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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."
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).