Poll: Out Of The Animus

[TheCommanders]

I selected dislike, but not hate. The reason is they were tolerable, but completely unnecessary. The plot for the Desmond bits is irredeemably stupid. When they remind me at the end why Desmond was reliving this particular section of memory I'm always like... oh... right... was I supposed to be caring about that? I'm also kind of biased against the assassins in general, because I felt like the Templars were actually doing stuff (Abstergo I mean) inventing stuff, curing people of diseases. Sure there was some bizarre "control the world" stuff going on, but at least they were accomplishing things outside of that. All the assassins ever seem to do is occasionally kill some of the Templars. And that's... well that's pretty much it, they sometimes kill Templars. I kind of feel like the Templars might have a better game plan. They're described as a Villain with good publicity, and there's a good reason for that. They create things that are useful. All the assassins ever do is break things.

All this stuff got to the worst point in AC3, where the one Templar who figured out that guns exist was continually bested by Desmond (who then proceeded to let the blighter escape) by virtue of not just shooting him. Also (and now I'm veering off topic but I'll keep it short) Haytham Kenway was my favorite protagonist yet; he was charming, cultured, intelligent, likable, and a total bad-ass when he needed to be. But a few hours in they yank him from under you and stick you in Moody McBoring Connor for the rest of the game. From then on I was going, this is fun and all, but I really wish I was playing as Haytham; he seems to be doing all the interesting things and I can't stand this grumpy bastard (ha, literally) I'm playing as.

Anyway, yeah, as a framing device, I like the idea of the animus, but in practice, all the segments outside of it are just... not fun, and they only serve to interrupt the much more interesting plot inside.

 

[Gatx]

It serves to tie the games together and as such it's tolerable. But I think we could also do with non-interactive story progression, although a lot of people would be up in arms to contest that that is not the way of the videogame. Or you could drop it all together and focus even more on the empowering gameplay and settings of the main games. I think as long as the settings are varied and strong enough, they don't need a metanarrative to tie them together...

It's not even necessary in that sense. You could easily have a story about a line of Assassin's throughout history without a weird framing device about a guy in the future (or past now I guess) reliving his "genetic memory."

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Nope.IMO the metaplot was the far less interesting part of the game in comparison to the political intrigue of the ancestor's story.

Of course I'm talking about pre-Revelations. After that there wasn't anything interesting at all.

 

[kasperbbs]

I hated it since the first game. I hate the fact that everything you do is supposed to be some kind of robotic dream.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

I didn?t like it at first but then when I put the dots together and figured everything was heading towards building Desmond up to play the final game outside of the animus climbing skyscrapers and knifing swat teams I was all on board. Then 3 finally happened and I was left screaming ?THEN WHY THE HELL DID WE BOTHER WITH ALL THIS SCI FI CRAP IN THE FIRST PLACE!?

 

[william12123]

I'm also among those that dislike the out of animus scenes, mainly for the wasted potential. However, I think the animus is an essential "framing device", especially when we consider that ubisoft is nervous about doing anything outside of franchise.
It justifies so many videogame tropes by the fact that you are exploring a "memory". Only the most significant characters have any detail? Well sure, thats how most human beings remember people. Sidequest can be done in any order you want, independent of time constraints? Dude, your in a memory, time is illusory. The value of the animus as a framing device is lost the moment we are forced to deal with desmonds "real world" that is just as flawed as inside the animus. It radically breaks immersion, and it's particularly bad in AC:III.

It would be awesome if they could be a bit more original in their settings though. Medieval/rennaissance europe is done to death, and the american revolution was a bland choice. The "piratical" setting of the next could be cool, but again, it's not terribly original. Couldn't they do ancient babylon? China? India? Heck, mesoamerica would be an awesome setting. I dont want to muck around in samey setting, much less the modern world! LET ME RUN THROUGH THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON UBISOFT! OR CLIMB A MAYAN PYRAMID THAT ISNT IN RUINS!

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I haven't liked the story in an Assassin's Creed game since Brotherhood, and I absolutely despise the way the optional objectives are omnipresent, instead of having an option to turn them off. It feels like the game is telling me how to play, and I hate them for it. Every time I'd complete a mission the way I wanted to and that didn't coincide with the optional objectives, I felt like the game was chastising me for trying to have fun. This got to the point where I would do everything but the plot in AC3, because I knew the plot would make me hate playing a game that was otherwise incredibly fun. Everything that has to do with Desmond and the Scooby gang is flavor text, but it's not a flavor I like.

 

[Grivahri]

Dat normal distribution.

OnT: I thought that the main story was really interesting. Especially in AC2 and brotherhood. So I was very disappointed with the conclusion in AC3.