But is it fun? I dont care if they spend some time to develope the story, characters etc and at the same time give you a rundown on the essentials. I thought they did that great in AC2 (just played it again). I dont have to start the game by stabbing dudes in the face. I like a nice ramp up as long as I enjoy it. If it is bad and boring then i certainly understand the uproar, but if its fun it wont bother me much.

Don't a lot of epic in scope single player games have extensive tutorials where they slowly introduce all the game mechanics?

That's the part I don't like about Assassins Creed games. There's a lot of stuff going on, maybe a bit to much for it's own good, and it takes time to introduce all the different gameplay mechanics.

At some point you have to just play the game, and if the toturial is longer than an hour, then I'm starting to lose interest.

yeah it's really fucking slow

i wasn't even aware there was an embargo in place. that seems like such a blatantly corrupt thing to do, ensuring that no bad reviews potentially hurt the sale of your game, how is that even possible? if i had a publication that reviews games, how would it even be legal for a company like ubisoft to impose on me in such a way that i couldn't dictate when and where i write a review? for a game that's already sounding like complete bullshit, this seems incredibly stupid.

@OtakuGamer said:

@studnoth1n said:

it's a stupid game, made by stupid people FOR stupid people. in fact, the whole game should just be one long tutorial... or maybe include an autopilot feature where the game plays with itself. bloated, pretentious, indulgent pos

@JerichoBlyth said:

The game is a load of dumbed down nonsense - Ubicrap have done it again.

Who the hell are you trying to fool here exactly? Since when did Giant Bomb have people like this?

I'm not fooling anybody. There's a review embargo on this game for a reason. It's a bit pants.

Does that include the hour I'll spend doing doughnuts with my horse?

@studnoth1n said:

i wasn't even aware there was an embargo on this game. that seems like such a blatantly corrupt thing to do, ensuring that no bad reviews potentially hurt the sale of your game. how is that even possible? if i had a publication that reviews games, how would it be legal for them to suppress when i could release a review for the game? this all seems super shady, and for a game that's already sounding like complete bullshit, this seems incredibly stupid.

I don't think you understand the deal that is made when embargos go up. The reviewer gets access to the game early and in return they must wait a certain amount of time to upload a review of it. It is to stop the part of the industry which will do anything for hits; they are the ones who at the first opportunity review a game without even playing it for very long simply to have the first review up. Most of the time, embargos have nothing to do with devs/publishers trying to suppress bad reviews as they are for simply trying to get reviewers to actually play the game first before reviewing it. If their aim was to stop bad reviews leaking then they wouldn't send pre-release copies to the game; simply saying "if you want to review it, then buy it on day one like everyone else" - it's those games which you should be wary of.

@Hunter5024 said:

Every game developer operates under the delusion that people who ignored every game in their franchise up until this point are totally going to change their mind this time, so they always cater to new players, regardless of the last few games.

It actually seems like that has happened - AC III is Ubisoft's most pre-ordered game ever (at least according to Ubisoft). [btw Only that part was aimed at you @Hunter5024 - the rest is more general] While this doesn't necessarily mean that any of these people haven't played an Assassin's Creed game before (maybe skipping a couple and thus the majority of them haven't pre-ordered the same game together) it does at least point out that many of them probably do need to be caught up on story and mechanics of some of the previous games. We also have to remember that it is also going to be released for WiiU where they will likely receive a much higher proportion of new players buying for that system. So they definitely do still need a tutorial sequence to bring people up to speed.

It could be argued that it should be optional, but that seems redundant as Assassin's Creed is heavily scripted anyway and making it optional would only get rid of the prompts and a couple of the dialogue scenes since they use it to funnel the player from set-piece to set-piece. I don't really see how anyone who has already played an Assassin's Creed game before would find a problem with this; they always make the opening (and ending) of every game heavily scripted anyway and putting the tutorial section in during this part is a lot more enjoyable than a 30 minute crash session where they throw all of their mechanics at you at once and then remove all of the tutorial parts of the opening - leaving you with basically a 2 hour set-piece movie where you don't get to play at all until it opens up.

Anyone who is going to have a problem with this probably shouldn't play an Assassin's Creed game in general.

Hopefully that means its long ass game

@Jumbs said:

@studnoth1n said:

it's a stupid game, made by stupid people FOR stupid people. in fact, the whole game should just be one long tutorial... or maybe include an autopilot feature where the game plays with itself. bloated, pretentious, indulgent pos

This is post of the year right here

Slap that on the back of the box for sure.

@Bell_End said:

i needs something cools to happen in the first 45 mins or i loose interest and look at shiny things like bottle tops or spoons.

Oh man, have I got the website for you: http://pinterest.com/labellabeads/spoons-bottle-caps/

@Heltom92 said:

I assume it's like other AC games where they are slowly introducing new mechanics to you over the first few hours.

It's this plus they have made some subtle tweaks to the basic mechanics that change how your guy interacts with the environment. Combat is slightly different and there is an aim mechanic now but the overall game is mostly the same. It's a bit of a slow start but it stills like an Assassin's Creed game.

AC series has always been horribly slow in introducing mechanics imo

@stryker1121 said:

@AssInAss said:

This is what I've been hearing a lot from impressions. First 6 hours are tutorial.

Boston doesn't open up until then, it's not fully built yet.

No hunting. No trading. No tree climbing.

Seems a bit long, Assassin's Creed 2 and onwards were slow but not to this extent.

Source? Is this GameFaqs talk or from an actual review?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=43621130&postcount=709

You can find that said in other places too.

So far, they've kept the tutorial interesting with a strong plot so as long as the story is good, I'm fine with linearity.

@studnoth1n said:

it's a stupid game, made by stupid people FOR stupid people. in fact, the whole game should just be one long tutorial... or maybe include an autopilot feature where the game plays with itself. bloated, pretentious, indulgent pos

You're joking right? Of course you're joking! It takes a decent amount of intelligence to make a game you know.

I've been reading the same. About 6 to 10 hours of the game is tutorial. Now every AC game has mostly opened slow but 6 hours seems a little much. Of course I haven't played it and it sounds like the story is strong during these 6 hours but still it seems like a bit much

@Heltom92 said:

I assume it's like other AC games where they are slowly introducing new mechanics to you over the first few hours.

It would be nice for the fifth game in the series to not have to hand hold every single element of the game as if it is entirely new. Not a single new feature has been introduced 3 hours in and the game assumes you have not been through this four times already. Its annoying. Who is the mystical consumer who is just jumping in now really? Stop pandering to a tiny fractional minority and let me play the damn game.

Better then FF13's 30 Hour tutorial.

I'm sure those numbers are highly exaggerated (just like when I heard Dishonored is only 5 hours long despite it taking me 12 hours.) However, this is the main reason why I stopped playing the Assassin's Creed after the first one. The second one had an incredibly long tutorial run and after 2 hours, my main objective in the main story line mission was to deliver a letter. At that point, I shut the game off, never to turn it on again, and never to play another Assassin's Creed game again. I'm surprised they're still doing this.

Having done a quick skim of the reviews out so far, it's looking like the things that pissed me off about the series are still there. Things they have improved are of a sort I never particularly cared about one way or the other. My primary issue with AC since the first game was a lack of control over my own actions in story missions. They have always been structured in such a way that removes any sense of strategic planning on the part of the player. According to reviews, that is still alive and well. Some reviews even suggest that the scripting is even more heavy handed now for the main line story missions.

PASS.

EG, IGN and GameSpot all mentioned the long tutorial. VanOrd over at GS said it's "unexpectedly long" but not necessarily a bad thing, as it introduces you to the characters. The EG reviewer, meanwhile, said the into could take up to eight hours which is nuts.

@AssInAss: AC2 artificially tutorialized the experience right up until the climbing jump, unlocked in Memory 7--roughly half-way through the campaign (6-10 hours in). It's a hallmark of the series to artificially prolong the acquisition of new skills and equipment.

As someone who doesn't enjoy being thrown in the deep end of an open world game and have no idea what to do, focus on or prioritize I appreciate some good gradual linear build up. 6 hours seems like it would be pushing it but does AC3 not have a mountain of new systems, I certainly wouldn't want all of them thrown at me in the first couple hours.

Welcome to video games in 2012. It really would be nice if they had a separate, non-story based tutorial for the basic mechanics from the previous games, maybe an animus simulation sort of thing, and then only had contextualized tutorials for the new mechanics.

More bitching and whining. :/

Someone must've hated playing as Roxas.

I wanna toss in. The first 4 hours seem more tutorial. Not 6. 

They do this every time. This shouldn't really be surprising. Well, 6 hours may be a little longer than the previous games, but ACIII is supposed to be around 25-30 hours long, and has a lot of extra content to it. So it's all good. If only the game would finish downloading on my Ps3 already.

Edit: And the IGN review stated it as a 3 or so hour tutorial. Guess I'll find out just how long this tutorial is myself.

@DharmaBum said:

Someone must've hated playing as Roxas.

Thanks for the laugh.

Having played until Mr. Church's rescue, I can say that this game is (so far) fantastic. The graphics are jaw-droppingly beautiful for a 360 game, and the only bug so far was a floating musket which honestly just made me laugh. The exposition is very good, and although it's not frenetic and fast, it seems quite steady.

I'm also finding myself thinking in a proper colonial British accent.

@murisan said:

Having played until Mr. Church's rescue, I can say that this game is (so far) fantastic. The graphics are jaw-droppingly beautiful for a 360 game, and the only bug so far was a floating musket which honestly just made me laugh. The exposition is very good, and although it's not frenetic and fast, it seems quite steady.

I'm also finding myself thinking in a proper colonial British accent.

I stopped right at that point and have enjoyed it so far. The bug I ran into was a conversation that takes places early on and one of the characters mouths doesn't move while they were talking. It was pretty funny.

Its like MGS2 but backwards lol if you know what I mean

I had a little time to play yesterday and pretty much did nothing at all...

was on a boat... then on a horse. the pace zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Just like every other AC game! A for effort though.

Am I the only one who thinks the graphics (a) aren't that great and (b) even if they were, the framerate is awful?

I honestly almost couldn't make my way through it. At some point I started thinking, "What in the fuck? Do they honestly think that we're braindead morons?" I don't like it anywhere near as much as AC2 or Brotherhood.

And lastly this is another game this year, and in this series, with a shit ending. Would it fucking kill them to stop and say, "Here. There's the ending. It's done. We're not going to make another sequel to rip more money away from your hands by being cock teases. We're not going to make you feel shafted. That's it. That's the end." Why does everything have to have sequel stamped on it above everything else? If shit like this happened in major classical films, like Citizen Kane, people would lose their shit. It's preposterous. We're paying for a game, story, and absolutely no resolution until almost 200 dollars is dropped into it 3 games down the line.

When I first saw this thread, I thought no way there would be 6 hours of tutorial, someone is exaggerating. 8 hours in... still in tutorial... grrr.

@Scrawnto said:

Welcome to video games in 2012. It really would be nice if they had a separate, non-story based tutorial for the basic mechanics from the previous games, maybe an animus simulation sort of thing, and then only had contextualized tutorials for the new mechanics.

The worst part is they totally start doing that for movement and free-running then decide, naw let's just have 8 hours of introducing stuff instead.

Yeah, between hearing the podcast description and this it finally puts the nail in the coffin, I'm never gonna play any Assassin's Creed games. I'm sure they're great games in their own ways, I just hate ramp-up segments plodding along with button prompts and hints like this.

After slogging through the first 20 hours of Final Fantasy XIII I laugh in the face of this game, HAHA.

Having played about 6 hours, I can pretty much tell you the deal on this (Possible spoilers)- the first 4 hours are basically tutorial tied in with the overarching story- you WILL NOT play the lead character until 6 hours in- you'll play as a pre-cursor to that character- when you basically finish the initial prologue/tutorial, then you'll get a tutorial for the main character, which introduces some additional stuff having to do with outdoors parkour. It is egregious - there is no reason for that much lead in to the main character, in my opinion, but its not JUST a pure tutorial - its more like a prologue with tutorial elements and there's a little twist at the end of the 4 or so hours which will get you thinking.

As others mentioned, I recall other Assassin's Creed games suffering from similar problems. The way I dealt with it in AC 3, after reading reviews and hearing about the slow start ,was to literally plow through the prologue plot and tutorial, didn't bother with any exploring, mini game playing or extraneous conversations with characters. I don't know if I missed anything important or interesting, which is the downside to playing in that manner, but the reviews also say that once you manage to slog through the first 6-8 hours, the game goes wide open and gives you tons of content, which was my primary reason for buying the game- open world is my thing (hurray Skyrim) and my understanding is there's quite a bit of open world fun once you get through the initial slog. I should know tonight but I think ultimately, it will be worth it. The setting is pretty amazing and if you like American history, you should check it out - I met Ben Franklin in the first hour, though of course Ben wanted me to do a fetch quest for him.

I thought exactly the same 6 hours in and I finally got my assassins robes! god that felt long I'm just hoping that I get the to free roam now and do my stuff. Really why is it so long? 10 minutes at the start would have been perfect ********SPOILER**********.I'm also calling that this game has pulled a metal gear solid 2 on us as well since the first few hours are spent as his father. I didn't think AC2 tutorial period was so bad, it eased not only to the mechanics but also the character of Ezio. I'd say that was perfect length.

@AssInAss said:

@Zomgfruitbunnies said:

Well, how many dudes do you get to stab in those six hours?

You don't get to stab anyone in the first 2 hours.

Are we playing the same game? The first stab is about 5-10 minutes into the game?

I've only played ~3-4 hours so far (it was released here yesterday), but so far I've spent at least 2 hours running around Boston, randomly stabbing dozens of guards, getting into plenty of fights. Also, not having run into any of the animus walls that I'm used to Assassins Creed games throwing up, I don't see what the fuss is all about.

Pretty much all open-world games have slow introductions. And in this case, the introduction is teeming with story.

I remember a time when people complained about how there wasn't enough story in games. It's crazy to see these threads complaining about long introductions with too much story... what? I'm sure you'll get to do all the climbing trees and hunting you can shake a stick at later. What's the rush?

I honestly found all 6 of those hours more tolerable then the 25-30 minute one at the start of Red Dead Redemption. At least in AC3 they were building to stuff and establishing characters.

@Mnemoidian said:

@AssInAss said:

@Zomgfruitbunnies said:

Well, how many dudes do you get to stab in those six hours?

You don't get to stab anyone in the first 2 hours.

Are we playing the same game? The first stab is about 5-10 minutes into the game?

I've only played ~3-4 hours so far (it was released here yesterday), but so far I've spent at least 2 hours running around Boston, randomly stabbing dozens of guards, getting into plenty of fights. Also, not having run into any of the animus walls that I'm used to Assassins Creed games throwing up, I don't see what the fuss is all about.

Pretty much all open-world games have slow introductions. And in this case, the introduction is teeming with story.

I remember a time when people complained about how there wasn't enough story in games. It's crazy to see these threads complaining about long introductions with too much story... what? I'm sure you'll get to do all the climbing trees and hunting you can shake a stick at later. What's the rush?

My bad at the stabbing one, more of a joke hehe.

They've advertised the game with hunting and tree climbing from the beginning, you can't imagine some people being disappointed they're unable to do those things until much later?

@AssInAss: I must've missed those ads. But if they exist, then fine - you might be right.

I'm enjoying the game so far, either way.

Saying "the first six hours are tutorial" isn't entirely accurate. The game doesn't give you all of the mechanics until several hours in, but what you're doing isn't all "tutorial". You're killing hella dudes, infiltrating forts, eavesdropping on conversations, and doing a bunch of Assassin's Creed-y stuff. And yes, some missions are clearly designed to introduce the new mechanics to you. But with the amount of new shit they put in, and the changes they made to previous systems, you kind of need it.

And the twist at the end of the prologue (I guess you could call it?), is pretty awesome. Though it's a little silly when you encounter Charles Lee again years later in that forest, and he's all of a sudden disheveled and creepy looking, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

The game is definitely a slow burn, but I like it. Getting magnetized to a ledge when you don't want to, or being unable to drop down from something with precision, is still controller-throwingly frustrating, though.

Degrading it into a '' tutorial '' is a bit harsh. The game's first hours are a treat. Unless you really are eager to stab redcoats with a tomahawk.