Extremely Small A. Alces Sighting (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nano_moose) wrote2007-11-24 04:24 pm
nano_moose) wrote2007-11-24 04:24 pm
Entry tags:
"Waste of a good tube, if you ask me."*
Of course I didn't buy the strategy guide just for the art book that comes with it. What do you take me for, some kind of obsessive?
I bought the art book. The strategy guide was just a detail. Mmmm, pretty arhts.
Before I go on, you guys should know that I'll be stating outright some stuff that's only been hinted at in the advertising material. Pretty much all of it is easily guessed, but if you haven't been following it as obsessively as I have and want to go in clean, you should probably stop now.
...This could have been so much more than it is. As it is, Ubisoft are real lucky I've played platformers since I was ten and thus do not mind collect-a-quests and a little repetition. Don't get me wrong, Assassin's Creed is very enjoyable, but nowhere near the awesome of Bioshock. It's not all bad. Or even half bad. It's just not as good as I was hoping it would be, and I think I've been spoiled by Half-Life 2 and Portal and Bioshock and Thief and yeeeeah. Basically, I think they could have done more with it, but the things they already do with it are fairly amazing.
Like the beginning! Holy crap, the beginning rocked. The machine-augmented genetic memory of an assassin during the Third Crusade is ten thousand times more interesting as a setting than the Third Crusade, vanilla. I can't wait to see where they go with it, especially if they deal with the fact that poor Desmond is going to be stuck with Altair's memories.
My main disappointment, though, is Altair, who could have been so much cooler than he is.
Nn, I think my problem with him is that he's - very hard to relate to. At the start of the game you see him make a series of extraordinarily dumb mistakes, violating the Creed, starting with killing the old man guarding the temple he was infiltrating and culminating in the spectacular failure to assassinate the leader of the Templars, resulting in the death of his team and an attack on his home. And yet, when he's quite rightly busted back down to 'Initiate', he goes straight back to ignoring the Creed and being a general jerkass. I can't quite believe that he used to be the best they had - he's obviously highly skilled, but skill isn't everything. I'm sorry, dude, but I much prefer the man riding around in your head. You're just no fun. At least I can imagine Desmond kicking back with a beer or cracking a joke or something.
The blame for that can be placed squarely on the voice actor.
It's actually kind of mystifying. All the other actors manage to be at least reasonably competent, but Altair delivers all his lines with a jarringly American accent and something suspiciously like boredom. I think he was going for 'soft-spoken badass', but fell short of the mark. Come on, Ubisoft, I know you can do better than this guy! What gives? Other game companies have the decency to assign the crappy actors to NPC's, at least! The script doesn't exactly help, although there are occasional flashes of genius (like one my contacts embarking upon a brief monologue about how he 'envies' me, except for the being beaten and stabbed and stripped of my rank and laughed at by all the other assassins behind my back, but apart from that, total envy, yeah).
There are other annoyances that are harder to articulate or justify - like the fact that charging into a group of guards harassing somebody and slaughtering every last one of them along with all the back-up they call somehow makes me a hero, and the way Altair always has to kill the person he interrogates whether they sneer at me or beg for mercy. After so long padding around using my sword on tapestries and not much else, it's a bit...uncomfortable.
On the other hand, the actual assassination bits, perversely, are awesome. Investigating my target is always interesting, particularly because there's been a lot of thought invested in them and their surroundings. (I especially liked Garnier, who was doing something truly horrible and yet believed that what he was doing was right, shifting eerily back and forth between fervency and calm - hello, literary button of mine!) I can also choose whether I want to sprint up to the target and punch my blade through his neck with enough force to knock him down, or sidle up behind him, place a companionable hand on his shoulder...and then step back as he sways on the spot before folding up with a sigh. I like that.
The discussions afterwards are such a nice, surreal touch, particularly since the background goes all Animus-y. There's something about the framing of them. Altair kneels with one hand brushing the target's upper arm and the other cradling his head with a strange sort of...gentleness, almost. When the target finally dies, he lowers them into the dust and brushes a feather across the wound; care in every breath, every movement. There's a dark, solemn reverence to it.
They all believed. In....something I have yet to identify. Curious.
Oh, yeah! The plot. It's pretty cool. I have a feeling I've called all the twists (like hell they're gonna leave Desmond alive when they've got what they want, and Lucy is far too nice to be entirely evil, and Vidic sure is sounding a hell of a lot like the Templars), because TV Tropes has Ruined My Life, but it's interesting, seeing it play out. I'd just like to say that these conspiracy-mongerers need to learn how to come up with plans that don't have "Attempt to coax obedience from angry criminal" as step two.
And while I may not like Altair, I really love his animation - like the Prince, only smoother and more realistic. The counter-kill animations, for example, are varied and extraordinary, horribly violent and oddly beautiful. The free-running based moves are criminally restricted (if I do it too much in front of the ubiquitous guards, they realise what I am and attack in droves) but so much fun. And you really can climb anything, anywhere, provided it has handholds - it's nice to see my habit of clambering up the tallest towers, admiring the view and jumping off has an actual gameplay mechanic and reward. ...Truly, I wish it had more to it. I wish there was more to just about everything in this game, but it's hard to bitch when I stand atop a church spire and see the city stretching out to the horizon.
Which brings me to the graphics. Things I love about next-gen, number 32: The light! And shadow! Free of blinding bloom effects yet perfectly misty and surreal! The insane level of detail in stuff! At least there's one upside to Blockbuster Syndrome.
Oh, and Altair's design still rocks out loud. *shakes fist at voice actor*
Completed Memory Blocks: 3
Combat deaths: 6
Drowning deaths: 19
Unnecessary Leaps of Faith: 10
Guards gratuitously punched: 4
Snarky remarks regarding A.I. that's...not: 6
"Wheeeeee!" count: 11
Repetitions of Altair's lines in Garrett impression to see if it makes them more awesome: 3
Attempts made to blend in real life by pulling up my hood and assuming Altair's 'prayerful' stance: 7
Failed attempts: 7
*Context is for the weak.
I bought the art book. The strategy guide was just a detail. Mmmm, pretty arhts.
Before I go on, you guys should know that I'll be stating outright some stuff that's only been hinted at in the advertising material. Pretty much all of it is easily guessed, but if you haven't been following it as obsessively as I have and want to go in clean, you should probably stop now.
...This could have been so much more than it is. As it is, Ubisoft are real lucky I've played platformers since I was ten and thus do not mind collect-a-quests and a little repetition. Don't get me wrong, Assassin's Creed is very enjoyable, but nowhere near the awesome of Bioshock. It's not all bad. Or even half bad. It's just not as good as I was hoping it would be, and I think I've been spoiled by Half-Life 2 and Portal and Bioshock and Thief and yeeeeah. Basically, I think they could have done more with it, but the things they already do with it are fairly amazing.
Like the beginning! Holy crap, the beginning rocked. The machine-augmented genetic memory of an assassin during the Third Crusade is ten thousand times more interesting as a setting than the Third Crusade, vanilla. I can't wait to see where they go with it, especially if they deal with the fact that poor Desmond is going to be stuck with Altair's memories.
My main disappointment, though, is Altair, who could have been so much cooler than he is.
Nn, I think my problem with him is that he's - very hard to relate to. At the start of the game you see him make a series of extraordinarily dumb mistakes, violating the Creed, starting with killing the old man guarding the temple he was infiltrating and culminating in the spectacular failure to assassinate the leader of the Templars, resulting in the death of his team and an attack on his home. And yet, when he's quite rightly busted back down to 'Initiate', he goes straight back to ignoring the Creed and being a general jerkass. I can't quite believe that he used to be the best they had - he's obviously highly skilled, but skill isn't everything. I'm sorry, dude, but I much prefer the man riding around in your head. You're just no fun. At least I can imagine Desmond kicking back with a beer or cracking a joke or something.
The blame for that can be placed squarely on the voice actor.
It's actually kind of mystifying. All the other actors manage to be at least reasonably competent, but Altair delivers all his lines with a jarringly American accent and something suspiciously like boredom. I think he was going for 'soft-spoken badass', but fell short of the mark. Come on, Ubisoft, I know you can do better than this guy! What gives? Other game companies have the decency to assign the crappy actors to NPC's, at least! The script doesn't exactly help, although there are occasional flashes of genius (like one my contacts embarking upon a brief monologue about how he 'envies' me, except for the being beaten and stabbed and stripped of my rank and laughed at by all the other assassins behind my back, but apart from that, total envy, yeah).
There are other annoyances that are harder to articulate or justify - like the fact that charging into a group of guards harassing somebody and slaughtering every last one of them along with all the back-up they call somehow makes me a hero, and the way Altair always has to kill the person he interrogates whether they sneer at me or beg for mercy. After so long padding around using my sword on tapestries and not much else, it's a bit...uncomfortable.
On the other hand, the actual assassination bits, perversely, are awesome. Investigating my target is always interesting, particularly because there's been a lot of thought invested in them and their surroundings. (I especially liked Garnier, who was doing something truly horrible and yet believed that what he was doing was right, shifting eerily back and forth between fervency and calm - hello, literary button of mine!) I can also choose whether I want to sprint up to the target and punch my blade through his neck with enough force to knock him down, or sidle up behind him, place a companionable hand on his shoulder...and then step back as he sways on the spot before folding up with a sigh. I like that.
The discussions afterwards are such a nice, surreal touch, particularly since the background goes all Animus-y. There's something about the framing of them. Altair kneels with one hand brushing the target's upper arm and the other cradling his head with a strange sort of...gentleness, almost. When the target finally dies, he lowers them into the dust and brushes a feather across the wound; care in every breath, every movement. There's a dark, solemn reverence to it.
They all believed. In....something I have yet to identify. Curious.
Oh, yeah! The plot. It's pretty cool. I have a feeling I've called all the twists (like hell they're gonna leave Desmond alive when they've got what they want, and Lucy is far too nice to be entirely evil, and Vidic sure is sounding a hell of a lot like the Templars), because TV Tropes has Ruined My Life, but it's interesting, seeing it play out. I'd just like to say that these conspiracy-mongerers need to learn how to come up with plans that don't have "Attempt to coax obedience from angry criminal" as step two.
And while I may not like Altair, I really love his animation - like the Prince, only smoother and more realistic. The counter-kill animations, for example, are varied and extraordinary, horribly violent and oddly beautiful. The free-running based moves are criminally restricted (if I do it too much in front of the ubiquitous guards, they realise what I am and attack in droves) but so much fun. And you really can climb anything, anywhere, provided it has handholds - it's nice to see my habit of clambering up the tallest towers, admiring the view and jumping off has an actual gameplay mechanic and reward. ...Truly, I wish it had more to it. I wish there was more to just about everything in this game, but it's hard to bitch when I stand atop a church spire and see the city stretching out to the horizon.
Which brings me to the graphics. Things I love about next-gen, number 32: The light! And shadow! Free of blinding bloom effects yet perfectly misty and surreal! The insane level of detail in stuff! At least there's one upside to Blockbuster Syndrome.
Oh, and Altair's design still rocks out loud. *shakes fist at voice actor*
Completed Memory Blocks: 3
Combat deaths: 6
Drowning deaths: 19
Unnecessary Leaps of Faith: 10
Guards gratuitously punched: 4
Snarky remarks regarding A.I. that's...not: 6
"Wheeeeee!" count: 11
Repetitions of Altair's lines in Garrett impression to see if it makes them more awesome: 3
Attempts made to blend in real life by pulling up my hood and assuming Altair's 'prayerful' stance: 7
Failed attempts: 7
*Context is for the weak.