Assassins Creed 1 was incredibly repetitive. Do three side mission, all of which were the same, find your target and assassinate. Easy and simple. The world was massive and pretty detailed; it felt like the world wasn't built for you you were just apart of it. Although the area in between the cities was pretty desolate you still could do some exploring, but wasn't necessary. Each of the following main AC's followed this basically, only improving and refining the mechanics, such as: guns, bombs, duel hidden blades, and how and where you can hide and stealth.
The animus/Abstergo sub-plot was a nice addition I think. It gave the game its purpose and longevity. I believe it reinforces the fact that there has been back hand dealing since the birth of civilization. Which is, I feel, one of the key parts of the series, because you are trying to find the apple of Eden.
I think why the first and the next few AC games are so loved is because they brought something new that either hasn't been seen yet and/or for a long while. They gave you a world to participate in and explore, however you wanted to do that.
Although I can't comment on AC3 , because I have yet to play it, Danny said that it took him out of the game because of all the pop up and reminders of how and what to do while playing. This has to do with popular game development. What I mean by that is: a lot of popular games these days like to give you on screen rewards to get you to keep on playing. CoD and Battlefield do this like crazy. You killed a guy here's 8 distracting pop ups that are annoying and don't go away for 30 seconds.
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