What they could squeeze out of that engine YET AGAIN for the third time is pretty impressive. Technical directors probably had tons of sleepless nights trying to find juice somewhere.
I'd highly suggest that folks - in addition to leveling up your Assassin's for den defense - run through the Piri Reis missions (accessible from the framed maps in his shop).
Not only are they good tutorials for how all the different bombs work, but they can help you knock out some of the bomb challenges as well.
Muhahahaha, I've completed every guild challenge, completed the Vlad DLC, and I unlocked the ultimate armor (which looks badass BTW... too bad the steel mask doesnt stay on in cutscenes). I am now a walking monument to badassery.
I will say though, this game feels rushed. I don't mind them switching out the pigeon coups for Master Assassin missions, but so far there has only been ONE Courtesan, Thief and Mercenary mission each? Really?
Also, there is some glitchiness and jank everywhere from guards and 'helpers' popping out of nowhere, to the combat system feeling a little... 'off' compared to the previous games. The targeting in particular feels looser than normal.
Still an excellent game mind you, just a little disappointing.
Muhahahaha, I've completed every guild challenge, completed the Vlad DLC, and I unlocked the ultimate armor (which looks badass BTW... too bad the steel mask doesnt stay on in cutscenes). I am now a walking monument to badassery.
I will say though, this game feels rushed. I don't mind them switching out the pigeon coups for Master Assassin missions, but so far there has only been ONE Courtesan, Thief and Mercenary mission each? Really?
Also, there is some glitchiness and jank everywhere from guards and 'helpers' popping out of nowhere, to the combat system feeling a little... 'off' compared to the previous games. The targeting in particular feels looser than normal.
Still an excellent game mind you, just a little disappointing.
Is there no way to rewatch the very last cutscene? I replayed the last mission but it ends with
Ezio refusing to take the apple and grabbing hold of Desmond's shoulder. I really wanted to show my wife the Jupiter cutscene, but I dont seem to be able to find out how to replay it...help!
Really don't know what they were thinking with this. He looked fine before and was starting to become a sort of iconic face. Guess that's out the window. Seems like the facial animation in general is off and on, which is weird because they nailed it in Brotherhood.
Really don't know what they were thinking with this. He looked fine before and was starting to become a sort of iconic face. Guess that's out the window. Seems like the facial animation in general is off and on, which is weird because they nailed it in Brotherhood.
I don't know what YOU are thinking. Characters looked like crap in past games, they look much better now. Shaders, modeling, it's all better, more realistic, better lighting on them, etc.
So the face changed, yes, at least they don't look like cartoons anymore. Most games have crappy looking characters, the ones in ACR are better and better than past AC titles.
The best looking characters in past AC games were the two Borgias. The rest looked like crap.
Look at the Cruela or whatever her name was in ACB, compared to Sophia. It's not even comparable. Yussuf looks almost as good as Uncharted characters, which are not even rendered in realtime.
Another thing, unrelated to characters, which again I'm sure people don't notice because they don't have another AC playing next to it, is that there is global illumination in Constantinople. You can see the sunlight bouncing off the floor and onto the walls. Also translucency under the hanging fabrics too.
I almost forgot how addictive the city building elements to Assassin's Creed games are, I'm just on Sequence 3 and it seems like the entire city has opened up.
Also seems like the Mediterranean Defense minigame has a lot of added depth compared to the similar one in Brotherhood. I've managed to
convert a couple of cities over to Assassin controlled in it...so now I have the option to send assassins to those cities. Is that just so they can get XP? Or do they need to stay there to keep the city from going back to Templar control? Does their level matter?
I didn't see that new element of the minigame explained anywhere.
I don't know what YOU are thinking. Characters looked like crap in past games, they look much better now. Shaders, modeling, it's all better, more realistic, better lighting on them, etc.
So the face changed, yes, at least they don't look like cartoons anymore. Most games have crappy looking characters, the ones in ACR are better and better than past AC titles.
The best looking characters in past AC games were the two Borgias. The rest looked like crap.
Looking like crap is a little harsh. A bit cartoony, maybe, but these are comic superhero type games. They don't need to look hyper realistic, ala Uncharted. And you might be right that there are more details with the models in AC:R, but that doesn't make them objectively better somehow. Desmond's design is wholly unremarkable, and I feel absolutely no connection to him as a character.
And with Ezio, he's become an average if not slightly unattractive older man, who was aged at least 10 years more than he needed to be for this game. Ezio's attractiveness is part of his character, and it's a hard buy to believe this is what he'd look like as a middle aged man.
The other characters in AC:R are fine, because we have no prior reference, but the adjustments to Desmond's facial model, and a lesser extent Ezio's, for the last game in a trilogy in an effort to make them more 'real' seems mostly misguided when the originals could have done the job just fine with a few tweaks.
I almost forgot how addictive the city building elements to Assassin's Creed games are, I'm just on Sequence 3 and it seems like the entire city has opened up.
Also seems like the Mediterranean Defense minigame has a lot of added depth compared to the similar one in Brotherhood. I've managed to
convert a couple of cities over to Assassin controlled in it...so now I have the option to send assassins to those cities. Is that just so they can get XP? Or do they need to stay there to keep the city from going back to Templar control? Does their level matter?
I didn't see that new element of the minigame explained anywhere.
Once you control a city the control % will slowly decrease the Templars attempt to win control back, just send assassins on missions there to increase the control %. It will cost you money but your assassins will get xp.
Looking like crap is a little far fetched. A bit cartoony, maybe, but these are comic superhero type games. They don't need to look hyper realistic, ala Uncharted. And you might be right that there are more details with the models in AC:R, but that doesn't make them objectively better somehow. Desmond's design is wholly unremarkable, and I feel absolutely no connection to him as a character.
And with Ezio, he's become an average if not slightly unattractive older man, who was aged at least 10 years more than he needed to be for this game. Ezio's attractiveness is part of his character, and it's a hard buy to believe this is what he'd look like as a middle aged man.
The other characters in AC:R are fine, because we have no prior reference, but the adjustments to Desmond's facial model, and a lesser extent Ezio's, for the last game in a trilogy in an effort to make them more 'real' seems mostly misguided when the originals could have done the job just fine with a few tweaks.
Uncharted's characters are not realistic, they are highly stylized, but they look great. This game is no different, unlike games trying to make really realistic faces and failing. Really, some people are angry because the faces changed, that's fine, but it's not looking bad. And Ezio looks like he should look, it was in ACB that he didn't age since the first time we saw him in AC2, except he had a beard. THAT was a problem and it has been fixed. Ezio looks like he does in the CG trailer, and he looks great IMO.
I think that yes, the face of Desmond should look more like Christopher Randez or whatever his name is, because that was the model they used before, so it's a shame that instead of just doing that better it ended up looking like a different person. But the quality of the characters is IMO better than all past AC games, and some of the best in the industry. And I don't think the old ones did the job, I always thought the characters looked bad, except for Rodrigo Borgia and Cesare, especially the later which looked pretty much perfect, including his facial expressions.
In fact, I'd say this time pretty much all characters are of the same quality as Cesare, so I don't see the big deal. It's the same style, except this time the quality is applied to all characters.
I still remember one of the main targets of AC2 basically had giant flickering polygons for a beard.
I don't know what YOU are thinking. Characters looked like crap in past games, they look much better now. Shaders, modeling, it's all better, more realistic, better lighting on them, etc.
So the face changed, yes, at least they don't look like cartoons anymore. Most games have crappy looking characters, the ones in ACR are better and better than past AC titles.
The best looking characters in past AC games were the two Borgias. The rest looked like crap.
Look at the Cruela or whatever her name was in ACB, compared to Sophia. It's not even comparable. Yussuf looks almost as good as Uncharted characters, which are not even rendered in realtime.
Another thing, unrelated to characters, which again I'm sure people don't notice because they don't have another AC playing next to it, is that there is global illumination in Constantinople. You can see the sunlight bouncing off the floor and onto the walls. Also translucency under the hanging fabrics too.
Realism is not necessarily better. Often it's worse, you get into uncanny valley territory.
Anyway, look man, I'm just telling you my experience, and most people seem to agree with me(in regards to the Desmond model being a downgrade). Can we agree to disagree, or, if we can't, can you put your upcoming technical explanations of why Desmond's new model is empirically better in spoiler tags so that I know not to bother reading them? Not really that worth arguing about.
So! Gaming landmark for me: AC:R now has the distinct honor of being the first game to make me break a controller. Goddamn is stealthing through the Templar's Dens frustrating(again, if you guys can frame your angry counter-rants in the form of a spoiler that would help me out a bunch, thanks). There's these new guys who hang out in the little pavilions that apparently trigger the 'alarms' instantly? So that's a bunch of fun; after beating my head against that wall a couple of times I tried to jump into a haystack in the middle of the Den...Ezio did the diving animation but then 'missed', hit something else on the way down, so I got to participate in the seemingly more annoying combat. Is this all in my head? I feel more like a drunken bar room brawler than a master assassin so far. Too bad, the borgia towers were my favorite part of the last game.
Overall though I do like the game quite a bit, actually.
Uncharted's characters are not realistic, they are highly stylized, but they look great. This game is no different, unlike games trying to make really realistic faces and failing. Really, some people are angry because the faces changed, that's fine, but it's not looking bad. And Ezio looks like he should look, it was in ACB that he didn't age since the first time we saw him in AC2, except he had a beard. THAT was a problem and it has been fixed. Ezio looks like he does in the CG trailer, and he looks great IMO.
I think that yes, the face of Desmond should look more like Christopher Randez or whatever his name is, because that was the model they used before, so it's a shame that instead of just doing that better it ended up looking like a different person. But the quality of the characters is IMO better than all past AC games, and some of the best in the industry. And I don't think the old ones did the job, I always thought the characters looked bad, except for Rodrigo Borgia and Cesare, especially the later which looked pretty much perfect, including his facial expressions.
In fact, I'd say this time pretty much all characters are of the same quality as Cesare, so I don't see the big deal. It's the same style, except this time the quality is applied to all characters.
I still remember one of the main targets of AC2 basically had giant flickering polygons for a beard.
Yeah, character models for AC2 were garbage. I'm sure it wasn't the artist's fault, just tech limitations I suppose. It looked like they had no spec maps and just punched up the spec of the models to the max. The faces looked like plastic. The worst offender was the model for Marco Barbarigo with the long white hair and beard. A plane with four cuts for the hair and another with three cuts for the beard. Just ugh.
Finished the story and I'm working through the Master Assassin/Brotherhood stuff now. The city and the armor designs in this one look amazing.
The only gripes I really have with it are some bad glitches. Some notable ones include failing the 100 percent sync conditions immediately after starting a few missions, cowardly Templar Den leaders running themselves into the river, and groups of guards spawning right on top of me more than a few times.
The mechanics of the Desmond sections are pretty weak but they look nice and we finally get some backstory for Desmond.
Looks like i might hold off for a cheap price for this one. Ive loved this series but i could already tell with Brotherhood they were running out of ideas.
The next game will be very key in determining whether this series dies off or gets rejuvenated.
Yeah, character models for AC2 were garbage. I'm sure it wasn't the artist's fault, just tech limitations I suppose. It looked like they had no spec maps and just punched up the spec of the models to the max. The faces looked like plastic. The worst offender was the model for Marco Barbarigo with the long white hair and beard. A plane with four cuts for the hair and another with three cuts for the beard. Just ugh.
Finished the story and I'm working through the Master Assassin/Brotherhood stuff now. The city and the armor designs in this one look amazing.
The only gripes I really have with it are some bad glitches. Some notable ones include failing the 100 percent sync conditions immediately after starting a few missions, cowardly Templar Den leaders running themselves into the river, and groups of guards spawning right on top of me more than a few times.
The mechanics of the Desmond sections are pretty weak but they look nice and we finally get some backstory for Desmond.
Looks like i might hold off for a cheap price for this one. Ive loved this series but i could already tell with Brotherhood they were running out of ideas.
The next game will be very key in determining whether this series dies off or gets rejuvenated.
The Maiden Tower might be one of the most original, atmospheric and brilliant 'dungeons' in any action/adventure game ever. And yes, I'm including Zelda in that.
Okay, I'm either missing something incredibly basic or my game is bugged.
Sequence 4 beginning spoilers
Trying to do the bard mission, but I'm stuck at the opening. :/ the guards want me to prove I'm a hard. I've been playing for them for fifteen fucking minutes. I've pushed every button, tried targeting them (Yusuf said he'd take people out?), I can't go past them; I've stared at them in eagle vision. I just can't go past this. What the heck is wrong?
Help?
Edit: yeah my game was bugged. I restarted twice and I finally got past them :/
Oh man... my new AC games rankings- AC=AC:R > AC:B > ACII
I need some time to let everything settle before I do a full overview, but, man, that was one hell of an experience.
I don't know if I can ever go without a hookblade now. That thing was awesome. ACIII needs to have two of them.
I actually liked the Den Defense stuff for the most part. The Greek Fire siege engine can go burn in a fire though. It is damn near impossible to stop. I love all the different unit types though (<3 Caltrop bombers).
The armor sets were really nice looking, especially the metal set (blue colored).
I kinda miss the combo kills where you can lay out a couple guys at once with either the gun or the throwing knives. I like the new button layout overall though.
I'm disappointed that they barely touched the Brotherhood mechanics themselves.
The Masyaf key locations were a little too short, but they were pretty damn cool.
Also, the game is freaking beautiful. Really looks like concept art at times. and I'm a big fan of the character models. Very detailed. Much better than in the last two games.
Overall, I think this slots between AC2 and ACB in terms of enjoyment but it's definitely the least polished AC game yet, some odd glitches, some obviously rushed scenes towards the end and I suppose a lack of visual variance in the city could fall under it too - it's a beautiful place but everywhere apart from the
Arsenal
, which you do not come close to spending enough time in, kind of feels the same. AC2 there was a lot of variation and even in Rome in ACB you have different districts have a different visual, as well as play-, style.
The story itself and the missions that go with it slowly build up to being awesome about half way through the game but after it peaks, the quality jumps up and down constantly. The latter half is so inconsistent it kind of soured me. Also I found Sofia's role in the end quite ridiculous:
"oh wow, I was nearly hanged merely for knowing you and helping you without even knowing why. dont worry lol, not your fault!! ok sure I will go on an incredibly dangerous carriage chase with you surrounded by an army to help you kill this man, no problem."
Apart from collecting keys, the story didn't kick off until the latter half. But the collection of scenes at the end is great, not exactly the revelations I was hoping for but definitely some answers and sets up AC3 well. Not quite as enticing a cliffhanger as the other games had but decent enough. Also the way they handle what happened to Lucy was terrible.
Gameplay was good though they ruined the combo-executions, probably to do with the new incredibly long animations, which are stupid when put in context. Surrounded by a dozen enemies? Ezio loves just letting a skewered enemy fall backwards off his sword - his buddies seem to enjoy watching it cos they don't attack, either. The pace of combat is just all wrong because of it. I very rarely used bombs in combat, again they were either absolutely useless or overpowered but most of the time the former. In general combat is even easier than the other AC games, which I didn't think was possible. They really need to work on the targeting system for AC3. It's awful and makes the game feel so clunky at times. The Hookblade was a nice way to make traversal a bit quicker and entertaining, hopefully they can find something similar for combat.
Best parts of the game were once again the 'Tombs', this time the Sofia Memory storyline. Most of them were brilliant, even the first one was a pretty decent stealthy romp but was a bit repetitive. Galati Tower and the Maiden's Tower were excellent, though.
The Brotherhood was fleshed out, which is good. The Den's given a bit more purpose via Master Assassin quests (which fuck up and cannot be re-done if one of them dies on a mission, even if you install a new Den Master :/) and the taking of cities etc was nice but again, could be done better. I was installing assassin dens in the cities we took, didn't seem to do anything and you could never take over a city over 50% which was confusing... I'm beginning to think one of my Master Assassin's dying glitched the whole thing... the one I'd put as master of the den to replace dead-dude got stuck at level 14 (you need to finish their missions to get them maxed out, which I couldn't do for some reason) and the rest were stuck at level 10 infinitely accumulating XP. So I had 6 'locked' dens and one bugged. If it's intended, yeah I guess it makes sense in the story but not for the mechanic.
Touched on the visuals before, easily one of the best looking games out there, image quality is superb, textures in general are nice, lighting is good and runs relatively smoothly though there was the odd frame drop. Cut scenes tore like mad though, sometimes.
Took about 16-17 hours, 85% sync or so. Didn't quick travel but I did rush through the last Sequence or two. Also, the Janissary's (sp) suck.
Wow, I feel pretty much the exact opposite on the city thing. Constantinople (game-world wise) is so well designed compared to Rome or the rest of Italy. I can always tell where I am just by looking at the designs and layout of the buildings themselves.
Apart from the Bazaar and Golden Horn, I was constantly checking my map. If I wanted to find the nearest Den, I'd have to bring up my map. In AC2 and Brotherhood I knew where I wanted to be and how to get there without the map. In Revelations I spent a lot more time looking at it.
Another thing I loved but nobody here seemed to use all that much: the bombs. I used them constantly. They were a ton of help. I mainly rolled with cherry bombs, caltrops, and poison bombs. All impact shells.
I was disappointed once again with the assassinations themselves though. They barely existed here. AC 1 remains the only one to do this correctly.
Pretty sure you can avoid tower defense by just letting templars take over your dens and then killing captains or getting your templar awareness status down to secret by bribing/killing people marked on the map.
I'm gonna say that the tower defense probably was a dumb idea. It goes against the design philosophy of the entire series. Its likely something that wouldn't have happened with Patrice. Instead he would have made it more natural by letting you call in your assassins to help you defend and then either let you direct them from above or fight with them without having to go into this weird special mode that kinda sucks.
Also I'm not digging the music. From the Viewpoint Synchronization, to the fight music, everything seems to be super toned down and atmospheric like AC1 was. Maybe its just the area of the city I'm in now or something but I'm definitely missing the Brotherhood soundtrack.
I still think the game is fantastic but theres a few things off.
I think the Desmond stuff that I've played so far is pretty great too. I'd prefer the glyph puzzles (and I desperately hope these are back in some form in AC3) but the Desmond stuff is dishing out the type of info you'd expect from the Truth/Subject 16 stuff as far as I'm concerned.
I didn't have a problem with the den defense, it's very easy as long as you don't put barricades close to where the enemies are entering. Only use and upgrade the barricade near the den, keep spawning people while using your pistol + the cannon when necessary and you're set. The only one I found annoying was that one where a fucker
goes up on the roofs and kills everyone with a knife
, I lost once before I understood wtf was going on.
Another thing I loved but nobody here seemed to use all that much: the bombs. I used them constantly. They were a ton of help. I mainly rolled with cherry bombs, caltrops, and poison bombs. All impact shells.
I was disappointed once again with the assassinations themselves though. They barely existed here. AC 1 remains the only one to do this correctly.
I also used the bombs constantly but I wish there was more of an use to sticky, wire, etc. I only found the impact shells to be really useful when all was said and done.
I miss the kind of assassinations from AC1 too, I loved escaping after the kill (because of the music mostly, still my favorite AC track).
The only thing about them I didn't like was the greek fire siege engine. That they tore through all my defenses like nothing and it really couldn't be stopped easily before it had completely roasted my den.
I kinda wish those 'command' mechanics were instituted into regular gameplay with the Brotherhood, where you could give them a multitude of commands such as holding a position, forming a patrol to take out anyone walking past, and etc.
Oh man... my new AC games rankings- AC=AC:R > AC:B > ACII
I need some time to let everything settle before I do a full overview, but, man, that was one hell of an experience.
I don't know if I can ever go without a hookblade now. That thing was awesome. ACIII needs to have two of them.
I actually liked the Den Defense stuff for the most part. The Greek Fire siege engine can go burn in a fire though. It is damn near impossible to stop. I love all the different unit types though (<3 Caltrop bombers).
The armor sets were really nice looking, especially the metal set (blue colored).
I kinda miss the combo kills where you can lay out a couple guys at once with either the gun or the throwing knives. I like the new button layout overall though.
I'm disappointed that they barely touched the Brotherhood mechanics themselves.
The Masyaf key locations were a little too short, but they were pretty damn cool.
Also, the game is freaking beautiful. Really looks like concept art at times. and I'm a big fan of the character models. Very detailed. Much better than in the last two games.
Hm... I've noticed him using the gun on the same guy he is already killing, but not to quickly dispatch another guy. I could very well have not been paying enough attention though.
Have you done the bomb tutorial missions from Piri Reis in his shop at the Grand Bazaar? I was hardly using the bombs at all, then decided to do his missions and now I'm a convert.