作者：Eric Schwarz

《刺客信条》是我最喜欢的系列游戏之一。该系列游戏中有许多很棒的内容，比如有趣的角色、贯穿阴谋的故事情节、广袤的可探索世界和与现实世界历史的巧妙结合（游戏邦注：并非完全借鉴现实历史）。现在，越来越多有关《刺客信条3》的信息纷纷出现，我们也渐渐可以看到育碧对这款专属游戏的新愿景。

该游戏创意总监Alex Hutchinson声称，《刺客信条3》的控制方式有所改变。这个信息让我开始思考《刺客信条》系列游戏中的控制方案及其与游戏设计的联系。不幸的是，经过思考后我意识到，《刺客信条》系列现有的控制方案在许多方面存在很大的瑕疵。我将在此深入探讨其控制方案，阐述它失去效用的表现及其原因以及如何进行改善。

“操纵木偶”系统

原版《刺客信条》在游戏发布时，控制方案便成为人们最先讨论的话题。多数游戏的控制选择将动作绑定在特定的按键上，但是在《刺客信条》中，角色攀爬所产生的环境互动复杂性导致游戏采用了特别的控制方法。当角色可以做出攀爬、跳跃、抓取和旋转等诸多动作时，通过多个按键来管理所有这些移动将使游戏变得非常困难。

因此，游戏采用了“操纵木偶”控制系统。这个系统背后的原则是，玩家的控制器按键可以视为连接角色不同肢体的木偶操纵线，这个原则随后被用到《刺客信条》系列所有的游戏续作中。比如，按键A控制脚，X控制右手，B控制左手，Y控制头部。这个系统的第2个成分是将角色状态分为高调和低调。默认情况下，玩家处在“潜行模式”，或者可以成为低调，但是按住RT会导致玩家进入高调模式。在高调模式中，对敌人的攻击显得高调且粗暴，玩家可以更加快速地奔跑且跳得更远，做出的动作也更容易引起巡逻的怀疑。

从理论上来说，对于一款潜行游戏，这是极为出色的控制系统。它不仅解决了某些潜行游戏无法恰当呈现角色是否处在潜行状态的问题，而且将各种类型的概念动作绑定到某些按键上。按动Y可以让玩家检查游戏世界中的对象或场景，按住Y会让玩家进入鹰眼模式，高亮显示特殊角色和可互动对象。当行动方式犹豫不决时，按动Y便可以自动触发正确的动作。

开放世界的影响

不幸的是，在最终成形的《刺客信条》系列游戏中，这种控制方案的效果似乎并不好。原作的故事情节围绕刺杀目标构建而成，还包含收集更多目标相关信息的小挑战，比如收集到某些信息能够得知目标的位置，收集所有信息往往能够使玩家在对抗中获得优势。所有这些内容都发生在广袤的开放世界中，故事发生的区域被分为各个城市，城市之间也有很大的过渡区域。

刺客信条2(from media.paperblog)

《刺客信条》中的控制问题并不在于控制本身，而在于游戏的其他内容。我们会看到，该系列后期的作品并不像真正的潜行游戏。营销广告和图片或许会告诉你，它是款有关潜行和刺杀的游戏，但事实并非如此。《刺客信条》成了主要目标是从A点到B点的开放世界游戏。无论你是从一个地方跑到另一个地方、努力应对挑战还是逃离巡逻警卫的追捕，90%的游戏体验内容是奔跑和跳跃。如果从这个角度来看，游戏执行的控制方案就不能很好地为这样的游戏玩法模式提供支持。

比如，玩家几乎在整个游戏过程中都需要全速奔跑。对于全速奔跑的输入，《刺客信条》要求玩家按住两个键：A键（游戏邦注：控制极速奔跑和跳跃）和RT（维持高调），这样才能实现快速移动。你愿意用两个按键还是单个摇杆？当奔跑数秒乃至数分钟后，你就会觉得疲劳。如果玩家只需要移动摇杆而不用按任何按键就可以保持全速奔跑，这样的控制方案难道不会更容易且让玩家更加舒适吗？

刺客信条2(from wingdamage.com)

（虽然拥有华丽的开放世界，《刺客信条》却难以提供与此复杂地理相符的控制方案。）

在后续的《刺客信条》系列游戏中，这种情况愈发糟糕。在该系列游戏首作中，玩家从A点移动到B点的过程中含有大量额外的游戏玩法，比如避开警卫和乞丐，但这些内容在《刺客信条2》中被完全移除，好像玩家会因为过数分钟就需要停下而感到恼怒一样。如果游戏首作可以被视为大型潜行和移动谜题游戏，游戏的难度因后者的存在而增加，那么《刺客信条2》完全可以被称为《侠盗猎车手：意大利》，只是没有汽车和枪支而已。

《侠盗猎车手4》（游戏邦注：包括该系列之前的数款游戏）有着非常令人不适的控制机制，玩家需要尽可能快地按动奔跑键才能急速奔跑。这种机制背后的想法是，如果玩家需要频繁按动按键来快速奔跑，那么他就能更容易地融入游戏，设计师希望通过这种方式来营造紧张感。但是，开放世界游戏要的不是让玩家砸按键，开放世界存在的目的在于给玩家体验和解决游戏挑战的选择。移动是做出选择的过程，并非游戏玩法。如果你需要玩家按住或猛砸按键来让内容变得“有趣”，那么你的游戏肯定存在严重的问题。

《刺客信条》整体设计的最终结果是，由于游戏的开放世界本质及其对玩家不断移动的需求，现有的控制方案根本不能呈现流畅且有趣的游戏玩法。毕竟，玩家需要的只是从A地到B地，然后刺死目标，根本就不需要进行复杂的潜行。这种主要针对需要潜行、躲避警卫和混入人群的游戏而设计的控制系统不适合《刺客信条2》的新游戏玩法模型，这是显而易见的，并不会令人感到惊讶。

情景化控制方式

在《刺客信条》中花上更多时间，就会发现游戏玩法中另一个非常有趣的层面：就游戏向玩家提供的移动类型而言，控制极具深度，其复杂性大大超过了游戏本身的需求。你在游戏中可以做出各种各样很酷的动作，比如短跳跃、长跳跃、沿墙壁奔跑和蹬墙跳跃等。尽管《刺客信条》中不精确的控制经常成为人们嘲弄的对象，然而事实上游戏的控制堪称精确，几乎整个游戏世界都是围绕让这些控制方式而建立。如果你拥有足够的时间来训练并精通这个“木偶操纵”系统，从理论上讲，你可以不犯丝毫错误地打通整款游戏。

尽管有这种高精确性，但我几乎没见过能够这样精确地控制《刺客信条》的玩家。许多控制方式的情景化本质以及玩家在游戏中的预期想法，使我们之前培养的老习惯无法奏效。此外，因为使用这种所有内容均与情景有关的设计，当处在多种动作均可使用的环境时，游戏必须有效地预测到玩家会想要做出何种动作。

在《神秘海域》这样的游戏中，其控制方式显得极为流畅和精确，因为某种控制方式只会对应1种结果：按动向上键要么意味着“前进”，要么意味着“上移”。但是《刺客信条》所呈现的是开放世界，必须考虑到各种各样的问题。玩家想要攀爬？跳跃？转身悬挂在附近的突出物上？从屋顶跳下刺杀街上的人？还是蹬墙跳跃？控制主要因情景不同而显得精确，但是它们并不直观，因为真实的场景情况往往与玩家预期存在差异。

神秘海域(from viagamer)

（《神秘海域》也允许玩家做出各种各样情景化的动作，但这种方法奏效是因为玩家处在有限世界中。在开放世界中，这些情景化的控制方式变得难以有效运转。）

如果游戏正确教导控制方法，可以部分缓和这种控制带来的问题，不幸的是，《刺客信条》在这方面做得并不好。即便该系列前两款游戏已经在引入时间方面与其他游戏相比有所增加，花了将近1个小时的时间来给予玩家新的武器，但我敢保证几乎没有玩家在这个时候能够真正领会控制或游戏中的各种功能。即便我们已经掌握了刺杀技能，我们仍然有可能在沿墙壁奔跑时不慎坠落摔死。

原因在于，《刺客信条》系列游戏在教授玩家可用的高级功能方面做得很差。尽管游戏解释了高调和低调间的差别以及如何奔跑或刺杀目标，但它并没有解释朝特定方向进行蹬墙跳跃所需的准确控制组合，也没有解释如何悬挂在突出物上而不是直接跃过，更没有解释如何从屋顶径直坠落而不是以全速跳出。

所有这些高级信息是玩家在这个复杂3D世界中流畅导航的基础，却只能在教程视频和挑战模式中看到。而我之所以知道可以学到上述内容，是因为我刚好在《刺客信条：兄弟会》中花时间努力获得所有可选挑战的金牌评级。多数玩家不会选择这么做，但游戏过程需要玩家掌握这些技巧，这样才能良好地控制角色的动作。

解决方案

我想不出能够完美解决这个问题的方法。这是个困难且复杂的问题，显然育碧在这几年的时间里都未能成功将其改善。然而，我认为有些基础性的改变有利于现有的控制方案，缓和这种潜行控制方式与开放世界动作冒险游戏间的冲突。

1、抛弃“木偶操纵”系统。我知道，这是《刺客信条》系列游戏的特征，可能也是该游戏向业界展示的最大创新。但坦诚地说，它并没有起到应有的作用。它给游戏带来了不必要的复杂性，而且与核心游戏玩法不相符，我在上文已经解释过这点。

2、取消高调和低调模式。与“木偶操纵”系统类似，这种模式也给游戏带来了不必要的复杂性。缓慢步行可以通过轻轻移动控制杆来实现，或者让玩家可以通过按动控制杆来进入潜行模式。潜行和暗杀技能可以与其他的按键绑定。这才是玩家真正需要的高低状态差异化控制方式。

3、根据玩家预期来设计游戏。利用玩家熟悉的控制方案并非总是完美的做法，但是玩家确实会因此更容易接纳游戏。这也正是为何多数现代射击游戏设置左操纵杆移动和右操纵杆观察的原因，这或许不是完美的方案，但是在这个方面颠覆传统只会增加玩家学习游戏的困难程度，不会带来任何好处。

4、提供足够的教程，告诉玩家何时以及如何使用某些移动和做出某些动作。《刺客信条》在战斗和环境互动等方面做得很好，但是在最重要的部分却有所欠缺，那就是移动。如果游戏能够指导玩家如何在环境中移动，那么玩家肯定能学到所需的东西。

5、避免功能膨胀。这是个普遍适用于各类游戏的设计评论，我觉得《刺客信条》中的控制情况随时间发展变得愈发糟糕。更多功能就意味着游戏中有更多的道具、武器和移动方式，也就意味着需要使用更多控制器上的按键，会出现更多情景化的控制方式。保持控制的简单化，在续作游戏发布时只需要给部分按键增加新功能即可，但是要确保这些新功能不会与核心控制理念发生冲突，并且要确保添加新功能是实现新玩法的必要之举。

如果要让我为该游戏设计控制方案的话，我会采用以下方式：

* A可以控制所有的跳跃和攀爬。靠近墙壁时按下该键就能够激活攀爬，随后玩家可以利用方向操纵杆来控制蹬墙跳跃的方向。

* B是“取消”按键和控制“坠落”的按键。

* X控制角色与对象的互动。面对普通市民，它的作用是偷窃钱袋。在战斗中，它的作用是拿出武器。面对其他对象，它的作用可以是开门或拾取箱子。

* Y用于激活当前已选择的子道具，比如玩家的枪支、弩和飞刀等。

* LB控制高调和致命的刺杀。

* RB控制低调的暗杀。

* LT激活锁定模式，理想情况下是种类似于《塞尔达传说》中的定位。

* RT控制战斗中的格挡。

你或许会注意到，上述某些想法来源于育碧旗下的其他游戏。比如，LB和RB控制不同类型的攻击，这种设计首次出现在《分裂细胞：混沌理论》，分解控制致命和非致命的攻击。同时，我肯定了《刺客信条》中某些现有的控制方式，比如我喜欢统一的攀爬跳跃按键，我喜欢目标锁定模式，我喜欢呈现武器和道具的圆形菜单，我还很喜欢通用界面导航。这些内容不需要更改，因为它们都很有效。不幸的是，它们存在于一个充满问题的核心控制方案中。

radial-menu(from smashingmagazine.com)

（《刺客信条2》引进的圆形菜单是个睿智的功能膨胀解决方案，玩家可以在战斗中自由选择关键道具和武器。）

但是，上述方案也存在一定的问题。战斗和游戏探索模式间按键的混合，使游戏产生不一致性。同时，如果在进行刺杀时有明确的目标，那么使用低调暗杀比较恰当。但是如果你处在激烈的战斗中，那么使用按键X似乎是更恰当的选择。当然，你无法靠控制方案创新来作为游戏的卖点。

总结

虽然《刺客信条》的控制方案存在不足之处，但它仍然是令人惊叹的系列游戏作品，是这个主机时代中少数真正原创并具有娱乐性的作品之一。游戏还存在很大的提升空间，我希望自己的这篇文章清晰地罗列出要点。

对于《刺客信条3》，我希望育碧能够花费时间和精力来改善控制方案。最好不要只对现有方案进行些许修改，他们需要重新思考游戏的整个控制方式，研究其他开放世界题材游戏，发掘对它们有效的设计方法及其原因。希望在这款新游戏中，角色不会因控制不良而频繁死亡。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Assassin’s Creed: Controls Make the Game

Eric Schwarz

Assassin’s Creed is one of my favorite game series of the last generation. It features a lot of really great things to like: interesting characters, a conspiracy nut storyline, an expansive world to explore, clever (although not at all accurate) integration with real-world history, and more. Now that more information on the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed III is starting to come out of the woodwork, we’re also beginning to see some of Ubisoft’s renewed vision for the franchise.

Among this is a statement by Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director on the title, about the revised controls for Assassin’s Creed III. It’s an interesting read, and it got me thinking about the control scheme of Assassin’s Creed, as well as how it ties into the overarching design of the series. Unfortunately, that train of thought also led me to realize that the existing control scheme of the Assassin’s Creed series is, in many ways, deeply flawed. In this article, I’ll be going into detail about that control scheme, and examine how and why it doesn’t work, as well as how it can be improved upon.

The Puppeteer System

The original Assassin’s Creed control scheme was one of the first things discussed in the run-up to the game’s release. Whereas most games control by having actions tied to specific buttons, in Assassin’s Creed, the complexity of the environmental interactions necessitated by the game’s parkour-style climbing in turn requires a different approach to controls. When you can climb, jump, grab, swing, and everything in between, managing all those movements across a small handful of buttons can get very difficult.

Enter the “puppeteer” control system. The principle behind it, which has since been used for all subsequent games in the Assassin’s Creed series, is that the player’s controller can be conceptually thought of as puppet strings connected to the different appendages of the avatar. The A button controls the legs, for instance, while X controls the weapon hand, B controls the off hand, and Y controls the head. The second component of this system is the high and low profile configurations. By default, the player is in “stealth mode”, or low profile, but holding RT will cause the player to enter high profile mode. In high profile mode, attacking enemies is messy and loud, the player can run faster, jump farther, and generally perform actions that raise suspicion.

For a stealth game, this, in theory, is a fantastic control system. Not only does it get rid of the “am I sneaking or not sneaking?” problem that some stealth games exhibit, it also consistently maps certain types of conceptual actions to certain buttons. Pressing Y will allow the player to examine objects or scenes in the game world, just as holding Y will allow the player to enter Eagle Vision mode, highlighting different characters and interactive objects, for example. When something involving the head, eyes, or looking occurs, the player can be confident that pressing Y will trigger the correct action.

Tyranny of the Open World

Unfortunately, the control scheme itself does not actually work very well in Assassin’s Creed as a final game. The original title was built around key assassinations, as well as performing mini-challenges to collect more information on the target – collecting part of the information would reveal the target’s location, while collecting all of it would often provide some sort of bonus in the confrontation. All of this took place in an expansive open world, relegated into very large areas on a city-by-city basis (with one large transitional area between them).

The big problem with the controls as realized in Assassin’s Creed isn’t really the controls themselves. It’s the rest of the game. See, Assassin’s Creed, especially the later titles in the franchise, isn’t really a stealth game. The marketing and the image might tell you it’s about stealth, about assassinating, about being a silent predator… but it really isn’t. No, Assassin’s Creed an open world game that is primarily about getting from A to B. Whether you’re running from objective to objective, or trying to solve a challenge, or escaping the guards, there’s a good chance 90% of your game experience will be running and jumping. Bearing this in mind, the controls, as they are implemented, do not support this mode of gameplay well.

Take, for example, the necessary input to run at top speed, something the player is bound to want to do just about all the time. Assassin’s Creed requires the player press and hold two buttons, the A button (for sprinting and jumping) and RT (for high profile mode), in order to move quickly. Two buttons, plus the analogue stick? Really? When running for several seconds or even minutes, this becomes fatiguing. Surely, it would be much easier and more comfortable if the player could run at full speed solely by moving the analogue stick, without pressing any buttons at all?

(Despite featuring a beautiful open world, the Assassin’s Creed series struggles to provide controls that work for navigating its complex geometry.)

This was made worse in subsequent Assassin’s Creed games. Whereas the first in the series had a lot of additional gameplay to perform while the player was running from A to B, in the form of guards to avoid, cover-blowing beggars to fend off, and so on, this was mostly removed from Assassin’s Creed II onward, presumably because players were annoyed with having to stop every few minutes. While the first game could be said to resemble one big stealth and movement puzzle, becoming quite difficult in the later levels, Assassin’s Creed II was effectively Grand Theft Auto: Italia, minus the cars and guns.

There is one argument that could be made, and it’s a very poor one, in my opinion. Grand Theft Auto IV (and some of the prior games) featured a very annoying control mechanism, whereby the player had to tap the run button as quickly as possible in order to sprint. The reasoning behind this mechanism is that the player feels more involved when running around if he or she can press a button – it triggers the “something’s happening!” sensation that interface designers will know makes animated loading screens a necessity. But, open world games aren’t about mashing buttons – the open world exists to give the player choice in experiencing and solving gameplay challenges. Moving around is a function of choice-making, not the game in itself. If you need to resort to the player holding down or mashing buttons to make things “interesting”, you have a very serious problem with your game.

The end result of Assassin’s Creed overall design is that, given the open world nature of the game and its heavy focus on traversal, the existing control scheme is simply not conducive to smooth and fun gameplay. Players just want to get from A to B and stab someone, after all, and doing that is much more complicated and awkward than it needs to be. I, for one, don’t find it surprising that a control system designed primarily for a game about stealthily sneaking around, evading guards, blending in crowds, and so forth is not suited to the new model of gameplay realized especially in Assassin’s Creed II.

Contextual Controls & Obfuscation

Spending more time with Assassin’s Creed reveals another very interesting side of the gameplay – despite being more complex than they need to be, the controls are actually very deep in terms of the move set offered to the player. There are all sorts of really cool things you can do: short jump vs. long jump, run across walls, wall jump, etc. While Assassin’s Creed is often derided for its imprecise controls, it actually has extremely precise ones – in fact, just about all the game world is assembled in a way which makes them useful. If you take the time to master the puppeteer system, you will, in theory, be able to play the entire game without ever making a single mistake.

Despite this high level of precision, though, almost no player I’ve seen has actually been able to control Assassin’s Creed in a way I’d call precise. The context-sensitive nature of many of the controls, combined with the expectations players bring into the game, often ensures that our old habits simply do not work. Additionally, by making everything context-sensitive, the game has to effectively guess at what the player wants to do when more than one action is available.

In a game like Uncharted, the controls are so smooth and precise because there is always only one path to follow: pressing up can only either mean “forward” or “up”, not both. But Assassin’s Creed, set in an open world, has to contend with all sorts of problems. Does the player want to climb? Jump up? Spin around and hang from the nearby ledge? Leap off a roof and stab someone on the way down? Wall jump? The controls are precise as they can be contextually, but they are not intuitive because the context is very often different than what the player anticipates.

(Uncharted lets the player do all sorts of crazy context-sensitive stuff, but it only works because of how limited the player’s world is. In an open world, those context-sensitive controls become a lot harder to fine-tune.)

Part of this can be mitigated by proper teaching, which, unfortunately Assassin’s Creed does not do very well. Even though the first two games in the series have extended introductory sequences and take close to an hour just to give the player a weapon, I can guarantee almost no player will have a keen grasp of the controls or game functions by that point. Even though we’re master assassins, we’re still running into walls and accidentally leaping to our deaths.

The reason for this is that the Assassin’s Creed games do a poor job of actually teaching the player the more advanced maneuvers available. While it will explain high and low profile, or how to run, or stab someone, it won’t explain the precise control combination needed to wall jump in a certain direction, or how to hang from a ledge rather than jump over it, or how to fall straight down from a rooftop rather than leaping forward at full speed.

All of this more advanced information, fundamental to smoothly navigating the complex 3D geography of the world, is instead buried in optional tutorial videos and challenge modes. The only reason I even know about all this is because I took the time in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood to get gold medals on all of the optional challenges. Most players will not do this, and yet the game almost requires the knowledge in order to control properly.

The Solution?

I don’t have a perfect way to solve this problem. It’s a difficult and complex one that Ubisoft have clearly struggled with over the last several games in the series. Still, there are some very basic and fundamental changes which I would make to the existing scheme that would go a long way towards mitigating the issues introduced by using a stealth-driven control interface in an open-world action-adventure.

Ditch the puppeteer system. I realize that this is one of the Assassin’s Creed hallmarks and probably one of the biggest innovations the game has to offer. But to be frank, it just does not work. It is needlessly complicated and does not mesh well with the core gameplay, as I’ve explained above.

No more high and low profile modes. Like the puppeteering system, it’s needlessly complicated and only adds additional button presses to rote game functions. Walking slowly can be done by moving the control stick gently, or pressing the stick once to enter stealth mode. Stealth kills and messy kills can be assigned to different buttons, or tap vs. hold. That’s all players really need the high/low profile modes for anyway.

Play to player’s expectations, not with them. Familiar control schemes may not always be perfect, but if they work because players know them, that’s better evidence than any to adopt them. That’s why most modern shooters use the left stick for moving and the right for looking – it may not be perfect depending on who you ask, but defying convention here is just going to increase a game’s learning curve to no real benefit.

Provide adequate tutorials that cover when and how players can use certain moves and perform certain actions. Assassin’s Creed does a really good job of this with combat, with environment interaction, and so on… but it falls on its face with the most important thing, movement. If the player is going to need to learn how to do something to simply navigate the environment, then ensure the player actually learns it, and learns it well.

Avoid feature bloat. This is a more general design comment, but I would argue that the control situation with Assassin’s Creed has only worsened over time. More features mean more items, weapons, moves, and so on, and that means more buttons are going to be occupied on the controller, and there are more context-sensitive scenarios. Keep the controls simple from the beginning and only ever add a new function to a button if you’re a) sure it won’t interfere with the core control concept, and b) certain it’s necessary to the gameplay you’re trying to achieve.

If I had to devise a control scheme for the game, I’d come up with something resembling the following instead:

A is your all-purpose jump and climb button. Pressing it once near a wall initiates climbing, and subsequently it allows the player to jump in a direction based on the analogue stick’s direction.

B is a universal “cancel” button, as well as a “drop down” button.

X interacts with an object. For civilians, this means picking pockets. In combat, this means drawing and using your sword. For objects, it means opening doors or picking up crates.

Y activates the currently selected sub-item, like the player’s gun, crossbow, throwing knife, etc.

LB provides loud and lethal assassinations.

RB provides quiet and stealthy assassinations.

LT initiates lock-on mode, which ideally would take the general shape of Zelda-style targeting.

RT blocks when in combat.

You may notice that some of these ideas are, in fact, borrowed from other Ubisoft games – specifically, LB and RB mapped to different types of attacks was first seen in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which mapped lethal and non-lethal to the triggers. Meanwhile, I do think some of the existing control ideas in Assassin’s Creed are pretty good – I like the universal climb/jump button, I like the targeting mode, I like the radial menu for weapons and items, and I like the general interface navigation. Those things don’t need to change because they work just fine. Unfortunately, they’re strapped onto a problematic core control scheme.

(The radial menu introduced in Assassin’s Creed II is a smart solution to feature bloat, and is well laid out to allow for reflex-action selection of key items and weapons.)

There are still some issues with the above layout, as well. Having different buttons mixed up a little between combat and exploration game modes is probably more inconsistent than it needs to be. At the same time, if the goal is precision when performing different assassinations, then the bumpers work well; meanwhile, if you want button-mashy, timing-based combat, then using the X button is more appropriate in my opinion. And, of course, you can’t market the game based on your inventive control scheme, but that’s a small loss when all’s said and done.

Closing Thoughts

Assassin’s Creed, despite all its issues with controls in my opinion, is still a fantastic game series and one of the few truly original and entertaining properties to come out of this console generation, especially one that deviates from the standard shooter model. There is a lot of room for improvement, and I hope I’ve outlined that clearly in this article, but I do want to stress that the franchise still has plenty of successes as well, and they far outweigh the issues with controls.

For Assassin’s Creed III, I hope Ubisoft will take a long and hard look at how to overhaul the control scheme, not just in terms of modifying the existing setup – they need to radically rethink it from the ground up, studying other titles in the same open world genre, and examining what works in other games, and why. Here’s hoping the next game is the first one where I don’t end up accidentally killing myself as often as my targets. (Source: Gamasutra)