Assassin's Creed

Malis is just one big wilderness with nothing but bandit camps and hostile tribes of Amazonians. And a lone blacksmith stuck in a cave. With an entrance that is way too narrow to get his stuff in or out.

I think this may just count as an Easter Egg.

I dunno. I personally had a great time with Darth Kassandra. She's such a perfect Darth Vader, and all of the cult members, regardless of their description of her as merely a weapon, are piss-shit terrified of her. The moment she declares that there must be a traitor in their midst and she will test them until she weeds him out, they all start soiling their robes and it's fantastic.

I agree, Darth Kass is great fun to watch. I'll try it on my next playthrough.

I haven't seen Darth Kass, but Darth Alexios is too much of a large ham to hate.

Like, he cracks me up whenever he's on screen. That the cultist are shit scared of him is even better.

So life is great when you unlock invisibility level 2.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 8th 2018 at 8:45:53 AM

Here's a thing I don't get about the plot.

Main Character (Kass in my case) was like 10 to 12 when the Cliff incident happened.

Alexios was a baby. Like, literally "Too young to walk". He was less than a year. Let's sat 6 months at most base on the size of the baby seen (And that might be generous).

So, How was Nikoleos not being Kass' real dad any bit a surprise to her? By the cliff incident, he'd have been in her life for less than a year, based on Alexios' age. And, if Myrrine went behind Nikoleos' back to get re-impregnated by her old flame, how did the cult know Alexios wasn't Nikoleos' son?

I wonder if that guy in the cave is... actually an Isu. Maybe Hephaestus?

I love that there's a female Protag option - my wife loves it and my son got really happy seeing mum being able to play as a girl. He gets confused if he comes in and see a dude on screen when mum's playing.

My wife can play games with a dude protag but she doesn't get as invested and gets bored more easily.

That's adorable!

I found a Gamespot video here outlining some of the game's inconsistencies.

Wait... you can't die from falling? Really? I've been clambering down cliffs for nothing, then?

I also noticed that haystacks automatically spit you out now. That's just no fun.

Also, the stealth bushes are hit or miss. It's not always clear what bush you can hide in; some bushes that look like you should be able to hide in them don't, and some that don't look like they could actually do. And it's kinda finicky about when it gives you cover. It's a lot less clear than in previous games. It's also less clear when you are hiding and when not.

Edit: tested the jumping, and indeed, you do not die. Really? Why? I don't get why they removed that.

I also noticed something odd: I just finished conquering Megaris for the Spartans, as per the plot, but now it is suddenly under Athenian control. Do these provinces just flip sides randomly?

Edited by Redmess on Oct 9th 2018 at 2:03:53 PM

I believe so. Conquest battles can occur without you.

So there really is no point in pushing for one side or the other, then.

Yeah - it's slow, as it relies on the soldier patrols running into each other and whittling each other down to trigger one (If you're on the island and not actively doing anything) or on some sort of timer / location influence.

Not checked to see if it's sensible, like a border / nearby territory is hostile and thus THAT territory becomes vulnerable... or if it's just a ticker timer or random.

It’s a forever war kinda thing, nothing is permanent.

Accentuated by the fact you don’t actually take sides permanently. You can conquer a city for the Athenians then literally conquer it the next second again for the Spartans.

It’s supposed to give unlimited replability or something.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 9th 2018 at 5:59:18 AM

I also noticed captains respawn in their camps, now. Which makes no sense, since the camp objectives explicitly state to kill these guys, AND they have names, now.

Which leads to the ridiculous situation where you can recruit the same guy several times over.

To make this even easier, you can clear a camp, then save and reload nearby, and the captains (and ONLY them) will respawn.

This game has gotten a lot gamier.

See, this attitude is where I start to not understand anymore. Like, it makes sense to me why representation matters. And that people who are generally not as represented will have different experiences than me. I’m on board with these concepts.

But I don’t understand the idea that just because the character doesn’t look like you, it’s harder to invest in them AT ALL. That you would get bored if they were a different gender, race, or orientation than you. What if they’re a different species? Is it the same situation there? Like I’m not trying to push this into the realm of absurdity; I actually want to understand.

^I don't mean to be snarky here, but this is something that's basically never, ever asked of white male gamers. Asking women, non-white, non-straight, etc. gamers to buckle down and make do with a protagonist who doesn't (necessarily) look, sound, or think like they do, ever, is the default state of the game industry. It's not just one instance of it, it's over and over and over. It's not that women and/or minority gamers can't empathize with white male protagonists, it's just that they're asked to do that in 90% of media instead of getting to follow people who are more like them, and that's just not fair. Hell, I'm starting to get tired of following the stories of stubbly, scruffy 30-something white guys, and I am one. (Mostly. Not that old yet.)

Basically, people tend to treat divergence from the "default" of white male as something that needs to be earned, or as some kind of toll on the developer or scriptwriter, where it's easier just to make people who don't fit the default deal with it since they're used to it.

...Anyway, what I originally came here to post about was the "Equal Opportunity Employment Program" quest, which is so badly explained and demarcated in non-Guided Mode that it's almost impressive how completely they managed to screw up giving helpful advice.

See, but I feel like that doesn’t actually address my question. It addresses the basic question of representation, which I already get and support.

And to be clear, it goes in the other direction too. I don’t understand why white men find it SUCH A PROBLEM to relate to Rey in the new Star Wars movies when she’s basically the same character as Luke was in the originals.

It’s not the idea that you want to see characters you are more likely to relate to in your media that confuses me. It’s the idea that it’s difficult to the point of boredom to invest in ones you don’t relate to.

Just killed a few Cult of Kronos members, and... more disappointment. Not even a death screen with some dialogue. You just murder them, and that's it.

Also, more stupid AI. Raided a wolf den. Shot several wolves several times, but they barely cared. One runs towards me, and I think he will spot me now... but he bolts right past me, stopping a few meters behind me to be on the lookout. I kill him easily. Then I kill the den leader, just pelting him with arrows while he just stands there, doing nothing.

I'm not sure whether or not I like that you can reassign abilities. On the one hand, it is great for when a particular skill (like Rain of Destruction, which has a dissapointingly small distance where you can reach) doesn't pan out, but on the other, it cheapens the idea of making choices.

For a game touting choices and consequences, there sure are a lot of meaningless choices and negligible consequences.

So it fits right into the landscape, is what you’re saying.

As does the beating of the "choices and consequences" drum, deservedly or not.

It's a case of saturation - she plays a fair few games and doesn't see a female lead in a lot. Or if there is a female it's a paper doll with no personality (See: Destiny). Having a voiced character helps.

As a white male, I'm spoiled for choice and the few times I play as someone not of my race / gender it isn't consistent or regular enough to jade me - it's a novelty. So for her, it's an added layer of immersion. Someone she can identify with on a screen, to a point, who has agency.

I think the key is memorable characters of different genders, rather than selectable, voiceless avatars as well. I don't thinks it's boredom, I think (from a female perspective) it's fatigue. Because having a male is the norm... until now.

For men not identifying with women it's the inverse - a skew away from the status quo so some find it hard to then identify because it isn't often asked of them and the usual exercise is a passive one.

Anyway, as for the choices - this is a first go, so maybe they're just feeling out how it goes... the choices more extend to the gameplay rather than the narrative - how you approach problems, whether you involve yourself or not. How much they influence the endings I want to know.

More importantly, the real immersion breaker is the modern day view of Elizabeth tower and the London eye... there's no way there's an abandoned building in that part of London with THAT view...

For Assassin’s Creed, the choices really SHOULDN’T effect the ending. The only way they’re getting away with the choices at all is by going “DNA degradation plus a lot of shit happening at the time confusing the order of events” which...I GUESS is an acceptable reason for not desynching when you get something “wrong.”

But the ending is presumably an important enough event that we’re experiencing this story to find out what it is, so it really shouldn’t be changed by what we do in-game.

Aw man, I just had a legitimately upsetting moment. I had actually forgotten this was an Assassin's Creed game and was looking forward to learning what they were going to do with the Greek gods... but then I remembered that this IS Assassin's Creed, and they don't really have anything interesting to offer about the ancients beyond Ancient Aliens and whatever nonsense Juno has been pulling for the last decade.

Well, Juno isn't in this... that got resolved in the comics. The Isu elements are actually a LOT more prevalent in this - their artefacts and leftover tech, to be precise. Whether any of them turn up themselves, I'm not sure.

The Juno arc was resolved?

Dang, now I'm going to have to hunt that down to see what happened.

Yeah, wtf? They resolved the climax of Assassin’s Creed III in a comic?