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I do that too I refuse to play a game until I play the the first one. If not most of the game I am asking whats going on. The same goes for movies, books and Tv series I just can not jump into things

I can understand your plight with TV shows because they're usually weekly and you won't get to see it again until the reruns come around.

With video games, I don't see the same problem. Sure, it lacks a little luster if the games are heavily story-based, but with games that focus more on gameplay, it's easy to jump in and have a good time. Also, if you haven't played a game in a series from the start, you can [if you have the money] just go out and buy those games you missed out on.

Really, the only thing I think that makes both a TV and game series worthwhile is if you really enjoy where you jump in, and catch up afterwards.

I think it depends on the game in that if it doesn't talk about past events in the series (assuming the games are connected, so Farcry 2 and 3 wouldn't be great examples of this idea, being more or less independent of the events of the other games), more than likely you won't be able to understand much of the game, as they tend to go with the assumption that the player knows at least SOME of the story up to that point, or at least the key aspects (as with the AC series). The same can be said of not being attached to characters. In Assassin's Creed this isn't as much of a problem, since three games in the series only feature the main character in that role for the duration of that entry (not counting the PSP entry which also featured Altair). Ezio is the only exception to this, having three games to himself, with only references to the first game's protagonist, Altair, sprinkled throughout them.

Also, AC3 and 4 are poor representations of the quality of of the series up until that point. I know that a lot of people tend to bash the later games in their favorite series, usually just because something changed, but in this case it's really true.
AC3 felt unfinished, like it was intended to be worked on for at least another year (adding up all the lazy and/or unpolished things in it). At least I hope that was the case, because as a finished piece it left much to be desired, and just as much which was simply unacceptable in terms of quality. For example, while in general I'm fine with experimenting with changes in controls, I can only see the change in the character's ability to end a fight without having to cut, punch and stab a single enemy a ridiculous number of times, wasting precious time that could be used to dispatch another enemy or reacting to any number of other situations that may arise while you're busy watching Connor run a man through three times (not exaggerating here, that's legitimately one of the more efficient counter-kills in the game) with his sword, as a good thing. Compare this to one of Altair's counter kills with the sword in the first game, where he simply redirects the enemy's sword and then stabs him, yanks the blade up slightly and then pulls it out, or one in the same game where he kicks an enemy's knee cap as he steps forward, breaking it, which causes the man to fall forward, at which point he catches him is a sort of headlock and then simply jerks upward to break his neck. The one thing which AC3 did right in terms of gameplay was really the ship battles, but there were far too few of them for how incredibly well done they were.

In AC4, naval combat was improved on correctly in terms of scale and placing more focus on it, but many of the other aspects which made it good in the previous entry were stripped away. In addition to this, they took melee combat and made it even worse, making you required to use two swords at once, limiting your weapons available for purchase to sets of swords or sets of pistols, and further increasing the amount of times you have to strike someone, even with fairly powerful swords (in the game's system of rating "power", not in real life physics), to kill them. While they did improve on the use of guns, allowing you to draw and aim them with the left trigger, rather than by holding "Y" (on the Xbox), it hardly makes up for the rest of the combat.

In all, I think it's best to start from the beginning where possible, excepting spin-offs (such as the Bad Company portion of the Battlefield franchise) or games where the plot is relatively independent of the events of the other games.