• worlds_okayest_mech_pilot [he/him]
      ·
      9 months ago

      Yeah but counterpoint: the Assassin aesthetic was the only thing that kept the 2007-2013 military bro shooters at bay. Plus social stealth is a genre that really needs to come back because I love stealth games.

      • ashinadash [she/her]
        ·
        9 months ago

        Boy, shouldn't we be so thankful that Assassin's Creed "kept the bro shooters at bay" so that Ubisoft could refine the vomitous open-world sandbox slop in time so that the industry could pivot to that after Far Cry became massive. As far as games that were an antidote to modern military shooters, I'd have picked the Bioshock games, Saint's Row or Stalker myself.

        Assassins Creed has only ever come close to being a stealth game with Unity, which is really weird. That's the closest the series ever got to the Hitman-style closed playground though, plus the climbing mechanics actually sort of worked. I am forever baffled that Unity is the only good one shrug-outta-hecks

        • worlds_okayest_mech_pilot [he/him]
          ·
          9 months ago

          The difference is that Bioshock, Saint's Row, and Stalker are all actually good games.

          Ubisoft has no intention of churning out anything but hot garbage, so I'd rather my hot garbage look like Assassin's Creed than Tom Clancy. I was busy playing Metal Gear Solid and Ace Combat anyway, so I just liked seeing the cool Assassin coats. Plus I'll take "you fistfight the pope" over "the Russians and Chinese have teamed up to declare war on freedom because they're evil."

          Also, Unity is only a decent stealth game imo because it added a crouch button and actually tried to make the level layout promote stealth and hiding. I miss the AC era where they tried to put an emphasis on hiding in crowds and using distractions, even if it was complete dogshit because the games were ass.

          • ashinadash [she/her]
            ·
            9 months ago

            Idk, I like Bioshock as a setting and for dunking on Ayn Rand, but as a game it's kind of an offensively poor facsimile of the first System shock =)

            They used to make good games though, like I enjoyed the reboot Prince of Persias and all, but Assassin's Creed kind of layed the groundwork for their open world trash era. I'd also rather have a game that looks like Chaos Theory or Double Agent than the first Assassin's Creed's goofy blue filter all over it. AC does at least have better politics than a chud shooter, and I can appreciate some Fuck The Church sentiment.

            Crouch was so desperately needed, why did that take them so long? I really liked Unity's big crowds that would panic and disperse, it felt like more of a challenge than just hiring courtesans or monks in AC 1 or 2. I really felt that Unity is the only time they did any of this right, and then they ditched it a year later because lol

    • TraumaDumpling
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      nuclear take incoming, defcon 5: assassin's creed 3 was the best in the series and the entire series is pretty ok, like 7/10.

      meltdown take contained behind spoiler

      assassin's creed 4 was the worst one of the series, the parkour is worse than AC3 for trees and wilderness and every city is like a tiny town with 20 buildings. dual wielding 2 long-ish swords of the same length is stupid, the boats were boring and grindy despite being kinda interesting at first, and despite the fact that the cover shows this you cannot wield both a sword and a flintlock like a real poirate.

      • ashinadash [she/her]
        ·
        9 months ago

        I didn't finish 3 but it didn't strike me as dramatically different from the others?

        And counterpoint: being a pirate is funny. The climbing is worse but it also hadn't ever been good to that point; it was kind of okay in AC1 and it declined in quality over the next few games as it moved toward a "just hold right trigger to climb" philosophy. I understand that climbing needed to change from the Prince of Persia method because that kind of system was designed for linear levels and AC needed open worlds, but they started badly and fucked it up worse lol.

        The boats are kind of grindy but I liked them anyway, it was way more interesting than the mandatory side mission bs in the first couple AC games or having to run/horseride across the world to get to it. AC4 was goofy but I was in full support of AC not being its usual dogshit self, tbh.