Assassins Creed 2

[PhoenixFlame]

F
Plus, spoilers aside (everybody knows by now), adding a scifi element in AC, to me, is just like putting the Prince in latex and leather plus heavy metal music. Come off it, developers. Stop pandering to the inane twelve-year-olds inside. Grow up already.

Ok, I was just really pissed off at AC and POP2, because those elements added absolutely nothing to the game and subtracted a helluvalot from the overall impression.

Really? Actually I liked the addition of that element a lot and I thought it contributed a bit to the flavor of the game. If it was just a straight up "you are an assassin in this time" game, it'd be good enough, but I honestly thought it broke up the repetition, which was probably the game's main flaw.

Having a sci-fi, modern element to this story is actually a good thing, not a bad thing, in my opinion. Considering the way AC ended, it's at least intriguing to me.

 

[Gapperjack]

i think im going to rant for a second before making my point:

Remember the 5th or so target the soldier guy in his little castle, i had it all planned out, killed the archers ninja style im on a rooftop not far behind him while hes lecturing his small army of guards, so i think "nobody can see me my plan is working well!" i target him then lob a throwing knife and think to myself "high five! stealthy ninja-ness owns" the knife then plinks off him and 20 or so guards are alerted and start pelting me with stones until i fall into their midst and get chain raped by them and him who also happens to be immune to a large sword to the face.

[Rant Over] my point was, why in all hell do they GIVE us throwing knives if our target is immune to EVERYTHING except the little hidden blade? it does cut down on your options because in the end after attempting the throwing knife thing again i just jumped down from my little roof slaughtered the whole fort full of men then stabbed him in the face with my tiny hidden blade. After i was done i just thought to myself "WHY AM I AN ASSASSIN?! I just massacred an entire fort for gods sakes!"

OK rant is really over now, bye bye

Totally my feelings. For almost every mission they forced you into a straight confrontation with your target. For a game titled Assassins Creed, it was pretty ironic that the assassinations were the poorest part of the game.

If they sequel it, they need to make more of the same but fix everything that was broken about the game, and let's face it, Creed was far from perfect.

1) Galloping your horse should not cause every guard in the area to turn against you. Fair enough, running through the streets makes a person look suspicious, but galloping through the countryside is just normal when the only other speed your horse seems capable of is a walk. Perhaps the best thing would be to have a medium speed, a canter.

2) The information you get from doing the side missions should actually be helpful in some way, and should be accessible once you've acquired it. In Creed, you didn't need to know anything about your target, just head over to the marker and walk up to him to get into a cut scene. They should take a leaf from Hitman's book and have targets that actually move around the city, so you can choose your time to strike, and have to learn your target's habits before going for the kill.

3) What I mentioned above, cut scenes that happen no matter how sneak you've been. For a game that boasted interactive cut-scenes, boy did Creed fail to deliver on that count. The best assassinations were the side mission ones where you had a time-limit and the targets moved.

4) Drop the goofy Desmond Morris and the Animus stuff. As was mentioned earlier, it seems inexplicable that Ubi would feel the need to add something more to one of the coolest game settings we've seen - you play an assassin from the Hashshashin sect in Crusades era Middle East.

Why on earth did they think they needed more than that? They should set the sequel properly in the past without forcing you to return to the 'present' after each mission. It was like the game developers decided that the player needed to be reminded that it was 'just a game' every so often.

5) More variety is needed for the side quests. If GTA can manage a whole variety of different side missions with unique individual storylines, then Ubi could have done something similar in Creed. Having only 7 missions (Save Citizen, Flag Race, Timed Assassination, Pick Pocket, Eavesdropping, Interrogation, Viewpoints) which they just repeated for each city area was shameful in this era of gaming. The technology can handle it now. That they didn't bother smacked of a rush job.

As for a setting, I'd suggest the same era, but a more European setting, France or England perhaps. My favourite city in the game was Acre - scaling the cathedral spire was magnificent. There's some great fortified cities they could model, and there's lots of documentation to help them get it accurate.

I think the idea of setting it in a futuristic setting is horrible. If you're going to do that you might as well just not make it a sequel to Assassins Creed and make a new game. If you want to free-run in a modern setting, then wait for Mirrors Edge.

 

[OverlordSteve]

4) Drop the goofy Desmond Morris and the Animus stuff. As was mentioned earlier, it seems inexplicable that Ubi would feel the need to add something more to one of the coolest game settings we've seen - you play an assassin from the Hashshashin sect in Crusades era Middle East.

Why on earth did they think they needed more than that? They should set the sequel properly in the past without forcing you to return to the 'present' after each mission. It was like the game developers decided that the player needed to be reminded that it was 'just a game' every so often.

I disagree with this. If there was a sequel, I'd like it set with both Present and Past missions. Like, say, for example, you need to find a treasure that Altair once had, you jump into the Animus and relive a level about how he first obtained the treasure, and in the end he stores it in a hiding place. You come out of the Animus and do a Modern level where you find the hiding place in the modern day.

If they did it right, It'd be brilliant.

 

[Tizzle491]

I personally enjoyed AC, it was the first game I got for my 360 and even though I beat two weeks after I got it, I still play it today. Just run around the cities killing people. I loved the combat, although it was too easy. I once slayed over 25 guards in Jerusalem, without thinking about when to hold R and press X. I was disappointed by the lack of off the wall maneuvers, and vaulting over the enemies, although not as extreme like PoP would have been nice.

 

[Gapperjack]

4) Drop the goofy Desmond Morris and the Animus stuff. As was mentioned earlier, it seems inexplicable that Ubi would feel the need to add something more to one of the coolest game settings we've seen - you play an assassin from the Hashshashin sect in Crusades era Middle East.

Why on earth did they think they needed more than that? They should set the sequel properly in the past without forcing you to return to the 'present' after each mission. It was like the game developers decided that the player needed to be reminded that it was 'just a game' every so often.

I disagree with this. If there was a sequel, I'd like it set with both Present and Past missions. Like, say, for example, you need to find a treasure that Altair once had, you jump into the Animus and relive a level about how he first obtained the treasure, and in the end he stores it in a hiding place. You come out of the Animus and do a Modern level where you find the hiding place in the modern day.

If they did it right, It'd be brilliant.

But, hiding a treasure? It just seems that so much of the story elements distract from the core of the game - the assassinations. It's like Hitman, where all the way through the series they've thought it necessary to have something more than assassinations, some secondary objective. Finally with Blood Money they seem to have realised that they don't need more. With that game it's - kill this guy - NOT kill this guy and then blow up this submarine...

All the way through the other games I kept thinking, 'Why did 47 accept this mission? Why didn't he say - "I'm a hired killer, not James Bond. You want me to visit Russia and assassinate someone, fine. You want me to blow up a submarine? Hire a mercenary. I don't do saving the world - I kill people, for money."

My problem with it isn't the modern world, per-se, it's more how unnecessary it all felt, like the developers had come up with a game where you're a middle ages assassin and then felt it needed something extra.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I think that it would be better to make the past segments played as Altair the same, or at least similar to what they were in AC, however, make the future segments played as Desmond more Splinter Cell-esque. That is to say, not entirely free roaming environments. AS for the equipment, it could play alot like the splinter cell games, and considering how both games are made by UBI Soft, maybe even tie the storylines of AC and SC together.

Even though I hated SC: DA, the segments where you had to sneak around the JBA base (when they thought you were on their side) could really be brought over well, like if Desmond gets "rescued" (notice the quotes) by the assassins. What I saw ever since I finished ac was Desmond getting moire and more of Altair's abilities thorough synchronization, like he did with Eagle Vision, and having to escape with them when he had enogh to do so. Either one could work.

 

[Tonimata]

Considering just how risky AC altogether was, and the anomalous amount of stick and praise it got, I seriously have rather ambiguous feelings towards a sequel. I myself enjoyed AC to a point of ecstasy, because, for some reason, it transported me back to the times when I played games that had that much dialogue and people used to complain less about that. However, that was at the time when people where less about headshots and more about using their heads. But at any rate, I also felt that the game had flaws everywhere, minor flaws though, but too apparent. Too much dialogue, and obscenely stupid combat system which I found offensive, and overall, the sensation that the game is not going to reward you. But hey, it is a story based game, isn't it?
I think that, if Ubisoft really are going to do a sequel, they should correct some of the defects the originial had. But, as we all know, correcting defects only creates inbuggerances. So go ahead, Ubisoft, impress me.

 

[TheKbob]

How about making Assassin's Creed / Oblivion cross breed. Cities all load like they do in Oblivion, but are a lot larger, but you also have a sweeping country side. There are taverns at inns in which to rest, but also glean info. Maybe you could sabotage a trade for a target thus making him go on a trip from one town to another and you can jump the caravan.

What about disguises, new weapons, and even more platforming like rope swinging or lassos?

Stealth tactics like holding onto the bottom of a wagon as it drives through a certain guard area. It could lead up to a mission deciding the fate of the land between life and death of a King (or maybe Queen?) Your actions throughout the game also form up the path of whether or not the King is playing you or is really good... each path gives you the option to kill or not kill, so killing a good King could put the Kingdom in chaos, but hey, more work for you. Assassinating the bad game makes you a nameless hero or not makes you his personal body gaurd and you take out Dukes who disobay,... maybe even killing his own son, the Prince, who plans to overthrow the throne.

See, in one paragraph I made a more gripping environment for Assassin's Creed. Don't worry about leveling up like an RPG, but give a dialogue system like Mass Effect for interrogation and finding info and YUM!

That would be an amazing game.

 

[pha kin su pah]

Desmond Fisher......

 

[bluerahjah]

While the first was a great game, the pre-assassination missions need to be looked at again. Give us more options, I'm tired of saving the citizen for the 18,367th time. Plus, granted there was a pretty good story in the first one, it was pretty much given away in the first 10 minutes of play. I mean come on, if someone's going to attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, come up with something original rather than the same thing that's happened in hundreds of games over the years.

 

[NinjaDwarf]

Maybe they'll complicate matters far too much, and have you play as Desmond, but through one of his descendants on another animus in the future...

But yeah, at the end of the game there were lots of oriental ties and a few things to do with the Mayans (Which would be awesome because no games have done a native American setting).

 

[OverlordSteve]

My problem with it isn't the modern world, per-se, it's more how unnecessary it all felt, like the developers had come up with a game where you're a middle ages assassin and then felt it needed something extra.

I think that's the entire industry's problem these days, with the things the 360, PS3 and Wii can all do, I think companies feel they can't have simple games, so they add on all the meaningless fluff.

But I don't think that was Creed's problem. I enjoyed things like the information collecting. I was going around the city whacking people already, I can spare a few momments to eavesdrop or pickpocket or save a citizen. You got health bonuses from them anyway, so what was the big deal? The game would have been criminally short if they had JUST the assassinations.

 

[Skalman]

As long as they include the hidden blade (or a similar weapon) in the next game, I'll play it...

 

[Crazybuddha56]

When I first showed this game to my friend, he had a revelation and said, "This kind of gameplay would be great with snipers." I still remember that and think its a great idea. Being able to climb in, around and above buildings to get the perfect shot would be really fun, but maybe that is best left for another game. Still, it would be hard to bring the Animus gameplay back, now that the Templar's don't need Desmond anymore, so they may have to set in the present, and by the way, freerunning on rooftops is VERY possible. Infact, theres a game coming out that revolves around that idea, Mirror's Edge. Check it out. It looks sweet.

 

[Aggie80]

Tell me if im wrong but in AC wen i was doing a side quest for the informer, he asked me if i found a woman i think. i think AC2 will be about Altiar trying to find her. kind of like the playstation game "God of War" where he trys to find his daughter. but Altiair trys to find is Girlfrirnd or wife i dont no. like maybe he finds her father and he makes altiair assassinate people for one clue. like for example. if you go kill this man i will tell u how she is doing, i dont no. i got this game 2 days ago and finished it 20 minuts ago. but whatever happens i hope it stays in the same time period.
Also, can someone tell me why the citys were so far apart. Acre looked like it was placed in midevel france or england. Domonisis or someting looked like somewhere near Egypt. and Jereselem is in like isreal

 

[Louiescool]

Double plot to AC2 MIGHT work, but lets not get too carried away with the idea. AC1 was good because it had a great storyline with a badass fighting system, but once you got unlocked the ability to counter, the game became all about just pressing forward to finish the story RATHER THAN for that sense of acomplishment after finishing a challenging yet fun game. Also just to point out the fact that your button mashing finger is in critical situation after an hour or so of playing the game. Now aside from the fighting style and the storyline, its a great lot of little details that made the game fun. In a double plot (past as Altair present as desmend)they would 2 entirely new sets of these "little details". AC was somwhat realistic with the fighting, for example when Altair is struck, he blocks the attack with his sword, but still takes damage, rather than having him stabbed or sliced only to appear slightly phased. How can this be done with modern day weapons such as GUNS? OH SHIT you shot me! no worries i still got some hp left. Or wow you got me with that nade, but its cool i got enough life to withstand 2! You get what im syaing right?

 

[SargentToughie]

Double plot to AC2 MIGHT work, but lets not get too carried away with the idea. AC1 was good because it had a great storyline with a badass fighting system, but once you got unlocked the ability to counter, the game became all about just pressing forward to finish the story RATHER THAN for that sense of acomplishment after finishing a challenging yet fun game. Also just to point out the fact that your button mashing finger is in critical situation after an hour or so of playing the game. Now aside from the fighting style and the storyline, its a great lot of little details that made the game fun. In a double plot (past as Altair present as desmend)they would 2 entirely new sets of these "little details". AC was somwhat realistic with the fighting, for example when Altair is struck, he blocks the attack with his sword, but still takes damage, rather than having him stabbed or sliced only to appear slightly phased. How can this be done with modern day weapons such as GUNS? OH SHIT you shot me! no worries i still got some hp left. Or wow you got me with that nade, but its cool i got enough life to withstand 2! You get what im syaing right?

*hands necromancer's robes to Louiescool*

Here you go

 

[Ares Tyr]

My hopes are that they will keep the time-line rolling, but lead it up more organically, so we're in the 1700s, 1800s, and early twentieth century, before fully automatic weapons were readily available. I think it'd have alot of interesting potential, especially considering that period of time is largely unexplored in video games.

 

[stompy]

You've got some really interesting theories here, like the ones behind Japan and the Mayans. I'm saying that we'll play in Feudal Japan next game, and that ancient Mayan civilisation will be reserved for the third game, like someone else said.