TA Playlist Wrap-up: Assassin’s Creed

When I played AC1 back in the day the gameplay was very good, but ultimately the repetitive missions and collectible-grindfest really turned me down. A few years later a friend convinced me that to try AC2 - and what a great game it was. That game was the starting point for me to play the series for a long time until I lost interest around the time Origins came out. I think a lot of people agree that AC2 really saved Assassins Creed and is one of the main reasons it's an established franchise now. Without it, AC1 would just be an obscure game like so many others.

Brb, gonna vandalise the page by changing every word in it to ‘flag’.

I would say of all of the AC I've played so far, this would be the second worst, after the actually bad AC Liberation: HD. This first game isn't bad per se, but even for a series that some consider very repetitive and the same game over and over, this was very repetitive, with you repeating a lot of the same missions over and over.

Once AC II came out, it was just a gigantic improvement. I say all that as someone who didn't get to this series until years later. Looks like I didn't start the series until 2016. Currently playing Black Flag, so I'm only I think about halfway through the series at this point?

The wrap up is a treat like always! Huge thanks for the commitment. And thank you playlist for also making me finish this game after several years.

Nice wrap-up. I'll be going back to read some of the others.

I still remember looking endlessly at the gameinformer issue that showed this game. I had just got my first 360 and mainly only played halo/cod so this game was a new thing completely for me. Fell in love instantly and I am glad that I went back a couple of years ago and got the completion. Some of the not so fun things aside, I do wish they would return to the story telling and history of this period of the series. It was some of the best.

ChiflaGoodluck said:The word flag for every flag we were tortured with collecting!

Great wrap-up to a great game.

Played the game nine years ago and got all the achievements except for the collectibles and wasn't going to go back and spend time on those all these years later. But it's cool to see the wrap up and read the comments from people.

AC for me, started off as a great series that ultimately lost its way. The story became so convoluted and scattered. I do enjoy the core gameplay loop. I haven’t played any from Origins on but I’m thinking about jumping back in to Origins at some point. The Ubisoft formula just got a little stale for me.

Great article! I came late to this game, only finishing it in 2020, and I though I do like the Ezio games more, I think it's brilliant. The things it did were so trendsetting that it feels strikingly modern for a 2007 release. I really love the Middle East setting too and I'm excited that the next game is rumored to return there.

Ooh! Challenge accepted!

XboxFreak36 said:Haha, yeah, this is a stat I'll be watching from now on whenever we pick an older game!

KJer25 said:Isn't Origins when the series changed a lot?

I played this back in the day on PS3 but never beat it. In 2017 I finally sat down and did it on 360. Back when I replayed it I recall being VERY impressed by NPC density, draw distance, and world building. It has major flaws like an overabundance of collectibles and repetitive mission structures but the bones were solid.

Being an outspoken critic of modern Ubisoft, the ending depressed me because they were gearing up for a succinct trilogy which became overburdened by a desire to keep the franchise alive.

A shame we never got that true trilogy.

EarthboundX said:For sure. I’ve never played it though. I hear it’s more ARPG now, so seems like that’d be fun. It’s just grinding I hear is awful in Odyssey and Valhalla is supposedly bloated/filler.

KJer25 said:I could handle the grinding in Odyssey. At least Cassandra was charming and held the story.

Valhalla, I’ve never been more disappointed in a game. I love anything Vikings. And absolutely adore the AC series (it’s in my top 3 gaming franchises). So combining Vikings and AC should’ve been an instant GotY for me. But what we got was just so, I don’t know, just devoid of soul is the only way to describe it. It was a lifeless world, with a bloated grind, and a cardboard protagonist.

Same thing happened with Watch Dogs Legion. Ubisoft used to be accused of cookie cutting year over year, but at least they were consistent in delivering descent games, with somewhat serviceable stories. But their last few titles just scream of a developer that’s given up caring on making these titles, and just doing it for the pay check.

EarthboundX said:For me, between Revelations and AC3 the feel of the games changed from being more sandbox-y, in the sense of, you could try stealth, but if you fail and get detected you can usually fight everyone and still pass the mission anyway, to being super constrained and demanding that you do the mission the exact way the devs expect, and any mistake means an instant desync. That sucked the fun out of AC3 and Black Flag for me.

Origins, despite the gameplay being different, the mission structure to me felt more like the Altair and Ezio games in that you have the freedom to experiment and/or mess up on you way to the goal but still ultimately pass the mission, rather than the game having a million fail states for not doing everything exactly right.

Respect. I picked the game up cause of TA Playlist but never was too interested to complete or progress but glad its in the library