September 8th, 2008Assassin’s Creed IRL
This weekend something unusual happened, for which I ought to get some kind of Xbox Achievement: I got tired of Oblivion.
It only took three years, but to be fair I haven’t played much in the past 12 months. (What with job-hunting, making vlog episodes and, um, walking Kodos around the block I don’t have a lot of time to play video games.)
So, I thumbed through our collection to find something else to pass an hour or so. Dead Rising or Bioshock? (It’s too sunny for dystopias!) Viva Piñata? (I’m too sober!) Mass Effect? (Marc wore out the disk!) Oh! How about Assassin’s Creed?
We mentioned this game when it first came out last year, and I was fairly excited about the new style of gameplay. Instead of running around killing creatures and gathering items, your goal is to be sneaky, to blend in and to assassinate with no one the wiser. It’s even more visually realistic than Oblivion, and, for what it’s worth, Altaïr is hella sexy, unlike the characters I create for myself. (Have you seen my Mii?)
About 15 minutes in, I realized why I never got into this game.
The cut scenes are lo-o-ong and unskippable. Kristen Bell has a nice voice, but I want to assassinate something, not talk about it! And there are no subtitles. I usually play with the sound down, so I ended up staring at some (unskippable) actors walking around the (unskippable) screen telling (unskippable) stories that I hoped weren’t essential to playing.
I still haven’t quite gotten into it. Walk around, blend, climb a tower, jump in a haystack. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Marc used to laugh at how silly it was that Altaïr just shoves his way through crowds (this is stealth?) or simply bows his head and prays to “blend” in. That’s a little unfair, especially considering the disbelief suspension that other games require, but the realistic visuals of Assassin’s Creed demand realistic gameplay.
Mega 64 posted a video showing what Assassin’s Creed would look like in real life. (Best moment: “I don’t like when people do stuff like that! Aaaah! It’s creeping me out!”)
The only thing missing is a 20-minute cut scene before the action starts. Oh, and Kristen Bell. Did I mention Kristen Bell?
What about all of you? Are there any games that critics love but that you just can’t get into?
[Video via Destructoid]
September 8th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
while I dont agree with you on assassins creed (it happens to be my current addiction along with WoW) there are plenty of criticly acclaimed games I never liked. Final Fantasy XII was the biggest one. Every reason that critics praised it I thought hurt the series. The new combat system felt just as slow as the old and the story was uninteresting because the only interesting char was a mildly sexy pirate and his bunny lady companion. And as far as assassins creed goes the game picks up when you get on the string of nine missions (trust me assassinations galore) and so does the story, if you can put up with some very strange edits on history.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Hey, Bill!
Despite my complaining (I gotta blog about something, right?), Assassin’s Creed is probably what I’ll pick up if I get some time to play this weekend. The gameplay is not bad, but I really can’t deal with all the cut scenes. :( I assume they’ll get more rare as I get further into the game?
Have you played the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo on the Xbox? Wow. That is all. Wow.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Yes the cutscenes get much less as the game goes on. I think that you get interupted once during the last 5 missions. As for Xbox Live I am not on it as of yet (just got my xbox a couple weeks ago) but the Force Unleashed looks like it will be one of the most fun and interesting starwars game since the KOTOR games.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:45 am
TFU is amazing.
I don’t know how the actual game will be, but judging by the demo, they’ve nailed the controls. You use the force to (among other things) move objects in three dimensions, so I thought it would mean thumbs all over the controller. But it felt like second nature after hurling just a couple of objects through doors, into enemies, etc.
Oh, and it made Marc go “squee!”
September 9th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
And that is all the affirmation of this games awesomeness I need.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I claim single-handed responsibility for today’s news that Ubisoft is going to start subtitling all their games.