I was actually really hyped for Assassin's Creed when I was announced. The more I saw of it, the more awesome it looked. And then I got my hands on it, and it did meet my expectation.... for a while. For what I got in Assassin's Creed was a really uneven gaming experience. The thing I often think of when thinking back at the first game is how boring it got after a while. You just kept on doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. As the completionist I am, I had to do at least most of what the game offered, and that just got too tedious after a while. But the worst thing about it was how often you failed with the sense that it wasn't your fault, because of the controller. And that only added to the bore.
But then again, I had a lot of fun with it at times. I actually really like the story for example, one of the strongest reasons I play games, and the only reason I keep playing these games. I also really like Altaïr, a real bad ass assassin with an interesting story. Not to forget that, yeah, the feeling when you manage to sneak into a target's huge palace, to assassinate him without getting noticed, that feeling very very few games can match.
All in all, Assassin's Creed was a flawed game, but the good sides turned it to a still fun experience. The three next games improved a lot but at times not at all. Let me explain.
The Ezio triology (Two, Brotherhood and Revelations) is improvement from game to game, but is still missing the big one, the controller. The second was not even remotely as monotone as the first game, therefore it was never as boring as the first game. In return we got Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and I do not like him. He is not cool, anywhere, mostly because he let's him emotions get the better of him. Nothing wrong with emotional characters, characters that cares, but as long as they can control their emotions and be cool about it. And Ezio clearly can't.
Besides that, the second game, while not as monotone as the first, didn't change much else from the first game, gameplaywise, something that Brotherhood instead did. Here you can recruit and train assassins, and then send them on missions. A lot of other thing changed with Brotherhood, such as the diversity in the missions and optional objectives in all missions, which made for a much more fun game that lasted longer with a higher replay value. With that said, the controller still didn't do what you wanted it to, and Ezio was still a wuss.
Gladly, that was something that Revelations took care of. It featured an older and, in my opinion, much cooler Ezio. It also added new gameplay elements and made of an even more pleasant experience.
With that said... The controller still sucks. So bad. It works fine, most of the times, then you have time to think about what you want to do, but often you have to hurry because your chasing someone of are being chased yourself, and in those situations, I find the controller often doing things I don't want it to. And in a game that depends so much on platforming, the controller needs to always to what you need it to. To not make a jump in Super Mario because you suck is one thing, but to not make it because the controller didn't do what you told it to do, that can't happen.I have not played Assassin's Creed III. Yet. I can most definitely say that I will, because even though I don't get it, something keeps me coming back, but only in small bursts. After playing the second for a while, I got bored of it and put it on the shelf, only to come back to it, play through it all, and start directly with Brotherhood. Same there, after a while I got bored and left it alone for a while, before picking it up again and playing through it. Revelation is at the moment on hold after playing through almost half the game, but I will probably play through that as well, and the third as I said, maybe by the time the next one arrives. In any case, I am curious for what is to come in this series. even though I don't get it.
I found the first Assassin's Creed to be really poor. It had a great engine, controlled beautifully but was such an insufferable bore. Antoher thing that annoyed me was that the assassinations were set up in preview videos to seem like something out of the Hitman series where you could approach them anyway you like but it ended up that they were mostly scripted with only one right way to do them.
SvaraRaderaIt's amazing what adding a bit of variety to the game did for the second game which was such a staggering improvement. I'm still disappointed with the assassinations but they are still fun games, AC2 was quite the turnaround for the series!