MMaRsu said:
The fuck? The graphics are fucking amazing, not to mention artstyle. Sure characters up close aren't as detailed.. but what the hell, this isn't UC2 or anything
. It's a big ass open world with alot of characters walking around..
Fucking amazing? Come on now. There ar eplenty of examples of fucking amazing graphics. You need not look further than GOTY quality out of Uncharted 2. I know it's a bit apples and oranges to compare them since AC2 is more open world, but good god does Uncharted 2 look good. Heck ignoring that, I think even Infamous looks better visually. Like you said the character modes are terrible and they zoom in on them all the time and they really stand out as looking bad. It's a huge hit on the visuals. Heck, I was super disapointed they couldn't even represent the Sisteen Chapel properly by at least texturing the artwork on the walls right. There are plenty of visual glitches, and while Italy looks pretty good, it's clear a lot of stuff is repeating a lot which makes it easier to do.
Frenck said:
How was AC a terrible game?
It was a damn good game that had some obvious design flaws. The core gameplay was fun and the world design was hailed as some of the best when it was released. It has a pretty good metascore too and somewhat of a cult following on GAF.
Those design flaws really dragged the game down though. The simple repetitive rinse and repeat nature of the game was a huge flaw. Go to the tower, go listen, do one other objective, go assassinate. Repeat. I was so bored halfway through at that point when I realized I was doing the same time consuming thing over and over again. Then there was the lack of there being any real involvement with needing to plan your assassination. Simply rush, kill, leave. Some assassin. I still think assassinations should have been more involved along the lines of the Hitman series. Then there was the combat. It was so stupid that all you had to do was sit there and counter every single move. Man I should dig up my older thoughts on this game as it was just a bad and very disappointing game after all the hype. The only thing they got almost right was moving around the city and they even screwed that up at one point where you had to hop from posts in middle of the water to which if you did wrong, you'd die since you couldn't swim. It was totally stupid how they made movement go from super easy and automatic to suddenly needing precision. Terrible design all around.
There was no other game this year that was so much better than AC 2 that it would be laughable to count AC 2 as a GOTY contender. Modern Warfare 2 received tons of backlash and the SP campaign isn't even as long as a single memory block from AC 2. Uncharted 2 is the obvious GOTY favourite but it doesn't offer remotely as much content and variety as AC 2. Left 4 Dead 2 doesn't even have a real SP campaign and it's more of an expansion pack than a full sequel. What other games are GOTY contenders ahead of AC 2?
Heck, the other games I mentioned above are easily as repetitive as AC 1 yet they get a free pass for being shooters. Shooters can have repetitive game design but AC 1 is a terrible game because it repeats the same kind of (mostly optional) investigation missions before each main assassination.
I would say that you couldn't get this much game for your buck outside the RPG genre in 2009. If a game as flawed as Demon's Souls gets a shot at winning GOTY then AC 2 should at least be considered a close competitor.
Uncharted 2 is way better than AC2. In fact how can you even say it doesn't have remotely as much content given that it has the online modes to keep it going after you finish the game? The game is comparable in length in single player too. Batman Arkham Asylum is a better game. New Super Mario Bros is a better game. There are plenty of games that I felt stacked up better and as much as an improvement AC2 is over AC1, there are some still significant flaws to the game.
It was certainly more varied when moving through the main storyline but they left you no incentive to do anything on the side. It wasn't even an incentive to simply earn money to get things to help you because doing the normal game gave you pretty much all the money you needed, the building of the city gave you a ton of cash, and you really didn't need to buy much because of how easy combat was.
Combat still mostly has the issue of simply sitting back to counter. Assassinations are even more brain dead than the first game. In fact I thought it was stupid that they gave you a tip about guards changing between day and night and to plan your missions accordingly when that never ever came into play.
The two biggest changes for the sequel to me was the structure of the storyline and how it mixed up gameplay as you progressed and the inclusion of the tomb platforming. Those two areas helped increased the interest and quality of the game but it still has a lot of flaws and it's even laughable to see people say the game is polished when it clearly isn't.
Socreges said:
I agree about there being some bugs, but otherwise your "not even GOTY quality" points confound me. I never played the first game, though, so maybe I can't understand the source of your frustration.
See above for the most part, but to me AC2 is a B game at best, with the first being like a C- to even maybe a D+. The bugs, the glaring gameplay issues still, and really just other games out there that are definitely A games just really makes me not think it belongs to being in consideration of GOTY.
