The Assassin's Creed Topic - Vive les assassins! Vive la France!

[Speederino]

Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent. Hide in plain sight. Never compromise the Brotherhood. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Assassin’s Creed is a relatively new gaming franchise developed by Ubisoft. It’s only been around for five years and already it has five main games, four handheld spin-offs, three short movies, several comic books, a few novels (though it seems the majority of the fanbase likes to pretend those didn’t happen) and even a major motion picture in the works. Obviously it has gained notable popularity and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

The gameplay combines various elements of action, platforming, and stealth. Think an open-world Prince of Persia where you blend with crowds and hide in haystacks, and you’ve pretty much got it. What makes this series so fascinating though is that it takes place in various points of history starting from the Crusades all the way to the modern day. The plot centers around a millennia-old conflict between the Assassin’s and Templars, two organizations that in reality have been disbanded for centuries, but the series pretends they live on in the shadows, manipulating world events from behind the scenes. The Templars want a new world order, to control the human race through any means necessary, whether it be through nefarious political maneuvers or using highly advanced technology left behind by an extinct precursor race (long story). The Assassin’s, valuing freedom above all else, are the Templar’s main enemies and the technical good guys of the franchise, though the story loves to present both sides in equal shades of grey, sometimes even making the player feel sympathetic towards the Templar’s motivations. Sometimes. All the games are linked by an overarching story taking place in the present, with a modern day Assassin named Desmond Miles reliving his ancestors lives through a machine called the Animus, looking for clues to help put an end to the now-winning Templars and stop an even bigger threat to the world that doesn’t present itself until the end of the second game..

While I could spend the next 50 hours talking about every piece of material from this series, for the sake of this post I’m just going to talk about the main five games of the series, and perhaps some of the portable spin-offs somewhere down the line.

Released in 2007, Assassin’s Creed follows Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a high-ranking Assassin living in the Holy Land during the Third Crusades. Highly narcissistic and arrogant, Altaïr blunders an important mission and is demoted to novice-status as a result. To regain his honor, he is asked to assassinate nine targets throughout the Holy Land and, hopefully, gain some humility. The game takes players across Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre, tracking targets by doing things like eavesdropping on guards, pickpocketing documents, interrogating town criers, or completing missions for other Assassin’s. The game introduces us to the core gameplay mechanics of free-running across rooftops and blending with the crowd to hide from guards. The game was very successful, selling extremely well and garnering an overall positive critical reception, but not without some major criticisms. Many said it was too repetitive, the AI was terrible, there were huge collecta-thon-side quests that offered no rewards whatsoever, and that the combat was clunky and too reliant on spam attacks.

Honestly, yeah, I can see where they're coming from. Whenever I go back and play it now, it does take time for me to really warm up to it. The entire game is structured like so: go to Assassin’s Bureau in your city of choice, climb towers to synchronize the map, save citizens from guards, and do a bunch of easy, menial missions. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good game and I absolutely adored it when it came out, but it’s already showing its age. Not because the hardware is outdated or anything like that, it’s just that future games took the groundwork set by this game and did it much better. Games like…

Assassins Creed 2, released in 2009, jumps ahead a few hundred years to Renaissance Italy, where the rich and carefree Ezio Auditore da Firenze spends his teenage years chasing women and running across rooftops for sport. After his father and brothers are all murdered, he learns that his father was secretly an Assassin. Ezio takes up the mantle, pursuing his killers all throughout Italy, taking him to Florence, Venice, Rome, and various other cities. This is a rare and shining example of a sequel done completely right. Ubisoft clearly listened to all of the criticisms directed towards the first game, because AC2 fixes just about every major problem and then some. Missions are now more rigidly structured and have way more variety, the combat has been simplified and new enemy types mean you can’t keep spamming counter attacks. The AI has been greatly improved, now investigating any hiding spots you might be hiding in. On top of these improvements, you now have access to several new assassination techniques and weapons, including poison, smoke bombs, and much more. It’s also the first AC game to feature money and an economic system, where you gain money by renovating your town/base area and spend it on new weapons, armor, and even new colors for your robes. AC2 is where the franchise found its true footing, even managing to win over players that didn’t like the first game. Even now, this remains my personal favorite of the series and one of my overall favorite games of this console generation for its many innovations and gripping storyline.

Many fans were surprised when Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood a mere year after AC2, and that it was remaining with Ezio in Renaissance Italy instead of giving them a new time period like they were expecting. But what they also weren’t expecting was for the game to actually be a full blown-sequel, with new brand new gameplay elements and significant plot development for Desmond. While the gameplay is more or less the same as AC2’s, it offers two significant changes. The combat system has been heavily altered, feeling familiar but finally silencing those that still didn’t like the combat in AC2 by introducing kill streaks. Now whenever you kill a guard, you can instantly kill another nearby guard so long as you don’t miss or get hit, enabling the player to achieve several kills in mere seconds. The other big addition is the recruit system, and is where the game’s title originates. You can now recruit people into the Assassin Brotherhood for a total of twelve, and once you have them you can call on them to assassinate targets or send them on missions across Europe to gain experience and gold. However, the story is nowhere near as interesting this time around. The entire game takes place in Rome, where Ezio needs to rebuild the diminished Assassin Order and put an end to the tyrannical rule of the Borgia’s. That’s about it, really. It's not bad, but it's not particularly memorable, either.

But oh wait, there is one more huge innovation to come out of Brotherhood, something that has become a mainstay ever since: multiplayer. I think many of us were extremely surprised at this announcement, because how the hell do you make competitive multiplayer out of stealth and platforming? But by god, they did it. Players have to hunt each other by taking their time and blending with crowds and acting like an NPC (all NPC’s are duplicates of the player models, meaning you can hide among NPC’s that are indistinguishable from you), all while keeping an eye out for anyone hunting YOU by observing the behavior of the people around you. For example, if someone is fast walking in your general direction, that’s probably not an NPC. And if they’re running across rooftops and stumbling through crowds, they’re definitely not NPC’s. The catch is, stealthy kills garner way more points, which actively punishes those who are more used to the run & gun mechanics of most other multiplayer games. AC’s multiplayer is the only one I play on a regular basis, having even managed to win over a multiplayer-naysayer like me. All subsequent console AC games have this, though the changes pretty much amount to new modes and abilities, so it’s not really worth delving into from here on out.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, released in late 2011, once again gives us Ezio but also jumps around through time to close up Altaïr’s story from the first game. This time Ezio is in Constantinople looking for keys that will unlock a door locked up by Altaïr centuries ago. Unfortunately, I think it’s quite telling that the game is only a year old and that’s all I can remember. There was some kind of Templar political maneuvers going on in Constantinople that Ezio was up against, but I seriously don’t remember any of it. While it’s nice to finally see more of Altaïr, Ezio’s story is completely forgettable, and nothing really happens for Desmond either.

And the gameplay didn’t really do anything new either. Sure there were a few new features like a (completely useless) hook-blade, bomb crafting (also useless because only two or three types of bombs are worth crafting) and a tower-defense mini-game that many felt was too difficult and unfitting for the series. I actually rather liked that mechanic, but still, absolutely none of this returns in the next game. While I still had a lot of fun playing the game, this is the one time where it kind of feels like Ubisoft just wanted a quick cash-in. By no means am I calling it a bad game, just that it didn’t really do anything to differentiate itself or improve on the Assassin’s Creed formula, making it rather forgettable in my opinion.

And finally, we have Assassin’s Creed 3, the most recent game in the series. Finally jumping ahead to colonial America and the Revolutionary War, the new protagonist is Rahada Rahadadadadoken Rahzalghul Connor Kenway, a Native American who joins the Assassin’s so he can learn how to defend his people from the encroaching settlers, and how to best fight the Templars that killed his mother. Along the way he gets swept up into just about every major event of the war and meets figures like George Washington, Sam Adams, and Ben Franklin. There are finally several new additions to the gameplay, making AC3 really stand out. Because colonial America lacks the large urban cities of previous settings, Connor can now free run through the trees of a gigantic frontier area, hunting wild animals and single-handedly liberating redcoat-occupied Forts, or even just hang out in a tavern and play a board game.We also of course have new weapons, and the recruit system has been heavily expanded upon to give them more usage aside from being extra blades (like using them to set ambushes, or to disguise themselves as guards so you can be "escorted" through restricted areas) Connor is also the captain of his own ship, and oh my god, these naval segments are good. Really, really good. It is the most fun and realistic ship simulator I have ever seen, where you must pilot your ship through rogue winds, stormy seas, and fire cannons at opposing ships. While they do have a high learning curve, I promise that any who take the time to get through it will find some of the best high sea adventures this side of Wind Waker. Since a simple description can’t possibly do these segments justice, check out this gameplay video.

While I don’t consider AC3 to be the best in the series, it is still a great game and offers the best open-world experience of any AC game to date.

Alright, so now that I just gushed for three entire pages of texts (Yes, really. Thank you very much for reading all of this if you did) it’s your turn. Favorite games, favorite protagonists, favorite spin-off title? Whatever you want, let’s talk. However, since there is an already existing thread for Assassin’s Creed 3, I ask that all discussion pertaining to just that game alone And remember: nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Speederino

[Nintendoga]

Fuck AC3's ending, pissed me off.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Mike Dawson

[Patticus]

Fuck AC3's ending, pissed me off.

First: Wrong thread.

Second: Spoilers go in spoiler boxes. If you're going to elucidate on the ending of AC3 and why you don't like it, do it in the proper manner in the proper thread, please.

[KHCast]

Assassins Creed 3's soundtrack was probably my favorite out of the franchise. Revelations is my favorite gameplay wise. Combines a bit of everything I liked from past games.

[Red]

I'm a new fan to this series! I first started with AC 3 which I enjoyed quite a lot. It's such a fantastic game. I then picked up Bloodlines for the PSP, which I also enjoyed but not as much as AC 3. I then decided to start AC 2 and it's a pretty good game!

What I like about this series is that it's very easy to pick up and play, it's not too hard for beginners. I like that. I was very worried it was one of those games that only caters to veterans, but It proved me wrong.

I'm contemplating on picking up the DS games to try them out, but it's gonna be pretty weird without voice acting. I really want to play Liberation, but lack a Vita.

Overall this is a great series, and I look foward to see what AC 4 brings in a few years!

[Speederino]

I'm contemplating on picking up the DS games to try them out, but it's gonna be pretty weird without voice acting. I really want to play Liberation, but lack a Vita.

Discovery has full voice acting, and is a pretty good game to boot. Altair's Chronicles is...Alatair's Chronicles.Very mediocre, I think. It tries to be a handheld Prince of Persia, but the controls and pointless mini-games really bring it down. It also just doesn't really feel like Assassin's Creed. Sure there's lots of parkour, but there's pretty much no stealth whatsoever except for two levels towards the end.

[Eternal EX]

The level of awesome you just gained by making a General AC topic is crazy. I could kiss you right now. No seriously I would. This has to be one of my favorite topics of the year. Well next to the Halo topic.

Anyways Speederino basically nailed all of the main games. The one thing he missed was how amazing the ending of ACR (Revelations) was. By gosh that was beautiful. It was tough to see Ezio and Altair go like that. Especially if you gained a connection to one of the two. And the stuff Ezio said in his final scene. I seriously broke into tears. Roger Smith hit that on point. This says alot when compared to the mega house Arkham City. That ending was perfect in absolutely everyway possible. Damn you joker. Dying while laughing.

ACB and AC1 are the weakest in the series to me only because of the story and how long it took me to get into AC1. They both are still good games, don't get me wrong. They just don't stand up to AC2, ACR and AC3. And as much as I praised AC3 in my review that is left in the other topic, Assassin's Creed 2 is still my favorite game of the series. Hell it's one of my favorites of this current generation. Like Speederino said, its the perfect example of a sequel done right. Heck I think Sega could learn few tricks from that. The only problem I had with this series was the annual release thing they did right after AC2. I do understand that they were trying to set up AC3 by doing it and also meet the 2012 deadline the game takes place in, but eh. I'm not a fan of annual games. I don't have a problem if it takes 2 years for a sequel of some sort to show up. Sure. I'm okay with that. But not, 2009 AC2, 2010 ACB, 2011 ACR and then AC3 2012.

Another thing I love about this series is how they do the cliffhanger endings. It makes the players wonder....whats next? Just like how Ac1-ACR did. After beating each of those games I was wanting more. MORE....screaming FEED ME MORE! The urge to see what was next started to kill me. (not literal)

Heck, even Assassin's Creed 3 has a cliffhanger ending. Which I like. It makes me wonder, what are going to do next with the franchise since Desmond is dead and the world ended (restarted)

[Speederino]

Heck, even Assassin's Creed 3 has a cliffhanger ending. Which I like. It makes me wonder, what are going to do next with the franchise since Desmond is dead and the world ended (restarted)

The world is fine, that was the entire reason he chose to release Juno. She created some kind of force field that shielded the planet (this is actually really vague and poorly explained, IMO), but as a trade-off she is now going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! Until someone inevitably stabs her in the holographic face, anyways.

And actually, you know what? You're definitely right about Revelations having a really good ending, but there actually is one other part I remember. Something so good, so mind-bendingly awesome that I'm surprised it hasn't become a meme.

Ladies, gentlemen, I present to you Ezio Auditore da Firenze...master minstrel.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Speederino

[Crash]

I love this series so much! It's story is my favourite part I could go on about it but I'll save some time by saying, Outstanding (Also, AC3's ending was mind-blowing!)

Edited November 24, 2012 by - Crash -

[iDEATH]

The story in the AC series is phenomenal, the way it is dripped so slowly across the games is really quite a ballsy move,good to see such incredible story telling.

However, the first game is fucking terrible. Seriously it's atrocious. I very nearly never played another game in the series after playing through it. It's just so boring, nothing more than fetch quests and incredibly boring missions before getting to an assassination mission, all f which seemed so awkward that it was impossible to assassinate any of your targets stealthily.

It also suffered that game trope of stripping the hero of all his weapons at the start and him having to re-learn techniques. This isn't the worst thing in the world but Altair forgets how to grab buildings when he jumps....i mean....seriously?

Also, am I the only one who thinks the series is getting a little frustrating with it's titles? I mean, AC3 is what?...the 8th game in the series

Edited November 22, 2012 by Jake Bird

[Speederino]

Fun fact: Assassin's Creed was originally conceived as a Prince of Persia spinoff titled Prince of Persia: Assassins. I was going to embed some beta footage, but unfortunately the user has taken it down and it doesn't seem to exist anywhere else on Youtube. But you can find a lot more info on what could have been at this link.

[Crash]

I'm very happy that it didn't become a Prince Of Persia game. From what I played of one of the games in the series, it was terrible!

[Eternal EX]

I'm very happy that it didn't become a Prince Of Persia game. From what I played of one of the games in the series, it was terrible!

Prince of Persia use to be a great franchise. Heck I thought the game they released in 2008 with the cel shaded like visuals were great. I mean sure the combat was pretty blah but the platforming/adventure style worked great. Sucks that it seems like Assassin's Creed replaced POP. I'll miss that series.

[Speederino]

Eh. Don't get me wrong, PoP was/is a great franchise and the last-gen trilogy is one of the finest gaming experiences you can possibly find, but I honestly think Assassin's Creed does everything PoP did and more. To me AC pretty much is the modern successor to the franchise.

Edited November 23, 2012 by Speederino

[Crash]

So, I've been playing AC3 quite a fair bit. Honestly, some of these optional objectives are so hard that 100% seems like an impossible feat. I mean a Silver trophy for doing all of them, my god that's not worth it.

[Speederino]

So, I've been playing AC3 quite a fair bit. Honestly, some of these optional objectives are so hard that 100% seems like an impossible feat. I mean a Silver trophy for doing all of them, my god that's not worth it.

I'm playing through Brotherhood right now, and am reminded of how optional objectives can work much better. It gives you one optional objective per mission, and only *one*. And it's not usually anything restrictive or particularly hard, it's just "Don't lose x amount of health" and "complete task y in under three minutes." They are NOT three or four contradictory objectives that force you into a specific play-style with a ton of trial & error. They got it right the first time, and I really hope Ubisoft realizes this by the time the next game rolls around.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Speederino

[Blue Blood]

I don't know what you guys are on about. I loved air assassinating 72 grenadiers using only smoke bombs while simultaneously creating a low calorie cure for polio.

Bleugh. AC3 really sucked. I've played through Borhterhood and AC2 since beating it, and still love them just as much now as I did before. Though Brotherhood really did have far too much open and empty space across Rome and it was made way too easy with the economic system and recruits.

I also played a bit of the original. It's still fun, but being unable to skip those long cutscenes with Al Mualim at the start of each chapter gets old real fast. And then drudging through the Kingdom was a nightmare. Who thought it was a good idea to make the largest area of the game completely devoid of landmarks, and force you to walk through it at a snails pace lest you get stormed by enemies? It gets infinitely better once you can bypass the Kingdom entirely.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Blue Blood

[iDEATH]

[Speederino]

I also played a bit of the original. It's still fun, but being unable to skip those long cutscenes with Al Mualim at the start of each chapter gets old real fast. And then drudging through the Kingdom was a nightmare. Who thought it was a good idea to make the largest area of the game completely devoid of landmarks, and force you to walk through it at a snails pace lest you get stormed by enemies? It gets infinitely better once you can bypass the Kingdom entirely.

What annoys me more than anything is rescuing civilians, specifically the conversations you get locked into after each one of them. "Oh thank God, you saved me! Thank you so much! I'm going to go home and treasure every moment of life and live each moment to the fullest. Then I'll tell everyone I know about it and they will know how to be heroes. You have done me a kindness, and I won't forget it as I go home and think about -" SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!!!!!

And some of those earlier districts have like twelve of these. Twelve! If I could just skip these stupid little monologues I wouldn't care so much, really.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Speederino

[Speederino]

As I play through Brotherhood, I'm really surprised at how much Italian I'm suddenly able to understand without subtitles.

EDIT: *facepalm* Oh hai other post I could have just edited. This seems to be a recurring thing with me.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Speederino

[Stacy]

So, I've been playing AC3 quite a fair bit. Honestly, some of these optional objectives are so hard that 100% seems like an impossible feat. I mean a Silver trophy for doing all of them, my god that's not worth it.

As I have said in the AC3 topic I hate the optional objects they are such a fun killer they stop it from being Assassin's Creed more like "ASS" Creed because that is what you say on the 10th go at doing a optional object.

Edited November 27, 2012 by BW199148

[Crash]

I actually think that the thing in Revelations that let's you see where guards go would be more useful in AC3.

Edited November 28, 2012 by - Crash -

[TheOcelot]

Having played AC3 and been thoroughly disappointed with that game, I decided to replay all the previous PS3 games. I completed AC1 a few days ago, and today I completed AC2. I didn't bother collecting everything (100%ing) both games, because it takes like forever. I got most things in AC2, because well it's enjoyable and doesn't drag like the first game.

So I am to about to start AC Brotherhood. When I loaded it up, the system installed the 2.03 (latest) version. When the latest version is installed, does that cause all of the previously downloaded DLC content to be removed? I ask this because I am currently re-installing the two single player DLC packs in Brotherhood which takes ages, and I had already installed this DLC years ago when I first got the game. I also had to re-install the DLC packs for AC2 when it loaded the latest system version.

I will be giving my thoughts on AC1, AC2 & ACB on this thread in the near future.

Edited November 28, 2012 by NightwingKnux

[Speederino]

Your DLC should be fine, Nightwing, and if for some reason it does uninstall you can simply re-download it for free from the Playstation Store.

[TheOcelot]

and if for some reason it does uninstall you can simply re-download it for free from the Playstation Store.

Which is what I am doing at the moment.

Interestingly enough, I could not find the 'Sequence 13 DLC' for AC2 on the PS Store, so I viewed all my previous downloaded titles, found the Sequence 13 DLC and downloaded it.

Edited November 28, 2012 by NightwingKnux