Game Journal: Assassin's Creed

written on Saturday, March 28, 2009

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

So stealth games always suck. They are always twitchy and buggy and ridiculous.

Case in Point: The Curb of Madness



If you step over this wall, everyone around you will gasp at your reckless disregard for your own safety. Seriously. They'll call you mad for stepping over a wall that doesn't even come up to your waist.

That in itself is not usually a problem. But if you do it in front of an enemy, the act of going over a tiny wall will make them flip out and attack you. Making people behave naturally is just plain hard. The Hitman series tried, failed, then sold enough units that they just left it broke. If you're near a body, even if a guard has no reason to suspect you, they'll flip out and attack you. If you're climbing a wall, they flip out. But if you're climbing a ladder, they don't. But if you're on a rooftop, they do. So why is it okay to be on a ladder when it's never okay to be on a roof top? Are there ladders that don't lead to rooftops? Where do they go? There are lots of little things like that which simply defy logic.

The controls are also a funky mess. I really should have remapped them early on. They just don't feel right. They map too many buttons to multiple functions (which vary based on context) and yet still require too many combinations of buttons to do certain actions. And the fact that they show up in a console button configuration in the UI doesn't help, either. You're showing me four buttons in a diamond configuration. Two of them are actually on my mouse. One of them is the shift key. And the other is the E key. This helpful UI is actually a hindrance to me getting my bearings, which especially sucks in a pinch.

And these are all my excuses for why I am one of the world's worst assassins.



An assassin should be surgical. This is not surgical. This is at least a dozen bodies strewn across the street. And if that's too scary to look at, just put your hand over the screen to block out this next one.



That's twenty bodies with more off screen. I'm in the last half of the game and there are so many patrols that every time I get in a fight, it seems like ten different guys jump in. I've tried to run away more, but it's generally proven easier to fight it out. When it's easier to kill 20 guys than run and hide, the stealth has failed. Especially when the combat isn't even that good.

More on that tomorrow.