It's really sad to see how far AC has fallen since Brotherhood ...
591924
It's really sad to see how far AC has fallen since Brotherhood and ACII to be honest. It doesn't feel like a real AC game and gets boring. The new claw is really handy tho
4391350
The Assassin's Creed series is becoming quite a bore. How many treasure chests, manuscripts, sheets of music, animus fragments) can you hunt down in an open world game? It's pretty sad that this series gives you an open world with pretty much nothing to do besides look for the same hand full of things ad nauseum - compared to the lush world filled with odds and ends in such games as Skyrim, the open world game of the assassins creed series is down right impoverished.

The story lines are becoming rather mundane. And the exploration of the open seas - besides the clunkery of mastering battles on the open seas as well as enjoying the graphics - leaves something to be desired. (Maybe instead of finding chests you can find a nice sword or some armor?)

Even combat doesn't require skill. The same handful of set movements for defense and offense, coupled with dim AI enemies leaves even combat in this game dull. The best battles are at sea... And that is the saving grace of this particular game... However, the games that come after this one and the few before it are quite snore-worthy.

If AC Syndicate is still rehashing the same old formula, I am henceforth done with the entire series.
549234
I practically lived in the AC 1 world for a year and half. After neglecting my real life for this much time I realized at the end that yes I did make some good friends, had some good times ... but most of all I just leveled a character and collected items for vassals day in and day out...
You may be asking what this has to do with AC2, well, AC2 is really the same thing as AC1 - damn why couldn't they do more than just improve the graphics and copy DAOC. I was soooo looking forward to this game. I am an ac fan so I bought it anyway Olorin (Thisledown) reserved name but I am thoroughly dissappointed with the Beta. (except for graphics - they are ok)
BTW Dont get tricked into buying a GFORCE card - they are reccomended by MS (becaseu hey have business with them) the ATI 9700 for desktops and the 9000 for your laptop run stable excellent graphics and are superior to NVIDIAs Gforce in every way possible.
2590196
I was pretty skeptical when this one was announced, mainly due to how quickly it would be coming out in comparison to the last game.  Luckily I was all wrong there.  It's an excellent Assassins Creed game, and a welcome refreshment in a series that has largely gotten stale over the years. You can only climb buildings in a city for so long.  It's nice to head out to the ocean and run around ancient ruins and islands instead.
4099474
I played this for about 90 minute's at a friend's and was totally disappointed. Before this, I was ready to pay full price, but I'm glad I could try it out first because I will not be buying this one. I loved the other AC games and the obvious thought that went into character and plot development. This was totally missing in the first 90 minutes of game time. You're dropped in to sequence after sequence with very little compelling Templar conspiracy or reason why you should be doing what you're doing. Most of the game play can be accomplished by pressing forward and holding the free-run button until you have to do something like assassinate or tail someone. There is a distinct absence of puzzles and it seems like it's almost on rails. The combat system isn't as fun as the last AC game, and I found myself wiping out entire swaths of red-coats who are equipped with rifles and huge bayonets without much difficulty and right out in the open. In fact, I cleared an entire section of the general map (probably upwards of 40 guards) and went right along with my mission, no reinforcements to be found. All in all, a very disappointing iteration of the Assassin's Creed series.
4933664
If you haven't already, please go back and read this series in order.  While the earlier books could be considered standalones, during this book too many arcs from other books, both past and future, start to become integral parts of the main story.  If not read in order the impacts of previous scenes is lacking.

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Dark-Lover-Black-Dagger-Brotherhood-Book-1/dp/B000PDYVU2/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 1)</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Lover-Eternal-Black-Dagger-Brotherhood-Book-2/dp/B000OVLIRE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 2)</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Lover-Awakened-Black-Dagger-Brotherhood-Book-3/dp/B000PC0S1Y/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 3)</a>

Butch and Marissa, I've been rooting for them since "Dark Lover", even through the next two books. We have seen Marissa as the undesired shellan, the dutiful sister, the epitome of the perfect glymera female of worth.  In other words she was in a frozen state trying to be what society said she should be.  Only when she was with Butch did she actually feel like herself.

Butch on the other hand has been an outsider looking in all of his life and now is a captive in a culture where he can only be seen as physically weaker.  He may have the heart of a Brother, but the rest of him is still human.

And this is where the arcs from previous novels truly begin to come together.  Hints from even the first one begin to pay off and new little niblits that will pay off later have been dropped.

Butch's and Marissa's story felt real to me.  The have wanted/lusted for each other for months.  Yet the fact that Butch cannot feed Marissa causes heartache all around.  Marissa is beginning to come into her own as a woman instead of a decoration.  Butch's issues with being considered weaker and not being able to help those who have become his family.  Then there is the Vishous, the one who has always stood alone has built a bond of his own with Butch.  The poignancy that comes from Vishous as the only person he has connected with wants someone else.

This book was full of heartache, Marissa wanting Butch and thinking he didn't want her.  Butch wanting Marissa thinking she didn't want him.  They knowing they want each other but not sure how they can come together with her needing to feed from a Vampire male.  Butch and Vishous creating a bond of need of each other only one wanting more than the other can offer.

I have to admit I did feel that the device that allows Marissa and Butch to be together was a bit of a cheat.  No to much as the one that allow Rhage and Mary together, but it did make me pause.

However, what I believe makes this book one of my favorites are the characters developments.  Butch, Marissa and Vishous all grow and adapt to their new situations and come out stronger.

As always with this series I HIGHLY recommend this book.
1657570
I am a huge fan of the Assassins Creed franchise, and have loved every installment except this one. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but when compared to other chapters of the AC saga, it's depressingly bad in almost every regard!

First, the game is without question the shortest Console based AC game released. When I finished the game, I was actually surprised because it FELT like I should only have been a little over halfway through. I mean, if the game was released on the PSP or Vita, then the length would have been acceptable, but for a console version? It just doesn't stack up!

The graphics are nice! However, they aren't really any better than Brotherhood. So, while I wasn't too disappointed with the graphics, I also wasn't thrilled. I did expect more from the game, because it was a sequel, and I just naturally assume the graphics will be better than the previous title in the franchise.

The story and setting was poor at best, and while it could have been worse, it could have also been so much better. It feels rushed, and because of that served as a disappointed. However AC3 made up for the lackluster performance of Revelations.
285826
Little did they know when they released the end of their biggest franchise in a very long time that it would also be the end of them as a developer of note. The developers (Bioware) have promised so much before this game was released, none of which ended up in the product itself. I'll admit, the game itself is fairly solid and well-made all the way up to the end. It builds you up, keeping you higher and higher... and then it just backhands you in the face and laughs at the effort you've spent on the series the last five years.

Bioware made three Mass Effect games that I truly loved. The ending to this game did the impossible. It made me want to never play any of them ever again.
115421
As an Assassin's Creed game, this has to be one of the worst ones out of them all. As a game completely on it's own though, it was amazing! The story was decent and the updates to sailing were great! A lot of people seemed to complain about it, but I thought it was a lot of fun. A lot of the time, after my ship was all upgraded, I found myself just sailing around for hours, seeing how many ships I could take on before mine was destroyed. As I said though, as an Assassin's Creed game it was one of the worst. It really didn't feel like the rest of the series did and the "real world" part of the story seemed to build up to something but then nothing ever really happened. It was a let down considering how amazing the games with Desmond had been and then you suddenly get this story.

If you plan on getting this, remember what was said. Don't expect much for the Assassin's Creed story, but if you like pirates and the idea of all the sailing and naval battles, this is well worth getting!
4867640
Found my self bored throughout most of it, animations didn't look or feel as smooth as past AC games, controls felt horrible throughout, the accents bothered me A LOT. Worst game of the franchise.
250687
If you haven't gotten into the Assassin's Creed story, now is a good time...prices on the earlier games are low, and today's midrange hardware has enough horsepower to run these games in full detailed glory.

This is an oldie but a goodie, and I've been recently revisiting my history with The Brotherhood.

I will say the first few games in the series do suffer from a some flaws, chief among which are the repetitive nature of the missions.  You go to a town, find the towers, do your investigations, etc etc.  After a few times it does get a bit tedious.  Similarly, the concept of low profile/high profile is an interesting one, but ultimately doesn't have much effect on gameplay.  You can run through the towns or countryside confident that you aren't going to get much more than rude comments.  If you get more than that, outrunning the constabulary (esp on horseback) is trivial.

The plot itself is interesting if a little farfetched, having to do with memories encoded in DNA.  Uneven, as well, is some of the voice acting...Desmond's character comes off very flat, but the guy voicing Altair I think combines just the right tone of barely-restrained menace.

So overall, a good game and for the most part I enjoy playing it.
4439556
I bought this game because I loved the first two Dragon Age games within the series.  Dragon Age Origins was the best and I think I played it through at least five times, with different classes and dialogue options to gain the full experience.  Dragon Age II was also excellent but felt like a completely new story.  I think I played it completely through twice.
This one was a complete let down.  I felt like I was just questing for the sake of questing.  I spent over 90 hours to finish one play through of this game with most of it walking and fighting the same creatures over and over and over and over....  Adding the horse to aid movement was great but you usually couldn't go too long without being attacked and knocked off of it anyway. So, walk to the objective, killing baddies the entire way, then walk back, killing baddies the entire way...  Do this for each area in the game.  It turned into a monotonous struggle just to finish another area that felt exaclty like the last area.
I did not like the interaction and dialogue options with the companions or the NPCs.  I never felt a connection to any of them like I did in the first two games in the series.  Usually, they were so mean or against my own opinion that I didn't even want to talk to them anymore.  There were no companions to have a romantic interest in at all.  None of them interested me.  Either too much a jerk or not attractive.  And why do we have to have a male and female homosexual in the group?  There were 7-9 of us, and two homosexuals?  Thats like 22% or something, when the worldwide average is around 3-5% and the United States percentage is closer to 3% on entire country average.  I just felt like the game designers were catering to the special interest groups and not the core game player.  Even so, I kept the male mage who was the homosexual in my group the entire way cause he was what I thought was the best mage in the game.  Also, the interaction with Morrigan felt like it was added at the last moment as an after-thought.  When I tried to go to the web site and select my options my saved games from Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II the options never transferred to the PS4 game.  I tried three times, signed in fine, the web site said I was good to go but it never updated the PS4 version.  So, I had to play the default history.
I sold the game after my play through as I was not willing to re-play the game.  Similar to another Bio-ware game called Mass Effect, the first one was awesome, second one was excellent, and the third one a disappointment.
2824528
Assasins Creed 3 turned out to be a dud in what could have been an epic game. There was so much potential to be had with the setting and storyplot but it all falls short. The game is plagued by contant loading screens along with useless cinematic clips. The gameplay chooses to be cubersome instead of fun and leaves the user feeling likes he is doing chores instead of being an actual assasin. There is so much more I could berate the game for but I will choose to hold back for lack of time...Summary: Assasins Creed 3 is underwhelming.
1954108
I got a PS3 for christmas that came with this game.  I had always wanted to play the series, so I decided to get the rest and start at the beginning.  In the last few months I have completed all 5 games and I have to say... I absolutely loved the first two, Brotherhood was pretty good, Revelations was awful, and Assassin's Creed 3 was the worst.

UBI Soft has consistently gotten better with their cinematics and realism.  Each game looks even better than the last.

There are two big areas where they have gotten worse, though.  Storyline and gameplay have suffered, especially in AC3.  The huge, open, interactive world of AC2 is gone.  There is no flexibility.  You do exactly what the storyline dictates, or you desynchronize.  If that's not frustrating enough, you spend way too much of the game developing characters.  That's what cinematics are for!

And, the cherry on top: character controlability.  UBI Soft has always had problems with the characters not doing what you want them to, but with each new game, and each new configuration of the controls, they add more options but never fix the the same old problems.  I can't tell you how many times these games have frustrated me by making me randomly jump from the side of a tower as I scale it, climbing on top of things as I flee guards, not attacking the right person, etc, etc, etc...  Seriously, I'm a pretty even-tempered guy, but sometimes I understand how controllers get stuck in TV screens.

I could go on and on about the completely asinine ending, but I'd rather not be a spoiler.  All I'll say is that the whole Desmond Miles story, that has run throughout all the games, comes to a pitiful conclusion.

At this point AC4 has been announced, but I can't see how there could be any reason to play it.  Why would you, as a game developer, take the core elements that made your games popular and just throw them away?
3726801
Assassins creed liberation sucks!!!! I spent an hour trying to assassinate one dude because every time you get seen it starts you over, so I finally kill him then the Demo is over.
The demo is basically saying "if you wanna play more s***ty missions exactly like this one then buy this game for $20+" that's what I got from the demo
4655347
This is the last of the series that I can say I enjoyed. Even then I thought there was too much running around, and not enough figuring things out by our hero. For a guy who can foreshadow and is allegedly pretty smart, Alex keeps doing dumb things. He's spent 4 books reacting to everything, and at some point he needed to just up and get out of London if things were going to continue to be this unsafe for him and his friends. For a series that started off well and was enjoyable, it's sad that it's merely tolerable by book 5, and books 6 and 7 are just blah. Where most series become more interesting, and the writers become more polished with characters they have worked with over multiple books, that's not the case with Jacka and this series. Every book it feels like he's writing for these characters for the first or second time. The writing itself doesn't become easier to read, unlike Butcher and Aaronovitch became as their similar series went along. This is the last book I bought for the series, and borrowed the next two from a friend. I won't be reading past 7, as it's become more of a chore than it should.
606349
I loved the first two Dragon Age games and anxiously awaited Inquisition for a whole year.  It's a letdown.  First, the graphics, which I've run on both High and Ultra, are just okay, nothing special at all.  Second, the controls are different than in the first two games and the changes are for the worse, as other reviewers have noted.  I mean, really, among other things, who thought it would be a good idea to have to hold down the mouse the entire time to attack?  Third, the whole start of the game is okay, but nothing captivating.  Overall, the new features add complexity but not fun, and the game just seems over-engineered.  Disappointed.