Assassin's Creed 3

[DualFace]

I'm not a super huge fan of the countering in this game, because well it was more fun in the other games to be frank. It also seems like there are way more people trying to kill you at all moments.

It's because Ubisoft wants you to view their new, "cool" automated sequences. To initiate,
just wait for 2 or more soldiers to attack you at once, then counter. As you've noticed, that's
why there are so many more soldiers in this game compared to previous titles---and many
soldiers attacking you at once.

Ubisoft's soldier AI is still sheepish as fuck even though they tried to tell me different via
Twitter a couple months back. -_- I already knew the outcome of that comment.

Spoiler!

The thing I found lame with Juno/Minerva is that the whole of AC is brought to a screeching halt of sense,
when you realize, at the end, that you're fighting someone else fight of who's viewpoint is the more
righteous one.

Minerva's view of liberty (Assassins), or Juno's view of a organized/controlled existence (Templars). That,
and the lame parallel of Agent Smith escaping the Matrix. -_-

[Dooshkin]

I traded my copy into GS because of how unbelievably easy the combat is. I think I died twice (in combat) in my entire playthrough. The window for countering is so freakishly large it takes almost no skill to pull off. In AC2, if you were trying to counter using your hidden blades, your timing had to be as precise as parrying in Dark Souls. You'd just stab them, and they'd die. You have to slice enemies several times in a row before they'll go down in AC3, making me feel like Connor didn't know how to weild his weapons very well.

Those naval missions, though... Man, those were sweet.

And I don't get people liking Revelations, solely based on the tower defence mini-game.

[Arttemis]

Every AC game has required multiple standard attacks before initiating the kill animations, Brotherhood just added a combo system where an uninterrupted attack after a kill would be an instant kill that self perpetuated additional instant kills. AC3 has kill combos as well, but enemies seemingly have to be much closer so you can only chain a few 1-hit kills when you have them clustered. Despite the countering system's large window of opportunity, I felt the combo system in Brotherhood and Revelations was even more of an easy mode (especially since hidden blade counters in AC2 were still far more forgiving than Demon's/Dark Souls parries).

That said, I'd also appreciate a harder mode with much stricter mechanics. Also, I wish they'd stop pretending that every other building in history was guarded by soldiers and half of historical soldiers were capable of scaling buildings as quickly as super assassins. The item/weapon selection system also blows; they should allow each d-pad direction to toggle between multiple functions. Shooting a gun and your bow seem poorly controlled too, especially when you need to land a second arrow into a giant elk/bear and it's running frantically.

Some things are fantastic, though, like the climbing and freerunning functionality is greatly improved, adding the ability to scale 60°+ slopes for several steps, seamlessly step around obstructions on a narrow walk way, hop over/slide under waist high obstructions, and using that to climb trees in the wilderness is incredibly satisfying - especially since the new control scheme reduces the chance of jumping off things unintentionally since the run trigger handles safe and quick running/climbing/jumping, but all those large leaps are relegated for when you manually input X, so you'll probably go where you'd expect.

The missions are better than before, too. Running through Revolutionary War battles are great.

Spoiler!

The missions in which you're partnered with Haytham are awesome! Fighting along side him in the wilderness was sweet since you can climb trees and he can't, making you feel badass. Then I boarded a ship with him and it was such a great experience to chase it down amidst an island cove, wreck its sails, ram it, board it, then kill the douche inside.

[Arttemis]

Double post, whatever. New patch on its way to fix glitches, improve the weapon ui (thank God), and let you put up your hood.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1678429...ally_soon.html

Just beat the game and fucking loved it. Lots of content to complete post-finale. Finally can recruit more assassins and build up the homestead businesses, since I haven't figured that out yet. Jesus, the game has huge cities and land area!

Fucking loving the multiplayer, despite its interface making it a bit hard to navigate at first. The mode where you have to lock onto targets you think are other players is phenomenal! Smoke bombs feel overpowered, though; their stun should be reduced. I life the Event system since it encourages people to play a select few types, making matchmaking faster and XP amounts larger.

[space man spiff]

Speaking of glitches has this happened to any of you guys? I was just playing and running around the frontier. I'm about to climb up the wall when the entire screen goes blue. The game is still going on and I"m seeing notifications appear on the screen but everything else is all blue. I even left the Animus and it was still blue.

Never thought I would get blue screen of death from a 360 game.

[Sir Legendhead]

Yeah, I'd like to know more about how those homestead missions are supposed to work. I only have one artisan and can't craft the best stuff, yet there are no homestead missions on any of the maps. Idk if I'm supposed to randomly wander the frontier until another pops up, or if they're unlocked through another thing.

----

edit - googled after typing and learned that some of them are spread out through Boston, New York, etc. Evidently they'll come up when I fully synch the maps. The climb/synch/dive thing is one of my favorite parts anyway, so s'all good.

[Artful-dodgeR]

Finally got to the Connor part, now I'm finally starting to enjoy the game.

[Revuhlooshun]

So I rented this game to give it a spin. Never been too enthused about Assassin's Creed, but the time period in III looked like one I'd enjoy.

I just got off the boat ride to America. Once I stepped onto land, a man came to pick me up and show me on my way. Seeing that the game wanted me to go in one specific direction, I obviously disregarded it and went the other way. Following this path led me to two red coats who were casually strolling through the dock on a busy afternoon. As a true-blooded American, I did what is only natural in such an occurrence and suffocated one of them. His partner was rather oblivious to the affair, and the crowds seemed to regard the event as innocuous horseplay. It wasn't until I caught up with his friend and gave him the same welcome that the onlookers began to react, though it was in a rather subdued fashion--some quickly fled the vicinity, but many went on with their lives after the first initial shock of the moment.

I caught up with my chauffeur and headed towards our intended destination. He proceeded to catch me up on the happenings of the area, though the discussion had to be suspended momentarily once we passed another set of Brits that I needed to choke. This time the partner actually bothered to react to the sight of his friend being murdered, which led to a small engagement of fisticuffs with my chauffeur by my side. After turning 4 Brits into vegetables in broad daylight, somebody nearby finally decided to lend a helping hand. A single soldier came to the aid of his friends, though he was swiftly dispatched with a kick to the nuts. The blunt trauma of his testicles being shoved into his vascular organ killed him on impact, affording him a painless death.

With 5 imperial corpses strung about the docks, the onlookers panicked for a few seconds before their AI scripts returned them their composure and brought them back to simply not giving a fuck that I had just went on a killing spree right before their eyes. My chauffeur wiped the blood off his hands, turned to face me, and then said, "So Donald has missed you terribly I hear."

We continued on our path, and I'm still dying from laughter over the lunacy and ridiculousness of the entire situation.

I may keep this game based on how unintentionally hilarious it can be.

[Sir Legendhead]

All games have moments like those. I had something like that happen in Blood Money last night. In the scene where the actor unknowingly fires a real bullet during rehearsal, a second target runs to the stage afterwards to see his wounded friend. Then you can detonate a charge on a chandelier, bringing it down on his head.

I'm in the rear of the room and everything happens like it's supposed to. I press the button on my remote handheld and quickly pocket it without being seen. Errybody shoots me anyway. What the fuck kind of security protocol is that? "Oh hey, a series of unlikely and horrific accidents have taken place. Better fire on some guy in the back row"

[Revuhlooshun]

I picked up a musket from one death Brit, impaled another Brit with its bayonet, and then shot a third Brit beside him with the end of the same gun.

Everybody nearby looked over and murmured, "Well that was something." And then they went on their way.

[Mighty Hatman]

Those Brits all had their own families back home, you bastard.

[Sir Legendhead]

It almost makes sense in a way. If you were a colonist and some Indian* started killing redcoats, would you object? I'd just be like, that's cool, and then I'd go on about my business.

[Revuhlooshun]

It just seems weird to me that I can get off my horse and kill an entire squad of Brits, and their friends standing on the next block simply will not give a shit. Nobody watching runs off to go tell them. If they're not in a two-foot radius and they can't see it with their own eyes, they will not react to the fact that you're openly killing officers of the Royal Navy. At least in Metal Gear, dudes would keep coming until you got the fuck away and stopped killing their homeboys. How are we regressing from the age of the PS1?

I also like that if you fight groups, the enemies will wait in line to get stabbed in the face. It's pretty considerate of them.

[Sir Legendhead]

Maybe they did something weird with the AI in the first scene. Later in the game you can't fight anybody without every other soldier in town showing up.

Have you even gone inside the theater yet? The intro sequence(s) where you play as that other guy is long as hell but worth it. Btw, be sure to have your 360's notifications enabled. One of the first achievements is chuckleworthy for its timing more than anything else.

[Revuhlooshun]

I got the dude in the opera, sailed across the ocean, and now I'm just taking milk money from every Brit in town. I'm on some "Press X to own" shit right now, with some occasional presses of the B button to spice things up.

[Sir Legendhead]

I wish we could play a whole game as Haytham. He's more fun than Connor in some ways. No spoilers but the character becomes more awesome the further the story goes. Dude is like a cross between the Comedian and 007.

[Revuhlooshun]

A squad of Brits tried to line up and shoot at my boy, but he ran up and barreled into them before they could fire.

That ponytail swag.

[Sir Legendhead]

I like the human shield thing they made for situations like that. You can grab a dude and let him take the bullets, then go back to cutting fools down without breaking rhythm.

[GlowBear]

I did not utilise the human shield thing at all, sadly.

[Arttemis]

Yeah, this must be specific to the beginning. I'm going through the cities now and if I get seen pickpocketing, one guard brings three guards bring another eight bring some heavier geared four bring a stream of highest ranking officers, and the entire crowd is dispersed in every direction within the first thirty seconds. The combat never really gets harder, though, which is a staple for the series, but this is the most enjoyable implementation, IMO.

The incrementally expanded list of actions and animations really makes this game pretty remarkable, despite none of it having intrinsic difficulty. The stealth systems still suck, but the seamlessness of free running through trees and across city tops, hanging people, stealing weapons, using one as a shield, and massacring everything is very rewarding. Also, the frontier has some ridiculously gorgeous areas.