Gaming First Impressions: Assassin’s Creed II

I promised that I’d talk about Assassin’s Creed II in relationship to Assassin’s Creed the First when I got into it some.  And there’s plenty to talk about.

A brief note to start: the graphics are improved.  That’s notable right off the bat.  The whole thing looks more smooth and polished and it’s also less gritty.  That’s all I need to say about them.

But the graphics aren’t what I’m here to talk about, because graphics don’t automatically make a game good or bad.  What issues did Assassin’s Creed have that the sequel fixed?

First of all, we’ve got the protagonist, Ezio Auditore.  Whereas Altair Ibn-La’Ahad, the first game’s protagonist, was a surly, overly serious unlikable character who thought himself above the organization he was part of, Ezio is improved in nearly every way.  He is a charming rogue and while he can be brash and hotheaded, it’s because of his youth and because of his motivation.  You see, while Altair’s motivation basically boiled down to “do what my boss says to regain my rank so that I can do what my boss says from a better position,” Ezio’s tale is one of revenge.  He becomes an assassin to get back at the people who had his father and brothers killed.  Now, while I as a person am really not big on revenge, I as a writer find it to be a far more compelling motivator than promotion.  Well, okay, Altair’s motivation was regaining his lost honor, but it was handled in such a way that it’s basically getting promoted back to his old position.

There’s a new HUD, but I could really take it or leave it.  Really, I don’t have much of an opinion on which is better.  It’s just a little different, and it works.  I’m not going to complain about it, but it’s not like the old HUD needed a lot of changing anyway.  Of course, part of this change is because of a change in the metaplot.

Desmond (the protagonist of the series as a whole) has been broken out of the Abstergo building he was being held hostage in, and made a few new assassin friends.  They decide that they need to train him, and rather than have him play (er, simulate) a more experienced character (er, ancestor), they’d set him up with Ezio, who started off inexperienced like Desmond is. Basically, they’re using it to Matrix the information into his head and give him a lifetime of experience in just a few days.  Interesting metaplot, but I’ve only seen two bits of it: the beginning where he first meets the team, and the bit where he finishes his first session.  I’m waiting for the inevitable twists before I make any final judgments, but so far I’m finding the metaplot less interesting than in the first game—largely because the plot sessions are so much longer.  Rather than being in and out of the animus fairly regularly, I’ve only been out of it twice.  That’s something I don’t like—that it’s not as easily broken up into different sections.

So.  Overall I like the characters and plot more, even if I haven’t seen enough of the metaplot to like it as much.  But what about the gameplay itself?  Well, it is vastly improved.  Assassin’s Creed liked to pretend it was a sandbox game, but Assassin’s Creed II actually is one.  There are the missions that advance the story, of course, but I spend a lot of time hunting down glyphs that reveal some metaplot information, walking through the crowds to casually pick every pocket that I can, hunting down codex pages to use them to create…some vague map of some sort, shopping for upgrades, searching for assassin tombs in challenging platform puzzle segments…overall, the whole thing manages to be fun where its predecessor failed.

The missions also lead into each other much better because there’s more variety.  It’s not “do these tasks and then you are ready to watch a cutscene, assassinate a dude, and then run back to the bureau.”  Instead, you hunt down a few targets across town that you get to in different ways until you get to the climax of that particular arc.  The missions are less formulaic and consequently flow into each other much better.

The battle controls are, for the most part, better.  It’s actually viable to use the hidden blade in combat now since you can actually defend and attack without countering, and combat as a whole just feels vastly improved.  The only difference would be the weapon selection, which requires you to hold a button and select instead of just switching weapons.  While you can select three weapons (hidden blades, sword, unarmed) quickly with the number keys like you could in the original, you’re given a lot of options that you can’t select nearly as quickly.  While you’re unlikely to use the poison much (it’s exactly like the hidden blade, only enemies die more slowly), being unable to quickly select your throwing knives is a bit frustrating.

Basically, Assassin’s Creed was a decent game that could have been really good but had a lot of flaws holding it back.  Assassin’s Creed II took a lot of those flaws out, making it a game that is actually genuinely good.  It’s fun!  I like it when games are fun!  So thank you, Assassin’s Creed II.  Thank you for listening to my complaints about the first game (made five and a half years after the game’s release) and implemented them for me by the time I played the second game (three and a half years after the game’s release).

It’s just also unfortunate that the game still seems pretty long.

Gaming Reflections: Assassin’s Creed

I wrote fairly recently about my first impressions on Assassin’s Creed.  You can find that post here.  Long story short?  It was a good game in theory that was frustrating me to hell and back with its poor game design.

I said a lot about what I wanted to say there.  About the poor level design, the monotony of the missions, et cetera.  I don’t have to say much more about that, and while I do plan on comparing and contrasting that to Assassin’s Creed II (which I’ve started on), but I’d like to get further into it before doing so.

Now, though, it’s time for me to reflect on Assassin’s Creed now that I’ve finished it.  It won’t be too long of a post, as all I have to say boils down into one question: did my opinions of the game improve?

The answer: kind of.

Okay, yes.  Assassin’s Creed had some boring missions and the parkour stopped being fun and became a chore after having to do a certain amount of it.  Combat was pretty bad.  And I found out that all those flags the game asked me to collect and the generic Templars it asked me to kill?  Yeah, doing that doesn’t do anything other than giving me an achievement.  Or, since the copy of Assassin’s Creed I played was a DRM-free PC edition, nothing other than the satisfaction of 100% completion.  Those are all issues that didn’t change because they were part of the game.

However, I found that when you stop trying to go for 100% completion and just do the minimum of three tasks before embarking on the actual assassination mission, it’s more fun.  What’s more, the boss fights become a bit more varied later on.  My personal favorite was sneaking across the boats on the water to assassinate Sibrand.

Of course, while the missions get varied near the end, that doesn’t mean they get better.  The final battle is just a series of straight-out fights, and I’ve already mentioned that the combat mechanics aren’t exactly great.  That, and there’s no way to replace the throwing knives you use near the end, which I began to grow fond of.

The plot…improved.  It came together some at the end, and the story began to become enjoyable.  However, there wasn’t a lot that I found special.  It was a twist we’ve seen before, alongside some intriguing plot threads that were left ambiguous.  Overall, it felt like the game’s plot was nothing more than a setup for more games.  How they thought people would want to buy more games like this is beyond me, personally.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  The game is still really cool, despite its flaws.

So overall, my verdict remains mostly the same, with one small update: I no longer think that Assassin’s Creed is a good game that’s secretly really terrible.  Instead, I think it’s a decent game on the condition that you do not in any way attempt 100% completion.  Either take away the sandbox to streamline the game, or give me a shovel and a bucket or some other fun toys so I can actually have fun when I play in the sandbox.

I’ve heard good things about the sequel, and from the short amount I’ve played, I have high hopes for it.  I’ll see you when I have more to report on that.

Gaming First Impressions: Assassin’s Creed

What?  You mean I actually do “First Impressions” posts that aren’t about anime?  Perish the thought!

When I was building my computer, the graphics card I bought came with a free digital download of Assassin’s Creed III.  Their way of saying “we’re so glad that you bought our product that we’re going to give you a free game with it!”  I had heard some really good things about the series in the past, and I figured I’d play the two (and two halves, i.e. Brotherhood and Revelations) games that came before it before I got around to the third one.

Assassin’s Creed is sort of two stories: the story of Desmond, a bartender (and former assassin?) who’s been kidnapped and has two people going through his “genetic memories” to find something.  The memories they are going through are the memories of Altair, an Assassin during the time of the Crusades.

So I started with the original, and was instantly drawn in by the fun gameplay and assassinating people and what exactly are these sinister people who have imprisoned Desmond and PARKOUR, YEAH!

And then the game stopped being fun and started to suck.

Basically, the game starts out really strong.  It gives you a great mystery, develops a wonderful world, gives you some fun gameplay that’s easy to learn, and sets you off on a quest for redemption.  And for a level, it’s fun.  It’s fun to watch as Altair goes off on his quest for redemption, it’s fun to try to figure out what’s going on with Desmond, and it’s fun to jump around on buildings collecting flags and hunting down targets.

The only problem is that things don’t get more varied than that.  Here’s how the story so far goes:
-Desmond is being held by two people who are probing his memories looking for some Mysterious Thing™
-Altair ends up in trouble with the Brotherhood of Assassins because he is a Cop Assassin Who Does Not Play By The Rules™
-We really start learning controls in a pretty fluid way that’s still fun.
-Altair goes off to some city to find some dude the Brotherhood wants dead.  There are hints to some larger scheme after he’s assassinated.  Altair relearns a skill afterwards.
-Altair goes off to two more cities to find two other dudes the Brotherhood wants dead.  There are hints to some larger scheme after they’re assassinated.  Altair relearns skills after each.
-Desmond learns a bit more about the people who are probing his mind.  There is DRAMA and MYSTERY.
-Altair goes off to different parts of all three cities to  find three more dudes the Brotherhood wants dead.  There are hints to some larger scheme after they’re assassinated.  Altair relearns skills after each.

I don’t know what happens after that since I haven’t beaten the third mission in that last chunk, but you can see why I’m having issues with the game at the moment.  It’s extraordinarily repetitive, and just extends the length of each “memory block”/level by increasing the amount of repetitive missions in it.  Sure, the first mission is fun.  It’s great to jump around the rooftops of Damascus.  It’s less fun when you’re doing the exact same thing in Acre and Jerusalem, though being given archers as hidden blade fodder provides a bit of new entertainment.  But by the time you have to do it again in all three locations, it’s become a chore.  What’s worse, absolutely everything looks the same.  The landscapes and cityscapes aren’t diverse enough to provide enough good landmarks, and you’re better off navigating by the icons on your map.  The sandbox elements of the game (i.e., gathering all the information instead of just most of it, saving citizens, climbing viewpoints, collecting flags, and taking out Templars) are repetitive and take a terribly long time.  I don’t even know what collecting the flags or defeating the Templars DOES, since there are so many of them and there’s no way to find them other than trial and error or an online guide.

What’s more, the story moves painfully slow.  After the first bit, it gets as repetitive as the gameplay itself.  You’re given pieces of the plot through ambiguous hints, but it’s entirely separate from the rest of the gameplay and there’s not enough to keep me interested.  Your reward for an intensely long session of gameplay is a sparse section of story that probably only makes sense once you’ve played through the game twice, but come on.  With a game this long and repetitive, who has time for that (as well as it would fit, I refuse to say “ain’t nobody got time for that” because using memes instead of your own words is dumb and uncreative and stupid and dumb)?

Also, the game controls?  Mostly good, but the combat controls are terrible.  Your hidden blade is useless in direct combat, you have limited throwing knives, and the swordfights are dependent on unforgiving timing.  You’re given enough health that, after you learn how to counter, you can just hold down the defend button and hack and slash your way through the enemies with counterattacks.  But that makes the battles take much longer.  What’s more, swordfights draw attention and once you’ve engaged in one, it’s easier to take out all the enemies in a long, drawn-out fight instead of running, finding cover, inevitably being spotted right  before you dive in, and repeating until you manage to get away safely.  And rescuing citizens, one of the main sidequests, almost always requires a swordfight that can draw dozens of guards in later missions.

Let me take a moment to compare Assassin’s Creed to The Legend of Zelda (i.e. my favorite game series) because they’re both action adventure games.  Let’s look at what they do differently.

-The Legend of Zelda sends you through varied and diverse locations. This usually prevents players from getting lost.  Assassin’s Creed has buildings that all look the same, forcing you to navigate by the (limited) minimap.

-The locations in The Legend of Zelda take different skills to navigate that usually require a short period of thinking before moving.  Assassin’s Creed is more trial-and-error. instead of being able to plot clear, strategic routes to safety, you’re forced to run around a disorienting maze of streets and rooftops until you stumble across one of the three types of places you can hide.

-The Legend of Zelda usually has quick battles that require just a little strategy, like finding the right angle to attack at in Skyward Sword or figuring out how to best get around a dodongo to attack its tail.  The battles in Assassin’s Creed are less dependent on strategy and more dependent on hoping you press the right button at the right time.  The only exception are the boss battles, and even then the strategy consists largely of “chase the target down or go here and wait for the right time to strike.”

-The Legend of Zelda offers a variety of gameplay between dungeons dependent on manipulating the environment.  In Assassin’s Creed, you do the same thing over and over and over again.

-The Legend of Zelda will often (though not always—I’m looking at you, Spirit Tracks) give you a bit more of the story as you’re moving through each new environment.  Assassin’s Creed gives you the gameplay, then the story, then the gameplay, then the story, etc.

You get the point.  And I get that the Zelda series is based around puzzles while the Assassin’s Creed series is based around stealth, so they’re obviously going to be different in some respects (especially regarding combat and how exactly the gameplay works). 

But I could really choose other Action Adventure games.  Let’s take Dark Souls, for example, which I’ve been playing for a class.  Sure, you’ll do a lot of repetitive things in Dark Souls, but it’s usually the same thing because you died.  That’s because, in Dark Souls, combat takes a lot of strategy.  It’s long and often tedious like it is in Assassin’s Creed, but the difference is the health bar.  Dark Souls won’t let you just charge in and attack because that’s a good way to get killed.  You have to wait for an opening to attack and avoid what attacks you can.  It’s not about pressing the right button at the right time, it’s about watching for right time and waiting until then to press the right button.  Dark Souls has diverse architecture and while it’s possible to get lost, the structure of the buildings are diverse enough that you can usually find your way around with ease once you’ve learned the landmarks.  And most all of Dark Soul’s story is told subtly and is integrated into the gameplay.

So what do I think about Assassin’s Creed?  Well, I actually think that it’s a good game, at least in theory.  It’s got great design and world elements a wonderful concept, and it’s fun.  The only problem is, it’s a good game that happens to suck pretty heavily.  The great gameplay and world are marred by repetitive architecture and some wonky combat controls, and you can only play ninja for so long before you start wanting more from the game—though I’m speaking in terms of quality, since I want less quantity.  It’s a concept that deserved to be great, and it wasn’t.  So I feel disappointed.  Disappointed and betrayed.  And really, that’s about the worst feeling possible.  If something’s inherently terrible, I don’t feel as bad.  But when something with great potential doesn’t capitalize on it, it feels like it’s broken a promise.  A promise to be good.

I hear the sequels are better.  I’m really hoping they are.  Because at the moment, Assassin’s Creed isn’t a game; it’s a chore.

Well, I’ve still got about half of the game to go.  It’ll hopefully pick up after this.  And if it doesn’t, well…the rest of those soldier-assailed citizens can just go ahead and suck it.  They probably were thieves anyway.