Magnus Posted November 26, 2012 Posted November 26, 2012 So I'm playing this, and... "According to our intel, the power source is being worn as a bracelet by some tycoon's trophy wife." What.
Cube Posted November 27, 2012 Posted November 27, 2012 For people new to the franchise: it explains most of it pretty well at the start. You miss out on all the details about Altair and Ezio's history, but other than what they get out of it (which is explained), it's not all that important to the plot anyway. Actually, some things are explained better in the summary. There is one thing I don't think it explains well, but it only affects a few side conversations. There's this girl called Lucy. She helps Desmond (the main character) escape in the first game. In the second, they start developing a romantic relationship, but it never gets far. This continues in Brotherhood, until the end where the Apple of Eden (the MaGuffins of Assassin's Creed) causes Desmond to stab and kill Lucy. In Revelations you discover that she was working for the Templars (evil guys) the entire time. . Another thing: changing weapons is kind of annoying (I'm playing it on PC). The GamePad should make that a lot smoother.
Magnus Posted November 27, 2012 Posted November 27, 2012 Of course, the real reason Lucy is completely ignored in the intro is because they'd have to pay Kristen Bell to use her likeness. My favorite part about the whole Lucy thing is how none of the characters can understand how she could have been evil all along. They're always all, "I can't believe it!" and "it makes no sense!" Either there are some writers at Ubisoft who are bitter about Lucy being killed off or they have no sense of irony.
bryanee Posted November 27, 2012 Posted November 27, 2012 So I'm playing this, and... "According to our intel, the power source is being worn as a bracelet by some tycoon's trophy wife." What. lol when I was doing that mission I thought it would be smaller, it does have a hole in it though.
Magnus Posted November 27, 2012 Posted November 27, 2012 It doesn't seem to have a hole in it when he's placing it after the mission, though. Maybe she wore it on a chain!
Magnus Posted November 29, 2012 Posted November 29, 2012 So I finally finished this. Hahaha, that ending. I can't believe I used to be interested in the Desmond story at one point. The ending is just... I don't even know. The best part is how they present you with two choices, then have Desmond choose by himself anyway. "Oh, and also this choice will kill you" reminded me of Mass Effect 3. All of the Desmond stuff is pretty awful in this game, really. Cross is a terrible villain and serves no purpose whatsoever. And when Desmond is cowering in a corner (with the Apple in his bag, but I guess he forgot he brought it with him?), Cross only fails to kill him because of a hitherto-unmentioned problem with his animus training. Talk about lucky! Going back to Abstergo felt forced beyond belief, but I guess they had to make Desmond kill that bearded guy somehow. Awful, all of it. Actually, one thing I like is how all of the characters are completely baffled by Lucy's betrayal. "I can't believe she did that," they say. "It makes no sense!" I'm kind of hoping it's meta commentary by the game's writers, who are bitter because Lucy was killed off. Connor's story is okay, though. I was genuinely surprised by the twist at the end of sequence 3. Naval combat is surprisingly fun. I hadn't watched any videos of it, so I had no idea what to expect. Hunting is fun, too. It reminds me of Red Dead Redemption, except here I can jump around the treetops and stab animals in the face. I think 90% of my kills were with the hidden blades. I like how you get to know the people in the homestead because they all have missions for you. It's just a shame that most of the missions are pretty boring. I kind of wish I could just stab Norris and Myriam when they keep making me run back and forth through the forest all the time. Of course, nothing compares to the tediousness of the Encyclopedia of the Common Man sidequest. Speaking of tediousness, I always though the one thing missing from the Assassin's Creed series was mazes! We definitely need more of those in the next game. I hate the way the map works in this game. Viewpoints are too rare and exploring the map on foot just to find sidequests? Ugh. It's not helped by the fact that unexplored areas of the map are almost the same color as the parts you've explored. Not being able to see sidequests on the map unless you're already in that area is a stupid oversight, requiring you to fast travel to the area, then fast travel again once you know where the sidequest is - adding another 10-20 seconds of loading every time. Notoriety has always been one of the more annoying gameplay aspects in the Assassin's Creed series, so I'm glad it's much easier to get rid of it in this game than in Revelations. Exceeept in the frontier, where I can't even go to the hunting lodge without sneaking around the back or getting attacked by guards. As if exploring the map on foot wasn't annoying enough already. It really was high time the series switched over to replenishing health. No more swinging by a doctor every time you've taken a fall! Assassin recruits are no fun in this game. I liked how you had to balance risk and reward when you sent them on missions in Brotherhood. Do you send just one assassin and have him get massive amounts of experience but risk him dying, or do you make sure they survive by sending more assassins, but instead they earn less experience? In this game, they get the same amount of experience no matter how many of them you send on a mission (and it's such a small amount, too!), and there's no punishment for failing a mission. Well, the recruits become unavailable for a few minutes, but the only useful thing about them was arrow storm anyway, and they removed that. The trading minigame should have been left in hell where they found it. How to send out convoys filled with pelts: - Locate a shop or go to the homestead (every 10-15 minutes, if you want to earn as much money as possible). - Press right, right and X to go to the trading interface. - Select a convoy. - Select a slot. - Press down, down, down, down, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, X. - Select a trader. - Select the next slot. - Press down, down, down, down, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, X. - Select a trader. - Select the next slot. - Press... well, you get the idea. That's not even mentioning the fact that crafting items to sell is completely pointless when any item you craft after the first one increases the price with 100% of the original price. £250 is a great price for a barrel that should cost £25! So you'll have to make one crate and one barrel and one mast every time you're trading, instead of sending out one convoy with nothing but barrels. Thank God there's nothing to spend money on, save for a few ship upgrades. This is by far the buggiest Assassin's Creed game I've played. Collectibles for the sake of collectibles. Bleh. I really could do without the 'full synchronization' malarkey. It just feels like the game is trying to get me to play a certain way, and every time I fail an objective, I get that big red text telling me what a failure I am. It's not like there's any point in doing any of it (other than an achievement/trophy), so it's just there for replay value, I guess - in a game that's already 30+ hours long. They could at least let me turn it off so it's easier to ignore. I don't know if it's because I'm on an SD television, but the white text could be really hard to read with all of the white/light in the game. There were many times when I couldn't see what my objective was (spoiler: it was usually to stab someone), and I could only understand some of what the Native Americans were saying when most of the text had snow or sky behind it. The almanac pages had the same problem, and it just became a matter of running in one direction and hoping it was the right one, because I could rarely see the almanac page I was chasing. Thank God for the mini-map. Anyway, I enjoyed it overall, but I'd love it if the series would take a break for a year or two until Assassin's Creed 4.
Hero-of-Time Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 (edited) I finished this today and thought it was very average. I think it is probably the worst in the series for me. When wandering around the world it just felt like a very poor version of RDR. It was also far too big for its own good, with you having to travel all over the place. You do have fast travel options but the loading times make this a nightmare. When you fast travel you get taken to a loading screen. The game loads and you then walk to the next area, where the game loads again. The loading times are pretty bad as well. They may be the same on say the 360 but at least you can install the game to speed up the process. Connor is a jerk, he really is. I loved Ezio in the other games as he was such a charmer and player, with a hint of cockiness to him. Connor just constantly cries on and on, basically he just acts like a young teenager for the majority of the game. There are far too many moments when you fail because you do sonething the game didnt want you to do. You used to be able to do missions your own way but now the game seems more limited. You have to do it the games way or you fail. So, yeah, a very average outing for the series, which is a shame as I have really enjoyed the other games. Edited December 8, 2012 by Hero-of-Time
Diageo Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 I finished this today and thought it was very average. I think it is probably the worst in the series for me. When wandering around the world it just felt like a very poor version of RDR. It was also far too big for its own good, with you having to travel all over the place. You do have fast travel options but the loading times make this a nightmare. When you fast travel you get taken to a loading screen. The game loads and you then walk to the next area, where the game loads again. The loading times are pretty bad as well. They may be the same on say the 360 but at least you can install the game to speed up the process. Connor is a jerk, he really is. I loved Ezio in the other games as he was such a charmer and player, with a hint of cockiness to him. Connor just constantly cries on and on, basically he just acts like a young teenager for the majority of the game. There are far too many moments when you fail because you do sonething the game didnt want you to do. You used to be able to do missions your own way but now the game seems more limited. You have to do it the games way or you fail. So, yeah, a very average outing for the series, which is a shame as I have really enjoyed the other games. This is just you not knowing what to do because if you press the zoom out button you go to a bigger map of all 4 areas and then you can zoom into the area you want and be taken straight there.
Magnus Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 I went back to get the last few trophies I could be bothered to get last night. How annoying are the boardgames? I'd tried playing Nine Men's Morris on the ship near the beginning of the game and eventually vowed to never play it again after losing a dozen times in a row. Then I played it in the Homestead and won on my first try. So I thought Fanorona would be a piece of cake. I'd played it once before in a tavern and managed to win (barely), so I figured it couldn't be that hard. Oh, how naive I was. The AI was ruthless and every time I thought he'd take one or two of my pieces, he just kept moving and moving until he'd pretty much cleared the board. The few times I actually did okay, he'd create a wall with his pieces that I couldn't get close to without losing a piece and he'd just move the same piece back and forth, thus creating a stalemate. Every. Single. Time. So I cheated. The end. When you fast travel you get taken to a loading screen. The game loads and you then walk to the next area, where the game loads again. I don't really understand what you're saying here, unless you really didn't realize that you can zoom out the map so it shows the entire east coast, zoom in on a different area and fast-travel directly there. Edit: Yeah, what Diego said.
Diageo Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 I went back to get the last few trophies I could be bothered to get last night. How annoying are the boardgames? I'd tried playing Nine Men's Morris on the ship near the beginning of the game and eventually vowed to never play it again after losing a dozen times in a row. Then I played it in the Homestead and won on my first try. So I thought Fanorona would be a piece of cake. I'd played it once before in a tavern and managed to win (barely), so I figured it couldn't be that hard. Oh, how naive I was. The AI was ruthless and every time I thought he'd take one or two of my pieces, he just kept moving and moving until he'd pretty much cleared the board. The few times I actually did okay, he'd create a wall with his pieces that I couldn't get close to without losing a piece and he'd just move the same piece back and forth, thus creating a stalemate. Every. Single. Time. So I cheated. The end. I don't really understand what you're saying here, unless you really didn't realize that you can zoom out the map so it shows the entire east coast, zoom in on a different area and fast-travel directly there. Edit: Yeah, what Diego said. How did you cheat? I remember playing the games to try and get the platinum and Fanorama was definitely the hardest. But I felt so much satisfaction when I finally beat that bastard. Also, I used to play nine men morris when I was kid with my granny all the time. So I knew what I was doing with it.
Magnus Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 I started up a browser version of Fanorona and played (browser) computer against (game) computer. It still ended in a stalemate the first time.
Cube Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 There are far too many moments when you fail because you do sonething the game didnt want you to do. You used to be able to do missions your own way but now the game seems more limited. You have to do it the games way or you fail. Did you skip Revelations? That was my biggest complaint with Revelations, which is a problem I haven't really encountered in AC3.
Hero-of-Time Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 This is just you not knowing what to do because if you press the zoom out button you go to a bigger map of all 4 areas and then you can zoom into the area you want and be taken straight there. Haha! Knew I must have missed something like that. Did it tell you about that in the game? Must have missed that as well if it did. Did you skip Revelations? That was my biggest complaint with Revelations, which is a problem I haven't really encountered in AC3. That's the only one I skipped as I heard it was rubbish and practically filler.
Diageo Posted December 8, 2012 Posted December 8, 2012 I started up a browser version of Fanorona and played (browser) computer against (game) computer. It still ended in a stalemate the first time. You little pussy. I won within 6 matches.
Magnus Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 Wow, it took six whole games to win? No wonder you felt so proud when you finally won.
Diageo Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 Says the guy that lost 12 nine men's morris on the ship when it's not even the hard AI guy.
Tales Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 Haha! Knew I must have missed something like that. Did it tell you about that in the game? Must have missed that as well if it did. That's the only one I skipped as I heard it was rubbish and practically filler. It's not rubbish. Its only problem was that it had to live up to ACII.
canand Posted December 12, 2012 Posted December 12, 2012 I can't play this game yet its for Christmas
markderoos Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 As I am mostly a Nintendo only kind of guy, this is naturaly my first AC game. And I have to say I love it to bits even though I'm only 15% in or someting. Just as I hoped this is exactly my kind of game Only two games at launch (this and Nintendoland) and there hasn't been a day that I didn't crave for some gametime. That was a long time ago for me
somme Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 I've never played any of the others, and I do like this one. But it's starting to get a little repetitive :-(
Magnus Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 Now imagine if this was your fifth Assassin's Creed game. :p
Cube Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 Now imagine if this was your fifth Assassin's Creed game. :p And I'm still getting a sixth one for Christmas.
Cube Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 Yup, Vita one (which got mixed reviews - good reviews from those reviewing it as a handheld game, poor reviews from those reviewing it as a full console game). No Desmond.
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