Assassin’s creed, let’s be honest.

I was in my teenage year when I i first played Prince of Persia The Sands of Time. Needless to say I was amazed by the game. People would ask me if the game was good and I would reply “Dude, is a game where you freaking walk in the walls like a ninja, go back in time, and suck these sand zombies soldiers in a dagger, it’s awesome”. The warrior within and The Two Thrones came, I enjoyed both of them and I had to know who made this awesome games.

That’s how I first met ubisoft.

When I saw the trailer for the first Assassin’s Creed game I was completly amazed. For what I understood, that amazing company which made one of my favourite action adventure series was going to make a game about assassins. I couldn’t wait to play it.

It took me some time to finally be able to run it in my wagon (Or computer if you will), and I finally got to play it. The game was amazing, you got to blend in society, parkour into stuffs, kill some bastards, run like a maniac, and you had to stealth, otherwise you would be dead. Here I must say I am a type of player that if the mission or collectible is shown in the map, I HAVE to do or pick it up. After a few hours I got bored from the repetitive structure. For reasons I don’t remeber now, I removed it from my computer.

A few months later I tried another go on the game, but again, I got bored and it was removed from the PC. I gave it a third try, I had a better computer, so the game was even more beautifull, and I was engaged, because Assassin’s Creed II was just realeased, and the critic was awesome, so I had to finish the first one in order to play the second. This time I finally finished it and was mindblowed for the ending.

The first Assassin’s Creed game is wonderfull, I think it’s the only game in the serie where it achieved what ubisoft had planned for the game. You had to blend, to stealth, and plan your strategie for the assassinations. The game wasn’t exactly hard, but fighting 10 soldier, instead of just 1 was something to consider. The problem with it is that it is repetitive. So I advised my friends to only play the main story.

Assassin’s creed 2 was my target now. I finished it in my first try, was amazed by how beautifull everything in the game was, the city, the clothes, the parkour, the characters. But one thing was annoying me. The game was really easy, and the stealth was only necessary for the missions where you got to be desynchronized from being spotted, because fighting a couple of soldiers, and twenty of them, didn’t make any difference. When I finished it I was telling my friends about how good the game was, how everything felt in place, and all the things a fanboy say. After some time, I started to think “was this game that awesome?”. It was beautifull, but that’s basically one of the only good things I had to say about it. The game was easy, it felt the open approach you had for the missions, were stupid, because you could just storm on the gates, blazing your sword and killing everyone. So I started to doubt my affection for the series.

Brotherhood came and it was garbage. I hated that game. There is no story. If you ask what happened in it i couldn’t answer. There was simply no substance. Everything seemed like it was made only to sell. Multiplayer. None character development. Nothing. One good thing I can say about it was the 100% synchronization, where I was forced (Because I had that gaming obligation) to try some different approaches. It was nice, if you wanted you could go for the 100%, if not “TO THE SWORDS”.

Now I must say I was expecting more garbage coming with Revelations, but I was surprised with it. It was great. The story, ezio development. The full synchronization was back. Yes it was easy, and had some other flaws, but I really enjoyed the game.

For the third game I was again hoping for something good. The trailers were awesome. For the first time you got to climb on trees. There was snow on the trailers, blood, and an american indian main character, and the ending for Desmond’s tale. You see, Assassin’s Creed for me was all about Desmond, if his story was finished, so would be Assassin’s Creed’s. My first problem with the game was the main character name. Ezio means eagle, and Altair means bird, or eagle in some interpretations. I was hoping for “Hawk”, because it was american. But Connor...Ok, not a big deal. They remade the parkour, wich was something good, because pressing two buttons to run on the controller wasn’t comfortable. The combat system also changed. Here I think their ideia was good, probably drawing inspiration from the Batman Arkham series, but the executions was poor, the combat was as bad as ever. The story is boring, Connor is a joke compared to Ezio and Altair. Half of the mechanics were half baked, gliches, bugs. The ending for Desmond, my god the ending... It was terrible. To sumarize, the game was bad. Like really bad. Like when you eat a expired chocolate, and after some hours yours stomach is punishing you.

So I thought the Assassin’s Creed series was done and buried. How wrong I was. When they announced Black Flag I was skeptical. I played it only because I wanted to test my new gaming notebook. The game wasn’t bad, it was actually good. All the other problems with the serie were there, but you were a goddam pirate. Edward’s story was quite enjoyable, but the prophet abstergo stuff was really just to sell more. If the game was called “Pirate simulator” I would have been more happy.

When Unity was reviwed I was more than happy to see the bad reviews. At this time I was a ubisoft “hateboy”, but eventually I got it installed in my machine. I played it a little bit, and was surprised when I found out that it was actually nice. Some new kinds of missions, some of them hard (Probably because I played them alone where it was supposed to be multiplayer), and most of them interesting. The game is bugged as amazon forest, it was crashing constantly so I removed it from my PC.

The other games in the series I didn’t even touch.

So Assassin’s Creed is a serie that gave what it had to give. It should have ended at the third installment, but some of the games are enjoyable. If they were focused in doing a few things, and making them good, like stealth and combat, the series would be a lot better, but the greed for money made them a medíocre series.

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Have you enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed series? What other compliments or complains do you have? Do you agree with me? Comment bellow.

Brotherhood having no story?

LOL

I used to be dedicated to this series. Now I despise it. Rogue is laughably bad.

I've played every one up to 3 and might give 4 a try at some point. But it got to the point where I just stopped caring. I came for the gameplay since it was a power fantasy. Plus there were plenty of fun missions in each game (although the first one is still eh in my eyes). I never found the mythology to be interesting and the fact that AC3 ended the way it did just felt dull to me. I stopped caring.

About the fourth you should give it a try. Just forget it's a AC game and you should be fine.

@ronycleydson: I probably will at a price drop. Just have to budget and buy things I really want at the moment and that's not high on the list.

unity was incredibly frustrating. there is a decent game in there, somewhere. it's just hidden by some of the worst controls and tedious combat i've seen in a game. it all smacks of a game that was rushed and released 6 months+ too soon without any love for the little details. it's a huge step back after black flag

Currently playing AC rogue. I liked all the AC games so far and I think it's mostly because of my great interest in stuff like ninjas, parkour, stealth etc. in fact I do parkour irl. Combat is just something I really avoid in these games. It's epic at first but gets old quick.

The stealth isn't bad actually. I enjoyed it a lot in black flag and even right now in rogue. Of course it's not as complex as the likes of splinter cell but it works. But i must say rogue feels a little rushed. Like there's no polish and love put into the game. Just a copy of Black Flag with some improvements.

AC3 had great animations. Connor's parkour and combat style is excellent. Has an aggressive flavor to it.

Can't wait to get a ps4 and play unity.

I enjoyed the series although for me AC2 was the most boring one, people seem to love it but for some reason i just plain out feel like it is just another brick in the wall... but i think it had enough installments now and that they schould make a new series, with the engine like a ninja game in feudall japan! :p

Assassin creed unity is the best in the series but they are trying to hustle money out of you with micro transaction, they start off the game very difficult for you to be frustrated and spend money, if you are a skilled gamer it does not matter because you will pass the mission, but casual gamers will have problems,

Honestly so far ACII and Brotherhood have been my favourite. I like the first, but found it lacking in depth somewhat. Then came the two best games. I think I liked brotherhood more out of the two. I started Revelations and got bored of it, the same happened with III. Now to try and get through some of my backlog I've started Black Flag and what little I've played so far has been enjoyable, but I'm a sucker for the Caribbean and for pirates, so I guess that was to be expected. Let's see if it keeps me engaged for more than five hours, though. I have no intention of playing Unity though. I couldn't care less for late eighteenth century France. And the same can be said for Victorian London. Give me something interesting like Ancient Egypt or Greece, or, God forbid, Feudal Japan.

AC 1 and Brotherhood were the best.

Brotherhood was so good.

After that everything felt the same.

I believe a common occurrence that happened with AC series was that a lot of people played AC2 before AC1 and therefore AC1 probably felt lacklustre to them. I know a lot of people who did it this way around.

I was completely in awe with AC1.

The series is like this for me:

AC 1 was great at the time, if brutally tedious.

AC 2 was a massive improvement in every way and still feels great to this day.

Brotherhood was pretty good, but nothing spectacular.

Revelations was completely pointless and only barely moved Desmond's story along.

AC 3 had a slow start but was enjoyable, even with its stupid sequel-bait ending.

Black Flag is my personal favorite of the series in terms of gameplay and story.

Haven't played Rogue (though it seems that it wouldn't matter if I did).

Unity has fantastic gameplay mechanics but is brought down by its backwards, near mandatory, and greedy online components when it doesn't need them. Oh, and the story was meh.

Assy Creed one was beautiful to look at and had a really cool take on Tony Hawk "skating a line" roof running. Unfortunately, DAT STORY DOE.

Then they padded the games out w/ that nonsensical Desmond stuff.. Horrid.

Everyone's favorite is either the MP one, or the Pirate one. I liked the pirate one best, but the ship stuff was the best part. The "Stealth" and "Roof running" was the same old AC1 tonyhawk clone it always was.

My 2nd favorite Assassins Creed is the one where you fight LoTR Orcs.

when you say mechanics what do you mean exactly? i thought the combat compared to shadow of mordor or the batman games was sluggish, long winded, lacking in cool manoeuvres and frustrating particularly early on in the game, and the parkour was incredibly fiddly and unresponsive compared to previous ac games

@Macutchi: the parkour has always been finicky so it doesn't bother me anymore. And I love the up and down mechanics because of how quickly you travel with it. The combat actually makes you experiment with various weapons because the enemies are smarter this time around and are often better swordfighters than you. The Batman system is great and all, but oftentimes it doesn't feel as strategic because the basic patterns of attack are easily exploited.

Wait you liked 100% synchronisation? The feature which forced you to play each mission in a specific way rather than open ended and no longer letting you tackle it however you pleased?

100% synchronisation drove me to the edge of insanity. Replaying missions over and over and over just to try and get that one really finicky tedious synch requirement.

Assassin's Creed was awesome but it was milked into oblivion and no innovation really happened after the second one. Black Flag was a step in the right direction but again was really tedious towards the end.

@mastermetal777: yeah i agree combat felt satisfying in that you needed to be more thoughtful and strategic, so when you did take down a particularly tricky bunch of enemies it felt like you'd really earned the victory. but i thought the downside to that was it felt you were more vulnerable and less of a lethal assassin, which i liked about the previous games. there also seemed to be a lot of cool killing techniques missing, kind of like they baked the cake but didn't have time to add the icing and the cherry.

as far as the parkour went it didn't seem anywhere near as fluid as previous games. i often had trouble doing simple stuff like climbing into a window or dropping off a ledge onto a balcony. to each their own and everything i was just curious what you thought because i pretty much had the opposite opinion lol

Preach it! This one time I missed 100% after a super tedious "run here, follow that guy FOREVER" because I didn't do the correct jump kill or something, I had the sound turned down and didn;t hear the tutorial or read the captions I guess.

I followed a guy, undetected, and killed him. ASSASSIN WIN? Nope, not according to the game I guess

/punt

Yes I had a lot of problems with the 100% and I eventually gave up. But the good thing is that. If you want, you can just give up and do your way. Otherwise you can try the approach that was intended. The fact that the game doesn't work properly when you try to do it doesn't invalidate the fact that it was a nice ideia.

AC went from an inspired sci-fi formula with compelling parallel storylines to pointless drivel shoveled out on a yearly basis to meet a bottom line. Ubisoft is becoming like Activision more and more every year.

@ronycleydson: You can't give up if you want 100% completion. Which presumably you do. It should be enough for you to kill the target, not have to follow their set plan to do it. Part of the fun is either going with the flow and doing whatever you are best at or planning your approach to a target by different routes and actually finishing a target strategically depending on the situation.

Practically forcing the game onto rails is just boring.

Well normally with most games I can say "I don't care about trofees" but this was early in the story and the game was insisting to get 100% in a way. I felt, wronged / funneled into something that was way less open than it appeared.

@mastermetal777: I find it funny that people find AC 1 tedious even though AC 2 was nothing but filled with bunch of disconnected fetch quests.

To the OP.. yes i the missions in AC 1 are repetitive but its the only game where i truly felt like an "Assassin" without all that alien/Jesus plot overload.. IMHO as flawed as it is its still the best in the series as it lives up the title.

When it comes to games i believe that storytelling should follow the rule of "Show don't tell" instead of "Show 10,000 cutscenes and don't explain anything" the mystery&intrigue of AC 1 was much more interesting than horrible disjointed incoherent stories we are getting right now.

AC 2 IMHO loses all the mysticism of AC1. sure it had pretty graphics but it just comes off an art display rather than realistic... and they completely ruined the concept of assassin by making it a freaking superhero costume.

AC much like arkham games took the lazy route of copy/pasting GTA sandbox with bunch of fetch quests and purchasable property to make the game seem more grand&bigger.. whereas it just comes off as tacky&padded and the gameplay was TOO TOO easy in AC2 compared to AC1 where you were genuinely challenged because there was no health pickups and the enemies often swarmed on you... i just quit the series after brotherhood.. its like they keep recycling the game every year.

I played Assassin's Creed, and I loved it. The only thing I hated was the investigations where you had to collect the flags and return in under a time limit. But eavesdropping, pickpocketing, and especially assassination investigations were cool.

I have always contended(and will continue to do so) that the reason people disliked it was because they didn't understand it. Assassin's Creed was more than 'rush through those pesky investigations to get to the assassination,' Assassin's Creed WAS the investigations. Beyond performing the investigations, it was about what you got from them and what you did with it. Didn't anyone ever notice that the bureau assassin mocked you for doing the bare minimum? Didn't anyone stop to consider that the whole point of Altaiir's story was him thinking he was so damn good he didn't need to bother with the 'trivialities' of the kill?

When you pick pocketed a courier who had orders for archers to be stationed around the site, those archers never showed up. When you overheard the captain of the guards discussing which route was deemed secure and so was lightly guarded (or not guarded at all), you got a map with a suggested escape route on it. When you beat up a politician, he might tell you where he sent his household guards to provide protection for the target, giving you another map showing where many of the guards will be positioned. But if you never dug through the menus, you might go through the whole game thinking that the tasks were nothing but locked doors barring you from the next assassination target.

I hated Assassin's Creed 2 the instant I saw it at e3. I swore off Assassin's Creed right then and there. They'd bastardized the most unique concept stealth games had seen since Metal Gear Solid into GTA: Renaissance Italy. Ledge kills, double kills, air assassinations, a fuckin' GUN! Da Vinci's flying machine? Gimme a break, right?

But then came Brotherhood. The first time I saw the add at my local game shop, I knew instantly what that subtitle had to mean. I preordered it that same day and borrowed my brother's copy of AC2. I mean, I wasn't about to play the third one without playing the second. The ending of the first one made no sense, but I was hoping the second one would either fill in some blanks or just ditch the hocus pocus from the end of the first game.

Assassin's Creed 2 just about blew off the top of my skull. It was so fantastic from beginning to end. Ezio's revenge tale, Desmond starting to piece together the incomprehensible emails from Lucy's console at Abstergo, Ezio maturing into an actual assassin, the Truth and all the conspiracies implied within, the revelation at the end... Yes, I still hated that they fell into the GTA mission structure, but at least it made sense in the context of the story. If there was ever one game I wish I could play over again for the first time, it would easily be Assassin's Creed 2. Easily.

Brotherhood built on the conspiracies and the parallel What If reality beautifully, and created the most unique multiplayer experience of all time. Finally a game that relied on skill and an understanding of how the game worked rather than sheer reflexes and knowing where the best hidey holes are. Plus, with the Brotherhood behind you, you could walk down any street like a boss and kill silently with nothing more than a gesture.

Revelations upset me. Another year, another game, and more Ezio.I just could bring myself to care anymore. Between the zip lines, the spring hook and the tower defense mini games, I was done.

Assassin's Creed 3 was also a disappointment. Not because of the ending, though. I was disappointed because after years of Ezio, I couldn't stand the idea of playing as Altaiir 2.0- all sullen silence and brooding melancholy. Plus the story was really rather pointless. I get that Colonial America is an interesting and iconic era, but with all the revelations and the urgency of the fast-approaching dove tailing of the fictional game date and the real life date, they really ought to have told Desmond's story as the focal point of the game instead of relegating it to 4 short missions crammed in between the Boston Tea Party and 'don't shot till you see the whites of their eyes!'

I didn't play 4 until just recently. I got the AC Xbox One bundle and redeemed the cards right away, but didn't actually play them for months. Unity was infuriating because it didn't work properly and parkour up/parkour down sucks compared to the old puppeteering method. Black Flag was actually pretty interesting, but was also infuriating as often as not. Learning to fight ship to ship was one of those frustrations. But it was definitely better than Revelations and 3 combined. I didn't much like Edward, but neither did anyone else in the game for the most part, so I felt it was probably a deliberate choice. For the first time since Brotherhood, it did draw me into the lore and the understory, but it was nothing earth shattering. On the whole, I feel like Assassin's Creed peaked with Brotherhood, and it'll never reach that height ever again.

On a last note, I will always give the franchise credit for canonizing the handheld games. They were referenced in a few different ways throughout the console releases, and that really means something to me, who feels like handheld games don't usually get the respect they deserve.

@Dannystaples14: @Expane:

You guys have to understand that the 100% sync thing is kind of a story thing. When you get 100% sync, it means you performed the assassination in the exact same manner that Ezio, Altair, Connor, etc. did. Notice how when you get hit your sync bar goes down and not your health? It's because when you get hit, you become less in touch with the abilities of these ancestors. Ezio, Altair, Connor, were just too pro to get hit, fall off while doing parkour, etc. So when you get hit, the Animus can't sync you properly with your ancestors. You have to strive to fight and parkour like them to keep yourself synced with their memories.

The Animus is a great concept to be honest. It makes the world more believable. Like you understand that when you died, you didn't really die. You just lost sync and so you can reload the memory. Good for immersion.

"When I saw the trailer for the first Assassin’s Creed game I was completly amazed. For what I understood, that amazing company which made one of my favorite action adventure series was going to make a game about assassins. I couldn’t wait to play it."

Ya then i released and came to the conclusion it wasn't a game about being an assassin at all. Game was nothing like they said it was going to be and I was disappointed in every one of the games I tried in the series.

I think it's time to be honest and just say it. The series needs to end and Ubisoft needs to invest in other ventures by breaking out into new characters and stories not beholden to the whole assassins creed name and style.

@BboyStatix: Yeah I get that but the entire point of the game was to go back and live his life again. Whatever I choose to do at any given moment will become the thing that the ancestor did from that moment on.

I mean they already have certain rules in the world such as not killing civilians or entering certain areas in the early game which is fine I suppose but having a proper moral compass where you could write your own ancestors origin story by doing whatever you wanted in the world given to you sounds awesome. Sounds like something that if they implemented it in the next one I'd go out and buy it on the spot.

Assassin's Creed is too on rails now. Too easy, too restrictive, too hand holding. Which is the exact reason why it is really god damn boring.

@Dannystaples14: I don't disagree your point. Just saying animus is a neat concept. But the game has gone far from all that cool stuff to weird stuff like the end of the world and what not. As for the hand-holding and too easy bit, is that really true? I haven't played Unity but from trailers it looks like they fixed all issues. Combat seems to actually require effort now and stealth seems to be great. I haven't played it so idk.

@BboyStatix: Well I was talking more about the series in general not just Unity. The only time I really died in Assassin's Creed was when I was messing around and not paying attention or when I accidentally jumped off of a building to my death. Rest of the time it was just a cake walk.

@Dannystaples14:

You should try fighting 5 star rated enemies in unity its no cakewalk you have to bring your a game, just pray that you dont die because the game takes forever to load,

The Only Assassin Creed game I like is Unity.

AC1: fun tech demo. Got boring near end had to force myself to finish it.

AC2: actually quite good.

Brotherhood: probably good, but already bored of series.

As for the rest of the games, can't bring myself to play them.

The AC series ended at Revelations for me. I couldn't get into III and gave up on the franchise. It over-stayed it's welcome, and Ubisoft should have tried to bring more variety to the series in terms of characters not necessarily related to Desmond and bringing in some new gameplay elements with every major iteration (not just a few new building blocks for what has already been established).

Exactly what I think my man but only difference between you and me is that I finished AC1 and enjoyed it a lot. Other than that, I agree with you. Revelations was awesome but I loved Black Flag too. I hate AC3. I can't even name a single character from that game. Boring as hell and terribly optimized. Oh and Prince of Persia is awesome and guess what??? I was just watching POP movie. Too bad that Ubisoft have become too big and started to act like EA 2.0.

Unity did change up a few things. Playing this after Second Son was not wise; in comparison the controls, climbing and generally moving around the city are just hell. It sours the whole game. I'd like them to do something really different next- a proper sci-fi themed Assassin's Creed set in the distant future. My interest in the series is waning now.

It's fair that you feel that way. We certainly do understand. We just don't agree that it makes for good immersion or gameplay.

It is a repackaging of the ancient "100% completion" from old school games.

The concept was always good. But when combined with Ubisoft's bad habit of cluttering their game maps with a bunch of recycled and repetitive activities, it never seems fully satisfy. And the stupid tailing and eavesdropping missions outstayed their welcome a long time ago. They seem to be slipping into other Ubisoft titles also; hence they all feel like the same game.

Ass Creed is an inconsistent franchise between great and pretty mediocre games...never understood the hype with the franchise.

@ronycleydsonLost interest after the Ezio trilogy. I will say, AC started getting stupid when Brotherhood added the 'simon says, full sync' way of completing missions needed to unlock additional chapters. The milking of the franchise killed whatever remaining interest that might have existed for me.

Ubisoft could have focused on the other assassin's we learn about in AC 2, unlocking Altair's armor. Instead we get boring, cliche protagonists.

AC 1 had a good story but the actual gameplay was a chore. AC 3 was crap and I got bored with Black Flag, although I may give it another shot one day.

What's BESb?

The trend I've noticed: Every other game is good. (exception: Brotherhood is also good)

I liked:
AC2/Brotherhood
BlackFlag

Learned my lesson with AC3---will not ever buy another AC game. Ever

...Unless the next one they do is the one that everyone has been asking for and would be the Yang to the AC4's Yin: Ninjas/China/Japan. This would also still be in line with 'every other game is good' trend I've been watching. LOL

I felt Assassin's Creed 2 is the only one that delivered an amazing experience.

I enjoyed III, but the first was mediocre, and Brotherhood and Revelations felt like large expansion packs.