I was on about sequence 10 and I thought to myself 'Man I don't care about this story at all" Quit on the game, watched the ending on youtube, not really sure what the purpose of this topic was I was just hoping this game would be better.

The main questline does seem strangely weak. A few too many of them felt way too linear. Go here, cut scene, play this so-so minigame, go here, cut scene. Brotherhood and others did a much better job of giving you the task of "murder this guy", then making it challenging, but still giving you a number of ways of approaching it.

When I got away from the main quest and just got all the peg-leg trinkets, or unlocking all the assassins for the guild I started enjoying it more. I also really dig the exploration bits in the modern era. The bit in Brazil was awesome. The free running in the trees of the frontier is great too, but they don't give you much reason to do it. I do it just because I like it. The naval battles are great too, but again, not much reason to do them all.

Connor is too earnest, perhaps. He's Luke to Ezio's Han Solo. Just not as fun, but more and more I'm thinking the many different mechanics just aren't surfaced very well.

Haven't finished it yet, but I agree that it feels off so far. That said, free running in trees, leaping through the air, and stabbing a bear in the neck: never gets old for me.

Yeah same here. Sad I wasted $90 on the PSN version.

I enjoyed the game overall, but Connor was a weak character that I didn't at all care about. And I LOVE Native Americans, so I should have been all in.

Also, the guys were recently talking about Nico in GTA wanting to change his ways, then murdering mass amounts of people. Connor would do the same thing in cutscenes, but then you'd go out and straight murder hundreds of red coats. Just weird.

@ep_driver: Not really because the Red Coats are the enemy, killing them all is just helping the cause.

I was excited with it for the first 10 hours but at one point I just looked at all the icons on my map and though fuck, I don't want to do any of this.

So then I traded it in and got SMG2 ^___^

I gave up when I had to escort someone and he kept jumping off a cliff. Was not gonna restart and invest another 7 hours in a bug that happened 20 times in a row. 

I'm pretty damned close to doing the same thing. I'm about 15 hours in and I seriously can't take it anymore.

Boring missions, terrible framerate, rampant pop-in, and Connor is a lame character.

I really think Assassin's Creed needs to get back to being a solitary agent working against a network of Templars. Brotherhood's "rebuilding the order" was cool for that game, but it feels tacked on now. I think a lot of the potential impact in Connor's story is removed when you're reminded that it's not just this optimistic kid and an old black man against the world.

Sadly, while I'm having a GREAT time 11 hours in, I can see myself getting bored within the next 5-10 hours.

Ubisoft is just trying too hard, and has spread the game too thin with an abundance of characters and of open-world mechanics that just don't fit for the rather linear and focused Assassin's Creed experience. I'm having a blast running through trees and fighting/evading redcoats in the dark mean streets of Boston, but aside from the Haytham twist 3 hours in, and the revelation Connor got in the tent, the story in between is just uninteresting.

Like I said, Ubisoft reached for the stars with this project, trying to deepen the story with too many characters, historical accuracies and too much bullshit, while also trying to copy The Elder Scrolls and Red Dead Redemption gameplay and falling short.

I commend them for the undying desire to innovate and expand, but this time around they've lost focus.

It's just Ubisoft being scared of their audience. They don't want to make games anymore; they want to make interactive movies with sandboxes in them, and that turns people like me off.

Kinda crazy that so many people had the same effect, myself included. I don't know if it was the (lack of) pacing, but what started out as a good game just got less enjoyable over time. Don't get me wrong; the naval and Captain Kidd missions were tons of fun, and the previous console title in the series did something similar by adding a variety of gameplay styles to the mix. I was hoping they were just testing the waters with new types of missions, but AC3 went in the wrong direction by including even more underdeveloped mini-games at the expense of the core gameplay.

For better or worse, I'm afraid they'll take it a step further in the next one, but maybe they'll focus on the real-world story and gameplay and stuff all of the gimmicks into Animus missions (like they should have done with this one, in retrospect). I'm still sorely disappointed at the lack of puzzles (the kind where you have to teach yourself the Sumerian number system), but I'd also probably play a game full of naval missions if that's solely what the developers focused on.

What really killed it for me was the bugs, which also got worse as the game went along. The most telling clue was that for the gigantic budget, staff, and production of this game, there were only a handful of (probably less than 5) beta testers in those 15 minutes of ending credits. It's fine if you want to trade style over substance, but this is the result. The cutscenes are well-directed and there's some pretty great voice acting, but I bought a game, not a movie. Ubisoft knew AC3 was supposed to be epic and everything, and they just tried to do too many different things to please too many different people instead of just making a single, coherent video game.

I'm not so far in but during sequence 5 i started to get the feeling that i was doing too many collecting quests and not enough great set pieces, assassins creed brotherhood was full of great puzzle dungeons and i kind of miss doing proper sneaky assassin missions.

I am on Sequence 7, and I have to say I'm digging it. I only had one real glitch/freak out and that was moreso me dicking around, but I haven't had any weird glitches. And I like Connor. I think he is a real good character and it just fits. He was raised pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, so his naivete is justified to me. And it's pretty cool seeing Connor's eyes open up to the real world, as his mission continues.

The amount of complaints worried me at first, but they seem to be centered around Desmond's ending, and I don't care for Desmond at all, so whatever happens eh. And the slow start, which I am well passed and felt they could of cut out the early Connor stuff and just jumped to the village burning.

I am missing the Tombs and such, but I think the naval combat is a fitting replacement. The Homestead missions, have been some of my favorite missions, but actually running the Homestead just seems like nonsense... I don't even worry about it.

I got so fucking bored of 3 and Liberation. At this point it's a chore to play them. I'll bang them out one day during the holidays but it seems like Ubisoft has pushed it with these yearly releases. I hope they take a break.

I really like the game and I thought Conner was a great character.

I had to force myself to finish this one. So many problems. Connor was boring and I didn't much care about his story. The audio samples that loop constantly drove myself (and my girlfriend) nuts. None of the side stuff seemed to have any real point other than simply existing. I had to restart more than one mission because it simply wouldn't trigger the next phase. And having not finished Brotherhood or Revelations all of the first civilization stuff came off pretty dumb. Didn't realize they went off the deep end with that after two. I did enjoy the setting though.

Saying AC3 is a good game is like saying sleeping with homeless people is a bit like camping.

I'm bummed they stuffed the Subject 16-esque conspiracy stuff into the multiplayer. The devs made the Erudito bits fit, but I think the single player campaign could have used it more, instead of padding it with crafting bullshit.

Wow, I haven't played AC 3 and from these types of testimonials I don't plan to. Which is a shame, considering I loved 2 and Brotherhood, but it does seem as if a sea-change in philosophy is needed if AC is going to stay relevant. Perhaps with the fantastic Far Cry 3 coming out, Ubisoft said "Don't worry guys, no pressure, we've got another stellar game in case you fuck up this time around."

The only thing that can save Assassin's Creed is FUTURE Assassin's Creed as far as I'm concerned.

I like Assassin's Creed 3 but I would say it is slightly worse then Revelations. It feels like it isn't a leap forward in the way Assassin's Creed 2 was from the first game. I would say outside of the innovation in the controls and that combat it is actually a step backwards from the innovations that were made in Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood, and even Revelations.

I really want an AC where you play entirely as Desmond but wouldn't mind one set during Prohibition Chicago or one set during WW1 Europe.

Yeah, I'm probably in the same boat as the poster above. I think that as a game it's slightly worse than Revelations. That's not to say I don't like it! I think the setting and the characters are really great and really well fleshed out. But the actual mission (especially the main story missions) are so dull... I don't feel like a badass assassin when I'm throwing boxes of tea into the sea or racing around knocking on people's doors.

Yeah, after the initial excitement wore off, I realized that it was actually extremely underwhelming. The post-endgame content isn't nearly interesting enough to have kept me playing after I completed the main questline. I don't get how hunting is supposed to be able to keep someone playing. I've heard players rave about how amazing it is. And it's good, don't get me wrong, but it gets very repetitive and monotonous after awhile.

I wound up trading the game back in this weekend. I couldn't be bothered to pick it back up and play.

@AhmadMetallic: At about 15 hours in I haven't touched any of the main missions post Connor in a hood mode. The game is an amazing open world hunting and trading experience, with excellent side quests. But the stories linearity totally breaks it. It's the strangest disconnect I've felt in a game.

Me too .

:(

I've had this feeling since Assassin's Creed 2.

I think the problem lies in the first five sequences. The go on too long and they stretch the story out in ways that it shouldn't be stretched out, so you end quickly get tired of the game. Especially during sequence five which, holy fuck, that is the most boring part of any AC game. That stuff should have been the first hour, not the first five. The game doesn't really become what it needs to be until basically the end of sequence six, which is basically the halfway point. Here is where my opinion starts to differ from many others. I like the story. I think it is presented well enough and find the characters to be interesting. I think even Connor is a good character, he is unfortunately a much weaker character than those surrounding him. This is only exacerbated by the fact that the player had previously spent so long with that smarmy motherfucker Haythem who was infinitely more interesting and likable. This actually presents a trend in the writing; the villaine are the best characters. Charles Lee is the best written and voiced character in the whole game, imo.

So basically the game is front loaded with a better lead character and way too many tutorial and introduction levels. It kills the pacing from a gameplay stance and causes the story to not become truly engaging until almost the third act. I think it is worth sticking around for and think the game becomes great from sequence eight on, but it is simply a shame that most players will not feel motivated to stick around that long.

I really enjoyed the game, except for the Desmond missions. Also, I will always be happier with ambition, even when a bit misguided, than doing the same thing over and over. That said, I could go for more AC3 and I look forward to next year's game, which will certainly build upon this foundation and iron out any problems.

What is up with all the negativity around games. Not just this, but there are so may threads harping on certain aspects. I liked the buildup through the sequences and especially enjoyed building up my homestead. I think Connor was good and if people avoid every side quest and just want to speed through it, yes sure they disconnect with him when it jumps forward in time. I was down on Revelations, but Ac3 felt fresh to me and I liked the setting. I'm not american if that has anything to do with it. Too many chasing sequences for sure, but overall an enjoyable experience.

I'm definitely going to finish it, but yeah, I agree. I'm only about six hours in, but I really dislike a great deal about the game. I like the story structure thus far and the world itself, but there is quite a bit of poor game design all around.

I just quit as well. 15 hours in, around sequence 10, I hadn't had any fun at all - so I quit. Most disappointing game of the year, hands down.

Overall, it was a good game. But I never saw Connor as an interesting protagonist. He had little character development and I had no reason to truly care for what he was fighting for. He had weak intentions and the people he fought alongside were dirtbags. There were some suitable improvements to the series as a whole, but the story disappointed for the most part.

Assassins Creed 2 still holds as the best entry in the series.

I redacted my earlier statement having now played a few more hours. I gave up and just watched the ending on youtube (first time i've ever done that), I really had no interest in it.

I lost my save in the middle of the game and didn't care enough to start over so started watching the ending you YouTube. I couldn't even make it through all of that. Really just a boring game.

I was hoping AC3 would reignite my love of the series (enjoyed 1 and 2) but Brotherhood was fairly 'meh' to me and it took nearly a year for my to finish Revelations, simply because I didn't care at all.

AC3 is proving to be a slog for me now too. I was into it for the first few hours but now I'm struggling to want to sit down and finish it. I find myself just really not caring what happens. It probably stems from the fact they made the Templars so omnipresent in AC2 it feels impossible for a handful of present day assassins to make a dent in their control... Which seems to not even be the issue now what with the silly first civilization stuff that came out of nowhere. I won't go so far as to give up and watch the ending online (I'm stubborn like that) but unless the next AC game is radically different then I probably won't buy it. I actually rented Hitman: Absolution a week ago and had so much more fun playing that than AC3. Maybe I'll just push through AC3 on my next day off then trade it in.

I will to my last breath argue that Assassins Creed 1 had the strongest story and best characters. The story is kind of a given because it introduced the whole franchise and the idea of the animus was really new and interesting. The characters were a lot better though. Altair was brash and arrogant until he overestimated his abilities and as the player you got to live through his humbling process. There were very clear antagonists that you knew were bad people doing bad things and deserved their fate, without all this templar mysticism wrapped around it. This is a doctor, he experiments on people and hurts the weak, he has broken his oath to help those in need and deserves to be punished, also he is a templar - BAM thats all you need, this guy is a scumbag. As the series progressed all of this got muddled and we end on Connor, who instead of being the wisest, most experienced of all the characters we played thus far that would take the lead and reveal the bigger picture - is the most naive, and inexperienced of all the AC leads we've played thus far. After AC2 you could already see the series going awry, Revelations being the low point in innovation and an obvious cash grab. A lot of people held out hope for AC3 bringing it all back to those wonderful days of AC2 where the game shocked and surprised us - but I guess it was not meant to be.

What I can't understand about this game is how buggy it is. Things like the lockpicking minigame just seemed half-baked and not really polished. I have played every AC game and this one is by far the least satisfying in my opinion. They changed what worked in the last three games and replaced it with meaningless sidequests/collectibles as well as a battle system that can be unusable at sometimes(especially the fist fighting sidequest, which I finally had to go look at a forum to figure out how to damage the enemy). Things just are not made clear. With how many people Ubisoft has working on this game, this kind of stuff should really be more polished. Somehow it is this game and not one of the AC 2 spinoffs that has soured me on this franchise. And I really did like the ending, just had to get that rant about the gameplay out of my system.

I'm only on Sequence 7 at this point, because I've been doing a few of the sidequests and other bits. I actually like the game for what it is, but it no longer seems like an Assassin's Creed game to me. Running through the trees is simply not as fun as running atop buildings (which I hardly do in this game).

The main quest story has had its moments so far, but I honestly don't much care for Connor. I've never liked the overarching narrative, but have always been drawn back by the gameplay. Here, everything that I loved about Brotherhood seems to have been stripped back to the bare minimum. The health system has been revamped for the worse, as has the armor system. There's no real incentive to explore. There's no real challenge except for that offered by unintentionally bad AI. I feel like most of the missions are focused on killing lots of dudes rather than sneaking in and planning ahead. I found myself wanting to go to Gamestop to pick up Brotherhood again, because that's what I really want to play, not this.

I'm enjoying myself, though--the homestead stuff has been kinda nice--but I keep coming back to how much more I enjoyed AC2 and Brotherhood. I get the sense that the dev team is tired of making these games, and they knocked out AC3 quick and dirty so they could move on to something else. It's not a bad game, but it's a shadow of where the series was a game or two ago.

I rented it at a redbox over the weekend, played about 3 hours and got to a mission that fails of you get caught so I gave up. I would say about a third of the time the characters face didn't animate in the cutscenes. I loved the past games but this one didn't do it for me. I got the feeling mr. boring ass Kenway is "someone's" dad right?

The best part is the haytham twist, and that's not super amazing.

I thought the game was totally uneven. Great start, lame middle bit, got good NEARING the end, but then ended incredibly weak.

Also they designed all these time-wasting systems and objectives, but never gave you a good compelling reason to participate in any of them.

Full of unrealized potential.

@AhmadMetallic said:

Sadly, while I'm having a GREAT time 11 hours in, I can see myself getting bored within the next 5-10 hours.

Ubisoft is just trying too hard, and has spread the game too thin with an abundance of characters and of open-world mechanics that just don't fit for the rather linear and focused Assassin's Creed experience. I'm having a blast running through trees and fighting/evading redcoats in the dark mean streets of Boston, but aside from the Haytham twist 3 hours in, and the revelation Connor got in the tent, the story in between is just uninteresting.

Like I said, Ubisoft reached for the stars with this project, trying to deepen the story with too many characters, historical accuracies and too much bullshit, while also trying to copy The Elder Scrolls and Red Dead Redemption gameplay and falling short.

I commend them for the undying desire to innovate and expand, but this time around they've lost focus.

I don't think it's so much a question of reaching too far as it is one of misdirected ambition. There are a lot of things about the AC series that have always been weak as far as gameplay is concerned. Mission structure being the primary culprit. Also apparent confusion on how to increase the difficulty on certain enemy types in a satisfying way; a major problem since the very first game. Rather than fine tune existing elements, they focused on adding additional stuff all over the place. Makes for a game that's kind of mediocre across the board. A little bit of that Duke Nukem Forever syndrome.

I like the game, but I just can't get over some stupid design choices.

• Some of the optional objectives are fucked up, plain and simple. The game is not a stealth game, and everything that forces you to play it as if it was, say, Dishonored or Hitman is poo.
• Moving from cover to cover isextremely painful. The game "snaps" you to cover and you lose a lot of control over your character. One of the early missions with Haytham (the one with the cannons to sabotage) is a perfect example of how infuriating it can be.
• The new movement system is shit. It was much better before: you run with RT, you parkour with RT+A. Directly parkouring with RT makes you, again, snap to everything Connor may climb or grab onto. I wish Ubisoft would have just let us run (as in "move faster") without having to activate the parkour movements at the same time. Sure, you can press RT+B to vault over objects which Connor would usually jump onto... but that barely works.

Edit: Two more things I forgot:

• If you manually restart a checkpoint, you'll lose all the items you used before, even if you had them when you checkpointed. For example, I'm trying to kill some guards with poison darts. I started with 3 darts, used one on a guard, got caught, restarted the checkpoint... with only 2 darts. Fucking dumb.
• Guards can spot you from hundreds of meters away and their lines of sight are almost unbreakable. I don't know how many times I failed a mission because one guard spotted me and no matter how much ground I put between him and me, and regardless of how many objects were between us, his red triangle continued to fill up.

I'm really having a problem with the way this game is designed too, and it's really killed any enthusiasm I had for finishing it:

• there are too many insta-fail missions, or ones where they don't tell you what you have to do. I've engaged in a bunch of chase missions I failed the first time because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to kill the character I was chasing.
• Having the optional objectives sit larger-than-life on the screen at all times also kinda kills the dramatic tension of the game since the player (well, me anyway) tends to focus on completing the objectives presented, even if they're optional, which can often end in repeated frustrated reloading
• I barely know what I should be doing at any given point - there are just too many systems in play at once and I don't know which need priority. Do I send my assassins out on missions? Liberate more townpeople? Liberate a fort? Trade goods? Go on the frontiersmen missions? Hell, I totally forgot about the naval and homestead missions until I read a thread where people said those were their favorite bits
• I don't even know why I'm doing half the stuff I'm doing - they do a poor job of providing justifications for a lot of the systems they have in place. Liberate the forts? For what story purpose? I guess I get a tax break or something, but if I never trade, why should I care?

Weirdly enough, even though I'm pretty soured on the single player, I'm still pretty satisfied with my purchase of this game since I'm getting into the multiplayer. It's sort of the greatest cat-and-mouse hide-and-seek action around and provides tension like no other game out there

@mtcantor said:

I thought the game was totally uneven. Great start, lame middle bit, got good NEARING the end, but then ended incredibly weak.

Also they designed all these time-wasting systems and objectives, but never gave you a good compelling reason to participate in any of them.

Full of unrealized potential.

Eh, I thought the beginning was really boring. About 5-7 hours of tutorializing shit for me, a lot of the side stuff isn't as fun or essential feeling as it was in earlier installments. Still haven't gotten around to finishing it yet.

@Oldirtybearon said:

I really think Assassin's Creed needs to get back to being a solitary agent working against a network of Templars. Brotherhood's "rebuilding the order" was cool for that game, but it feels tacked on now. I think a lot of the potential impact in Connor's story is removed when you're reminded that it's not just this optimistic kid and an old black man against the world.

It's funny when you compare the first Assassin's Creed game, with all the follow ups. The first game was strictly about killing these specific dudes. Sure it was repetitive (though I still really loved it), but it had that singular focus. Now it just feels more like a standard action/adventure game. Most missions don't even involve assassinating anybody.

Anyways I'm kind of surprised to see so much negativity surrounding the game. I'm on Sequence 7 I believe and it's been pretty damn fun. I like Connor as a character and there's been some cool story stuff.

I think the main issue with the game is that there is too much fluff surrounding it. I dig the Homestead, but it's main purpose seems to be to make you money. Problem with that is there isn't much worth spending that money on, except your ship. I'm fully upgraded already on Sequence 7 (unless more upgrades come along) and now I'm just gonna have money burning a hole in my pocket. The Peg Leg missions seem cool, at least from the first one I did. The naval stuff is just as awesome as everyone says it is. Running from the trees is awesome...when it actually gets you going in the direction you need. All too often the branches aren't aligned the way I need them. I also seem to have trouble finding spots to even begin tree climbing/running. Hunting also appears to be 100% useless. I have no need to hunt for animals when I can just buy beaver furs from my Homestead and sell those for a tidy price. Cool that it's there and it is fun to hunt, but it's pointless.

But despite some of those things I'm still really liking it. Boston looks incredible and I can't wait to check out New York.

*edit* Oh and I'm starting to find myself not giving a fuck about the Desmond stuff, which is odd because I feel like that's always been the obvious end goal. Playing as Desmond in a modern setting. Problem is I don't like Desmond as a character and would rather just traipse through different time periods (like Feudal Japan for instance), and just dick around with that. Fuck the over arching narrative. It's become a mess now. Just wrap it up and give me more awesome historic time pieces to play around with, because no other game does what AC does.

@Humanity said:

I will to my last breath argue that Assassins Creed 1 had the strongest story and best characters. The story is kind of a given because it introduced the whole franchise and the idea of the animus was really new and interesting. The characters were a lot better though. Altair was brash and arrogant until he overestimated his abilities and as the player you got to live through his humbling process. There were very clear antagonists that you knew were bad people doing bad things and deserved their fate, without all this templar mysticism wrapped around it. This is a doctor, he experiments on people and hurts the weak, he has broken his oath to help those in need and deserves to be punished, also he is a templar - BAM thats all you need, this guy is a scumbag. As the series progressed all of this got muddled and we end on Connor, who instead of being the wisest, most experienced of all the characters we played thus far that would take the lead and reveal the bigger picture - is the most naive, and inexperienced of all the AC leads we've played thus far. After AC2 you could already see the series going awry, Revelations being the low point in innovation and an obvious cash grab. A lot of people held out hope for AC3 bringing it all back to those wonderful days of AC2 where the game shocked and surprised us - but I guess it was not meant to be.

I think people shit on the first game way too much, which is odd to me. The game was repetitive, but hardly bad. I loved it when it first came out. I think it's because AC2 was such a leap forward it made AC1 look bad.

The problem with the Assassin's Creed games for me is I'm burnt out from the series. Brotherhood was the last AC game I truly liked but playing Revelations for the first 2 hours made me realize how stale the series was getting. ACIII will have to wait till next year before I think about touching it and I really want that series to take a break so the writers can come up with something more exciting for the series.

@armyofmeat said:

I'm really having a problem with the way this game is designed too, and it's really killed any enthusiasm I had for finishing it:

• there are too many insta-fail missions, or ones where they don't tell you what you have to do. I've engaged in a bunch of chase missions I failed the first time because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to kill the character I was chasing.
• Having the optional objectives sit larger-than-life on the screen at all times also kinda kills the dramatic tension of the game since the player (well, me anyway) tends to focus on completing the objectives presented, even if they're optional, which can often end in repeated frustrated reloading
• I barely know what I should be doing at any given point - there are just too many systems in play at once and I don't know which need priority. Do I send my assassins out on missions? Liberate more townpeople? Liberate a fort? Trade goods? Go on the frontiersmen missions? Hell, I totally forgot about the naval and homestead missions until I read a thread where people said those were their favorite bits
• I don't even know why I'm doing half the stuff I'm doing - they do a poor job of providing justifications for a lot of the systems they have in place. Liberate the forts? For what story purpose? I guess I get a tax break or something, but if I never trade, why should I care?

Weirdly enough, even though I'm pretty soured on the single player, I'm still pretty satisfied with my purchase of this game since I'm getting into the multiplayer. It's sort of the greatest cat-and-mouse hide-and-seek action around and provides tension like no other game out there

There is a real lack of cohesiveness in the homestead, trinkets, assassin missions, etc. I didn't even know there were assassin missions until I accidentally came across them in the menus. There's no sense that they reinforce each other, like they did in Brotherhood. If the game offered more reasons to do these other things, it would definitely work better. Quite a few of those activities are fun, but they don't feel like they're part of the same game.

You're definitely right about the game not being clear about what you have to do at some points, and the number of insta-fail missions. Everything about this game feels rushed and half-baked. That said, I'm actually enjoying doing all the extraneous stuff (rather than the main missions, which are often tedious).

@kishinfoulux said:

I think people shit on the first game way too much, which is odd to me. The game was repetitive, but hardly bad. I loved it when it first came out. I think it's because AC2 was such a leap forward it made AC1 look bad.

People forget how ground-breaking AC1 actually was, with the large crowds, freerunning, open world, and the verticality. It's all familiar (and maybe stale) to us now, but at the time it was nearly unprecedented. It took some time before Ubi managed to make a great game out of it, though. All those new game mechanics, and they didn't quite know what to do with it. AC1 is a fine game, and IMO it doesn't really deserve the hate it sometimes gets.