Me too. Once I learned that it was key to avoiding the tower defense game I made it a top priority.
What, again next year, just one year after Revelations? I thought they wanted to go back to bi-annual releases because Revelations was clearly too rushed.
I’m looking forward to Assassin’s Cart.
The rumor (and all indications from the end of AC:R) is that they’re moving on from Ezio to a different protagonist. That’s great, but what would really make me more interested would be an announcement that they’re going to have a longer development cycle. I don’t want them to try just swapping out the skins on all their character and building models and call it a different setting.
Smoke bombs…crossbows…I can see it.
I’m not concerned about there being a new AC next year. I’m confident it will be awesome, in fact. Don’t you remember Splinter Cell? It was the same way, released annually, and alternated good games with bad ones.
To bring it back to ACR just for a minute…I thought the ending was really nice, and I’m glad I finished the game. I also enjoyed the Altair segments. It was not what they had implied it would be, since you don’t get to play Altair for any significant part of the game, but I thought all of his little segments were really well done and great additions to the story. Not a very good game, though. Did anyone play much of the multi? They implied there was some story content given for leveling up in multi, but I’m never going to do that.
Altair parts
Playing Yoda-esque old Altair slowly hobbling along and stabbing or Applefucking people as they run up to you was pretty awesome.
Just finished this, I will say “ditto” to all the comments on the bolted on new game systems.
Bombs were dumb and need to go.
AssassinVilleWars is still dumb and needs to go.
Buying properties needs more meat.
Set pieces, mission design, and level design remain good, even with a few clunker missions, but some of AC:Bs werent that good either.
Voice acting and plot is good, even as it gets even more hard to remember what is going on.
I did like the Altair/Ezio/Desmond intersection point/finale.
I also bought and watched the “Embers” short cartoon right after finishing the game, it made for a nice coda.
spoils
Ezio dies peacefully on a bench watching his family shop. After he put down his blades, he was done, save for one night.
The Animus needs a major 3.0 update, bringing some Batman: Arkham City influence in, some of the bolt-one removed, and a new setting that really differs from what the last 3 games have offered.
Apparently they want to get it out in 2012, to take advantage of the impending end of the world. Would be silly to release a game about the end of the world after the world’s already ended.
Is there somewhere you can view (legally, preferably) the Embers short if you haven’t bought some fancy collector’s edition?
Purchasable on Xbox. Main menu of AC:R has a link.
One more thing: The artists spent a lot of time on Ezio – he looked great. Most all of the major characters looked good. It was obvious that you were talking to a non-important person when their model looked bad.
Plot questions:
So the Apple that was used in AC2 and ACB was a different apple than the one in AC1. At this point I can’t remember why they needed the (an) Apple anyway though.
And why did Juno have Desmond kill Lucy in the last game?
About Embers: What was obvious is that they reused most of the assets from the actual game in the cartoon – and just really changed the rendering style. All of the background buildings had the little places to grab, and the wood structures with the cloth on it.
The apple is supposedly the tool that the Templars need for world domination so the Assassins need to hide it from them… or something. That part of the plot was never quite clear to me. It started out as the part of the background story that interpreted the bible as a science fiction allegory, so “Adam” and “Eve” had to steal an “apple” from “paradise”, so now they had an apple and had to invent some purpose for it. Maybe it will play some more significant role in the next game.
No idea why Desmond had to kill Lucy, they did not explain that at all (unless it’s in one of the Portal sequences I didn’t play).
Following in the “Adam” and “Eve” theme “Lucy” represented evolution and had to go…
(Kidding!)
Regarding Lucy…
I believe Juno et. all are under the impression that Desmond has to mate with the ‘correct’ person for some reason or another (possibly to bring back their species through a re-combination of the blood line or something), and Lucy was not this right person. Thus, since there were feelings developing there, Lucy had to go.
I think that’s why it went down that way. Not happy about it, tho.
I wonder how Native-looking he will be. I kind of want to play someone who doesn’t stick out like a mighty whitey sore thumb like Altair.
If the assassin influence came across the Atlantic it’s going to look European rather than native presumably.
Or could be a locally trained assassin.
I do wonder about buildings? Depending on the time period, we don’t have the huge buildings to traverse, as we do in Europe as far as I know.
If the game develops more into a sneak in the forest type of game, it would be a somewhat major detour from the established gameplay - Not that I’m saying it would be bad, it could be great, but it would be something very radically different.
Also, guns tend to screw up swordsmen, not sure how that will be handled either.
Judging from the flag, the game will take place at the end of the 18th century, 1777~1800.