I love Assassin's Creed as a concept, but it's depressing to see how they've managed to make each installment in the series progressively worse after Assassin's Creed 2, which in my opinion is the best one of them all, closely followed by the original game.
You do everything BUT assassinate people in the latter ones. You buy shops and buildings, look for books, treasure chests and animus fragments, train recruits, try and dominate the Mediterranean and so on and so forth...
Ezio seems to be going out of his way to not kill anyone. That was the good thing about the first game in the series: Each sequence has a key target you have to assassinate.
And how about those countless cinematics that go on and on without end? It's obvious that the developers of really wanted to work in the movie business. But when playing the game for a second time, or replaying specific missions in order to achieve 100% synch (which in the end doesn't seem to have any real effect at all) it's tedious with endless dialogues.
And it's obvious that Ubisoft don't give a crud about PC users. When you want to skip a cinematic in other games, you usually press enter or space and it skips right to the action. In this game you have to press escape to enter a menu, select skip cinematic and you're instantly taken to a load screen which lasts about as long as the cinematic itself. The same thing when you buy a shop or a building; the camera swirls around Ezio, sort of locking him in place, thus preventing him from starting to run instantly. Instead he looks like a bumbling retard, stumbling into people while staring at the building he just bought.
Little things, I know, but when you have to do it a zillion times in a game (after all, there are 95 buildings you can buy in this one, and the cinematics never stop), it's frustrating that Ubisoft couldn't have come up with a more user friendly solution.
Oh, and while we are on the subject on endless things, how about those dreadfully boring "walk with me while I deliver expository dialogue for 20 minutes" missions? It's ridiculous that you can't skip those, especially when, again, playing the game for a second time, or replaying specific missions in order to achieve 100% synch.
Also, the games are getting smaller in scope for each iteration.
Assassin's Creed: Acre, Damascus, Jerusalem + the whole countryside between these cities.
Assassin's Creed 2: Florence, San Gimignano, Forlì, Venice, Monteriggioni and the Vatican.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Monteriggioni, Rome, Viana and the Vatican.
Assassin's Creed Revelations: Constantinople and Cappadocia.
Revelations is kind of like Brotherhood where there is one main city where most of the action takes place (Constantinople vs. Rome) but unlike Rome Constantinople is freaking tiny. And not one horse to be found anywhere.
People may criticize the first game to not have enough story, but come on, the story part in Revelations is tiny! Had I not deliberately spent hours upon hours doing side missions, buying houses, training recruits and looking for shiny treasure chests and data fragments like some moron with OCD, I would've had no problem playing through this game in a day or two. And don't give me any crap about how this isn't a full sequel, but sort of a mid-game between Assassin's Creed 2 and 3. Well, it's not an expansion pack! I paid full price for it, thus I expect a full game.
Honestly, I have doubts whether I'll play Assassin's Creed 3 or not. Judging by the previews, a whole lot of the game seems to be taking place in the goddamn countryside. And the cities seem to be full of two-story buildings (wow!) with the odd church steeple thrown in here and there. Compare that to the epic scale of the old cities in the Middle East and Europe with their massive structures, and Assassin's Creed 3 seems kind of underwhelming. I hope they prove me wrong.
2 out of 11 found this helpful