Yeah, I feel the series really picks up in quality after the first game, both in structure and gameplay/controls. I still liked the first game, though, so take that as you will.
Well, the PC port was terribly lazy. It didn't recognize gamepads properly, it was a pain-and-a-half to exit the game (taking a half-dozen steps too long), the performance was poor even on powerful systems, and overall it was just the bare minimum work for a port.
As for the game itself...
- I found the combat to be sluggish and boring, but I'd recently finished playing Batman: Arkham Asylum so the comparison was especially unfair.
- Travelling between cities was tedious and mostly pointless.
- Collectibles felt tacked-on for the sake of having time-consuming achievements.
- Controls for jumping were inconsistent, and it was pretty difficult to know exactly which angle you were going to leap off a building.
- Diving into cover during a chase was hit-or-miss, someone should have set it up so that hiding spots had a little bit of pull, so it wasn't possible to completely jump over them instead of jumping into them.
- Fighting the camera when trying to climb something. This makes it a matter of having to guess at what route to take climbing, because there is often no way to see what route to take besides just trying.
- Drunks and madmen... Seriously? A master assassin who can counter a broadsword strike has no option but to let a drunk plow into him? And I get in trouble for even punching one? I'm wearing fine clothes, no one is going to question my right to smack around some beggar if he dared touch me!
Overall, it was just a frustrating game with lots of little annoyances at every turn. It has a lot of good going for it, so I'd give it a 6 out of 10, (a 5 out of 10 if you're a completionist who usually finds it fun to find and collect coins/flags/macguffins). It's a beautiful world, with an interesting story, and some promising game mechanics, but the final result is lacking polish to the point of feeling unfinished in some areas.
I've been told the second game is much better, but it came out with such restrictive DRM on the PC that I will never purchase it. I don't feel like I'm missing out after being so irritated by the first game.
I'm asking because I have not played any of the series and am considering getting into it.
It just bored me honestly. Been a while so I can't be more detailed than that.
However, the second game is defenently a good one, so I guess the flaws were fixed. I hear Revelations contains the first game(confirmation? It was a wiki), so odds are Ill play it again later and see what my problems were.
I found the combat to be sluggish and boring, but I'd recently finished playing Batman: Arkham Asylum so the comparison was especially unfair.
My problem with the combat more stems from the fact that it's basically futile to try and fight by any method other than countering. That said, once I got the hang of countering, I didn't have a problem with this. I prefer to use the Hidden Blade at all times anyway, other than when a projectile is called for.
- Travelling between cities was tedious and mostly pointless.
Yeah, the Kingdom was sort of annoying. Thankfully, you only have to traverse it to get to each city once.
- Collectibles felt tacked-on for the sake of having time-consuming achievements.
I wasn't a fan of the flags either, but lots of games do this now, and it's not like it was mandatory.
- Controls for jumping were inconsistent, and it was pretty difficult to know exactly which angle you were going to leap off a building.
- Diving into cover during a chase was hit-or-miss, someone should have set it up so that hiding spots had a little bit of pull, so it wasn't possible to completely jump over them instead of jumping into them.
- Fighting the camera when trying to climb something. This makes it a matter of having to guess at what route to take climbing, because there is often no way to see what route to take besides just trying.
All I can say is that I didn't have these problems, but I guess I can see how others might have.
- Drunks and madmen... Seriously? A master assassin who can counter a broadsword strike has no option but to let a drunk plow into him? And I get in trouble for even punching one? I'm wearing fine clothes, no one is going to question my right to smack around some beggar if he dared touch me!
As annoying as this is, I've learned that there actually is a way that you're supposed to deal with them. You're supposed to do a counter grab and throw them aside.
I've been told the second game is much better, but it came out with such restrictive DRM on the PC that I will never purchase it.
Fair enough, but I don't feel that this is a series that should be played on PC in the first place. I've been a fan for a long time, having played it on my cousin's 360, and I didn't even consider the PC version an option. I didn't buy the games until I had a 360 of my own.
I would also add that Altair is a much less relatable/likeable character than Ezio. A large part of why the second game was such a huge improvement over the first was the change to a much more charismatic protagonist.
Another big help was the break from the structured "here are nine people, travel to these three cities three times each and kill them" format to a much more open world sort of game. The first game did have a progression of story, but Altair was such a dry character, you really didn't start to feel it until the end. Ezio's tale has much more vibrance to it.
All that said, I don't consider the first game to be bad, and I would definitely say it's worth playing as part of the core Assassin's Creed series.
Fair enough, but I don't feel that this is a series that should be played on PC in the first place. I've been a fan for a long time, having played it on my cousin's 360, and I didn't even consider the PC version an option. I didn't buy the games until I had a 360 of my own.
The way I see it, if you have a gamepad, ANY game is a game that you "should" play on a PC. It's only terrible ports and overzealous DRM that makes a game "bad for PC", not anything actually intrinsic to the game itself.
In an ideal world yes, any game should be playable on PC, but as you said, thanks to draconian DRM and lazy ports, we now have a huge category of games that were developed for consoles and aren't really worth playing on PC. The Assassin's Creed series falls into this category, I think.
You wouldn't say... that the second game is worth playing either; the first game is worth watching an LP of it; the series is worth playing at all; or that the first game isn't still worth playing at least once?
You wouldn't say... that the second game is worth playing either; the first game is worth watching an LP of it; the series is worth playing at all; or that the first game isn't still worth playing at least once?
I believe he was trying to say that each game is worth playing through once.
Yep. A let's play of the first game would probably be boring, and I do feel that there's some value in playing it. I've played it twice, but then I know how little weight that carries when we're talking about me.
By the way, if/when you do play the first game, most of the optional achievements aren't really worth going for, but make sure you talk to Lucy every time you leave the Animus, as much as you can. Not only do you get an achievement for going through all of her dialogue, but you get a ton of backstory that has a huge impact on the other games.
Usually my take on playing or not playing certain games is:
If I really want to play a game - play the game before watching an LP
If I want to play a game but can't because I haven't met the game's requirement (exscluive console title only, not enough cash for it, outdated hardware/videocard, etc.): This really depends on the game and the probability of you meeting the requirment for you to play be able to play the game. If it's a game that's a sequel that has a complex story that could spoil the game; I'll usually try and resist watching the Lps. If it's a more simpler title like a platformer, then a view gameplay videos couldn't hurt.
If I don't know anything about the game: Find and watch and watch a little bit of an LP of it to see if it's a game I want to try.
If I don't want to play a decent game: Look up some info on it and skip around through LPs until I eventually skip to the ending, get bored and stop, or watch the whole thing through.
If I don't want to play a bad game: Look up LPs and reviews about how pissed-off people are at the game for amusement; or just not bother with it.
In between getting footage for my latest review I've been playing through the first AssCreed, and my opinion is that it's not as good as later games in the series, but it's still great fun at times.
I don't care who you are, pulling off a successful assassination is always a satisfying moment, four times so when it's against one of the big bads, and twenty-four times so when you've had to try it a half-dozen times because madmen kept pushing you into walls and blowing your cover. Grr.
But yes, the combat can get repetitive even with the counter move, travelling between cities is a bit of a chore (though as GuruGuru pointed out, skip-able later on), the flags aspect is only for people with OCD (like me ), the controls and taking cover aspect do take a bit of getting used to (though areas you can take cover at do appear on the minimap when you're in trouble, so bear that in mind), and as for the drunks and madmen...
Well, you're supposed to be an Assassin, and one of your core tenants is to never harm an innocent. Also, you're trying to pass yourself off as a religious man half the time (you blend in with monks or whatever they are). Holy men don't go around punching those less fortunate then they are. That said, you can still grab & throw those beggar women asking you for money (in fact, there's an achievement for doing it a bunch of times), which is always satisfying, if a little morally dubious.
The plot's not really all that worth writing home about, I'll admit. Altair is a bit of a blank slate really, just following orders and occasionally throwing up concerns that don't really make him seem that much more interesting until the end game, where he actually does become a more interesting character.
The Desmond stuff is more interesting, but they're only at brief breaks in the game, so you have to really work for your exposition. Talking to Lucy does get you a whole bunch of background information, as does stealing both their USB pens (you HAVE to grab Viddic's during Memory Block 4 while he's looking out the window, or you miss your chance, and Lucy's is left on the table at the end of the same chapter), but yeah, you really need to put the effort in to get all the modern Assassin/Templar backstory.
That said, if you're gonna play through the rest of the series (especially Revelations), then you really do need to play through the original game to know the story of Altair, the pieces of Eden, and so on. Oddly enough Altair is much more fleshed out by the rest of the series - AsCreed 2 and Revelations do a particularly good job of this - and watching a Let's Play might get you the information you need, but it's never really the preferred option unless the game in question is really, really bad.
And it's not a bad game. Far from it. It's just not as advanced as the later games.
Oh, and yes Gman, the original game came as an extra on the PS3 version of Revelations. It's a shame it still doesn't have trophies, but it's still a nice little extra and nice of Ubisoft to have done it at all.
Currently I'm playing the Broken Sword 1 & 2 "Remastered" editions (being otherwise starved for a good 2D adventure game in this day and age), the Runaway series (which has a tendency to crash randomly on recent graphics cards), and eagerly waiting for the next episode of Starcraft II.
O_O Ghost Trick is in the iOS app store? Capcom, I think I love you.
If you have a soul, even a shred of one, and you have an iPhone or iPad, go get yourself this game. It's amazing.
Also, the first two chapters are free- it's 10$ for the rest of the game. Considering it's 30 for the DS version- and I paid that gladly- this is totally worth it.
But I don't have a firmware new enough to support it.
(I can't upgrade to the latest one since the latest one horribly affects the 3GS' performance and battery life, and the process for installing anything under iOS 5 is complicated)
I love making characters too. That's almost one of the things that I love/hate about Baldur's Gate. There's so many fantastic character options, but most of them are REALLY hard to play in the early game. Someday, I will return and be a gnommish paladin just because I can.
Is it true that you have to complete the various modes before you unlock EVERYTHING in Create a Character? Not just more souls to base your character on, but little things like costumes and equipment.
Somebody know what is the last Game Center achievement of GHOST TRICK? I don't know the english name of the achievement but it should be something like Soul mates. I got all of them, but I finished the game and this one is stucked on 77%.
You mean "A Curious Soul?" ) already am at 57 percent after only 3 chapters. I think it's listening into what every other character in the game has to say
Nop, "A curious soul" is about manipulate 444 objects. There is another one that consists on posess 444 things, and maybe the last one is reading all the dialogues (although I think I did that...)
I suppose I'll replay the game soon.
Nop, "A curious soul" is about manipulating 444 objects. There is another one that consists of posessing 444 things, and maybe the last one is reading all the dialogues (although I think I did that...)
Back into the 'avoid getting distracted while editing' game, which is a lot harder when you regularly have to spend time waiting for footage gained from FRAPS to either load in Windows Movie Maker, compile in Windows Movie Maker or just load in VideoPad.
I certainly hope it gets translated, I seem to remember reading a preview of it [Deponia] a while back and thinking it looked awesome. Fingers crossed I get to buy it at some point!
You're in luck. Looks like they're scheduling an international release for May. Yes, this May.
Meh. I've got 40 of 50 achievements, did all the quest lines for Mage, Warrior, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves, did the Daedra Quests, went through the Civil War, and cycled through every town picking up each quest possible before moving onto the next. I'm sure there's a smattering of things I didn't do, but I'm content.
I played a lot more today, though unranked matches.
I love showing off my creations, and absolutely destroying people with Mitsarugi.
I even had a good win streak going as well, (got a cheevo for it! ).
I try to play as different characters though, so I lost quite a lot because of it.
And yes, you can unlock a lot of stuff offline.
Basically going around doing stuff offline levels you up, (its seperate to rank), and you get costume parts and characters that way as well.
(Plus you have to play the quick battle mode to get titles anyway)
Going to plan if I want to do an Metal Gear Timeline playthrough...or..just play through the solid series.
What order is that, 3, 1, 2, 4? Be nice if they re-released that NGC port of the first game onto the PS3 so you can play the entire series on one console, but there I go dreaming my little dreamy dreams.
Still playing Assassin's Creed. Got the achievement for killing 25 guards in a single fight last night, which took me like 20 minutes to do. Y'know, the onee where you have to start a fight in a guard-infested place, leave two alive and then keep backing away until you reach another group of guards, blocking the attacks from the two you left alive all the while? Yeah, that one.
Comments
I'm asking because I have not played any of the series and am considering getting into it.
Well, the PC port was terribly lazy. It didn't recognize gamepads properly, it was a pain-and-a-half to exit the game (taking a half-dozen steps too long), the performance was poor even on powerful systems, and overall it was just the bare minimum work for a port.
As for the game itself...
- I found the combat to be sluggish and boring, but I'd recently finished playing Batman: Arkham Asylum so the comparison was especially unfair.
- Travelling between cities was tedious and mostly pointless.
- Collectibles felt tacked-on for the sake of having time-consuming achievements.
- Controls for jumping were inconsistent, and it was pretty difficult to know exactly which angle you were going to leap off a building.
- Diving into cover during a chase was hit-or-miss, someone should have set it up so that hiding spots had a little bit of pull, so it wasn't possible to completely jump over them instead of jumping into them.
- Fighting the camera when trying to climb something. This makes it a matter of having to guess at what route to take climbing, because there is often no way to see what route to take besides just trying.
- Drunks and madmen... Seriously? A master assassin who can counter a broadsword strike has no option but to let a drunk plow into him? And I get in trouble for even punching one? I'm wearing fine clothes, no one is going to question my right to smack around some beggar if he dared touch me!
Overall, it was just a frustrating game with lots of little annoyances at every turn. It has a lot of good going for it, so I'd give it a 6 out of 10, (a 5 out of 10 if you're a completionist who usually finds it fun to find and collect coins/flags/macguffins). It's a beautiful world, with an interesting story, and some promising game mechanics, but the final result is lacking polish to the point of feeling unfinished in some areas.
I've been told the second game is much better, but it came out with such restrictive DRM on the PC that I will never purchase it. I don't feel like I'm missing out after being so irritated by the first game.
It just bored me honestly. Been a while so I can't be more detailed than that.
However, the second game is defenently a good one, so I guess the flaws were fixed. I hear Revelations contains the first game(confirmation? It was a wiki), so odds are Ill play it again later and see what my problems were.
My problem with the combat more stems from the fact that it's basically futile to try and fight by any method other than countering. That said, once I got the hang of countering, I didn't have a problem with this. I prefer to use the Hidden Blade at all times anyway, other than when a projectile is called for.
Yeah, the Kingdom was sort of annoying. Thankfully, you only have to traverse it to get to each city once.
I wasn't a fan of the flags either, but lots of games do this now, and it's not like it was mandatory.
All I can say is that I didn't have these problems, but I guess I can see how others might have.
As annoying as this is, I've learned that there actually is a way that you're supposed to deal with them. You're supposed to do a counter grab and throw them aside.
Fair enough, but I don't feel that this is a series that should be played on PC in the first place. I've been a fan for a long time, having played it on my cousin's 360, and I didn't even consider the PC version an option. I didn't buy the games until I had a 360 of my own.
I would also add that Altair is a much less relatable/likeable character than Ezio. A large part of why the second game was such a huge improvement over the first was the change to a much more charismatic protagonist.
Another big help was the break from the structured "here are nine people, travel to these three cities three times each and kill them" format to a much more open world sort of game. The first game did have a progression of story, but Altair was such a dry character, you really didn't start to feel it until the end. Ezio's tale has much more vibrance to it.
All that said, I don't consider the first game to be bad, and I would definitely say it's worth playing as part of the core Assassin's Creed series.
By the way, if/when you do play the first game, most of the optional achievements aren't really worth going for, but make sure you talk to Lucy every time you leave the Animus, as much as you can. Not only do you get an achievement for going through all of her dialogue, but you get a ton of backstory that has a huge impact on the other games.
If I really want to play a game - play the game before watching an LP
If I want to play a game but can't because I haven't met the game's requirement (exscluive console title only, not enough cash for it, outdated hardware/videocard, etc.): This really depends on the game and the probability of you meeting the requirment for you to play be able to play the game. If it's a game that's a sequel that has a complex story that could spoil the game; I'll usually try and resist watching the Lps. If it's a more simpler title like a platformer, then a view gameplay videos couldn't hurt.
If I don't know anything about the game: Find and watch and watch a little bit of an LP of it to see if it's a game I want to try.
If I don't want to play a decent game: Look up some info on it and skip around through LPs until I eventually skip to the ending, get bored and stop, or watch the whole thing through.
If I don't want to play a bad game: Look up LPs and reviews about how pissed-off people are at the game for amusement; or just not bother with it.
I don't care who you are, pulling off a successful assassination is always a satisfying moment, four times so when it's against one of the big bads, and twenty-four times so when you've had to try it a half-dozen times because madmen kept pushing you into walls and blowing your cover. Grr.
But yes, the combat can get repetitive even with the counter move, travelling between cities is a bit of a chore (though as GuruGuru pointed out, skip-able later on), the flags aspect is only for people with OCD (like me
Well, you're supposed to be an Assassin, and one of your core tenants is to never harm an innocent. Also, you're trying to pass yourself off as a religious man half the time (you blend in with monks or whatever they are). Holy men don't go around punching those less fortunate then they are. That said, you can still grab & throw those beggar women asking you for money (in fact, there's an achievement for doing it a bunch of times), which is always satisfying, if a little morally dubious.
The plot's not really all that worth writing home about, I'll admit. Altair is a bit of a blank slate really, just following orders and occasionally throwing up concerns that don't really make him seem that much more interesting until the end game, where he actually does become a more interesting character.
The Desmond stuff is more interesting, but they're only at brief breaks in the game, so you have to really work for your exposition. Talking to Lucy does get you a whole bunch of background information, as does stealing both their USB pens (you HAVE to grab Viddic's during Memory Block 4 while he's looking out the window, or you miss your chance, and Lucy's is left on the table at the end of the same chapter), but yeah, you really need to put the effort in to get all the modern Assassin/Templar backstory.
That said, if you're gonna play through the rest of the series (especially Revelations), then you really do need to play through the original game to know the story of Altair, the pieces of Eden, and so on. Oddly enough Altair is much more fleshed out by the rest of the series - AsCreed 2 and Revelations do a particularly good job of this - and watching a Let's Play might get you the information you need, but it's never really the preferred option unless the game in question is really, really bad.
And it's not a bad game. Far from it. It's just not as advanced as the later games.
Oh, and yes Gman, the original game came as an extra on the PS3 version of Revelations. It's a shame it still doesn't have trophies, but it's still a nice little extra and nice of Ubisoft to have done it at all.
If you have a soul, even a shred of one, and you have an iPhone or iPad, go get yourself this game. It's amazing.
Also, the first two chapters are free- it's 10$ for the rest of the game. Considering it's 30 for the DS version- and I paid that gladly- this is totally worth it.
Now I can't wait for Phoenix Wright 2 and 3 to come to iOS. Come on, Capcom!
But I don't have a firmware new enough to support it.
(I can't upgrade to the latest one since the latest one horribly affects the 3GS' performance and battery life, and the process for installing anything under iOS 5 is complicated)
I just LOVE making characters!
Is it true that you have to complete the various modes before you unlock EVERYTHING in Create a Character? Not just more souls to base your character on, but little things like costumes and equipment.
I suppose I'll replay the game soon.
umm... what?
You're in luck. Looks like they're scheduling an international release for May. Yes, this May.
Metroid Other M
Zelda Skyward Sword
Epic Mickey
Just finished Skyrim.
NOW I'm downloading GHOST PIRATES OF VOOJU ISLAND
Fixed that for you.
Meh. I've got 40 of 50 achievements, did all the quest lines for Mage, Warrior, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves, did the Daedra Quests, went through the Civil War, and cycled through every town picking up each quest possible before moving onto the next. I'm sure there's a smattering of things I didn't do, but I'm content.
Man that game is pretty thrilling!
I played a lot more today, though unranked matches.
I love showing off my creations, and absolutely destroying people with Mitsarugi.
I even had a good win streak going as well, (got a cheevo for it!
I try to play as different characters though, so I lost quite a lot because of it.
And yes, you can unlock a lot of stuff offline.
Basically going around doing stuff offline levels you up, (its seperate to rank), and you get costume parts and characters that way as well.
(Plus you have to play the quick battle mode to get titles anyway)
Still playing Assassin's Creed. Got the achievement for killing 25 guards in a single fight last night, which took me like 20 minutes to do. Y'know, the onee where you have to start a fight in a guard-infested place, leave two alive and then keep backing away until you reach another group of guards, blocking the attacks from the two you left alive all the while? Yeah, that one.