The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Meh, I played the demo and wasn't impressed.

I pick it up this weekend. Even thou the demo was pretty dull I loved the fast paced action, or at least fast compared with the other SCs. I was already reading the reviews and they say that again, dying and repeating parts of the mission all over again presents itself around the corner. What do you think of this Asaic?

Do you mean trial-and-error gameplay? No, I didn't find any of that in Conviction. Literally, none. As long as you go into each situation with a cool head and don't bite off more than you can chew, you can get through any part of the game without having prior knowledge of the area. There's never a trick or pattern to discover that suddenly makes an area much easier (at least not that I've ever seen on nearly three full playthroughs now). It's just a matter of not getting in over your head and not screwing up/making poor decisions. Risks rarely pay off in this game. At most, they'll be successful and save you a bit of time. But erring on the side of caution always works.

Even the earlier SC games weren't really trial-and-error gameplay, per se. Sure, there were plenty of things to try and see what works well and what doesn't work so well. But that was the appeal of those games – there were so many different ways to approach each situation. When it comes down to a room and a long hallway and three guards, there were probably six or seven completely different ways in which to successfully meet your objective. It was more like a choose-your-own-adventure book, whereas Conviction is more like a stylish action movie with a decent plot.

As a result, Conviction isn't as deep as its predecessors. There are basically two possible ways to handle every single scenario – go stealth or go guns blazing. However, despite the rollback of game depth, the changes to the gameplay still make Conviction a very fun game to play. It's less of a thinking game than previous entries in the series, but it's much more fun in the gameplay department.

When I was describing Conviction to a friend earlier today, without thinking I said that it was like a combination of Rainbow 6: Vegas and Assassin's Creed. After I blurted that out, I stopped and realized just how accurate that comparison was. It really does feel like a hybrid of those two game series. At least that's what I see in Conviction. I guess that's why I love it so much. And hey, all three series are made by Ubisoft.

I've heard it has the greatest co-op campaign ever. It's so good, in fact, that the review it got at gamesradar would have been a full point lower had co-op not been included in the game. I'll have to try it out.

I read that too... but then I read this article, and well... yeah. I might get it later when the game drops in price, but not right now. Too much stuff for school these next few weeks.

I'll probably play it at a friend's or something, don't plan on buying it at all.

I have the PC version now as well, if anybody wants to play.

i got a chance to play coop the other day with a friend. it was fun to plan things cooperatively. i liked sneaking behind the enemy while my buddy distracted them, and i like synchronized executions to quietly clear out a whole room.

This game is a lot better than people make it to be. Even though the single player story line is shorter than you want the game doesn't end there. There are also coop/multiplayer and deniable ops with different game modes.
And also I recorded a ghost run for the second level. I'll try to upload it now and see what you guys think.

i got it a few weeks ago cause it was in the sales and me and my friend likes to play co-op. i also played the singleplayer to see what it's all about and i'm an achivement whore.

but the game really isn't that good.
i found the gameplay boring and both the storylines cheesy and i did not care for the characters at all.
maybe i would have liked it mroe if i've ever played any of the earlier ones but we'll never know

if the game wasn't at 1/6 of the price of a new game, i wouldn't have bothered.

on the plus side though, co-op was pretty fun

I personally love this game. I'm shocked that I haven't bought it yet. I rented it from Gamefly and played with a friend. I might get it soon and some of us can play some co-op for THB games.

I have a few videos about it, but it was funnier and had more laughs as you play it. If it's just to mess around with your friends, it's the best game ever.

Getting it tomorrow. Anyone wanna play multiplayer sometime?

Yep!

Funny timing, another Steam friend just got the game today.

For Xbox 360, of course. haha

Sure, I need an excuse to pick this game up again.

The last thing I'm getting before ACR and Arkham City will be a DVD recorder. I'd really like to record some Splinter Cell games first. Still shopping around. lol

Hmm, I won't be able to join you then. I lent out my 360 ages ago and I think my Live subscription expired.

I figured as much. Just had a feeling.

It's just that the current generation of consoles have fully run their course and feel like they're last-gen compared to playing the same games on PC. I find it hard to justify hooking them up anymore when they take so much more effort to play, cost more to play online (360) and don't look good at all.

I'm picky like that.

That might be why I'm getting the missing end of my Xbox controller replaced so I can play PC games with it. haha

I just like the controller better than mouse + keyboard method. But the precision with the mouse in shooters tends to be better than controllers. Also, I know that some people can only afford so much in PC gaming, so they have to upgrade it from time to time, spending more money than they should, along with paying for games and subscriptions to some of those games if they require it.

I prefer the openness of PC, the comfortable controllers of Xbox, and the relaxed tone of Playstation's online community. Now if they could mix all of these together, I'd be happy.

OnLive?

I haven't heard good things about OnLive. Since it's been out, no one's really talked about it at all. So I don't know for sure.

I can't stand the console versions of friends/chat. Very slow and awkward, and if you want to use it properly, you need to have an extra keyboard lying around. I find the PC has so many options for both voice and type chat, and they all work so much better than the console offerings. I really hope the next generation of consoles really steps up their 'game' in this area.

The thing with PC that drives people away is price, but that's really a misnomer. A good gaming worthy PC will cost you no more than $500 top to bottom, which is typically less than the cost of an HD console when they first come out. From there, spend $100 to upgrade your video card every 2-3 years and you'll always be up to date. Can't do that with consoles! Processor and RAM requirements for games have barely budged over the last five years, so the video card is the only upgrade a person really needs to stay on top. Today, a three year-old video card still runs circles around PS3 and 360 graphics.

And above all else, the PC versions of games are cheaper in most cases. Throw in a much more sophisticated (and totally free) online community access and the ability to use both controllers and keyboard/mouse with all the games and it's the clear winner.

I'll still always buy consoles as they always have exclusives, but I wish these companies would drop out of the console race and just develop controllers and games. A unified hardware platform would benefit the industry in a way that's almost too expansive to describe...

OnLive is unpleasant. All you're doing is sending your keyboard/controller inputs over the internet to a remote PC and viewing a low quality video stream of what you're playing. Noticeable input lag and blurry graphics. IMO, it's only good for people who have severely limited budgets.

Just looked up a detailed review of OnLive. It doesn't seem as bad as I've heard.

1. No big clunky console hogging space.

2. Practically portable with its small design.

3. A controller that has the same buttons/look as an Xbox 360 controller, but with a PS3 layout.

4. Can play games from the Cloud system.

5. Can use other controllers and even has the ability to be played on either a TV or computer monitor.

6. You're able to actually view live matches as a spectator (something I've always wanted).

7. Good chat capability.

The list goes on... I'm not sure why I heard that it was a piece of crap. This all sounds amazing to me. I wonder if it has PS3/Xbox 360 exclusives, or are those still "exclusive" to their respective consoles?

Hm, that wasn't mentioned in the review. Better do more digging.

Just try OnLive's free trial and you'll see how bad it is for yourself.

I just mentioned the OnLive because it was what came to my mind by mixing the things you mentioned together. Not really sure as to how good/bad it is thou.

@Asaic I've always wanted to get into PC gaming but regional limitations with IP and the cost of parts to build a gaming rig are kind of steep over here. I just isn't really worth it sometimes. Still, I'm gonna start making the transition from console to PC sometime soon. Although I'll have to save for a new graphic card.

It's ok, James. For now we'll "suffer" with our poor consoles together.

Would it work out any cheaper to import parts? There are a lot of sites online that sell PC parts for great prices and you'll just have to add on shipping costs. Might be cheaper than what's available locally.

Have you tried using a VPN to get around IP restrictions? Works to easily fool Steam.

Maybe... I had my eyes on a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5570, 1GB, GDDR3. It's a fair price for a decent card, at least for starters. As to the IP restrictions, most services are out of budget, still, they are not really that necessary.

I prefer console gaming (specifically PS3) because I'm a casual gamer. Most of my friends are also casual gamers on either PS3 or 360 so I can play with them more easily, or at the very least have the occasional conversation about gaming.

I've always seen PC gaming as more serious and hardcore. I know this isn't necessarily true these days but I just find sticking with a console much easier

Also, off topic much?!

There are free VPN's that work, at least from North America. I'm pretty sure they work elsewhere as well. Might be worth a look.

The HD5570 isn't a very good card though... You can get 5870's here for under $100, which is significantly faster than the 5570. What are the 5870's like there for pricing?

That's the way it used to be, but not so much anymore. Since the PC is already on and you can (and should) leave Steam on in the background, it's two clicks to instantly launch into any game you want to play. No fumbling with discs (I hate physical media), no waiting centuries for a console to boot up and go through its logos and then the game's logo's, etc. If a PC game has unskippable logos before the title screen, you can very easily disable them.

Plus, it frees up the TV to leave it on while you're gaming. I love messing around in GTAIV or ACB while having some shows or movies going in the background. Or I can flip a setting and have the PC switch over to the 59" for my movies and games and then kick back in my lounger chair.

We're still talking about Conviction, we're just being super stealthy about it.

Asaic, perhaps you can suggest me one or two card models? I wanted to get something below $100, and this was like the best thing I could find without having to pay for shipping (without paying for a P.O. Box service, it can go up to $30 per pound!) that was about the same price as in the U.S., at least in some retailers.

As you must have already notice I don't really know anything about this kind of stuff, so any help or suggestion will be very much appreciated.

No problem!

The best way to know is to break down how the nVidia and Radeon numbering systems work. nVidia is a three-digit model number while Radeons have a four-digit model number.

For both, the first number is the "generation". nVidia is using a 5 for their current generation cards while ATI is using a 6 for theirs. Obviously, the newer the generation the better, but it's more about how modern the card is and not so much about how powerful it is. Each generation will have graphics cards ranging from "I can barely render your desktop icons" to "I just slaughtered that game at max settings", so don't rely on generation alone.

The remaining numbers gauge the card's performance. Let's look at some examples.

Current generation nVidia:
- 550
- 560
- 570
- 580
- 590

Current generation ATI:
- 6750
- 6770
- 6790
- 6850
- 6870
- 6950
- 6970
- 6990

The nVidia 550 is roughly equivalent in performance to the Radeon 6750, while the nVidia 590 is in the same class as the Radeon 6990.

The 550/6750 are as low as I would recommend for gaming. Anything lower and you're just not getting your money's worth and your performance will be disappointing. Get the highest one you can afford. But keep generation in mind as well; going back one generation is fine as each generation generally improves overall performance by up to 15%. That's not across the board either; in some areas there will be zero improvement. It's generally not worth paying a lot more for a current generation card if the previous generation's matching model is far cheaper. Why pay twice as much for an nVidia 560 that gives only a 15% performance boost over the 460? The cost difference may not always be that dramatic, but you can judge the best value for yourself using the above info.

In terms of which is better, Radeon or nVidia, that's up to you. I tend to switch every five years or so as one company surges ahead of the other in quality/reliability, and this teeter-totter goes back and forth. Right now I'm on the Radeon bandwagon – I lost two nVidia cards to overheating in the last several years, and I've had two friends with the exact same problem. No issues with Radeons right now, so that gets my vote.

Got Splinter Cell JUST now (had to go to the mail room on campus). It even came with a little book summary about Splinter Cell's history. BONUS, since I was never a fan of it before Conviction.

Nice! Let me know what you think of the game. It takes a bit to get used to the controls, but eventually you'll be able to zip around with agility and precision.

Oh, I love the game. I've played it before. I have a few webcam-recorded videos of it on Youtube. I haven't played in forever, so I have to take baby steps and learn it all again. haha

Thank you so much for this info Asaic. I'm sure it will be very useful the next time I'm browsing for videocards.

@Joey, yeah that tends to happen when you haven't played Conviction in a couple of months. The fast paced action tends to demand complete familiarity with the control scheme, which sometimes tends to be a little awkward with the and for toggling stance and cover.

Definitely. Played with Xplic3t, but had a friend over, so I didn't put on my mic out of courtesy. Still, it was difficult. I actually tried to use the AC freerunning controls to climb a wall. Ended up shooting it instead, causing every guard to call for backup.

Haha, I did the same thing with pressing to run and scared every civilian in the area into fleeing (this was at the beginning of the Kobin Mansion level). I guess it does take getting used to, but at least it says which button to press.