imho not that good, seems really low setting to me, but it's a 'free roam' after all. Anyway I have a total different perception than yours; everything seems massively improved to me. The only thing weird to my eyes, are the colours palette in the last incoming ubi games: everything appears extremely colorful, too much cartoonish for my taste from Far cry 3 to AC3, I prefer a lot more the palette of the first AC, honestly.
Assassin's Creed 3
- Thread starter L. Scofield
- Start date
imho not that good, seems really low setting to me, but it's a 'free roam' after all. Anyway I have a total different perception than yours; everything seems massively improved to me. The only thing weird to my eyes, are the colours palette in the last incoming ubi games: everything appears extremely colorful, too much cartoonish for my taste from Far cry 3 to AC3, I prefer a lot more the palette of the first AC, honestly.
Having played this live at GamesCom, I thought the game looked insanely much better than any of the previous games, huge improvement in color fidelity, so I disagree for now. The ship gameplay actually made God of War Ascencion playing next to it look ... outdated!
Yea I agree, ship section looks very good although when you come in the woods things get a bit uglier. Not that its ugly by any means, its just that there is a sense of simpler geometry and a lot of shadows from trees look somewhat bad. Its to be expected of course, its open world game with tons of assets, weather cycles and day night cycles so its impossible to make it look as good as other more linear games. Also, game needs a wee bit more color IMO.
God Of War didn't look all that hot to me either. Must've been settings...It looked like something straight out of UE3, with great motion blur. When they release new footage I hope its in the night.
BTW, in latest IGN footage there are parts of game shown on 360 and PS3, but there was one part in engine that showed framerate and it was pretty bad in the woods. Like ~23-25fps bad
God Of War didn't look all that hot to me either. Must've been settings...It looked like something straight out of UE3, with great motion blur. When they release new footage I hope its in the night.
BTW, in latest IGN footage there are parts of game shown on 360 and PS3, but there was one part in engine that showed framerate and it was pretty bad in the woods. Like ~23-25fps bad
Yea I agree, ship section looks very good although when you come in the woods things get a bit uglier. Not that its ugly by any means, its just that there is a sense of simpler geometry and a lot of shadows from trees look somewhat bad. Its to be expected of course, its open world game with tons of assets, weather cycles and day night cycles so its impossible to make it look as good as other more linear games. Also, game needs a wee bit more color IMO.
God Of War didn't look all that hot to me either. Must've been settings...It looked like something straight out of UE3, with great motion blur. When they release new footage I hope its in the night.
BTW, in latest IGN footage there are parts of game shown on 360 and PS3, but there was one part in engine that showed framerate and it was pretty bad in the woods. Like ~23-25fps bad
GOW was Digital Foundrys top game at the Expo interestingly. This is one of the only games i'll be picking up at Christmas, in stark contrast to previous years. Seems 2013 is where its all happening.
Visually, this game is mixed bag. I was a bit underwhelmed with the graphics since I expected similar attention to detail like the first time I played AC2. That didn't happen though. So, good and bad sides.
Good
-game is vsynced
-character models and facial animations are considerably improved
-weather effects and effects like fog, smoke, fire etc. are also improved
-SSAO is now fully featured in game
-lighting got improvements, its way more natural and less "glowy"
-lots of AI on streets
-game is huge
Bad
-water(except in Naval battles) is downright ugly. Its definitely downgrade from Revelations. Also interaction with water is very bad, it immediately pulls you out of experience. Example, diving in water is almost laughable. There is a second delay when his hands touch the water and it feels like he fell on the solid ground rather than water.
-frame rate is all over the place, especially in Boston and parts with alot of foliage. 360 version seems to go anywhere from 20 to 30fps. And it stays at mid 20s for quite some time. Looking at their latest footage shown in engine (PS3 version) frame rate was hovering around 22-24fps in Frontier, thats similar feeling I get when playing it on 360.
-glitches are literally everywhere. Flying guns, people stuck in ground, horse animations constantly hiccup etc.
-pop in is very apparent
-grass still grows literally in front of your eyes. Five feet from you there might be grass, but already at 6 feet there is green flat texture just poking your eyes.
-LOD is very agressive and trees very close are replaced with 2d ones that just can't be overlooked
-environments (especially trees) look low poly
-shadows are low resolution, nothing unexpected but they have rather prominent "teeth"
So...Not exactly what I expected. There are obviously trade offs Ubi had to make to make such a big world running on consoles, but are they worth it I don't know. I think though people will be pretty impressed, mainly because obvious improvements, especially in lighting and since AC game where never really the most polished ones than thats not such a big deal.
Good
-game is vsynced
-character models and facial animations are considerably improved
-weather effects and effects like fog, smoke, fire etc. are also improved
-SSAO is now fully featured in game
-lighting got improvements, its way more natural and less "glowy"
-lots of AI on streets
-game is huge
Bad
-water(except in Naval battles) is downright ugly. Its definitely downgrade from Revelations. Also interaction with water is very bad, it immediately pulls you out of experience. Example, diving in water is almost laughable. There is a second delay when his hands touch the water and it feels like he fell on the solid ground rather than water.
-frame rate is all over the place, especially in Boston and parts with alot of foliage. 360 version seems to go anywhere from 20 to 30fps. And it stays at mid 20s for quite some time. Looking at their latest footage shown in engine (PS3 version) frame rate was hovering around 22-24fps in Frontier, thats similar feeling I get when playing it on 360.
-glitches are literally everywhere. Flying guns, people stuck in ground, horse animations constantly hiccup etc.
-pop in is very apparent
-grass still grows literally in front of your eyes. Five feet from you there might be grass, but already at 6 feet there is green flat texture just poking your eyes.
-LOD is very agressive and trees very close are replaced with 2d ones that just can't be overlooked
-environments (especially trees) look low poly
-shadows are low resolution, nothing unexpected but they have rather prominent "teeth"
So...Not exactly what I expected. There are obviously trade offs Ubi had to make to make such a big world running on consoles, but are they worth it I don't know. I think though people will be pretty impressed, mainly because obvious improvements, especially in lighting and since AC game where never really the most polished ones than thats not such a big deal.
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This is why we need new hardware. Ambitious game design is outstripping the capabilities of current consoles.
ZeroEx
Newcomer
I disagree with that statement.
You should design your game around the limitations of the hardware provided. And not try to go over the limit.
They did, but the design advances required visual compromises.
Billy Idol
Legend
Fully agree. To make some gameplay/graphics aspect work, like massive amount of npc they had to sacrifice lots of other stuff.
But this can be observed now for years imo. We have stagnation in console gaming. Just two examples I can think of at the moment: uncharted 2 and 3...some stuff better, some stuff worse (first thing to drop is IQ by switching to post process AA), same can be said about Killzone 2 and 3 and AC3 as well.
The consoles are at their limit, no extra juice available. The only thing we see is redistribution of resources.
We need new consoles.
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Sigfried1977
Legend
I think the game looks fantastic. It also has a slew of problems, and barely any of them could be fixed with new hardware.
New hardware would simply make for a prettier version of a game that's almost insultingly patronizing, filled with entirely pointless busywork and largely runs on auto pilot.
I think the destructoid review was pretty spot on. You'll love ACIII if you love check lists.
I still think it's quite entertaining, mostly due to the incredible production values (that tutorial scene probably had the budget of your average middle of the road game), but none of its many gameplay elements are particularly well done and compelling. Every single aspect can be found in other games, and at a significantly higher quality no less. They also don't come together to form a cohesive package or offer worthwhile rewards. Then again it must be hard to come up with rewards for a player who's essentially playing in God Mode by design.
New hardware would simply make for a prettier version of a game that's almost insultingly patronizing, filled with entirely pointless busywork and largely runs on auto pilot.
I think the destructoid review was pretty spot on. You'll love ACIII if you love check lists.
I still think it's quite entertaining, mostly due to the incredible production values (that tutorial scene probably had the budget of your average middle of the road game), but none of its many gameplay elements are particularly well done and compelling. Every single aspect can be found in other games, and at a significantly higher quality no less. They also don't come together to form a cohesive package or offer worthwhile rewards. Then again it must be hard to come up with rewards for a player who's essentially playing in God Mode by design.
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I just saw some gameplay videos online to see how well it improves on many of my nitpicks about the series, and I was left disapointed. Most of the games problems are, in my opinion, caused by bad design then by technical limitations.
Still though, I enjoyed the past games inspite of the drawbacks, and I'll sure be able to do the same with this one. Just feel like the game could have come out much better if ubi let it have a somewhat longer development time, the game usually has something amazing going on, with something stupid right next to it to kill the mood.
Still though, I enjoyed the past games inspite of the drawbacks, and I'll sure be able to do the same with this one. Just feel like the game could have come out much better if ubi let it have a somewhat longer development time, the game usually has something amazing going on, with something stupid right next to it to kill the mood.
Sigfried1977
Legend
There are a couple of rather noteworthy improvements, though. Fighting is still incredibly easy, but at least it's now quick and responsive. The game feels quite a bit more responsive in general now. I think the game would be absolutely marvelous if Ubisoft simply decided to raise the stakes against the player a little. You have to be rather dedicated if you want to die, and if you do mess up it's usually because the game is demanding a 100% stealth approach without giving you precision tools to get the job done (it does just that quite often actually). Everything is fully automated here, leaving you at the mercy of your entirely context sensitive actions.
I'm not demanding Dark Souls challenge or precision here, but something in the vein of the Batman games would have been really nice.
Still, I can't stress enough just how far the presentation (there's just so much attention to detail in this game) manages to take the whole package. I'm certainly enjoying this way more than AC Revelations. The setting helps a lot as well. It does feel very fresh and new indeed.
I'm not demanding Dark Souls challenge or precision here, but something in the vein of the Batman games would have been really nice.
Still, I can't stress enough just how far the presentation (there's just so much attention to detail in this game) manages to take the whole package. I'm certainly enjoying this way more than AC Revelations. The setting helps a lot as well. It does feel very fresh and new indeed.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Finished the game yesterday, including most of its side missions. This didn't take me quite as long as I thought it would, probably due to the generous amounts of quick travel points in the game.
I really enjoyed it overall. It's an impressive behemoth of a game, with a seemingly limitless budget behind it. The attention to detail is so staggering that every other open world game feels almost cheap and amateurish in comparison (including all ASS CREED games that came before it). AC3 is pretty much an open-world game with Uncharted 3 visuals.
The fact that various Ubifsoft studios worked on various parts of the game clearly shows, though. The gulf in quality (both in terms of visuals, gameplay and story telling) between Connor's sections inside the Animus and Desmond's linear, brief, clumsy and rather thankless real world excursions is quite pronounced. To be honest, most of the game's extra bits and pieces aren't integrated particularly well. There's a lot to do in the game, and thankfully most of it is rather interesting or entertaining (naval warfare in particular is a complete homerun). None of it seems to service the game's main quest though or feels particularly important. You can hunt, you can craft, you can trade, you can search for treasure chests, you can make a ton of money to upgrade your ship. You don't need any of it though or even benefit from it an awful lot.
I also got the feeling that Ubisoft finally gave up on making the stupid sci-fi framing device compelling, which is something I'm actually a-okay with. This is clearly Connor's game, and Ubisoft knew it.
I really enjoyed it overall. It's an impressive behemoth of a game, with a seemingly limitless budget behind it. The attention to detail is so staggering that every other open world game feels almost cheap and amateurish in comparison (including all ASS CREED games that came before it). AC3 is pretty much an open-world game with Uncharted 3 visuals.
The fact that various Ubifsoft studios worked on various parts of the game clearly shows, though. The gulf in quality (both in terms of visuals, gameplay and story telling) between Connor's sections inside the Animus and Desmond's linear, brief, clumsy and rather thankless real world excursions is quite pronounced. To be honest, most of the game's extra bits and pieces aren't integrated particularly well. There's a lot to do in the game, and thankfully most of it is rather interesting or entertaining (naval warfare in particular is a complete homerun). None of it seems to service the game's main quest though or feels particularly important. You can hunt, you can craft, you can trade, you can search for treasure chests, you can make a ton of money to upgrade your ship. You don't need any of it though or even benefit from it an awful lot.
I also got the feeling that Ubisoft finally gave up on making the stupid sci-fi framing device compelling, which is something I'm actually a-okay with. This is clearly Connor's game, and Ubisoft knew it.
If it is fun, isn't that benefit enough?
Almost all fun things are optional.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Geez, people. How about having some standards. Sure, a fun diversion for the sake of inconsequential entertainment isn't at all bad thing to have, but in a really well designed game the optional bits and pieces tend to effect the larger picture as well. Getting back into the Asylum in Dark Souls is fun and rewarding in its own right, but it also yields an item that opens up another optional open world later on. That's where you can get some kick ass armor pieces, souls and a piece for the black smith he uses to forge better gear for you. And all this raises your chances for survival.
Just about any action adventure has trappings like that.
In AC3 you complete a lot of things as well, but the compelling rpg hooks just aren't there. It simply doesn't matter whether you fight with your standard assassin tomahawk or a war tomahawk you can craft yourself later in the game. You also don't get better armor or more weapons. AC3 gives you everything right away. There's absolutely zero character progression.
It feels like a bunch of different games you can switch back and forth between via quick travel points instead. It's just as ambitious as it is disjointed.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Well, thank you for that.
Never having played any of the series previously, and being bombarded by the marketing, I was leaning towards picking up a copy to see what the fuss was all about.
Now, I'll save my money and mark it down as another series that I really don't need to play.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Hey, I'm not saying it's bad or not worth playing. On the contrary, I did have a lot of fun with it. I'm just saying it isn't by any means a flawless, or even a great game.
Personally, I'll take an ambitious game with certain problems (such as AC3) over a super polished product that plays it completely safe (like Uncharted 3).
Personally, I'll take an ambitious game with certain problems (such as AC3) over a super polished product that plays it completely safe (like Uncharted 3).
Hate to break this to you, but games are the very definition of "inconsequential entertainment".
Sigfried1977
Legend
Come on, you know what I meant. Wouldn't you down-rate a movie that's constructed of lots of parts that don't quite fit together, even if the parts are good?
