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

Still the last AC game I've played and will probably play until a truly remarkable and game-changing installment comes along. Yeah, broken record and all, but IMO everything since Brotherhood has been all levels of meh.

 

Though I've not looked into them much, has anyone read the Assassins/Templar comics or Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants?

I've not seen much publicity for them in the UK at all. The new AC: Hersey is also coming out soon, with very little fanfare in the UK.

I was wondering what anyone thought of these spin-offs. Also the Unity tie-in Abstergo handbook, which looks good to me.

 

Just finished the Queen Victoria side missions that open up after you beat the main plotline Syndicate. With 98% sync, this is the best I've ever done in an AC game. I won't bother going back to 100% sync the missions where I missed an optional objective, and I am way too lazy to track down the last 8-10 glitches that are still floating around London for me. I'm happy with where I finished.

I'm disappointed that the next game will be in Egypt. I, like quite a few people, have been hoping for a mainline game set in feudal Japan. That would be pretty cool.

 

Is meant to be in Egypt? I though that nothing had been announced yet.

 

I don't think Ubisoft has actually come out saying that, but it's been widely reported in the rumor mill, and allegedly there was an image leak recently.

 

Having reached ACIV: Black Flag in my current playthrough of the series (at least the PS3 generation for now), I am glad to find that Black Flag's opening remains as effective as ever.

The way that exposition is delivered regarding the Observatory and the Sage over the course of the game is done so expertly, and I love how this game basically does the 'good' Templar idea so much better than Rouge. It doesn't big them up as crusaders for good, and paint the Assassins as black-hearted thugs (my biggest problem with Rogue), it just shows them for what they are through Edward's unbiased and innocent views.

It's almost as good as AC3's Templar twist.

 

Easily the best trophy name in the series.

Anyway....

I finally finished the side missions that open after the mainline ending of Syndicate. It was interesting how they ended them in a similar manner to the Karl Marx side missions. You do all this work, and then when they're over the character asks you to join them for further help of an even more controversial nature and you... flat decline. It's like you hit a brick wall in your willingness to help. Not that I had a problem spurning Karl Marx...

 

I forget: what is the Templar twist in AC3?

Occasionally I consider getting Syndicate. I don't have Xbox Live Gold anymore, which sometimes offers some handsome discounts on digital purchases, but Live is currently going for 20% off...so it's kind of tempting. With the game discounts and free content given by Live Gold, you probably make back all the money you spend on the membership within the year. But at the same time, I don't have that much time to play games these days--just on the rare day where I suddenly find myself completely caught up with homework and have a day off from work.

The other day I remembered that I never finished Rogue, so I fired up the 360 and launched the game. Maybe because it's been so long since I played an AC game, but I had a blast going through the naval adventures and even the land missions for a while. Combat is definitely so much easier in this game than it was in Unity and AC3. I remember struggling with AC3's combat, and while Unity's system wasn't terrible, you couldn't just walk into a room and expect to kill everyone without breaking a sweat like you could in Black Flag and Rogue.

Back to Rogue, though, I remember that my first impression of the game a couple years ago wasn't as positive as I'd hope it would be. I found the north Atlantic to be far less visually striking than Black Flag's fantastic portrayal of the Caribbean. But going back to the game after so long has given me a new appreciation for the frigid bleakness of it all.

Story still pales to Black Flag's though.

 

You start AC3 as Haytham, believing him to be an Assassin, until at the end of Sequence 3, Haytham inducts Lee into the Templar order.

The twist in AC4 is much more subtle. Edward kills Walpole, and continues to his meeting with the governor. At this point, it seems like the governor must be an Assassin. However, during the conversations with Woodes Rogers and Julien du Casse, it slowly dawns on you that they're all Templars, from du Casse saying that he has little love for their kind, collecting Hidden Blades, talk of Duncan defecting, before Torres formally inducts them all.

I thought that both twists worked really well at getting you invested in the Templars before revealing them as such, helping to blur the moral lines. A lot of that was missing in ACII and Brotherhood, so I was glad to see them return at the forefront of the Kenway games.

 

To be fair to AC2, I don't think Ezio could ever be sympathetic to a Templar perspective. His was a personal vendetta perhaps more so than a principled quest.

 

Everybody looked down on the Borgia. Even other Templars.

 

cant wait to play through the ezio story again

 

I've been listening to the Subject Zero audios in ACIV, and I just love how well they fit in with the themes of the game.

For one thing, they show the origins of the Surrogate Animus tech used in ACIV, and shine a light onto the early Animus tech. Vidic's connection to Joan of Arc is a nice callback to AC2's glyphs. Then there's the Edelweiss pirate stuff, which fits in with the actual piracy going on with Edward, and the hacking style of piracy in the modern day.

It's also really unique in the series, as it's the only full-cast audio story in the entire series. It makes me wish that Ubisoft would release an independent audio story in the vein of Big Finish's Doctor Who audios, as the quality of Subject Zero was surprisingly good. They've already got comics, movies, books and games. Why not audios?

 

I love audio books! I agree!

 

I really liked the audio clips in Syndicate. While I'm happy with my 98% completion, part of what I didn't complete was the helix glitches. I'm sure there was one or two more audio files left in there by not finishing the last 10 or so glitches, wherever they are. I wish at the end of the game they'd reveal the locations or allow you to buy a map for them.

 

That's true, though it was just usually Berg and Da Costa talking to each other, about usually disconnected stuff.

I did like the stuff with Vidic and Cross, and the brief battles with the Assassin's.

There wasn't as strong a narrative as Subject Zero though, I felt.

 

Realised I missed a few combat variation from this mission, so I re-edited and re-uploaded the video. It now contains all music from this mission, except for the intro and outro cutscenes.

 

I guess it's still not confirmed that the next game will be in Egypt, but the "rumors" still point there, apparently. https://www.yahoo.com/news/next-assassin-creed-coming-along-164154768.html

I like that they're taking time with the game. Don't want another Unity.

 

Honestly, I didn't mind Unity that much.

Yes, it didn't use it's setting to full effect, and its protagonists were a bit dull.

But Paris was a nice city, the gameplay was solid(especially the new parkour system), and the story was decent (and not as messy as Rogue's).

The main villain was also vastly better than Syndicate's, who was the most boring villain yet.

I suppose it was buggy at first, but I played it after patching and it was fine.

The co-op, once I got PS+, was really fun with some friends, and the customisation was really varied, although stats shouldn't have been tied to appearance.

 

Starrick wasn't the best villain, sure, but I thought Syndicate, overall, was vastly superior to Unity. Paris didn't really "do it" for me. Never really felt connected to the city.

 

Craving a good game for when I have down time. Xbox has some great deals right now so I'll probably pick up syndicate. For $8 more Xbox is offering the Gold Edition. I assume it's worth it?

 

I think so. Way better than Unity, in my opinion. Really like the characters, especially Evie. The gang activities are interesting for a while. Some good villains, too, but also some stuff that's forgettable. It's not Black Flag in terms of inventiveness and breadth, and it's not Assassin's Creed II in terms of overall quality, but it's a really solid entry into the series.

 

It was either this, the Ezio Trilogy remastered, or Arkham Knight. The Ezio Trilogy is going for $60, which I can't justify for three games I already played years ago. Arkham is going for $16 on the Premium version, whereas Syndicate Gold edition is $28.

The reviews for Arkham were too mixed to really make it appealing to me. Origins left me sour with the series.

But Syndicate has some strong reviews across the board. I didn't mind Unity. I got it after the fix, so the game was smooth for me. I just hope that Syndicate's score is as endearing as AC2/Brotherhood's and Black Flag's. Those were some amazing scores not just within this series, but within the industry as a whole.

Unity didn't have that epic, grandiose feel that those two did. In many ways it just felt like an obligatory holiday title. I hope Syndicate turns out to be a return to form.

 

Some of the Gold edition DLC are still downloading but I'm able to start the game itself. Just got to the lab sequence. The game looks good and the parkour controls are smooth (albeit with the series staple annoyances every now and then). The score so far has been sadly unremarkable.

Jacob won't sneak. Tapping the A button doesn't do anything. Evie, however, plays like a dream. The combo system feels very Arkham-like, but imitation is a sign of flattery, I guess, and the Arkham system is probably the best one out there.