The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

For what it's worth, I've got a friend that has sparingly played the AC series, but isn't a fan because he's not one for stealth gameplay. He LOVES Watch Dogs. Said it's a really good cross between AC and GTA game styles.

Welp that was quick, game got banned here right away...
Thanks to that both Steam and PSN have it removed(It's still there but you can't buy it)...

On the other hand Uplay still had it available online, good 'ol Uplay~ xD;
I wonder if Origin still has it up for me too, hmm... *will check later*

But from what I've played(starter mission and the Digital Trip (Alone) it seems fun~ =D
PC is highly unoptimized to use it on Ultra settings across the board, but with a bit tinkering it's quite nice...

Question for those with the game... is the multiplayer component really cross platform? other than console/mobile device? or is that all people mean with "cross platform?" because, to me, that's not truly cross platform.

I mean, you're all logged into a uplay account so there's no reason for it not to be... but that was the case with AC3/4 as well...

I need some help to figure out what game I'll buy.
Main candidates:
- Dishonored
- Thief
- Far Cry 3
- Watch_Dogs

I know that the first game I'll buy is going to be one of these, but I can't really figure out which. I've been wanting Dishonored and Far Cry 3 for quite some time, but I've also been looking forward to Watch_Dogs a lot. Of course, W_D is a lot more expensive than the others. Is it worth buying it as soon as possible?

I recommend Dishonored just because you absolutely MUST play it and you'll probably get the most enjoyment out of it.
Also, yes, I'm aware of you guys waiting on me and stuff, I'm 54% complete the game and shouldn't take me very long now to start posting massive amounts of content/discussion.

Not to be rude, but I know of a certain blade runner for whom things didn't quite work out so well.

Because his excuses were ruled invalid.

LMAO. I love you guys. But no, I stand firm. I'd rather give you good stuff after enjoying the game fully, and it's not like I take a while to finish games. In fact, among my circle I'm known for 100%ing everything absurdly quickly. Not to worry though, like I said, it won't be long. I'll probably post something or other soon just to keep up and all that, but yeah.

I didn't enjoy Far Cry 3 at all. It's basically every fad of the moment packed into a single game: an open world FPS with quick time events and objective marker chasing.
I've heard some good things, some bad things about Thief 4. Apparently it's very linear. Doesn't look like my kind of game judging from how much I like The Dark Mod, but I can't tell you if you'll like it.
Dishonored is a great game, highly recommend it.
Watch Dogs looks pretty good, but I want to finish Dark Souls 2, and then finish my AC speedrun, so I'll probably never play it.

DAZ, I've heard that you can't replay story missions in Watch_Dogs. In order to make videos later, I'd like to backup savegames before each main mission. Do you have any advice on how to recognize when something interesting is about to happen? I mean the equivalent of assassinating a prime target.

As of yet, not quite. I do know of some really interesting missions in general though. The prison mission (Dressed In Peels) is really cool. I also recommend experimenting with ctOS Control Centers for videos. They're essentially the equivalents of Main Assassinations in terms of overall player freedom - you're just "assassinating" a server instead of an actual person. There are lots of guards, many ways to play with the AI there and each of them has a totally different and unique layout.

ugh. seems true. I mean, how hard is it to implement? Ubi has done it with all the recent AC games... maybe throw in a NG+... At least Watch_Dogs has variable difficulty.

Double McStab's first impressions review:

I've put 7 hours into this game and have done very little of the main story. I only remember doing 3 missions so far.

Oh wait, 4 missions so far (out of 39). I did 3 in the first 3 hours (you start the game with Mission 1, so no going around that, but then the world opens up). I haven't tried to explore all of Chicago yet, but I'm taking my time to explore things before advancing. This has the added perk of allowing me to upgrade skills before moving into the story.

You can't max your skills early in the game, because you need to advance in the story before doing so, which makes sense.

But there's so much content here that there is no need to advance the story yet until I get board. I still haven't even tried all the mini-games, of which there are plenty.

I didn't enjoy Far Cry 3 at all either. I agree: too much marker chasing. It wasn't fun getting from place to place, just annoying.

Maybe I don't get it, but isn't that all that AC is these days though? Objective marker chasing? Pretty damn hard to find the right small island in AC4 without that objective marker...

I give you that, there is objective chasing in most games now.

The difference I attribute is that it is less fun in Far Cry 3. AC, you can always make detours, chase that Borgia messenger, harrass those guards. Far Cry 3, you have to keep pulling out the map to make sure you took the right turn on the road. I dislike running through the jungle because I always hit the area with 3 or 4 tigers that then pounce on me and get me dead quick. Kind of like AC4 at some points... I hate those tigers and crocs.... I despised that South Carolina mission even more. Yet to pull AC4 back out since that mission....

The journey has to be fun. I prefer the cities of AC because I can go any which way I want, and have fun taking out any guards I feel like along the way. Probably why AC2 has the most playtime for me of any Open World game I have. Red Dead Redemption, haven't sunk enough hours into, but I enjoy riding my horse around because I get adequate warning of most dangers, and its only that annoying Puma that can 1HK me.

I would say that this is a problem that AC4 has, although it is not as severe as FC3. I just don't like the Wilderness of AC3, probably why I never finished AC3....

Thanks for the insight.

I honestly don't play enough games to know the differences. Thanks for explaining some of them when it comes to "Objective Marker Chasing."

That sad, I loved turning off the HUD and getting lost in AC3's frontier. I mean, sure, I could have gone outside, but that requires exercise.

Yeah, I can see that. Myself, I am an objective-oriented player. For example, after I finished all of the major quest lines for Fallout 3, I stopped playing because I like having an objective, a story to explore. Some games I can get lost in; AC2 and ACB, I would just randomly do stuff. But, I like to do the story of a game too much to do that for too long. Mass Effect, I mainly stuck to the story and only explored planets in so far as to get resources; Skyrim I mainly explored just to do more quests. Some games are suited for that type of playstyle, others aren't. AC3's sprawling frontier didn't play well with me (and I disliked Conner).

I really should dig into why I am fine with the naval portions of AC4, because theoretically that should be the same as AC3's frontier...

Why do so many people book holidays to the Caribbean, but so few go to the woodlands of North America?
Seriously, answer that and check for yourself whether that's the reason you prefer AC4's naval over AC3's frontier, because for me, it is.

That's why I haven't completed it 5 times in a row.

Pretty much, when I did the first one I didn't even need to go in, was able to compete it while I was outside~
I was the perfect ghost...! :3

But yeah the content the game has is enormous!!! I just reached the first CtOS center and I've been in the game for 7-8 hours just running around doing the side stuff~ xDDD
Haven't tried the online stuff yet but from what I've been told it's quite something... =0

What's this I hear about 'towers' being a direct clone from AC? To reveal the map or what?

Also, I don't mean to bring down anyone's spirits about this game, but the Steam reviews are just awful. Could be that's just a PC thing though, as most of the complaints were about Uplay or issues with graphics. The only positive reviews I saw were: "Hey, at least it's not Games for Windows Live." and "Stole $220 from a guy diagnosed with cancer. 10/10"
I'm not going to buy it (yet). Everyone here seems positive about it though, so that's good.

I heard the PC version isn't the best version to play on, but the Uplay issues have been on all systems (I heard they fixed it a few days ago, though). One big issue I was told was that the crowds in cities are sparse. It's not a "living" city as expected, but I doubt it's as bad as the Batman games.

The UPlay issue(Which always occurs with big ubi games) did indeed get fixed, though the PC issue is still a thing...
The lack of optimization made it a bit demanding unless you newest specs, and even then keeping with the ultra settings requires you to lower some things...
But other then that it isn't as bad people make it out to be...

The CtOS towers reveal collectibles, the map is exposed otherwise so you can finish the game without touching 'em~

The Multiplayer is literally the best part of the entire game. I'm 97.8%
Get back to you guys in a few hours.

I've done them all this way... which is why I wish you could replay them... although this is my preferred method of playing, i'd like to see if i could do it guns-blazing or stealthily killing them all... but for my actual playthrough of the game, I'll continue doing it how I think it should be done... sneaky. (plus, it's more fun to figure out the puzzle, in my opinion).

Yup, pretty much why I've been sticking to them like that~ :3

I managed to play for about an hour on my friend's PS4. I accidentally unlocked a tower within 10 minutes (I was really just messing with camera hacking until I got curious). Pretty good controls as well. I'll definitely try picking it up soon.

Hey DAZ... It's been one week...

How did Ubi screw this up... watch the grenade/water glitch at the 2 minute mark of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqBJZjDiCjE

The side content (which can all be saved until you beat the story) is all good for making videos... convoys, gang hideouts, ctOS centers, etc... but mostly the gang hideouts.

As for story missions, there are a couple (I'm still very early in the game). Dressed in Peels, as mentioned by DAZ, is one to save before... it's before you go to the prison. I haven't progressed much in the story so I'm unsure on others, but here's a list.

Thanks for the Tip (Act 1, Mission 8ish)
Dressed in Peels (Act 1, Mission 11ish)
Collateral (Act 2, Mission 4ish)
Jury-Rigged (Act 2, Mission 7ish)

And that's as far as I am. I left out the car chase missions. These are the missions I think leave room for creativity/stealth. You can hack, fire-fight, stealth kill, blow up with grenades, etc. Lots of options in these missions.

Everything McStab just said is golden, I can verify.

Thanks for the tip, Cheese.

I did a mission called Backstage Pass that seemed pretty interesting. My real-life friend StarkRavenous says he completed the whole thing by hacking cameras. I chose to go in with pure stealth - no distractions or lures.

Finally caved last night during the Rangers-Kings game and bought ang began downloading in one of the many intermissions. I haven't played much yet, but here are my immediate thoughts and reactions:

1) It plays much more like GTA than Assassin's Creed. Perhaps it's because you drive cars and shoot guns (Edward aside, we haven't really had much firearms exposure in AC).

2) The police are fantastic drivers and pretty much know where you are at all times. Perhaps upgrading my driving skill tree to allow me to hack more stuff as I drive and create more diversions will help.

3) Honestly, this game might take me the most time to get used to playing. There's just so much going on that I have never really been exposed to. There are so many ways to scout an area without ever physically moving that I'm still trying to figure it all out.

4) There is a LOT of side content, but for the most part I'm currently terrible at it. As mentioned above with the driving, somehow a police helicopter showed up and I had no hope of escaping. Learning the city and how to use other stuff will make this easier, I'd imagine. Then there are missions where you're supposed to intervene when people are doing bad things, but I'm still a little confused as to when I'm supposed to get involved. One time today I was in hiding waiting for the "villain" to show up and then the dickwad appeared right behind me and fled.

So, in short, I expect I'll enjoy this game. Friends that own it and know what type of gamer I am have told me as much. But I haven't figured out enough of the basic controls of the game to come around yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO1iixTMejA

Well, so much for the chance of me every buying this game.

Turns out I was infinitely better yesterday at the game than I was on Saturday. Seeing as how I didn't do anything videogame related in between the two sessions, I'm chalking it up to one of those brutal days of videogaming where one is best advised to just turn off the console and go do something else. So I played tennis instead.

successor would imply something replacing something else, wouldn't it? IMO Watch Dogs has about as much similarity to AC as Far Cry 3 does. It's just a typical structure for Ubisoft open world games, now.

I had the impression we would be seeing Watch_Dogs videos on this forum after it came out, and it's been a while, so...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6D0OwR6960#t=94s

I still haven't finished the story... My capture equipment isn't set up because I'm moving soon... [third excuse here]... blame DAZ for promising content and giving us nothing.

but, if this can hold you over, there's this gamefail i recorded on my phone (which I've posted elsewhere on THB already):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sv6ll4TbHs

I'm trying to get through the game slowly but steadily. It's fun, but not very engaging. With the ability to hack things, it doesn't really allow for a lot of cool-looking stealth runs. I've completed missions just by finding an isolated spot and hacking cameras until I complete the mission, then I drive to the next mission where I do the same thing.

I'm sure other players can make this game appealing to watch, but if I tried making videos out of it, it wouldn't be as interesting. I'll probably sell it towards my PS4 along with my other games.

Best way to do some fun stealth things would be to take down a Gang Hideout target without killing any of its other members or being seen by them. That would involve the use of the cameras to blow up things as distractions, then run past them.

Nah, F that. headshots all the way,

I prefer non-lethal takedowns. It's the only way that W_D really feels like a stealth game, even with silenced headshots on everyone.

I WOULD have recorded gameplay but prenatual is literally covering every single idea I had. And I DID post about that and right now that thread has ZERO replies haha

That said yeah, I am kind of to blame, and I accept like 50%ish of that blame.

(Prenatual still did it better and if you're not watching his ridiculous game-breaking playthrough you're missing out. Seriously.)

Prenatual also has a video where he speedruns all 15 Gang Hideouts without taking down anyone except the main target, and with minimal hacks/distractions.

but where are your extensive topics on story and non-story gameplay mechanics?

Yeah, but you get more experience for headshotting every gang member, don't you?

Except for [Focus], [Disrupt Helicopter] and [Bullet Resistance], getting Skill Points is not very important in Watch_Dogs. Also I was already 50/50 before the middle of Act 3.

http://puu.sh/9VbWv/2b2c9cc486.jpg
Might as well.

Special thanks to Double McStab - halfway between forcing my hand, halfway between reminding me enough times that I actually remember to DO MY JOB >:)

although i haven't played it yet... the Alone Digital Trip might be another place where videos are possible with speedruns, no detections, etc