Installing this as I type, got it for free with my new gtx 560 ti as a bonus. Whenever I get around to installing the cards and get a hang of playing AC on the computer instead of on the 360 I wanna kill some peeps.

 

Don't know if this is the right thread for it:

I picked up Assassin's Creed Brotherhood a few days ago but it lags like crazy when I try to play it, whether it be the cinematics or the game itself, offline and online. For example, when the people talk, their mouths still move even if they have actually stopped talking and it lags while running and fighting.

I re-installed, defragmented my pc, put the lowest settings but nothing helped. The thing is, I can play games like Assassin's Creed 2, Arkham Asylum, Starcraft 2 and Dragon Age Origins on highest setting without any problems.

I have a laptop with Windows 7, 32 bit, dual core i3 CPU M370 3.40Ghz, 4 GB Ram and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M Graphic card.

Drivers are updated too.

Is there a way I can make the game run smoothly?

 

Graphical bugs are pretty much inevitable when you try to run the latest games on a laptop.

 

Is there such a big difference between Brotherhood and games like Assassin's Creed 2, Arkham Asylum and Starcraft 2? Because those games run just fine on the highest settings on the same laptop.

It seems weird that Brotherhood isn't able to run smoothly with the lowest settings.

 

Chances are it's not a big difference, it's a small difference - some new graphical whatsit that calculates light or lip synching or any one of a billion other things, and for whatever reason your laptop graphics card chokes on it and dies. Most games companies test their products on all the big-name graphics cards, but don't bother with the laptop versions.

 

So far, I didn't like the keyboard controls, so I switched to a gamepad, one of the very few games I can say that about. The game maxed out (minus AA and AF both of those are off, and I turned shadows to medium) doesn't stress my system, but I notice slight stutters here and there. Vsynch on fixes most of them, but it's hella annoying. May have something to do with it running on my 55" TV at 1920x1080 lol.

Game looks great as expected, plays as expected. I ruined the story mostly by reading the novel that covers most of the game, but it didn't include any Desmond parts so I hope there are surprises there, because the novel sucked.

 

I just got this game for my new PC, and I'm loving it. While the aforementioned problems (somewhat clunky and shallow story telling, at the forefront) do exist, for someone like me who absolutely adored AC2, this game is simply bliss.

At the moment, I'm recruiting female Recruits so I can have a deadly and beautiful Assassin Harem. :awesome

 

Cannot connect to Ubisoft servers
Cannot connect to Ubisoft servers
Cannot connect to Ubisoft servers
Cannot connect to Ubisoft servers

Can't get goddamned connected. It saw I needed to patch though, ran and downloaded fine, but it's being a bitch about being connected to Ubisoft. I can log in and play just fine, which I think is bullshit to have to do in a game anyway, but other stuff doesnt work right. I can't add to my friends list either =/

Finally did get them to change my name from shop-INSERT-RANDOM-NUMBERS-HERE to what I normally use Midknight00711 as my username, but god this is annoying me.

Edit: I cant invest in shops either without being hooked to Uplay. This is bullshit and this DRM needs to fucking die.

 

And this is why you need to get it for your 360.

Graphics may not be as pretty as your PC, but the controls are smooth, game runs without hiccups, and I haven't had a single issue like the ones you've described.

 

Bah, that's just what the evil console illuminati WANT us to do.

And then when we pass on the drm crippled pc version to get the console version, they point to pc sales stats, blame it on pirates and add on another helping of drm.

 

Heh, I got this game at christmas, but replaying it now I'm on holidays. Hella fun to play, combat is fluid and engaging, running/climbing is awesome as always and the new assassin mechanic is the bomb.

But still, some issues. It was a mistake to keep it in one city. Switching up the cities (and even districts within cities) with different styles in ACII let you keep feeling immersed even though gameplay was somewhat repetitive. It kept a feeling of activity in the game, but when you're stuck in Rome for the whole time the city gets terribly boring. There are three districts, not the ones they give you but Nice Rome: the pretty clean buildings, Dirty Rome: run down version of nice Rome, and the most annoying:Countryside Rome. Nice and Dirty were ok to run around in, even if the did get boring by the fourth sequence. The countryside was just bullshit though, endless horse rides that bored me to tears.

And the lack of set districts also meant that you didn't know where the edge of the map was untill you hit the fence. Trying to make it less structured I guess, but it meant that I couldn't rebuild certain buildings untill later in the game, even when those buildings needed to be rebuilt for flags or vantage points.

And the plot. I don't know, but for me this game didn't have the same impact as ACII. There, I actually cared about killing the fat prick who killed my beloved family. Here, I guess I should kill Cesare, but he hadn't done anything I cared about. The only reason it mattered I killed him was because of ACII making me care about Mario and Monteriggioni. Even when you kill Cesare, it didn't feel like some big conclusion, it felt like it sort of trailed off. Story just wasn't told very well, and even in the first place it wasn't especially compelling. (Bad guys - Kill them!)

Writing was ok. The pathetic attempts at chemistry in the Desmond section had me gagging at the shit coming out of the speakers and at some segments the accents in 1500 were so out of place and badly done it ruined immersion. That said though, in general voices were very well done and sound was over all very solid.

Visuals (on 360) were very pretty. Some small facial issues and clipping but some stunning vistas and the standard level of amazing detail in the recreations and history.

The game mechanics were pretty good, the new Assassin Brotherhood being some of the most rewarding parts of the game, seeing my little novices growing up to be Assassino. However, Notoriety was misused, being simultaneously useless and annoying. Never was notoriety a serious threat as whenever I got any I would run to my next objective and immediately encounter a poster or herald, making it shit easy to remove. And even when notorious, it wasnt a big inconvenience. The worst part about it was the poster icons filling my map. IMO they should revamp that system, making it a lot harder to remove and making it a bigger pain to be notorious, more guards, of higher levels and citizens turning against you etc. It would encourage stealth and better gameplay, make the game harder and more rewarding. Eh, just my opinion though.

And just one point of personal annoyance, it is shit that you can't go back to checkpoints during missions. For full synchronization you need to accomplish secondary objectives, but when they're like 'don't be detected' or 'dont lose any health' on a ten minute mission and you fail the objective at 9:55, it is fucking rage inducing, as you need to start the whole fucking thing again if you want 100%

Despite all of these negative points, it is a fun game. Gameplay is awesome, the story is, if unoriginal, good enough to see to the end and the characteristic style of the series is here in spades. Really, the game is a stopgap untill ACIII, but worth enjoying in the mean time.

Also, sorry for the massive post, but I had a lot to rant about.

 

DRM is half the reason I pirate my games, the other half being most of them suck at full price. I've had more STARFORCE and SECUrom problems then anything. Ohhai look, I can log in and verify myself to play the game, but I can't online anything again. Widespread problem yet again today, and they're doing nada. Awesome.

So far the game feels like something that should have been a giant 20$ DLC for Ac2. Maybe that will change once I can recruit. Right now I've run into several problems with the memory wall/desycnh barrier not moving right and I couldn't get to the next memory start. Took out a bunch of towers and it seems like I can get there now.

I don't like the fact that the game has much more of a collect them all feel to it. Flags as usual, wolf dens, feathers, paintings, etc. I just don't care as much that they killed Mario and my home as I did when they killed my dad in AC2. And maybe I need to practice chain killing, but I'm getting my ass handed to me in most fights with more then 3 guards, especially those giant sumbitches.

 

Yeah, those fights are probably just a small issue that once you see it, you'll go 'oh!' and never have problems again (possibly chain executions?).

Lutris mentioned building an Assassin harem. I'm trying to do this, but its actually shit difficult to kill the male assassins I already upgraded. One of them came back from four 30% success missions before dieing (Giacomo foiled the invasion of a city, killing an army and a navy, by himself. I figure he has his own game somewhere). Another had to be called into the middle of 20 troops on the Vatican bridge, and still took five minutes to go down. Totally worth it, though its actually more of a sisterhood now lol. I actually let Saverio live, since I figure even Ezio can't handle a dozen chicks at once.

 

Planning ahead is the name of the game

But yeah. I had about 4 male assassins by the time I'd decided to do recruit a Harem, but they were low level enough that I could kill them off. The bigger problem was running into male citizens time after time after time... >_>

I probably killed more citizens than soldiers, come to think of it.

 

Hehe, yeah I happen to have that problem as well, except for me thats because I tend to spend the boring horse riding segments pretending its GTA, running into every pedestrian and swinging my giant sword wildly all over the road, murdering as many civilians as I possibly can. If you kill too many too quickly it'll desynchronise, so I've now got a cool little pattern of 2 kill, beat, 1 kill, beat, 2 kills and so on to maintain the rate of violence without desynching.

It actually helped out in one mission where I had to follow La Volpe on horseback, saving thieves from guards. I was so practiced that I ended up killing all the guards without the thieves losing any health. Too bad that at least a thousand randoms had to die for my sport though, oh well.

Speaking of recruits though, whenever I found one that was right next to a cliff or had been captured by guards I usually stuck around to watch them get quickly slaughtered because the brotherhood does not need, and is contemptuous of, people stupid enough to set an ambush next to a fucking 30 foot drop or get captured by the clinically retarded guards.

 

Pity I went the all-chick route, the dudes that were dangling guard officers off cliffs and buildings by their throats were fucking awesome.

And yeah, once you nail the chain-kill system you're fucking unstoppable. I got to the end of my first playthrough without having escaped from a guard by using a hide-spot (one of the Courtesan Guild challenges) even once because every time I got discovered I'd gleefully butcher them all. Try the combat challenges in the VR Training section of the escape menu until you get the hang of it.

 

Those combat challenges...I finished all of them at once. So much fun.

Also, which weapon type is your favourite? They all work the same, counter and then maul everyone with streaks, so which one is the best? I tend to use either regular swords (they have one execution where Ezio leaps and jabs the tip into the opponents face, so boss) or the heavy swords (just for the visceral beauty), but in general gameplay, my main weapon is the crossbow.

The chain streaks were, IMO the best part of the game. It just made you feel like the fucking juggernaut Ezio is.

 

I prefer the knife to the sword, the counter timing is hard to nail and the reach is shorter but it tears through guards faster than anything else and you can nail three guards at once with thrown knives if you've got breathing space. Spears are fun as hell too, but they're slow and countering costs you the spear, so you have to master dodging.

Also fun: counter-killing guards with the crossbow.

 

You sir, are a legend. Also, countering with the spear doesn't cost you the spear most times. He has about 5 or 6 attacks, 2 of which cost you the spear. Its a little luck, but those kills are probably my favourite out of any in the game.

Also, fucking frustration trying to get the last pieces of armour through the shop quest. Those two fucking shrunken heads were the most fucking annoying shit in the world. I searched through 3/4 of the chests in Antico before I found the first one, then went through the wrong goddamn Romulus lair, and then realized it was in one I'd already been to, then replayed the memory until I got to the chest (about 5 minutes of concentration) and then exited the replay. TURNS OUT YOU NEED TO FINISH IT! I got all the way back to Issola Tiberina before I found I didn't have the second head. Then went back, went through the whole fucking memory and raged like a motherfucker when I found it was only 2 extra health squares, and the armour doesn't even look that good.

Also, Romulus lairs in general. Fucking annoying, or fun challenge? I found them to be not hard enough to be a real fun hurdle, but so long that it became a chore. I basically ignored them this time around.

 

Assassin recruits were the best. I have to kill how many now? Sit down on bench and just summon all nine full assassins, whistle dixie as enemy camp is annihilated. Also great for taking out guard checkpoints.