Honest Opinion : Assassin's Creed
First off...yay I'm back!! The wedding has come and passed, it was an amazing day and I couldn't be happier marrying my best friend <3 Slowly, over the course of the rest of this month, I'll be getting the blog and channels back into a rhythm. The plan and ideal for the blog schedule is the following :
Quick Reviews (brief value-focused reviews of older or shorter games) - Once a week
Full Reviews (more fleshed out value-focused reviews on more recent or longer games) Once every two weeks
Honest Opinion (game review based on something from a stream) - Once a month
Life of a Gaming Dad / Playstation 3 Highlights - as content is ready for a full post in their respective series
Other Honest Opinions (just things I want to put my two cents into) - as the ideas / desire to write about them come to me.
Now, this post specifically is going to fit more into the last category of just "other Honest Opinions" so...let's just hop into it.
I'm not going to focus on the entire Assassin's Creed franchise, so don't expect some blog post with 2 million words in it. Instead I just want to focus on two points of the series. I have always loved this series, and every aspect of it has always been appealing to me and the taste of games that I like to play. Obviously, these games are not perfect. Just talk to anybody who's played them and they'll have a constant string of stories about climbing up a building when the assassin just decided he wanted to jump backwards instead of up, and ends up becoming a pancake. It's happened to us all...and we hate it.
For me though, there are two "sore spots" across the entire franchise. And I don't just mean a couple tiny little things that bug me on occasion, because if that were the case I don't think I'd be making this post about it. The two games I want to focus on for this article are the original Assassin's Creed, the first entry into this incredible long-running series, and Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag
Assassin's Creed : The Repetitive Brotherhood
The original game tends to be a sore spot for a lot of people in this series. Everyone hears about how amazing this series is, and obviously they want to start at the beginning for the full story, and then a few hours into it they're sitting and scratching their heads thinking everyone else is crazy. What is crazy is that both sides are totally right. The series is amazing, but the first game is pretty horrible, at least as far as gameplay.
Assassin's Creed can be pretty boring, and it gets even more boring after you play any other game in the series. What makes it boring is how repetitive the gameplay is right off the bat. The game tasks you with visiting different districts in a few different cities, learning about your assassination target, and then acting on the information and eliminating them. It's the information-gathering where things start to feel like you're treading through molasses.
In each district, to gather intel you have three options for doing so. Interrogating, Eavesdropping, and Pickpocketing. No matter where you go, those are your only three options, and you complete them in the exact same manner. What makes it even worse is these tasks aren't even that difficult. To Eavesdrop, all you have to do is find a place to sit down close enough to your target. Pickpocketing only requires you to stay close without being spotted, but the low AI setting helps you get this done almost as soon as it starts. The most "difficult" one is the interrogation where you have to follow your target down an alley and beat them up.
It's simple, it's slow, and all it does is rinse and repeat. It's basically everything you don't want in a game, especially in one that as big as Assassin's Creed is. However, I still love the game, and the reason why can be summed up in one word : Story. This game sets up an incredible storyline, one that takes place in the present day, as well as in the distant past, and the way the two blend together is beautiful.
For me personally, it's a hard game to sell. The story is amazing, but playing it can suck sometimes. Fortunately, there's a solution to this that I think is perfect.
Assassin's Creed : The Secret Crusade is a novelization that covers all of Altair's storyline in the series, and I mean all of it. The first big chunk of the book goes over the original game. The next small area covers Assassin's Creed : Bloodlines, the handheld entry that was released on the PSP which picks up just after the first game. Secret Crusade also covers the few Altair memories that you uncover in Assassin's Creed Revelations while you're playing as Ezio in Istanbul.
While it runs the risk of spoiling a few things later in the series, the things that it spoils aren't huge. And getting to see them play out in the gameplay after reading them is still pretty incredible and still gives you that wow-factor like you're experiencing it for the first time. So if you're looking to get into this series, I say yes, dive right in and you won't regret it. If you can ignore the gameplay of the first game and play it just for the story, it's a great experience. But, if the repetitiveness is going to hold you back from seeing it through to the end, my next-best suggestion is picking up The Secret Crusade so you can at least learn the story itself. Despite the next title in the series being Origins and going far back to the roots and old days of the brotherhood, Altair is still going to be where things got started, and his story is a really powerful one that you sincerely do not want to miss.
This is the first sore spot for me in this franchise, but it's one that's easily remedied. However...
Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag
This entire game has never sat right with me since the moment it was even announced. For me personally, it's easy to just pretend this game doesn't exist, for a few reasons that I'll detail individually, but I would also like to say that I do intend to play through it one more time and to see if my feelings toward it change at all. Also, I would like to note that this part will include spoilers for some key elements of the fourth game, as well as some for the earlier entries in the series.
- Assassin By Accident. Every assassin before him that you get to play as is found and recruited into the Brotherhood. They get to show their dedication to their cause, they get to prove their worth to the overall Brotherhood and Creed, and are in the end brought in under the wings of the rest of the Brotherhood. Edward Kenway is a deckhand on a ship that crashes on an island, and ends up killing a rogue assassin, taking his attire and his place in the midst of a bigger plan that he knows nothing about. Before Black Flag, we're given five full games that teach you Assassin's are meant to be these invincible, unstoppable badasses that you'll never see until the moment they've decided to take you out. But, this normal, everyday man who barely survives a shipwreck, is able to chase an assassin down out in the complete open and kill him? It just seemed to flip everything you'd been taught completely upside down.
- Pushing The Waters. Assassin's Creed III introduced us to a whole new spectrum of gameplay : naval combat. There was only a small spattering of missions that you could do, and they were all one-shots : go out, do the thing, come back. And it was great. It was fresh to the series and it was so well done that you were sad when there were no more left to do. So what was Ubisoft's response? Make an entire game with naval combat as the main element. I always felt like that was the entire reason for pushing Black Flag out on the market : more naval combat. The game, from the moment it was announced, felt like it was just trying to capitalize on the hype and make some more money. And it was fun, the naval combat was definitely enjoyable, but to me it didn't feel like a whole lot of thought put behind it other than "They liked the water, let's put the whole game on the water." However, these two downsides for me are nothing compared to this last one...
- Kenway's Conviction. This. This right here is my absolute biggest issue with this whole game, but to explain why , I need to briefly recap the rest of the series. Because all the other assassin's have something that pushes them morally, something that drives them to see their own mission through until the very end. Altair starts off the original game as a completely cocky douche, and is essentially stripped of his status and has to prove his worth, which he does. Ezio's father is murdered, and he seeks to avenge that death which he does by joining the Brotherhood. Connor's people are slaughtered in the third game, and he sets out to make those responsible pay, and restore the land to his people and family. Kenway? The only thing I saw driving him through the game was greed. He takes the assassin's place because he believes what the assassin has in his possession will lead to a great treasure. There's even a key point in the story of Black Flag where Kenway could just walk away. Early in the game, he gets taken under the wing of a pirate who, in the key point, is killed. And up until this point Kenway's been doing everthing he can to achieve more money. He's been following the assassin's path, he's been learning the pirate way, and it's all done while seeing dollar signs in his eyes (or I guess technically gold coins). But when his mentor is killed before his eyes, to me he could have just walked away and gone on to his own life (which he even considers to himself). But he doesn't, he pushes on, and helps the Brotherhood out until the very end. I know it still technically counts a reason to continue on, but for me it just didn't ring right with everything that the Brotherhood stands for.
The last point I just mentioned is my reasoning for wanting to play the game again. Maybe there's something I happened to miss on my first run through that indicates his change of heart or something along those lines, but as of now my feelings on Black Flag stand. Some point soon, I'll be streaming a run through the Assassin's Creed franchise so I'll obviously run into Black Flag again. Until something changes my mind though, Black Flag is the oddball of the Assassin's Creed Universe.And that's hard for me to say because again, I love this series. I have all the games, I own all the books that tie in with the games as well as the original ones, I have read most of the comic books...this universe that Ubisoft has created is incredible. And in something so massive, there are bound to be imperfections, so I'm not saying this for any sort of shock value or anything like that. I've just been asked quite a few times how I feel either about the series as a whole or specific games within it, and everything I've mentioned here is almost always part of my answer.
What do you guys think? Do you agree/disagree with my opinion? Let me know in the comments
Quick Reviews (brief value-focused reviews of older or shorter games) - Once a week
Full Reviews (more fleshed out value-focused reviews on more recent or longer games) Once every two weeks
Honest Opinion (game review based on something from a stream) - Once a month
Life of a Gaming Dad / Playstation 3 Highlights - as content is ready for a full post in their respective series
Other Honest Opinions (just things I want to put my two cents into) - as the ideas / desire to write about them come to me.
Now, this post specifically is going to fit more into the last category of just "other Honest Opinions" so...let's just hop into it.
I'm not going to focus on the entire Assassin's Creed franchise, so don't expect some blog post with 2 million words in it. Instead I just want to focus on two points of the series. I have always loved this series, and every aspect of it has always been appealing to me and the taste of games that I like to play. Obviously, these games are not perfect. Just talk to anybody who's played them and they'll have a constant string of stories about climbing up a building when the assassin just decided he wanted to jump backwards instead of up, and ends up becoming a pancake. It's happened to us all...and we hate it.
For me though, there are two "sore spots" across the entire franchise. And I don't just mean a couple tiny little things that bug me on occasion, because if that were the case I don't think I'd be making this post about it. The two games I want to focus on for this article are the original Assassin's Creed, the first entry into this incredible long-running series, and Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag
Assassin's Creed : The Repetitive Brotherhood
The original game tends to be a sore spot for a lot of people in this series. Everyone hears about how amazing this series is, and obviously they want to start at the beginning for the full story, and then a few hours into it they're sitting and scratching their heads thinking everyone else is crazy. What is crazy is that both sides are totally right. The series is amazing, but the first game is pretty horrible, at least as far as gameplay.
Assassin's Creed can be pretty boring, and it gets even more boring after you play any other game in the series. What makes it boring is how repetitive the gameplay is right off the bat. The game tasks you with visiting different districts in a few different cities, learning about your assassination target, and then acting on the information and eliminating them. It's the information-gathering where things start to feel like you're treading through molasses.
In each district, to gather intel you have three options for doing so. Interrogating, Eavesdropping, and Pickpocketing. No matter where you go, those are your only three options, and you complete them in the exact same manner. What makes it even worse is these tasks aren't even that difficult. To Eavesdrop, all you have to do is find a place to sit down close enough to your target. Pickpocketing only requires you to stay close without being spotted, but the low AI setting helps you get this done almost as soon as it starts. The most "difficult" one is the interrogation where you have to follow your target down an alley and beat them up.
It's simple, it's slow, and all it does is rinse and repeat. It's basically everything you don't want in a game, especially in one that as big as Assassin's Creed is. However, I still love the game, and the reason why can be summed up in one word : Story. This game sets up an incredible storyline, one that takes place in the present day, as well as in the distant past, and the way the two blend together is beautiful.
For me personally, it's a hard game to sell. The story is amazing, but playing it can suck sometimes. Fortunately, there's a solution to this that I think is perfect.
Assassin's Creed : The Secret Crusade is a novelization that covers all of Altair's storyline in the series, and I mean all of it. The first big chunk of the book goes over the original game. The next small area covers Assassin's Creed : Bloodlines, the handheld entry that was released on the PSP which picks up just after the first game. Secret Crusade also covers the few Altair memories that you uncover in Assassin's Creed Revelations while you're playing as Ezio in Istanbul.
While it runs the risk of spoiling a few things later in the series, the things that it spoils aren't huge. And getting to see them play out in the gameplay after reading them is still pretty incredible and still gives you that wow-factor like you're experiencing it for the first time. So if you're looking to get into this series, I say yes, dive right in and you won't regret it. If you can ignore the gameplay of the first game and play it just for the story, it's a great experience. But, if the repetitiveness is going to hold you back from seeing it through to the end, my next-best suggestion is picking up The Secret Crusade so you can at least learn the story itself. Despite the next title in the series being Origins and going far back to the roots and old days of the brotherhood, Altair is still going to be where things got started, and his story is a really powerful one that you sincerely do not want to miss.
This is the first sore spot for me in this franchise, but it's one that's easily remedied. However...
Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag
This entire game has never sat right with me since the moment it was even announced. For me personally, it's easy to just pretend this game doesn't exist, for a few reasons that I'll detail individually, but I would also like to say that I do intend to play through it one more time and to see if my feelings toward it change at all. Also, I would like to note that this part will include spoilers for some key elements of the fourth game, as well as some for the earlier entries in the series.
- Assassin By Accident. Every assassin before him that you get to play as is found and recruited into the Brotherhood. They get to show their dedication to their cause, they get to prove their worth to the overall Brotherhood and Creed, and are in the end brought in under the wings of the rest of the Brotherhood. Edward Kenway is a deckhand on a ship that crashes on an island, and ends up killing a rogue assassin, taking his attire and his place in the midst of a bigger plan that he knows nothing about. Before Black Flag, we're given five full games that teach you Assassin's are meant to be these invincible, unstoppable badasses that you'll never see until the moment they've decided to take you out. But, this normal, everyday man who barely survives a shipwreck, is able to chase an assassin down out in the complete open and kill him? It just seemed to flip everything you'd been taught completely upside down.
- Pushing The Waters. Assassin's Creed III introduced us to a whole new spectrum of gameplay : naval combat. There was only a small spattering of missions that you could do, and they were all one-shots : go out, do the thing, come back. And it was great. It was fresh to the series and it was so well done that you were sad when there were no more left to do. So what was Ubisoft's response? Make an entire game with naval combat as the main element. I always felt like that was the entire reason for pushing Black Flag out on the market : more naval combat. The game, from the moment it was announced, felt like it was just trying to capitalize on the hype and make some more money. And it was fun, the naval combat was definitely enjoyable, but to me it didn't feel like a whole lot of thought put behind it other than "They liked the water, let's put the whole game on the water." However, these two downsides for me are nothing compared to this last one...
- Kenway's Conviction. This. This right here is my absolute biggest issue with this whole game, but to explain why , I need to briefly recap the rest of the series. Because all the other assassin's have something that pushes them morally, something that drives them to see their own mission through until the very end. Altair starts off the original game as a completely cocky douche, and is essentially stripped of his status and has to prove his worth, which he does. Ezio's father is murdered, and he seeks to avenge that death which he does by joining the Brotherhood. Connor's people are slaughtered in the third game, and he sets out to make those responsible pay, and restore the land to his people and family. Kenway? The only thing I saw driving him through the game was greed. He takes the assassin's place because he believes what the assassin has in his possession will lead to a great treasure. There's even a key point in the story of Black Flag where Kenway could just walk away. Early in the game, he gets taken under the wing of a pirate who, in the key point, is killed. And up until this point Kenway's been doing everthing he can to achieve more money. He's been following the assassin's path, he's been learning the pirate way, and it's all done while seeing dollar signs in his eyes (or I guess technically gold coins). But when his mentor is killed before his eyes, to me he could have just walked away and gone on to his own life (which he even considers to himself). But he doesn't, he pushes on, and helps the Brotherhood out until the very end. I know it still technically counts a reason to continue on, but for me it just didn't ring right with everything that the Brotherhood stands for.
The last point I just mentioned is my reasoning for wanting to play the game again. Maybe there's something I happened to miss on my first run through that indicates his change of heart or something along those lines, but as of now my feelings on Black Flag stand. Some point soon, I'll be streaming a run through the Assassin's Creed franchise so I'll obviously run into Black Flag again. Until something changes my mind though, Black Flag is the oddball of the Assassin's Creed Universe.And that's hard for me to say because again, I love this series. I have all the games, I own all the books that tie in with the games as well as the original ones, I have read most of the comic books...this universe that Ubisoft has created is incredible. And in something so massive, there are bound to be imperfections, so I'm not saying this for any sort of shock value or anything like that. I've just been asked quite a few times how I feel either about the series as a whole or specific games within it, and everything I've mentioned here is almost always part of my answer.
What do you guys think? Do you agree/disagree with my opinion? Let me know in the comments
