IGN Hands On:Assassins Creed PC

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http://pc.ign.com/articles/862/862076p1.html

Just a few more weeks people, release dates:
US-April 8,2008
Europe-March 2008
Australia-TBA (Yatzee had a big problem with not having Rock Band as I recall)

although today is the last day of March, I haven't seen it yet.

Within the next few weeks, PC gamers will finally get a chance to get their hands on Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, the much-hyped, open-ended, free-running action game released last holiday season on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
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Since there are already plenty of reviews and reams of information out there detailing how this game is structured and what players must do to be successful, we'll concentrate on a few issues we noticed during installation and our play session. Our two primary gaming rigs here at IGN PC run Windows Vista 32-bit. Naturally they were the first we tried, and unfortunately the installation process failed on both.

This was a little confusing to us, as Gamespy editors were playing the game only a few feet away. We tried their preview build in our computer, but got the same installation error. So what was the difference? They were using Windows XP. And before we continue, we should point out that this is a preview build we're talking about, meaning it's not a finished version of the game. Yet even so, the game is supposed to release in early April and, well, that's pretty soon.

So we dusted the cobwebs off our old gaming rig that for whatever reason hadn't been dumped into a trash compactor and lo and behold, the game installed properly. At the tail end of the installation process a hardware compatibility check popped up, and to our dismay our processor did not meet the minimum requirements. In the rig we had a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 512 MB Radeon X1900, and 2 GB of RAM and the game still ran, though with a less than ideal framerate. The compatibility check identified the problem was our processor, the game's minimum requirements for which are a 2.6 GHz Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
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So Vista 32-bit users may run into problems unless those errors get sorted out.

And the gameplay on the PC version turned out to be a little better than on consoles, thanks mostly to the ability to aim Altair's movements with both the mouse and WASD keys. The mouse controls the facing of the camera that sits behind Altair, and he'll run along in whatever direction it's angled. Because a mouse's responsiveness is greater than that of a thumbstick, we actually had an easier time maneuvering Altair around the many tight alleyways and crevices of the game's dense urban landscapes and rocky environs.
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Haven't PC controls always been easier to use and a bit better than console?

The left mouse button swings your sword. A light tap does a weak attack, while holding LMB does a charge-up strong slice. If you're quick enough, you can hit LMB just as your sword makes contact with an enemy and perform a combo kill, which switches from the scaled-back third person camera to up-close, giving you a front row seat for brutal finishing moves.
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I was wondering what happened to this on PC. Hopefully they get the bugs sorted out. I want a new game for my pc.
 
The pirates have already been delighted actually.
 
Oh sweet anybody without an Athlon 64 is ****ed.
 
Krynn72 said:
Welcome to 2008. Get a decent processor.
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My processor is decent, it may be a little old but it can still perform well enough.

*pets his AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.09ghz*
 
Krynn72 said:
The pirates have already been delighted actually.
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Bahaha, I was grinning at Shamrock's statement but you put the cherry on the cupcake. Now we wait for the "proper" release.
 
xlucidx said:
My processor is decent, it may be a little old but it can still perform well enough.

*pets his AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.09ghz*
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Its like a old dog going mad, best to shoot now and get a new one before it starts causing you pain.
 
so you have a 2800+ and the minimum requirement is a 3800+?

you'll be fine
 
This has actually been on bit torrent for quite some time now. Never got it since I've beaten on 360 though.
 
The Beta released on torrent was already a decent enough conversion, but with the random crash bug sorted, and the optimization that has been done since this build, is a good enough reason for me to shell out for it.
 
However the torrent version didn't work . I read it crashed at certain parts and you needed a password to advance to Jerusalem. Can't wait for it to come out. Go and buy me a controller and the game.
 
This was a little confusing to us, as Gamespy editors were playing the game only a few feet away. We tried their preview build in our computer, but got the same installation error. So what was the difference? They were using Windows XP. And before we continue, we should point out that this is a preview build we're talking about, meaning it's not a finished version of the game.
Click to expand...

This is a scary thought consdiering Fahrenheit was released with Vista around the corner, and that didn't work on Vista
 
Nabobalis said:
However the torrent version didn't work . I read it crashed at certain parts and you needed a password to advance to Jerusalem. Can't wait for it to come out. Go and buy me a controller and the game.
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I dont think there was anything with a password, just that it crashed when you entered Jerusalem. The only way around it was to get a save file from after that part.
 
Nabobalis said:
However the torrent version didn't work . I read it crashed at certain parts and you needed a password to advance to Jerusalem. Can't wait for it to come out. Go and buy me a controller and the game.
Click to expand...

Yes, it did work, you could play the first 3 cities from the game, as well as all the in between stuff. If you got the save off certain sites, you could play every city except Jerusalem.

So really, it gave a good idea of how good the game is on PC.
 
Oh well. Want to play this game. Still going to have a wait I think 2 weeks until its out here.
 
I hope they release a demo first, was there a demo on the consoles?
 
stemot said:
Yes, it did work, you could play the first 3 cities from the game, as well as all the in between stuff. If you got the save off certain sites, you could play every city except Jerusalem.

So really, it gave a good idea of how good the game is on PC.
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It was hit or miss pretty much. From where I read, the game crashed a hell of a lot since it was the beta version and was extremely unoptimized. However, you were still able to play somewhat till Jerusalem like stated.
 
Shamrock said:
It was hit or miss pretty much. From where I read, the game crashed a hell of a lot since it was the beta version and was extremely unoptimized. However, you were still able to play somewhat till Jerusalem like stated.
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It may have been unoptimised, but still ran pretty f*ckin nice, even with only my 1GB ram, adn the random crashes are pretty rare for me.
 
Nabobalis said:
However the torrent version didn't work . I read it crashed at certain parts and you needed a password to advance to Jerusalem.
Click to expand...
You're doing it wrong.

But then again, I'm saving my PC money for Mass Effect, GTA IV, and maybe Guild Wars: Nightfall (having owned everything else in the series).
 
Their review is up now: http://pc.ign.com/articles/865/865083p1.html

They say it's worth playing if you haven't played it on the 360. That would be me, but I'm still wary of paying $50 on Steam for it based on all the negative comments I've seen about it... trying to decide! :p
 
If I ever upgrade, I'll get this. I had a lot of fun with the little time I had with the console versions.
 
Just played through the tutorial levels. I am always sceptical of ports but this one works really well for me. The controls are a bit daunting at first, but you get the hang of 'em pretty quick. Great atmosphere, appealing story and nice graphics (probably gorgeous if maxed out, but that's a bit much for my DC6600, 8800GTS, 2 gig rig). Gonna hit the first city now.
 
Yeah, not really worth the price of admission imho, like so many action games of late. It is just not fully realized unfortunately. Definitely fun for a while, but killing guards with exceedingly limited AI is only entertaining for so long.
 
VictimOfScience said:
Yeah, not really worth the price of admission imho, like so many action games of late. It is just not fully realized unfortunately. Definitely fun for a while, but killing guards with exceedingly limited AI is only entertaining for so long.
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Depends on what you're looking for in this game, I guess. Exploring is a big part of the fun for me. Besides, the PC version has extra side missions that involve other things than killing. Gonna see what that rooftop challenge is.

Oh yeah, Almost forgot. Valve, if you're reading this: please add Steam support. I added the . exe but I didn;t get Steam community in-game.
 
Picked this up today. There are some minor issues for me, such as multisampling in the video menu being grayed out and stuck on one, and when forced from the Nvidia menu it makes the menu and UI elements have dark transparent boxes around them. Leads me to think that Ubisoft didn't get anti-aliasing working correct and disabled it until a future patch (there are a lot of jaggies, so I hope they fix it soon). The other small issue is that some of the sounds are either lagged or cut in and out (only happens for sword clanging during a fight). Other than that, it runs great.

Edit: Well, I can enable Multisampling by switching my resolution a step lower. This leads me to believe that the game is reading vRAM incorrectly and thinks I don't have enough. 640 should be plenty at 1600x1200...
 
Sedako said:
Picked this up today. There are some minor issues for me, such as multisampling in the video menu being grayed out and stuck on one, and when forced from the Nvidia menu it makes the menu and UI elements have dark transparent boxes around them. Leads me to think that Ubisoft didn't get anti-aliasing working correct and disabled it until a future patch (there are a lot of jaggies, so I hope they fix it soon). The other small issue is that some of the sounds are either lagged or cut in and out (only happens for sword clanging during a fight). Other than that, it runs great.

Edit: Well, I can enable Multisampling by switching my resolution a step lower. This leads me to believe that the game is reading vRAM incorrectly and thinks I don't have enough. 640 should be plenty at 1600x1200...
Click to expand...

Are you using a Creative sound card? If so, drop the sound acceleration level to get the sounds back, or get hold of the eax.dll from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which also seemingly fixes any probs.

As for the game, I just had my pre-order from Game.co.uk arrive this morning, and I have just taken a break, runs silky smooth on my system, a lot better than beta version ever did.

Ubi seem to gotten their reputation back for their conversions as I hear Vegas 2 on the PC is just as good, glad to hear the embarrassment that was Splinter Cell Double Agent is finally laid to rest.

Nice work Ubi.
 
Nah, I'm using a Turtle Beach Montego DDL.
 
I had an Athlon XP 3200+ 4 years ago. That's an awful lot of time.
 
I've played the torrented PC version on Vista and noticed the following things:

In DX9 there was a highly annoying glitch with the post-processing where light would shine through characters and objects, and there was no post-processing effect around the UI features.

This went away in DX10, but of course it played far slower. There also seemed to be a problem with the AA, as even with 4x forced in the nVidia control panel there was still a bad jaggies problem, even though I could tell the AA was enabled properly since the game played slower.

Also, after selecting the 3/4 graphic options on some of the features it was impossible to select the 4/4 option without editing the cfg files.

Hopefully these were just problems with the torrented version, which of course crashed at Jerusalem. Does anyone know when this comes out on Steam?
 
GreatBlackthorn said:
I've played the torrented PC version on Vista and noticed the following things:

In DX9 there was a highly annoying glitch with the post-processing where light would shine through characters and objects, and there was no post-processing effect around the UI features.

This went away in DX10, but of course it played far slower. There also seemed to be a problem with the AA, as even with 4x forced in the nVidia control panel there was still a bad jaggies problem, even though I could tell the AA was enabled properly since the game played slower.

Also, after selecting the 3/4 graphic options on some of the features it was impossible to select the 4/4 option without editing the cfg files.

Hopefully these were just problems with the torrented version, which of course crashed at Jerusalem. Does anyone know when this comes out on Steam?
Click to expand...

I`m using XP, and have none of the probs your having, even with the beta.
I am able to select max in all graphics options and I don`t experience any lighting bugs at all.
Maybe it`s a Vista related problem.
 
The leaked version never once crashed on me, except intercourse's Jerusalem. It did run like shit.
 
stemot said:
They clearly don`t realise that you can quit instantly using ALT-F4.

Idiots.
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You have to admit though that the normal quitting procedure is madness. Quit Animus, quit game, log in, quit again.
 
I've played it, and It's impressive. It runs choppily and crashes insure though.

Why bother with torrent'd versions? The public already announced how badly the pirated versions compared to the real deal.
 
Naph said:
I've played it, and It's impressive. It runs choppily and crashes insure though.
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Beta or retail?

The Retail version for me hasn't crashed once yet in a 6 hour session, and runs very smoothly.
 
stemot said:
Beta or retail?

The Retail version for me hasn't crashed once yet in a 6 hour session, and runs very smoothly.
Click to expand...

Well then, obviously beta.

Dual Core 4200+ AMD
Alpha Dog XFX 8800GT
2Gb Ram
 
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