@haggis said:

@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.

I think it was actually fine as a game. I think they knew exactly what to do with it but they just didn't realize the full potential. I know the story was the best for me. I never liked Ezio and it really started going off the rails in a bad way in AC2. I don't mind a little bit of cleverly done sci fi but aliens and all that stuff - that was just too silly for me.

@Humanity: I don't think they did know how to use the new mechanics in the best way at the time, which is why they stuck to a fairly rigid structure. Even still, AC1 was a good game. They did figure it out for AC2, which actually was a fantastic game. They clearly had more time to explore possibilities in the sequel, rather than just focusing on getting the mechanics right.

As for the story--everyone has different opinions. I'm not a huge fan of the overarching science fiction story behind everything, and generally I'm an SF fan. I do prefer Ezio to Altair as a character. Connor, on the other hand ... he's one of the biggest problems with AC3. I hope they can recover what was great about AC1 and AC2 in whatever new games they come up with.

A yearly AAA franchise is a bad idea.

@haggis said:

@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.

Agreed 100%.

@SmilingPig said:

A yearly AAA franchise is a bad idea.

The weird thing is I'm okay with it for the AC series, so long as they keep visiting different places and time periods. For example, I supposedly heard the next game may be in Brazil, which could be awesome. If that released next year I'd be all for that.

@kishinfoulux said:

The weird thing is I'm okay with it for the AC series, so long as they keep visiting different places and time periods. For example, I supposedly heard the next game may be in Brazil, which could be awesome. If that released next year I'd be all for that.

Brazil would be amazing--just imagine freerunning around Rio, including a shanty town, some high cliffs, the Christo Redentor, the football stadium, and even some dense jungle areas. Imagine an assassination on the cable car going up Sugarloaf. It's like the perfect storm of Assassin's Creed locations. I'd really love some Far Cry-like AC4 stealth sections in the jungle. It'd also be cool to visit the same city at different times--modern Rio and, say, 17th or 18th century. That'd be a blast. I hope they do it.

While playing AC3, I keep asking myself, "Fun where you go too? Pleeze come back?" but it doesn't.

yh the game odd half way thou i kinda stoped likeing it

the missons are dull i can only think of a few that where fun

the plots breaks down half way thou etc etc big letdown

I don't understand why people care about the story in videogames so much. Sure it does matter and a great story (The Walking Dead) can be amazing but I'm so used to bad stories in videogames at this point that it doesn't bother me that much. It's clear that most of the GB staff doesn't read books but they really should, that's where you get good story.

@DystopiaX said:

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.

I don't see it as tutorializing. The game is building up the character of Haytham and Connor. I for one really enjoyed the beginning of the game. Haytham is badass and seeing Connor grow up was pretty cool. I enjoyed it because it was different, not about action and explosions, but more about the characters and playing in the forest.

Am I the only one who never liked Desmond or the Animus crap? I never cared about either which is why I didn't get upset about the ending. The games would be better without Animus and all that.

I am about 3 hours or so into the game (I got it on Wii U because hey, needed something for my Wii U). It is ok so far, BUT the game is buggy/glitchy as all get-out. During Sequence 2 I ran into this very odd stuttering glitch where my guy just sort of danced around instead of, you know, fighting or dodging.

The scripting also seems off in spots as well. My experience with the series up to this point has been limited (played a bit of 1 and 2 and have Brotherhood sitting in my queue on Steam). I like the setting so I'm going to stick with it, but these reports concern me.

i dunno, i cant fully agree, but i understand. i'm having a good time so far, and i've just reached new york. maybe it gets worse from there? i mean, i think the amount and variety of side missions detract from the overall pacing of the game, but that's regular open world shit. arkham city had the same prob, and it was still great. i do think that desmond's parts are kinda bleh, but the platforming, fighting and overall movement mechanics are awesome. the amount of work that went into just platforming (connor climbing mountains and running thru trees) is amazing. i enjoy the historical cameos, paul revere, sam adams, george washington, ben franklin... it feels as if the story has a lot of truth to it, even though most of it is batshit insane. Thats pretty cool to me.

Don't worry. I was a massive AC fan since the first one (repetitive, yes, but it had a great feel and sense of identity) and was looking forward to 3 being a return back to form and the end of the story. When I finished the singleplayer, I jumped on multi to see if that could hold and not evewn that did. Exchanged it the day after. I constantly felt like i was ticking boxes, dealing with weird UI, bugs EVERYWHERE and the story was complete horseshit. On top of that the multiplayer's main and most played mode was team deathmatch, in which your character is unique in the lobby and it's just a case of finding your target and going in for the kill instead of blending in with AI that looks like you. Why change something that was unique and not broken? and before you go for my throat, I know that mode was in, but it's not the default and thus less players doing it.

Ugh. Count me out of future AC purchases. This game ruined my excitement for the franchise.

@JoeyRavn said:

• 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.

Oh god the checkpointing! I remember countless times where I had failed full sync objectives on reaching a checkpoint. Select to start from the last checkpoint to be brought to that same point and having to start the mission over to get the full sync. I just don't get how this got through. In most companies, QA do checkpoint sweeps to make sure that stuff doesn't happen. It's passable on games where there's less of a completionist aspect to missions, but AC3 is the very embodiment of completionism.

@Artso said:

I don't understand why people care about the story in videogames so much. Sure it does matter and a great story (The Walking Dead) can be amazing but I'm so used to bad stories in videogames at this point that it doesn't bother me that much. It's clear that most of the GB staff doesn't read books but they really should, that's where you get good story.

@DystopiaX said:

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.

I don't see it as tutorializing. The game is building up the character of Haytham and Connor. I for one really enjoyed the beginning of the game. Haytham is badass and seeing Connor grow up was pretty cool. I enjoyed it because it was different, not about action and explosions, but more about the characters and playing in the forest.

Am I the only one who never liked Desmond or the Animus crap? I never cared about either which is why I didn't get upset about the ending. The games would be better without Animus and all that.

Couldn't you have all of the Haytham and young connor shit without it being so long though? I've played 3 of these games before, I don't need you to teach me how to freerun, to stand in a crowd of people, or how to press X to stab things. I wasn't saying that the beginning was bad from a story perspective, just that a vast amount of the gameplay they did have you go through was boring and unncessary. The actual story bits, like the Templar reveal and seeing Connor playing in the village, were good. The ridiculous amount of hand-holding was not.

@DystopiaX: Fair enough. I could see them getting rid of some of that stuff for sure. I guess it didn't bother me too much.

I got it for Christmas and am about 12-14-ish hours in (I just did Bunker Hill/Pitcairn), and I actually really like playing it. I'm slightly addicted to all the Homestead and Land Convoy stuff (Trade ALL THE PELTS), and the freerunning feels better and more flowing than it has - I skipped ACR so it's been a while - and I actually like the fluidity of the combat as well as some of the intricacies they've added in, like defending from Musket volleys. And holy cow, that Naval combat, I can see why a few of the Guest GOTY lists on here wanted to specifically point it out, because that stuff is so much fun! I'd love to see that as some kind of 4v4 multiplayer mode or something.

My main problem is that it took so goddamn long to get to the part where it was a decent Assassin's Creed game. 7 hours of tutorialising in the fifth installment of your franchise - hell the fifth installment this console generation! - is nothing short of ridiculous. There should've been some option where they said 'Hey, have you played an Assassin's Creed game before?' and if you picked yes, it'd show you the story stuff in a 5 minute cutscene or something. I came so close to quitting out during that. I'm glad I didn't because I'm enjoying it now, but jesus, you shouldn't have to spend 7 hours getting to the good stuff. Connor's not a particularly great character either, compared to Ezio. It feels very strange to go from someone so charming and brash, and interesting, and then see them continue that with Haytham (Why can't we play as HIM for the whole game instead!? That'd be great!), and then go to someone as one note and boringly voice acted as Connor for the next 10-15 hours. As a character design he looks great, but he's just so boring. I don't care for his story at all, so it's a good job the American revolution stuff around it is interesting enough to maintain my desire to play.

Also, I know we're nearing the end of a generation and Consoles are pushed to their limits, but man, this can look really rough in some places. Character models look very good, especially their eyes, but panning over Boston during a Synchronise point and it looks straight up terrible - sometimes even shockingly bad. I've never been one to be all 'You should play on PC so it doesn't look awful!', but I'm definitely interested in seeing footage of that version running, just to see the improvements on the decidedly less-polished areas of the console version.

I don't get the hate for this game.

Charles Lee, motherfuckers.