Assassin's Creed Revelations

Not played ACR yet, but one thing I noticed, and liked, about the previous ACs is that they were all different in some way (which kind of goes against the 'more of the same' comment). AC was open with the investigations, AC2 was quite linear and told an in-depth story, ACB had you building your little empire in Rome. Perhaps you just need to find the right groove for ACR. Perhaps it's just a symptom of the frequent releases where it's not so easy to make the deeper content that ties into the story, but easy to fill out the game with lots of little tasks. It's a delicate balance.

Has anyone tried the MP yet? I was going to pick this up during a sale, but things aren't sounding very positive so far.

Kosars wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I think expectations play a part in those reviews, it's more of the same, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on the particular person.

That's probably true. I was expecting more Assassin's Creed and Ezio, which is what I've got so far, and I'm mostly really enjoying the game. The tower defense is the only thing really annoying me a bit, I can't quite figure it out. It's also surprising how fast your templar awareness can go up to trigger those sequences.

Yeah, I don't get why Call of Duty gets a pass for it's annual installments but now that AssCreed is on an annual schedule all of a sudden it's like 'wellllll...' Personally I'll take an annual AssCreed over CoD any day.

As for templar awarness, keep in mind that - for some mind boggling reason - purchasing shops INCREASES it. So basically factor in an extra $100 for any store that you re-open in order to bribe a herald to bring your notoriety back down.

nel e nel wrote:

As for templar awarness, keep in mind that - for some mind boggling reason - purchasing shops INCREASES it. So basically factor in an extra $100 for any store that you re-open in order to bribe a herald to bring your notoriety back down.

I noticed that last night and it's annoying. I've stopped opening new shops for the moment, I'm just concentrating on getting master assassins into the dens so I don't have to worry about templars retaking the dens anymore.

I tried the tower defense again today and I still can't get the hang of it. It's not too bad until the siege engine comes up, but I haven't been able to stop that. The last time it happened, I had four cannon shots queued up, and that didn't even take down half of its health. For the earlier waves, I just noticed you can actually shoot as Ezio and upgrade the barriers, that helped me clear the waves pretty easily, at least until the final siege engine.

Scratched wrote:

Not played ACR yet, but one thing I noticed, and liked, about the previous ACs is that they were all different in some way (which kind of goes against the 'more of the same' comment). AC was open with the investigations, AC2 was quite linear and told an in-depth story, ACB had you building your little empire in Rome.

I think this is the main reason for the lower reviews of Revelations. It's really just more Brotherhood, set in Constantinople. This isn't really a bad thing, per se, there just aren't enough new mechanics compared to Brotherhood. I think the other issue is that people aren't as familiar with the history of Constantinople around 1500 as much as Renaissance Italy. AC2 and Brotherhood had an incredible cast of historical characters. Revelations just doesn't have that kind of cast.

Kosars wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

As for templar awarness, keep in mind that - for some mind boggling reason - purchasing shops INCREASES it. So basically factor in an extra $100 for any store that you re-open in order to bribe a herald to bring your notoriety back down.

I noticed that last night and it's annoying.

This, actually, sounds pretty awesome. The Templars putting up a fight as I buy their city out from under them sounds..yes, annoying, but also really, really cool.

There is a great discussion of the game on the latest Game Informer podcast. The Saints Row discussion after it seemed to have quite a few spoilers.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'm relatively established in the game now and it just doesn't feel like the last ones. It lacks the warmth and the interesting characters. Also the cape. Sometimes I feel like there's too much to do. I just don't use bombs at all.

Yeah, I feel the same way.

I've a put few hours into AC:R, and the best way I describe it so far is that it seems to lack the heart of the previous titles. The game seems to just be going through the motions at a rather quick pace, and it feels like it just trying to get things over and done with as soon as possible.

I don't know if this rushed feel is because they don't want to completely retread the introduction of play mechanics like in Brotherhood, but things just seem to be happening way too fast in Revelations without any depth to go along with it. It seems like I am constantly getting tutorial messages popping up on the left hand side explaining things to me that would have been nice to have fleshed out in a brief mission.

Even the stuff with Desmond feels like I have been thrown into a deep end of a pool and just expected to know how to swim. It feels so rushed, with the game completely expecting me to know everything that has happened up to that point and to simply go along with the new "Animus Island" concept with the flimsiest of explanations.

I'm not a fan of the new look of Ezio either. I know they are trying to convey that he is older, worn down, and been through hell and back, but I think they went too far with it. Hopefully some new armor pieces and sexy dyes will help remedy that.

I haven't tried the muliplayer yet. I'm hoping it is as good as Brotherhood's, if not better.

At the beginning of the game, they show the number of Ubisoft studios over the world that helped make this game, and that fact is readily apparent. It just seems like a group of people threw together the Assassin's Creed game mechanics, added a few new ones in (bombs, tower defense), skimped on the plot, and sent it out the door.

Ok I've taken the plunge (after finding a trade in deal that gave me as much money for three games as I paid for them.) I'll try multiplayer soon but it looks pretty much the same as it was with refinements. Here are some NSFW videos.

I like the new Desmond stuff on Animus Island. I don't like having to find 100 collectibles to unlock it all.

CptGlanton wrote:

Has anyone tried the MP yet? I was going to pick this up during a sale, but things aren't sounding very positive so far.

I'd like to know how the MP has improved as well, particularly on the technical side. I really liked the first one, but finding matches could take forever. Do they have a better matchmaking system this time?

Sinkwater wrote:

I'd like to know how the MP has improved as well, particularly on the technical side. I really liked the first one, but finding matches could take forever. Do they have a better matchmaking system this time?

Sadly, it seems worse. I have had no success in finding a custom game (on the 360), and have only been able to get the rare match through "Play Now" which does not let you choose your match type. From what the official forums are saying, this is a common problem that Ubisoft has not yet acknowledged.

Right, so I guess I'll be just getting this for the single-player and waiting for a sale, seeing as there's no incentive to rush and play when there's a big playerbase.

Dr._J wrote:
Sinkwater wrote:

I'd like to know how the MP has improved as well, particularly on the technical side. I really liked the first one, but finding matches could take forever. Do they have a better matchmaking system this time?

Sadly, it seems worse. I have had no success in finding a custom game (on the 360), and have only been able to get the rare match through "Play Now" which does not let you choose your match type. From what the official forums are saying, this is a common problem that Ubisoft has not yet acknowledged.

It may be a peak times only game for now i.e. play at the weekends when the few people with the game are online. I hope there will be a resurgence later when people pick the game up in sales. I'll be sad if the multiplayer dies.

Higgledy wrote:

It may be a peak times only game for now i.e. play at the weekends when the few people with the game are online. I hope there will be a resurgence later when people pick the game up in sales. I'll be sad if the multiplayer dies.

I don't think so. They have completely revamped the multiplayer interface in Revelations with some cool touches. One of them is the notification about the player activity for certain game modes - Low, Med, High. All game modes I choose have "High" activity, but i can never get into a game.

On top of that, I can't even log into the Ubisoft support site to file a ticket about the issue.

Why did Ubisoft buy Quazal again?

LobsterMobster wrote:

I like the new Desmond stuff on Animus Island. I don't like having to find 100 collectibles to unlock it all.

You only need to find 30 to unlock the Desmond sequences. After 50, the locations of all the fragments automatically unlock on the map.

You can also purchase a map to unlock the locations of the Pasha's memoir pages which unlocks the Hagia Sophia location and a sweet set of armor.

Re: the multiplayer - matchmaking is still very tricky. We had a group of 3 of us playing last night, and after several attempts searching as a group, we actually got into a game together by each of us searching individually, and whoever got into a game first quickly invited the other two to join their session. Brotherhood had the same problems when playing with a group, and even by one's self towards the end. Blaming it on poor sales is erroneous, I think, because Revelations had the largest launch sales of the series so far.

As far as the overall game goes, just finished up the single player last night, and I thought it was great. Not the best in the series - I think ACII kind of holds the crown for me personally - but great fun nonetheless. This installment was less about moving the overall plot of the AC universe forward, and more of a character study of Altair/Ezio/Desmond; giving background info and closure. How often do we get to see the entire life of a character in video games nowadays? I mean, we literally saw Ezio born and - if you watch the Embers short film that came out - you get to witness his death as well.

It definitely has its niggles - which betrays its multi-studio development - but I still think that this franchise is a better annual installment than Call of Duty.

nel e nel wrote:

Stuff

I'd like to know how much of AC they had planned out at various stages.

Finished the story after a long, dedicated weekend.
The wife and I have been long time fans of Ezio and the AC canon.

The things I liked are still there but I agree with comments above; this time, the game DOES feel rather rushed. The story asks for increasing leaps of faith and I just couldn't feel all that comfortable with the aging Ezio.
The game shoves bomb making down your throat every 2 minutes and it got on my nerves.

I think it would be great if Ubisoft took a break and released the next AC on 2013 with 2 years to work on the next title rather than the expected "not bad for a 12 month rush".

Mind you, I really enjoyed the game and there's new mechanics that are really fun to play with (hook, zip lines, trip wires).

My biggest complaint was that Ezio wasn't Batman. I kept looking at rooftops and wondering where my Batclaw was. Using parachutes feels sluggish compared with Batman's cape with improved dive capabilities, and don't get me started with Eagle View vs Batman's Detective Mode.

If you recently played Batman:AC, wait a bit before you take up AC:R, or you'll end up doing the comparison I can't stop thinking about.

nel e nel wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

I like the new Desmond stuff on Animus Island. I don't like having to find 100 collectibles to unlock it all.

You only need to find 30 to unlock the Desmond sequences. After 50, the locations of all the fragments automatically unlock on the map.

You can also purchase a map to unlock the locations of the Pasha's memoir pages which unlocks the Hagia Sophia location and a sweet set of armor.

That's very good to know. Thanks.

nel e nel wrote:

Blaming it on poor sales is erroneous, I think, because Revelations had the largest launch sales of the series so far.

In this case it's nice to be wrong.

After playing a few sessions this evening the game is, at it's heart, very much the same as it was bbefore but with lots of smart little touches and developments building on the skeleton of the previous game. Game mode wise I don't like corruption as it doesn't seem to fit with the games overall style (personal taste) but I enjoyed Artifact Assault a lot. It gives players a legitimate excuse for some wreckless chases across roof tops.

There was a whole thing about duplicates being removed from the game but this only seems to be the case in one mode: Simple Deathmatch. They appear to be present in all other modes (what a confusing piece of marketing that was.)

I was a big fan of the previous games multiplayer and I can see me playing this one for as long or longer (especially as I seem to have retained my 'mad skillz' and am already assassinating fools left, right and centre.)

So this article does a better job at explaining what I thought of the game.

Again, great game but AC:R didn't go the extra mil AC2 and AC:B did.

Scratched wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Stuff

I'd like to know how much of AC they had planned out at various stages.

I don't know if anyone outside of Ubi can say for sure, but based on clues from previous games that get revealed over the entire franchise, it would seem that they had a much grander plan than anyone guessed when they released the first game.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

So this article does a better job at explaining what I thought of the game.

Again, great game but AC:R didn't go the extra mil AC2 and AC:B did.

I totally understand the sentiments that alot of reviewers have, I guess they didn't bother me as much as most. I had also read a couple of reviews before starting it up, so I was able to avoid some of the pitfalls. If AssCreedRev has any faults, it's that it throws the whole book at you pretty much right from the start instead of easing you into everything, which can make for a bit of an extended/steep learning curve. It's also completely possible to avoid Den Defense altogether - I did 2 the entire game, and 1 of those times was the required tutorial sequence.

I was more annoyed that they removed the Wanted Poster mechanic. My guess is that it was to gimp the economy a bit since in the last two games it was easy to be a bazillionaire with little effort.

nel e nel wrote:

I was more annoyed that they removed the Wanted Poster mechanic. My guess is that it was to gimp the economy a bit since in the last two games it was easy to be a bazillionaire with little effort.

How could you become rich by using the posters?

BlackSabre wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

I was more annoyed that they removed the Wanted Poster mechanic. My guess is that it was to gimp the economy a bit since in the last two games it was easy to be a bazillionaire with little effort.

How could you become rich by using the posters?

You became rich by renovating shops and landmarks. You could reduce notoriety by tearing down 1 or 2 posters. (not to mention the capes you could acquire that would completely negate the notoriety mechanic outright, which are also gone) In Revelations, your main way of reducing notoriety is by bribing heralds (you can also kill officials, but they only spawn when your notoriety is above 75%), so I saw it as a nuisance expense. It's only $100 a pop, but I've probably spent tens of thousands on heralds alone.

You can also boost your income by maintaining high control of other cities in the Mediterranean Defense mini-game, so I'm up to around $45k per 20 minutes from shops/landmarks, plus an additional $5k or so a day from brotherhood missions.

Well in brotherhood you could bribe an official, then immediately pickpocket him and get your money back for a small noteriety penalty. Can you still do that in Rev?

BlackSabre wrote:

Well in brotherhood you could bribe an official, then immediately pickpocket him and get your money back for a small noteriety penalty. Can you still do that in Rev?

Holy crap!!! I'm loading the game just to do that!!!

You guys never did that? It was so easy to do. Just remember to run after you steal, like normal.

BlackSabre wrote:

Well in brotherhood you could bribe an official, then immediately pickpocket him and get your money back for a small noteriety penalty. Can you still do that in Rev?

You know what, it never occurred to me to do that, but yes, you can pickpocket your bribe back.

One thing I very much like that they did with AC:R is giving you the ability to climb anything right from the start. I found it really annoying in AC2 and AC:B that the tops of some buildings were out of reach until I unlocked a skill/item. In those games I spent a lot of time doing trial and error approaches to trying to climb buildings; I wasn't sure if I had taken the wrong route, or was it really out of my reach until I unlocked something. Then once I unlocked the skill/item, I would have to try to remember what buildings I couldn't climb before and go back to them.

It was so nice to be able to climb anything right out of the gate with the hook blade in AC:R.