The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Unquestionably the chokeslam. Throw sand in their face, pick them up by the throat, and slam them down on their head in one fluid motion. It's such a badass move.

I'm with FLAE, the best animations are the fist finishing moves an the chokeslam is definately the best of all.

mines when u got ur 2 hidden blades and the enemy has a mace and he goes for a low attack but u block it with ur foot and get them in the gut with both ur blades

i got one a few days ago that i thought was awesome.
whenever i see one of those theives/ couriers running around screaming that i'm gonna kill them i try tochase them down untill i get bored.

so i come up to one guy on groundlevel from behind and attack him with the dual hidden blades.

it was really quick but i think the animation was like Ezio stretched his arms forward so they were in a straight line, blades into his back and ripped them through to his sides.

Rob, you're supposed to tackle them down so you get money, not kill them
Anyway, mine would have to be the one with the spear where you stab it through your enemy, then throw the spear into the ground, and your enemy will slowly slide down the spear
Also I love pretty much all of the knife kill animations, knives own

But killing and looting is always more fun

you know when ure being chased by an agile? right before hes about to slash you, i turn around and cut him up with the hidden blades. makes me laugh every time.

Anyone broke the back of a hubby yet? That was awesome! I've never been able to repeat it but I picked him up and dropped him over my knee. (NO it didn't kill him..lol)

I just did that today. But it did knock my guy out.

Yeah, awesome finishing move

Have a spear, enemy has a spear, you counter him, Ezio throws the spear in his FACE!
Beautiful, beautiful. Also my friend's favorite kill. Actually, it was initially his favorite, and then I started to like it.

Lilk how did you do it? Finished Eagle's Bruise and didn't encounter that once

It's one of the from-behind unarmed finishing moves. But it either has a very tiny range of space from which it can be activated or it is chosen at random against the curb stomp animation, with the curb stomp having much higher odds of occuring.

I've tried varying positions behind the opponent and couldn't figure out a consistent way of doing it. My vote is that it's random and that the curb stomp will occur more frequently.

Usually I either end up curb stomping them or doing the neck-lock-snap kill, but I've never encountered this. There are seriously a lot more kill animations to be discovered. We could be at this for months!

Sorry, my mistake. I thought she was referring to the neck-break one. I think the back-breaker is done from the side, but I'm not 100% sure.

Totally throwing them into Market stands

My favorite animation is probably the unarmed leg sweep. Bear in mind that I'm playing on a smaller SDTV, so I may have some of exact details a little off.

But basically, Ezio jabs the enemy in the eyes with the fingers on his right hand, grabs the opponents wrist with his left, moves his right hand to the shoulder and breaks the enemy's arm at the elbow before kicking his legs out from under him while pulling backwards on the enemy's shoulder.

I wish I knew how I did it too. I've never been able to repeat it. I wasn't expecting an animation so I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing. I'm not even sure if it was a counter or a combo move. I tend to beat on these guys more with combos then counter them. I was just like, "Whoa, wasn't expecting that! Wicked!"

Piercing a spear trough a guy's stomach, lift him, and release. Then let him slowly glide from the spear, Darn, that is just one awesome kill.

My new favorite ones are when I disarm the last guy in a group, drop his weapon, select Short Blade, Quickstep behind him so he's between me and his dropped weapon. He picks it up, I either slit his throat with the Short Blade or stab him below the ribs from behind. LOOK SO COOL. I also do this instead of Hidden Blade assassinations from behind for every target that I can.

In other news, I beat the living hell out of Antonio Maffei with my bare hands today.
I did that thing where Ezio sweeps the guy's legs out from under him and it was kick-ass.

*yawn* Been there, done that

LOL I can tell!

I like it how you can strafe-doge a weapon swing, thereby positioning yourself behind the target and just back-stab with the hidden blade.
It doesn't look particularly cool but requires some skill to pull off and is quick, making it a very satisfying kill.

It doesn't really take any skill. I do this to the brutes winding up for a smash attack all the time. It's easy and so much fun, especially when I did it with Eagle's Bruise and snapped the necks of guards constantly with my bare hands.

I'll just give my favorite for each weapon:

Fists/Cestus: The finisher where you throw them to the ground and neckstomp them.

Hidden Blade: I love the low profile assassinations, but the high profile one where you kick their legs out from under them and stab into the neck is brutal and awesome. I also love the kill where you do the rapid-stab into the chest.

Short Blade: All of the finishers and counters are awesome, but I love the head-stab. It just speaks to how brutal Ezio can be, and how a lot of his fighting style is guided by anger. I love that the characterization helps create the gameplay.

Sword: I like the one where he counters, moves their blade in a huge circle to break their guard, then goes right for the sternum.

Heavy Weapons: Easily the one where he slams it into the shoulder, yanks it out, and gently pushes them down. It's deadly and funny!

Long Weapons: I have two. The first is the counter where he runs them through, pushes closer, then pushes them back and lets them slide down the spear I call it the Christmas tree. The other is the one he does right after a Brute snaps it. He just looks at the two pieces for an instant, then gores the guard with both. I just love the little look on his face when it breaks. You can just hear him think "Oh, sh*t."

My favorite weapon kill is with the spear when you step back and just throw it in the guards face. You look so cool after you do it like you just released a dove from your sleeve.

Ooh yeah I love that one too, FLAE. That's only Spear vs Seeker as far as I've seen, though.

I wonder what sort of awesome new animations they'll include in Brotherhood, besides what we saw in the E3 preview...

On that note, I felt that the sword animation where he jumps and pokes the enemy's throat is awkward looking. I don't really know why, but it just kind of looks out of place.

I was too busy drooling over the gun and then leaping out of my chair when Ezio tomahawked the axe.

"Also I love pretty much all of the knife kill animations, knives own"~TwinBlades

Absolutely agree, but my favourite one would be Ezio doing the one-two-SLICE kill. I'm not sure what else to call it except smacking the guard in the chops and then running the shortblade through his throat in an ice pick grip. It has a nice time signature too, with like half a second between the two hits, then the slice to finish.

smack,smack, slice.

Unity has some pretty sweet kill animations (I don't know why, but the kills are the first to look realistic since the past few games).

Spear- Drive the weapon clean through the guard and pull it out from the other side.
Ax- Slam it down on his head, knocking him to the ground.
Sword- Knock him down and stab.
Blunt- A lunge to the gut, swing down on the head that knocks him down, followed by another swing.
Hidden blade- So many to choose from! Finally we have a neck slice like in the AC2 trailer. Slide under him followed by prone kill. A full 360 spin ending with a jab to the gut. Double assassinations using only ONE hidden blade.

What about the long weapon staggering strike? I know it's not a kill, but it's my favorite combat animation in Unity so far... I still have to play more with swords and heavy weapons to explore them fully.

My favorite kill animation from the AC series remains the counter-snare kill from AC3 where Connor strangles the guy with the snare. For some reason that one seems more brutal to me than any other and looks so sweet when pulled off.

Favorite kill animations:

Ezio's
- with bare fists, he kicks a guard in the crotch, then slams them into the ground
- with hidden blades, he unleashes a flurry of stabs into the chest
- with mace, he jabs them in the gut, making the guard double in pain, then he raises his foot over their head and stomps them into the ground
- with Dagger of Brutus and Vlad Tepes' Sword, it's all of the kill animations

Connor
- any high profile assassination that involves the pivot blade
- any kill animation involving the rope dart
- with the tomahawk, him either pouncing on the guard, delivering wild swings, kocking them out with a single uppercut-slash, or rolling around them to slash their legs

Arno
- with hiddenblade, it's either the head spin from behind, a kick to the shin followed by a stab in the head, or the frontal stab
- with sword, it's gotta be the one where he presses his blade up against the guard's neck and swipes

Mine has changed. My absolute favorite Kill Animation of all time in all of the games combined is one of the Hidden Blade Counters that Altair does in Assassin's Creed 1.

You Counter, Altair merely moves his body out of the way, stabs the attacker in the back with the Hidden Blade, then shoves him down to the ground right after. It's so fast, so fluid, so efficient and it's just 100% pure Death.

all previously mentioned are my favorites and dont forget the throat punch done by countering a specific move (a guard trying to hit you with a straight arm extended punch)

What's cool about the throat punch is that it only finishes them off if their health is low enough. In one fight an enemy was unlucky enough to have that move done on him twice, poor guy.

In Syndicate there's different animations for stealth assassinating while crouching. The one from behind looks cool: stick both blades in the enemy's back and pull them out.

The Crouching From Behind/Side stealth assassinaton in Syndicate where the Assassin kind of knocks the guard down, and as they're falling, they do like this really stylish side-to-side slash-slash, I like a lot. Not the one where the target is knocked to the ground and the Assassin stabs them then, I'm talking about the other one.

All of Connor's animations are my favorite, they're just so brutal and satisfying. Especially the lesser seen ones like the consumable counter kills (snares, rope darts, etc), and the environmental combat and stealth kills. Nothing more entertaining than watching Connor grab a guy from behind and slam his face into the wall and throw him to the ground. Also the hanging rope dart kill.

Ezio's heavy weapon kill after he's disarmed a brute is great. When he slams the axe into a brute and yanks it out when they're still standing and then he gives them a little push so they fall to the ground. Also the rarely seen heavy/long weapon counter kill. F*cking brutal.

And then all of Altair's hidden blade animations are savage af. I just really like all the kill animations in the games, they're so well done