So I was checking Game of the year list on Wikipedia and noticed that Assassin’s Creed was never Game of the Year.
Not on any list around the world did it reach the top. The first one felt very fresh, but it just did not feel complete. But the 2nd one was just an amazing game and that one got beaten on some lists by Uncharted 2 which is understandable, but also by Batman: Arkham Asylum which is basically inspired by AC.
Maybe they should just ditch the whole Animus plot. I wished that Valhalla and Black Flag were just about being a Viking and a Pirate
It was an innovative series at a time where we still got them frequently, and while seemingly intended to be a trilogy, they chased dollar signs over prestige. It’s hard to say they made the wrong choice there, but the animus made a lot more sense in the context of a trilogy with a beginning, middle, and end. For my money, Unity was the best game in the series and came out in one of the the weakest years for video game releases giving it a really good chance at an award, but it was a technical mess, especially at launch. I don’t think I agree that Arkham Asylum has much DNA in common with Assassin’s Creed.
Unity is still underrated largely due to its reputation formed during launch with all the bugs. But I think there was also a case around then of “Assassin’s Creed fatigue”, which only amplified the negative reception. It’s actually a very interesting what if scenario, what would have happened if Unity wasn’t broken on release and was successful? It’s well documented that its failure led to the entire rejigging of the franchise into open world RPGs in Origins and beyond.
Any time Unity is mentioned all I see in my mind is the floating eyeballs and teeth.
Struggled to get it to run only to be welcomed by… That…
Switched me off completely. I do intend to go back and revisit it though now everything is fixed but they certainly did themselves no favours.
I played it like a year after launch on PS4 and didn’t have any issues. On PC there is also ACUfixes that further fixes and improves things. Honestly Unity was such an ambitious game and both the city of Paris and the crowd system in it is still unsurpassed by later titles. I remember when Mirage came out comparison videos started going viral questioning which game came out 9 years after which. The fluid and varied animations in Unity is still absolute peak, look at how satisfying high level gameplay is.
Yeah, but I was also fascinated by the dialogue directly speaking to that fatigue and the series’ failings to live up to the fantasy.
“So what’s the plan here?”
“Plan? Come up with your own plan! I’m not here to hold your hand!”
Yeah Unity also felt really special.
The shame of it too was I played all the RPG Creeds except for Origins and was disappointed in them, but eventually I got Origins for free so I went back and played it and it was actually a really good marriage between the old games and the new RPG style that every game since missed the mark on
So the reason why I say inspired because I was thinking that countering was something AC had created, but I’m probably remembering this incorrectly.
I’ll bet there’s no shortage of games with combat models with counters built in to them that predate Assassin’s Creed, but Arkham Asylum’s came from an earlier prototype that they built that was basically a rhythm game. AC’s combat was pretty terrible for a long while, but it was also a stealth game, so it didn’t matter all that much.
Check, yes you are right.