Gaming Altair You a New One: The Assassin's Creed Series

Let's put it this way: I dropped the game like a bad habit eight hours in. I was bored silly with the AC part of the game and the pirate/naval combat stuff simply didn't grab me. Maybe I didn't give the game a chance and missed some good stuff, but I stand by my decision. Like I said before, this franchise wore out its welcome with me after AC3.

 

AC4 does deserve a fair chance. It's not a bad game. It's just that AC3 sucked so hard that we're not willing to forgive AC4's shortcomings.

 

AC3 was actually my favorite of the series. Best storytelling by far. The gameplay, admittedly, was too many tutorials and not enough freedom which ACIV has in spades.

 

I love Assassin Creed Four Black Flag so much, but the only other Assassin Creed game I played was brotherhood on the DS, so I'm just relishing the fact that it is not an impossible side scroller for a stealth game.

 

Yeah I don't get all the AC3 hate at all. I really enjoyed it. Connor was by far the most decent of all the protagonists, and whilst people were used to three stories of Ezio's OTT Italian flamboyance I think they expected a clone in Connor which I'm glad we didn't get.

But, the lousy French Canadians inserted more anti-British bias into that game than this one...

 

After finishing AC4 I appreciated AC3 even more and now I prefer it over 4 by a mile. The story in 4 did nothing for me aside for the later sequences.

 

As a brit myself, I have to say I've grown to enjoy carving up redcoats.

AC3 and AC4 are very much polar opposites, with the former being much more focused and having a better story, but lacking the open feel of Black Flag. I think there's a real fallacy going around in the gaming industry at the moment that linearity = bad. I don't think everything has to be The Elder Scrolls to be enjoyable.

There are some very legitimate complaints for AC3, but it's exactly what I wanted from an entry in this franchise. And yeah, Ratonhnhake:ton was a much more subtle character in writing, as opposed to both Ezio and Edward, who wear their emotions on their sleeves.

 

Actually, I have to applaud Ubisoft for their handling of the American Revolution as I think it's a stealth parody. It's a game where you play the American Revolution from the perspective of a British aristocrat, a Native American educated by a black man, and a dumb ill-educated American who gets schooled on history by his English buddy.

Compared to how the FF get worshiped elsewhere, I think they took a savaging in 3.

 

Ah, I just went back and played the opening of AC3 again. Love that line about the theatre!

 

Imo, with the possible exception of AC4, AC3 had the weakest narrative in the series' console installments. Connor began as a character with genuine emotion who the audience could get behind. But then the game skips ahead and we're suddenly given this new, unrecognizable Connor who possesses none of the passion or drive of the Connor the game yanked away from us. This new Connor is no longer desperate for revenge but simply eager for people to be his neighbors and build chairs for him to sell along the Oregon Trail (ok, to Boston and New York ).

As for game play, the hatred for AC3 doesn't spawn so much from it not being The Elder Scrolls/GTA/whathaveyou,but rather from it restricting you from playing it as an Assassins Creed game. Scaling rooftops? Forget it. That game is so loaded with armed rooftop sentries that Connor might as well walk around the streets like some mediocre npc than a parkour master, thereby negating one of the series' flagship strengths/appeals. And combat was a huge pain. I could walk into a room full of enemies as either Ezio or Edward and emerge as the clear victor, but I struggled with Connor to defeat any adversary.

 

Clearly you didn't hear Ratonhnhake:ton (yes, I call him by his birth name ) uttering Charles Lee's name every sequence. He really wanted to kill him.

He has passion and drive, huge amounts of it. He wishes all people to free, and not just the white men that the founding fathers' vision supports. Not only does he build a homestead, and clearly make strong bonds of friendship with the whole community, he's fighting for his village, which seems to constantly be under attack by both Templars and the patriots.

What skip are you referring to? The one from 4 years old to 13 years old? Because most people change in that time period quite dramatically. I agree that there were too many rooftop sentries, though you could just avoid the "rooftop boxes" of 4 guards and stab the occasional lone sentry.

I hate to pull the "you suck" card, but you can never be hit in AC3, just like in all the other games. The game simply throws more enemies at you than other entries. If you learn when to counter, you will never take damage. Case in point: the attack on the village in The Infamy. That memory throws roughly 40 enemies at you at once, and you can make it through unscathed.

 

Yeah, also, it's kind of a major POINT of Connor that he's not Ezio. Revenge is something he puts aside as he believes in America more than he believes in revenge against Washington. Which, honestly, I suspect a lot of players didn't agree with.

Also, bluntly, I think AC4 and AC3 had the strongest narratives.

 

While I don't dislike AC3's story, I feel that there were large gaps in the narrative at certain points (when did Connor become such good friends with Marquis de Lafayette?), as well as events and characters that really should have been in the game (Crossing of the Delaware + Battle of Trenton, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben at Valley Forge). My main issues with the game were strictly technical though, as I ran into more bugs than on a trip to the Amazon.

For everybody who's played Freedom Cry did you notice

Spoiler

the box that Adewale gave to Bastienne looks exactly like the one Ezio gave to Shao Jun? I think that might the "hint" to where the next main game will be that the developers said was in the DLC.

Out of curiosity, how many people here are following the Surveillance updates on Initiates? The current Japan storyline has been very interesting in showing how the modern day Assassins are forced to operate.

 

I've been checking in every day lately, for the Surveillance updates if nothing else. Everything with Gavin, the Altair II crew, and Osaka has been excellent.

 

Ok so which one do y'all recommend...Liberation or Freedom Cry as far as DLC goes, which one is the better one? Freedom Cry is 9.99 and Liberation is 19.99 coming out on the 360 soon.

 

Liberation is not DLC, but rather a Vita port, essentially it is a full game.

Liberation tells the story of Aveline de Grandpre, but it being a portable game has had adverse effects. It's narrative tends to jump around randomly and doesn't provide enough detail where it should. Relationships don't develop naturally. It's a much more classic design of AC, with Aveline having three different outfits - Assassin, Lady and Slave. The Lady can't do any freerunning which is annoying as hell. It'll run you around 12 hours.

Freedom Cry tells the story of Adewale's later adventures, and it packs a punch in regards to the slave angle. The penultimate mission is perhaps the most emotional the series has ever had. In terms of gameplay, think AC4-lite. There are new locations to explore in the West Indies but not as many things to collect on each. Once again, your ship needs upgrading, but enemy ships carry much higher quantities of metal and wood (up to 300 a ship), so it's much less grindy. The city of Port-Au-Prince is great, and has a very different feel to the existing cities, Havana, Nassau and Kingston. Adewale's fighting style is brutal, and very satisfying. Blowing away five guards in one shot with the blunderbuss does not get old. It'll run you between 5-6 hours.

Keep in mind that Liberation HD is yet unreleased, and so may contain significant upgrades from the Vita version. Until that becomes apparent, I'd go with Freedom Cry. Not only is it cheaper, but it has the better story and a higher quality of gameplay overall, though there are still some eavesdrop/tail missions.

 

I didn't have same trouble with the narrative, but I do think there was something seriously lacking with the relationship structure. Aveline was a great new character, but she didn't have enough time to play off of other good characters the way previous Assassins had, and Agate felt severely lacking in the depth required to really get invested in his own storyline. But part of that, I think, is the whole concept of being an actual Abstergo-made game with the history being deliberately edited and distorted to frame the Assassins as mindless, unstable, and villainous. Hopefully, in addition to Liberation HD's promise of expanded content and a good deal of gameplay tweaks, they'll remove that aspect and just let the full storyline unfold like every other Assassin's Creed game.

 

Mia Mesharad I agree that the actual character of Aveline was interesting and nuanced, but as you said, the game doesn't give enough opportunities for that to show. And what was great was that she felt like a natural character, considering how much they hyped having a female Assassin lead, she didn't feel like she was created to fit certain criteria.

The Abstergo-created propaganda was really interesting to me but I felt they did it backwards. As is, you play through the edited version and then unlock the real version. Rather, it would have been better to first play through the true events, and then have the edited memories as unlockables for the more enthusiastic of the present-day plotline.

We know we're getting 15 additional missions, so I'm waiting to see whether they're just side missions, irrelevant to the main story, or whether they actually enhance the narrative being told. Obviously I'm hoping for the latter.

 

Ok so I bought Freedom Cry and I'm liking it so far. The soundtrack is top notch, but then, this is an AC game after all.

 

The music is always good especially AC II

 

The freedom in 4 makes up for it's lack of storytelling, while I think 3 was a little two focused on adopting new players to the franchise.

 

I just finished Assassin's Creed 4. I have to say, the ending put a smile to my face. I do, however, wish that the emotion and the storytelling strength of the last half of the game had reached into the middle. The start of the game was fun and exciting. The middle started getting stagnant and stale (eavesdropping and following missions alongside constant naval battles without much narrative). Then, suddenly, here come the last few chapters and WHAM! Character growth, tragedy, and a gripping narrative!

It's really a shame that the power of these last few chapters weren't similarly present in the middle of the game. But overall, I enjoyed the game as a whole. Yes, it could have been better had it exercised some more creativity when it came to Assassin's Creed missions, and if a compelling narrative had permeated the entirety of the game instead of just the start and the end. But I still found it to be much more enjoyable than AC3. Edward definitely grows on you as he goes from loathsome scoundrel to respectable warrior(/hero?).

 

This exactly. Honestly I found the end of the game to be pretty abrupt. I realized things were wrapping up, but when it started rolling credits I was caught off guard for some reason.

I purchased the novelization a couple of days ago, I'm looking forward to reading it. After enjoying Ezio so much and being kinda let down by Connor, I liked Kenway quite a bit.

 

I wish they had someone that wasn't Oliver Bowden writing the novelizations. His prose is horrendous to read. I just read the original material either on the AC wiki or in the encyclopedia. With all the different time periods and characters to tell stories about, I wish they'd write some original novels too. That would be a medium where we could get the rest of Ratonhnhake:ton's life, or a tale with more modern day plot than the games would allow.

In regards to the middle of the games:

Spoiler

That includes the fall of Nassau and breaking it's blockade. Thatch's death. The betrayal of Calico Jack and LOST with Charles Vane. I didn't feel bored in the middle at all.