Assassin's Creed

1 more thing: there is slightly more horse-riding, which has been slightly improved, and you can ride horses in town. esp after RDR all horses are awful so this is kind of a negative

slightly more horse-riding

nooooooooooooo

only one segment so far where it was part of the action. there are a few spots where you kind of trot along while machiavelli talks to you

one plus side of more horsey shit is that the guards sometimes ride them and it's pretty terrifying! i can't think of a game with sword fighting where you face down a mounted attacker, which i think was kind of big deal at the time.

I have no time for these games anymore. If I wanted to put on a dress and walk around a big crowd groping people i'd go to the Santa Claus parade.

just ordered AC 2 game of the year from the UK; hoping it'll play on my USA 360 (net seems to suggest it will)

should get to Brotherhood by the time it drops in price, by which time sadly the multi'll be dead.

haven't touched the multi. don't know if i want to

you should. it's all i played and it's awesome

really loving the multi, but on the PS3 game matching is plain broken.

however its nice to have a multiplayer game thats got a bit more going on upstairs.

what with the climbing and all, rite

love poisoning a guard and then throwing coins at his feet

lol i'll have to try that

i'm super ocd about this right now

I think I'm nearly finished (just at the end of sequence 11.) I do like the game but it has its issues: the map screen runs at 15fps, it's too easy to decrease your wanted level, and chiefly the boss assassination missions always seem to end up in a massive melee. if the boss does manage to get away he just runs in a loop until you catch up and assassinate him.

there's little need for actual guile when fighting the bosses. in fact, there's little opportunity for it anyway. you can sit and analyse the guard patterns and still be seen w/in seconds. mostly you just weigh in and then mash punch until the guards are dead and the sequence complete

would love for AC to have some of the /sophistication/ of the hitman games when it comes to multiple routes to the finish. would also love a ninja game in the engine, with more sophisticated stealth

yeah the stealth/hiding element is the most game-y and uninvolving.

it would really help if you weren't dressed like a fruitcake. then you wouldn't have to visualize 'blending into a crowd' with some flashy color changing business. it would just look like you're blending into a crowd. just sayin.

that said i'm totally loving this

Just got a used copy this morning. ACII was my game of the year last year so I am very happy to have this in my hands.

(I was talking about ACII just for ref, dunno if those issues have been addressed in AC:B)

naw ACB is basically the same. it's the same engine just with a lot more added to the mission and story elements. about the only thing that's different-different is kill-chaining in combat. that and... more horses.

the more i think baout this game the more i think it needed a disguise mechanic as a core element.

Is this available for PC? I have the first one, found it pretty but a bit repetitive.

not yet i don't think. brotherhood, that is.

AC2 is

I guess I'll pick up AC2, then! Totally bored w/UT now, I've been looking for something new to play for a while....

11 years? ;)

ok the conspiracy puzzle things are just kind of lame this time around. in 2 i thought they were a little too dan brown-y instead of umberto eco-y. in ACB they're more counterpunch dot org-y instead of dan brown-y :/

people have been going at some of the extraneous puzzles in the glyph segments

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/996093-assassins-creed-brotherhood/57218904

spoilers obv, but i was never going to do them and they're all pretty clever

also kinda funny watching gamefaqs dudes go to wiki to find out who kissinger and pinochet are

I got Brotherhood for Christmas, now I have to get my arse into gear and finish AC2. Good couple of hours in today but half of it was fucking around finding random shit without advancing the story.

I was still climbing around Renaissance Italy at 3a.m. :(

Same here, for me AC2 has essentially become a Tuscan Villa refurbishment sim, and when I get really bored, I go and do a story mission.
I think the reason I dont tire of it like other sandbox games is the lack of traffic lights.

After AC2, GTA seems really hemmed in with the grid structure of the roads & no crazy leaps into straw.

Up til 3:45 this morning playing Brotherhood, despite the fact that it was annoying me just as much as it gave me pleasure. There's way too much trial-and-error in the gameplay, and it gets repetitive - not enough innovation between AC2 and this. I'm almost playing it for the story; I kept finding myself longing for a 'skip this level and just gimme the effing cutscene' button.

Are there any more assassin whore nun characters in AC:B?

DETECTED

DESYNCHRONIZED

motherfucker

I will be amazed if they don't make a level out of this for the "present day" part of the next game:

http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=58 (link via Wonkette for some reason)

another one of these. i'm in!

Fuck yeah!

http://i.imgur.com/OAhqA.jpg

can't wait to play as ezio redcorn

dammit, i wanted the french revolution. bigger cities to run about in.

Will he climb trees instead of buildings?

according to these screens, yes he will climb trees.

http://imgur.com/a/3NNkQ

kinda disappointed with this setting I gotta say

dollars to doughnuts they go future style for the next one
surprised there was no french revolution tho

French Revolution, Victorian England, 1920s Chicago, 1940s Los Angeles, the shit writes itself

i've always been impressed with their concepts. not so much the execution (pun!).

Haha wow hadn't seen vigilantcitizen before. It is amazing.

bought assassins creed 1 at gamestop and should've heeded the chubby guy's warning that this game sorta sucks (i told him i hated playing anything w/ even the worst story at any point from the beginning and he countered by telling me i should just watch a let's play.)

thing's i dislike:

- why is there an entire button devoted to blending in w/ monks/scholars? why is that button the "x" button?

- the whole idea of PRESS X TO BLEND IN just jiffs me. i had never watched any gameplay videos or read any reviews so i was really hoping the sneaking aspect of the game would be more subtle. maybe wait in line for groceries? pretend to be talking to someone? pretend to be a street performer? pretend to sell oranges? pull your fucking mysterious and hyperstylized hood down? instead it's "HIDE IN HAYSTACK UNTIL THINGS STOP BEEPING"

- the fact that guards automatically want to kill you just for running a horse is so much bullshit. also, the fact that they're all as equally great as parkour as you are adds less to tense action and more to fact that i'm having a hard time believing this is happening, and more of a hard time that all i have to do is hop into a little hut in order to disappear

- the cut scenes are likely the worst i've ever experienced. the game gives you the most boring angle possible - that is, 23 feet away - but then gives you option you press a button to change those angles based on whether north or south is more flattering. i wasn't even really sure of the intent of this - i think dudes were watching too much CACHE (HIDDEN) before making this and totally engaged w/ the idea of a narrative through a security camera lens.

anyway - thankfully got this used so i can return it in 4 or more days and hopefully find AC2 a better experience.

yikes. i'm thinking about getting into this series, but there's so many games in it now. i'm tempted to just start fresh with the third one but there's so much backstory now? is it a generous consensus that the first one(s) aren't worth going back to play now?

You can skip the first game - it's gameplay isn't as good and the important bits of it's plot get recapped in AC2. Ezio is a way more likeable protagonist that Altair.

First one is cool only for the time period and location; the game play is mostly bullshit and repetitive.

The second is good to great; best locales, hugely improved gameplay.

the third one (ACII: Brotherhood) improves the gameplay even more, but Rome is no Florence/Venice.

the fourth is a fucking travesty, with bullshit first person tetris/portal sections (thankfully optional) and tower-defense crap (one non-optional, other's avoidable through some running around like a nutjob). But it ends the storylines for the featured characters of the first two games which makes it important story-wise. I feel dirty for having finished it though - should have just watched youtubes and read a summary.

In short, ACII and it's first sequel are good to great games. Skip the other two, unless you want to climb around the holy land and Istanbul.

thing #1 gets elided in the future games. you get big context messages on the screen telling you what button you can push to blend in. the different modes of stealth get reduced to "hold x to run, hold r2 and x to run fast".

thing #2 is a constant problem for the series. and combat is so easy that there's little reason not to just go apeshit everywhere.

things #3 and #4 get fixed.

ok, maybe i'll skip ahead to AC2

the thing i don't get is "brotherhood" and "revelations". what are these? i'm assuming AC3 is an actual continuation of the overall plot of the assassins creed story, whereas b'hood and revs something akin to bigger-than-DLC-but-not-big-enough-to-warrant-a-numerical-sequel?