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Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

The Sarge

By The Sarge,
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HeyMykie

HeyMykie

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Haven't played the beta (only started playing ACB after the Revelations beta finished), so can't comment on how effective the following changes are...

For one, they've reversed the detection meter so you begin on silent (or discreet, can't remember) and you have to build upto incognito by remaining in line of sight of your target. I think this is a good idea in principle, but I have reservations about whether it'll really encourage people to stop running around like headless chickens (particularly on rooftops). Furthermore, I don't really see that as a problem: fact is good players can work their way into 1st place and dictate the pace of the game thereafter, which makes complaints about rooftop runners and the likes somewhat redundant.

Then there's honourable death, which awards players points if they stun their pursuer in the process of being killed. I'm sort of indifferent to this, since I tend to use stun in tandem with smoke bombs anyway. When I do attempt a naked stun, I'm perfectly fine with it not working out. Besides, I'm under the impression you can now stun anybody, including NPCs. Not sure how I feel about that, either.

Don't think I'll pick the game up till its a little cheaper, but I'm still looking forward to multi. ACB was the best multiplayer component of any game I've played since Halo 2, and so I'm hoping they've fixed stuff like parties and needlessly breaking up the community with version types.

You see...it sounds nice on paper but it doesn't work because by nature people are impatient. During the Beta, which I had to stop playing because as time went on I hated it more and more, people ran like headless chickens. No one wanted to be patient in order to build bonuses. And the ones that didn't were CONSTANTLY on the roofs. They would literally follow you from rooftop to rooftop to get focuses and avoid any kind of resistance. It made the game a runner and roofers dream. One of the base perks was called "Hot Pursuit" which is a combination of the speed boost & silent hunt perks from ACB, which I think also encourages new players to run. They also GREATLY increased the speed you climb up roofs. Its even faster than the wall climber perk from ACB.

The constant roofing eventually brought entire rooms onto the roofs and it was a nightmare. There was no proper stealth, no high point hard working kills, just people bouncing from rooftop to rooftop. The new detection meter is so sensitive that just the act of trying to getting to the roof puts you in reckless (50 point kill status) because now the meter starts at discreet and anytime you lose sight of your target the build up drops WAY TOO FAST, so you end up hovering around your target making them more and more paranoid which makes them act random and stupid. When the full game comes out and people continue to play like this, no one will have reservations about using the hidden gun. At that point this game is just a 3rd person COD. ROOFING. RUNNING. and SHOOTING.

But wait theres more...contested kills, would be cool, if people literally didn't hammer on the stun button all the time. People ran around stunning NPC's whenever they heard whispers. People went into other peoples morphed groups and stunned all their copies out of the group. You could work on a kill doing proper stealth and just because someone is hammering down on stun you get a contested kill, dropping your points all the way down to 150. Poison was no longer viable because someone could stun you up to 5 SECONDS after you poisoned them! There are more changes they made that were horrible, but I really don't want to talk about it anymore.

They community was very vocal about the changes and they said they fixed and changed a lot of things. I guess we'll see when the game comes out.

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Harsin

Harsin

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This is a Christmas casualty for me. Normally I'd be all over this, but there's just too many things I want to play at the moment and a lot of them sound like substantial time consuming experiences. I'll probably rent it or buy it for a song during a quiet period. It pains me to think of that period of about two months where I'd play any old shit just for want of releases.

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sandman

sandman

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They definately released this at the wrong time. I'm not sure what the official release date is, but CEX are already selling it. Who is gonna buy it when skyrim is available on the same day (not me and I am a massive AC fan and have been since the brilliant first game (you know, the one nobody likes)).

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Vemsie

Vemsie

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They definately released this at the wrong time. I'm not sure what the official release date is, but CEX are already selling it. Who is gonna buy it when skyrim is available on the same day (not me and I am a massive AC fan and have been since the brilliant first game (you know, the one nobody likes)).

I am. I find the AC world and gameplay more appealing than Skyrim's. Animus Edition next week, baby. :)

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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Impressions from 8 hours in:

It's Assassin's Creed. You should know by now whether you like it or not. They've added some good stuff (the hook adds just a little bit of variety to the climbing mechanic, and zip-lining across the city with it always feels great) and some dumb stuff, with the worst offender undoubtedly being the compulsory tower defence sections.

I'll just repeat that, because it's one of those phrases that doesn't really sink in the first time you say it. There are tacked-on tower defence sections that see you protecting a den by placing assassins on rooftops as they fire down onto hordes of enemies below. If you win, you keep your den. If you lose, you have to retake the den by doing the exact same "find the guard captain and kill him before he runs away" section that you had to do to initially take the place.

This wouldn't be so bad but for the fact that renovating shops, banks and other buildings now raises your notoriety. You can *sort of* see why they've done it - most people who played through AssBro just bought up everything they stumbled across, thus getting more income, thus buying up more stuff, circle of life, etc. - and adding a 'cap' on this in a 25% penalty every time you renovate does stop you from just running rampant with it. But all it ever really results in is one of two things; one, you just end up bribing every herald you come across to reduce that 25% penalty or killing every official to knock it down by 50%, or two, you buy up everything, let your notoriety fill up, then get dragged away to defend your den through the aforementioned tacked-on tower defence minigame.

Once again, that's - tower defence minigame.

Bombs are nice, maybe slightly overpowered but the game forgives you with so much already (generous climbing/falling recovery, insta-medicines, counter into kill into kill into kill into kill into you get the idea) that it fits in pretty well with the rest of it.

Constantinople isn't as nice to look at or traverse as previous cities. Maybe it's down to personal taste, but it lacks the presence of the monuments of Florence and Venice, replacing them instead with muted, dusty, low-topped buildings and indoor bazaars. But that's just one city obviously.

Haven't touched multiplayer, but didn't bother with the last one so wouldn't know of any changes.

It's Assassin's Creed. With a tower defence minigame.

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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Haven't actually done any of them yet, but that's just because it hasn't kicked me out into... the place where you do them for quite a while.

I don't want to be That Guy On The Internet about all this, because it's a lovely game and odds are if you're a fan of the series then all the stuff you liked in the last one is still in there. Training recruits, tapping LB to whistle in that eagle-cryin' death, hiring fighters, thieves and courtesans (well, romani), climbing tall stuff, jumping off tall stuff into some hay... it's all there again, so don't worry about that.

It's just the things that have been added have crossed into the realm of change for change's sake rather than actually contributing anything new. The recruiting and training of assassins in the last one, for example, worked really well because it both fitted into the overall story and added a nice little gameplay mechanic to boot. In this, it just seems like the thought process has been "okay, we added that, what can we add on to *that* to mix things up a little." Hence, tower defence minigame.

Ezio! There's another thing. Ezio's lovely. There, stick that on the box.

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Pupponvesh 2

Pupponvesh 2

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I'm intrigued to hear what you think of the Desmond's Memories sections, lewismistreated. I, alas, am under embargo, so can't say anything about them.

Not wanting to sound stupid or anything, but how can you be under an embargo when people are able to buy the game. The whole embargo-thing is a total farce.

As for the tower defence thing. Yeah, as Lewis said, sounds like they just added it because they thought they needed to.

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HeyMykie

HeyMykie

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Not wanting to sound stupid or anything, but how can you be under an embargo when people are able to buy the game. The whole embargo-thing is a total farce.

As for the tower defence thing. Yeah, as Lewis said, sounds like they just added it because they thought they needed to.

I'm assuming he got a "review" copy from the publisher. When he did, he signed an NDA. Until said time he cannot present his review into the public until that time comes. If a retailer breaks street date, that has no impact on the NDA. The games OFFICIAL release date os still November 15th.

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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I'm assuming he got a "review" copy from the publisher. When he did, he signed an NDA. Until said time he cannot present his review into the public until that time comes. If a retailer breaks street date, that has no impact on the NDA. The games OFFICIAL release date os still November 15th.

Yeah, this. Embargo's tomorrow at 5pm, I think.

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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I'm intrigued to hear what you think of the Desmond's Memories sections, lewismistreated. I, alas, am under embargo, so can't say anything about them.

I.

Err.

Hmm.

It's... an interesting idea, and I'm all for interesting ideas, but it's so, so tacked on, and a Net Yaroze developer just called to say they want their demo concept from 1998 back.

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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So these Tower Defence sections, after you've done individual ones that's it? Or is it a case of having to do the same ones over and over again?

You do them when a den you've captured becomes under siege from Templars, and that happens whenever you do something naughty with your notoriety over 100%. Two ways to not do them, essentially - keeping an eye on your notoriety at all times (possible, but requires constant trips to Heralds/Officials), and placing a Master Assassin (level 10 recruit) in charge of a den. Once you do this, the den can never be recaptured.

Needless to say, it pays to install Master Assassins into all your dens as soon as possible. Plus you get a nice prize for doing it -

The game's best armour.

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Harsin

Harsin

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You do them when a den you've captured becomes under siege from Templars, and that happens whenever you do something naughty with your notoriety over 100%. Two ways to not do them, essentially - keeping an eye on your notoriety at all times (possible, but requires constant trips to Heralds/Officials), and placing a Master Assassin (level 10 recruit) in charge of a den. Once you do this, the den can never be recaptured.

Cheers, that sounds pretty annoying and tedious, what were they thinking?

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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You do them when a den you've captured becomes under siege from Templars, and that happens whenever you do something naughty with your notoriety over 100%. Two ways to not do them, essentially - keeping an eye on your notoriety at all times (possible, but requires constant trips to Heralds/Officials), and placing a Master Assassin (level 10 recruit) in charge of a den. Once you do this, the den can never be recaptured.

Needless to say, it pays to install Master Assassins into all your dens as soon as possible. Plus you get a nice prize for doing it -

The game's best armour.

Have you ever found yourself being attacked for no reason when your notoriety is at zero? Happened to me a couple of times during the campaign. Also, it could just be me, but I think it's shorter than Brotherhood and II.

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Vemsie

Vemsie

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Hmm. I'm not massively encouraged by all this. Maybe I'll wait for the price drop.

Yeah, l hope it won't disappoint. Player impressions over at GAF are really positive, whereas the vibe here seems a tad negative. We'll see, l am diving in tomorrow.

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Epcotman

Epcotman

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Loved 2 and Brotherhood but I feel Assassin's Creed fatigued. There doesn't seem to to be any excitement surrounding it either. I was surprised how great Brotherhood was coming just a year after 2 but I can't see this one managing to surprise or exceed expectations. When I think about it, 2 seems to have blended with Brotherhood in my memory, which is a shame as I know I enjoyed them a lot at the time. That's the problem with annualising this series, you are left with a large, forgettable and sickly Assassin's Creed mega muffin. They need to take a couple of years and come back with a fresh cake.

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Harsin

Harsin

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Yeah, l hope it won't disappoint. Player impressions over at GAF are really positive, whereas the vibe here seems a tad negative. We'll see, l am diving in tomorrow.

GAF only has two speeds - "OMG Game of Forever. 11/10. :bow: :bow: :bow:" or "Urghhhh unmitigated disaster. Bomba!!!". Lewismistreated is giving a rounded view of the game, pointing out the postives and the negatives as he sees them and I'm grateful for that.

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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Have you ever found yourself being attacked for no reason when your notoriety is at zero? Happened to me a couple of times during the campaign. Also, it could just be me, but I think it's shorter than Brotherhood and II.

A few times, but I always just assumed that it was something story-related. In other words, having just pissed off the Templars, they'd be looking for me for a while regardless of my notoriety level. I actually found the opposite to be more jarring - there's a bit quite late one which should result in every man and his dog looking for you, but I was just running around without being hassled, even looting chests in the middle of an enemy encampment.

Length - having just finished it, I'd say you're definitely right. It's the shortest one yet.

Once again, I don't want to come across as the anti-hype guy on this, but this is an Assassin's Creed game that has been turned around in a year, which is fuck-all in game development time, and it shows.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/no-assassins-creed-in-2011

That was in July of last year. Discounting the horrible thought of it being an outright lie, it means that shortly afterwards the developers were told that actually, yes, there will be an AC game in 2011 so they better get started on it sharpish.

What's particularly weird is that, given the incredibly short time frame they had to work with, they spent any effort at all either adding in stuff that wasn't needed (the minigames) or trying to fix things that weren't particularly broken in the first place (notoriety for renovation being the most obvious). And those things wouldn't be an issue if the quality of everything else in the game was as high as we've come to expect from the series, but it's just not. Capturing dens involves little more strategy than killing the same cowardly captain in different areas before he manages to run inside. Where's the diversity that Brotherhood asked for these sections, with different captains being found in a variety of different locales and scenarios? Instead it's just copy and paste stuff all across Constantinople, some of which is even repeated if you lose the den.

There are occasions where the AI path-finding goes a bit wonky too, or the climbing mechanic does something quirky, or a guard will get stuck in some scenery while in a weird permanent animation loop of attacking and retreating. Again, these issues wouldn't be as noticeable if you weren't left thinking that they sacrificed polish in some key areas in order to fit in a bunch of extraneous stuff elsewhere. Bizarre.

I'm glad people are loving it, because negative commentary on the Internet isn't exactly something the world is in short supply of, but considering both the quality of the product and the context of the release window this finds itself in, I can't exactly sit and wonder why the pre-release buzz isn't flowing. Reviews will be interesting anyhoo.

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