[caz2005]

I guess everyone's too busy playing MW2 to get around to starting this thread.

I myself am really enjoying this. Despite the linearity of the first (tech demo) game I enjoyed it. The sequel is definately superior. There's still a feeling of, okay walk here, kill him, run away, repeat but there's some new stuff to help vary it a little more. I'm going to play it a bit more then come up with a proper review. At the moment though I'm giving it an assuming 8/10.

The main thing is I seem to be "running" through the game a little fast. I've read that despite the easyness of it it's an 18 hour game, minus all the extra content too.

[rickinyorkshire]

I guess no one's got this yet

Is it worth getting then, the original one bored me after a while.

[Satsui_Ryu]

Originally Posted by rickinyorkshire

I guess no one's got this yet

Is it worth getting then, the original one bored me after a while.

There's a lot more variety, and a lot more to do in AC2. I'm just over 5 hours in, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a slow burner at first though; you kind of have to push through the first couple of hours.

I was just looking in the stats menu, and saw the synchronization meter. Does anyone know if that's akin to a completion meter (I'm pretty sure it is, just looking for confirmation)?

[Spacedeck]

I totally forgot this game was coming out

[Hillskill]

Originally Posted by rickinyorkshire

I guess no one's got this yet

Is it worth getting then, the original one bored me after a while.

I had the same opinion of AC1. There was too much going over old ground and repeating of gameply. From what I have read and heard on Podcasts Ubisoft have really addressed those issues and the sequel has much more of a flow and progression to it.

[swisdom]

Personally I thought the first one was brilliant to look at and the free-running style of movement was really entertaining - I just found it a little bit too samey for my liking. I also got a bit confused as to who I was and what I was doing - so I hope this one doesnt follow on from the 1st as I didn't play the first for long enough to understand the storyline

I hear they have addressed the monotony though and from the trailer I saw last week I am definitely going to get this - largely because I am bored (crap at it) with MW2 already!

[ohh_danielson]

Originally Posted by swisdom

Personally I thought the first one was brilliant to look at and the free-running style of movement was really entertaining - I just found it a little bit too samey for my liking. I also got a bit confused as to who I was and what I was doing - so I hope this one doesnt follow on from the 1st as I didn't play the first for long enough to understand the storyline

I hear they have addressed the monotony though and from the trailer I saw last week I am definitely going to get this - largely because I am bored (crap at it) with MW2 already!

Same here for me with regards to AC1 it had it all but just was like playing the same level over and over again.

I'll probs finish sp of MW2 then rent this.

[Alanok]

Have to say given how many reviews have said how nice it looks, it's got some really bad character modelling and lip synching. Only a few hours into the glorified tutorial and not impressed yet. Hopefully it ramps up further in. One tip, click on the subtitles because there are some really hammy Italian accents, 'Allo Allo' stylee.

Is anybody finding some of the context button pressing annoying? Picking up Leonardos box took me ages. It kept on telling me to press 'O' to pick it up and I was there for a few mins going around the bleedin' thing pressing 'O'. And you have to be in certain places before you can press a button to talk to some people.

Still like climbing the towers though. Vertigo inducing.

[Battle]

Originally Posted by Alanok

Have to say given how many reviews have said how nice it looks, it's got some really bad character modelling and lip synching. Only a few hours into the glorified tutorial and not impressed yet. Hopefully it ramps up further in. One tip, click on the subtitles because there are some really hammy Italian accents, 'Allo Allo' stylee.

Is anybody finding some of the context button pressing annoying? Picking up Leonardos box took me ages. It kept on telling me to press 'O' to pick it up and I was there for a few mins going around the bleedin' thing pressing 'O'. And you have to be in certain places before you can press a button to talk to some people.

Still like climbing the towers though. Vertigo inducing.

I agree about the models - the bit at the start I was thinking, this cant be right that looks rubbish, I must have gotten a PS2 game instead.

Didnt have any problems with Leonardos box, picked it up first time

Just found my first feather, they are going to be a right pain to find as they dont stand out very much!!

All in all, enjoying it so far but I think we have all been spoiled by the wonder of Uncharted 2's cutscenes and graphics, this one just doesnt even come close for that but the actual gameplay and scenery is breathtaking.

(as an aside is the voice actor who does Desmond the same one who does Nathan Drake, certainly sound similar)

[rosskemp9]

Is anyone getting texture graphic problem like if I'm running fast the tree doesn't pop up properly , the grass looks weired for couple secs then loads up ? Is it my game because I have not heard this ?

[KhalJimbo]

Woooo just picked up my copy from HMV today so gonna play this over the course of the weekend. I've been Reading it's a bit tedious to start with but once about 4 hours in it really kicks off. Let's just hope it's not 6 hours long lol

[rickinyorkshire]

Originally Posted by rosskemp9

Is anyone getting texture graphic problem like if I'm running fast the tree doesn't pop up properly , the grass looks weired for couple secs then loads up ? Is it my game because I have not heard this ?

On the gamespot video review they identified some very visible pop ups

[Darth_terra]

Got this this morning and enjoying it alot .. much better than the first game even in the early stages ( only just become a Assassin)..

@battle Yeah Nolan North aka Drake in the uncharted series does the voice for desmond, he did it for the first game as well.. you should see the list of games he has done..

Nolan North - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Darth_terra]

Originally Posted by rickinyorkshire

On the gamespot video review they identified some very visible pop ups

Have to say there hasn't been any so far in the time i have played it and it's been 4 hours so far.. maybe Gamespot need to check their video capture equipment because i haven't seen any in other video reviews and no one has mentioned it in their text reviews either.. take from it what you will.

[KhalJimbo]

Sherbet. He has done alot of games. He's in Modern Family too lol such a funny show that. Good to put agave to the name too

Originally Posted by Darth_terra

Got this this morning and enjoying it alot .. much better than the first game even in the early stages ( only just become a Assassin)..

@battle Yeah Nolan North aka Drake in the uncharted series does the voice for desmond, he did it for the first game as well.. you should see the list of games he has done..

Nolan North - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[monkey business]

Originally Posted by rosskemp9

Is anyone getting texture graphic problem like if I'm running fast the tree doesn't pop up properly , the grass looks weired for couple secs then loads up ? Is it my game because I have not heard this ?

I'm getting this mate.

[Robothamster]

Played a couple of hours of this today. Only just got to *just after getting the assassins outfit and seeing the hanging*.

Seems to be picking up now but early on it was a bit boring to be honest. I have a few issues with the game so far:

• As mentioned earlier the character faces are terrible. The look fresh from the PS2. Lips are out of sync, teeth are dark grey, skin looks like morths.
  
• On my TV I get some horrible screen tearing, bad enough to be off putting.
  
• The beginning in the Animus it is one very ugly game. The environment models are extremely basic, both desmond and lucy seem to be those toys they used to sell made out of rubbery foam with wire inside to pose them how you want!

Once you are in ye olde worlde it gets much better (apart from the tearing) and I'm sure as the story progresses it'll be great.

With regards to the graphics I guess it's just because I've been spoiled playing Uncharted 2 lately... Feel sorry for game developers that now have to be compared to that!

[Battle]

Originally Posted by Robothamster

Played a couple of hours of this today. Only just got to *just after getting the assassins outfit and seeing the hanging*.

Seems to be picking up now but early on it was a bit boring to be honest. I have a few issues with the game so far:

• As mentioned earlier the character faces are terrible. The look fresh from the PS2. Lips are out of sync, teeth are dark grey, skin looks like morths.
  
• On my TV I get some horrible screen tearing, bad enough to be off putting.
  
• The beginning in the Animus it is one very ugly game. The environment models are extremely basic, both desmond and lucy seem to be those toys they used to sell made out of rubbery foam with wire inside to pose them how you want!

Once you are in ye olde worlde it gets much better (apart from the tearing) and I'm sure as the story progresses it'll be great.

With regards to the graphics I guess it's just because I've been spoiled playing Uncharted 2 lately... Feel sorry for game developers that now have to be compared to that!

I have to say that the model faces do get better - they are nowhere near the quality of Uncharted 2 but they do get better than the begining.

[TankTopLover]

Loved the first one,just ordered this from game.People should ease up on the graphics obsession a bit,just enjoy the gameplay.From what I have seen the game looks really good.

[caz2005]

It's easy to keep mentioning Uncharted 2 (It is the most stunning game I've ever seen) but I think you're all forgetting that U2 keeps you along a linear path.

Assassins Creed gives you massive open cities to run through in any direction you like. You can't have the same level of detail from U2 in a game this big. It wouldn't run, not on a PS3 anyway.

Yes, before someone picks me up on it, there are moments in U2 when you're on top of a hotel and you can see the whole city. You can't travel through it though and if you could you'd see all the buildings are extremely low in detail and the textures blurry.

All in all though, as much as I'm enjoying this game the twitchy sci-fi animus effects that keep affecting everything gives me sore eyes and a headache after an hour or so, especially the way the cities "appear" when you start a level, that kind of effect.

[Satsui_Ryu]

Finished the main story just a few minutes ago.

Clocked in at exactly 18 hours with 60% complete.

Thank god it's the weekend; I simply couldn't put it down. It's been one of the most engrossing video game experiences that I've had in a long time. Although, having said that, this year has been excellent for those type of 'just one more mission' single player games (Batman AA, Uncharted 2 & Modern Warfare 2 spring to mind).

I'm really looking forward to AC3 now.

[TankTopLover]

Originally Posted by Satsui_Ryu

Finished the main story just a few minutes ago.

Clocked in at exactly 18 hours with 60% complete.

Thank god it's the weekend; I simply couldn't put it down. It's been one of the most engrossing video game experiences that I've had in a long time. Although, having said that, this year has been excellent for those type of 'just one more mission' single player games (Batman AA, Uncharted 2 & Modern Warfare 2 spring to mind).

I'm really looking forward to AC3 now.

18 hours! Nice.That is some serious gaming time for a weekend.Am looking forward to the story as much as the gameplay,if you get the story right,many small faults can be overlooked.How did you find the visuals?To me they look gorgeous but some people are complaining about them!?

[illmind]

Originally Posted by Satsui_Ryu

Finished the main story just a few minutes ago.

Clocked in at exactly 18 hours with 60% complete.

Thank god it's the weekend; I simply couldn't put it down. It's been one of the most engrossing video game experiences that I've had in a long time. Although, having said that, this year has been excellent for those type of 'just one more mission' single player games (Batman AA, Uncharted 2 & Modern Warfare 2 spring to mind).

I'm really looking forward to AC3 now.

Well done - Im picking up this game in the week along with UC2 as I have finished single player on MW2 100% time to move to another game which will keep me engrossed.

That's a good amount of playing time to complete it so i'm glad its not short

[KhalJimbo]

Is it just me or is anyone esle not impressed by the graphics? I mean in game is ok but the cut scenes are garbage

[Robothamster]

I agree about it not being fair to compare AC2 to UC2 in the game because of open world verses linear levels. But the crap graphics I was talking about are in the cutscenes. There is no excuse not to put a bit more detail into peoples faces in those.

Also there is ALOT of clipping, Ezios arm appears through his cape, i've seen whole limbs of one NPC clip through anothers body. Again, it's not important to the gameplay, just small niggles. I've come to expect more I guess because of the games I've played this year, UC2, Batman AA, RE5 in particular.

My posts might make it sound like I don't like the game, that's not the case at all. For the most part the visuals are stunning and so far I'm really enjoying the story. Looking forward to it even more after SRyus glowing post above.

[KhalJimbo]

Mine also gets stuck quite a bit. I could be walking and when o hey to some stairs my charachters just freezes. Can't run backward or forward so I hve to jump a few times then it starts working. So far not too impressed, probably because I just finished uncharted 2.

[KhalJimbo]

I agree on the clipping. There are parts when his feet go right through the stairs when he is walking up them. I just don't understand why they never went into detail graphically on the cut scenes.

Originally Posted by Robothamster

I agree about it not being fair to compare AC2 to UC2 in the game because of open world verses linear levels. But the crap graphics I was talking about are in the cutscenes. There is no excuse not to put a bit more detail into peoples faces in those.

Also there is ALOT of clipping, Ezios arm appears through his cape, i've seen whole limbs of one NPC clip through anothers body. Again, it's not important to the gameplay, just small niggles. I've come to expect more I guess because of the games I've played this year, UC2, Batman AA, RE5 in particular.

My posts might make it sound like I don't like the game, that's not the case at all. For the most part the visuals are stunning and so far I'm really enjoying the story. Looking forward to it even more after SRyus glowing post above.

[Satsui_Ryu]

Originally Posted by slinkywonka

18 hours! Nice.That is some serious gaming time for a weekend.Am looking forward to the story as much as the gameplay,if you get the story right,many small faults can be overlooked.How did you find the visuals?To me they look gorgeous but some people are complaining about them!?

Yeah, I was a little bit shocked myself when I checked the time played. 18 hours over three days is a little excessive, but I couldn't help myself.

The visuals are nice (e.g. the city does look amazing at times), but as others have said there are some serious technical issues. While I haven't personally experienced any screen tearing, some of the character models in cut-scenes do look awful. And there is some pop-in and clipping that is unfortunately unavoidable. While it would've been nice to have all of those issues ironed out, I found it very easy to overlook, simply because I was having so much fun with it.

[humanfish]

The cut scenes are probably in engine so they won't have any more or less detail then when playing the actual game. Although not great, i'm not that bothered by the sometimes shonky face/graphics. It's certainly not as bad as i first feared anyway.

[Battle]

Im at just over 9 hours in with 28% synchronization and im really enjoying it.

One thing that really stands out from the first one is the lack of all that pointless open ground outside the cities. Much better because of its loss.

Im having serious trouble finding the feathers though - ive only got 15 so far, in the first one the flags were much easier to find. I do like the added touch that you can buy a treasure map to find all the treasure boxes though rather than having to search for them all over the place.

I agree with others that the "flashes" of animus white after every action are really annoying though - get healed at the doctors and the screen flashes white - gives me a headache something rotten.