Is Assassin's Creed for PC worth purchasing?, Questions for people who've played it Options

[Wounded Ronin]

I've been considering buying Assassin's Creed for PC. However, since it's still not reached the point where I can buy a secondhand copy from Amazon.com for ~$10, I think I'd like to ask peoples' opinions before buying. I recently felt like I got super burned on Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter which was nothing like the original Ghost Recon which I loved so much.

Now, in my experience, most reviews of video games run opposite to what I think of them. For example, most reviews of Soldier of Fortune II said that it was good only for fans of the genre. However, SOFII is one of my favorite games of all times. Likewise, I thought that Clive Barker's Undying was the best horror game I ever played, but apparently lots of people thought it was weak. On the other hand I was so bored and disappointed in Silent Hill 2 that I stopped playing forever after like 45 minutes, but everyone's always going on about how Silent Hill is the best thing ever. What's more Silent Hill got a movie license and Undying didn't. Heh, and even though I'm a long-time gamer I couldn't solve a single puzzle in Silent Hill 2 with the puzzles set on easy. Not even the first one with the damn clock. I kept wondering why I couldn't just batter the stupid clock down.


So rather than just leave the question as "Is Assassin's Creed any good?" I decided to break it down into smaller questions.

1.) Compared with Hitman: Blood Money, does Assassin's Creed offer similar open-ended flexibility and multiple methodologies for carrying out assassinations?

2.) How realistic are NPC reactions in Assassin's Creed? (Considering realistic NPC reactions are supposed to be a selling point of the game).

3.) What is the relative importance of planning and execution versus super reflexes/speedy gaming skills in Assassin's Creed?

4.) How historically realistic, or how much attention to historical detail, is there in Assassin's Creed?

5.) Does Assassin's Creed support both "stealth" and "Rambo" approaches like Deus Ex, or does it tend to try and force a stealth approach, like Theif or Tenchu 2?


Bah, this set of questions would result in a better review than most review sites give, IMO.

[imperialus]

1.) Compared with Hitman: Blood Money, does Assassin's Creed offer similar open-ended flexibility and multiple methodologies for carrying out assassinations?

sort of... There are multiple ways to carry out assassinations but they are more related to your preferred fighting style than coming up with complex plans.

2.) How realistic are NPC reactions in Assassin's Creed? (Considering realistic NPC reactions are supposed to be a selling point of the game).

Not bad... Beggers are annoying as hell. Naturally to keep the game pace going it's easier to loose guards than it would be in real life. After all it wouldn't be much fun to sit in a haystack for 45 minutes until the guards stop looking for you.

3.) What is the relative importance of planning and execution versus super reflexes/speedy gaming skills in Assassin's Creed?

Bit of both... More reflex/speed oriented than detailed planning but you need to do both. I enjoy it and I suck at twitch gaming.

4.) How historically realistic, or how much attention to historical detail, is there in Assassin's Creed?

cool atmosphere... They dressed the knightly orders properly. It has a very gritty dirty feel to it. Of course the Assassins are largely invented. We just don't know a whole heck of a lot about them.

5.) Does Assassin's Creed support both "stealth" and "Rambo" approaches like Deus Ex, or does it tend to try and force a stealth approach, like Theif or Tenchu 2?

Depends a lot on the difficulty settings. On easy or medium you can slash your way through legions of enemies without a problem. Higher difficulties you need a lighter touch.

Overall I think it's a fun game. I never got obsessive over it like I did with Mass Effect Civilization or Baulders Gate but that's kinda to be expected, it's an action game. For what it is, they did a good job.

[Wounded Ronin]

Thanks very much for your thoughtful response.

[Critias]

It is quite a bit more of a hack-and-slash-and-run-away game than Hitman, by a long shot. It's still a lot of fun (on the 360, at least), visually very appealing, etc, etc. But it's not really that big on the meticulous planning, and that sort of thing.

I've done just fine, to be honest, just running up to almost every target so far, ganking him, killing his eight or ten guards, then making a break for it to a rooftop and tumbling into a hiding spot for ten seconds.

[Crusher Bob]

I'll also add that many of the gameplay mechanics are very repetitive. There are something like 40+ viewpoint places you need to climb up and press the button on, and there aren't tat many different models (maybe 10 different models in all?) so you climb up the exact same thing ove and over again. Also, all the minigames (gather information, pick pockets, etc) play out exactly the same over and over again.

It's not a stealth game like Thief (never played the Hitman series, so don't know what that's like) but much more of a physic game, where the main interesting game play element is running around and climbing on stuff. This would actaully be pretty fun if there was ever any time pressure in the places you had to go. You are generally killing the guards or hiding and waiting for them to go back to 'sleep', not doing le parkour getting away from them.

I'll also add that I don't really remember any of the visuals from the game. They make you climb up to high places all the time, and the camera pans around you, but there's not much to actually see. Compared to the beautiful backdrops in Jade Empire, it really loses out.

It also has a very hamhanded 'why you really want to kill this guy, for great justice' cut scene before you get to kill the story targets. Since you are a JA2 fan, imagine if there was a cutscene of Diedranna putting children into a tree thresher that played when you entered into the palace map, just in case you had forgotten why you were here.

[Wounded Ronin]

Hmm. It really sounds like something I ought to rent along with an XBox 360 instead of buy. Or make a friend who has it and play it at that guy's house.

Considering I'm using a PC, and considering how apparently the animation and visuals are a huge point of the game, it would suck to spend ~$50 bucks and just have it be choppy all the time.

Plus I'd been imagining, due to the historical context of middle eastern assassins during the Crusades, something more like Theif or Hitman. So it's not exactly what I'd had in mind when thinking of historical assassins.

[Backgammon]

I downloaded it. I wouldn't drop any money on it. VERY repetitive, low challenge, some frustration. Very very pretty though, but that doesn't really cut it. It's like dating a really hot but dumb girl that won't let you have sex with her.

[Wounded Ronin]

I downloaded it. I wouldn't drop any money on it. VERY repetitive, low challenge, some frustration. Very very pretty though, but that doesn't really cut it. It's like dating a really hot but dumb girl that won't let you have sex with her.

Heh, you make it sound like a person would be better served by downloading some trashy and obscure Hentai game dealing with a RPG fantasy setting. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Backgammon]

Well, that DOES sound interesting... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Abschalten]

I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed at first, and I really got into exploring the cities as I entered them and just sneaking around.

About halfway through the game I started getting annoyed at how repetitive the missions were getting. You just did the same stuff over and over. You do a few missions before you're allowed to assassinate a target. Visit your mentor after every kill. Lather, rinse, repeat. You can also save people from the ubiquitious corrupt guards and get some civies to back you up in case the medieval po-po start chasing you. You can do a few other things, but really, they're just distractions that artificially pad the length of the game.

Close to the end, they make the game artificially hard by implanting you with RFIDs and giving guards locators to seek and kill you..... Kidding! But it's like if you bump into a guy then the guards FREAK OUT and mob you.

Altair gets better as you do more and more missions. You get more weapons, more "gear" (which in reality just gives you more moves you can do.) But towards the end you'll mostly be abusing the Counter command and leaving about fifteen to twenty dead guards in an alley before you can get away safely.

The last hour of the game was, in my opinion, pure bullshit. It goes from being a sneaky-social-stealth-action game to a guard-killing simulator. The ending to the game was such a letdown as well. The ass-end of Assassin's Creed was so bad that it retroactively made me angry at the entire game. So after I beat it, I sold it. I used the money to pay for most of another game.

There was so much potential in Assassin's Creed. I think with a little more diverse game design and a little more actual effort, the game could have been fantastic. As it was, it was like the aforementioned hot chick that won't let you go all the way. Do yourself a favor... if you play it, stop after about the third or fourth assassination and then never play the game again. It'll remain a "good game" in your mind that way. If you beat it, it'll ruin that image of it.

[Critias]

I'd say it's certainly worth a rental, to be honest.

I enjoyed the graphics quite a bit, the storyline (up until the end) didn't piss me off as much as it did some people, and for a while it was really, really, fun. I was all "whee, I'm an Assamite!" and just having a good time running and jumping and stabbing people in the kidneys for no good reason at all, then counter-counter-counter and leaving a pile of corpses 'till I got bored of slaughtering guards. I merrily killed whoever I was told to kill, didn't care about the trippy cut-scenes (though I did enjoy them, and paid attention, I shoved aside any sort of "guilt" or "doubt" they were supposed to instill in me), and just had a good old time playing a cheerful murder machine. I like arrogant swordsmen, and was fine with being one for a little bit. Also, it was refreshing to be killing Templars (for some reason) instead of seeing them romanticized in fiction, for a change. I've got nothing against Tempars, really, mind you, but I've seen them turned into Paladins so much it was fun to kill them a bit, for some reason.

Now, that's not really what you're supposed to get out of it, I think. It's not what the game really advertised, it's not the impression a lot of people got from watching trailers and commercials and whatnot, and I understand it's certainly not what most folks are looking for. Knowing your game habits, Ronin, I'm pretty sure it's not what you're looking for.

If anything, rent it if you can. 2-3 days of casual gameplay is about right to really enjoy it, I'd say.