With the announcement of the latest game in this long running franchise I found myself thinking a little about it.
It's been 13 years since the release of the first Assassin's Creed and since then we've seem a huge amount of main titles and spinoffs across 2, soon to be 3, console generations. Yet, as recognizable and relevant as the series is, I realize that I don't consider a single game in the series to belong in the very first shelf of gaming.
To see if I was very off (and just for a reference) I went to check Metacritic's top games of the decade and no AC game features among the top50 in term of metascore or among the top20 in terms of published lists of top games of the decade. Blackflag was mentioned in the top10 of two lists, but that was all my quick glimpse revealed. If AC2 was from this decade, it might or might not have featured in the top50, but only at the very bottom.
And talking about AC2, it's probably one of the games people would think of in reference to the question. It's a close second in my favorite AC list, behind Brotherhood, but even them don't quite reach that top tier level. They miss something. Even the best AC games miss something to elevate them. The series feel like as if everything they do, someone does it better. The combat, the open world, the narrative, the platforming. There's always someone better.
Think of the more recent ones: Origins and Odyssey. They feel like they are trying to play catch up. Following in the rut of a wagon made by better games. They are good games, great even, but they still miss something in my eyes. Something that would make me go to someone and say: you *must* play this game.
What do you guys think?
ps: I had some trouble with the thread's title. I didn't want to use masterpiece because I feel it might be too restrictive a term, and was thinking about top tier or first shelf. Something to indicate a category only the very best games are in. But then I felt those would be not restrictive enough. So I went with the former, but I actually mean the latter. There is a logic in here somewhere.
It's been 13 years since the release of the first Assassin's Creed and since then we've seem a huge amount of main titles and spinoffs across 2, soon to be 3, console generations. Yet, as recognizable and relevant as the series is, I realize that I don't consider a single game in the series to belong in the very first shelf of gaming.
To see if I was very off (and just for a reference) I went to check Metacritic's top games of the decade and no AC game features among the top50 in term of metascore or among the top20 in terms of published lists of top games of the decade. Blackflag was mentioned in the top10 of two lists, but that was all my quick glimpse revealed. If AC2 was from this decade, it might or might not have featured in the top50, but only at the very bottom.
And talking about AC2, it's probably one of the games people would think of in reference to the question. It's a close second in my favorite AC list, behind Brotherhood, but even them don't quite reach that top tier level. They miss something. Even the best AC games miss something to elevate them. The series feel like as if everything they do, someone does it better. The combat, the open world, the narrative, the platforming. There's always someone better.
Think of the more recent ones: Origins and Odyssey. They feel like they are trying to play catch up. Following in the rut of a wagon made by better games. They are good games, great even, but they still miss something in my eyes. Something that would make me go to someone and say: you *must* play this game.
What do you guys think?
ps: I had some trouble with the thread's title. I didn't want to use masterpiece because I feel it might be too restrictive a term, and was thinking about top tier or first shelf. Something to indicate a category only the very best games are in. But then I felt those would be not restrictive enough. So I went with the former, but I actually mean the latter. There is a logic in here somewhere.
