Danny O'Dwyer nails why so many people have broken up with Assassin's Creed

A great video on one of the most pivotal series of the last generation, and how trepidation has sank in remarkably fast for it. Seriously, if you have any affiliation with the franchise over the years, it's worth watching.

Agree with his points? Disagree? I personally find myself speaking the same argument as Danny. The series has turned into a checkbox simulator, appealing to those who don't want a shred of difference in the gameplay as long as there's a new pretty world to ogle at.

Plus, Danny's on #TeamBlackFlagSucks, which is the only right team to be on.

Must be said, the game was reviewed by a different person. Please get that in your head before you try acting smart.

The Point is easily the best video content GS puts out. Another great video from Danny and it pretty much sums up how I feel about those games.

I gave up on the series after III.

Couldn't take it after that.

Great vid, agreed.

Wonderful video that perfectly said why I'm not getting Syndicate. I'm on #TeamBlackFlagRocks, though, but only because Ioved it as a pirate game and much less as an AC game; the stealth portions and mission stuff we're getting to me then.

It all really started to sink in for me at AC3, and it wasn't because of the glitches and crap. After Unity it was time for me to step back, again not because of the glitches because I waited to pick up the game long after they patched it.

Black Flag sucks? What is this nonsense?

Its still gonna sell millions and earn new fans, i havent gotten the new game (too expensive) but i shall later on

This video highlights exactly why no one takes Alexa's reviews seriously, all the flaws that Danny went over, all of these things that cannot be overlooked unless you're turning a blind eye on purpose go to show the averageness and mediocrity of Syndicate.

The game cannot objectively be a 9/10, not even subjectively, there are too many things glaringly wrong with it. I don't say this often and I don't even like to bring it up, but a review like this seems bought, or she's completely delusional.

I've been saying it for years. Eh.

Or she just doesn't have a critical bone in her body.

@nyadc: you say this shit all the time lol

I really disliked 3, the whole direction they took just felt so off. 2 was just light years better.

1, II, BH and RV were some of my favourite games last-gen.

III was such a disappointment.

I both agree and don't agree, sure the game has essentially become a shallow sandbox sure, agree there. But I can probably overlook a lack of deep meaningful substance in the story and the connection with the world if the game can solidly nail it with satisfying gameplay mechanics that make playing the rest of that shallow filler worth it.

EDIT: I see he makes that point too at the end of the review, saying how a game like MGS5 with a lot of repeating content still remains immensely fun through it's gameplay design and game mechanics.

That's what Black Flag had going for it. That's what a game like Just Cause 2 has going for it. He even likens it to Mad Max as being shallow checklist sandbox, and I disagree because though I agree with his assessment ti's a checklist sandbox game, the car combat in Mad Max was pretty damn fun. Nothing in AC's mechanics and missions, from the stealth to the fighting, none of it feels polished or rewarding.

Now, did AC Syndicate do this (become a padded checklist sandbox experience)? Yes and no, no in the sense the game feels even less padded here than other games of the past (especially compared to Unity). That's kind of refreshing in a sense but still the game feels very lacking with the rest of the content, i.e. the mechanics. Though a sigh of relief knowing the game wasn't as awful as Unity, it's not so great either that I'm happy with it. The combat feels off, feels like attack spamming and not a game of attack parry/counter or attack rhythm, stun, dodge like before. Like Unity the player leveling up system seems built from the ground up like developing a competitive MP character from scratch. The idea of developing your gang and your income would be better if there were more to it. This game seems to lack any redeeming value, rather shocked it got a 9/10 on GameSpot. It feels rushed. I saw one review say the brother and sister characters feel more like they abandoned a co-op design part way through development and I'd probably agree with that assessment.

I agree with others, even people who dont care for Assassins Creed story, get bored of its parkour, or get bored of the combat like me cannot ignore the fact that sailing the sea as a pirate and partaking in ship combat while being able to board ships and fight the crew was a refreshing experience that has been longed for and is still longed for today.

I gave up on AC after i tried Unity and found i had absolutely no interest in playing it. So yeah agreed with the vid.

I struggled to play Unity, and gave up part way through. It's glitchy as **** nowadays, and Syndicate just looks drab as anything.

You should give Sid Meier's Pirates! a go. It nailed ship-to-ship combat before Assassin's Creed even existed.

I was never a fan of the series. I remember giving the first game a try and stopped caring after a couple of hours. The only one I enjoyed was Black Flag but even then I didn't care for the gameplay and didn't remember anything at all about the story. I just enjoyed being a pirate. I think one of the major challenges an open world game faces is how to instantly immerse and capture the player's attention early on...something a very few open world games have done for me(GTA and Elder Scrolls). A good example of a genuinely good open world game failing to grasp my interest from the get-go is Witcher 3. In many ways Witcher 3 was the perfect western RPG...it had a massive world, lots of loot, a good combat system but I couldn't get into it. Something about the overall design of the the world that made me so disinterested even though it was such a beautiful game. I don't know maybe it was the incredibly boring and forgettable characters in the game...I just don't know how Elder Scrolls games are so captivating to me and make me want to explore its worlds so much...

I think my main issue with the series is that the gameplay hasn't evolved, not necessarily the checkbox/completionist design. Mad Max was (imo) a good game because the moment to moment gameplay was really fun. Assassins Creed is mostly an annoying chore, pretty much every gameplay component save the ship combat in IV is poorly executed, and they haven't really bothered to fix it.

Danny is like the only dude worth a damn working for Gamespot lol. I tend to share similar opinions on gaming as he does.

great video and i agree. But i don't want this to happen with the Souls series.

@Blabadon: well well well, Coolyfett has not watched the video, but he is currently trying to complete some trophies on Black Flag. What Coolyfett will say is this. Assassins Creed gameplay has been broken for a very long time. Its a button masher where the buttons dont work. You never really know when to pary or when to attack, but mostly you attack. Both Black Flag and Bloodlines played in this manner where beating the enemy is not really based on skill. The missions are also not very rewarding. Maybe they need to go back to Mario and Zelda days where the hero saves the babe, Black Flag did have a babe rescuing moment but you are not rewarded with the virtual babe. These games are always all over the place story wise, and the stories never make sense. Why are the Templars doing what they are doing and why do the Assassins dislike them blah blah blah. The only thing really good aboutt the Assassins Creed games are the visuals. The stories and gameplay are rarely fun and feel like chores.

I've never understood how these games got so popular.

I remember getting the very first Assassins Creed game on my 360 way back when it came out. It was a boring, buggy piece of shit. I can't count the number of times the game just flat out died on me. The story was a mess from the start; any tension or intrigue in Altair's story was totally ruined by the stupid Animus bullshit and the sci-fi framing device was so stupid. The gameplay was always this collection of mechanics and levels that didn't work very well together or have the sort of momentum and difficulty that makes something compelling to play.

Black Flag, the game where you don't play as an assassin, was the only game in the series that was actually fun. It had the best setting and the boating portions were awesome. It had a story that was interesting and characters that I liked. It still had the god-awful sci-fi plot that didn't make any sense, but at least it was a fun pirate game.

Assassins Creed is a shitty series.

Danny should just join Giant Bomb already and get it over with. It's where he belongs!

Definitely agree with what he says... however, I've never really been a fan of the series in general (not even 2 - the only one I actually enjoyed was Black Flag, which I disagree with Danny about). The series just needs a break. Maybe release one every 3 years or so.

And yeah, Danny is definitely one of the better journalists out there. Well done.

Personally I have never liked AC. I'll force myself to play it if it's on GwG or PlayStation+ if I'm ever subscribed to these.

However to say people don't like AC is pretty inaccurate. Most people I work with classify it as their favorite IP. People buy it year after year which is why Ubisoft are releasing them yearly now.

@wiiboxstation: It's kind of like an M Night Shamalan or Guillermo del Toro films, you know there's a lot of potential for greatness but though they're predictable disappointments, people keep going back in hopes of being there when they hit it out of the ballpark one last time.

@nyadc:

I haven't played the New Assassins Creed therefore it's not possible for me to definitively disagree with the review score.

I have watched some footage and based off of the game footage it does look like any other assassins creed. Just this time in a different setting.

So as perplexing as it appears that this game got a 9 to some of us, maybe it deservedly got a 9.

Although I will also point out that some people really believe that Assassins Creed is the best IP around.

So it is one of the harder games to figure out review wise.

@lamprey263: I wish that were the case but there's people that genuinely believe that the games are really that good.

I would classify that under the heading Watch Dogs. Amazing idea that Ubisoft just didn't really know what to do with. Definitely the most disappointing game in my gamer life.

Obviously the series is still selling hence the continuation of the series. Pubs don't throw money where sales don't exist so I guess his opinion isn't really worth all that much. Plus the game has decent reviews. I mean if you don't like the games....don't buy them. But don't cry that others do.

I was really let down by Unity. Some people say Syndicate is more Unity, while others say it's a vast improvement. I'll have to see for myself. Probably will start it tomorrow.

Argument ad populum.

Them selling doesn't make them good. Nor does it mean they deserve to sell.

More like team no fun allowed.

Dude said the first few games were believable worlds lmao

Arguing opinion doesn't make you any more right than those you are disagreeing with in regard to what is considered a good game. It's opinion man. Like I said....if it's not for you....don't buy it. But allow others to have their own opinions.

Believeable worlds isn't the best way to go about it, but yeah they absolutely felt more immersive in 1 and 2, in fact I still hate that they got so cutscene happy from 2 forward, that first game rarely broke gameplay, and instead of trying to fix that style of story telling and get it right, the mother fuckers just got lazy.

3's world is just dull because of the lack of buildings, and because somehow they came up with more chores to do instead of mid-battle assassinations. And Black Flag fucking sucks. It has elements of a good pirate game, the problem is you still need to play the boring Assassin game that comes with it. It's like One-third of an okay game.

On topic: While the check list nature of it is an issue, I'm also not fond of how other things got dialed back. For instance this series should have always been adding stealth mechanics and becoming more of a proper Assassin game. Of the things that first game right, coming up with enjoyable killing scenarios was one of them. It wasn't exactly Hitman (or Dishonored for something recent), but it didn't need to be, it was still enjoyable in those stretched. No one enjoyed how routine the bitch work was in between assassinations. And it feels like the sequels aren't about a group of dudes to kill, but more some bullshit ass story and every now and then you have a dude to kill. Throw in the part where the combat is, was, and always will be fucking garbage using a style of combat that really only Rocksteady has been able to make enjoyable, and maybe Sleeping Dogs (and on that I'd go back and forth and settle for its aight) and all it does is remind you that Ubisoft had a franchise with so much potential, and in the grand scheme sold a shit load of games, but never did anything interesting with it.

I gave up on the series when it seem they were dragging out the story just to create new AC games.

This leads you to this ancient thing...but then theres more questions. Then this leads you to another....and more questions.

It was an whole hearted "**** this shit" after that point.

I'm enjoying Syndicate. Only thing good about Unity, were the actual assassinations, but everything surrounding that, can take a long walk.

I agree with the bolded, though I would go further and say they got lazy with 2 in its entirety. The first one isn't what i'd call good, but it had potential and I enjoyed it a lot more than 2. Didn't play brotherhood through 3.

As for black flag, the normal AC gameplay isn't any worse than 2's, so it's still the best one of the bunch.

And yeah, all in all the whole series doesn't have much going for it.

While I'm not a huge fan of Ezio or whatever his name was....the world in AC1 and AC2 were very fleshed out and breathing.

AC1 was actually the best in the series for that. The only things wrong with AC1 were linear missions and the combat was downright awful.

As someone who liked the earlier ones...I find it puzzling that more ppl don't like Black Flag. The game is a joy to play.

Overall though....the one thing that makes me NOT buy AC games at full price or at lauch (except BF) is the horrid, awful, downright shitty parkour in ALL of the games.

Loved the last line of the video.

I never even got that far to experience the downfall of the series. The first two games were also very boring and the story got really convoluted and meaningless. I disliked the whole anime shenanigans. Fighting was already bad. Climbing was slow and thereafter it got meaningless. I've never seen this series as more than a 6 or 7 series. The amount of hype it got in the beginning was legit. The idea was cool. And I feel it has survived on that hype from before the first game got out to now. The actual games aren't that good.

I can imagine that the multiplayer is fantastic, I've never tried the multiplayer.

When I played Shadows of Mordor that was more fun than all AC games combined and still that game had a lot of problems and shortcomings. But I kinda hoped AC games would be more like that from then on.

AC IV had a lot of things, but an interesting story it did not.

I played the game start to finish but when I was near the end I didn't have a clue what I was doing or who I was doing it for. The only information that stuck with me was the name of the main Character.

I really liked how they did assassinations in Unity. This should've been in the series from the start. In fact I remember the tech demo for the original AC letting you choose different points of entries and executing your target.

But still, it felt really weak to how Hitman does this kind of thing, and how much more organic that game lets you discover ways to assassinate people.