I was a big fan of the Assassin's creed series, and bought all their games on release until I found Revelations to be a little too repetitive and tedious.

So when I heard nothing but negative comments about Assassin's creed III, I swore I'd only get it at a bargain price. Well that time has come, I bought it cheap during the last Steam Summer sale and 50 hours of gaming later, I'm absolutely loving it.

It has a great environment, original setting, great classic Ass. Creed gameplay, amazing graphics, lots of different things to do and amazing naval combat.

I'm kind of annoyed with myself for listening to all the naysayers, and avoiding this game. I'd really like to know why people hated it so much?

I haven't played any of them. But from gameplay videos, the "gameplay" of Ass Creed games seems to be very..... ~animation driven~ for lack of a better word, like it's based around pre-set animation "Actions" like QTE's which execute when you push a button, cinematic takedowns and actions, with almost no flexibility or agency for the player.

I can't remember from after 2, but I don't think the first 2 had any real QTEs really. With the possible exception of hiding in small coverings, though. I remember actually having quiet a range of actions available in terms of assassinations.

Stop putting words into my mouth! :P

The gameplay is very animation driven, but it always have been. There certainly are QTE's in these games, but I've never had a problem with these if they are minimal and done well.

My question is not so much why would some hate assassin's creed type gameplay, that's fair enough. But rather, why would someone who liked the other games in the series think that number 3 was such a terrible disaster?

For me, it was

- that everything on the map was revealed from the start, which meant that exploration and collection was largely free of...exploration

- the free-running was needlessly simplified to one button - why you would simplify an already simple system I have no idea - which made the already imprecise controls all floaty

- the GOD DAMN KILLSTREAK BULLSHIT was still there

- couldn't play outside cities with the HUD disabled (which is how I like to do it) because of QTE animal attacks

- how can you take Assassin's Creed's already shaky storytelling (the first is still my personal favourite, I like 2 because it's a fun swashbuckling assassin adventure) and make it worse? Stick Connor in a room monologuing about how he was trained - don't show it or anything, just monologue. Plus the whole concept was getting pretty tired at that point.

Plus, at least when I played it, it was buggy as all hell.

i just finished number ass 3 two days ago, i gotta agree i loved it and i played it after ass 4. I love the locals and cities and everything, the change in seasons and the setting was awesome. Had to watch the patriots movie after playing it, the urge was killing me. I agree this was a better game then most reviewed and people led on to believe and a good conclusion to desmond story, just take out the 2012 end of world crap. stupid mayans

I don't mean QTE in the literal sense, just the "long pre-set animations" for some actions. For example say in early action adventure games like the early Tomb Raiders, to climb onto a building or tree, you would need to manually jump, grab hold of the ledge, and then pull yourself up, or sometimes shimmy across to find an area where you have enough room to pull yourself up. Seems from what I've seen in the later AC games, these kind of environmental actions are made just by the player pushing a button near an object, and then an animation "cut-scene" plays showing the character climb the object or whatever action.

Many modern games do this, and it really annoys me.

Things I didn't like:

Playing half the game as Connors dad.
Playing half the game as Connor.
Connors dads wanky character.
Connors boring character.
Lack of any of the assassin recruiting, customising and training that was in the previous two games.
Lack of tools and weapons developed from the previous games.
Lack of any real assassins/templars plot.
The whiny overdone father/son cryfest (in both time periods).
Costume/cutscene bug that the devs eventually admitted they couldn't even fix because they put so little thought into its development.

Things I liked:

Big open spaces (revelations was particularly annoying with it's tiny walkways and alleys that turned ezio into a pinball stuck between bumpers)
The change of scenery and time period.
Ship combat.

Overall I liked it better than revelations (which damn near turned me off the entire franchise) but not by much. It was only the promise of more ship combat and piracy that had me buying black ass. As a result I've got no interest in the Freedom Cry DLC or Liberation. I didn't even bother playing through the King Washington DLC either.

Ah, my mistake. :P I am so used to the typical meaning of QTEs so I misunderstood. :P

Those points are fair enough. I actually enjoyed playing as Connor's dad but I do agree that Connor wasn't too interesting. He was initially when he was more of a native american, but then he didn't get fleshed out at all.

I also don't really see the loss of tools or features from the earlier games as a problem. I think it is good that they drop some of the features that were becoming tired and made some new ones.

The cutscene bug is rather silly but certainly not game breaking.

I never finished it, it was the reason I gave up on the series, so I guess I fit your criteria of a hater.

1) Main anoyance: The absurd 100% completion things for each mission. I'm a completionist, and there were some really annoying "do it properly" criteria for some missions, which stopped them being fun, and also meant that you'd get 90% of the way through, then have to do it all again. At least have some more checkpoints that you could restart to when you screwed up the little bit.

2) after giving up on the 100% criteria, I carried on with the game, but found there was a lot less of the assassin part, and it was more back to AC1's philosophy of Terminator's Creed. Especially with the guns involved you would think that whole approach would be even harder.

3) The killer was the free running. It was always annoying, but in AC3 I found that I would be running along a street or over a rooftop, then randomly start hanging off a small fence, or accidentally jump onto a horse. It was way more sensitive than before, and really broke the game for me.

4) It was an overly long tutorial.

I lost interest whilst playing so never finished the main quest. The micromanagement is just tedious - Assassins should be assassinating, not arranging the delivery of beaver fur. Also, as mentioned earlier in this thread, the free running was just a chore, especially in deep snow. One of my favourite features of the AC series was leaping between buildings and owning every regions rooftops. AC3 put so many guards on roofs and they seem to have eagle vision as they spot Connor from all angles.

I hate all franchises that are introduced as trilogies, overstay their welcome beyond that, get yearly instalments and still supposedly have a pre-planned ending.

The six hours of tutorial really drove me insane. And the main character was boring.