I really disliked 3, does 4 fix enough?

Okay I've played every AC console game and generally love them. That said I HATED 3, from Haytham and Connor, to the convoluted Desmond arc, to the homestead stuff to the bugs (which we won't know the extent of in 4 until its out) and some other small nitpicks. Having said that after the disappointment with 3 I ignored 4 when it was announced and haven't been following it. Does it seem to be different enough to reel someone like me back in?

Reviews will be here soon duder!

The First Ass Creed Review From Some French Magazine. (Can't find link, i'll copy paste from )

AC4 received 18/20.

4/5 For Gameplay

4/5 For the gaphics

5/5 for the soundtrack

5/5 for the length of the game

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Positive aspects of the game:

-Wonderful world / map

-A lot of things to do

-Stealth works very well, you can chose how to approach your taget, etc..

Negatives aspects of the game!

- Technical problems

- lose of frame rate on PS3

- aliasing on PS4

(I guess they played the game on PS3 & PS4 because there are nothing about Xbox)

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Other things you shloud know:

-Cities are better than AC3 (for free running)

-This is A TRUE AC GAME, and the most accomplished of the franchise.

-Combats are slower than AC3...

-...There are less weapons, less new types of ennemies...

-... But naval battles are amazing !

-You'll play as Edward like 10 minutes after launching the game on your console

-Naval is amazing

-Economic system of AC4 is easier to understand and really well made (you board ships, and sell ressources)

-You'll need to upgrade your ship to succes on seas. To upgrade your ship you'll need ressources. You can get them by boarding ships.

-Taking forts have an impact on Edward's progression. It will reveal the location of special places such as caves.

-In all main or secondary missions you can play stealthy if you chose to.

-The involvement of Edward in the Templar-Assassin conflict is a bit predictable but still well done by Darby. You'll see a lot of history events.

About PS4 version:

-Beautiful, fluid, ... BUT there are aliasing on some textures.

About PS3 version:

-Almost like PS4 even if textures are kind of blurred.. The only thing is that there are loss of framerates.

TO CONCLUDE: AC4 is the most successful game of the franchise. Better mechanics of gameplay, better level design, the game is a real success.

You'll need about 20 hours to complete the main path and 50 hours to complete everything.

Thanks for this provides some good insight.

@bd_mr_bubbles: UR Welcome, I too did not enjoy Ass Creed 3. Seems this is a huge improvment. I mean playing ass kenway in the first 10 minutes!!!!!!!!

I feel like people complaining about having to play as Haytham Kenway is really dumb. He played almost the same, and led to a pretty cool twist. Also gave you an opportunity to get some back story on the people who eventually became the villains of the story.

@liquidprince: That was the best part of the singleplayer pretty much.

I really liked 3 and don't know why everyone hated it so much.

I wish I knew. I'm going to try and play more of 3 as I didn't find it too bad.

I thought the same way. I wonder if it comes down to someones approach to the game. I never come to AC games for story, I just sort of load the game and meander for a while. Sometimes I complete a story mission, sometimes I just stab some dudes, sometimes I feel like wandering around searching for feathers. I felt that ACIII was designed for that kind of laid back experience.

Yup, basically this. The side content in it was all great, especially when compared to other open world games. And, honestly, I thought the story wasnt that bad either.

I also thought Charles Lee was a good villain, and the final scene with him and connor in the bar while they were both bleeding to death was pretty cool.

My only major complaint is that some of the systems used in the game were very poorly designed, especially the one involving importing/exporting/crafting.

@bigjeffrey: I cant wait for the game! That review's gotten me more excited. But PC version comes out November 19 ;_;

Couldn't agree more. I remember being disappointed in the games back when I cared about the story, but at this point if you play the games for that you haven't really gotten the memo. I mean the developers themselves have talked about how they don't enjoy that stuff. The games are now basically fun open-world toyboxes with a lot of varied and interesting things to do, and to that end 4 seems to be taking a giant leap.

The series has always had it's ups and downs for me.

I didn't really like the first game.
I loved Assassin's Creed 2.
For whatever reason Brotherhood just rubbed me the wrong way, I didn't enjoy it.
Revelations was better, and I liked how they closed off Ezio's story.
And I found Assassin's Creed 3's change of scenery and character enough for me to have fun with the game, even if I didn't like the ending.

So I'm nervously excited for this game. Pirates and boat sailing could be cool, but I'm on a wait-and-see basis.

@sunbrozak:

I felt the same way, I played every part of AC2. Including getting all of the achievements, by the time Brotherhood rolled out, I remember spending a lot of time with the multiplayer but I pretty much lost all interest with AC at that point. Now i'm so far behind and the story got so freakin weird that it would take something extremely surprising for me to give the franchise another shot at this point.

Edit: I thought this topic was made somewhat sarcastically, I didn't realize that AC 4 was coming out in a week.

I get a 5/5 for length too.

Fully agree. While I adore the premise and the bizarre lore trappings of the AC games, the story has always been second to the experience of traversing and exploring the gorgeous historical locales. III was easily my favorite in the series as a result, despite the excruciatingly slow beginning and the terrible final hour; Ubi did a spectacular job of capturing the mystique and atmosphere of that era of American history and roaming around those New England forests and bustling colonial cities was a delightful experience.

As for IV, I've been sold ever since they described the trade system and the open world sailing; it's not Sid Meier's Pirates! 2, but it's as close as we're likely to ever get.

I know it might seem a little extreme to say it, but I for me, after having been enthralled with AC2, Brotherhood, and even Revelations, AC 3 was one of the biggest disappointments of this entire generation. It was poorly paced, mechanically disconnected, and suffered from some pretty average writing and characters. Even the signature environments and the traversal of them were less interesting than previous games.

One of my major complaints was the poorly designed and implemented side stuff. Beyond that, they game was pretty buggy and the Desmond stuff was a pile of garbage. I enjoyed the Connor story, especially the naval combat, but most other things felt half-formed and meaningless

AC3 was both a technical and a design mess by even the most generous of standards. Brand strength and loyalty were the reason that game pulled above average reviews.

I didn't mind 3, the story was really the only part of the game you could honestly complain about without making the same complaints about the other games in the series; I really can't see them telling a worse story, even if they do, the game won't be bad, just more of the same.

I think at this point the only thing that would get me to enjoy Assasin's Creed is if Desmond died and they abandoned the whole nonsensical "future" portion of the story. We want to be assasins, not virtual people who live in the head of virtual people.

I would complain about the under-developed characters with poorly written dialogue; the missing 'investigation' mechanics; the ridiculous bugs (people vanishing...horses rocketing up into the sky etc. etc.); broken and redundant game play mechanics; retrograde graphical quality and appalling frame rates; and just generally being less compelling, entertaining or worthy of my time than other AC games. Of course it isn't the worst game ever... but it is the worst AC game I've played by a clear margin.

I love Brotherhood so much but I had to sell of 3 after 5 hours of play. It was all just so uninteresting, boring even, I mean this is a videogame for god's sake. I have high hopes for 4 though, we will see.

I buy this on the merit of being a pirate game.

I am glad i am not in the minority when i say AC II brother hood is my favorite Assassin creed game ever.

The only takeaway I get from that review is that there is aliasing issues on PS4. The lack of any anti-aliasing on the PS3 drives me crazy sometimes (madden is really bad, on the most zoomed out view the players just look like a bunch jaggy messes).

I even played Revelations. But at a such glacial pace it took me 1 year to complete the game. AC3 had new environments, but as soon as you go to America stuff feels cheap. No offense, but thanks to American cultural dominance, we have seen all the wars of their brief history countless times. So the American War of Independence certainly looses terms of "novelty" against settings as peculiar backdrops as Renaissance Italy (which, didn't even exist as "Italy") and the heart of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power and glory.

I didn't really enjoy 3 very much and I played 4 on the ps4 and I wasn't impressed.. Was very similar to 3... So if like me you didn't enjoy 3 I'm guessing 4 is going to be pretty similar.

I'm going through III right now and just got past Haytham's 4 hour long prologue. My current take-away is that Assassin's Creed should never pretend that it in any way resembles a stealth game and also I continue to find the Desmond parts to be the worst part of the entire series. If IV gets good reviews I may just go straight for that one.

Better question though: Does Giant Bomb review this game?

@wuddel: I know you're referring to media in general, but what other games have featured the American Revolution? All I can think of is Age of Empires III. (I'm legitimately interested; it's one of my favorite historical settings and I want to play more games in that era)

Is it out yet?

@banefirelord: e.g. Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization, Europa Universalis IV just got an Amercian Independence DLC

All I care for is if they finally added a crouch button. I did not finish AC3 because I got sick of the buggy auto hiding in bushes. When sneaking from cover to cover he somehow often decides to pop-up and make sure that everybody sees him before hiding in the other bush 3 feet away. Either get rid of the stupid bushes or add a crouch button! Otherwise I won't touch AC4.

@jimmyfenix yes I thought a brotherhood was fanfingfastic, improved alot of things from ac2, Leonardo, buying buildings, love the assassin calling. Great game. Best ac gmae for sure.

I believe it was jeff that floated the idea on the podcast but I will cite it again here. They need to throw out the whole future story line and make AC into period simulation sim, each focusing on its own time/location/story and characters. You know cut the bull shit, that's how most players would like to play it anyways and they wont be tied down by a single bloodline of main character.

I'd be surprised if Jeff said this (he loves the future stuff) but I think this is how it should be handled with these games. It would just allow for more freedom and for me, nothing about the sci-fi angle of the games has been particularly good besides the glyphs in II.

I'd rather have an occult tie between the games over the sci fi one (something like Eternal Darkness). But just pure historical would be the best. It's what is best about the games, and the thing that gives the series such appeal and longevity (it could be anything historical, basically).

Ya, I didn't like AC3 either. The story was dumb, the game play was broken, and it wanted to much to be a film. It also had a weird lack of parkour. Had more focus on climbing rocks and trees (which is interesting I guess, but not quite AC for me).

Interestingly, when I spoke about it on the GOTY community podcast, I got some real flack for not liking it haha

I do hope AC4 is better, but I'll definitely not be getting this one on day one.

I lost interest in the series after playing Brotherhood, but I might give AC4 a fair chance.

Played and finished the first one at launch, not played any of them since. This looks like a sexy version to jump back into the fray with.

Boats and oceans and pirates and shit.