Ign: 7.7

[Uluse]

After days of waiting i finally got to see the review. But what the heck, IGN gave it a 7.7? I've heard of more sites saying that the game is not what it should have been. What do you guys think of this?

link to IGN review: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/834/834676p1.html

[Gorjira]

Its a mix. Some rate it high, some low.

Its all because of the hype. People were expecting this game to be 100% perfect, so if there is one small thing wrong there gonna know it and lower their over all score. Its stupid. If this game wasnt so popular the ratings would be higher. It also depends, again, on the players opinion. You may love it or hate it when you put in your own disk.

[Uluse]

Yea i know, it's strange because Gamespot gives it a 9. So my guess is that there is a personal issue here going on...

[Krueger]

didnt live up to the hype so gets worse reviews

[KingGotenW]

who cares im still getting the game

[VGA Dark Mac]

IGN gets paid for their reviews, they won't tell you that of course. I'm not surprised by the low score from them. I've had issues with their reviews because they say things happen in a game that I never see happen in the game I get. I also don't get too hyped up for games. Have I been waiting a long time for it? Yes. Do I think it's going to be the best game I've ever played? No, I've played lots of great games in my 22 years of gaming. Do I think it's going to be one of the better games of this year? Absolutely. As long as you don't think that it's going to be the greatest game ever then you should be fine.

[DFILL450]

Well ive heard that gamespot gets paid for their reviews too. I def. trust ign more than gamespot. If you watch the video review on ign, then you can understand why they gave it the score that they gave it.

[shiningcheese]

Well it didn't get high marks on a few sites/magazines and the unanimous negatives were the pop-in and choppy framerate. Also the fact that there is no real diversity in the missions. Go research and listen to people, kill, repeat until the credits roll. I haven't played it and am still curious but I might hold my 60 bux for mass effect or CoD4

[Nicpezer]

I don't like IGN they over rate games (Jade Empire 9.9 and many others). I like Gamespot b/c with all the features and shows they have you get to see what kind of people they are rather than ohh thats the guy that gave Zelda an 8. I mean it's just a number since when have reviews from everyone always been the same and accurate. I guess what it boils down to is the phrase "to each his own".

[scoobydiesel]

You knew one of the top places had to shock people by a lower rating...

plus it is still up to yourself to rate it an go off what you feel then what others do.

[VGA Dark Mac]

For those of you wondering what Gamespot gave it here's the link:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/assassinscreed/review.html?sid=6182793&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;story;1

[mclinton92]

thats y i stick with game trailers :)

[Seankichu]

In some ways, the occasional lower score than the norm can be seen as a compliment. There are a lot of times when a game is released that is so polished and ambitious that even the smallest flaws and issues become more obvious thanks to the rest of the presentation being so impressive. So maybe the IGN guy loved it so much that he just couldn't bring himself to ignore the small blemishes that would've gone unnoticed in a lesser game and had to exercise some tough love.
:)

...or maybe assassins creed is pants and we should all play GUITAR HERO!!! :rock

[KingGotenW]

if ign is right about AC being a disappointment (like 2 worlds) im seriously gonna get pissed off.

[Ed Boon]

I also like gametrailers review of the game, not just because it was a 9, but they point out every aspect of the game, while the usually dependable IGN did not mention anything about the crowd aspect or the amazing visuals. Seemed like IGN gave assassins creed's storyline a 7.7, which i could maybe agree with, but the other aspects warrent a much higher score. How many games this year have gotten above a 9 from IGN? a lot, thats why this review is disappointing. I think much less of Hillary's opinions.

[Lukeweizer]

Yea i know, it's strange because Gamespot gives it a 9. So my guess is that there is a personal issue here going on...

personal? that's so stupid. people look at game differently. it's not ign fault the game had a stupid twist and repetitive gameplay with stupid A.I.

[DFILL450]

Does anybody have the game and agree with what ign said?

[VGA Dark Mac]

I have the game and I don't see any frame rate issues at all. Of course I'm still early in the game but so far nothing bad to report.

[powerslayer67]

The media is on the payroll. They won't rate anything unless its a title that pushes out millions in advertising, like Halo 3 and COD4. You wanna talk about overhyped?

[Fonkey Monkey]

this review is the minority, i havent seen another 'bad' one. they were probably just looking for attention.

[Minty]

personal? that's so stupid. people look at game differently. it's not ign fault the game had a stupid twist and repetitive gameplay with stupid A.I.

The twist isnt stupid- it easily allows them to make sequels during different periods in time.

The gameplay is no more repetitve than any FPS game- thats the point of it. And how is the AI stupid? If you free un up the side of a building they will find the nearest ladder and chase you. If you kill 10 buddies of a guard, he will run and raise the alarm with other guards.

So far youve only said its stupid without giving any examples of whats actually stupid. Without backing any arguements up, its only one thing that looks stupid....

And theres no frame rate issues either btw

[Nicpezer]

No that crappy 1up site gave it a 7 too. I read the IGN review and I could agree with the little things you have to do before the mission being repetitive but it makes sense cause you are an Assassin and you will need info on your target in order to kill them. I haven't gotten to far b/c I was playing a friends copy and just having fun killing people so IDK if all that stuff is useless to do. The AI isn't very smart but it doesn't hinder me so I don't care. Some people might not like how the combat is focus on timing but I like it. The story probably varies from person to person so that's just there opinion that it was bad. It's a good game and I get the feeling since the hype was big and the game itself had theses problems it just left the writer angry so he really underrated it.

Penny Arcade wrote an article about the reviewers and it makes a lot of sense.

[KindCandy]

Its a mix. Some rate it high, some low.

Its all because of the hype. People were expecting this game to be 100% perfect, so if there is one small thing wrong there gonna know it and lower their over all score. Its stupid. If this game wasnt so popular the ratings would be higher. It also depends, again, on the players opinion. You may love it or hate it when you put in your own disk.
Nice... i totally agree with you. i know i am still gona enjoy this

[n1n3t33nd3lta]

wow...i can't put the controller down. yeah, it gets repetitive listening to people, interrogating people, and finally going in for the kill, but just the overall gameplay is frickin' awesome.

[KingGotenW]

i see what they mean by ruining the plot 5 minutes in. but who cares this game is still freakin amazing

[Seankichu]

so far, IGN's three different region specific reviews of Assassin's Creed have been vastly different.

IGN US: 7.7
IGN UK: 6.5
IGN AUS: 8.7

which really only tells us one thing, that Assassins Creed is going to be in the 50/50 love it or hate it camp.

Nicpezer mentioned Gabe's rant on Penny Arcade and it is actually pretty telling in regards to the difference between our experience of a game and how a reviewer might percieve it. For those who havn't read it i'll qoute it here because it's an interesting read:

I want to talk about Assassins Creed but first I need to get something out of the way. I have a lot to say about the game and I want to talk about some of the bad reviews it's getting but I want to make sure everyone understands I'm not saying this because of the comic we did for them. So I'm going to link you to an old set of news posts (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2004/12/03)about Prince of Persia 2. Feel free to read those and come back if you like.

Now I'm going to tell you how advertising on PA works. Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad. That's fine but that's not how we do it and the news posts you just read are part of the reason why.

We were huge fans of the first Prince of Persia game so when Ubi came to us and wanted to run ads for the second we said yes. We had no idea they were going to completely fuck it over. So from then on we started demanding playable copies of games before we'd agree to advertising. No matter how early the build we tell the publishers that unless we can see it played in front of us or play it ourselves we won't run ads for it. Obviously a lot can still go wrong during development but we make the best decisions we can. We do not think of the ads you see on our page as ads. They are recommendations and we try extremely hard to insure that anything we put over there is worth your time. When Prince of Persia 2 came out and we saw that it was crap we said as much on the site. Ads for the game appeared right next to those news posts slamming it. Needless to say Ubi wasn't very happy and Robert got some angry phone calls but our loyalty is to our readers not the people paying the bills. We explained to Ubi that the reason our ads perform better than any other site out there is because our readers trust us and that means we have to admit when something we advertise doesn't turn out as good as we hoped. Obviously they understood because we're still advertising their games but like I said this isn't the way other sites operate. I actually give Ubi a lot of credit for not just telling us to fuck off and buying more ads on IGN and Gamespy with the extra money.

I'm telling you all this because I want you to understand that if Assassins Creed actually was a 7.0 game I'd tell you. I also want you to know that when I tell you it's fucking incredible I'm not bullshitting you because we're running ads for the game.

There are about four or five reviews of the game with scores in the low to mid 7's. I want to cover some of the common complaints these reviewers had in case anyone out there is worried about them.

Many of the reviews say that the ending is bad. Obviously I don't want to give away any spoilers but I will say that the final confrontation was exciting and gratifying. It was an extremely satisfying ending to this chapter of the game. Chapter is the important word here. This is a huge story, probably a trilogy at least. The game does end with a cliff hanger and it certainly sets up the rest of the arc but that's how the first part of any multi part story ends. If Star Wars had ended with Luke jumping into his X-Wing to go take on the Death Star that would be a shitty fucking ending. It doesn't though, Luke destroys it and then we get hints about what's in store for our heroes. I'm telling you right now Altair destroys his Death Star.

I also can't be 100% positive but I'm guessing that some of these reviewers didn't let the credits role. Again, I don't want to spoil anything but wait for the credits to end. Until reviewers start posting their Gamertags along with the review we'll never really be able to tell how much of a game they played. But I'd be willing to bet some of them are missing the "Visions of the Future" achievement. I'm not gonna say why but If you don't have this achievement you can't say jack shit about the ending.

I think the biggest complaint I saw was that the missions become repetitive and boring. I actually didn't understand this complaint at all until just the other day. I had gotten an early copy of the game just like everyone else in the media but I was just playing it for fun. I'd cracked into it over the weekend and when I got into the office on Monday I started seeing these negative reviews. When I saw the low scores I was actually really upset and I wanted to talk about the game here on the site. I wanted to tell everyone that these guys were full of shit. However, since so many of the complaints were based on the ending I wanted to beat it first so I was sure I wasn't missing anything. I attacked the game again but this time with the goal of beating it as fast as I could. I was determined to get a post up on Tuesday and I was pushing through the game as fast as I could. I went from finding every high perch in a district to only getting the ones I needed to advance the story. I stopped saving every citizen and avoided any unnecessary confrontations. The informer missions that I had really enjoyed before, I now avoided because I knew they took too long to complete. I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that "hindered" my progress was frustrating. Monday night after skipping over another combat (something I used to really enjoy) I stopped myself. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn't playing the game because I wanted to I was playing it because I had a deadline and I needed to beat it. I stopped immediately and decided I'd write about the game whenever I got around to beating it. I spent another day and a half with it and during that time I hunted for hidden flags and explored the cities again. I came in this morning and finally did beat it but I did it at my own pace and I enjoyed every part of it.

Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins creed isn't meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn't be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn't angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them.


I guess the moral of the story here is to take all the time you need with a gaming experience that interests you and just let yourself have fun. I know i've been guilty of getting frustrated with an otherwise good game simply because i'm racing through simply to milk achievement points as fast as possible. 'm sure many of us on this site are guilty of this ;)

[SuperSouter]

Well I watched IGN's video review and I still can't wait to get the game even after what they said.

[lawless]

There r only personal issues involved in reviewing this game. Its an fresh, new game for 2007. Its one of the best of this year. Dont mind the reviews, if your favorite actor is in a movie and it got a bad review, dont you gonna see it?? I dont think so. Its a great FPS an was worth the wait. Its not what the media wanted you to believe it would be, but stil its great. Ubisoft tried something new and now have to pay for it. Its nice to play COD4 or Halo3 but look at those titles, number 4, 3 or even number 7 in a row. Its the same game with new surroundings, thats just it. And those game recieve a 9+.. thats stupid man..

[Spartan EXR]

They should have gived it a higher score!

[Kreger51]

What other people think about a game is proper to themselves...like many people said there's games like this that some people will love and others will hate...personally I didn't like Oblivion at all except for the graphics, while gamespot and IGN gave a 9+...

All that to say it doesn't really matter what a website says about a game...you'll never really know unless you play it...

[Tom19]

This game is awesome. so 7.7 my arse!

[Who128]

Does anyone agree with the IGN review, and the guy saying, "One of the Top 5 Most Disappointing Games of all time?"

[KingGotenW]

Does anyone agree with the IGN review, and the guy saying, "One of the Top 5 Most Disappointing Games of all time?"




HELL NO!!!

This game is amazing if you dont like it, then you're a moron, or someone payed you not to like it!

[Rewmac]

didnt live up to the hype so gets worse reviews That's about right...who cares im still getting the game Agreed there too...And you really should.

[VGA Dark Mac]

That's a bit harsh from IGN, well maybe not since they're douche's over there. So far i haven't experienced any of the problems with the game in that review. Was that IGN writer hanging out with Ricky Williams while playing the game? That's the only way you'd see frame rate issues, if you're high.

[fonzycore]

After days of waiting i finally got to see the review. But what the heck, IGN gave it a 7.7? I've heard of more sites saying that the game is not what it should have been. What do you guys think of this?

link to IGN review: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/834/834676p1.html

i agree with the rating.. the game gets quite tedious and boring, its only fun to look at. its also laggy at parts and ive got a fairly new 360 so its not my machine

[VGA Dark Mac]

I keep waiting for the lag and it never comes. I haven't had one slowdown in gameplay AT ALL! WTF IGN?! WTF indeed. Helooooo, where's the lag? Helooooo!

[VGA Dark Mac]

i agree with the rating.. the game gets quite tedious and boring, its only fun to look at. its also laggy at parts and ive got a fairly new 360 so its not my machine

Even new machines can have lag, my first 360 did and it crapped out in 6 months.