Unbelievable that Assassin's Creed never won a Game of the Year award

Submitted ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨stat_rosa@lemy.nl⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

So I was checking Game of the year list on Wikipedia and noticed that Assassin’s Creed was never Game of the Year.

Not on any list around the world did it reach the top. The first one felt very fresh, but it just did not feel complete. But the 2nd one was just an amazing game and that one got beaten on some lists by Uncharted 2 which is understandable, but also by Batman: Arkham Asylum which is basically inspired by AC.

Maybe they should just ditch the whole Animus plot. I wished that Valhalla and Black Flag were just about being a Viking and a Pirate

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thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For which year? After the few Assassins Creed games, they were similar in gameplay, so not really worthy of GOTY for most. Not every good or popular game can win an award. The best chance of winning could have II, III or IV. I’ve looked at best rated games of the year for those games on Metacritic (I could not find a way to sort lists on OpenCritic).

Assassins Creed 2 (2009) - 90:

Uncharted 2 - 96

Call of Duty Modern Warfare - 94

GTA China Town - 93

Assassins Creed Brotherhood (2010): 89

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 98

Mass Effect 2 - 96

Red Dead Redemption - 95

Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag (2013): 88

Last of Us - 95

BioShock Infinite - 94

Super Mario 3D World - 93

The Assassins Creed games are fun, but not a juggernaut in gameplay or otherwise. They were never these massive perfected games, standing out as the pillar of gaming. If you have competition like Uncharted 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Last of Us, and come with the same formula again, then you can’t expect to win awards for being the best game of the year.
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ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It was an innovative series at a time where we still got them frequently, and while seemingly intended to be a trilogy, they chased dollar signs over prestige. It’s hard to say they made the wrong choice there, but the animus made a lot more sense in the context of a trilogy with a beginning, middle, and end. For my money, Unity was the best game in the series and came out in one of the the weakest years for video game releases giving it a really good chance at an award, but it was a technical mess, especially at launch. I don’t think I agree that Arkham Asylum has much DNA in common with Assassin’s Creed.

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- Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Unity is still underrated largely due to its reputation formed during launch with all the bugs. But I think there was also a case around then of “Assassin’s Creed fatigue”, which only amplified the negative reception. It’s actually a very interesting what if scenario, what would have happened if Unity wasn’t broken on release and was successful? It’s well documented that its failure led to the entire rejigging of the franchise into open world RPGs in Origins and beyond.
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, but I was also fascinated by the dialogue directly speaking to that fatigue and the series’ failings to live up to the fantasy.
    
    “So what’s the plan here?”
    
    “Plan? Come up with your own plan! I’m not here to hold your hand!”
    
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- stat_rosa@lemy.nl ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  So the reason why I say inspired because I was thinking that countering was something AC had created, but I’m probably remembering this incorrectly.
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’ll bet there’s no shortage of games with combat models with counters built in to them that predate Assassin’s Creed, but Arkham Asylum’s came from an earlier prototype that they built that was basically a rhythm game. AC’s combat was pretty terrible for a long while, but it was also a stealth game, so it didn’t matter all that much.
    
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Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Screw the awards…I mean, starfield won “most innovative game” for being exactly the absolute opposite of that.

I actually disliked AC until Origins. That was nice, and odyssey is my favourite. Malaka!

The animus-thing is probably the only part that strings them together to call it AC. But for me, it was always the annoying immersion killing part.

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- brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  starfield won “most innovative game”
  
  No way…
  
  I’m not a gaming drama queen by any measure, but that’s just silly.
  
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  - iamthetot@piefed.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It’s entirely a popularity contest.
    
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  - Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Doesn’t make it better 😉 Still haven’t purchased. Not even pirated or played. That’s so sad they fucked it up.
    
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- Flamekebab@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  But for me, it was always the annoying immersion killing part.
  
  I’m always exactly the opposite! For me it lets me forgive all the gamey-nonsense. Why can’t I leave the map? Because this ancestor never did so there’s no data for anywhere beyond here.
  
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  - Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Fair point. That was indeed a good reason. But IMHO an intro would’ve been enough to explain the boundaries of this simulation. Not a whole “mini-game” around it. But anyhow, it didn’t really kill the vibe, just temporary. Loved the games. Even Valhalla was nice. At least the beginning…
    
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Flamekebab@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Maybe they should just ditch the whole Animus plot.

I think if that was going to happen it would have happened after AC3.

Personally I’m glad the Animus is there, it makes it much easier for me to suspend disbelief about so many things in those games. I wish AC3 hadn’t messed up Desmond’s story though, I wanted a cool conclusion, rather than having Desmond get Poochie’d.

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- Kjell@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Is the animus still there in the newer games? I haven’t played a AC since origins and I don’t remember the animus but perhaps that story was so insignificant and boring that I have suppressed those parts.
  
  I wished Desmond’s story should have gotten more time or even a spin-off focusing only on Desmond.
  
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  - Flamekebab@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Sounds like you’re talking about the Animus as sections where the player isn’t in the historical period rather than what I mean, which is that the historical experience takes place in an in-universe simulation.
    
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TabbsTheBat@pawb.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I wish more games copied the way AC Odyssey did waypoints/exploration, I quite enjoyed that system =w=

It’s not inherently related to the post, but I think it’s one of the things in assassin’s creed games that was executed well but seemingly largely unrecognized/forgotten

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- brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I mean, Odyssey seems like the next obvious target for a remaster, so maybe it will come back.
  
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  - eleijeep@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Odyssey only came out like 5 minutes ago. What year are we in?
    
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  - Zahille7@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It doesn’t need a remaster imo. It’s not even 10 years old, and it still looks and plays very well.
    
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BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
ive never played an assassins creed game but i will try going through them all at some point

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- TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The original trilogy is amazing. But after those, I would only recommend Black Flag and Origins. I haven’t played the others in the series but I have seen enough of the gameplay and reviews to say that the Assassin’s Creed franchise had jumped the shark.
  
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- Baggie@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  There’s certainly a good start to the series, but fair warning, most of them are very similar and you can’t really play them one after another without burning yourself out. Still, interesting to see how the series evolves over time.
  
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  - BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    yeah not in one go, just havent started as1 yet
    
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- nforminvasion@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  My brother is doing that right now. It’s brutal and so tiring.
  
  I would not recommend it.
  
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Linktank@lemmy.today ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Animus

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taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You’re right about AC2, especially since it’s a relatively quiet year for hits (2009) so getting a nomination shouldn’t have been that hard. That said, it has a lot to do with who is voting, money spent on promoting the game, etc., and I’m not sure it would have won GotY even though it might even end up on some people’s top games of all time.

Fun fact, apparently same year Minecraft released. Lol (I looked up a list, that and LittleBigPlanet are my favorite of the year).

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