Sunday, November 24, 2013

Assassin's Creed

So i recently played assassin's creed.
the first one, not ass flag. i thought the new pirates creed looked pretty interesting and since the series always seemed interesting i thought perhaps id best actually dip my toes in and have a go.

What I Expected:
i expected a level of freedom of movement unlike any other.
i expected an engaging story
i expected a high quality production
i expected decent combat with a focus on stealth and precision assassination setups.

The First Fifteen Minutes;
In the plus column -
So, the story is a litle different than i expected, i didn't guess it had scenes in the now and certain sci fi elements to play with.
It's an attractive game, the old garbox can run it ok with some settings adjustments.
The gameplay is reasonably intuitive, i was able to get a pretty solid grasp on what i was doing quickly enough.

and in the negatives -
it takes a long time to get to the actual game. between the initial exposition and the tutorial to start playing.
i really didnt like altair.

no seriously. he was a jerk. not only that but the portrayal of his voice acting wrecked it for me. i didnt get a cocky, brash, egotistical killing machine at the top of his game, taken down a peg and then completing a journey of self discovery alongside a mission of worldly importance.
i played a boring jerk who was boring and a jerk and then apparently stopped being a jerk. but still sounded like one.
go figure.

all in all i did enjoy the games though, i found the mash of fiction to history engaging and the sci fi elements were interesting in their own rights.
i think personally id have developed the maps differently, in terms of the area divisions and the way the completed side quests effected future play. i also would like a bit more RPG into the character development, instead of linear unlocks, but really that's just to my personal tastes.
im interested to see how the series progresses and whether the things i'd have tweaked are things the designers and developers have also spotted.

that said, i will play the rest in good time and i look forward to where the story is headed.

i borrowed the game off a mate, so i didn't have a fee associated. its generally 5 bucks on sale these days and i think that's money well spent.
i played it on the garbox and it ran well enough with decent details, so i could appreciate what was going on, though the areas had a lot of flat palette texturing, not a lot of vibrancy. that said i do understand the period of history this was set in.
i myself would have also appreciated a bit more leniency with the save system, it was annoying to have to budget my play time to times i knew the kids were asleep or otherwise occupied.

yeap.