Assassin’s Creed Revelations – Multiplayer
On the 21st of September 2011 Ubisoft hosted the UBINIGHTS event in Melbourne. This is where they showcase the latest blockbuster titles that will be available by the end of the year. The entire OzBoxLive team was invited to get a hands-on preview of several titles. Here are our thoughts on the multiplayer aspect of the new Assassin’s Creed Revelations.
Mark Libman – “This was the first time I have ever played Multiplayer in an Asassin’s Creed game and I absolutely loved it. The only problem was I had no bloody idea what I was doing. Without a tutorial or time to learn what exactly was involved I found the entire thing extremely complex. When compared to Gears of War, Halo or Call of Duty which very simply is shoot anything that moves. This seemed like an intense case of “Cat and Mouse”. I could find my target slowly or run around rooftops but doing so would alert my opponents. One thing that really impressed me was the amount of computer controller characters going about their business. It seemed like there were hundreds of characters in the game and any of them could be an Assassin. If you are a fan of the series then you will spend many hours with friends online.”
Callan Winfield – “I’ve only ever played the first “Assasins Creed” and I have nothing but fond memories of that game – the only drawback being I’m a massive multiplayer fan, so much so I often don’t play campaigns (I’m told I’m not playing games right all the time…). Now imagine my delight at a showcase of “revelations” multi-player chops.
I’ve always admired the sleek menu style of this game, simplistic in white with the blue code appearing in both the menu’s and throughout the game – a touch that’s often brought me back to the original game.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations delighted me, as I plunged my spear into the player next to me after having silently following them around a beautifully detailed courtyard to confirm they were indeed my target. I really enjoyed this multiplayer style, so different to Halo and Call of Duty which are my personal bread and butter. Ubisoft has managed to make a possibly boring game mode quite a lot of fun, with decent incentive not to kill too many civilians, and nice details like your player joining in an NPC conversation if you let him go idle, all the while you scan the crowds for your target.
Everything flowed nicely in the controls, I’m not a PS3 controller fan but I had no problems picking up the controls and hunting my prey. For the multiplayer alone this game gets my vote.”
Mark ten Buuren – “Much like the multiplayer in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, I really enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of Revelations. These games bring a unique twist to the multiplayer table. They don’t play on the usual gameplay style of “shoot anything that looks like remotely a target” – instead you have to hunt your target carefully without alerting them. If you can blend into the crowd near your target unnoticed or perch yourself hidden on a rooftop you will earn maximum points for the assassination, but if however you sprint up to them knocking people over on your way you will earn the minimum amount for the kill as it was reckless.
The maps are populated with civilians, which are computer controlled copies of all the players characters. These are helpful in confusing your pursuer as you can hide in a group of the same characters and blend in, if a player kills a civilian they lose their current contract and will have to wait for a new one. Each player can sometimes have multiple contracts open to them to choose from, but only one target/opponent can be stalked at a time. In the top-right corner of your screen is an image of your target, and under that are a series of triangles – the amount of other assassins chasing your target is indicated by the amount of triangles that light up blue. The same goes for pursuers on you – red triangles are positioned underneath the position in the match that you are coming (top left corner).
For fans of the Assassin’s Creed series, the multiplayer in both Brotherhood and Revelations add replayability to the game, once you beat the campaign you will keep coming back to rise through the ranks in multiplayer.”
Guy Grealy – “Now – sad to say, I haven’t yet managed to get around to trying out Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. But, on the other hand, if I had I probably wouldn’t have had as much of a blast playing around in the Revelations demo. The majority of my fun in the original Assassin’s Creed was getting guard agro, gathering as big a flock of angry Templars as I could, and just running like a madman to try to lose them without hiding. Assassin’s Creed 2 pulled me in with its increased arsenal. Now it seems I’m due to be sucked in by Revelations after just a tiny taste of what multiplayer has to offer!
As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t had a chance to mess around with Brotherhood yet, so the multiplayer experience was completely new to me, and boy was it fun! The map we played was essentially a small (any bigger and I don’t think I would have found anyone!) portion of a bigger city, with a large building in the middle separating 2 open areas. There was 7 of us all up, and each of us had a different ‘skin’. The map was populated with many NPCs that share the same skin as the players, and we are each given a ‘target’. The aim of the game is to figure out which one is the player, and my god is it satisfying to land that killing blow on someone you’ve been hunting a while! It’s great fun to assume the spot of an NPC (if you stand close to a crowd, your character will interact with them) and spot your target do the slightest action out of ordinary, then erupt towards them for a “high-profile” kill!
Sadly, I didn’t have enough time to delve into the new (at least for me!) goodies available to the game, such as the skill sets and all those fancy meters up in the top right. I would have loved to sleuth out what they all were, but being constricted on time and unable to hold back my desire to ‘Get the villain’, I wasn’t able to. However my curiosity has been successfully piqued, and being the competitive gamer I am, I cannot wait to get my hands back on this game! There’s nothing quite like hiding in a pile of hay and ambushing your target successfully, only to have your pursuer dive in and drag you out kicking and screaming.”
David Lynch – “OK, I’ll admit it – I’m a bit of an Assassin’s Creed fanatic, so the multiplayer mode itself was nothing strange or confusing to me. Having said that, anyone who’s experienced the thrill of lying in wait for your online victim to stumble past, this half of Revelations has been tweaked to enhance.
As usual with second iterations of multiplayer games, there’s been alterations and additions. The load-out of your character’s special moves for evasion, etc. has been greatly enhanced. There’s also been a rework of the stealth/detection meter: this time around, instead of having a radar-like meter to guide you and indicate distance, there’s just one that shows your anonymity level (and thus your score when killing, or when they’re likely to detect you). Not a change that’s likely to help on larger maps, but I guess it does add to a true Assassin’s experience when you think about it. Stunning and detection have also been tweaked, with background sounds also helping to give away a pursuer.
So what did I learn? Three things: 1) Assassin’s Creed LAN multiplayer is great – killing people and then hearing a cry of frustration further down the table is priceless!! 2) The Playstation controller layout for this is annoying – think of it as using RB for high-profile mode instead of the trigger, and you’ll begin to understand. And number three goes without saying… this game will ROCK!!”
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – Game Detail Page
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