Haze, Splinter Cell Delayed

What with Assassin's Creed being one of the best selling new IPs ever, Ubisoft probably didn't think much of having to push back the release of Haze until next year. They've also moved the next chapter in Sam Fisher's story, Conviction, to an unspecified date in the 2008-2009 fiscal calendar. "The announcement came as part of its official first half financial results, showing sales up 52 percent to 261 million ($372.86 million), and profits up nearly 12% to 30.6 million euros ($44.8 million) ... the company [also] announced Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 due for release some time in the same quarter as Haze."

Comments

cmon ubisoft

[loafula]

how about another new prince of persia game?

Re:cmon ubisoft

[king-manic]

how about another new prince of persia game? Prince of persia 4: 3 didn't suck, please forgive us for 2!

Re:cmon ubisoft

[twistedsymphony]

I'm a bit confused over your comment.

POP4 was "Sands of Time" which actually won game of the year when it came out

POP5 was "Warrior Within" which was IMO a mediocre title

POP6 was "The Two Thrones" which I never bothered to play as it looked too much like POP5

Then of course there are spin offs such as: "Battles of Prince of Persia" for the DS, "Rival Swords" for the Wii, and the "Prince of Persia Classic" which is a remake of the original with updated graphics for Xbox Live Arcade.

so technically the next game would be #7 in the series

Re:cmon ubisoft

[LKM]

gp meant: Please buy POP7; POP6 was not crap, so please forgive us the crappy POP5 (using your version numbers).

Oh Jade...

[Anonymous Coward]

What with Assassin's Creed being one of the best selling new IPs ever...

Oh Jade, your game feels soooo gooood....

Utter Bullshit

[Farakin]

I have to wait for Splinter Cell because they had a good year? What about the consumers and fans here? sometimes, capitalism sucks, but only when I can't get what I want.

Re:Utter Bullshit

[xarien]

No, you have to wait until next year because they had a good year and can afford to spend more money to polish a game, which equates to you getting a better game. Do you really think developers sit on their hands while a game is "delayed?"

Best Selling Suck

[Seumas]

I'm sure the fanboys will mark me as a troll, but as someone who eagerly anticipated Assassin's Creed, forked out the $65 for it and then sat right down to play it -- it doesn't deserve all the hype.

It looks pretty good. It has a couple interesting gameplay mechanics. But the story is terrible. They could have done away with all of the "your ancestor's memory lives in your DNA and we're going to stick you in a machine that sends your brain back in time to re-enact your ancestor's life". They could have added more content, too. The entire game consists of three things: Climbing high things to see new parts of the map, fighting a few guards to save citizens (who are ALWAYS in trouble for theft and the citizen saving is always 100% the same), pick pocketing (again, pointless and always exactly the same) one or two interrogations (you punch a guy a few times -- always the same) and then assassinating the "final boss".

Not only is the game utterly boring (because it is so repetitive), but even the main character (Altair) says it's boring when he's talking to the head assassin guy who takes all of Altair's weapons and special abilities away in the beginning. If your fictitious game character thinks the game is boring, then how the hell do you think the player feels?!

I wanted to love this game so damn much, but there just isn't enough actual variety and content to it. And while every game entails some degree of repetition, Assassin's Creed has to be right up there with Pac-Man -- only without all the fun. I won't be buying the other two games in the trilogy unless I get them at used prices and even then, only if I have absolutely nothing else left to play and am so utterly bored that doing the same three or four things a few hundred times just to see the long, drawn-out blab-blab-blab cut-scenes (seriously, it's like fucking Dragon Ball Z or something).

Re:Best Selling Suck

[DDLKermit007]

Well to each their own. It's largely a sandbox game, and many miss that easily. Most of the reviewers who give the game low marks can't figure that out. For many people that's also not what they want.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Liquidrage]

I've actually enjoyed this game quite a bit. I mean, COD4 basically consists of one thing. Shooting people. Over and over. And yet it doesnt get the repeptitive label.

Sure, you climb a lot. But they aren't all cookie cutter climbs. There's several very large eagle's nests in the mid to late game that are actually quite the challenge to figure out how to get up. You're free to figure out how to attack targets. The game has as much freedom as any action game I've ever played. I think too many people just want their hand held in games. The other poster got it right when he called it a sandbox type game. I enjoyed tremendously sneaking around and taking out 10 guards one after another without getting caught. Or fighting 30 or so guards in one continuous fight. Or finding the best route to leap attack and one shot some target.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[the_fat_kid]

- The entire game consists of three things: Climbing high things to see new parts of the map, fighting a few guards to save citizens (who are ALWAYS in trouble for theft and the citizen saving is always 100% the same), pick pocketing (again, pointless and always exactly the same) one or two interrogations (you punch a guy a few times -- always the same) and then assassinating the "final boss". -

that is 5 things. by my count. not that you weren't dissapointed, just that 5 is more than 3.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[MBraynard]

I think you would enjoy COD4 if you put it on the Veteran setting. You really have to use your brain to figure out how to get through some of the scenarios. The solutions to the helicopter pilot rescue and the end of flashback mission where you have to carry the pilot were particularly challenging.

Taking out the helicopter from the Church in the flashback mission was also a challenge.

I'm taking a pass on Assasin's Creed, though.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Sciros]

That's the sort of review the game has been getting a lot of places. I'm fairly certain it's accurate, as well.

Now, if all the criticism was about "omg game too hard" and "ugh camera too fast for me eyes" then I would have bought it in a heartbeat because Ninja Gaiden ruled. But clearly this is no Ninja Gaiden.

Anyway thanks for the post; solid criticism is rare these days and it helps me decide whether to consider buying a game or not.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Tim Browse]

that is 5 things. by my count. not that you weren't dissapointed, just that 5 is more than 3.

Isn't the game set around the time of The Crusades?

"The entire game consists of five things."
"Three, Sir!"

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Seumas]

I would say Assassin's Creed is exactly the *opposite* of a sandbox game. There are literally only three or four parts to the game and every instance of each part is always exactly the same. Unless you can get some sort of thrill for countless hours by hopping around roof tops to engage in pointless fights with the same guards you've fought a thousand times.

You can't pick-pocket or interrogate at will. These are only to be performed on a few specific targets.

There are a couple dozen citizens to save in each city. Always for the same reasons. Always by fighting the same half dozen guards in the same way with the same weapons and then running away before you're caught.

And that is the whole content of the game, until you are ready to go after the "boss" each time and assassinate him.

I would expect a sandbox game to have more to do both in the game construct itself and freely as part of the world's flexibility. This game is exactly the opposite. Even if hopping around buildings ala Crackdown gets a person off, it has to get boring eventually when they realize they aren't actually *doing* anything.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Seumas]

The one thing the game does well is the fighting. It's very smooth and the transitions are amazing. It's exciting to fight four or five or eight people at a time and be able to hack one guy, slash another with your blade's return, shove a third and then chop the first guy through his chest.

But it is definitely not "hard" and it's very difficult to die in a large fight. The reason this game is such a let-down is that you can see there is such a potentially rich world and a wealth of toys you could be playing with, but they have reduced it to a very mediocre set that you actually get to have and made it an extremely linear game. I think that many people who are overly thrilled with the game are just swayed by the relatively nice graphics and the fact that they can "climb tall stuff" (by the way, how many dozens of times do you have to climb to the top of a perch to expand your view of the map before the stupid circle-eagle-sky-cam-pan thing gets old?!).

So it's that there *could* be so much more, but isn't, that the result is so frustrating.

And of course, the story is pretty stupid. I was excited when I heard about a game based on the crusades in the 12th century. But then they crammed that awesomeness into a stupid sci-fi DNA-memory story. *snoooore*

The experience is definitely worth dropping $30 on a used copy in a couple months. As someone who bought it at full price . . . meh. I haven't finished the game, even. I played about half way through and then found myself not even interested in popping the disc back in for a few days. Maybe I'll get back to it next week.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Seumas]

Call of Duty is not repetitive in the same way that Assassin's Creed is. Repetition doesn't have to be boring, but in Assassin's Creed, it is. Assassin's Creed says "look at these few things you can do -- aren't they rad?! So rad that we're going to make you do them 800 times! Yay!".

Call of Duty breaks things up. Introduces different strategies and tactics. Very different environments and goals . . . and while I wouldn't play it a second time, there was no point in the whole playthrough that I felt I was just being suckered into believing that doing something 500 times counts as "lots of content".

Assassin's Creed reminded me that I should not always be so eager for $60 games to have a lot of play time. If a game lasts 40 hours, but never varies, it's less enjoyable than a game like Bioshock where there is a lot of variety, great story, fun gameplay and it's all over in a couple sittings.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[fimbulvetr]

LOL, 30 or so in one fight. That is correct, up until you realize that you fight one guard at a time while the others stand and watch. Never before have played such a monotonous game. It was a wrectched experience and not worth the gas to drive to the store to pick it up.

Re:Best Selling Suck

[Sciros]

Oh give me a break A.Coward, do you seriously think a rubbish storyline to *explain* a lifebar is better than a decent story and a typical "video game lifebar"? That's a terrible tradeoff. Also mashing up Indiana Jones with anything makes it worse, let alone a turd like The Matrix. Not sure how you actually relate that to Assassin's Creed.

breaking the naming convention

[u8i9o0]

I'm a fan of the Splinter Cell series.

However, I'm less surprised by a delay than I am the title: "Splinter Cell: Conviction".

What ever happened to Splinter Cell: Adjective Noun? :)

Or is it because

[jamie(really)]

games written on engines developed for the PC just suck ass on the PS3?

THANK YOU

[Khuffie]

Any news of a delay is appreciated. I'm glad Smash Bros. got delayed. Over the last couple of weeks, I got assassin's creed, call of duty, super mario galaxy, mass effect, wii zapper, and my sister ordered me Guitar Hero 3. Not only am I broke, but I barely have enough time to play. :p Not to mention games like Uncharted: Drake's Adventure and Ratchet and Clank that I had to pass by. This is ridiculous though. Publishers need to realize that people buy games at times other than Christmas too