As a rule I generally avoid anything to do with the Assassin’s Creed series, which I abandoned long ago. A recently released video has shown me some interesting aspects about the soon to be released Assassin’s Creed III, however.
If you watch the video there are some interesting things to notice. The movement through the wilderness of Colonial America actually doesn’t look too bad. I never really found Assassin’s Creed’s movement system to be particularly satisfying, but I do like how they have created a much more adaptive and fluid system. The game hasn’t been released, so I have no idea if this means that the movement shown in the game is the only movement and is used repeatedly throughout the game, like with Assassin’s Creed I and II (the only ones of the series I played). It seems like the team at Ubisoft has added variety and adaptation to the surrounding environment so that I don’t find myself swinging off of the same hanging potted plant over and over again anymore.
Something else that intrigued me was the level of detail the team seems to have put into the development of the animals that live in the wilderness. Itt is nice to see some one put some effort into creating a very real and believable ecosystem that involves forests and rivers and trees that aren’t all the exact same. QTE animal fighting aside, I think the hunting system is really interesting and will serve as the majority of the replay value for the game. I really enjoyed finding the flags and Templars in the first game, and the feathers and other items in the second, and this hunting system is a very fluid transfer and is much more believable than “my dead son’s feathers mysteriously disappeared can you find them for me so I can speak again?”
The last thing I took from the video was when the team talked about stealth and how they were trying to implement more of it into the game. I was astounded, especially after Ubisoft’s latest actions with Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I’m very happy to hear something like this from them, and seeing the mechanics implemented made them seem useful and, hopefully, fun to use. The use of brush and tall grass to hide from your opponents appears to be a great way to add some real stealth to the assassination missions that have so often been very run and gun since the beginning of the series. It seems to be an adaptation of the mechanic you used to hide in groups of people and crowds in Assassin’s Creed II, but there wasn’t enough to really tell.
All in all, I’m a little more open to the series after seeing this video. I haven’t warmed to it completely, and I’m still not going to buy it because of the atrocious fighting system, the laughably bad story that they should just abandon all together, and a host of other things. That video was enough to get me to listen to them, however.
Not a bad article at all. Got me a little bit more interested in the game. One thing, though. Hate to be “that guy”, but I noticed a small error.
“the wilderness of Colonial America actually doesn’t look to bad.”
It should be “too bad”.
But yeah. I’m really liking this site.
Ah thank you. I’ll change it asap.
This is actually the first time i have ever really noticed the game for something more then just another AC with a new city. I have to say both the combat and environments look very interesting and appealing. I wasn’t even planing to play this game until i saw this video. Even though it looks nice i probably wont give into the hype until the game has been out for a week or so.
Looks more interesting than Milking the Franchise: Brotherhood and Milking the Franchise: Revelations.
To be fair, the only reason why I’m mildly excited about this game, is because it’s actually being made by team that worked on the main AC games.
Let’s just hope the PC version doesn’t come with awful DRM
Marcus, I’m curious what you have against the game’s story. I’ve always really enjoyed it and I see people talking about how horrible it is all the time but nobody ever explains their opinion. Maybe you could back your opinion up by writing a few paragraphs articulating everything you dislike about the storyline? I’d enjoy reading it.
Well, I’ll do it here, instead of making a big thing about it. To sum up in short, and this is something I feel is an issue with story telling in video games as a whole (in general), the story is very shallow and is very obviously a “lowest common denominator” story, like a Michael Bay movie. Desmond is a flat, bland, character, which is totally fine imo, he doesn’t need to be interesting, he’s the blank canvas to paint the story on any way. Both Altair and Ezio are just children, though, as far as maturity and depth. Altair has the exact same personality I would expect a slightly above average child to have in high school, thinking he’s better than everyone and doing what he wants because he feels like he’s figured out the universe and that nothing matters (everyone’s had that Nihilistic phase, I think). Ezio is the exact same way. There is literally no character growth in the first or second games (the only ones that I’ve played). You start out as a cocky teenager, and you end as one. I also don’t give a damn about either one of them.
Weak characters aside, the rest of the story is rather silly in and of itself. The aliens bit had me rolling, same with Ezio fighting the Pope. That shit was comedy gold. I don’t really care about “hard” or “soft” Science Fiction, but that was to much for me. I’m having trouble thinking of a more cliched thing I’ve seen recently, actually. I couldn’t believe that they were actually taking that route. Also, the moral ambiguity they try to have is bad, just plain bad. In the first game the old guy wants to help humanity right? lol jk I’m going to enslave the human race and rule them with an iron fist. I was 16 when I played that and still cringed. At least with the second they abandoned the idea all together and just gave me a straight evil person to kill.
It’s just weak, and poorly written. I’m of the opinion that, if you’re going to half ass something, then just don’t do it and save yourself the time and effort so you can put it into other things, like fixing your damned free running system (in the first game). The story was very clearly not what they cared about, but they still tried to make it into an “epic bad ass tale” for what ever reason; money, publisher requirements, what ever. There was no need for the story to good, I just wanted to jump around and kill shit like a bad ass (which, for the time, was pretty awesome). The way they handled Desmond’s story is kind of how I wish they had just handled the whole thing. Give it the most basic frame, and leave it at that, don’t try and fool me into believing you cared about the story.
I was actually looking for a good article to point towards a more coherent and well thought out account of what makes the narrative of Assassin’s Creed bad, but I can’t find one, so maybe I will write an article, but it will probably cover the more recent trend of “putting emphasis on story”, but not having anything close to a decent story to show for it, and succeeding in nothing more than mediocre game play combined with a mediocre story. I did write a series of articles about why I think video games have the potential to be an awesome story telling medium, but it doesn’t really cover newer stories much.
… That was way longer than I thought it was.