…one thing that’s overwhelmingly apparent is just how beautiful the game world is. Whether riding on horseback around the more rural areas, or bounding around the dense, built-up streets, there’s not a flicker of a doubt about its next generation credentials. With such ornate architecture, absolutely stunning animation techniques, and the crazy amount of detail infused into the game’s sprawling openworld, this is one of the few games to emerge in recent times that you just instinctively know couldn’t have been pulled off on the last generation of console hardware
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87133
Ming
Cool indeed,
but you’re going to need a cool PC too I guess…
It’s out on PS3 and Xbox 360 tomorrow. A PC version is due “1st Quarter 2008”.
Grabbing it tomorrow for my 360, along with Crysis for my PC.
Mrs Ming tells me the (PC version, Director’s Cut) game has arrived at home. Excellent 
Ming
Bunked off, installed, I may be some time
Ming
Very beautiful and interesting, let down a bit by the bloody console controls - on a PC - with no real work on making the PC version easy to play. There’s about four or five keys and that’s yer lot. I guess after playing for a bit the key combos will become second nature
Mystification and waffle is the plot in one sphere but in the main gameplay arena it’s a very lively game with hundreds of NPCs wandering around looking quite authentic, the lighting is sumptuous as is the world
Very console-orientated, led by the nose, loads of cut-scenes (ingame rendering though) and you feel like a passenger rather than how it will be (by all accounts) with Mass Effect’s RPG style- let’s hope so anyway
Assassin’s Creed for PC won’t suit everyone but if you’re into graphics and game engines it’s very nice (so far in the training area) before Jerusalem and the other cities I’m interested in seeing
Ming
One more hour’s play and it’s looking very promising, never seen animations like this before, horses are horses, eagles are eagles, climbing is climbing. Galloping, cantering horse
I’ve just noticed that when Altair breaks into and out of a run he has inertia so that he doesn’t stop instantly but rather he loses momentum. Same with your horse it takes time to spool up or brake, and you and your horse can dig your heels in and do a realistic emergency stop
Turning the horse. Sounds like a very minor thing but you get the feeling that there’s a horse under you and his head and neck are articulated nicely in turning under the bridle. John Wayne eat your heart out.
Altair has correctly articulated fingers (which I thought I would never see this side of a Cray) and when he’s climbing he’s not roughly sticking out an arm and a routine sticks his lumpen hand to a surface, he’s actually gripping edges and seeking handholds
Attention to detail here and elsewhere 10 out of 10
Just wanted to sound a little more reassuring that the PC version is very good and there’s no hurry to press on with the plot just kick your shoes off in Damascus and soak up the atmosphere
Damascus holy cow
I’ve seen in reviews that there are collections of flags and so on to find, I’ve found a couple in my travels and now I’ve spent some time in there I can see that for once I may enjoy seeking out, maybe even completing the collections. For example I just caught a glimpse of a ‘flag’ on a tiny island in a small lake with no obvious way of getting to the island as you die if you fall in the water “He’s fallen in the water at 0.5m/sec. Can he be still alive?” - hmm. Wait a minute there’s an electronic link in there - to something which I can’t spoil - water/dissolved salts/electronics hmm2. I can see how to get to the island without dipping in a deadly toe but I’m not too clever at the character controls yet. I shall return to the Phillipines
That sort of thing. Interesting stuff all over the place.
Ming
Sounds decent Ming, are there loading screens as in Oblivion when you enter and exit buildings and sometimes when free wandering the landscape?
I can’t say too much Oz but the whole area loads so there are no pauses, just a shiver, a frisson as you’re prepared for what comes next - a new area. You can’t enter buildings they are for climbing around on
It’s quite hard to describe because you’re a modern-day assassin in a simulator, living partly inside a simulation of Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus etc at the time of the Crusades. Ah got it now. Rather like the Matrix then. It’s not a straightforward ‘Where am I? Ah I remember now, I’m Conan the Ice Cream Man’. It’s more ‘Memories are electrically stored in an electro-chemical jelly inside my bony skull. One’s ancestors also existed as electro-chemical jellies and this is the good bit- they had genes that I share’. You must read English jelly there not English jam btw Oz
Btw if your jelly is our jam- how come in Some Like It Hot, Marilyn’s fanny is described as ‘Yeah, jelly on springs <sigh>’?
You must read American fanny there not- well you get the picture
AC is nothing like Oblivion Oz, it’s not an RPG at all with character-crafting and talking to NPCs. It’s an action-adventure the developers call it but there’s no adventuring per se. I told you it was hard to describe
Well like Far Cry or that one with the chickens.
Mass Effect now that’s an RPG apparently and why aren’t you playing it it’s out in US and not out here until 7th June grr
Ming
Well at least I understand one thing you told me, I am going to Jam (not Jelly)down too the game store and get me some:)…
I think the other bit is for someone a tad bit more eccentric than myself,
There is an old phrase we have here in the states
“Keep it simple, stupid!”
I promise I won’t ask anymore questions or my mind will turn into Jelly, or was that Jam???..:o
Pass me the Scones!!!
“Keep it simple, stupid!”
Yes that’s it, prove it beyond all shadow of a doubt
Moved on to Code: Unbelievable.
Ming
Status: Frankly Astonishing
But it could be me.
Ming
Astonishing
No wait I said that already
Heart-pounding action. Coming back to alleged reality and everything’s lost its Technicolor sparkle
Holy Cecil B de Mille can I get shares in Jade Redmond
You may have to experience this DX10 spectacular at our house Swoop. If you’re not a believer in the discerning Eye of Ming. Only believe
Ming