User blog comment:Master Sima Yi/Assassinews 10-05'12 — World Gameplay Premiere/@comment-1888015-20120511183711

There were three things that bothered me.

First of all, how sped up the transitions between camera views were. It seemed more like they wanted to get the trailer over with, instead of properly framing the action inside it at some points. It reeks of over-cinematization.

Second on all, when Connor's advancing on the general, everyone backs away from him. Why? It's like the guards were placed there just to be killed so that he could carry on moving forward. I know the ones in the background are lining up to fire, but why would the two in front just back away to the side from a guy in a white hood and watch as he runs up, not even quickly, to murder a guy that was just behind them.

I get you can call it shock, but they're all aware of his presence. If they're doing it to fire their two muskets, then that's just poor coding. They're in close enough proximity to slash at him with their bayonets. Why don't they? At least then you could excuse him rolling under their strikes and pounce on the guy behind them to stab him with the Hidden Blade, before propelling himself from the ground into a sprint, similar to an athlete does in a sporting event, to hop up and chop John Pitcairn in the neck.

Finally, I don't like that spinny bayonet kill. It's just too... camp. I get the same feeling from the kill with the Long Katar in ACR's Multiplayer, where the character slaps them across the face and then stabs them in the stomach. I feel it's lacking force and it needs to be more sudden with short, sharp movements.

If you take into consideration how that kill is animated in it's basic steps, Connor hits guard in face with musket butt, Connor stabs guard in the center of the back from behind.

So why doesn't it go like this:

Guard runs at Connor, so Connor uses the musket butt to sharply smack the guard in the face, by pulling his left arm in towards his body and thrusting his right arm out. After this, the guard (possibly with a broken nose) turns away. Connor doesn't turn at all (because that's really what the camp part in it is), but he swings the musket around in his hands, with the bayonet pointed down, and stabs it downwards in between the shoulder blades or piercing the heart from behind.

After this, the guard buckles forwards to his knees, before slowly slumping forward with the musket still lodged in his back.