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

I believe Oliver Bowden is a pseudonym, he's the fictional character that's in charge of Abstergo Entertainment in Black Flag. But from what I can tell the books are all still written by the same author, Anton Gill.

I know there's adaptions of Brotherhood, Revelations and Black Flag but I believe there's an original story for Altiar, Ezio and Connor as well.

Edit: Forsaken, Renaissance and The Secret Crusade. They may borrow some from their respective games it looks like.

 

Olivier Garneau and Oliver Bowden are not the same person. Garneau was all over "interactive experiences", I don't think he'd be into novels. There's adaptations of II, III (from Haytham's perspective) and The Secret Crusade covers the original game, Bloodlines and Altair's Revelations memories.

 

Duur my bad. I was just going off Olivier. I definitely want to get into these though.

 

The graphic novels aren't too bad either if that interests you.

 

I downloaded a sample of the Assassin's Creed 2 novelization to my Nook. It was awful. The writing is just so...blah.

 

Yeah, the novels just...aren't very great at all. Firstly, they seem to be based on more early scripts, so there's often a degree of divergence between the novel and the game, which ranges from minor details to "Wait, this is not how it happened." Several of the books contradict each other, from relatively small points like Claudia retiring from the Assassins in Brotherhood only to still be a leading member of the hierarchy in Revelations, to the now semi-infamous Rodrigo suicide at the end of the AC2 novel Renaissance. Bowden also makes some odd choices with characterizations: his Ezio tends to have more of an edge, but prone to odd swings of sudden emotion, while he strained the limits of credibility to make Haytham still appear to be the good guy long after Assassin's Creed III had already shown that veneer to be flaking away, making him appear borderline delusional.

That said, they do add a fair amount of interesting lore information to canon. Brotherhood features a number of cool scenes between Ezio and the new Pope Julius, as well as the search for Cesare with Machiavelli that the Animus deigned to skip over. Revelations details Ezio's original journey to Masyaf, as well as everything that took place between the end of the game and the start of the Embers short film, and fills in a lot of interesting side info about everything that took place during the game. Forsaken tells the end of Edward's life as well as Haytham's fall, and Black Flag does a pretty good job showing the life Edward had before becoming a pirate. The one I do recommend wholeheartedly, however, is The Secret Crusade, which managed to tell a pretty amazing rendition of Altair's life, of which the brief memory fragments from Revelations barely do true justice.

 

Was AC IV released on PC?

 

I feel you could have googled it, but yes. It would be a shame to waste graphics that pretty on the console's limited rendering power.

 

LOL good pic.

So when do they usually announce the next AC game? It's soon isn't it?

I just hope no more ship battles. It was fun in AC4 but after you beat the game youre over saturated.

 

Both AC3 and AC4 were revealed (well, a promotional image and the title) in late Feb-early March, so we've probably got around another month to go before any news. Revelations, on the other hand, didn't get a proper reveal until E3.

Agree with the naval combat. I cannot be bothered to upgrade my ship by collecting 5000 Metal all over again.

I picked up the first three French AC comics a couple of days ago, translated into English. They're pretty fun. Oddly enough, they are very modern-day focused, with the Animus stuff being the B-plot. Only the stuff in the Animus is canon to the series, as the modern day storyline is an AU.

 

I've played it twice, and definitely didn't suffer that problem. I know the second time was post-patch, not sure of the first. Playing on PS4. I also got a physical manual - it has a page for ground controls, one for naval controls and another for present day controls. Odd that the Wii U version doesn't have that.

Final thoughts on the French comics: Aquilus (the primary Animus subject) is a character that doesn't get as much "page time" as I'd have liked, but in the short time he features, I liked him. The comic uses his father and wife to very rapidly give you a look at multiple aspects of his personality. It's interesting to see an Assassin pre-Masyaf, and pre-Hidden Blade, as I doubt we'll ever get that in the games. Rome is, of course, always an interesting location to explore, especially in the height of their power. There's also a nice bait-and-switch on a new Piece of Eden depending on whether you take it literally or not.

I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the AC mythos. A strong, yet brief, period storyline with an intriguing what-if modern-day plot.

 

Well, I gave in and picked this up for forty bucks. Glad I did - it's washing away the sour taste AC3 gave me. Very fun!

 

Its weird, cuz I used to dislike AC3 but after finishing 4 I went back and replayed it and I appreciate it more now.

 

I will never touch Oregon Trail 2012--I mean, Assassin's Creed 3--ever again unless it's to trade it in.

 

I don't think I could go back to AC3, simply because AC4 improves on their ideas and execution so much. In hindsight, if I'd known they were making AC4 as good as it is, I would've been able to forgive pretty much all of AC3

 

AC4.5: Mordor should be out soon. It doesn't at all look like a shameless ripoff. Even down to the identical ropes between buildings.

 

Does the term "pre-alpha" mean much to you?

 

Oh of course, the final release don't be a complete AC clone.

 

No, sadly it's all on-foot. Though that mode is pretty fun in and of itself.

 

New AC game is called Unity which will take place in Paris

Will come out Fall 2014 on Next Gen

 

Actually, that's probably it's in-house codename, not it's actual title. Not only that, but the rumour of two core AC titles this year - one for current-gen and the other for last-gen - is seeming more and more likely. I imagine both would probably come to PC.

Images are of an early build, so the city isn't fully populated or textured.

http://kotaku.com/leaked-images-reveal-one-of-this-falls-two-assassins-1547111652

 

Preview: