The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Why must I be taunted like this....

I start college in September, meaning I will have very little time to play games, and then along comes E3 with Halo Reach, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, and this!!

This game looks bloody great! This is truly a good year for gaming.

FINALLYY!!!!! FINALLY!! YES!!! NO MORE SHITTY NFS GAMES!!! FINALLY SOMETHING DECENT!!

...
I mean... was about time.

stabgal gave me "Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit" for Christmas in 1998. Later that week, we bought a new house and moved into it. The game was misplaced during the move and I didn't rediscover it until 2004, still in the shrink wrap!

It ran really well Windows 2000 and XP. I played with keyboard controls and mastered all the tracks. Then I found something online called "Kasey's Challenge". It was basically a four lap time trial on the Home Town course with a stock Corvette. I practiced until my time got down to 6:11.40, faster than Kasey's best time of 06:18.50.

Did you play this game or the sequel (Hot Pursuit 2), FLAE? What platform did you use?

Back in 2002, I would play Hot Pursuit 2 every day with my friends on the PS2. I have more hours logged into that game than probably any other before. Unfortunately after Hot Pursuit 2, the NFS franchise spiraled into some wacky underground racing scene, and although it started appealing to another crowd, the general fanbase was extremely disappointed. That's why now that the franchise is under new management, the game is going back to its roots of fast-paced arcade-style racing, and we're going to love every minute of it. In case you weren't aware, Hot Pursuit 2 is considered to be the greatest racing game of all time, and a remake of that game is going to be absolutely unbelievable. I'm not buying Halo: Reach solely because this is coming out.

FLAE, I agree with everything you just said, I too think the series went downhill with the release of NFS: Underground. One of my favorite games back in the day was NFS: Porsche Unleashed, hopefully the release of this on the Xbox shows that the series might finally be getting back to form.

I actually didnt mind Underground 1, but after that it just got worse and worse for me, especially around Carbon, wanted was alright

Is this just for 360?

No it's multiplatform, sorry if my howls of joy implied it was 360 exclusive (wish it was, though...).

Why aren't more people playing this? It's one of the greatest game ever made!!!

It does me good every time I check autolog and it notifies me that I once again demolished one of James' records

Yes, James, that is a challenge

Hahah, haven't played in a long time, got too scked into Halo: Reach and then Crysis 2 came. Send me an invite sometime FLAE.

I haven't plugged in my xbox in 2 or 3 weeks. I've been wanting to broaden my gaming choices for a while now. Might give this series a shot.

You will not be disappointed. This and NBA 2K11 are the only games I'm playing right now (until L.A. Noire comes out, that is).

The game is so unbelievably long but there is so much to do, see, and race that there is never a dull moment.

When you unlock the Bugatti, go to the desert highway and try to get it up to 263 MPH (that's my land-speed record).

Alright, FLAE. I put Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on my wish list because of your recommendation and somebody gave it to me for Christmas! I'm waiting until we get our stuff out of storage so I can play it with my racing wheel controller. Hopefully I won't misplace the game for 6 years like I did the last time we bought a house.

I need to start playing NFS again. I lost all my unlocked cars because of the hard drive change.

The only recommendation I would make is changing out the game's soundtrack to something else. The only songs I liked in the game were the original version of Cinema (not the Skrillex version i.e. WUBWUBWUB), Opposite of Adults by Chiddy Bang, and of course, Slip by Deadmau5.

I swapped out the entire game's sountrack with one I made using iTunes, I even downloaded some of Hot Pursuit 2's songs off of youtube and threw those into the mix. It's entirely comprised of songs that sound significantly better while driving fast. It's such an overwhelmingly awesome feeling when you time a turbo boost perfectly with the bass drop in Levels by Avicii.

Other than that, this game is great and keeps you going for a while (I still need to beat the Police missions). You won't be disappointed.

I played through half of the game before my older brother, who loves racing games saw it and kicked me off to play all of it on his own save from scratch. He 100%ed every mission. I was proud of him because he barely plays any games at all anymore except for FIFA, and once in a blue moon StarCraft or Tekken 6. Glorious moment.

Stab, now that you're all settled on your living situation, did you ever get around to giving this a shot?

"All settled" is a relative term. stabgal and I hosted Easter dinner and got the house mostly unpacked and presentable. Now I'm setting up the rest of the electronics: home theater and desktop computers. I hope to be back on the Xbox by the end of April.

That said, I plan to dive back into Assassin's Creed games and make some videos that have been languishing on my backlog. Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 will have to wait a little longer. Do you recommend playing it with a steering wheel controller? I own a Microsoft Wireless Racing Wheel and intend to try it out on NFS. It comes with a clamp so I can attach it to my desk.

You'll be moving soon yourself, FLAE. How long do you expect to be off your Xbox?

unrelated, but every time i read this topic title all in CAPS, this is what pops into my head

Alright, I finally started playing Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit this weekend. It's pretty fun with the steering wheel and pedals controller. Sometimes those controllers that are supposed to feel more "natural" actually put you at a disadvantage with respect to the regular Xbox controller. I don't get that feeling with the steering wheel. (Of course, I once played Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit on a PC using only the keyboard. It's hard to steer by feathering the left/right arrows!)

My only complaint so far is that taking sharp corners doesn't require the usual driving skills. Most driving simulators reward you for taking a proper line and braking at the right time. In NFS it seems that the fastest way to take a corner is to come in at full speed, briefly slam the brakes to skid sideways, then blast the nitrous to exit in the right direction. Maybe I just haven't learned how to do it the right way.

It's nice seeing FLAE and James on my leader boards. That way I can gauge when I've posted a respectable time and advance the game. Greyjeth is on there too but only seems to have finished the first course. DAZ must have played on PS3.

For Christmas I received a 320gb hard drive for my new Xbox. The hard drive came with a couple of games including Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. I already own the DVD but had never finished the game. Since it's now conveniently available on my hard drive, I ended up playing Need For Speed over the holidays instead of AC4 as I had planned. Unfortunately, my steering wheel controller wouldn't power up so I had to drive with thumbsticks.

It's embarrassing to admit that some of my favorite bands are on the soundtrack: Bad Religion, Weezer and New Politics. There's also a song by 30 Seconds to Mars. I have no problem with the stock music.

Reminds me of how I played Arkham Asylum during that time, having a blast and collecting all the riddler stuff.

I had tried to power up my steering wheel with both batteries and an AC adapter. The battery pack's terminals were corroded so I swapped in a pack from a regular Xbox controller. That didn't work either. The AC adapter I found under my desk, unplugged. I couldn't remember using it before.

Since January the steering wheel has been lying around. Last weekend stabgal said, "You're never going to fix this. It's old anyway." and put it in the garage to be donated or recycled. That's when I sprang into action!

It turns out the AC adapter under my desk was for an external hard drive. It sure looked like it came with the steering wheel. It was the same color and the jack fit perfectly, but it was the wrong voltage and amperage. I found the correct AC adapter behind my old Xbox, plugged it into the steering wheel and powered it up. Yay!

Here's the really good part: The steering wheel has a "force feedback" feature that only works: (1) with certain games; and (2) when plugged into AC. One of those games happens to be Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. I had never experienced force feedback before because I had been using batteries.

The batteries still don't work but who cares? I'm playing Need For Speed with force feedback. It's cool because the steering wheel wants to center itself at 12 o'clock. When you turn a corner it fights you unless you go into a skid. Then it gets sloppy. You can tell immediately that you're drifting. I think it has improved my game.

FLAE, while you were gone I started and finished Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. I also may have bettered your time/score on every single event. You've got some work to do, buddy.

That game is genuinely good.
I also got Need For Speed: Rivals for PS4 when it was like, 12 bucks on Sale.
But it's not as great as Hot Pursuit. It follows many of the same principles but I just don't like it as much for some reason.
You're still either Cop or Racer, and the events are largely the same - but the way its Progression and Missions work are kind of annoying :/

I've never been big into racing games. I only ever played one of them, which happens to be NFS Hot Pursuit 2.

Liked it a whole lot, but didn't give me the need for playing more racing games. It's fun to go back to it every once in a while though. I experienced it as a very chill game, but one that can turn very thrilling from time to time.