Assassin's Creed Brotherhood makes me punch the couch

[MiracleOfSound]

Maybe I'm getting angrier and less patient with games in my old age, but I seem to have hit a new nadir while playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. At one stage I actually had to get up, leave the room and go next door to punch the crap out of the sofa in order to avoid disturbing the other half too much

The main issues I had were:

Detection & Jumping issues

Ezio will often jump off a ledge in a different direction to where I'm pointing him. This is not too bad most of the time but when it's on the final jump in a ten-minute level where you're not supposed to lose any health squares to get 100% sync, it is maddening.

Why, Ezio, did you jump to the right and into death, instead of the very obvious ledge I was pointing you at???

Timers

When, oh when, will Ubisoft learn that timers are generally hated by gamers. Nothing ruins a mission and it's immerison for me than a big bloody 0.59 on my screen.

This is especially bad in a certain Colosseum mission where the path ahead is badly signposted.

Combat and the camera

The camera is a nightmare in closed spaces..

The worst part of the game for me was the chase through the sewer. Not only are you being constantly timed by having to follow the wolf fellow, you are also fighting with the camera as it spins around erratically and makes you fall off the tiny ledges, not to mention the fact that you are being attacked by multiple foes at the same time, causing the lock on feature to fuck up the camera even more.

The camera will also wrestle control from you at key jumps, changing the direction you are supposed to point and in turn making you jump the wrong way.

Instant-fail missions

No-one likes watching loading screens over and over.

So why does the game force these ridiculous mission paramaters upon the player whereas trial and error is often the only way to get through them? Instant fails in missions are annoying enough, but when they can happen from any number of reasons it just becomes maddening.

And why, during missions where being detected means a mission restart, do dead guards magically detect me and raise the alarm after I have assassinated them?

Worst of all... why do I insta-fail a ten-minute trailing mission (with no goddamn checkpoints) if I kill the target a second or two before the game tells me I'm allowed to???

The war machines

This could be just me, but I found them all horrible to control. And getting 100% sync on the tank level was the worst experience I've had gaming this year (apart from RC Cars, that is).

The flying machine level... well, the less I say or think about that, the better.

I never had any of these things bother me in AC2, but they seemed rampant in the new game.

Other than these issues, I loved the game and enjoyed it for the most part. Am I just getting old and grumpy, or did other people find the game caused them some level of anger?

 

[b3nn3tt]

Jumping
I thought the same thing with regards to jumping actually. The first game really rather annoyed me actually, as Altair seemed especially eager to leap to his death every time I was trying to climb something. I actually feel that they fixed the problem in Assassin's Creed 2, as there were only a handful of times through the whoe game that it happened, and I think they may have actually been my own fault anyway. But then for Brotherhood, the developers seem to have put the feature of leaping into space back in

Timers
I see your point about timers, but at the same time, it also wouldn't work to just let players take their sweet time with a mission. So I think that they're a necessary evil

Combat and the camera
I didn't have too many problems actually, although occassionally during a fight I would have a rather nice view of the wrong side of a wall. Granted though, that mission through the sewers was a bit challenging, but I found that to be more due to the sheer number of factors that you had to navigate rather than the camera

Insta-fails
Yes, I disliked the missions where you failed if you got detected, but again it would be a worse mechanic if you could just run around and kill people as you please with no consequences for not being sneaky about it. Although I do agree that if I kill someone before they have fully detected me then that shouldn't be a fail

War machines
I actuallly really enjoyed the war machines. They were rather fun side-missions. Fair enough, the handling wasn't the best, but I've played games with much worse handling issues. I did take issue with the reasoning behind the missions though. Leonardo da Vinci creates these war machines for the enemy, and then asks you to clean up his mess. No, sort out your own problems

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Timers
I see your point about timers, but at the same time, it also wouldn't work to just let players take their sweet time with a mission. So I think that they're a necessary evil

You're right, but I feel there other, more clever ways to give a sense of urgency in missions:

HL2 Episode 2's opening level
The chase sequences in Enslaved and Prince Of Persia Warrior Within
The entire first chapter in Black Ops...

These all make you want to hurry through them by using clever AI and level design, as opposed to a great big bloody digital clock on your screen

 

[imPacT31]

While I never really hit the level of frustration you seem to, I'd definitely say that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood seems to have done absolutely nothing to alter a lot of the technical problems the previous games have suffered from. Principle among these are some of those you mentioned - the free-running's awful choices of direction, on occasion, and the camera's tendency to swing wildly in combat as you and your target move.

And why, during missions where being detected means a mission restart, do dead guards magically detect me and raise the alarm after I have assassinated them?

That's because the game designers put in this bizarre feature whereby guards can notice you, and thereby raise the alarm and your notoriety, in the instant you kill them. If you assassinate someone while they are looking at you, they will frequently raise the alarm, even though they haven't been given enough time to cry out.

Leonardo's war machines, and vehicles in general, have always handled terribly in this series. Assassin's Creed 2 gave us Venetian gondolas with massive turning circles and the, rather awkward, flying machine, both of which made the transfer with little done to improve their controls. It's like the game designers either put too much of an emphasis on realism, or didn't really think it necessary to perfect the controls for something you'd only use in one level anyway.

Essentially, the game reeks of complacency. They didn't really bother doing much to up the ante or improve on what was already there, except in combat where they seemed to think what we needed were things that made that aspect of the game even easier. While I think the kill-chains are visually awesome, there's something wrong with a game when I can can kill 25 men by doing nothing more than pressing a button and moving the analogue stick while an animation plays.

 

[Nico4]

The only thing I hate about the game is the controls, but otherwise, I thought the game was pretty good. I'nm sitll playing it, and it's online mode.

 

[Sonicron]

Nothing left to add for me, really. I still enjoyed the game a lot, but let me go on record saying that I feel your pain with every single one of those issues.

... Especially those two warmachines you mentioned... I've given up on achieving 100% sync on either one, I figured I'll be going grey soon enough already, no point in helping it along.
I can almost see the screen spawning a giant trollface every time I fail.

Well, at least all you get out of full sync are a few cheats, and I don't need those anyway.

 

[imPacT31]

Timers
I see your point about timers, but at the same time, it also wouldn't work to just let players take their sweet time with a mission. So I think that they're a necessary evil

You're right, but I feel there other, more clever ways to give a sense of urgency in missions:

HL2 Episode 2's opening level
The chase sequences in Enslaved and Prince Of Persia Warrior Within
The entire first chapter in Black Ops...

These all make you want to hurry through them by using clever AI and level design, as opposed to a great big bloody digital clock on your screen

I think time limits only truly make sense in games if they're either in some sort of time-trial mode or are put there as false tension to make the player think the situation is far more urgent than it actually is. If a time limit isn't sufficiently generous, there will always be some percentage of gamers that will be frustrated to find themselves clocking in just too slow, be it by their own failure or that of the game mechanics. They make even less sense in free-roaming games like Assassin's Creed, where the psuedo-randomness of the world means two attempts at the same mission, taking the same path, could turn out completely differently.

I remember on mission in Brotherhood saw the guy I was chasing immediately run into someone and fall over, resulting in the chase being over in seconds. On my second attempt, when replaying it, the chase went on for something like the best part of two minutes and I came close to failing several times.

Time limits are just a lazy form of artificial difficulty that are interpreted as frustrating, inconsequential or absolutely perfect on a personal basis. A time limit that might seem impossible to one person yet might prove no challenge at all another due to unpredictable in-game events.

 

[b3nn3tt]

Timers
I see your point about timers, but at the same time, it also wouldn't work to just let players take their sweet time with a mission. So I think that they're a necessary evil

You're right, but I feel there other, more clever ways to give a sense of urgency in missions:

HL2 Episode 2's opening level
The chase sequences in Enslaved and Prince Of Persia Warrior Within
The entire first chapter in Black Ops...

These all make you want to hurry through them by using clever AI and level design, as opposed to a great big bloody digital clock on your screen

That's a good point. Although there are, especially with the chase sequences, very clear consequences for not completing an objective in time. In Assassin's Creed, unless there is a timer, you don't realise that you have to hurry up with something. Although thinking about it, they could have something happen to make you fail if you take too long, like somebody reching a certain point, without having to actually put a timer up

Ok, yes, you are actually right, they didn't need to put timers in. Maybe they'll put in a different method to hurry you up in the next game

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Nothing left to add for me, really. I still enjoyed the game a lot, but let me go on record saying that I feel your pain with every single one of those issues.

... Especially those two warmachines you mentioned... I've given up on achieving 100% sync on either one, I figured I'll be going grey soon enough already, no point in helping it along.
I can almost see the screen spawning a giant trollface every time I fail.

Well, at least all you get out of full sync are a few cheats, and I don't need those anyway.

75% is all you need to get the final Christina mission too. Which , by the way, is one of the most emotionally affecting scenes in gaming!

 

[StriderShinryu]

Timers
This is especially bad in a certain Colosseum mission where the path ahead is badly signposted.

Oy.. not in reference to AC:B, which I haven't had the chance to play yet, but this is something I've always hated. Though you're quite right in saying a huge timer on screen can kill immersion, I actually love timed sequences. What I hate, however, is when you're given a tightly timed sequence and given no direction or extremely poor direction on how to proceed. Either give enough time to make an error or two along the way or make the timing very tight but the required path easy to determine.

 

[Sonicron]

75% is all you need to get the final Christina mission too. Which , by the way, is one of the most emotionally affecting scenes in gaming!

Oh, so those were the 'repressed memories' the game refers to? Hm. Well, at least I managed to unlock all of them, and yes, they were a pleasure to experience.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Detection & Jumping issues

I only encountered this once and I can tell you exactly where, the massive round thing in the top left corner that has the highest point in the game. I was trying to jump from one of the rook looking towers to a walkway but our good friend kept leaping into the hey pile. 4 tmes I had to climb back up to try and make the jump, each time getting further and further from the hey pile.

Timers

Never had an issue with these but I have yet to try and 100% every mission, I am sure the "find your way to the centre of the maze in 8 mins" will piss me off no end though.

On a "I want to complete the story asap" run, timers aren't an issue atleast to me.

Combat and the camera

"The camera is a nightmare in closed spaces."

Again, some times is had a major twitch but that was again a rarity. In the sewer mission of which you speak, I ran through to the very end only stopping when the game forced me to, I then turned around and quickly insta killed every person behind me.

I never experianced the camera trickery were on screen it looks like your meant to be pushing left but he will only jump if you push up. It happened alot of the time during climbing though, I just swung the camera behind him and off I went.

Instant-fail missions

I am not showing off 'cos I am yet to attempt a 100% play through but I might have failed a story based mission 3/4 times, at the very most, before finishing it.

Again that might change on my 100% play through run.


The war machines

I found them quite easy, with the exception of the boat, the bad memories are returning ...

I liked how the plane only rose after you went over fire.

The tank just had a wide turning arc.

The boat had a turning arc like Pluto! I am also pretty sure I could have thrown the fireballs further.

The machine gun had mad homing bullets.

I didn't like the don't get detect while burning the maps thing. The game has almost no stealth gameplay mechanics, so trying to get past guards when you can't even crouch is tricky.

I am getting pissed off at a thief mission. There are 2 or 3 hey piles in the course so leap of faith jumping is an issue, 4 or 5 guards along the path who get pissy that your on the roof so start shooting you, the buildings seem to be just a little too far apart and you have to do it in less than 60 seconds.

It doesn't help that to go from wall climbing to standing on the roof, Ezio has to kiss his knee caps. Just watch the next time you reach the top of a wall he will go from standing, holding the roof with his hands like a meer cat and feet on the ledge, to kissing his knee caps before hauling himself up.

Why can't he just do a chin up then push down to lift the ledge of the roof to waist height, put his knee on the roof, put the opposite foot on the roof then carry on running. It would speed up the action and look alot more realistic.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[sheah1]

Not to mention the god awful story, the game-breaking execution streaks, the complete lack of good armour and weapons, the addition of the god-awful civilians from AC1 that try to ruin every fight you'll ever have, Rome being just one place (if you're going to do that, then for the love of God, give us some variety), basically, all of the good stuff from AC2, plus all of the terrible stuff from AC1, equals AC1.5.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

You are getting old and grumpy.

The timers are unimmersive? That's your complaint? REALLY?

The timers always give you more than enough time to accomplish your goal.

It's the 100% sync timers in some of the tombs that drive me nuts.

I've got 100% sync in all the main missions...Now I'm going for 100% sync in the tombs, and being pissed at the 8 minutes limit. It was hard enough to make the limit for the first tomb in the story mission.

I'm more pissed about the glitched trophies not unlocked. I don't have the Silver for beating Sequence 3, after beating the games, and replaying it via DNA menu.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

You are getting old and grumpy.

The timers are unimmersive? That's your complaint? REALLY?

The timers always give you more than enough time to accomplish your goal.

It's the 100% sync timers in some of the tombs that drive me nuts.

Those are the ones I'm talking about. The really difficult timers were the ones to get the 100% Sync... i.e. nick a letter from a dude, find a Courtesan to forge another and sneak it back into his pocket in under 2 minutes

 

[DustyDrB]

Geez. I had an issue with none of these things. I loved the War Machines, can't remember the camera being an issue with combat, and didn't have Ezio jump in the wrong direction enough times to say it was the game's fault and not mine. The timers offer a challenge. I failed those missions a good bit, but that doesn't really draw my ire.

I think you might be getting a bit grumpy. Grumpiness has been going around the Escapist heavy lately.

 

[lee1287]

It tok me abou 4 tries to figure out fires make the machine go up! Lol.

The only bad thing about The game is the ending which i thought made mo sense, and MP is a bit annoying.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Geez. I had an issue with none of these things. I loved the War Machines, can't remember the camera being an issue with combat, and didn't have Ezio jump in the wrong direction enough times to say it was the game's fault and not mine. The timers offer a challenge. I failed those missions a good bit, but that doesn't really draw my ire.

I think you might be getting a bit grumpy. Grumpiness has been going around the Escapist heavy lately.

That I can agree with.... it's hard to find a thread these days where people aren't flaming eachother or being dicks.

As for the game issues, I'm glad someone had a better experience than me. I have watched a few Youtube vids though and it seems I'm not alone in my frustration!