The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

It appears that I must eat up my word, and take back what I said because this demo convinced me entirely to buy this game at a full price.

A little update: that gameplay demo was one of four that Ubi is showing at E3.

i know i just saw some ship combat footage from the sony confrence so ill throw that up as soon as i find the link

I'm searching it, too. SO MUCH AC3!

I love how Connor apparently has a wide variety of outfits!

No social stealth. >.<

Corner Assassination, yay~

Is it just me or were those ships turning and sinking far too quickly for their size...?

At this point I'm wondering if the game still costs only sixty dollars.

YET.

This.

Anybody know if the crouching in the bushes at about 1 minute in is specific to the bushes? Or can you duck at any time? Behind a table or a rock or other people or anything else that would hide you better? Not that it matters too much, I'm just glad you can crouch on something other than a beam.

What do you mean?

I'm not contradicting you, just trying to understand. The social stealth meter appears in the first video at about 4 minutes (when Conner kills the first guy with a rope dart). It remains red while in battle. Once the final guy is killed it goes to yellow briefly, then to non-colored when eyes are no longer on him (granted, he's now chasing the only guy who knows he's there, but eyes are not on him, so no color indicator).

So if not this indicator which shows notoriety levels, what do you mean by social stealth?

The one thing I want to know right now is how many storyline targets there will be, and how much scripted. The one shown in the vid looked okay, but you can't base the whole game on one example.

That's what I've been wondering. I'm guessing either you have to push a button, or it's automatic, like crouching on a ledge.

I think he means no examples of social stealth were shown.

Cheese, I'm talking about crowd blending, mostly. Becoming one with the crowd.

Calvar, I remember someone saying something like that to me when I mentioned 'no social stealth' in respect to Revelations.

Revelations had all previous social stelath mechanics, and a few mire through bomb effects and other things, so... As for any new types of social stealth interactions, besides blending looking more realistic and people reacting to your actions more believably, we don't know. This is a total systemwide revamp, not another expansion. I'm expecting changes and additions on that front. As for stealth mechanics, yes, you can crouch at any time, and you can also use a cover system, and assassinate from cover, like around a corner as a guard walks down an alley.

had a look at ALL of the ac3 vids and i do mean ALL of them and it seems connor can do evasive /combat rolls during combat also as i mentioned above it seems crouching MIGHT (don't quote me on this) only work in the shrubbery (look at my comment at the top of the page with a video link a dev in the video mentions it)

He can also crouch on rooftops. But it may be context-sensitive.

They premiered multiplayer gameplay today. I have yet to find videos. One thing I'm scared of that might break the game for me: Poison dart. Now all those roof-runners can just shoot poison at you and you can't do anything about it.

It takes a long time to aim and can be obstructed by civillians. Long recharge time too.

Still, if they bring back the crafting system from ACR, people can just lessen the aiming and cooldown times.

I doubt the crafting system will be exactly the same as Revelations. To be honest I never played Revelations multi long enough to get to that stuff. But yeah, everything about single-player has been revamped, I think we can expect that in multiplayer as well. Presumably it's been developed alongside the campaign over these years as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrzFp22dlk heres the multiplayer

updated with boston gameplay on the WiiU

The mechanics were there. The gameplay context wasn't.

They were in the Wii U Boston gameplay. Showed the new blending, foliage sneaking, corner (bare handed!) assassination. Also showed how much more agressive the guards are. And a new blend where Connor pretends to be a redcoat prisoner and walks in the middle of a group of them to get through a checkpoint. It glitches up and breaks out, but theres time to fix that and its a cool mechanic. Lots to be excited about.

I found the multiplayer interview/gameplay I saw, but can't embed it, since it's on Tumblr, streamed from another site. And I can't click through to the original source. Sigh.

Post the Tumblr link. I'm sure one of us can fix it.

http://frompawntoqueen.tumblr.com/post/24528472831/assassins-creed-3-mut...

Looking at the HUD for a moment, I like how everything is on the bottom of the screen... It doesn't clutter all four corners of your display (if you have it on). Also, You probably use the top corners more than the bottom corners to look for things, so it's better to cover the bottom. I also like that the health bar isn't so prominent (barely around the map) and that the weapon icons and button icons are near each other. Even though getting used to the mini-map on the other side of the screen may be annoying, I don't think it could have been on the other side with the button indicators anyway. And I'm glad it's all more concise.

Also, as much as I liked using medicine to get through the games quickly to catch up, I'm glad it's gone now.

Wow, Joey, you suck. Just clicking the 'HD' button will bring you to the original site.

Thanks for the link, though. I'll add it to the Informative Links thread.

wow i cannot believe how stupid that girl is shes asking if we shoot each other .....and that they finally added female to MP um dear stupid woman this is a assassin game we don't shoot each other (aside from hidden gun)this isnt a gay FPS like COD and second female MP characters have been their since brotherhood.....* just ...ugh her stupidity is insane -_-

Yeah I found it pretty quickly too although it still seems hard to embed.

I spent a while trying to find a way to embed it here but couldn't get it to work. There's an embed code but it doesn't work on this site and using Flash tags didn't help either, although I don't think I was using them properly.

Allow me to join in the debate...

First of all, I am truly impressed with the power of the AnvilNext game engine. The draw distance is MUCH more stronger, and there was hardly and texture pop ins and shadow draws. The trees actually look realistic, yet able to climb. The most impressive part of this demo is Connor parkouring on the trees, especially when he slides between one near the fort. I can't believe how accurate those movements look. And the best part of it is that they were barely any clipping between Connor's boots and his tailcoats, though their physics does look somewhat wild.

As for the pirate battle, I hope that thing won't be a tacked on experience like Den Defence and Bomb Crafting. It has a strong historical importance, so it has to be done perfectivly. The lighting, rain, water reflection, crew animation, and damage looks detailed and nice. Motion blur is a nice touch when you get struck with cannonballs.

PROS
- Orgasmic animation for the eyes, and no clipping
- Horses are back!
- People just walk up to you and ask for your help. No more b*llsh*t cutscene that takes more than a minute.
- Flashy, yet fun combat. Brutes seem to have returned.
- Blood looks more realistic
- Cutscenes are quick and to the point.
- Streamline HUD and mission updates.

CONS
- wacky tailcoat physics, though it compensates for no clipping
- no raindrops on the deck of the boat or on Connor's jacket or the crew members
- No snow on Connor's boots when he wades in the snow.
- Some soldiers don't shoot when Connor is RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. This is apparent when he's in the fort.
- What did Connor get when he gave the meat to the butcher?

as for the butcher thing in one of the videos it showed a *pick up item* option right before the player moved to talk to the bluecoat guy so mabye it was that?

You're not getting the point. They're emphasizing how the AC3 MP is not your typical run 'n' gun mulitplayer. Same like when they always ask at the end of the interview when the game's coming out. Everyone here knows it's october 30th, but newbies don't.

Vanitas, please don't use "gay" as an insult. Thanks.

Soldiers shot at Connor in the fort. He took two by surprise, one was reloading. These rifles aren't ridiculously accurate, remember? I like how when he first leapt off the roof into the fort, the guy he landed in front of fell down in shock. As usual it's obviously been edited to avoid giving away the Templar's plot. I expect the mission itself to be a bit more extensive.

Just noticed something after seeing the gameplay footage again. When Connor is chasing after the target he grabs a gun from a weapon rack (it even had the option to pick the weapon up). Then he kills a soldier with the gun and air assassinates the guy with it. The target actually turns and faces Connor during the air kill.

my bad lisa sorry :b

Yeah. In one of the other clips Conner initiates a kill steak by picking up a gun, killing one soldier with the bayonet then, before pulling it out, shoots another guard behind the first guard.

I hope the guards are a little bit more efficient with their shots in the final game. I saw quite a few miss, but as was said, they were innacurate. They're supposed to be dangerous when they're in a firing line.

And without the meatshields (the enemy in the 7 minute video or the horse in the other one)... Conner would have been shot dead on...

0__0 Holy sh*t.....game of the year much.

You're rebuilding combat from the ground up. What's your philosophy to combat this time?
"We're trying to keep it as fluid and dynamic as possible. So the way we described it early on was that we're a relatively mass-market game so we can't make ridiculously hard combat, but we can make it hard to be amazing at it.

"So you can stumble your way through 90% of fights as a casual player, but if you want to run into a fight, assassinate a guy on the move, immediately begin a kills chain, pick everybody off, switch between pistols and close combat moves and basically wipe everybody out without ever being touched, this should be quite tricky.

"So we worked a lot on the archetypes, we worked a lot on base combat strategy of when you should use which move. We took out the need to lock onto anybody with the left trigger to keep it really, really fluid and we added running assassinations so you can charge enemies with any weapon.

"We have multiple enemies attacking simultaneously now, so there's lots of little things that we put in. You can kick people off buildings - there's a new one for you."

I like this idea. From what I've seen so far it does seem like there's a higher skill-gap to combat. The Wii U gameplay shows the player struggling even with a decent level of low-level enemies. I'm hoping that officers are difficult to beat in melee combat with their sword skills. I like the way guns work: it seems as if you'll maybe get just two shots off during one fight even if you do well. Pop two and you'll have to wait untill you get some breathing room before you can do any more.

The brutes have that awesome move where they throw you to the ground if you attack them the wrong way. I like how different archetypes seem to have a different way that you should approach them, and getting that flow down is the key to combat. I also like how even though you can get through five or six guards pretty easily, but if you do it in a crowded market: more will come running. That part of the Wii U demo where maybe more than 10 guards came rushing at Connor was amazing. And the lack of health regen in combat means that you WILL have to run at some point, no matter how good you are.

YOU SUCK

Better footage of the Boston gameplay, directly rather then over the shoulder stuff...
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2012-assassins-creed/731383

they have said that the guns are really bad in the game and really inaccurate because they were bad in that time area and also to make it logical why connor uses an bow and knives

Yeah, the guns weren't very good at all in that era. It's realistic that they'd miss so easily.

Boston Gameplay review:

Pros:
- Everything is much more streamlined and more cleaner. No more flashing H.U.D. or random popups. It's all in-game, which makes it so immersive. The African lady that asks you to free her husband is a bonus, as it's just a simple request that you receive when you walk near to her. I like this angle of the game, where you walk around to see if people will ask you for help. There's no more glowing check-marks or people - only when you approach near them do they appear near their head.
- Animation is much more faster, and more realistic. I do parkour myself, and Connor's move seem much more natural than Ezio's or Altair's rigid animations. When Connor runs, he really does look like he's running for his life. Also, the bags that the fake British soldier bounce, which is a good bonus.
- Nice cover system.
- Stealth is much more subtle and expanded, as the Assassin logo glows when you're in incognito. The crowd mechanics seem to have expanded, and Connor will mimic people's movements to blend in. Will there be blending in this game? Excellent touch on the Animus triangle dot lines.
- Did I just saw a sheep?

Cons:
- No raindrops on the ground.
- One soldier freezes for no reason.
- When Connor is climbing the ship, his grunts resemble Ezio's.

Also, it appears that parts of Brotherhood may be back... When Conner enters the fight in the market, there is briefly an instruction to "Call Backup." This same icon is depleted by 4 (total of 6 bars in the video) when he calls the fake soldiers. Maybe these fake soldiers are his recruits/backup.

Maybe it's a callable faction? Who knows. But "Call Backup" is definitely there when the first guy gets a face full of rake.