Gaming Altair You a New One: The Assassin's Creed Series

Smart to skip the feather collection. Don't remember getting all of those even though I loved AC2.

 

The feathers are super annoying without cross-referencing a map, and the rewards aren't even worth that much. Brotherhood onwards the games get a lot better with collectibles, both in making them visible on the map and having more tangible rewards (and making actually collecting them more of a parkour challenge sometimes).

Edit: And remember to scan in eagle vision, adds collectibles to your map if you spot them

 

You make your mom perk back up! What better reward could there be?

 

Getting a cape that automatically makes you Notorious?

 

Maria has a strange sense of humour

 

Finished the Lunden arc in Valhalla, and man, the post assassination convo you have with The Leech is super creepy.

 

Valhalla has sections that are good and then it does dumb crap.

Like Asgard, brilliant design, bifrost, mead and ale.... And breakable walls. Why are there breakable walls in Asgard? Oh and you think you'll climb that and if it all goes wrong you'll rely on your Breakfall perk? Don't count on either.

 

Finished replaying AC Chronicles, of which I am probably the only person to actually be a fan It's got some fun stealth and parkour mechanics, that arguably work a little better in 2D. Other than China being rather rote, the stories are quite good too, with India being a lighthearted romp and Russia being The Last of Us. No, literally, it's the Last of Us, but with Anastasia instead of Ellie, right down to the final desperate rescue from a medical facility run by a secret freedom fighter faction, mid-operation

 

I in vinland now, and it has ties to AC 3.

 

I thing that bothered me in the otherwise well-crafted storyline was the end Where Ezio Learns A Valuable Lesson About The Pointlessness Of Revenge. That's great that you didn't give in, but... isn'r he still the leader of the Greatest Enemy of the Assassins?
Why do I have the feeling that AC:Brotherhops is subtitled "This is why you should've killed him, Ezio"?

 

Methinks I detect the hand of editorial involvement. In the novelisation (yes, I read it ), the climax takes place in 1503, and Rodrigo Borgia drinks poison after Ezio leaves the Vault and claims he saw 'nothing, nobody'. This correlates with the date of his actual, historical death (and fits the way he died, of food poisoning).

The database entry for the Sistine Chapel in ACII also mentions that you can't climb on the finger of god because it wasn't yet painted in 1503. Despite the fact the ending in-game happens in 1499.

Then Brotherhood happens, and, uh-oh, Rodrigo's not dead, the novel's been retconned, and the database entry corrected to say 1508 instead. Something tells me Ubisoft's plans for Brotherhood superseded the original 'trilogy' plans for AC, so they had to scramble to make ACII less of a definitive climax

 

. . . more or less. Though there's a bit of subtext that you've pretty much spooked Rodrigo, which is why Cesare is the main, most aggressive enemy.

 

So, let's talk about some of the content in Valhalla, there's certainly quantity, but quality?

• Flyting? Don't care about it.
• Offering Altar - Don't have the time or the inclination to get 10 of whatever is wanted.
• The stones puzzles - Seriously? Stand in just the right spot to align the stones?
• Boozing - Were the designers drunk? Here's why this is an utter abomination - in order to hit X at the right time I really need to focus on the circle, but this thing throws in direction indicators at the same time and I can't focus on two things at once, while hitting the button and changing directions.
• Animus Anomaly - Another case of drunk design as the only explanation. Tried one of these - it was total arse.
• Chase the song - It was crap in Black Flag and it is the same here.
• Drengrs - The game will out-right lie that you have a chance before, after the fight starts, revealing a power level you've no chance against
• Reda's Contracts - The little bastard will have quests in areas way out of your league. Same was so in Origins but it's more understandable in a first game, less so a third
• Curses - Find object, shoot it, done.

Anyway, finished East Anglia, which took what should have been an epic sequence - and it did start off in suitable fashion - and then drained it of all of that with the most boring battering ram imaginable. As to the "boss"? Rued's dog was harder than he was. Yeah, sure I've powered up Eivor but that fight wasn't a fight - some of his grunts were harder to take out.

I'm also really noticing the spread out distribution of, well, everything. Odyssey was massive but it had a far healthier distribution of fast travel points in a way that Valhalla does not. The game wants you to spend a lot of time on manual travel. It's a spectacular looking game but it is possible to overdo and over rely on that and this does.

Enemies feel so much like game enemies - you just whacked that guy in the head with an axe? Nae bother, he's started his attack animation and an axe in the head won't stop it. You just killed this guy's entire squad? He's immune to fear and still thinks he can take you. That guy with the heavy shield, if you get round it, you only get one hit in before the shield is back up. And heavy attacks? Only good for dealing with heavy shields and even then? Not great. The feel is all wrong.

Valhalla could be a fantastic game, but all its self-inflicted wounds take it down to being merely good and, every now and again, it'll screw that up but recover just enough.

 

I like a lot of the side content, some of it a great deal, but I had to laugh at this. I’ve been avoiding the boss-fight sidequests until I level way, way up, but I ran across one drengr and was like, “Hell, I’m level 111, I might as well give it a shot.” So I talk to him. I agree to fight. He walks out to the middle of a pond, I follow him, waiting for some kind of indicator combat is about to start. All of a sudden, combat is on before I even know what’s happening and he instantly one-shots me before I even know it’s started or have any kind of chance to do anything. Takes my whole health bar. **** this, I say.

Same thing with one of the legendary animals. I’m in East Anglia, I’m double the suggested power level for this region, what the hell, I say, I figure it’s safe to take a shot. Go into his area. Start combat. Only now am I allowed to see he’s level 160. I turn around and leave.

Even aside from this, I hate the boss fights. No need to make them even more of a pain in the ass than they already are.

 

Hav - It was that exact guy!

 

So yesterday i did Lunden, and i got nostalgic for it as it reminded me of AC 1 in gameplay with Lunden reminds me off Acre. Also we have a doctor templar who reminds me off the templar doctor from AC 1.

 

So UbiSoft look to have neglected the PS5 upgrade for Valhalla for the EU - not a great look.

 

Man, now I wish I hadn't wasted so much time building up Ezio's uncle's place.

I assume Assassin's Creed: Revelations starts with the city of Rome being burned to the ground.

 

Poor uncle Mario

 

So, I don't have PS5 Valhalla despite buying the PS4 game but I do have the PS4 game boosted by the PS5. Does it make much difference? Hell yes:

• Graphically, an already impressive enough game goes way, way up and this isn't even the full PS5 upgrade. Where the PS4 version took longer to load with grey loading screens, here it is far more vibrant.
  
• But even better is Eivor feels more responsive, in the PS4 version she was sluggish, here she isn't.
• This is particularly clear in combat, especially when combined with the haptic feedback that has to be felt to be understood
  
• Even the map, which on the PS4 is a bit of a mess:

• Is vastly improved, as you now can see everything!
• Even raids, with the Force Open mechanic, that was previously 50-50 if anyone decided to help you - has hit 100 for four - which is a major improvement.

It doesn't fix everything in the game as I did a raid where it became very boring due to a puzzle where you have to shoot a window to get in - but there's no real cue that that window is destructible in a way the others are not. Then I spent ages looking for an oil jar due to a breakable wall barrier.

Can you play this on a plain PS4? Yes, I have and did 30+ hours of it but tonight's hour or so was so much better. I now actually want to keep playing the game, but it is going to have competition from the boosted God of War, Ghost of Tsuschima and No Man's Sky, which is my first true PS5 game.

 

Have you just not downloaded the PS5 version yet?

 

It doesn't come up for free - for £59.99 only!

UbiSoft screwed up somewhere as it's apparently working fine in the US, hopefully it'll change to show what NMS did - 'free PS5 upgrade'. Downloading that was very straight forward.

There's a couple of new suggestions here I'll try tomorrow:

 

Weeeeeiiird did you get it to work? Or is your PS5 so broken you can't try?

 

Too bust to try - I don't want to risk it.

Have a case ref but no email yet, hopefully tomorrow.

Though expecting UbiSoft to have this fixed within 24-48 hours is probably too optimistic anyway. Hopefully, Sony agree to repair the PS5 and by the time I get it back this has been sorted out.

Probably an easy fix of ticking a box in a system somewhere.