Lit Apropos of Nothing - ACKBAR IN CAPITALS - The Lit Forum Social Thread, v2.0.15

If I have any major problem with Revelations- and I did enjoy it a lot- it's that the story had some pacing issues. Granted, ACIII seems to have outright cut out a module- Connor is best friends with Lafayette out of nowhere, and there was concept art of him crossing the Delaware IIRC.

 

Give it 6 months Jello and it'll be dirt cheap, especially on the (then) old gen tech.

 

Jello, what exactly did you dislike about ACIII?

 

Nope. Duel wielding only. Makes sense, since Edward is no proper gentleman, despite that being his goal (which says a lot about his characterization in early parts of the game: nice to have his fighting style reflect his personality).

I agree with most of your complaints except for Connor. I found him to be an interesting change of pace from Ezio.

The lack of some very important historical figures angered me greatly. Particularly the lack of Baron von Steuben from Valley Forge and the strange way of introducing Lafayette.

Most of your complaints are addressed in AC4. The story is very tight IMO. No skipping over important bits.

 

So, 6 years on, I re-read The Lies of Locke Lamora.

It's interesting how the Venetian element leaps out at me in a way it couldn't before - as it was a couple of years later I took a trip there.

Also of note, cover art by Benjamin Carre of KE cover fame!

What's very clever is how it up-ends the audience's moral compass at the start, but is entirely honest about it - the Thiefmaker is a Fagin-like figure to be sure, but he offers a comparatively less worse fate than the alternatives for the orphans. I still love the conversation between him and Chains, the latter being a particular favourite.

Fantasy, by its name, needs something fantastic so Lynch gives us it but in the form of the city itself, in the form of long abandoned alien-built structures of some unknowable material with arcane properties. Everything else is subjected to a harsher gaze, you'll find no sympathy or nostalgic romantising of medieval society - and personally? I like that. There's a great bit in Discworld when Cohen is asked about what is greatest in life? Two of his answers are good dentistry and soft loo paper!

Next will be Red Seas Under Red Skies - be interesting to see how it holds up, as I'm certainly not the man who read it 6 years past.

 

I'm replaying it, and I unlocked everything and basically had everything but the story missions done by sequence . . . four? Bought everything, leveled everyone up, did all the challenges and side missions. The first sequence to really open up Constantinople and all the mechanics. Maybe sequence three, actually. The decision to open up Constantinople entirely, rather than hold back side missions or areas, means that you can do everything all at once, if you just decide to do it. Unfortunately, the game doesn't give you quite enough side stuff to keep you busy throughout the game.

Also, just for the record, I do think Brotherhood and Revelation are superior to ACIII. I just don't think ACIII is as bad as is made out, because Connor is a great character and the gameplay is fantastic. It's just the weak plotting and thin side missions that are the problem. Enough of a problem to make it the worst game of an extremely good series, but not enough to make it the giant dud it's professed to be.

 

PLAY THEM.

 

While we're talking about Assassin's Creed, I'm wondering how The Tyranny of King Washington is. Definitely a mixed reaction, but I find the premise interesting. Is it worth a buy?

 

Indeed. "Those Batman games" are some of the best video games made in the last five years, period. Even if you don't like Batman at all, you'll enjoy them.

 

It's interesting. The new powers are pretty fun because they open up totally new styles of gameplay. The main thing is that the chapters get increasingly better. Chapter one is kind of a slog -- a giant near-empty Frontier to bum around in and a couple missions that are nothing special (and one is a massive, massive pain in the ass to 100%). Chapter two is average -- fun enough, getting interesting in terms of story, but without a big wow factor. Chapter three is what really makes it -- good story, fun gameplay, finally getting real mileage out of the concept, and all the payoff. I'd say it's worth checking out overall for the more dedicated fan, not worth it if your interest is purely casual. The Da Vinci Disappearance is still the gold standard for AC DLC, IMO, not counting the ACII lost sequences, which shouldn't have been DLC to begin with.

 

So partly inspired by Assassin's Creed talk of late, partly because I actually want something to play on a next gen console in the next few months, I picked Assassin's Creed 2 back up. Have to say, there are few things in gaming that feel better than calmly walking up to a group of guards, throwing a smoke bomb down (not that you ever need it because AC combat is ridiculously easy, but hey, I like to keep it somewhat realistic, which is why I tend to run rather than fight anytime I come up against four or more guards), assassinating all but one of the guards, and letting the smoke clear. The guard realizes that he's the only one left alive, proceeds to **** his pants, and runs.

 

Well, not all of us can afford master assassins, Mr. Spit-on-the-disadvantaged. Some of us have to do stuff ourselves.

I am really looking forward to Brotherhood.

 

I think AC4 has more side missions than most of the previous games. There are four Templar Hunts that have four missions each, 30 Assassination contracts, 15 naval contracts, 8 or 10 forts to take over, a bunch of Mayan discs to recover, 20 letters in a bottle to collect that tell an interesting story, a lot of documents to recover, some other collectible stuff, and 4 legendary ships to defeat (which are insanely difficult). That's not even counting the modern day stuff you can do, which reveals some pretty interesting information about Abstergo and the Animus' history (spoiler: turns out Vidic has always been a massive a**hole: who could have guessed?).

 

On PS (and apparently also on PC if you bought them as DLC) you can also play three Aveline missions.

 

I only have a 360, so I watched the Aveline DLC on Youtube. It seemed kind of unconnected to everything else in the series, but I think it could be serving as an introduction to Patience Gibbs as a future protagonist. Though given some of her dialogue, I think she might be the first gay Assassin in the series, which would make her having descendants to relive her memories unlikely.