The Assassin's Creed Series

[stokeriño]

I started playing this yesterday.  

Loading times are above average, but since I continue to judge all games on what I call the 'Wrath of Cortex' scale, not horrendous enough to have annoyed me yet. Not had any bugs either. Since apparently it was effectively unplayable at release (people falling through roofs etc.), they've clearly done a lot to it. Or I am just super lucky.

Also, Arno reminds me of better-spoken version of me when I used to have hair like that, so I can pretend I'm being cool and swish and stuff.  

[Benji]

I started playing this yesterday.  

Loading times are above average, but since I continue to judge all games on what I call the 'Wrath of Cortex' scale, not horrendous enough to have annoyed me yet. Not had any bugs either. Since apparently it was effectively unplayable at release (people falling through roofs etc.), they've clearly done a lot to it. Or I am just super lucky.

Also, Arno reminds me of better-spoken version of me when I used to have hair like that, so I can pretend I'm being cool and swish and stuff.  

They're not "Duke Nukem Forever" bad, but they're pretty atrocious. I quite enjoyed what I played, the negative points just stuck in my craw. I was hoping for more of a mix between using Arno and Elise though rather than just being Arno throughout. It did make me smile though that this one picks up directly from where Rogue ended.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Benji

[apsham]

Keep an eye on Syndicate if you're interested in that Benji, the twin main characters of that game are really well designed so far and switching between them is seamless. I'm having a good time hearing out missions and then choosing the character that I think would fit the mission best.

[Lint]

Most main missions are locked to one or the  other though, and you play as the male twin for about 60% of the game.  I make up for that by using the girl for all the side missions.  It is incredibly fun though

[apsham]

I haven't found an issue with it - most of the side missions I have found were more suited towards her gameplay/character traits either way. Anything that is considered a big story mission usually boils down to "I'mma go kill this guy now, okay?" at least so far for me and that makes sense for the way that Jacob seems to handle things.

[Benji]

I'm going to get that at some point, but considering how inconsistent AC is I'm trying to make sure I get them second hand now since they're annual, and I don't want to support Ubisoft pumping out buggy games even though I enjoy them outside of the issues they tend to have.

[Avenged Probably]

Can we make this a general AC thread and Mark plots and such in spoilers with game and sequence number? A lot seem to be playing the older games atm as well as a few playing the new.

Also I wanna talk about Syndicate but can't be bothered making a new thread!

It's very good. Like the best one yet, it's to Unity what 2 was to 1 and what 4 was to 3.

[Benji]

I'd @Rich to change it but the option isn't working for me.

[stokeriño]

I've renamed the thread accordingly.

[Benji]

You don't put the ass in assassin

[stokeriño]

That's okay, assassin has asses to spare.

[Benji]

Just finished the Lady Liberty mission on AC Unity...

 

... and I'm really not impressed. I'm genuinely contemplating giving up the game with it being so horrendously screwed up still a year after release. It should not play this badly, and this is coming from someone who has fiercely defended the series throughout and actually enjoyed Assassin's Creed III. The controls are awkward and have bad collision detection (especially in comparison to previous games) I've encountered even more bugs, and the loading times make every failure (which happens often due to aforementioned awkward controls) a whole lot more frustrating. Other games could be accused of perhaps being samey or boring, but not broken like this is. Really hope it gets better.

Oh and the combat is shit too.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Benji

[Lint]

Just finished the Lady Liberty mission on AC Unity...

 

Hidden Content

You don't need to spoil that the games a glitchy mess...we all know that.  I gave up on Unity.  I bought it 6 months after it came out, downloaded all the patches for it and in 2 hours it locked my PS4 up 3 times.  And when I mean locked up, I mean having to use the power button on my PS4 itself to reset it, the game and system were totally unresponsive.  AFter that I put it aside and haven't touched it since.  Haven't noticed any huge glitches in AC:S yet.  A few minor graphical ones here and there (synched a viewpoint once and afterwards, Evie was just hovering in midair, but when I did the leap of faith, she snapped back onto the sync point and jumped), and the controls can be  a bit off at times.  Find myself on fences or things and just keep spinning in circles when I try to jump off/down, but its nothing game breaking so far that makes me want to say "fuck this, I'm done"

[9 to 5]

Benji, AC is to your gaming, as giving TNA another try is your wrestling.

[stokeriño]

Combat in Unity has definitely taken several steps backwards from Black Flag. Although I was thinking in Black Flag that it had been boiled down to being ultra-formulaic mechanics, it at least flowed nicely. In Unity they seem to have made it a lot clunkier and even the parry option (do it when their bar flashes yellow) doesn't seem to function as logically as the equivalent was in Black Flag. 

(Also, it seems that enemies' suspicion status is much less clear than it was. When the yellow symbol above their head used to drain away so that you could see how it was progressing, now it seems to shift between darker shades of yellow/orange and I don't really know what's going on.)

Still no real glitches for me as yet, apart from some fiddly camera angles when climbing up certain things. The murder mystery side-missions seem a nice change of pace, and I kind of appreciate how most of the basic side-missions of "stab this guy" have the target literally 30 metres away from your start rather than across the other side of the sodding map like they usually are in AC.

Still steadfastly holding out against trying any of the co-op missions though. I hate those sort of things.

 

[Benji]

One thing that really gets on my tits is the fact that the free running isn't anywhere near as smooth. It was the original selling point of the game, but you're now telling me I can't just jump over a simple bannister in the Assassin's home to get down the stairs quicker? C'mon.

[stokeriño]

I do like the introduction of the 'free-run downwards' (R2 + O) in addition to 'free-run upwards' (R2 + X). Slowly clambering down things where there was no swandive option was always a pain for me in previous games, so just letting him have at it makes the process much quicker.

Arno also seems to have recovered much of the superhuman leaping ability that was (slightly) toned down for Edward...not that I'm complaining about that.  

[Benji]

I'd rather they just added more swandive options than free-run down

[stokeriño]

How many pristine and convenient haystacks can one city justify, though?  

[Benji]

As many as it needs, it's a simulation within a simulation, not the real thing, dagnabit