This does not work.
This is definitely a tech-demo. There's no way this is a full game. This is a proof of concept. This is an early-access pre-alpha build for a Steam indie game.
How DARE this game be this long?!
And how dare the environment be this open?! There's nothing in it!
You know how we say a game is "unfinished" when it's buggy and stuff. But this game is barely even started. WHO SAID THEY COULD RELEASE THIS?!
These guys have never seen a cutscene before.
These guys have never played a stealth game before.
This color grading sort of works in what it wants to do, but everything looks so fucking boring.
They're lucky they put the game on the Revelations disc for free 'cause if I paid money for this game I'd legitimately burn their offices down.
This gameplay sucks.
It probably has the worst basics tutorial.
The traversal is a good starting point, especially for 2007, but it is SO SLOW! And it's not even slow as in just physically slow, it's almost never smooth. You climb up a building because it looks like you should be able to climb up it, and then Altaïr stops halfway up because he can't climb the rest of the building, even though it legitimately looked just like the bottom part of the building, and very much looked like you should be able to climb it, so you have to slowly shimmy your way to the side and climb another part of the building while people are throwing rocks and shooting arrows at you. Fun. Sometimes I might hold the stick a bit to the left, because the left thumb's axis is on the left, and Altaïr will just shoot out to the left and die.
The goal in this game is to get from point A to point B, and then listen to a boring-ass conversation, and then get from B to C, and hit a button, and then go to another C, and then another C, and then walk back to B, and then go to D, hit a button, and then walk back to B, and then back to A, and do it again, and again, and again. And while there are different B's and C's, they still look and play exactly the same. D is the only thing that sort of changes enough to not feel too monotonous.
This structure could be really interesting, if it wasn't for the fact that every segment of the game is the same as the rest. And there is some beauty in its simplicity, but there's also boredom.
Oh, side quests? You want me to do side quests? You want me to collect 420 flags? Hehe... HAHA... HAHAHAHAHAH! You fucking idiots. Why in the FUCK would I do that?
And also, there are just random-ass pedestrians whose only goal in life is to push you. Fuck them. Fuck whoever programmed that shit. It does nothing but annoy me.
Informer Assassinations reset if you get discovered. Even if you kill both, and then bump into a fucker two feet from the informer, that will reset the whole thing and you have to kill both again.
There's a part where you have to jump across small boats and posts to get to a ship to assassinate a guy. What happens if you touch the water? Instant death. INSTANT DEATH!
I'm sure that, if this was the first game of the generation that you tried out, it probably blew your mind, but this is not a game. It is a "wow, this is so cool" experience demo for the new generation. But it isn't new anymore.
Now, I'm not gonna lie. Desmond's story is fucking gold. It is gold. I love the atmosphere of it. And even Altaïr's story goes hard towards the end.
I don't like that Desmond can't go faster than a slow walk, but that's the gameplay aspect again, and you just have to deal, because this is the most interesting part of the game.
I honestly couldn't remember if I had finished this game before this replay, until I hit the credits and instantly remembered the absolute perplexity and stupefaction I felt at how jarringly this game ends, and I had the same experience this time. These guys were on some other shit. You really have to get past the disappointment of the ending before you can really appreciate how fucking ludicrous it is.
As a storytelling technique, I absolutely love it, but fucking tell a story, assholes.
If I could have the atmosphere and story of this, with the smoother and faster and just more polished gameplay of the sequels, then great. But I can't.
Great storytelling, great world-building.
3/10. I love this game.
It's this dilemma. Between knowing that I love the story and atmosphere and everything like that, but also knowing that I did not have fun playing the actual game part of it.
But, now knowing how much I enjoy the last couple of hours of this game, I definitely have to replay it at some point, hoping that, just by having that knowledge, it'll be without the first hours of boredom. But it'll be after I replay all the other AC games, so it'll definitely also be more jarring. So, it loses anyway.
But all this makes sense because the Animus was made by Templars.
Gameplay is a 2/10, everything else is a 7, nearing an 8. I hate splitting ratings up like that because that's not a thing, that's not how this works, but I have to with this fuck.
8/10 tech-demo. 3/10 game.
This is definitely a tech-demo. There's no way this is a full game. This is a proof of concept. This is an early-access pre-alpha build for a Steam indie game.
How DARE this game be this long?!
And how dare the environment be this open?! There's nothing in it!
You know how we say a game is "unfinished" when it's buggy and stuff. But this game is barely even started. WHO SAID THEY COULD RELEASE THIS?!
These guys have never seen a cutscene before.
These guys have never played a stealth game before.
This color grading sort of works in what it wants to do, but everything looks so fucking boring.
They're lucky they put the game on the Revelations disc for free 'cause if I paid money for this game I'd legitimately burn their offices down.
This gameplay sucks.
It probably has the worst basics tutorial.
The traversal is a good starting point, especially for 2007, but it is SO SLOW! And it's not even slow as in just physically slow, it's almost never smooth. You climb up a building because it looks like you should be able to climb up it, and then Altaïr stops halfway up because he can't climb the rest of the building, even though it legitimately looked just like the bottom part of the building, and very much looked like you should be able to climb it, so you have to slowly shimmy your way to the side and climb another part of the building while people are throwing rocks and shooting arrows at you. Fun. Sometimes I might hold the stick a bit to the left, because the left thumb's axis is on the left, and Altaïr will just shoot out to the left and die.
The goal in this game is to get from point A to point B, and then listen to a boring-ass conversation, and then get from B to C, and hit a button, and then go to another C, and then another C, and then walk back to B, and then go to D, hit a button, and then walk back to B, and then back to A, and do it again, and again, and again. And while there are different B's and C's, they still look and play exactly the same. D is the only thing that sort of changes enough to not feel too monotonous.
This structure could be really interesting, if it wasn't for the fact that every segment of the game is the same as the rest. And there is some beauty in its simplicity, but there's also boredom.
Oh, side quests? You want me to do side quests? You want me to collect 420 flags? Hehe... HAHA... HAHAHAHAHAH! You fucking idiots. Why in the FUCK would I do that?
And also, there are just random-ass pedestrians whose only goal in life is to push you. Fuck them. Fuck whoever programmed that shit. It does nothing but annoy me.
Informer Assassinations reset if you get discovered. Even if you kill both, and then bump into a fucker two feet from the informer, that will reset the whole thing and you have to kill both again.
There's a part where you have to jump across small boats and posts to get to a ship to assassinate a guy. What happens if you touch the water? Instant death. INSTANT DEATH!
I'm sure that, if this was the first game of the generation that you tried out, it probably blew your mind, but this is not a game. It is a "wow, this is so cool" experience demo for the new generation. But it isn't new anymore.
Now, I'm not gonna lie. Desmond's story is fucking gold. It is gold. I love the atmosphere of it. And even Altaïr's story goes hard towards the end.
I don't like that Desmond can't go faster than a slow walk, but that's the gameplay aspect again, and you just have to deal, because this is the most interesting part of the game.
I honestly couldn't remember if I had finished this game before this replay, until I hit the credits and instantly remembered the absolute perplexity and stupefaction I felt at how jarringly this game ends, and I had the same experience this time. These guys were on some other shit. You really have to get past the disappointment of the ending before you can really appreciate how fucking ludicrous it is.
As a storytelling technique, I absolutely love it, but fucking tell a story, assholes.
If I could have the atmosphere and story of this, with the smoother and faster and just more polished gameplay of the sequels, then great. But I can't.
Great storytelling, great world-building.
3/10. I love this game.
It's this dilemma. Between knowing that I love the story and atmosphere and everything like that, but also knowing that I did not have fun playing the actual game part of it.
But, now knowing how much I enjoy the last couple of hours of this game, I definitely have to replay it at some point, hoping that, just by having that knowledge, it'll be without the first hours of boredom. But it'll be after I replay all the other AC games, so it'll definitely also be more jarring. So, it loses anyway.
But all this makes sense because the Animus was made by Templars.
Gameplay is a 2/10, everything else is a 7, nearing an 8. I hate splitting ratings up like that because that's not a thing, that's not how this works, but I have to with this fuck.
8/10 tech-demo. 3/10 game.