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So, AC Origins - over the last three days or so I’ve really gotten to grips with this Legendary Predator bow I’ve got. It. Is. Nuts.

I’m on a ship, on a mast and I can see the Captain at the far end of the shore camp, far, far away - I line up a shot, which goes through mast lines, above tents, perfectly goes through trees - fire it off and, 2-3 seconds later, the guy drops dead. It has that level of range.

Later I’m in a fort, have taken out the watchtower guard - I have an elevated position, with three perfect killshots on the other three perimeter guards - to the back of the head. They never see it coming. You only ever get 9 arrows, well the quiver I have so far is 9, so you have to be careful, but damn, what this hits - unless it’s a super-armoured super-bastard - and there are some of those - dies instantly, especially if you pull off a headshot.

Hunting and Light bows are useful, haven’t done much with the Warrior bows yet.

Tonight’s Predator killshot? A Heavy enemy, on a ship, shot from the other ship’s top mast platform!

 

My archery skills need a lot of work still, and I don’t have any legendary bow yet, that sounds great.

Anyways after a couple more days of playing, I’m at player level 20, I’ve met Cleopatra, joined the rebellion and have a new list of targets. Spent some time exploring the new regions around Alexandria and did a bunch of side quests and camp/fort raids. I’m currently after the Scarab and have just been left in the desert buried up to my neck lol.

 

Finished up RDR2 last night and it's the gaming equivalent of yin and yang. It's both a relic of a previous generation and yet at the same time so far ahead of anything else of it's kind that it's almost taking the piss. Rockstar have achieved something very special with RDR2 in making something that not only stands as a pinnacle of big budget video games, but that also enhances it's eight year old predecessor.

It's by no means perfect. A lot of criticism has been leveled at the controls and I think that's fair. The fact my horse feels more nimble than my character when I'm on foot is an issue for sure. I also can't imagine trying to get involved in the game's many shoot-outs without the incredibly forgiving aim assist that makes pulling off headshots not only possible, but somewhat satisfying. When it comes to GTA6 or whatever it is they do next, Rockstar need to make updating their controls a priority. It was just about acceptable at the tail end of the last gen, it almost isn't in this and certainly won't in the next.

The opening chapter is also something of a hindrance. It's a slow paced introduction to the world of Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur Morgan and the band of outlaws you call a family. Taking place shortly after a failed bank heist (and presumably what will be the end of RDR3), you're stuck in the mountains for several hours and get slowly introduced to the characters and mechanics of the game. It might be a chapter that's better after having completed the game but as an introduction it leaves a fair bit to be desired. It's slow, the missions aren't great and you're having to deal with an out of date control scheme. It's a not inconsiderable barrier to entry and I can definitely see why it puts people off continuing.

That being said, should you persevere you'll be rewarded with one of the most engrossing video games I can think of. To highlight the flaws should only serve to contrast with just how much it gets right. Right off the bat the game is achingly gorgeous. Starting off in a snowy, barren area makes descending the mountain into a warmer, grassier and forested like one of those Bethesada leave-the-Vault/dungeon moments. The sheer number of different environments it packs in without losing any of the detail is astonishing. Mud sticks to your boots and trousers as you make your way through the streets of Valentine, whilst going through New Austin or Lemoyne will see dust coat the flanks of your horse and rain looks as though it's soaked into your clothes and made them heavier rather than just adding a sheen to the top.

Beyond the superficial is a captivating story and some of the best written characters in all of gaming. Red Dead Redemption was one of my favourite games of the last generation and a large part of that was John Marston. Well, in Arthur Morgan blows Johnny boy out of the water. He's rounded in a way that Marston never really managed. From the outset Arthur's fully invested in Dutch Van der Linde and his views. He's a loyal and devoted member of the gang and does his part to help and make money. I played my version of Arthur pretty straight. I roughed up a few dudes for sure and I didn't end the game with full honor, but I was largely a pretty decent bloke. Like Arthur, I put my own feelings aside to do things like Strauss' debt collection missions because that's what the gang needed in order to make money. In a way, I also bought into Dutch's views. So when Dutch gets increasingly erratic and starts making less and less sense, becoming more and more violent, I went on that journey with Arthur. By the time Chapter 6 rolls around, that charismatic, eloquent man who treated Arthur like a son is gone, replaced by the paranoid, delusional psychopath I recognise from Red Dead Redemption.

Arguably this is Red Dead Redemption 2's greatest triumph, it even improves Red Dead Redemption. The most obvious example of this is what happens in Chapter 6 and beyond.

Spoiler

Arthur's death is heartbreaking in a way that few deaths in fiction ever manage. Sure characters die all the time, but very few do so in such a long, drawn out manner as a direct result of their actions, certainly not in video games at any rate. Even less spend their last days trying to give others, Marston and his family, a better life. But that's what Arthur does and that's what the epilogue explores. I've seen some criticism of the epilogue and how ending the game with Arthur's death is better. It's a valid point. It's a natural dramatic end and aside from the initial thrill of controlling Marston again, the epilogue doesn't hit the heights of Arthur's story until the very last mission. In fact a number of the Marston missions are downright boring in comparison and usually involve maintaining a ranch. However, when taken alongside Red Dead Redemption and with RDR2 as context I think the banality of these missions do serve a wider point. Marston does try to go straight, he gets an honest job and eventually establishes his ranch. Unfortunately, he gets drawn back into criminality and in the final mission hunts after Micah, the man who ratted out the Van der Linde gang to the feds and helped turn Dutch into a paranoid lunatic. "Revenge is a fools game," says Arthur at one point in the story and he's right. It's this quest for revenge that ultimately leads Edgar Ross, the agent from the first game, to Marston and kickstarts the whole of Red Dead Redemption. That of course sees Marston hunt down his old gang members and ends with him being gunned down outside his barn, Abigail dying young and Jack becoming an outlaw. Ultimately, Arthur's dying wish doesn't come to pass. It's unbelievably tragic and adds a whole new layer to Red Dead Rememption. This is how you do a prequel.

 

Finished the main questlines for AC Odyssey, and now I have all the DLC to catch up on! Working at it bit by bit.

Also jumped back into For Honor, played a few rounds, trying to level up my favorites a bit more and get ready for the new season.

 

I see this take a lot, and it's either recency bias or I'm in a real minority when it comes to who's the better RDR protagonist. Arthur, while great and I love him, felt like a pretty generic Western hero when compared to John, who was flawed and could be kind of an ass, but had responsibilities to take care of that clashed with his instinctive nature. Unlike Arthur, I wanted to know more about John, and was intrigued by his past. Arthur not so much. Arthur always talked about how he wasn't a good man when conversing with other people, but... I played him like a great man. Noble, honorable, always making the good decision when presented with a choice. Whereas John would threaten a man with a bullet to his head if he didn't help him find who he was looking for, and I liked that. My issue with Arthur is a problem I usually have with protagonists in games that offer the player narrative choice, which is a lack of identity (Shepard, Revan, etc.). Handing me the reins to a character is fine, but I think with that comes a sacrifice of depth and consistency (although CD Projekt Red handles this with the Witcher extremely well, as Geralt is one of my favorite characters in gaming). John Marston is my favorite video game protagonist, whereas I'd slot Arthur Morgan behind Niko Bellic just in Rockstar's pantheon.

 

The last game I played was RE 2 remake Demo. After that I haven't got in the mood of playing any games at all.(maybe a casualty of playing online multiplayer games too much in the past years and deciding to abandon them.)

 

Tonight was bloody cool.

I ended up exploring the Isolated Desert region - and it is desolate! It's very impressive how visually distinct they made each region. It also has some major verticality, with Bayek doing some huge ascents and descents.

At the same time, I took on a Reda quest, headed towards the location and there's pretty much a Rebel army attacking the place... And a Phylake. A Lv 40 Phylake too. I'm not really inclined to do an even fight with these guys. On the other hand, there's a lot of Rebels! So I chanced it - turned out the Rebels had taken him down 33%, I started doing hit and runs, they kept hitting them, I got a bleed effect on him - and he bled out! Yes! One of the top two, Lv 40, super bosses dead. So, I then spent a good amount of time assisting Rebels on other punch ups.

Also did a couple of Animal Lairs, got to a vantage point, used Senu - and with that perception up, the bird sees everything - locate the king animal, one careful killshot - job done.

I finished off by returning to Siwa, doing a complex underwater location and then nabbed the underwater perk that makes a big difference. There's a handful of locations not done due to my being too low level, so time to take care of that unfinished business.

Game remains a huge amount of fun.

 

I derived great, great joy when I realized that the bow physics included realistic arc, and those enemies I had thought were out of range were actually in range . . . as long as I moved my aim point way up. Huge arcing shots dropping down to headshot enemies from ludicrously far away became the order of the day. Tremendously fun.

 

I haven’t dared to take on any of the phylakes yet. The warnings they are near came up a couple times while I was raiding a camp, then I got the **** out of there.

I beat the Scarab, the first in the new group of targets. And then got to play a bit of an interlude with Aya on a warship in the sea, that was neat.

Now I’m currently exploring the areas around Giza. Climbing and then sliding down the pyramids is ridiculously fun.

 

I go for overwhelming level superiority + location choice + mount for Phylakes - hit and run while mounted can be very effective. Mix in setting them on fire and it can really work - I took out Half Horn by waiting for him on a viewpoint with line of sight for Predator shots, got him with a couple, he came over and climbed to the first level roof, I hit with Hunter bow shots, finishing with leap attack and hacking him to death him trapped on the edge.

Don't take them on when they have friends, be +5 levels with gear to match too.

Today I continued doing mad fun with the Predator bow - what do you do when your headshot isn't quite a killshot because it's a high-level enemy? The answer is you fire and then fire a second, by the time the first one hits and they register it, the second hits home finishing them off.

Just over two-thirds of the map is complete, 7 regions left on Bayek's global tour of world carnage.

 

So tonight I took a trip to Pissa Oros Citadel:



On a quest to save a kidnapped kid, I snuck in, killed everyone and then drove the kid out of there on a cart. This included a Lv 40 Commander - headshotted and then burnt to death, a Lv 39 Captain - who never saw it coming - literally, plus a Lv 39 super-armoured-bastard Captain.

Now those guys make the brute enemies look small, they're about 8 foot tall, completely armoured, with executioner axe as weapon and your weapons do next to next no damage. They also have super speed too and generally make Phylakes look easy. So far, before now, I'd had done two - both difficult fights. So, this time? Screw it - he's in metal? A perfect roasting tin! I lobbed firebombs onto him from a couple of parapets away. Waited long enough between hits that he never spotted me, took 5 bombs to roast his arse.

 

They're both fairly generic but to me Arthur is more rounded, especially if you choose the more honourable options. Over the course of the game Arthur changes from being a loyal and devoted member of the gang to someone who comes to realise that it's become rotten. Take the Strauss money lending missions for example. At the start, even if you take the honourable options with how you shake people down for the money you're still shaking them down. Fast forward to Chapter 6 and not only can you pay off people's debts yourself but you eventually kick Strauss out of the camp. Now it's been a long time since I played RDR, but I don't remember Marston having that kind of development over the course of the game. He wants to rescue his family and put all that behind him.

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To my surprise, in Assassin’s Creed Origins tonight the last of the Phylakes died. I initially avoided him, but the second time he showed up there were 8-9 rebels in the area - stuff it, let’s try and take the bastard out. I did a few hit and runs while the Rebs engaged him, he took out my mount, but by then was down 75%. For the remaining 25% it was a couple of hits combined with bleed.

Then to add to excellence, I did a Reda quest that gave me a top-notch Legendary shield! And it was a ‘gather materials’ quest - due to knocking over numerous convoys, I have loads so it was seconds to complete it.

And the reward for killing all 10 Phylakes, a Legendary outfit - the Black Hood. It’s basically your top-notch assassin outfit you get, like doing the tombs in Brotherhood.

Also took out 3-4 small military camps.

Really good to have taken the Phylakes because it means exploring the remaining regions will be far more fun - I’m not a fan of super enemies in this type of game.

 

Played a little The Force Unleashed 1 on wii.

Have no idea why some people consider it as the superior version of Unleashed 1 when it's worse in combat and level design.

 

Finishing the Congestion 1024 walkthrough. I hope everyone enjoys the SNL reference.

 

Came across the first major disappointment of AC Origins - the desert sections in the south of the map. I had thought Black Desert was sparesly populated in terms of locations, but it had three! That's more than the other desert regions. What irks about is they set these high levels on them, so suggesting there is something there but it turns out to be mostly nothing!

The regions also fall into one of the greatest sins an open world game can commit - slinging in a big empty area of nothin'... just because.

Still, the south is done, time to head north and hopefully that'll be more fun.

 

There is one big location in the south most desert, it's a remote tomb.

My fave parts of Origins were the late-game areas in the north-west, up from the Green Mountains to Kyrenika.

 

Yeah, found and done that duo - laborious but straight forward.

This is next.

 

Having a great time with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Never played it when it came out on the Wii U so it feels fresh to me on the Switch. While's it's no Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and the NSMB style/formula has gotten a little stale over the years, it's still been fun to play through. In the middle of the Soda Jungle right now, which has probably been my favorite part of the game so far. Pleasantly surprised by how much inspiration it takes from SMB3 and SMW.

 

Starlink
Just started this today and so far so good. I like all the characters I have met in the game so far, and the planet I was navigating was visually stunning.

Strange Brigade
Playing this with my Uncle, we are both enjoying it, gets a bit manic at times though!

 

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

 

Currently playing Assassin's Crees Odyssey. I like it so far. The problem for me is that when hunting the cult, many of its members are 3 to 15 level above me, with one of them at level 50, so I dont touch that one. I like the naval combat, and some of the history aspects of it. Love the choices, one of which is at the start of the game that effects the rest of the world.

 

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

This game has been great so far, I like the combat and the story is interesting. I like the quirky Nintendo graphics, and it is just a no stress game, just plodding along with the story.

 

Bought STAR WARS: OBI-WAN on whim yesterday and been having a blast playing through the first few levels. For whatever reason I missed this one growing up, but it's making me extremely nostalgic for the Star Wars games of that era. After coming off a binge of BATTLEFRONT II, I'm finding that the combat system is surprisingly complex, but incredibly fun when I get the hang of it.

Plus, it's helping me get my pre-TPM fix while I wait for the new MASTER & APPRENTICE novel coming out in April.

Scottish Obi-Wan is great too

 

Quite a bit of completion in AC Origins today:

• The map is now all clear, though the last region was a bit sparse.
• On the other hand it enabled me to complete the Bayek's Promise quest and, in turn, complete all the tombs and nab an interesting armour set.
• Did all the hermit locations as well.
• Have nabbed all 58 of the original game viewpoints and I don't think a single question mark remains.
• There are a number of incomplete locations in the North-West that I'm working my way through.

Bringing in Roman locations - and enemies - has made for a refreshing change of pace. Done a couple of top-level Roman forts now too - including a super-bastard Captain, shot the guy in the head with an arrow and then, having lured him into the line of fire, unloaded on him with a mounted crossbow!

Graphically, it's a very impressive area too - a whole lot verticality and some amazing vistas.