Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

[Talk Show Host]

GAF only has two speeds - "OMG Game of Forever. 11/10. :bow: :bow: :bow:" or "Urghhhh unmitigated disaster. Bomba!!!".

That doesn't sound far from the rll situation.

Also, it's only logical for the excitement of this to be low, they are milking it like a FIFA and a CoD game. And since single player and not multi remains its focus, quality is bound to drop for yearly releases, especially when gameplay remains more or less the same.

[HeyMykie]

Well is anyone here going to get into the multiplayer? It would be nice to some regular sessions going.

[Vemsie]

...quality is bound to drop for yearly releases, especially when gameplay remains more or less the same...

Well, actually, I thought Brotherhood was an improvement over 2, so l was hoping for the same here.

[CactuarBill]

I don't suppose anyone knows if Game are doing any trade in offers for this?

EDIT: Ignore that, seems like they are. This is good news. Not like I'll have the time to play it with Skyrim taking up my time.

[gospvg]

I don't suppose anyone knows if Game are doing any trade in offers for this?

EDIT: Ignore that, seems like they are. This is good news. Not like I'll have the time to play it with Skyrim taking up my time.

Yes £4.99 if you trade in Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 or Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deceptio

[Vemsie]

Guardian review

[lewismistreated]

Eurogamer review

Don't get me wrong, I like that Ubisoft is willing to experiment with different forms. That creativity is what made Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood such a delight. Brotherhood dared to add elements to the already-successful AC2 foundation that included a brotherhood of assassins who could be trained and called into battle, a citywide fight for territorial influence, and the half-synch/full-synch dynamic that encouraged players to complete missions with a true Auditore flair. Not every new twist was a great idea - the cannon-fire segments in particular were tedious. But overall, Brotherhood worked because the new stuff tended to build out the core concept of virtuous killers whose primary asset is their efficiency and focus.

The new wrinkles in Revelations don't have such a well-defined sense of purpose, and they detract from the game a result. For instance, this entry in the series has a new tower-defence element in which you have to protect your assassins' dens against Templar attacks. It's slow and woefully uninventive, outclassed by any number of tower-defence games you can play for free on the web. Ubisoft is getting complacent here, treating Assassin's Creed as a brand rather than an idea. They slap an Assassin's Creed skin on a standard genre template and think it sufficient. It's not.

[Pob]

Shame the new elements aren't up to much (according to reports). Brotherhood was such a good extension of the series that I thought the dev team couldn't do any wrong. I'll still get this, because it's more Assassins' Creed, and I love it.

Perhaps the new tower defence game can be mostly avoided? The punishment of having to endure it might give a purpose to the assassin training, which felt slightly pointless in Brotherhood.

[Majora]

Edge review is spot-on for me. Ubisoft keep bloating the series with 'enhancements' but are losing sight of the original concept. I don't think they ever truly nailed the stealth/assassin side of things, but improving that has been waylaid in favour of town building and tower defence and assassin building and loads of other side stuff, much of which amounts to little more than one button busywork. It's like they were so affronted with the response to AC1's lack of variety that they feel the need to pump the games full of different play types and activities rather than refining the core concept.

[Harsin]

It reminds me of their treatment of Prince of Persia.

Ubisoft: "In the new one you can race chariots!"

Audience: "Erm, yay?"

[Ferine]

I've been resigned to this being something of a stop gap for a while, to be honest. It's still set to be delivered tomorrow, though, as I love the series: gimmicks aside I'm sure the core gameplay is there, plus I really enjoy the hokey meta-story.

Presumably next year's Assassin's Creed 3 will be where we'll see a real advancement from ACII, if there's going to be one this generation. Hopefully they go with that natural narrative end point, too: wrap up Desmond's story then leave the series to cool for a couple of years until the new consoles are out.

[Takizawa]

I think Brotherhood in a new location would have been enough for me, one of my favourite games of the last 5 years.

[A.C.R.O.N.Y.M]

Animus Edition shipped!!!

[MW_Jimmy]

Well is anyone here going to get into the multiplayer? It would be nice to some regular sessions going.

I will, but only if the game is going cheap over Christmas (somewhat unlikely).

I think the multiplayer will be the saving grace of the game, because, however much I like Assassins Creed, I think this might be a game too far....

[Rudderless]

So yeah, embargo's up so I can say that I was disappointed by this. My feelings broadly echo those of lewismistreated, though I'd go further and say the Desmond bits are atrocious. Just no fun at all. The tower-defence bits are poor, and the bombs aren't a particularly great addition either. The story is great, and if you're invested in what happens to Ezio (and Altair, for that matter) then it's worth playing to see how their stories are wrapped up, but as someone who loved II and Brotherhood, this is one of the year's biggest let-downs for me, and I'm sad to say that given how much time I spent with the previous two.

[HeyMykie]

oh noes, thats a shame to hear....Well i am a big fan of the lore so at least thats spot on. And the multiplayer is mothers milk for me so ACR will be in my console for months.

[Vemsie]

It's a shame to hear indeed. Am sure l will have some fun with it, but l lowered my estimations considerably. Hopefully they will shake things up a bit with III, which will have a new protagonist and engine if l understood correctly.

[Uncle Mike]

Not too surprised to hear, to be honest: I thought Brotherhood showed a few signs of people struggling to fill a game with useful content (all the shops and assassin training didn't really bring a lot of gameplay) in amongst the genuinely good/great content.

That Ubi guy who wanted to let big franchises rest every now and then was probably right. Although I guess presumably decent sales and a reasonable set of reviews suggest maybe they'll get away with it?

I wonder, if it is disappointing, how much damage it does the series? It looks like a decent argument that, for example, sales of Resistance 3 - apparently a pretty decent game - were pretty badly hit by how terrible Resistance 2 was. If people feel bad about Revelations, do sales of whatever Assassin's Creed 3 Proper suffer enough to make Ubi wish it had rested this one for a year?

I was planning to pick this up in 2011, as I'm quite into the story now, but the mildly negative impressions are definitely making sure it won't be day 1.

[Nate Dogg III]

Just did the first tower defence bit. Jesus. There's also a bit on a horse and cart within about ten minutes of the start that's also a bit...Jesus. Constantinople's sure purdy, though.

I actually really liked the assassin training and renovations in Brotherhood, the former was a nice bit of largely pointless but satisfying micromanagement and I often found myself doing the latter for an hour or more when I got distracted on the way to start a mission. "There's a greyed-out bit there....and it looks like it's maybe slightly closer than where I was heading...gah, go on then."

I found the renovations in particular incredibly relaxing - I find the series very low-stress (and, to be honest, low-thought) in general, and it's nice to have a game you can play slouched back in your seat every so often. The thought of 25% notoriety per renovation puts me right off this and just has me thinking I'll leave it til I've finished the storyline, but we'll see.

[RobinTripp]

Animus Edition shipped!!!

Mine arrived yesterday. It's heavy.

[Chadruharazzeb]

This thread is most distressing. I'm planning to stop playing Skyrim to start this. I shall still do so but with much less enthusiasm.

[RobinTripp]

Just did the first tower defence bit. Jesus. There's also a bit on a horse and cart within about ten minutes of the start that's also a bit...Jesus.

I can't even get past this bit. It's terrible.

[Rudderless]

I can't even get past this bit. It's terrible.

Took me a good few goes, too. You need to really wind up your shots - go as far left as you can before bringing it right. Timing's tricky, though, as if you go over rocks you take damage. It's fairly short, at least.

[lewismistreated]

I didn't mention those as I thought it might have just been me being a bit crap, but with the benefit of affirmation - jeeeeesus, they were awful. Having to redo that same chariot section four or five times due to some wayward handling over a pile of rocks did not make a positive opening impression at all. Just wanted to get to Constantinople and start climbing up shit.

[Nate Dogg III]

You don't need to take him out at all. You just need to not die. Focus on avoiding the bits of rubble, smash into him when you're sure you have enough room to damage him rather than yourself. Soon as I did that I cleared it first time, you only need to stay alive for about thirty seconds.

Putting his energy bar on screen is a terrible, terrible decision, just completely misleading.

[CactuarBill]

Got it from Game, traded Batman for it. Though I got the special edition with the soundtrack. Do Game only do this version or did I just luck out and get a more expensive version?

[V3zna]

I have a half finished Brotherhood sitting on my shelf that I intend to finish. Now Lovefilm have sent me Revelations. I think I'll just send it back in the hope I'll get Saints Row 3 in return.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Man, what dreadful timing the release of this was. Hardly any discussion here and of 20 friends online last night not one of them was playing it. Poor Ezio.

Anyway. It's been ok so far. I thought that starting the game in a

snowy Masyaf without any scope for exploration was a bit disappointing (I expected going there would be the climax, not the intro), then my annoyance was compounded further by a dismal Wild West-style "dragged on a rope behind a horse" section and an even worse cart chase (which I finished more by luck than anything), I was relieved to get to Turkey where the real Assassin's Creed business started proper.

I ran around a bit, pickpocketed enough dosh to buy a treasure map, had a skuff with some guards, beat the shit out of some beggar women, and facepalmed as Ezio still insists sometimes on jumping in completely the wrong direction when free running. All is good.

The notorious Defence section was crap. Why after finishing it did it pop up with a score and a list of criteria that had never been previously mentioned? Do these sections pop up frequently or is it only when your notoriety gets too high? To be honest I'd rather not bother with them if the alternative is that you lose the den and then have to go and take out a Templar captain... makes it more like the Borgia towers from Brotherhood.

And what's the deal with the Desmond bit? I don't see how it follows on from the end of Brotherhood. What's the point in having the player take control over him just to make him run forward for a second to begin the next memory sequence?

[Arn X Treme]

And what's the deal with the Desmond bit? I don't see how it follows on from the end of Brotherhood. What's the point in having the player take control over him just to make him run forward for a second to begin the next memory sequence?

You'll return to this part a few times it's kind of like the new Animus mission launcher for lack of a better description.

I'm going to be the different opinion here and say that I've played a few hours and I'm already in love with it. Given it does seem to be a follow on from Brotherhood rather then a stand alone new title, but all i can see is that it has improved on an already great formula.

Was i expecting a new game? No not at all. For me since ACII i have looked at this franchise a lot like Modern Warfare, a new title in the series every year for IP recognition and each time just building up on the strong points (And also keeping some of the weaker) while keeping things familiar to franchise players.

My loves & hates:-

You can't really expect to want to play ACR for anything other then tying up the storyline, this is one of my constant discussions with people here is that certain games you will never enjoy 100% percent unless you care for the story in some way even if it is just the closure of knowing when and if the sequel is coming out.

As soon as you saw Sixteen i was very interested in where the game was going, and was a nice touch to see they're keeping the running plot going.

I loathed the early mission with the cart, as did i the part with tailing the Templars. Mainly this was due to the lack of very clear instruction as to what to do, given i don't want my hand holding but a solid hint would be nice.

Reaching Istanbul was epic, it looks fantastic and i couldn't wait to get to run around the rooftops. Yusuf was introduced with enough charm and character for him to be looked at fondly (enough spin-off perchance?) and this led into the wonderful narration of what has passed since ACB.

I loved the hook blade and the new move set it brought with it, zip-lines look to be a great addition and will come in more then handy I'm sure.

Now the tower defense, this i was not keen on. I don't mind the odd bit of tower defense game (south park, defense grid etc) but this didn't click with me at all. I found it very slow and confusing at first, the pairing up vector was horribly hidden really and it seemed to take forever. At first I assumed it was like this because it was the tutorial stage as such but alas it gets no better

Templar Den's again not keen just like the Towers from ACB this is just showing off some the new game play elements. Could do without it but that's my preference.

As for Multi-player i can't really comment from the tutorial levels i completed but i do look forward to giving this a go.

[Chadruharazzeb]

I loathed the early mission with the cart, as did i the part with tailing the Templars. Mainly this was due to the lack of very clear instruction as to what to do, given i don't want my hand holding but a solid hint would be nice.

Shit yeah, I completely forgot to mention that. It was another aspect of the first 20 minutes which I didn't like. "Here is a target on your map"... OK, I'm an assassin, I'll go and kill him. Then it tells you you've failed full synchronisation and that a templar has escaped. What? I think I got down to there being two left when the cutscene took over and the game progressed. What I was meant to be doing I will never know.

Then just after the cart chase sequence was a bit where it shows someone with a rifle trying to shoot you but this gunman fills almost the entire screen due to a stupidly placed camera, and it took me about five minutes to figure out where I was meant to be going.

Despite all this though, I am thoroughly enjoying the "normal" AC business of exploring the city and getting into fights. And it looks great and the music is some of the best yet.