[XBOX360] Assassin's Creed

Just wondering if anyone here is planning on getting the game, from the previews I've seen it looks amazing, and might finally be the push to get me to buy an Xbox360.

I have plans to get it but I haven't played it.

I would if I had a 360.

Everything I've read has said that it is a beautiful game with a bizarre control scheme that has a steeper than average learning curve (which strikes reviewers as odd, coming from Ubisoft). Having said that, I would like to check it out.

Yes, it looks pretty badass on the commercials. I've been too into CoD 4 and Halo 3 to start up another game. By the time I'm sick of those two games that game will have plenty of reviews for me to judge on, plus the price will probably be cheaper! Hah!

I heard CoD 4 is fantastic.

Edit: And now that I've read the several threads devoted to CoD4, I feel that this post may win an Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Uninformed Understatement.

I got it for PS3. Solid game. Some sites have given it slightly lower reviews, this is due to the fact that it wasn't something they wanted it to be. Apparantly these people IGN,1up, etc, thought it was going to be a full fledged action game like Devil May Cry or God of War. Where that was clearly never the idea behind the game. It plays more like a Metal Gear Solid type game(minus the guns of course).

Also similar to Grand Theft Auto in terms of you can walk around and kill whoever you want. I have only played it a few hours since I have been switching between it and Mario Galaxy(an amazing game in its own right), but I would definitely say this game is solid and worth playing.

You'd be amazed at how quickly you get used to it.

I got it today for the PS3, and it's amazing!!

Halo 3 wasn't enough to convince you to get a 360?

Not really, I'm honestly not that big of a multiplayer fan for Halo if I'm not around the people I'm playing with. Could be since I normally play and all my friends are over we have a good time. I played live a bit, but really just didn't enjoy it. That and I didn't want to buy a new system just for one game.

It's alright so far. I'm three kills in, and I'm entertained, but generally a little let down by the whole thing.

1. The Kingdom is awesome on an atmospheric level, but actually traversing it gets tedious. When I'm on a horse, I like to gallop through environments, not trot slowly past constant smatterings of guards.

2. The "Save the Citizen" missions get old. When I first read about the game, my assumption was that by helping the people of the city, you'd be engaging in a large variey of different mini-missions and tasks. Like delivering medicine from one end of the city to the other, or catching a purse-snatcher, or maybe just sitting down and playing a townsperson in a simplified chess-like strategy game. Not just finding a group of soldiers harassing a random civilian and killing them...ten times in each district.

3. I wish there was a bit more to the Interrogation missions. Just following somebody for a while and beating them up in an alley gets stale. Altair should corner them in a dark alcove and jam his hidden blade into some non-vital but supremely painful spot in their torso. Then, the actual mechanics of "interrogating" the person should involve balancing pressure and twisting mechanics to inflict just enough pain to squeeze info out of them, but not make them start screaming incoherently in agony. Something more interesting like that.

4. The assassinations themselves need to be more focused than they are. I like the whole open-ended idea, but maybe the kills in this game leave too much to your imagination. Take the second hit, for example. Upon completing the investigations, you learn that the recommended way of approaching the kill is to get on the roof, sneak between the patrolling guards and drop into the courtyard inside the hospital walls. Yeah...you could do that...or just blend in with the Scholars standing right outside the gate and saunter past the guards.

It's cool that you've got so much freedom in the game, but that kind of shit completely defeats the challenge of the major kills. Why go through the longer, more arduous process of the roof approach when you can just slink right past the fortress defenses without so much as a raised sword?

In addition to that, the marks themselves need to be more hardcore. You should essentially be forced to take them out with stealth. The first kill, I tried sneaking up on his ass, and he saw me coming. He unsheathed his sword, fought me, and I killed him. Lame. When a target spots you during the big kill, you should be knee-deep in shit. You should be forced to hone your stealth and speed, and be punished gravely for failure. Why go for stealth when you can just hack away at the big kills and endure a lot less headache?

5. The escape scenarios needed to be a lot more focused. Basically, all they amount to is city-wide "informed" status that doesn't end. The guards should set up thick defenses at specific points, intended to block your easiest route back to the Bureau. On top of that, in my opinion, climbing on the roof during an escape should have been made to spell near-certain death. The volume of rooftop guards should have been increased sevenfold, and they should all be programmed to pepper your ass with arrows on sight. As it is, escaping after a kill amounts to climbing on the nearest roof and running like hell for the bureau. All of the Mercenary groups you spawn from doing the Citizen missions go to waste.

In general, the game is decent. Ubi had a lot of great ideas. Ideas that stretched far and offered a lot. However, basically none of the ideas implemented in this game were explored to a depth they deserved. So, what you wind up with is a diverse but shallow game.

You can gallop right past guards. They'll eventually stop following. Also, either after the first three hits or after you visit all three cities, you can fast travel between them and Masyf.

Myself, I was disappointed by the inability to do stealth kills most of the time due to getting caught in a cut-scene at the opportune moment.

As for roof-guards, they increase as you progress in the game, though they'll still be more annoying than fatal when you're running away.

I found the allies useful later on in the game when I wanted to pull guards away from where I needed to work and kill them. While a guard is tangling with them, they are very easy to kill, and when you're moving the fight you're more likely to encounter them.

I know that I can just hammer through the Kingdom areas, but I really do like the environment. I'd like the time and freedom to actually explore it, but the game doesn't really offer that option. You've gotta be rushing or crawling through it.

Myself, I was disappointed by the inability to do stealth kills most of the time due to getting caught in a cut-scene at the opportune moment.

You mean during the actual assassinations?

As for the roof guards, I've started encountering more of them. The escape after killing the Merchant King in Damascus was a bit trickier than the previous three.

I still have yet to find a genuine use for the vigilantes. I can see your strategy coming in handy, but as of currently, I haven't found a situation that really warrants the need for it.

You mean during the actual assassinations?

Yes. Like for the guy with the wine fountain, I found information that I should go in through the courtyard, then climb from inside and arround, but as soon as I entered, a cutscene started and I wasn't allowed to climb untill I had archers shooting at me.

I actually didn't have any problem with that scene. The archers, I found, were more focused on the party-goers than me. I just scaled the wall as close to the corner as possible.