The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Welcome to the board.

welcome al-assas! it took a while for ac2 to grow on me, but it sounds like you truly dislike ac2, which is too bad! what differences don't you like?

I haven't actually played it, I just watched a lot of videos.

I can imagine that I will grow to like it sometime, I will just need some shift of mind for that. I like AC because it is the way it is.

The setting of AC really strikes a chord with me. But I don't feel the same about the Italian Renessaince. It's too much of everything. And AC2 captures that too-much-of-everything milieu very well. There are too many weapons. The double hidden blade is a bit of an overkill. AC1 has this very tasteful minimalist completedness to it. I like that.

The historical framework of AC1 is a monistic, monumental epos. AC2 on the other hand is set in the fragmented aristocratic bickering of its historical era. Assassination in the Italian renaissance I associate with petty politics. The third crusade is about the politics of empires. I just find the latter more exhilarating.

Too much of climbing ability. Altair's climbing is just at the edge of the humanly possible. That's what makes it so awesome. I cannot take Ezio's cartoon-like movement seriously.

The deadly water feature is missing from AC2. I like that feature. It's an extra source of excitement.

Altair's combat movement is energetic and passionate. Ezio moves like he's just imitating fight. Small, reserved, theatrical movements. I find that less involving.

A big difference for me is the personalities of the main characters. Altair is a blank slate. He can be a naive spectator, a bitter avenger, a narcistic victim of hubris, a reserved mystic, a religious fanatic, a modern individualist, it just tickles my imagination. Ezio is just a ready-made romantic noble boy. Which is just perfect, if you like that kind of thing. I don't like it that very much.

And the Italian accent annoys me.

I like the lack of money in AC1. It emphasizes the outsider perspective of the assassin. He's just a shadow among the crowd. I like that.

Fighting with hidden blade counters is a special ingredient of Altair's awesomeness. It's not there in AC2 in the same way.

Stuff like that. I guess it's just a question of taste.

Welcome, al-Assas. That was a very interesting critique, very thoughtful.

Welcome Assas!
your the first one I know to dislike Ezio's swimming skill!

Thanks for all the welcome.

I've just watched a fairly long playthrough video, and it's amazing how very different AC2 is from AC1.

Most of what I like about AC1 is missing from AC2, but there are other things to like. It feels like a playful, adventurous footnote to AC.

All in all, now I'd say there's nothing wrong with it. It's just very different.

Well, you've got a point there. Although they don't really get into politics in the second game it just seems they do, unlike ac1 where there's more action and people get killed just for saying the wrong thing. But that doesn't make the game dull in any way. It just makes it different. I do have to admit, when I first saw the original trailer for ac2 I would have thought it was a joke trailer if it weren't for the good graphics. But the variety does give you more options, and I like the different weapons. So you can wield a mace or hammer instead of a sword, or you can choose which sword to wield. I just made an account on the hidden blade a little while ago, by the way. I just put my second ac2 video on youtube yesterday, and my first one is getting views fast!

I can understand your dislike of the setting as, despite the aim of the creators to set AC games in unseen periods, Renaissance Italy is quite cliche as it is a famous era of romance, technological advancement and treachery all causing major changes (hence the word Renaissance) to the world.

For me, this period of history provides the perfect platform for Leonardo's new weapons and the involvement of Ezio in the struggle for power and the treachery invilved in Italian politics.

However, I can see why you would dislike this as it does not feel like Ezio is involved in a war as Altair was. In AC, Altair is the silent killer amid the loud, violent war but Ezio gets involved in the arguments and speaks as well as kills. I assume this is why you dislike the period as well as Ezio's character because both are too cliche. Altair is much more mysterious as he rarely speaks and this makes him seem like more of an assassin.

The lack of deadly water would not work in this game as Venice is a major city in the game so canals are key (although of course if you dislike the setting then this is not justification). Personally, the swimming adds more excitement as it enables more water-based missions involving following or escorting boats and carrying out assassinations on ships.

It is very interesting to see someone who prefers AC to ACII for the reasons you have given. Instead of just shouting down the extras which, admittedly, are overdone on occasions, you have explained the real reasons why you prefer AC and I respect and underdstand that.

For me and many other players, the setting, clear personality of Ezio, new features ie. weapons and florins, and varied missions improve vastly on the fantastic AC. But I can see exactly why you prefer the first game and it would appear for you, in the case of Assassin's Creed, less is more.

I've played some AC II since I started this topic, and I like the involving setting. The world is much more alive than AC1.

But the story is very tragical. Why is it so tragical?

We have such a wonderful life, brother, may it never change, and may it never change us, and then they all die. And then it's just a loong chain of revenge after revenge? Completely pointless. It feels like Ezio is being used by everyone, led by his desire for revenge.

And at the end he's told by a hologram to shut up, because he's not the one being talked to, and he's just left there more clueless than ever.

WTF?

I finished it twice, now I started it a third time, but I don't feel like letting the story progress. I know that everything is just going to be worse and worse, with Ezio becoming a burnt out murderer.

The story of Altair is epic and heroic. The story of Ezio is tragic and deeply sad.

And those effin feathers. Ezio's mother is broken. His sister is okay, he is okay, but Maria is completely devastated. She kneels there praying, a constant reminder of the tragedy of their lives. If you read her bio, she was a progressive, intelligent woman, full of life, a patron of the arts, an artist herself, a really really likable character. And life is compeletely sucked out of her, quite understandably. Can that be fixed? Isn't that the obvious question? I mean who cares about revenge? Helping Maria get back on her feet seems a much more worthy cause.

And I saw a video of what happens when you collect all the feathers. Maria says "thank you for not forgetting about me", and then she sits on the bed instead of kneeling. It's terrible. Does that mean that before all the feathers are collected, she feels that she's been forgotten? What if I don't like collecting stuff? Because I don't. And even then... She sits instead of kneeling? That's it? It's terrible, really.

I see your point but in AC1 you could argue that Altair is merely used by Al Mualim to destroy the other Templars and consolidate his power. Both Ezio and Altair are used by people and while they achieve their own goals to an extent, they end up getting pretty much nowhere in the wider scheme of things and Altair actually ends up helping Al Mualim (before killing him of course).

Ubi clearly wants each game to stand as its own achievement, I think. AC1 had a heroic, deeply conflicted, and graceful character. AC2 had it completely opposite. Ezio is conflicted, yes, but he has a different attitude towards it. At first, he faces his troubles with blind rage, then becomes mature and realizes it is for the greater good. It delves deeper into emotion than the first game. That's why there were spin-offs for Altair. We could understand why he was so introverted.

Yes, these games are dramatically different, but for good reason. Play each as its own stand-alone title and enjoy it. This is how I can transition so easily between playing both games whenever I can. They're different games with the same theme. That's what I think.

I've not been playing for a while, because I only have a borrowed Celeron 1.7 GHz PC with on-board graphics. It's amazing how slow a computer can be, really.

But now I will buy an Asus P43 motherboard and a new Pentium E6600 CPU. I've been planning to buy an Asus GeForce GT240 with 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM, but it turns out that my friend will buy a new graphics card, and will give me his Asus GeForce 9800GT. And I think I will go with that instead of the GT240.

Who cares, I know, but I'm so excited, I had to share it.

Or let me put it this way: Pelase, help me, I donno if it will run AC properly, can you pls tell me? Will Altair slow down when he enters the Souk Al-Silaah in the poor district of Damascus, like with my last PC?

Welcome back, al-Assas! I'm sorry I can't help answer your questions, I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're back!

Thank you, thank you!

I'm also excited about the prospect of buying a gamepad for it. I just read that the XBox 360 controller for Windows is very much supported with the right driver. I suppose it's more than 8 directions of movement relative to the camera angle, which would mean an entirely new level of chasing that elusive perfection.

Hmm. I think AC1 will run decently on that system, though you'll get a bit of a framerate dip when high above cities (mostly at viewpoints). AC2 will be a little more rough, but I think you'd still be fine on lower settings. Just be prepared for a bit of a framerate drop when running across rooftops.

Don't expect to dominate either game in terms of performance, even with better hardware. These games are just poorly optimized. I have a pretty beefy system and AC2 still chugs a bit in certain situations. I've played better-looking games that have significantly better performance on this same hardware, so...

Yea, well, everything is relative.

My old setup had an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and a Radeon X1950 Pro (256 MB). I thought that performance was decent, but chuggy in certain situations.

If it runs at a somewhat steady fps, even in the crowded areas at 1280 x 1024, I will be really happy.

It should be pretty good at that resolution. You'd probably even have a fairly good experience with AC2 at that resolution.

Well, thank you. That's what I wanted to hear.

Although I must tell you, that I had not less than a fairly good experience with ACII even the first 2 times I played it through, with my x1950 pro.

But I'm much more excited about AC right now.

I just started to re-read the prima guide.

I love this game. It's epical. I'm having a fairly good experience reading the prima guide, actually.

Also, it's better than the _recommended_ specs for ac2. Of course I'd have a fairly good experience with it. Why wouldn't I have a fairly good experience with more than the recommended hardware? I'd have a super awesome experience with it. And I will have an epically super awesome experience with AC.

I know you are answering my question about performance, and stuff. Thank you. And I haven't mentioned your name in particular in my first post, but hi. Awesome community. Thank you.

But come on. A fairly good experience? It's probably my fault, because that athlon 4200+ comp i mentioned above is the most powerful computer I have ever actually seen live, during operation.

I can only imagine what it looks like to run a game like ac on a card like that 9800GT. Probably pure awesomeness, that's my guess.

I'm just saying. Chuggyness is relative.

On a different note, though still within the topic of awesomeness (and this one is not relative):

I don't have any experience with video editing and youtube uploading. But I noticed that youtube videos have those TV resolutions, like 240, 480, and so on. With my prospective hw (gf 9800gt, p dual core 3GHz) will I be able to make proper fps youtube videos with fraps? 480p? Mybe even higher res?

Unfortunately, there is no standard for measuring minimum and recommended hardware specs. Some minimum specs are enough to play the game on high settings, while others have recommended specs that are insufficient to even play the game properly. I play a ton of PC games (and have for decades) so I've seen the entire spectrum. It's always a gamble, regardless of the posted specs.

It's still pretty old hardware though. The processor is good enough but the video card is just barely making it. My video card is far better and still nowhere near what it takes to run AC2 flawlessly. I still get a significant framerate drop while running along rooftops and using viewpoints. It's fine down on street level though.

You could probably top out the settings in AC2 and have good performance at that resolution, though I can't say for certain. I don't use lower resolutions like that. The lower the resolution, the better the performance, but the worse it looks. I'm also using LCD (both my HDTV and my monitor, both connected to the PC), so if I use anything other than native resolution, it looks terrible.

I don't do FRAPS recording, but I think it's more based on the processor than the video card. Your processor should be sufficient. Try to make 720p videos if you can, because 480p is pretty ugly.

Of course 720p would be ideal, because it translates from 1280 x 1024 (which I will probably prefer anyway) pixel by pixel, no resizing needed.

But I've always thought that all those 480p AC videos are really watchable. (Then of course, I also think that 1280x1024 is really playable, so...)

Also, I use winXP, and the movie maker doesn't have HD res by default. I shouldn't convert it to wmv anyway, if I really shoot for nice 720p.

We'll see. It will also depend on my 1280x1024 fps while making the capture. And on my persistence, of course.

At last, I've installed my new hardware.

Here's my first video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L_zbslPiFA

Looks great! Have you tried AC2 yet?

I suppose it too would run smoothly.

Maybe I will install it sometime.