Assassin's Creed II and Mirror's Edge
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Games: Finished Assassin’s Creed II last night, and polished off a few quickie Achievements this morning. It will come as little surprise to anyone reading this blog that I was less than impressed with Ubisoft’s second attempt at what I see as a superbly awesome idea.
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Sadly, the adventures of both Altair and Ezio fall far short of what I would expect from such a rich, promising premise. My review is complete, but I'm going to sit on it for another day to make sure that I'm not letting it go too soon-- with such a high-profile title, I’m really making every effort to ensure that the piece says what I'm trying to say. Readers can disagree with me all they like, but I want them to disagree because they actually disagree, not because they misunderstand what I'm saying. (Inevitably, both will happen.)
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In a case such as this, I think the challenge is to be clear, yet concise… I rarely feel comfortable writing a review that goes longer than 1200 words, but I found myself trimming the piece back heavily. I don't like reading long reviews that blather on without making much of a point, so I can't in good conscience ask people to do that for me. With all that said, I expect to take major heat for it anyway, so I guess it's kind of academic.
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In the meantime, I decided to go back to Mirror’s Edge and put that to bed before starting on Uncharted 2. I was three levels away from the end when my 360 conked out on me a few months ago, and by the time I got it back, I had a to-review pile at least five or six games high.
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Naturally, it got put on the back burner until I had a little breathing room, but coming back to it after all this time has passed has been a lot more difficult than I would have guessed.
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The controls are fairly unorthodox and things like the walljump feel overcomplicated, but more than that, I really have to say that DICE did a fairly terrible job of level design in several instances. Certain areas seem to have no leeway for player error whatsoever, and I'm having a hard time imagining why someone on the design team felt the need to make things so stringent at times.
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Besides my irriation at ledge-grabbing, I have to say that the story is pretty worthless and the cutscenes are cringe-worthy. Going to what looks like a third-rate flash animation between levels after the devs spent so much time crafting an immersive first-person experience makes absolutely no sense to me, and I really can't imagine why they did it.
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In any event, I'm doing it to say it's been done and with only one more level to go (going for the no guns Achievement, to boot) I will be glad to put it aside for something more deserving of attention.
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Posts
It's become my long-standing belief that these days, if you want to make your game a hit, add parkour because that's like so extreme, but without Mountain Dew!
I love Mirrors Edge, so upon reading this entry I feel I have to jump in and defend it, seeing as I'm onto my 7th completion of it.
I don't really understand the complaints on how stringent the game is on difficulty, I mean if YOU in real life were attempting some of those jumps wouldn't they be hard? I mean you can't really expect the game to hold your hand when it's meant to be you against the city?
In regards to the level design (and this isn't meant to sound patronising)the whole game is about finding the best and quickest route, perfecting each jump to ensure that you land or move in the correct way. Personally I feel the level design is amazing, just playing through the levels again in time trial shows that.
I will agree on the story AND the cut scenes they are a bit rubbish and let down the artistic style of the main levels.
This was my game of the year on release and is still in my Top Ten, in fact you can keep an eye out for a retrospective very soon ;)
All in all, Mirrors Edge is a solid game, and - not that I'm accusing you of this - but one of the reasons that this game is criticised so much is because people just aren't that good at it. It then becomes the simple "Well it must be rubbish because I'm generally good at games"
Oh well, I shall explore that soon :)
Although I don't share the devotion, I concur with Daniel in finding Mirror's Edge a solid game. Cutscenes was rubbish, true, but as for the game segments itself I'd be hard-pressed to find another that does free-running as engrossing and as fluidly.
>>I love Mirrors Edge, so upon reading this entry I feel I have to jump in and defend it, seeing as I'm onto my 7th completion of it.
I had a feeling I'd be hearing from you. ; )
>>I don't really understand the complaints on how stringent the game is on difficulty, I mean if YOU in real life were attempting some of those jumps wouldn't they be hard? I mean you can't really expect the game to hold your hand when it's meant to be you against the city?
Forgive me if I wasn't clear enough in my description (and a double apologies, since being clear was what I was just talking about… SIGH)
It's not necessarily that the game is ‘difficult’ per se, but rather that certain areas just don't seem very polished.
For example, I was just recently in level 7 ( I think) where Faith must scale a tall cement tower with scaffolding and metal plating on it. I felt numerous times because the game did not detect that I was attempting a wall-run due to the fact that there was a small gap between the platform where I was standing and where the actual wall was. It seems to me that if the developers intended you to wall-run there, they would've made sure that the two surfaces were flush against each other.
It's little things like that, where you know what to do and you know how to do it, but for some reason, there's a little glitch in production that holds you back.
In another section (pretty sure it was the same level) I had to go from a pipe to a piece of air duct, and when I jumped onto the duct, Faith clipped into it by a few pixels and I fell several times trying to get myself un-stuck.
Things like that are needlessly derailing, and for a game that revolves *entirely* around platforming, it doesn't make sense to me that there would be so many little rough edges.
>>In regards to the level design (and this isn't meant to sound patronising)the whole game is about finding the best and quickest route, perfecting each jump to ensure that you land or move in the correct way. Personally I feel the level design is amazing, just playing through the levels again in time trial shows that.
I understand about the push to find the best route and so on, but I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Personally, I don't find the play very compelling and I must admit I'm not a fan of the aesthetics overall. A lot of this might just be a taste thing, but I never felt as though I meshed with the game the way I do with other titles that I fall in love with.
>>This was my game of the year on release and is still in my Top Ten, in fact you can keep an eye out for a retrospective very soon ;)
I eagerly await your words, sir.
*fell, not felt.
ARGH, Against my love for this game I have to agree that it can be glitchy at times and obviously it can understandably put people off.
I hope that DICE can create a superior sequel that shows just /how/ good the engine can be and that the action is solid.
One thing I /will/ say is, if you haven't already, give the time trials a go and watch some of the videos too, when the game flows at its best, its amazing :)
Hi Brad!
I have to admit, I am looking forward to hearing your review on Assassin's Creed II, partly because I *want* it to live up to it's potential, but I am deathly afraid that, well, it's not. It's pretty. Very pretty. But long experience reminds me that if you put enough pretty on a pile of poop people like me are going to be suckered into buying it :D
The first game was... Well, it took a bit of getting used to, since I personally tend to default to FPS movement/look schemes when I play (all those years of Halo are biting me in the a** there).