The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Looks like it's up to me...

Buy it cheap a few weeks after.

EDIT: Also, I don't really see how you can say the story is getting too drawn out after just one game where nothing much happened till the end. Plotwise, brotherhood was the worst until the last mission as Desmond. There, we were bombarded with tons more stuff than we got at the end of AC1. AC1 actually added far less to the story than Brotherhood, to be honest.

And Revelations is called Revelations for a reason. I know you're not getting it because of other reasons, but this is from my point of view looking at the best AC (storywise at least) yet.

AC1 added the most important part of the series: the introduction to the conspiracy.

If you think of how much a game adds as what it adds AFTER the premise, it didn't add as much as Brotherhood. The premise counts for the whole series, not just 1 game. Not saying it had a worse story than Brotherhood, just that it added less to the overarching "Ancient tech left behind by dudes, Templars and Assassins fighting since dawn of humanity" premise than Brotherhood did with its lengthy and surprisingly detailed explanation of the TWBC's motivations and thoughts on existence, and the suggestion that the TWCB may not be as benign as we once thought, and somehow have been able to orchestrate tons of stuff that happens in the future, like Desmond getting to the Apple with 72 days left to launch, or taking the actions that sent Desmond into a coma so that he could have everything he needed to know about his mission explained. AC1, you get the map, so Templars start a race to get the PoEs, later joined by Assassins using the memory files from Desmond's Abstergo sessions, and then Desmond gets Eagle Vsision and sees symbols that hint at an apocalypse and some vague stuff.

Sure, it's important, but if that were a movie, ending it there would be unforgivable. I really think that it would have been better if they had progressed to the part where Desmond gets broken out of Abstergo. It would really give more of a sense of completion, and AC2 would have had a more comfortable place to start.

And like all good conspiracies, if you're given too much information it will lose it's potency and the interest falters. I feel similar to Jack, I don't believe that ACB added the right aspects to the story. It's feeling like they're turning a movie series into a TV series. It feels like it's getting watered down.

Now gameplay-wise, yeah, ACB was a step forward. The combat is still way too damned easy (and gets easier with each installment), but I do like gameplay advancements in general. What I wish Ubisoft would realize is that you can have spin-offs that ignore the story and just give some new gameplay ideas. One of my favorite examples was Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions. I got far more play time out of that than with the main game, and it was better for not having any story in it.

I don't really think it's like a TV series if they're planning to wrap Desmond's story up with next year's game. (Obviously AC3) I think that Brotherhood was a crucial step. With a conspiracy, you can't unravel it too quickly or else you have to simplify things. That's the problem with one-off conspiracy movies. At the end it all has to boil down to something incredibly simple unravelling the whole plot, and then the plot doesn't seem so complicated after all.

Brotherhood's ending didn't reveal too much of the story, it simply changed our thinking about a lot of things about TWCB.

But at the same time it gave us that in a concrete and meaningful way, not in something you'll have to wikipedia and research to find out, and where the result is really really really vague.

I hate conspiracies that the viewer never understands, because that means the writers never bothered to figuer it out, they just refer to it vaguely from time to time, and use it as an excuse for every bit of plot that crops up randomly, I hate conspiracies that are understood too quickly, because it cheapens the work that the writers have done.

AC is progressing just right for me.

I have no idea how we could get all of the stuff that happened in Brotherhood, will happen in Revelations, and will happen in AC3 dropped all in one game and it not be incredibly rushed and confusing.

We're not really saying that we don't want more AC-ness. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. We're saying Ubisoft might be stringing out the storyline a little too much. This has the possibility of making the series get old faster than anticipated.

Random thought: Is it just me, or does it seem like there have been more than 3 games released as of now (not counting ACR)? It's hard for me to believe that there's only been AC1, AC2, and Brotherhood. Maybe it's the handhelds that are making me feel this way. I kind of wish Brotherhood was an animated film, then they bring in ACR as the only spin-off game, then AC3 next year. That way, we'd still have fun with AC2, watch an hour and a half-long film created by Ubisoft about Ezio's Roman adventures, then play him in his golden years. Having ACR still come out at the same time (this year) and making us wait 1 MORE year for the finale would keep it fresh in the minds of fans and be better in sales for the company, as people wouldn't get bored too fast and become uninterested when it finally ships to stores.

See, my issue is that they put too much into the story. Revealing the templar interference throughout history was enough, they didn't have to spell out 400 different examples. That waters it down and makes it far less interesting. Like a magic trick, knowing too much makes it less interesting and impressive. It destroys the sense of mystery and intrigue when it's all laid out on the table in front of you.

I think we got enough of a taste in AC1 to set the backdrop and the subsequent games should have focused purely on the modern fight between Desmond's group and Vidic/Abstergo and some crucial moments in Desmond's ancestors' lives (not their entire lives). Instead we got way too many details on the templar/assassin historical interference thing and have spent way too much time with just a couple ancestors (mainly Ezio) that now it feels very cliche.

And now we're getting all this space-age/sci-fi/supernatural/extraterrestrial stuff with Those Who Came Before which is taking things in an entirely different direction. I can take it in small doses but this is just going too far and it's beginning to feel really cheesy.

The cool sci-fi/mystery/conspiracy feel that the first AC had has been completely lost, and it was that mood that really helped to define it and make it great IMO. The series has definitely lost its magic for me. Unless AC3 is a big change over ACB and ACR, I'm not going to have any excitement over it at all. I have zero interest in ACR right now. I'll play it mainly due to lack of anything better to play in November.

The idea of who the TWCB were was touched on and planned out even in AC1.

And really, I enjoyed all the little things in the glyphs. They show stuff that would not have fit very well into a game, but is still interesting and essential in the history.

I liked the mystery in AC1, but really, after the first part of a conspiracy story the "revelations" really have to start coming.

If they had kept everything as vauge as AC1 until the very end of AC3, and had skipped Brotherhood and Revelations, then I would have felt like it never went anywhere until it pulled a single twist out of its butt. I would also feel like three games is too much buildup for an entirely incomplete/nonexistent understanding of a conspiracy.

I like the TWCB because they are NOT supernatural or magical, they are entirely technology-based, and their story actually makes sense.

Explaining exactly what the TWCB are isn't taking things in a new direction, incidentally. It's taking them in A direction. AC1 didn't give any indication of the "style" what would happen besides that some freaky shizz was going to go down.

But OK. It's alright if you don't like it.

We clearly enjoy the story in this series for completely different reasons.

Completely agree. Three games seems like such a small number for the size of the series. Perhaps it's the fact that each game lasts for 20+ hours

Also, I've voiced this opinion before but the modern, sci-fi aspect of the AC series actually annoys me and has irritated me more as the series has progressed. It's a really cool idea and Ubisoft have still integrated it into the story pretty well (the HUD being the Animus interface etc.), but I find Desmond to be a bit of a prick. He just seems slightly moody and lacking in personality.

I sometimes feel that the games would have been much better set in a a purely historical setting. Historical games are very unusual and AC would have been even more unique. I take a mild interest in the whole TWCB and Pieces of Eden storyline (yes, I'm aware that these are integral parts of the AC series), but I much prefer just playing as Altair or Ezio, forgetting about the fact that they are just ancestors of the main protagonist of the series and that there is a much bigger story outside of the Animus. Obviously, without Desmond linking the two Assassins, there would be little explanation for playing as both of them but I wouldn't really care. Anyway, AC is the way it is and I just hope Revelations explains the modern day situation without it shadowing Ezio's story.

I feel like people see Desmond as annoying and having no personality because he's a very guarded person, and never shares his feelings with anyone. He's been on the run since he was 16. Lucy and the other Assassin were actually starting to change him in Brotherhood. One of the best things about Revelations is that we'll get a chance to see who he is in an environment that will test him emotionally as well as physically.

Anyways, regarding the idea of AC just being totally historical, I think the plot would have to be even more convoluted and unlikely to try to connect the threads of each game. It would really seem sort of random, and lots of people would complain about there being no overarching story. Plus if AC1 had released without any modern segments the story that was there wouldn't really have interested me as much. I enjoy the modern setting, because it allows characters like Shaun to talk about the time period from the perspective of someone who was not there, which gives you a better understanding of the culture and people than a "in universe" explanation. It also is a great way to explain the menus and "invisible" walls that HAVE to be in any game. I think that if AC had wanted to be a purely historical game, it would have had to dedicate its plot to more small-time things than the theory of a First Civilization, which is one of the more interesting parts of AC for me.

The moments where things about TWCB are revealed are the moments where I am totally imerssed in the world, and the idea that something so big was kept secret is mindblowing.

If you've never felt that feeling about AC, I don't think you'll ever understand.

i hope that they do that with the games after ac3

ooh and i like the ac story i like it how they make the story longer then 2 games

I have never felt like that so I guess I'll never understand, whatever you mean by that...?

Anyway, yes I pointed out and agree that the modern story gives a reason for the HUD, walls etc. and I also pointed out that there'd be no link between the ancestors/storylines if Desmond was not a common factor. Here you have merely repeated what I have already admitted.

IMO, the story is already pretty convoluted and I don't think a historical setting would do this further. If the series had no modern story, it would probably have panned out very differently and a lot of the side stories and extra questions posed would be missing, as most of them are linked to Desmond's situation. It would, in reality, be a completely different series but I'm always curious as to how it would have developed without the modern influence. As I said, I like the concept and Ubisoft were very brave to combine modern sci-fi with history/differenbt time periods. In ACI and ACII I still enjoyed it as the balance between Desmond and Altair/Ezio was, for me, pretty good. The end of ACII/Brotherhood introduced too many random questions that will hopefully be answered in Revelations.

Funnily enough, I enjoyed the ending of ACII as it was built up really well and Ezio's confusion as Minerva disappeared was very dramatic. At that point, I had just enough interest in the modern storyline/TWCB to be intrigued and confused but after Brotherhood I don't really care - I just want to carry out some proper assassinations.

I don't think the questions they've been opening are really that random, but yeah, I definately missed assassinations in Brotherhood, but that was part of Ezio's story, not Desmond's. Desmond's story at the end, and actually throughout the game was the only part of Brotherhood's story that I liked better than AC2.

I'm counting on Revelations to be stronger with the gameplay and story in both the Historical context and Modern context.

Anyways, I just like the dual nature of the story. It allows them to switch gears every once in a while, give you a break from one narrative and pick up another. And I'm excited for where this series will go after AC3.

Yeah, but I feel like proper assassinations were neglected in favour of developing Desmond's story.

From what I've seen so far, I'm confident Revelations will deliver on both counts.

I do enjoy the dual nature of the story. It's just some parts of the modern side annoy me and it can ocassionally feel like it's getting in the way of the historical side of the game - the part where the actual assassinations happen. I think my main problem is that the modern aspect asks lots of questions and so far we don't know the answers to many of them. It feels to me like we've just been bombarded with small hints and glimpses of information that are designed to confuse and intrigue, but have just begun to frustrate me more than anything. The whole point of Revelations is to remedy this, so I'm hopeful I'll begin to enjoy the modern side again as all the smoke and mirrors are cleared

Asaic pretty much just spelled out my thoughts on the Assassin's Creed series from a story perspective over the last couple of years with those two paragraphs. The amount of mystery it the first game's ending had was absolutely perfect (despite the ending overall being terrible, i.e. Arsuf sucked) because really we were only worried about three things: "What is Abstergo planning", "How do I get out of here", and "What does all this blood mean?" That was pretty much it.

In contrast, the end of AC2 left us with even more questions than answers. We had to worry about the assassins on the run, the bleeding effect, subject 16, TWCB, and a ludicrous amount of other questions. There was too much mystery, and in turn too much of a good thing. My hope is that Revelations will leave us with the appropriate amount of cliffhangers and mystery like AC1 did, but even them I am still so turned off by it because of Brotherhood that I might not even pick it up until 2012.

On a quick note with regards to Desmond's character, I think I started growing detached from him towards the end of AC2. Throughout the majority of AC1 he was just some average-Joe bartender that happened to get kidnapped by Abstergo for testing. Even after we found out about his connection to the Assassins, he was still at least relatable to the rest of us. Then at the end of AC2, he becomes the second coming of Ezio and the savior of the planet. That's the point when I think it started becoming cheesy. Altair's story was one of redemption that evolved into something bigger, and Ezio's was one of revenge that also evolved into something bigger. Desmond's story is one we've all heard before. He's like Neo from the matrix. One day he just shows up and finds out he has to save the world. Desmond was a lot more interesting when we didn't know who he was and neither did he.

In my opinion, the story would have been much more interesting had it headed down the path of Desmond trying to unravel his Assassin bloodline in addition to the Templar conspiracy, which I guess it already does in a sense, but it would be much better without the whole "DESMOND YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO BE THE GREATEST EVER AND SAVE THE WORLD FROM DOOM YOUR QUEST BEGINS NOW." Been there, done that. Assassin's Creed is special because it offers gameplay unlike anything we can experience elsewhere. The "different feel" can be completely thrown off by a generic storyline such as the one they have created for Desmond, and that has significantly hurt the modern aspect of Assassin's Creed for me. I know it isn't the main one, but it's still an indisputably crucial part to the game overall.

Okay, rant over.

It's important to note that the reason he's so special is because only he is the nexus point for all of the ancestors he needs for gain the knowledge and skills nessesary to stop the Templars.

And really, he wasn't all that average of a guy. He managed to keep out of the clutches of a giant world-wide corporation for almost 10 years, and he had learned a lot about the Assassins and Templars before he ran away. If William M is is father, then he is related to someone very high up in the Assassins. So his story is more like Altair or Ezio's than Neo's. He is descended from greatness.

Anyways, every single hero ever in any literature/media becomes one by having destiny or purpose thrust on them.

I have no problem with that being the case once again here.

Many people theorize that Desmond has pretended to be a lot more clueless than he really is.

And AC2 was not a complete chapter. It was the beginning of a story that brought up a lot of questions, followed by Brotherhood which expanded on those questions and introduced more, followed by Revelations which according to devs will entirely answer quite a few, clarify a bit on some, and leave a minimum of questions to be answered in AC3.

I think that storywise, we should look at AC2-Brotherhood-Revelations as a whole.

Problem is, we can't do it yet.

No matter how you look at it, it's still the same basic "Mysterious man captured, freed, best friend dies, saves the world" story. There are only minor differences. Now this story seems unoriginal, even though the settings and original concept are amazingly unique. Kind of a downer now.

my deal was for AC 1 through ACB was that during the process of the game i lost all sense of reality while playing them... it was almost as if i was the one laying on the animus table going in instead of Desmond, only to be brought back by the short "out of the animus" sequences. That being said the story is the only thing that has kept me going , I think alot of people want the right here right now kind of story and want it fully explained day one, I dunno but i think its better to be episodical than 3 huge games that feel rushed but thats just my humble opinion.

This really got off-topic. haha

I have this book called "Pick Me Up' which has loads of random facts, figures and stories in. It links the pages together using references so you can just jump from topic to topic. It's really cool!

Anyway, it has a section that theorises that all stories in the history of literature, film and even gaming are based on seven basic plots (which are then elaborated upon to produce more complex stories, of course). These seven plots, according to 'Pick Me Up', are:

• Character vs Nature - Lord of the Flies, The Perfect Storm
• Character vs Character - Othello, David and Goliath
• Character vs Environment - Oliver Twist, Cinderella
• Character vs God - The Odyssey, Book of Job
• Character vs Supernatural - Ghostbusters, Harry Potter
• Character vs Self - Catcher in the Rye, Finding Nemo
• Character vs Machine - The Iron Man, Watership Down

In my opinion, some of these can be combined as the same/similar plots (Character vs God and Character vs Supernatural, for example) and of course most stories fulfill at least two or three of these descriptions. Complex stories, like Harry Potter and Assassin's Creed, seem to combine pretty much all seven plots!

Just an insight into the fact that 'original' plots are pretty hard to come by.

Well if that's the case, it's not so much different from "Deadly warrior monk (Altair) has to redeem himself and becomes the greatest one in the land", or "Playboy (Ezio) 's family dies, becomes unstoppable hero."

As was said, original plots are hard to come by.

Altair's plot is a classic martial arts one , and Ezio's is the familiar batman story.

It doesn't matter what the plot is, skilled writers make a story awesome by engaging and original characters and hardships.

And we don't even know if Lucy is dead.

We've been saying Ezio's the Renaissance Batman for ages.

Having said that, there's a difference between Tropes and cliches. The former is alright (see the Tropes Are Not Bad article on aforelinked site), but second is just boring.
In my opinion, AC is starting to lean towards cliches.

That link doesn't work, Phi. It merely leads to a non-existent page on THB...?

I looked up tropes, though, and I see what you mean. The difference is subtle but valid.

I don't think that being forced to kill the person who rescued you from an evil corporation is a cliche.

Such a character dying is definately just a trope.

So is a character being the one who saves everyone because they're the only ones who can.

But the execution of these tropes is pretty unique.

Not many characters are special because of CONVERGING lineages. It's usually just one line, likely their father's.

Desmond is special because he is the only person in the world who is the convergence point for three special assassin's bloodlines. He's the only one who can get the whole picture. And that is why he's essential to TWCB's plan, whatever it is.

Neo just happened to be one in a million for no reason. Desmond's reason has logic to it. There has to be SOMEONE whose bloodline covers all three ancestors, and he is it.

This is not magic, it's not even science, really. It's just a basic understanding of the concept of genetic memories.

That sounds like science to me, though.

That's because it is...

Exactly ;D

Genetic memory in and of itself is a scientific thing, but understanding it requires only logic.

And scientific understanding.

Oh really?

Then explain genetic memory to me in a scientific way.

All we've been told is that it is "in dna".

We have not gone any more into it than that. That's hardly a scientific understanding.

DNA is involved in Biology, and Biology is a branch of science. I'm no science buff, but I can at least say that much.

We're really just arguing semantics here.

My only point is that to me, such as situation is not cliche because really, it's unique within fiction. The hero is always special because of a single bloodline, it's never several.

And I think the idea of all humans having the ability to use eagle vision like abilities with practice is cool. Ezio and Altair are better at it because they're related to more bloodlines that had TWCB DNA than most people.

Also, Darby said that that fact is probably why both Ezio and Altair were more deadly than most men would be when they were in their middle ages, and why they had more longevity than the average person at the time.

That made me laugh.

Hey, Ezio, someone is using their genetic memories to find out where you hid the piece of eden.
"What?"
You know, that round artifact.
"No, I meant the 'genetic memory' thing."
Well apparently our memories are stored within our blood.
"What?!?"

The way "Memories are in our DNA" is presented is the same way as "Bullets go in a gun".

You don't get any scientific understanding of how the gun works, you just take it and fire it.

And as I said before, I was not talking about the concept of genetic memory, I was talking about the concept of three or four bloodlines meeting in one man.

That isn't understood with science. More like Heraldry.

But to take the unique elements, or concept of 3 bloodlines meeting in a man, just to have it all stepped on by an apocalypse is like saying "we're gunna make a very different, very mysterius dude, who is a mystery to himself, annnd f*ck it, the big twisty bad guy is mainly going to be....an apocalypse. What the hell I would have rathered Desmond find out that warren vidic is a direct descendant of Al-Mualim and has to take them pieces of eden back, I don't like the gameplay straying outside of earth's atmosphere.
I agree that the games could have left it at "the PoE's were left behind by who give's a damn, and now they are the WMD's of today that only the conflicting secret societie's know about." Honestly, I just need a decent excuse to go through each era or transition of the world as a different-timely assassin each time. I've been asian, native-american, italian (european for what it's worth) middle-eastern and I'm praying to be canadian, african, or vietnamese just to keep the varietie's of assassin's coming out.
That's my main interest, all the different assassin's leading up to the assumably most exciting in general, modern assassin. Tazing hidden blade? Arsenic? That silenced hidden gun someone mentioned? (glad they did, it crosses my mind occasionaly) but over all Calvar, I think you are one of the few who enjoy all the aspects of this game that it would SEEM that most don't either realise, care about, or completely understand.
You appreciate it more from what I gather, but alot of others knew what they were looking for in that "perfect assassin's creed" game, and generally it doesn't coincide with what you get out of the story. Or I should say, you enjoy the story and everywhere it's gone, while others had a pre-defined notion of where it should have stayed within, and expanded to. It seems the games went from being about playing different assassins, to just focusing on a couple assassins, to just being all about the ending of all this.
My original appeal was learning how many types of assassin's there were, over how many timelines, in how many cultures and eras? and how differently they would maneuver, how unique each's gear and tools were to their geographical location, stuff like that. Anyhow everyone wanted to post what AC means to them in terms of love and hate, there's some and not all of my love's and hate's for the series. RANT SUCCESSFUL. Obviously love or hate this as you wish, just post it below.