Sulphur on 21/4/2008 at 17:44

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Just noticed the memory requirements now. That's even more ridiculous than the rest of the recommended spec.

Does it really need 3 whole honking gigs of RAM? 'cause if that's the case, then this port job is a little too over-reaching (read: lazy) for its own good.

Rogue Keeper on 22/4/2008 at 09:47

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Tell me more, so I can be sure I'm not missing much.

Hier on 22/4/2008 at 13:43

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Alright, you have a beautiful world. Several huge cities, all packed with people, and your character can move around very much like in the Prince of Persia games. Running up walls, jumping from ledge to ledge, climbing towers, etc. You've got the agility of a monkey. But the actual mechanics of running from roof to roof are grossly simplified--you just hold down two particular buttons and then run in the direction you want to go, all jumps and grabs and swings and such will be done automatically.

Now I don't think that by itself would be enough to kill the game, but it certainly doesn't help. Moving around the cities becomes boring very quickly, made worse by the fact that a huge city just looks the same throughout. The almost-complete lack of any real landmarks or direction means you'll constantly be checking the map to see which direction you're headed. You'll never--or at least I never--found a particular location that struck me as familiar, I never once thought "Oh, I've been here before, okay I know which way I'm facing". And I'm usually pretty good at directional awareness in games.

Now onto the missions. This is the part that absolutely kills the game. Before each assassination contract you need to complete a few mini-missions. These are incredibly boring and so grossly repetitive. Listen in on a conversation here, kill a few guards there. They're just chores. There are also optional sub-missions, like rescue citizens in distress (every single one is <i>exactly the same!!</i>), climb every tower in the city (yes, really), and so on. The developers even scattered hidden prizes around the world in the form of hundreds of little flags, I guess you get a special achievement for collecting them all.

Over top of the whole thing is the stupidest AI you've ever seen. You can easily wander around the city killing guards, civilians, beggars, anyone you want. There is a nominal penalty for killing civvies in the form of a health hit, but if you're a "good boy" for a few seconds your health regenerates. And if you're ever caught by the guards, no biggie. Just kill the guards chasing you or duck into a hiding place for a few seconds, and system reset.

BTW, there are dozens of hiding places all over the city, but they take only 4 forms. A bench you can sit on between two strangers, a stack of hay you can jump in, a rooftop gazebo type building, or a wandering group of scholars you can meld with. That's it, that's all. The hype for the game involved blending with a crowd to evade your pursuers, but that's a complete joke.

The assassination missions themselves are a bit more varied, but not much. I've only completed three. They're short, each take only about 10 mins max (which is why the developers filled the rest of the game with boring crap). I haven't yet found any need for creativity or stealth. You just walk up to (or fight your way to) your target, stab him, endure a weird cutscene conversation, and then run away.

Frame all this with a cheesy flashback storyline where you're in the present day, being forced to relive memories of an ancestor. At one point at the start of the game you're yanked out of the game world so your character can <i>go to sleep</i>. One of the stupidest narrative decisions I've ever seen in any game.

Basically, the game is a fantastic tech demo and is good for impressing people. You'll like running around the cities for the first hour. But when you realize just how boring the gameplay is, just how shallow the world is, you'll stop playing, just as I did. It's a huge shame, I hate seeing such wasted potential. And I honestly can't say I've ever seen a bigger waste of potential than this game. Yes, I would compare it to the biggest disappointments I've had in my entire gaming experience. Compared to this, Deus Ex 2 is a masterpiece.

Talgor on 22/4/2008 at 16:32

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La la la. I'm happy to say that I enjoyed AC so much I'm going through it a second time straight now, having finished it once already. It's interesting looking through the comments and seeing how many of the bits that I thought were especially good are considered to be the BAD points of the game... Feels like you're trying to play some completely different game altogether... ;)

Hier on 22/4/2008 at 23:08

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Hmm, I haven't experienced any lockups. The game runs really smoothly actually, far better than I expected given that it's a console port and the published system requirements. It runs better than BioShock on my machine.

The menu system is really annoying though, particularly when exiting the game.