'll get the hang of it after the first or second assassination.

Later assassinations get tougher, but there are always enough clues if you know what to look for.

 

[Oichi]

I actually turned off the HUD after the first assassination not to immerse myself in the world, but because it was annoying as fuck:lol Personally I think the game babys the gamer far too much and a lot of it isn't necessary after the second assignment. You don't need to mini-tutorials for Witness Indicators and Interrogations after the second assignment, sheesh.

 

[Solo]

Finished up my 8th assassination last night, and have 2 out of my 3 investigations done for my 9th and final assassination. My last investigation is giving me fits. Its an informat one where I need to kill 5 Templars, but its at the point where ANYTHING "wrong" I do alerts the guards. And of course there happens to be drunkards all along the route that the Templars are circling. So without fail, I usually kill 4 of the Templars, or even all of them, then a fighting drunk pushes me into someone, and fission mailed. So annoying! I just want to finish this investigation and beat the game!

Anyways, at this point, AC is my #3 game for the year, just behind Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Mass Effect might bump it down to #4, but still, thats pretty awesome for a game I had left for dead a month ago.

 

[Bildi]

I'm about 13 hours in and am currently collecting info for my second assassination in Acre. Playing without a HUD is working brilliantly - they've designed the gameso well to work without it.

I'm currently trying to collecting 33 flags in Acre's poor district just to see how I go. It's scary how time just disappears in this game. You think "I'll just have a look around these couple of buildings" and an hour later you're still assing about.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

wtf, seems like they didn't bug test the last stage because I keep getting weird bugs. Right now I'm controlling two guys.

 

[jordan0386]

wtf, seems like they didn't bug test the last stage because I keep getting weird bugs. Right now I'm controlling two guys.

lol, yea thats on youtube, Im sure it'll be ironed out for the sequel

 

[Frenck]

The shadow maps are pretty high res. I don't know what you guys are talking about. It's one of the high points of AC because nearly every other next gen game seems to do it worse.

I noticed some jaggy self-shadowing in some cutscenes (where many filters are applied at once) but the shadow maps are sharp as hell in gameplay itself.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

lol, yea thats on youtube, Im sure it'll be ironed out for the sequel

Yea, just saw the post. I'm trying over and over to atcivate the next cutscene but the game keeps bugging out.

 

[B-Genius]

I'm about 13 hours in and am currently collecting info for my second assassination in Acre. Playing without a HUD is working brilliantly - they've designed the gameso well to work without it.

I'm currently trying to collecting 33 flags in Acre's poor district just to see how I go. It's scary how time just disappears in this game. You think "I'll just have a look around these couple of buildings" and an hour later you're still assing about.

So true. I switched off all HUD elements as soon as I understood the controls. As people have said, there are plenty of audio and visual clues as to your surroundings, status and synchronisation without its use. I ocassionally rely on the 'select' map, but hopefully I'll grow out of that. Also, sometimes it's tough to tell how much of a dick guards think you're being, but a quick change of pace is always fun if you do happen to make yourself too conspicuous

I came across a hilarious bug the other day where I decided to try killing my first innocent during the second mission in Jerusalem. I walked right up and stabbed one of those guys who preach in front of crowds in the street, expecting a huge ruckus... I got the message about a loss of synchro, but no guards, no screaming civilians... the crowd just sort of dispersed and calmly went about their lives. "Oh... he finally shut up. Let's get a beer." :lol

Oh, and I'd be surprised if this hasn't come up already, but gentle pushing guards to their death is a great little pastime. Try it!

 

[Kildace]

Ok, this interactive cutscene shit is starting to get on my nerves. Either leave it scripted and remove any movement whatsoever, or let me move around as much as I please. This shit with being able to move a few feet in any direction is just fucking dumb.

And for fuck's sake, why would you put a fucking animated piece of cloth there if you are just going to let it clip, clip and clip some more?

This is my least favourite thing about the game, I'm surprised that no one ever mentions it. It's especially frustrating after spending so much time on Mass Effect and seeing how dialogue scenes should be done.

 

[Bildi]

The shadow maps are pretty high res. I don't know what you guys are talking about. It's one of the high points of AC because nearly every other next gen game seems to do it worse.

I noticed some jaggy self-shadowing in some cutscenes (where many filters are applied at once) but the shadow maps are sharp as hell in gameplay itself.

I think the shadows are great. The fact is the camera never gets close enough to a surface for me to be distracted by the jagginess. The fact that they've got everything including little rocks and bushes casting shadows in such a huge gameworld is fantastic.

Oh, and I'd be surprised if this hasn't come up already, but gentle pushing guards to their death is a great little pastime. Try it!

:lol I'll have to try this tomorrow.

I use the map now and then, mainly to keep track of which areas I've searched for flags in. But gradually I'm using it less and less even for that.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

fuck this piece of shit game, I've been trying to pass a part for about 30 mins but it keeps bugging out. I'll wait for a patch.

 

[Frenck]

This is my least favourite thing about the game, I'm surprised that no one ever mentions it. It's especially frustrating after spending so much time on Mass Effect and seeing how dialogue scenes should be done.

ME doesn't show how anything should be done, but thanks anyways. You could've said KotOR or JE too because there isn't really any difference in the dialogue scenes, or wait... you can interrupt people, right? (Or maybe not :lol )

In AC you can zoom in on faces during dialogue when these weird glitches appear, that's enough interactivity for me for an Action Adventure.

 

[JB1981]

:lol :lol :lol

"I wonder if I can stab myself in the back?" *shiv*

:lol

Just saw the glory hole - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Kildace]

ME doesn't show how anything should be done, but thanks anyways. You could've said KotOR or JE too because there isn't really any difference in the dialogue scenes, or wait... you can interrupt people, right? (Or maybe not :lol )

In AC you can zoom in on faces during dialogue when these weird glitches appear, that's enough interactivity for me for an Action Adventure.

Dialogue in Mass effect is better written and the fake interactivity in AC is just annoying. don't give me control over my character if all I can do is slowly walk in a 3 meter square. It's especially annoying since these scenes last for far too long given the little information you actually get. It's overly emphatic and doesn't work for me at all.

I realize how rabid you are over the fact that Assassin's Creed is supposedly better than any other game that came out in November but the game has flaws. It does a lot of things right and the gameplay is for me superior to anything that came out this year (aside from BioShock), but storytelling is not one of its strong points.

 

[Captain N]

Holy crap dude, that sounds so awesome. As much as I'd like to do the same (at the 6th assassination right now), I think I would just be so hopelessly lost it wouldn't even be funny. I'm already pretty bad at my sense of direction... I'd probably never find a single investigation, much less the bureau after an assassination.

How do you find your way around? The cities are way dense and labyrinthine.

No kidding..I turned off everything for the first assassination and I was totally lost. I had a hard time doing it, but I was able to make it though with everything. However you better believe I was pressing select a whole lot.

 

[Neodiablo22]

Spoiler

You can go to the CVG site and get a break down of what all the shit on the walls means. It's not just there for show! You can also read the conference room computer if you have Vidic's pen and the access code to learn more about what the Templars are doing. You can also re-enter the Animus and check out the little attachment where Altair talks about the aftermath. The future stuff is meant to be vague. You're a prisoner. They're not going to sit down and spell it out for you. You gotta put the pieces together. But the pieces are there.

what little attachment?

 

[BlueTsunami]

Also, some anecdotal stuff about the PS3 lockup issues...

I went to Circuit City yesterday, Customer Service. While waiting for the girl to help me out there was another one taking a call from someone who bought AC from CC. She was audibly annoyed at answering the dudes question, apparently it was about AC locking up. The guy on the phone must have thought it was the physical disk itself instead of it being a system wide problem (which is why he called CC, to return the game for another physical copy). She then hung up the phone and stated something along the lines of "I hate repeating myself" in a way that sounded as if shes been taking lots of calls about the lockup issues.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

The shadow maps are pretty high res. I don't know what you guys are talking about. It's one of the high points of AC because nearly every other next gen game seems to do it worse.

I noticed some jaggy self-shadowing in some cutscenes (where many filters are applied at once) but the shadow maps are sharp as hell in gameplay itself.

Maybe I'm noticing it because it does stand out as being poor when compared to certain other games? It's better than some, but in comparison to a specific few it looks pretty bad.

Just had some bug where I just missed a ledge and my dude got stuck in molasses animation all the way down, must have lasted a good half minute.

In AC you can zoom in on faces during dialogue when these weird glitches appear, that's enough interactivity for me for an Action Adventure.

If you want to zoom into those faces, that is. Doesn't exactly hold up to scrutiny. As said, it would have been better if it wasn't interactive at all. Being allowed to make very basic camera changes and move all of three feet in any direction just feels silly.

 

[JB1981]

Can someone tell me where the fuck Arsuf is

 

[zam]

Can someone tell me where the fuck Arsuf is

Ride out into the kingdom and then toward Acre, should show on your map where to go.

The combat system in this game is utter garbage against 4+ opponents

Are you using counter kills and combo kills? Combat against more than 4 playes is really easy, just block and wait for someone to attack, and then do a counter kill. Or, if you don't want to wait for someone to attack and have the timing down, just do a combo kill, quickest way to dispatch enemies in a fight.

 

[VibratingDonkey]

You can play properly without a HUD? Blade counters? Memory log? Is this the secret twist Ubisoft was talking about?

I noticed when reading a walkthrough that I've missed a ton from the lab sections. Is it possible to replay them or do you have to start over? Crap.

 

[UnholySpectacle]

Can someone tell me where the fuck Arsuf is

Go to the Kingdom and it will appear on the map.

EDIT: Super beaten

 

[JB1981]

I think I just finished the game. What the fuck happened?

just checked out this link http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=175552&site=xbw

wow - lots of stuff there to chew on

 

[Paranoid_Robot]

I'm torn between this and Uncharted but when I look at AC there aren't many games I can compare the parkour stuff to, it looks great.

How is the PS3 version of the game? I've read mixed reviews about frame rate but if it plays fine then I'll probably pick this up tomorrow. I've also read issues with freezing

 

[AmericanNinja]

If you've been met with continual freezing while playing Assassin's Creed, never fear because Ubisoft is hard at work on an update to rectify the issue. It seems gamers are experiencing the freezing intermittently and not from the same point in the game.

"Following our recent statement regarding the freeze issues that some consumers are facing with Assassin's Creed on PlayStation 3, we can confirm that we are actively working on a game update," Ubisoft's UK community manager posted on its forums. "This update will help improve the stability of the game and will be released as soon as possible. In the meantime thank you for your ongoing feedback and patience."

It's great that Ubisoft is working on the fix so soon, but it's disappointing at the same time that gamers may have to wait weeks to be able to fully enjoy the game they spent their money on. These type of bugs should have been spotted and fixed long before the game was released to the public. Hopefully, Ubisoft says sorry by throwing us all some free downloadable content in addition to fixing the bug.

Source: http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/11/25/patch-coming-for-assassins-creed-freezing-problems/

 

[Synless]

Yep. Take a look at COD4 for example. A lot of the shadows they use aren't done real time, so they're perfect. Most of the AC stuff is done on the fly and with so much stuff going on it's hard not to notice sometimes.

Didn't one of the dev's for sure CoD4 say all shadows were realtime, I'm sure he did....

 

[Synless]

I'm torn between this and Uncharted but when I look at AC there aren't many games I can compare the parkour stuff to, it looks great.

How is the PS3 version of the game? I've read mixed reviews about frame rate but if it plays fine then I'll probably pick this up tomorrow. I've also read issues with freezing

Its not as bad as everyone says it is, I've had one freeze and the framerate is not horrible.....not great either but it runs better than Mass Effect.

 

[shantyman]

I have a little one at home, and even smaller apartment and so I usually play games with no sound. Will the lack of subtitles kill it for me?

 

[X26]

I wish the end-game was handled better.

When you replay a mission, it'll save everytime you get a flag, kill a tempalr, etc. but if you turn the game off next time you'll have to start from the beginning of a mission againrather than load fro mthe mission you were replaying, meaning having to go through a long cutscene each time when all you want to do is jump around the gameworld and explore

 

[calder]

I have a little one at home, and even smaller apartment and so I usually play games with no sound. Will the lack of subtitles kill it for me?

Yes. I always play games with subtitles when available, and the lack of them here is tough. If you can't turn up the volume to compensate like I did I think it would be very very hard to even play the game, so much info is passed to you verbally you'd have to constantly pause the game to read the summary of your objectives/information etc.

 

[kinn]

Ok, this interactive cutscene shit is starting to get on my nerves. Either leave it scripted and remove any movement whatsoever, or let me move around as much as I please. This shit with being able to move a few feet in any direction is just fucking dumb.

And for fuck's sake, why would you put a fucking animated piece of cloth there if you are just going to let it clip, clip and clip some more?

Agreed on both points.

Now that im replaying bits of the game, its irritating that I cannot resume my game from a chapter in progress and have to start the chapter from the start again. And not being able to skip the cutscenes is a bit annoying.

 

[shantyman]

Yes. I always play games with subtitles when available, and the lack of them here is tough. If you can't turn up the volume to compensate like I did I think it would be very very hard to even play the game, so much info is passed to you verbally you'd have to constantly pause the game to read the summary of your objectives/information etc.

Thanks I'll unfortunately have to hold off.