Creo que mis ganas de jugar de nuevo este juego estaban tintadas con nostalgia. Después de todo, siempre fui un chico Nintendo, y el XBox360 fue mi primera consola no-Nintendo, y Assassin's Creed uno de los primeros juegos de este tipo que jugué.
Francamente, el juego está bien. La historia es interesante y los entornos son impresionantes. Incluso las primeras dos misiones o así son muy divertidas.
Pero todas las misiones son idénticas, al menos en cuanto a actividades a realizar, y se vuelve muy cansado muy pronto. Además el combate es terrible, y frustrante. Quizás sólo soy malo en el combate en este juego, pero nunca entendí al 100% cómo esquivar o contraatacar apropiadamente, incluso cuando estaba presionando los botones de forma adecuada.
Hay muy poco incentivo también para recolectar los coleccionables, ya que no aportan absolutamente nada... y salvar a los ciudadanos y escalar los miradores también pierde importancia una vez que tienes la barra completa de sincronización, y se vuelve sólo una tarea más.
No ayudó que me tomó media hora editar los controles al iniciar el juego, ya que jugué en SteamDeck y la versión para PC está llena de errores y los controles funcionan raro.
En fin. Me da gusto terminarlo, pero no creo jugarlo de nuevo nunca más.
Francamente, el juego está bien. La historia es interesante y los entornos son impresionantes. Incluso las primeras dos misiones o así son muy divertidas.
Pero todas las misiones son idénticas, al menos en cuanto a actividades a realizar, y se vuelve muy cansado muy pronto. Además el combate es terrible, y frustrante. Quizás sólo soy malo en el combate en este juego, pero nunca entendí al 100% cómo esquivar o contraatacar apropiadamente, incluso cuando estaba presionando los botones de forma adecuada.
Hay muy poco incentivo también para recolectar los coleccionables, ya que no aportan absolutamente nada... y salvar a los ciudadanos y escalar los miradores también pierde importancia una vez que tienes la barra completa de sincronización, y se vuelve sólo una tarea más.
No ayudó que me tomó media hora editar los controles al iniciar el juego, ya que jugué en SteamDeck y la versión para PC está llena de errores y los controles funcionan raro.
En fin. Me da gusto terminarlo, pero no creo jugarlo de nuevo nunca más.
Assassin's Creed is one of those cornerstones of gaming pop culture that shone through in the late 2000's. I would equate it to something like the early 2000's GTA III or the DOOM's of the mid-90's in terms of how much it shook up the gaming market. AC1 showed us that you can make very dense and detailed realistic worlds while also having intuitive and engaging mechanics. AC1 is also a hard game to recommend for many reasons today, the biggest one being that 2/3 of it's player base has a borderline terrible version of the game, and the 1/3 that got the "fixed" version has to deal with absurd amounts of technical issues (i.e UPlay DRM breaking because UPlay doesn't exist anymore). If one could get the game working on PC, you'll find a final draft of a still too rough game, saved by fluid mechanics and one of the best stories in gaming ever.
Assassin's Creed is a story about conspiracy and finding the truth in institutions corrupted by power. The dynamic of switching between the Third Crusade and the modern day United States is used efficiently and perfectly. Bartender Desmond Miles is kidnapped and finds himself strapped to a device that injects him into dream like sequences of the 12th Century Holy Lands. Upon awakening, Desmond is greeted by a scientist and his assistant, where they lay a heavy ultimatum: work with them or die. Desmond obviously agrees, so he's sent back in this Animus, back in the shoes of his ancestor: Assassin's Brotherhood member Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. Altair pulls a stunt that throws him back in the novice ranks of the Brotherhood and must follow a similar ultimatum to Desmond: submit to his duty of slaughtering nine targets or die. So both must work essentially brain to brain, present to memory, in order to take back their lives.
Let's start with Altair, as he is the main focus of the game. Altair starts as someone wanting to strike the iron while it's hot against the diametric force of the Brotherhood. The Templars are everything the Brotherhood isn't in philosophy, they wish to conquer the world, destroying and ravaging whatever is in their path in order to gain world order. They pride themselves on the colonization of the Holy Land, due to their shady use of King Richard of England. Altair jumps at their leader, Robert de Sable, and causes one of his assassin allies to die, and the other to lose an arm. Altair is punished for his recklessness at the hands of Grand Assassin Al Mualim. He's sent back down the ranks to novice and is given his aforementioned task. As he kills, he's granted a piece of equipment back and a rank back up.
Desmond is a snarky, sarcastic type (aptly voiced by Nolan North) with a shady family past. Very much intertwined with the modern day Assassin's Brotherhood in some way, the Abstergo Company sought him out to test The Animus device on him. Abstergo reflects the opinions of the earlier Templars, as they want control of what the Order deems weak minded. This doesn't sit well with Desmond, so he constantly clashes heads with Dr. Warren Vidic, the head of The Animus Program. Vidic also has an assistant, Lucy Stillman, and whenever he is out of earshot, Lucy explains her disillusionment of Abstergo after a friend and co-worker of her's was supposedly killed by them in the office. While Desmond's gameplay is VERY limited compared to Altair's, the conversations between the three are very lifelike, well written and convincing.
Both protagonists are interconnected not just by family, but by the similar goal to hunt the truth. Desmond is criticized as whiny, but if anyone was stuck in a random ass room with oppressive color grading they'd act the same too. Altair is an admittedly dangerous loose cannon at the beginning of the game, but when you take in consideration how he's brought up by the Brotherhood since childhood to take vengeance against the Templars without question, you understand why. Altair is punished for doing what he was told essentially, but this ends up with him introspecting in himself and in the others around him, both ally and target. He introspects on what the Assassin's Brotherhood means if all that is thrown at him is hypocrisy. He takes the Creed seriously, he's one of the few really well done stoic characters in video games, as he wants to live by the good he's been taught, and takes time to learn what his Creed means. He gives his targets time to explain themselves, and what could have been written as a simple "no you," every single target holds a similar view of the world that Altair desperately wants to call Al Mualim out on. There is so much more to talk about but I wouldn't want to spoil the plot. It is such a well written experience and I'm just shocked that one of the best written games I have ever played comes from fucking Ubisoft of all companies.
The raw presentation of this game is just breathtaking, the cities you go to (Masyaf, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus) are created in vivid detail. It feels like you are actively climbing pieces of architecture and are roaming cities that once really existed. The darker tone of the story is never compromised once, which is extremely commendable in a medium where it is easy to mess up that balance. Yet, I feel like in some ways the presentation of the game could be much better. The cutscenes might as well be radio dramas, with the way no attention was made to proper body language for these moments. Altair's dialogue cuts as deep as his blades, yet he just stands there plainly, sometimes picking up an object and never anything else. The target cutscenes are actually great though, and it makes you wonder why that love was never given to the rest of the game.
Altair's gameplay revolves around quick-footed traversal and easy to learn, but hard to master parkour systems. Should he be caught by guards, he can run and hide (either by blending with crowds or finding spots to lay low in) or fight back, but the latter will end up with him overrun at most points in the endgame. The main issue people have with AC1 is the repetition, which we know the story on why that's the case, as Ubisoft scrambled together poorly thought out side content at the last minute after being told the game was concerningly short, kind of blemishing the otherwise seamless and fast game it originally was. Ubisoft released this Director's Cut for PC and let me tell you the difference is night and day. While the game still does have slower jobs like pickpocketing, eavesdropping and tailing, the selection of jobs has been increased to add footraces to informants, assassinations, and mass distractions. Furthermore, the player can decide when to go on their main assassination now after 2-3 jobs now, making half of the content purely contextual unless you aren't confident without those 3-4 extra pieces of info. I can't describe how much this fixes most gameplay issues. Altair's gameplay now feels less like a slog, and more like living Altair's duties now.
Mechanically I feel like this game hasn't aged. The parkour feels great as it really feels like I had control over every aspect of Altair's movement. There isn't so much stealth in this game as much as it is quick thinking with the sandbox. If you see an enemy spot you, you can move away from them, throw a knife at them, sword fight them quick, or throw them off of a ledge and all of it works seamlessly. Carelessness will cause a massive influx of enemies to chase you constantly, so it is very much necessary to be as careful as you can be.
If I had one complaint about the game's core systems, it would be the swordplay, it's just boring, and I can't tell if Ubisoft made it that way on purpose to make players avoid confrontation in lieu of fast escapes or quick timing. I'd be inclined to think otherwise because there isn't anything inherently wrong with it, its fluid to work with just like the rest of the game's systems, it just so happens to be a drag to do. It sucks that the last hour of this game was just sword fights over and over again.
I found myself surprised with how much I loved this version of AC1. It just sucks that the general perception of this game is now tarnished from the really crappy console version. The PC version has it's big issues to, but I'd be less likely to drop a feature complete, sometimes buggy game, than a boring rushed mess of ideas. I'd urge AC fans on PC to play this once. It hurts to say, but if you are on console, just skip this one.
Assassin's Creed is a story about conspiracy and finding the truth in institutions corrupted by power. The dynamic of switching between the Third Crusade and the modern day United States is used efficiently and perfectly. Bartender Desmond Miles is kidnapped and finds himself strapped to a device that injects him into dream like sequences of the 12th Century Holy Lands. Upon awakening, Desmond is greeted by a scientist and his assistant, where they lay a heavy ultimatum: work with them or die. Desmond obviously agrees, so he's sent back in this Animus, back in the shoes of his ancestor: Assassin's Brotherhood member Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. Altair pulls a stunt that throws him back in the novice ranks of the Brotherhood and must follow a similar ultimatum to Desmond: submit to his duty of slaughtering nine targets or die. So both must work essentially brain to brain, present to memory, in order to take back their lives.
Let's start with Altair, as he is the main focus of the game. Altair starts as someone wanting to strike the iron while it's hot against the diametric force of the Brotherhood. The Templars are everything the Brotherhood isn't in philosophy, they wish to conquer the world, destroying and ravaging whatever is in their path in order to gain world order. They pride themselves on the colonization of the Holy Land, due to their shady use of King Richard of England. Altair jumps at their leader, Robert de Sable, and causes one of his assassin allies to die, and the other to lose an arm. Altair is punished for his recklessness at the hands of Grand Assassin Al Mualim. He's sent back down the ranks to novice and is given his aforementioned task. As he kills, he's granted a piece of equipment back and a rank back up.
Desmond is a snarky, sarcastic type (aptly voiced by Nolan North) with a shady family past. Very much intertwined with the modern day Assassin's Brotherhood in some way, the Abstergo Company sought him out to test The Animus device on him. Abstergo reflects the opinions of the earlier Templars, as they want control of what the Order deems weak minded. This doesn't sit well with Desmond, so he constantly clashes heads with Dr. Warren Vidic, the head of The Animus Program. Vidic also has an assistant, Lucy Stillman, and whenever he is out of earshot, Lucy explains her disillusionment of Abstergo after a friend and co-worker of her's was supposedly killed by them in the office. While Desmond's gameplay is VERY limited compared to Altair's, the conversations between the three are very lifelike, well written and convincing.
Both protagonists are interconnected not just by family, but by the similar goal to hunt the truth. Desmond is criticized as whiny, but if anyone was stuck in a random ass room with oppressive color grading they'd act the same too. Altair is an admittedly dangerous loose cannon at the beginning of the game, but when you take in consideration how he's brought up by the Brotherhood since childhood to take vengeance against the Templars without question, you understand why. Altair is punished for doing what he was told essentially, but this ends up with him introspecting in himself and in the others around him, both ally and target. He introspects on what the Assassin's Brotherhood means if all that is thrown at him is hypocrisy. He takes the Creed seriously, he's one of the few really well done stoic characters in video games, as he wants to live by the good he's been taught, and takes time to learn what his Creed means. He gives his targets time to explain themselves, and what could have been written as a simple "no you," every single target holds a similar view of the world that Altair desperately wants to call Al Mualim out on. There is so much more to talk about but I wouldn't want to spoil the plot. It is such a well written experience and I'm just shocked that one of the best written games I have ever played comes from fucking Ubisoft of all companies.
The raw presentation of this game is just breathtaking, the cities you go to (Masyaf, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus) are created in vivid detail. It feels like you are actively climbing pieces of architecture and are roaming cities that once really existed. The darker tone of the story is never compromised once, which is extremely commendable in a medium where it is easy to mess up that balance. Yet, I feel like in some ways the presentation of the game could be much better. The cutscenes might as well be radio dramas, with the way no attention was made to proper body language for these moments. Altair's dialogue cuts as deep as his blades, yet he just stands there plainly, sometimes picking up an object and never anything else. The target cutscenes are actually great though, and it makes you wonder why that love was never given to the rest of the game.
Altair's gameplay revolves around quick-footed traversal and easy to learn, but hard to master parkour systems. Should he be caught by guards, he can run and hide (either by blending with crowds or finding spots to lay low in) or fight back, but the latter will end up with him overrun at most points in the endgame. The main issue people have with AC1 is the repetition, which we know the story on why that's the case, as Ubisoft scrambled together poorly thought out side content at the last minute after being told the game was concerningly short, kind of blemishing the otherwise seamless and fast game it originally was. Ubisoft released this Director's Cut for PC and let me tell you the difference is night and day. While the game still does have slower jobs like pickpocketing, eavesdropping and tailing, the selection of jobs has been increased to add footraces to informants, assassinations, and mass distractions. Furthermore, the player can decide when to go on their main assassination now after 2-3 jobs now, making half of the content purely contextual unless you aren't confident without those 3-4 extra pieces of info. I can't describe how much this fixes most gameplay issues. Altair's gameplay now feels less like a slog, and more like living Altair's duties now.
Mechanically I feel like this game hasn't aged. The parkour feels great as it really feels like I had control over every aspect of Altair's movement. There isn't so much stealth in this game as much as it is quick thinking with the sandbox. If you see an enemy spot you, you can move away from them, throw a knife at them, sword fight them quick, or throw them off of a ledge and all of it works seamlessly. Carelessness will cause a massive influx of enemies to chase you constantly, so it is very much necessary to be as careful as you can be.
If I had one complaint about the game's core systems, it would be the swordplay, it's just boring, and I can't tell if Ubisoft made it that way on purpose to make players avoid confrontation in lieu of fast escapes or quick timing. I'd be inclined to think otherwise because there isn't anything inherently wrong with it, its fluid to work with just like the rest of the game's systems, it just so happens to be a drag to do. It sucks that the last hour of this game was just sword fights over and over again.
I found myself surprised with how much I loved this version of AC1. It just sucks that the general perception of this game is now tarnished from the really crappy console version. The PC version has it's big issues to, but I'd be less likely to drop a feature complete, sometimes buggy game, than a boring rushed mess of ideas. I'd urge AC fans on PC to play this once. It hurts to say, but if you are on console, just skip this one.