Ubisoft announced quite a few things yesterday, but the one bit that caught my eye was the announcement of Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, a port of the previously Vita-exclusive game for PS3, 360 and PC. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, since it was actually a pretty good game and being solely on the Vita wasn't doing Ubisoft any favors, but I can't help feeling like I should be even the tiniest bit angry about this, being the staunch Vita supporter that I am. I mean, here's one of the few 'mainstream' exclusives worth a damn and that exclusivity (plus being made retroactively the 'shitty' version by comparison) just went out the window. One of the big things you could point at for just about anyone enticed by the idea of a Vita but needing a tipping point and make jazz hands over, and now not so much. I -should- be bothered by it.
Clearly, I'm not, though. I'm not quite sure what it is about Liberation on the whole, but it's effectively in the "Would not play again" portion of my brain and I just don't know why. Shortly after I reviewed the game, I mentioned having a bit of fatigue over talking about it and it simply turns out that that never really went away. Even bringing this post up last night as I intended to do it up (instead of finishing it tonight) brought about a strange weariness that, stacked on my everyday exhaustion simply proved to be too much. That I'm managing tonight is nothing less than a miracle of sorts, or something a little less dramatic if you're into that sort of thing, I suppose. Still, it's something weird to say the least - it's not often that you'll find a game that I don't want to talk about as with a good game, I can extol its virtues and with a bad game, I can loudly rant about its inadequacies. Liberation is somewhere in the middle and I really only have one guess as to how it managed that.
I was....not a fan of Liberation's Multi-Player and that's putting it mildly. To be entirely frank, I think it was an abomination unto common sense, and how it was ever presented as a good idea is foreign to me. It seemed as if it was designed in the depths of the underbelly of some Zynga sweatshop, and brought before a Ubisoft exec by some mole-person scraping across the ground so as not to offend the sensibilities. Shaped in a grotesque fashion, it was surely something to be rejected, to be shunned and mocked, but instead, the exec shrugged and presented it as something proper, allowing the caitiff to return to his duties with a rare sense of satisfaction, and undeserved at that. A lot of pointless clicking and posturing that was all erased as soon as a faction the Assassins won a 'match' where everything was then reset so you could waste time with it yet again. Somehow, someway, it managed to make its way into the final product that was Assassin's Creed: Liberation, and that is definitely a grievous injustice upon humanity that will hopefully be righted in the future somehow. I should hope that it's simply stricken from the HD remake, but I highly doubt that it will be so, you know....enjoy that, whoever is going to buy that.
Of course, there are actual improvements being made to the game beyond the obvious of making it prettier to look at, even if it wasn't much of a slouch on the Vita. Facial animations will be retouched, the frame-rate (that I didn't have much of a problem with, to be honest) will be locked at something proper, gameplay tweeks to combat and free-running and apparently each mission has been tweeked a bit as well. Joystiq makes mention of new missions, but I don't see any information about it beyond that, though I do recall a few areas in the game where another mission for story-pacing would have been appreciated. Likely that's the type of thing that will be done....or simply other missions along the Citizen E vein since those are cheap, easy and interesting. I doubt I'm going to pay much attention to it, however - the chances of the new content coming to Liberation on the Vita, even as paid DLC, is slim and I doubt that I'd pick it up even if it were offered. I simply have no intention on playing the game ever again.
That's not to say that you shouldn't either, of course. I stand by my original assessment of "Just as good as any other Assassin's Creed game, for better or worse" because I would also never really go back and play those all over again either. I tend to finish them off as best as I can (fuck you, Brotherhood and your online bullshit) and then wash my hands of them entirely which...doesn't say a whole lot of my opinion on the franchise as a whole, it would seem. That's just my opinion and my way of playing it, of course, and seeing as I keep coming back, I must have -something- that I like about it all. Perhaps some day I'll figure that out. Maybe after I buy Assassin's Creed 3 for $20 somewhere and play through it despite likely not enjoying what it has to offer if my pattern recognition isn't off. Or maybe somewhere else along the line! I kind of mussed up the point - Liberation was pretty cool so I hope the people who can play it now without a Vita (also known as people who are missing out) will enjoy it despite its flaws that every AC game is requisite to have.
I think it's the drop-stab, because that never, ever gets old
Still never gets old. It is about the only thing that doesn't.
Ubisoft's CEO recently stated that Ubisoft needs to release open-world games on a regular basis to keep on like they have been. And by 'needs to', he basically means "This is what we're going to do, so just, you know, keep that in mind". It's not really a surprise, considering Ubisoft has...pretty much only been putting out Open-Worlds from everything that springs to memory, and everything currently announced for them is similarly open, but it's something different altogether when it's just stated as such. And it pretty much all just comes down to whether or not you actually like Open-Worlds on whether or not this is good news. Personally? I'm okay with this. If it wasn't for the Assassin's Creed games, I would be ecstatic with this, and therein lies a type of distinction.
I don't quite think anyone has sufficiently nailed down what makes an open-world game 'great' even still, after all this time that it's been popular. I know it was around before them, but you could argue heavily in favor of stating that it was the Elder Scrolls games (specifically Morrowind) and Grand Theft Auto 3 that -really- kicked the Open-World sandbox scene into everyone's eyes. It's not without reason, however, as both of those games were never, ever at a lack of things to do. With Morrowind, that was almost literal given how much content is actually crammed within its confines, but with GTA 3, I think the bulk of it was being most people's first exposure to the type. A large part of it was the freedom it offered, but also how that freedom espoused with a type of 'role-playing' part of ours brains that took the Claude we were playing as and made him -our- Claude. Though, it's hard to think, now, that any of us did anything rather 'unique' with 'our' Claude, given the limitations of the map at that point.
For instance, 'my' Claude, on several occasions simply had enough of people and would take a sniper rifle on the top of the strip club to take out as many of the annoying jerks in the city as he could before anyone finally realized what he was doing and from where. When the authorities arrived in force, it was always a new game to see if he could bolt from the alleyway, hop into a car and make it to the nearby Pay-and-Spray without being witnessed so he could make a clean escape. He...barely ever did. It's hard to imagine now that 'my' Claude was the only one to do that, and I don't suspect he was, but it certainly -felt- a little more like you were 'owning' the character you were given to play around with.
San Andreas, I think, brought us the pinnacle of that type of 'ownership' that the series has seen with CJ. He was customizable enough to make your own, yet he was static enough that he was -always- CJ, just that he was your CJ on top of that. You as the player could decide if your CJ was going to be out-of-shape from his frequent excursions to Cluckin' Bell, or fit and imposing from a daily trip to the gym. You could decide what kind of melee techniques he could use. You could decide what kind of a dresser he was, and whether it was his goal to impress the ladies or not. You could decide if he was really good with a car, a motorcycle, or just -anything- with a steering mechanism. There are innumerable other ways I could expound on this further, but I think you get the point by now.
That kind of ownership is exactly the reason why I am slightly mixed on this announcement, considering it's Ubisoft. On the one hand, Far Cry 3 absolutely nailed this to the damn wall, given that it's so chock full of things that doing a simple thing like getting from Point A to Point B can become some kind of wonderful journey if you're in the mind of 'role-playing' akin to simply the type that my GTA 3 point mentioned. Which, clearly I can be. It's staggering just how dynamic and lush and alive Far Cry 3's world manages to be, and how smartly the developers created some of the gameplay mechanics around that. It's not perfect, of course (If simply because hunting becomes unnecessary after you've crafted everything, when hunting was damn fun) but it came really, really close. Close enough that it ignited a type of verve for Open-World games that I've never had before.
Assassin's Creed, on the other hand, has always been disappointing to me as an Open-World game specifically for that reason. I have never felt attached to my character in an AC game. I have never approached a situation -my- way, but rather simply the 'easiest' way. I have never felt like my AC experience was a unique one, even though it might have been. I'm not sure how many people went bare-handed at every opportunity simply to counter, steal weapon and kill, or constantly used heavy axes as projectile weapons because it was fucking fun, but I have to assume the number is up there. There's simply not enough diversity in any given AC game to make it 'yours'. It was always just a large map sprinkled with 'content' which is a big distinction to make.
Still, it's weird to point at this game and that and say "That got it right" and "That didn't" because not only is it an opinion, obviously, but it's based less on what it did on paper, but how it felt while you were playing it. Gravity Rush, while being a fantastic game, didn't feel like an open world game because there was next to nothing to do other than flying around (which was admittedly so fun). On the other hand, inFamous 2 similarly didn't have -tons- of content, but it didn't feel empty if only because the actual getting around was sort of a meta-game in itself because the ease of movement was so astounding. Dragon's Dogma is astoundingly good at giving you a wide world to explore at your leisure, but still manages to keep you into level-specific areas for the most part by way of rather large, imposing battles awaiting you in other portions of the land; it's cautionary, not mandatory. There are all sorts of qualifiers, but none of them are tangible enough to throw down as 'necessary' or something that will improve the experience by simply being in it.
That's all why I'm simply okay with the knowledge that Ubisoft is going Open-World from here on out (aside from things that they're just publishing). They've shown that they have the capability of putting out something like Far Cry 3, but Assassin's Creed is their bread-and-butter franchise. Watch_Dogs looks like closer to the latter than the former in terms of Ubisoft games, but if it's truly on the level of a Grand Theft Auto title, then that would similarly be fantastic. I just have to question whether or not I wholeheartedly believe that they can pull it off. I'm simply not sure that I can, but it's obvious why I have a little bit of hope for that type of outcome, too.
so I just sort of realized that I really like Open-World games, imagine that
Whenever I use the term 'alternate canon', people seem to have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, even though it's sort of a self-explanatory concept. Perhaps I'm using the wrong term, or perhaps it's a symptom of what I'm expressing here tonight in that not enough games out there properly utilize the idea. Which, honestly kind of surprises me since not only is it a very versatile prospect by its own nature, but also because it allows creativity to sort of go wild since, well, if it goes off-rails "hey, it's not actually canon". Perhaps I'm simply under-estimating just how attached people can get to the established and the expectations that come with that, but at the same time, alternate canon is something that celebrates the first part, while also taking the second into consideration, in a sense.
I suppose I should explain just what I mean when I say "Alternate Canon", since it's going to be a thing I bring up a lot in the post here tonight. "Alternate Canon" is a game wherein it takes something established and drives it into a different direction than what you might expect. Not a reboot, not a re-imaging, not 'a spiritual successor' or any of those types of things. Just a story where something drastic happens that causes the established canon to forge a new route that is its own story and not necessarily that of the actual story on which it started from. Pictured above is Yakuza: Dead Souls which is the quintessential example that I can think of for this type of thing.
Yakuza: Dead Souls takes place a year after Yakuza 4 resolves (I believe, that's kind of Sega's thing with the Yakuza games) and introduces a zombie epidemic to the otherwise simple, crime-ridden streets of Kamurocho. It's all done in a way that, well, actually fits the series staples of story-telling and the already-established characters of the Yakuza 'world' as it were, react as only they could to the whole situation. It is, in every sense of the word, a continuation of the established canon except for the part where zombies destroy Kamurocho and everyone has to scramble because of it and a lot of people die. This is kind of obvious, but the existence of Yakuza 5 with a not-destroyed Kamurocho is proof enough that Yakuza still has an existing canon that runs directly into Yakuza 5, but Dead Souls sort of runs parallel along 5 now, as it is -also- a sequel to 4.
Let's take a look at Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE. It is a direct continuation of Metal Gear Solid 4 which is a direct continuation of the rest of the Metal Gear games. Even though REVENGEANCE itself doesn't exactly take a lot from the rest of the series, what it does take is rather undeniable and it is, of course, canon. Let's all forget for a moment that we think we know what Metal Gear Solid 5 is going to be and pretend that Metal Gear Solid 5 takes place directly after 4. In it, we play as Raiden who has opted out of his cyborg enhancements to simple robot prosthetics that bind to a sneaking suit. In a return to form, this game would then be stealth-focused and take place in the events following 4's ending. Now, this will not happen, nor should it, but I introduced it as an idea for a very deliberate reason.
If the above played out, we would then have two established Raidens, basically, where they are both part of Metal Gear Solid canon. Being that the new game has '5' at the end, it would be labeled as official canon where REVENGEANCE would then be titled incorrectly as a spin-off. Only, in my little fantasy world, Metal Gear Rising 2: REVENGEANCE HARDER is also announced, continuing after the events of the REVENGEANCE which is, by extension, a continuation of Metal Gear Solid canon. Therefore, we now have two storylines. Alternate canon. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about and, aside from the fact that MGS5 will probably be a lot cooler than a game where you play Sneaking Raiden again, it's not a bad situation to imagine.
I am deliberately not using the word 'spin-off' here because spin-off has something of a negative connotation when you're talking about story-related matters. When you talk about a spin-off to someone, you say "It's just a spin-off, don't worry about the story", which immediately dismisses it. Going back to Metal Gear for a moment with Ac!d, which is very much a spin-off and not Alternate Canon, since Snake in it is a very, very different character. Ac!d's story is then self-contained and only important to both Ac!d games, which is why it's a spin-off. They are very, very different things, even well-outside the realm of pedantry.
Another not quite perfect example would be the announced "Tyranny of King Washington" DLC for Assassin's Creed 3. From what I've been lead to believe, not only does the mini-story tell of an entirely different historic setting in which George Washington doesn't go along with the whole "President" idea and instead becomes King of America, but it takes a different approach with the actual Assassin's Creed story. While using, presumably, the same build-up, the DLC tells of a Connor who does not join the Assassin order, yet history as we know it remains more or less unchanged....until Washington crowns himself King. As a Warrior of his tribe, not an Assassin, Connor rises up with the goal of overthrowing the tyrant King of America. While I'm loathe to call it a continuation of AC3 since, apparently, AC3 just didn't happen for the events of The Tyranny of King Washington to take place, it runs along a lot of the same lines, so I'm pretty sure you're getting where I'm coming from.
While this is a bit spoiler-y, it is also the best example of just what I'm talking about, so I unfortunately have to bring it up, but in a way that will spoil as little as possible. Now, a search of this blog will turn up the fact that I really really like Drakengard. A secondary search of this blog will also turn up the fact that I really really really like Nier. Now, not only are these two games made by the same developer (Now-Defunct Cavia, RIP) with the same director, which is apparently -very- important, but Nier is actually a sequel to Drakengard. Now, notice that I said 'a sequel'. Remind yourselves, for the moment, that Drakengard 2 is a thing that exists and is, also, a sequel to Drakengard, as the 2 would suggest. How is this possible, you might wonder.
Drakengard, in a sense, has two different story-lines that are covered over five different endings. Ending A is the 'canon' ending from which the unholiness that Drakengard 2 (with a different director) spawned from, whereas Endings B-E unfold in an entirely different way that sort of build off of each other while also ending up quite different in their own rights. Essentially, the characters, the story bits that don't have anything to do with the -specifics- of Endings B, C and D, are all canon to Ending E. Where Drakengard 2 is a sequel to Ending A, Nier is a sequel to Ending E. It's not said -quite- so explicitly in the game, and requires a little dot-connecting, but it -is- intended, and it -is- 'canon'. So, in effect, Drakengard is my perfect example of "Alternate Canon" which is kind of what this whole thing was about. Being that Nier was friggin' fantastic, it sort of shows that the idea has merit of use.
While I don't think it's ever really going to become a thing that's done a lot, I -would- like to exist in a world where I can come up with more than two and a half examples of Alternate Canon as I see it. It might have a too-strict set of guidelines, and it's hard to actually support two storylines in a single franchise, but when such a thing is executed well, it's phenomenal. If you need an example of that, perhaps you really need to re-introduce yourself to Legacy of Kain. Immediately. It's an entirely different thing than what I've been talking about all night, but it does that whole 'two storylines' thing wonderfully and is similarly something that I'm bewildered hasn't become a thing in the time since. That, however, is a subject for a different night.
Tonight's group of games is where things started to get a little dicey and where the surprises really started. If there's any section of my list where I imagine the games could be shuffled about and still be representative of my overall opinion, this could probably be it since I like all these games....in a sense, but at the very least, I liked them all -more- than the previous group, if only just a little in the case of a couple of them. Again, that's all that really matters for this kind of list in the end, but still, I do feel a little wonky with the places some of these have ended up. Oh well, it's not like I won't make it painfully obvious which of those are the ones. Still, enough stalling, let's just get to the numbers and get this one knocked out.
15. Retro City Rampage
I'll admit, when I played Retro City Rampage the first time, I spent hours just enjoying the hell out of it and loving it for what it was, or rather, what it was trying to be. I told myself, told you folks that it was just too awesome for words, because I simply couldn't find the appropriate ones. Admittedly in the months since I played it, my opinion has simmered quite a bit, thanks in no small part to the absolute awful final boss/section and the rather tedious and annoying task of mopping up the last collectibles in the game that, in all honesty, are really hard to find. Not to mention a certain trophy that has all sorts of hidden flags that are -not- what it says on the tin, turning a rather simple matter into something entirely different, much harder to accomplish, which borders on "Why should I even bother?" territory. Ultimately, that sort of thing just gets in the way of my fun, detours it and unfortunately just takes the rest of the game down with it.
Not that it isn't a really wonderful little game, if only for the nine billion references to gaming and pop culture, classic and modern, that have been packed into it. It's just that, yes, the fun does eventually run out when there's nothing else to do because, ultimately, the city that Retro City Rampage takes place in is built on references. Once you've seen them, they become less "Oh wow, that's awesome" and just blend into the scenery, which leaves it to be simply a place that you navigate on the way to your next objective. Hence, when there's -not- a next objective..there's little reason for you to make one for yourself. To its credit, it's very much like classic games in that sense, which, I mean, the game was definitely going for a classic game feel. You can only conquer those worlds once and then do it again and again if you wish, but there's no incentive to remain once you've planted your flag, so to speak.
14. Ragnarok Odyssey
I admit, when I first saw Ragnarok Odyssey, I wasn't expressly seeing it for what it was, and was instead looking at it like it was something else that I wanted. What I -want- is another Phantasy Star Portable experience, but Sega has been a little too busy with the doing jack shit in America thing to comply. At first glance, RO seemed like it would fill that need quite capably - after all, it's about entering zones, taking down mobs and getting loot, what's the difference, right? Well, unfortunately the difference is there in a way that I can't quantify and while I ended up liking Ragnarok Odyssey for what it was, it just wasn't what I wanted in the end. It doesn't help that the difficulty turns from an uphill climb to a sheer cliff-face in the latter chapters which is what ultimately put me off the game, but really, there was just a little more to it than that.
Part of RO's charm, and yet part of its short-comings is the way it handles your character and the specific customization of it. You can buy new outfits, you can change the hair style and this and that after the fact and eventually, you can even change jobs. You don't -have- to start a new character to find out what a Cleric is like - just switch to the Cleric Job and go do a couple missions, bam, Cleric experience garnered. If anything, though, that more or less highlights the fact that you -don't- really have that much to say in exactly what your character can be, because your character is flexible enough to be anything decently. It all boils down to your playstyle in a sense, which is admirable, but again that just sort of negates the replayability and such of the game since if you don't like being a Mage, there's no -reason- to because you will not get better at it.
It's nothing like other games where you spend hours playing one style because it's what your character needs, then switching to another character so you can see what it's like on the other side of things. That individuality might seem unimportant, but ultimately it's one of the factors that brought me down on the game. Of course, that only brought me down after playing into it for eight or so chapters, spending hours on extraneous missions and just straight-up going back to older bosses and murdering the shit out of them only to prove that I could. Which is to say there's some definite fun to be had with the game - I had it - and it's well worth a look if you're into the type of thing it's offering. Still, I'm hoping for something more and I'll openly applaud the first damn company that gives me the Phantasy Star Portable experience because I friggin' need it.
13. Persona 4 Arena
I am not a fighting game person, despite my love for punching dudes in video games. The allure is that, in most cases, you are exponentially more badass than the dude whom you are punching and that gap in skill allows you to skillfully display that. Which is fun. And every now and then, you get that opponent that is -as- badass as you and it's a challenge, but at the same time, it's fun because you're getting to put your badassery to the test. It's a welcome change in pace every now and then. Nothing to be repeated over and over, however. To me, that's what fighting games are - going against an equal with the goal of punching them a whole bunch. In these occasions, I find my skills lacking more often than not and I don't really find it all that fun to 'train' within the confines of fighting games to then get better at it when I could just pop in Yakuza and suplex a guy across a steel divider and just enjoy that.
Still, I allow myself the occasional dalliance outside of my comfort zone here and there if the draw is right and fresh off my Persona 4 Golden playthrough, I was admittedly looking towards Persona 4 Arena, if only because I am told it is at least somewhat canon and, well, I really dug P4's canon. Then the stars aligned and the price dropped to $20 the day before I was going to head into GameStop and they just happened to have a copy. It was providence, pure and simple, so who am I to argue? Perhaps thankfully, I went in with the same expectations as any fighting game and as such, I wasn't disappointed with my brief dips into it here and there. It is definitely interesting from all sides, and it is also definitely entertaining, even if it is a fighting game to the core. Perhaps because it has the lovely Arc System Works people behind it who excel at making wonderful looking fighting games, which this is no slouch at either.
I haven't played P4A a whole lot, but I've played it enough to appreciate it for what it is, I believe and I will certainly be dipping back into it sooner rather than later. I like it, I honestly do, but I would like it a whole lot more if I knew just what in the blue hell I was doing. I played through all 67 or however many tutorials there were (which, admittedly were single things like a single tutorial about crouching, a single tutorial about blocking, etc.) and all that information just went in one ear and out the other. When I am put down in a match with a (computer) enemy (hahaha, noooooo, no online for me, no thanks) I just do things and eventually I win, but it's not skillfully, it's not with mastery of the system, it's just because I hit a lot of buttons that did a lot of stuff. I hope to figure it out as I play, but I guess if that'll carry me through everyone's story modes, I'll take it.
12. LittleBigPlanet Karting
Much like fighting games, I just don't do racing games a whole lot, but I did have to make an exception for LittleBigPlanet Karting for the simple fact that it's friggin' LittleBigPlanet Karting. My opinion of it hasn't changed much since I last talked about it, but that is to say I haven't really played it much since the last time I talked about it. I've been thinking about it, but I just haven't yet gotten behind the cardboard steering wheel once more, namely because I've been scrambling to put my playtime into other games so that I could judge them as well. I still say that, for as weird and out-of-sorts as the mash-up of LittleBigPlanet and a Kart Racer is, it's also a perfect fit in a sense because, well, that is the strength of LittleBigPlanet. It's meant to be anything and everything you could want it to be, which is why the other iterations of the series have been so popular, or at least so striking with a certain group of people.
In the end, however, I think LittleBigPlanet Karting is a good enough idea to be good, but probably not a good enough idea to substantiate an entire game. I've only been to two different planets in the story, but if previous games are any indicator, there will only be about five or six in total, so I've seen quite a bit already. If, perhaps, Karting was simply a level choice for a grander, larger LittleBigPlanet game, that would have been the best course of action, though I understand the scope for that is quite large, almost absurdly so. So what we're left with is a good idea that goes on a little too long, even if it does take every opportunity to give you ideas that it's not just a racing game. In all reality, it's -not- just a racing game, but it is, of course, -mostly- one, which does not differentiate itself enough. Still, it's charming and it's fun enough and I should say I'm better at driving games than fighting games, so I'm not quite as hard pressed to find my own enjoyment with them. Not much, though.
11. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation
You would think that, after just reviewing it recently, I would be sick of talking about AssLib by now. You would also be right in that. It hasn't even been a full week since I posted that up and I've even been playing it -still-, trying to mop up the miscellany because the Platinum trophy is behind a wall of tedium, not one of impossibility, so I want to get it and be done with it, that I might return to the world of Persona 4 or some other Vita game, just so I am not playing Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation anymore. So, if you will allow me to be so lazy, allow me to take an except from the review to leave you with here:
Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation is not a perfect game,
much like no Assassin's Creed game is a perfect game by any stretch of
the imagination. The upside is that Liberation is just as flawed
as the previous titles, not more, which means if you enjoyed them, you
will probably have quite a bit of fun with this. The story itself is
fairly short and not terribly involved with the rest of the overarching
story, but in many ways, that's probably a good thing all told. The
draw here is pretty simple - more Assassin's Creed, but wherever you
could want to play it at, and that's a very good thing since it does
work much the same as the previous titles. If you're looking for
something Action-y to throw into your Vita for a while, AssLib is a fine
choice that likely won't leave you feeling disappointed.
So there's that. Nothing but the Top 10 left and already you've seen some games that might've just been heavy hitters for my list, or might've been considered so, given how much I've talked (or haven't talked) about them. Still, if you've been keeping up with Kupowered, you'll probably be able to figure out which games are still yet to be revealed, and I'm sure you can understand that it was goddamn hard to actually rank the games that are remaining. So yes, it's all uphill from here and it's going to be rough going to actually explain my reasoning for why some of the games are where they are. That is a problem for another night, however, likely tomorrow night. For tonight, I just have some music and some writing (elsewhere) on my mind.
It's been said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and yet expecting a different result each time. After playing and beating my fifth 'real' Assassin's Creed game (Bloodlines and the DS one don't count, yes I have them, yes I've played them) and finding myself with the exact same feelings as the last four (or the last three at least, there was a bit of a time gap, admittedly) I'm finding it fairly hard to disagree. This isn't a wholly negative thing, of course, as there's not really an Assassin's Creed game that I actively dislike, save for 2, but that's mostly because I just really didn't like Ezio prior to Brotherhood, but the issue is that people are absolutely enthralled with these games. I am not and even worse, I cannot imagine myself considering them the absolute gems that these folks praise them as. While I may not disagree as vehemently as I do with, say, Final Fantasy XIII-2, because I don't think Assassin's Creed, as a franchise nor any individual game, is a bad thing like FFXIII-2, but I similarly just do not get it.
Perhaps it's the part of me that just really, really dislikes games that are released buggy and summarily never, ever fixed in a satisfactory manner. If there was ever a complaint you could leverage at the series, that would certainly be it, though moreso in the later titles given their considerably shorter development times. The idea that you actually cannot run into a gate for the little First-Person mini-games in Assassin's Creed: Revelations without crashing the game, something that literally will never be fixed for the PS3 version at least, is a ridiculous one in all fashions, but it's a reality. That's a rather egregious issue, granted, and one of the few larger ones, but its presence would indicate that several smaller problems are present and given the gripes folks had with Assassin's Creed 3 in that department, it's most definitely a thing for the series. As expected, especially upon considering that AssLib is built on Ass3's engine, the Vita's AC game is rife with little bugs that are quite annoying to be sure.
Possibly the most annoying thing I encountered in the single-player mode was an instance in which I hopped off the roof and lodged my Sugarcane Machete into the chest of a guard, switched to a different weapon for the other one and, following the fight, I noticed that my Machete was gone. Like, I had an empty inventory slot and everything. It wasn't still in the guard since, as far as I can tell, your weapons do not leave your person ever (unfortunately, flinging a greataxe in AssBro and AssRev was so goddamn fun) and it wasn't on the ground. It had just disappeared into the aether. Or, I suppose, back in the weapon rack at the home base, which I went to to retrieve it from. It was a little thing to be sure, but after a little googling, it's apparent that it's not an incident isolated to just me, nor just to the machete which is a bit of a problem to say the least.
It was also the stand-out in a sea of audio desynching from attacks (prime example is the "shik-shik-shik-shik-shik-shik from the multi-stab kill that would play....even if the attack wasn't triggered), the game constantly telling me my target was too far away when, in truth, I was not targeting anything, and things appearing on the map that I can only describe as ghost chests because they certainly are not where they're supposed to be, I can tell you that. Plus, the game had an annoying little habit of putting down my manual checkpoint at a random location in the north after I'd used it to get to a chest and opened it. Moving it rather than....you know, just taking it off the map, the thing that makes sense to do. Another issue right at the start of the game in one of the very first missions. In teaching you how to use Eagle Vision, you're prompted to go to the top of a building and use Eagle Vision to locate your target building. I'm told it will glow gold with Eagle Vision activated. I say this because said building looked like every other building and it was only dumb luck that I stumbled onto it and triggered the next scene. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the point.
None of that is really indicative of what AssLib -is-, however, simply being something of an indication of what shape it was in. (And this is after the patch that fixed the issue with Game Saves randomly erasing themselves as well as fixing some other bugs) What Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation -is- is a fully-realized Assasin's Creed title that fits in your hands rather comfortably on the Playstation Vita. That in itself is rather high praise and bugs aside, I cannot think of a lot of negatives to say about it on the -game- side of things, aside from the normal complaints that I have about like all of the Assassin's Creed games. When I say that it's an AC game, I'm not really making any caveats aside from that it's perhaps a bit short. Still, I would assume that it had even less of a development time than any other Assassin's Creed game before it, so that's quite understandable.
Aveline is a pretty good protagonist to have for an Assassin's Creed game even though her backstory isn't nearly as fleshed out as Altair's or Ezio's, purely by nature of having only a single game and a shorter than normal one at that. The important bits are explained as you go through it, of course and a nifty little feature is Citizen E or Erudito who is somebody that has managed to hack your Animus, showing you extra bits of story here and there when you find one of his marks. This, of course, takes a little bit away from the Templar's aims, showing you the 'true' nature of things as they were, forgoing the careful editting that has clearly been done by Abstergo agents to control what the public sees. And as a feature of story-telling, it's also pretty neat since you're generally seeing these bits after-the-fact so you can compare what 'really' happened to what you saw originally.
What seems to set Aveline apart from the other protagonists that we've had is one of the main gameplay mechanics in the Persona mechanic. No, no, not that Persona, but a more tangible, more literal form of it in that you have three guises with which you can use to your advantage through the game. As the daughter of a wealthy businessman, Aveline is fairly well-to-do and thus can walk about town in the Lady Persona which is for your more clandestine activities. You cannot free run with it, but you can bribe and charm guards to get by and if you really -need- to, you've always got your Wrist blades and eventually a parasol gun. Driven by a sense of righteousness, Aveline can also don a Slave's Persona, blending in with other indentured servants to get close to a particular Slave master or something of the sort and end his particular reign. And of course, you have the Assassin Persona which we all know and love, with all of the normal trappings and such that you're used to. All three different guises serve a purpose and all three have a nice effect of reflecting part of Aveline's personality, allowing us as the player to get insight into her that is otherwise unspoken.
I never, ever get tired of the death drop.
Because of the Persona mechanic and the new engine from AC3, gameplay mechanics have been changed in fairly noticeable ways, some of them for the better and some...perhaps not quite so much. Something definitely high up on the awesome list is actually the free-running which saw a marked improvement from previous iterations in my eyes. It's faster and more fluid, cutting off those moments of hesitation that Ezio seemed to have while climbing a goddamn Borgia Tower seriously just grab the fucking grip Ezio COME ON as well as just being, well, speedier all around. Getting from the ground to a rooftop takes barely any time as Aveline grabs this and that, moving upwards all the while. It's not perfect as there's instances, as with all AC games, where it just doesn't work properly, but this saw a pretty nice upgrade from AssBro/Rev which makes it much more useable. And as we've learned previously, New Orleans is a rather Parkour-friendly place which is certainly just as true for AssLib as it's ever been.
On the flip-side, the combat mechanics have seen a drastic hit in terms of quality and, in a way, it kind of makes perfect sense. What we're use to with the last three releases is Ezio as it becomes more and more of a honed, fine-tuned murder machine, spending more of his life training in the art of killing than not, he gets pretty goddamn good at it. Aveline? Not so much. Even 'you' as the 'player', as the person who has purchased an Animus and are playing as Aveline to experience this game as it's presented in this weird meta-reality scenario do not have this experience. So while you cannot kill folks with quite the ease as Ezio or Altair, it actually makes an annoyingly good amount of sense for the reason why, even though I really doubt Ubisoft considered that even a little at any single point in time. So there you go, Ubisoft, that one is free.
Aveline is still quite proficient in her role, however, which is as welcome as you would assume. The game does not waste a whole lot of time on tutorials for the series staple method of choice - Wristblades - and that's good because they have never ever been complicated to use and it's nice to know that we all acknowledge this now. Something a little annoying about them, unfortunately, is that they're not quite the Combat God weapons as they were in Ezio's hands. Again, it's understandable, but counter-killing with them is...well, we'll put it this way: in my entire time with AssLib, I did not manage to counter-kill a single person. As in the earlier days, hitting a blocking enemy meant that, eventually, their guard would drop and you would be able to finish them off, which is...fairly boring. Of course, there were also foes in the game that seemed to ignore this and, indeed, every other rule of Assassin's Creed combat, requiring special methods to kill them. (Read: Shoot them or use the whip to pull them into an instant kill.....if that connects.)
I should touch on that point a little deeper if only because it's a really interesting bit about AssLib in that AssLib doesn't really seem to want you to think it's important. During the course of the game, you add a whip (like, Indiana Jones whip) to your limited arsenal of ranged weapons and it is, honestly, pretty cool. You are, however, likely to use it all of four times during the course of the game unless you really really try to work it into your playstyle because after the mission you get it in, and two or three jumps that you use it with, the game never mentions it with any significance. In all reality, however, the Whip is goddamn broken as hell and you should use it always. It is a hard weapon to use, however, because I'm pretty sure that the game doesn't even explain how to use it correctly, so I will do that for you now: When it is blue (meaning you can use it) hold triangle until something dies. It is in fact that simple. If you're on ground level with a foe, Aveline will drag him to her until she finishes him off with some sort of strike depending on her equipped weapon. If you're on a building or similarly higher ground, she will tug until the enemy has effectively been hanged/strangled. This latter part is specifically never told to you at all, yet there is a trophy for doing it ten times, so go figure on that.
Fun fact: After taking this, I tried to Leap of Faith into the water. It did not end well.
Harkening to the mainline Assassins Creed titles, there is more than one single area to play around in within AssLib's confines, which, after AssBro and AssRev, it is quite nice, even if Rev did kind of sort of offer another area as well. Specifically, AssLib has three areas - New Orleans City proper, the swampy Bayou where you might just find yourself stabbing a crocodile (or is it an alligator?) to death, and, eventually, a location in Mexico, of which I will say nothing else. Interestingly enough, the Bayou is -probably- as big as New Orleans' map, a fact made all the more apparent when you realize there is a lot of map that you will not get via the normal Synchronizing points and will have to simply trudge out into it to acquire. I'm not at all sure why this is, other than the idea that, well, people don't generally chart out swamps, so Aveline couldn't exactly synchronize an entire swamp map to a map that doesn't otherwise exist. It is, again, something that I'm probably thinking of more than Ubisoft, but it's interesting nonetheless in a kind of annoying "Where the hell is the border, urgh, I have to run all the way around this goddamn swamp, oh great now I have to swim, just wonderful" kind of way.
The Bayou is also where you'll likely run into the bulk of the game's collectibles - a move which also doesn't fail to confuse me, but isn't wholly bothersome in its own right. Indeed, the Bayou is the only place where you will find Alligator (they're alligators, I checked) Eggs, Mushrooms for medicine (that you never ever make, it's just a collectible), and delirious folks that you have to punch to 'death' ('subdue them') so that you can heal them (seriously, it's kind of messed up - three different patients, I beat up and Aveline snapped their necks...yet they lived to get treated) as well as the bulk of the Diary pages scattered haphazardly around all three locales. This, coupled with the above point about the lack of a good portion of Bayou mapping is a little distressing, but it's definitely not a big deal, especially now that you can look up things on the Vita's browser whilst playing a game instead of having to close it out. Or you could just, you know, walk around with Eagle Vision on, which will make the icons display on your map when you come out of it.
The Multi-player portion of the game, on the other hand.... I'm going to be straight here: Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation's Multi-player is terrible. I tried to like it, I really did, but there is just nothing redeeming, enjoyable or interesting about it at all. It is different, is something I can say, and if nothing else, Ubisoft has always had a different approach to MP with the AC games, but in this case 'different' is bad. 'Different' in this case means 'Facebook game' and I don't mean the kitschy little -Ville games that are kind of fun if you literally have nothing else to do for like half an hour or something, I mean the harsh reality of what we generally see Facebook games as - exercises in clicking things that produce numbers with absolutely no reason or fanfare. While also being on a time limit for some reason to force you to come back later on in the day to play it again to continue your 'progress' as it were, even though your 'progress' is simply a bar that fills up by an undetermined amount for every action you take. I am not oversimplifying what the MP mode of AC is because it is in fact the thing that has been oversimplified, unfortunately. Using the above screenshot for reference, I will explain the process of 'playing' Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation's multi-player because it is a fairly simple process to explain. With every cycle of the game (this is important) you pick a faction, either the Assassins or the Templars. And when I saw you pick a faction, I mean everybody picks Assassins like holy shit, so pick Assassins. Then you pick a Home Node. I assume if you're on a 3G model, it will use the GPS to select a node close to your location, but it really doesn't matter at all. At your Home Node you can do three things - Attack (or defend, depending on the state of the node you're Attacking/Defending), set a beacon (which...makes the node shiny. It's supposed to be used for coordinated attacks, but it is not necessary) or set your agents to guard which will exit the mode and give you some control points the next time you come back. Now, your 'agents', all named like previous AC MP characters (The Thief, The Gentleman, The Rogue, etc.) are unlocked as you progress through the ranks and everyone starts with three stats at 1s (Attack, Defend and Pilfer) and the last stat, Energy, at 5. For every attack/defense you make with a character, they use one bit of energy (unless you're attacking stronger foes), but energy is fully replenished half an hour following the first expenditure. You don't even need to have energy to use them, but the control points you gain for doing so will always be low, possibly always only a single point. Still you level up their abilities doing so, so it's not a complete waste of time (well, the entire thing -is- a waste of time, I'll explain later, but you know what I mean, within the scope of itself) and when you level up an ability, they gain a bit of energy. Ultimately the goal is to control all of the Victory Nodes on the map, which you do by first controlling surrounding nodes and then doing much the same to the Victory node of choice. You click attack, you click a character and you click an enemy (the game always gives you three to select, most of the time they are somebody else's agents) and it does a three-frame animation that ends with you getting Control Points. That is 95% of the entire Multi-player. It is a never-ending quest to fill up your bars for no other reason than they are there to be filled and the process of doing so is simply clicking on things with no real feedback. It's like there was no real effort or thought put into it, even though the base concept is -not- a bad one. Properly thought out, it could've been something like Risk, but using Assassins and Templars and that? That could have honestly been pretty neat. But this is so barebones, by a literal definition, that I simply cannot accept it as a viable option of Multi-Player. There's no strategy, no depth whatsoever and most importantly there's just no fun to be had. There's no feedback in any way that would -make- it fun. Worst of all, when somebody wins the Assassins win, it starts a new cycle which resets all your characters stats to 1s and the 5 energy so that the only reason, really the only reason to play it whatsoever is to get the few MP trophies that AssLib offers. Still, even that isn't enough to make me consider AssLib a bad game by any means. Of course, I don't generally care too much about the Multi-player portion of a game unless it's truly amazing, so I'm perhaps not the person to go to for that type of consideration. The Single-Player portion of AssLib is fairly strong on its own merits and is certainly on par with the other AC titles, for better or worse in that regard. It's sort of weird to say "Well, yeah, it's like the other games and flawed just like them" in a way that is actually praising the title, but that's pretty much what I'm saying. For a portable iteration of the series that was likely not given a whole lot of time or resources to work with, that's certainly saying something, and I can only wonder at how much better the game could've been with a couple more months of dev time under its belt. Still, as a first attempt at Vita AC title, AssLib does its job quite well, and that's nothing if not encouraging.
The Good
Fully Realized Assassin's Creed title that you can take with you wherever you go
Aveline is a fairly good character and handled rather well
The Persona Mechanic is pretty neat in concept at least and, for the most part, execution
Free-Running has been improved upon a lot and is really fun for it
The whip, once you realize its potential, is a fantastic weapon
The shipping Mini-game has a neat appeal to it and is quite profitable
The Bayou is a fairly interesting area to explore, which is a good thing since you're going to have to explore it
Really, the design of the game in general is pretty good
The idea of the game being an Abstergo tool in a sort of meta-reality scenario is honestly kind of cool and further enhanced by the Citizen E stuff
The Bad
The Multi-Player is an affront to fun and good things
The single player portion is, unfortunately, a bit short
The combat system saw a bit of a downgrade which is understandable, but disappointing nonetheless
By extension, some Full Synchronization tasks are stupidly hard, such as any that require you take no damage
There's no real ownership meta-game with the various business and such, simply places to buy to little effect
Even after the big patch, it's still fairly buggy, though the bugs that remain range from 'mildly annoying' to 'are these guards planking in mid-air, what is this even'
While not mentioned before this, pickpocketing is done entirely with the rear touch pad and is rather poorly thought-out, which bugs me
Mogs Says
Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation is not a perfect game, much like no Assassin's Creed game is a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. The upside is that Liberation is just as flawed as the previous titles, not more, which means if you enjoyed them, you will probably have quite a bit of fun with this. The story itself is fairly short and not terribly involved with the rest of the overarching story, but in many ways, that's probably a good thing all told. The draw here is pretty simple - more Assassin's Creed, but wherever you could want to play it at, and that's a very good thing since it does work much the same as the previous titles. If you're looking for something Action-y to throw into your Vita for a while, AssLib is a fine choice that likely won't leave you feeling disappointed.
In my frantic attempts to continue getting last-minute play sessions with games that came out last year before the voting for Game of the Year is final (if anyone is wondering (you aren't), I go by the poll that goes around a few forums including the Penny Arcade one where I frequent, hence the absolute lateness) and I have to put these games into an order of some sort. I will worry about that step when I come to it, because for now, I'm just trying to get a fairly good impression of the games that I have since there are...uh...at least four games that I have that I have not fully played that are eligible and that is going to be a difficult thing to juggle. Thankfully, AssLib is the only one for the Vita (as I've played the hell out of the rest of the Vita games I currently have), so there's not a lot of swapping. Of course, with the other three being PS3 games and the depressing discovery that I am completely out of HDD space for the installs for these games, it is....a challenge, to say the least.
Still, I put a good deal of time into AssLib today and I've got a pretty decent first impression of it, I should say. I'm not quite sure what I was going into the game expecting and as such, I'm not quite sure what I'm walking away with so far, but it's lukewarmly positive at the very least. Assassin's Creed is always a weird series for me, if that wasn't obviousalready, so another iteration of it means that I will invariably find that it does not live up to the expectations I have for such a title, yet I will find its attempt adorable if not enthusiastic and nearing impressive. So far, that is definitely where I would put AssLib, of course, which definitely puts it head and shoulders above the previous portable ventures which is, of course, like saying three fingers of scotch is heads and shoulders above a glass with orange juice and spit in it. It is not a good compliment, is what I'm saying, because it is not a difficult task by any means.
AssLib is most certainly an Assassin's Creed game in more than just name and influence, and I daresay that the freerunning in this title is better than it has been in the entirety of the Ezio trilogy. I'm not quite sure, of course, but so far, I've only accidentally jumped to my death for reasons beyond my comprehension once despite spending quite a good bit of time in the Slave and Assassin personas running around like crazy. Combat is similar as well, despite having some of the repertoire of abilities dispersed through the different personas as well, subscribing to a whole as the sum of its parts ideal it seems. And, surprising the ever-loving hell of me is the fact that I can, in fact, swim in this game without being desynched or without a sort of 'time limit' that is both arbitrary and ultimately ruins the fact that you -can- swim in the game. All the factors, more or less, are there and that alone is pretty astounding.
The negatives of being an Assassin's Creed game in much the same vein as the others are also present with a couple exclusive to this game unfortunately. The story seems tenuous and shallow, only told in little snippits here and there, as is the custom, which makes it rather easy to forget about and otherwise just not care about it. The game is fairly notorious already in my mind for not knowing just what the hell it wants in that I've desynched thrice already for killing guards where I was not once told that I could -not- kill guards, and I can only surmise it was because I was detected. Similarly, in those cases, I was not told that I was to remain undetected which, let's be honest, is a bit of a departure from the rest of the series. The mini-games that are present, specifically the trade game, is underthought and more of a pain to get to than the Brotherhood missions were, though I suspect it will ultimately feel more rewarding once I really get the hang of it. Specific to this game, however, is the absolutely terrible audio which has been needlessly compressed and it just sounds awful even with headphones (or perhaps especially with headphones) and really ruins any semblance of mood the game tries for.
Still, it is a rather enjoyable game for what it is, and I'm pretty glad that I'm getting into it. The multiplayer is a whole other beast and I'll get into that another night, but the single-player is fairly solid so far despite my complaints. It is, really, -as- solid as Brotherhood and Revelations were to me, which is certainly saying something while also stating that it's a bit of a mixed bag. With any luck, that won't change for the worse, but I honestly doubt it will - the game is beginning to unfold more and more now as I play it and what I see is things that I like and that I want to see expanded on a little. At the very least, it is immensely fun to run around in this game, since the engine is different, and I can make myself have some fun with that, as well as working air assassinations into my hit-and-run style. Because goddamn if that is not fun in this game, then what is?
As we all know, when it comes to things that are bad, they never come in, stroll around for a moment and then leave without so much as a second thought. They come in with a few buddies, also bad, and hang around for a little while until you're ready to strangle something and you don't really care -what-. That's been what it's like here since the last time I posted, and that's directly responsible for the -why- I haven't posted. I'm still not in a good place as it is, but I realized that there are possibly people who use this as their sole venue to know if I, as a person, am doing alright or something like that, and it'd be kind of a shitty thing for me to do to -not- update those people if I can help it, which I can. Because, you know, I'm just a nice guy like that or something I suppose.
The situation is thus: I'm pretty alright. I lost internet the night after I posted last, hence the first night of non-posting and it was kinda sucky for me and such, but nothing too bad. The next day, we (by we, I mean my family) got some news that is....well, pretty bad. I don't want to throw this out here because I don't need attention nor sympathy or anything like that, but suffice to say that there could be some severely bad news about a close family member in the coming week or two. So that's been weighing on me since and it does wonders for keeping any enthusiasm or verve I could muster for anything at bay, which is why it's been particularly hard to even consider posting since I've just not been in it. I'm still not, but I suppose I'm managing fine enough, might start again normally depending on how things go. The other issue is that I'm sick-ish again. Because, you know, why not. Nothing beyond waking up with a surplus of mucus for now, but given how things are, I'm not liking my chances of getting better without getting a little worse.
I've been keeping busy, though, which is good. Between the first and likely only chapter of Corpse Party that I played which I suspect has made me a worse person overall because of the things that are now in my memory that I cannot un-remember, Ragnarok Odyssey that has the most adorable Slimes that I have murdered by the hundreds already and Youtube videos on the Vita App (which I'm still not entirely happy with, and it could be fixed with just a little more 'robust' channel viewing, and by more robust, I mean any at all), I haven't had a moment to say that I am bored. Of course, I have work, Final Fantasy XIII and the recently-finished Costume Quest to thank for that as well, which is to say that it is a good time to do what it is that I do, I just wish the conditions were a little more conducive for enjoyment.
That's been the most noticeable with Costume Quest, which I finished in two sessions of plays, getting 100% of the trophies while I was at it. (Of course, there's only 11 and they're pretty simple to get) It's a light-hearted Halloween-themed romp that I played, in fact, because it was just Halloween and I did nothing else to celebrate than eat candy and....well, I ate some candy. It was, in fact, delicious. I suspect that any other time, I would be able to fully appreciate it for what it was, but instead I could only find the mechanics boring and grating, much like Final Fantasy 13's own, and glare at my screen whenever the FPS dropped noticeably as all Double Fine games seem to do, and do a lot. It was fun and I liked it, but I also wasn't playing it to enjoy it, simply because I felt like, hey, I should play it because of that time and, when I played it about halfway through, because I was almost finished with it. I worry that that might've hampered my opinion of it overall, which is why I decided not to continue with the Grubbins on Ice expansion, choosing to instead save that for the Holiday season, with hopes that my natural excitement during those times will help the game put an exclamation point on it.
I did purchase Assassin's Creed: Liberations as well, and I have been avoiding playing it for much the same reasons as I've listed already. We all know my opinions on the Assassin's Creed games, particularly AssBro and AssRev (though AC1 and 2 are both spoken of as well in those) and they are not ever universally positive when I'm in the best shape I can be. So trying to go into such a game and expecting that I will walk away satisfied in the least is lunacy which I will not attempt - I want to like Liberations or at the very least give it a fair shake. I'm in no position to do either at this juncture, but when I am, you will probably hear about it because that's sort of what I do. With any luck (I notice that I say that a lot) I'll be back to posting tomorrow night, and there's some genuinely interesting things to speak of that's come up lately, so I'll have plenty of things to cover.
Touch controls, from what I can tell, are still a point of contention for anyone, in that they can be used to do a single thing, or even be optional, but someone will still find a way to complain about them. I say this with fully knowledge and in fact -because of- AssLib's touch controls that are clearly labelled 'optional', so that I can say, after watching the above video, I just don't get it. I don't get the hate sometimes. In the worst case, where I can understand it, touch controls replace a button press for absolutely no reason whatsoever and it is your only option. Ham-fisting touch controls is clearly not the method we want to use, but even then, there can be a way about it that makes it alright in not inherently terrible. The okay case is when it's simply another option to do something you could do with a button press and you can decide between the two things. And of course the best case scenario is when you truly embrace it and use it to do something that you really cannot replicate with buttons alone. There have been examples of all three usages so far with everything from DS games to mobile games and Vita games, giving us reason to believe that there -is- a way to use Touch controls in a sensible way.
So long as you use the Okay method at least, then you're golden. AssLib uses the Okay method. At least, that's what I'm assured, as the touch controls are labeled as Optional, so I'm completely fine with that, especially since they seem to have some neat implementations. Of course, there's likely going to be some folks who whinge over it, which is completely their prerogative. I only bring it up because I haven't watched a single AssLib video that's come out for reasons that....aren't completely known to me since I really don't care enough to media blackout and even though I am getting the game next week, I'm not really worried about 'spoilers' or such. Not that I want to know what happens at the end of the game or anything, of course, it's just that I don't have that feel, where I need to just have everything about the game happen and be shown whilst I play it. Still, touch controls are a thing as I said, so I wanted to get a heads-up as to what I was to expect.
By far, the biggest thing that seems to be touch-controlled is the game's own version of what seems to be the Mark and Execute system from Splinter Cell: Conviction. Obviously not the exact same thing, but, well, it kind of -is- and since Splinter Cell is a Ubisoft thing, I'm going to go ahead and draw the parallel because I can. Basically at seemingly any moment, you can pause time and tap a target to mark him, up to a certain amount of marks and when you un-pause, Aveline will shank them with great fury. It's not like there's not precedence as, with both AssBro and AssRev, Killstreaks were a thing which this can be used as, pausing mid-battle and assigning targets to insta-shank is just saving you a couple presses of square, really, and that's just if you -choose- to do it. And I'm assuming you can do it out of fights as well, meaning you can use it to mark guys walking the roads and whatnot if you so choose. It's really just an alternative to hitting Square next to a guy and probably makes you feel more 'tactical' or something if you do it.
The other uses, the rowing and the pickpocketing are, you know, whatever they are, and I certainly hope they are optional as well because I like being able to just hold down X and walk by dudes, yanking their cash like a jerk. Even though it's...no, I don't think it was ever useful in Revelations. I did have to use it that one time to get a key, but it was the once and it wasn't mandatory. Just nice to be able to do, I guess and with any luck, AssLib will be a little more balanced with the money you get, need and spend. Because it was a real shame just having a whole bunch of money pile up in the bank, but also needing that money to buy -anything- because it was the only source of real income you could count on. Whatever the case, I'm sure I'll find out when I get it, though I suspect it might be a day or so before I put it in, since I do have an urge to try out Ragnarok Odyssey first. Still, that I'm buying AssLib on day one should tell enough of my interest for the game.
I think that every time I begin playing an Assassin's Creed game, I go into it expecting something sub-par and yet hoping upon hope that it will change my opinion somehow and make the hype that many, many others out there feel for the series whenever a new one is announced. Then I start playing it, and for the first few hours I near being impressed, very impressed, to the point where I start thinking maybe -this- will be the one game that captures the feeling that I'm looking for from the whole series. -This game- will be the one that makes me understand, that I leave excited for, even after finishing up the little extra bits of content hanging around beyond the story. -This game- will be the one that makes me -want- to do that extra content, rather than feeling that I'm obliging myself to do so for the elusive Platinum trophies that I hoard for no good reason. -This game- will make me stand up and finally put the disc in its case with reverence when I am finished, because I will identify as a true Assassin's Creed fan.
That never happens. More importantly, it did not happen with Revelations.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations (henceforth referred to as AssRev) is, however, a rather accomplished game in my mind, almost surprisingly so, especially when weighed against the scorn that the game seems to hold in certain areas of the internet. It's not completely undeserved, though, as there are some parts of AssRev that I cannot wrap my head around why it was considered a good idea, and other things just feel under-utilized completely. Those are not the markings of a great game no matter the context and some of AssRev's highlights of that area are particularly egregious unfortunately. Still, there's quite a lot to like and actually some improvements over Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's offerings, which you might remember that I was pretty happy with all things considered, and certainly a step up from AC2. I'm not sure if I'm willing to say that AssRev is a step up from AssBro or even on the same level because of the issues with it, but it's certainly hovering in the same area, thankfully.
Re-reading the AssBro review so that I could effectively gauge AssRev against it has made me realize something a little hilarious in that the game has more or less traded the good points for fixing the bad points of the predecessor, which I will explain as it comes up. I'm confused as to how it's possible to do this and still end up with a product that I quite like, but Revelations has managed to do that, and it's an impressive enough feat that a little elaboration on just that is necessary, I feel, so what better of a forum to do that in than that of a Review? Kind of easy to do when you have a structure already to build with instead of sort of just free-wheeling it. Trying to flow from one thing to the next without being too contrived or anything of that sort when all I really want to elaborate on is what AssRev does well and what it does not do well, which are very, very different camps than I expected.
To start on a positive note, I'll do a little re-iteration on bombs to really try and express just how much I enjoy the mechanic and how it was used while also being sad about how it -wasn't- used. To explain a little further than I did in that post, let me go into the basics of it. From one of your assassin contacts, you gain the ability and the knowledge to create bombs that you can use for tactical or combat purposes throughout basically the entire game. As you can see above, there are three key elements involved: the shell, the gunpowder and the effect, all of which determine just what kind of bomb you end up making. Of the shells, you have Impact, Fuse, Tripwire and Sticky which are fairly self-explanatory I'd say - Impact explodes on impact, Fuse has a delay, Tripwire are things you set that are then set off by someone walking over them and Sticky bombs stick to things, exploding after a few seconds delay. The three gunpowders just dictate explosion radius and power and it's the effect that -really- makes a bomb a bomb.
The Effect is the soul of whatever bomb you're making what it is and the effect is what changes the most depending on what bomb slot you're making for. The above three options are for Diversionary use, where Sulfur makes a sound, Salt of Petra makes a smoke signal and Pyrite Coins explode in a shower of gold, drawing civilians over to it who will actually fight any guards off that also come around. Tactical effects include Lamb's Blood which explodes in a shower of blood, frightening everyone in the vicinity, Caltrops which stops enemies dead in their tracks as they pull the little tacks from their feet, Phosphorus which makes your smoke bombs, and Skunk Oil while will repulse anyone away from the target, making it useful to single someone out in a crowd. And finally Lethal effects are your basic Shrapnel which sends bits of metal flying everywhere, specifically into your enemies, Datura Powder which is your poison bomb, imbuing the same effects as poison but on an area, and coal dust which injures but also staggers, making it a fairly dual-purpose bomb, as you can launch one, hurt your foes and get out of there if you so desire.
Combining the elements from each one of those slots will make your bombs and each casing and effect has some sort of tactical advantage that you're going to want at some point in the game. Personally, I'm a fan of filling sticky bombs with shrapnel and impact shells with sulfur while playing around with impact shells filled with caltrops or phosphorus for my tactical pouch. If I had to complain about anything, it would be that you're limited to only three per pouch, each pouch a category, and you can only increase that number to a maximum of four (five if you bought the Signature Edition) which is honestly just not enough for as wonderful as these toys are. And if I could complain about a second thing with bombs, it'd be that the game just completely ignores that you have the ability after granting it to you, never really 'making' you use them, nor ever giving them a purpose that really affects the 'world' at all. Like throwing a Thunder bomb (bomb filled with Coal Dust) at a scaffolding making it collapse. Does it? I don't know, I never had a reason to try it, and that bothers me since I would have liked one!
Still, for what they were, just a toy you're given at the start of the game to use or ignore as much as you want, they add a surprising amount of depth to the game in that I spent real time specifically wondering about the merits of each type of bomb as I made them, eventually falling into a groove with the type that I enjoyed the most. And using them effectively was always a point of pride and entertainment - Tossing a Cherry Bomb (Bomb with Sulfur) somewhere to draw all the guards in an area to a spot and then throwing a smoke bomb in the center of it, jumping down and stabbing the lot of them and rushing off to leave a heap of guard bodies in the middle of a road was an amazing feeling, no matter how many times I did it. And don't even get me started on Sticky bombs, because I love sticky bombs. In anything. But especially here, as they made for fun and excitement, as well as efficient room-clearing whenever it was necessary. Finding ways to clump guards together just to set one off was enjoyable to see the mass heap it created, and whenever I needed to scavenge some ammo or crossbow bolts in a hurry, that was quite a way to create a supply.
Not all of the things that were added in Revelations worked out quite so well and, in fact, Bombs might be just the only one really. One of the big things that came into the game was Den Defense which is exactly what it sounds like - the Assassin's Dens you accumulate throughout the game will occasionally come under attack by Templars, and you, as the Mentor of the area, have to guide your Assassin's into successfully driving them off. The mini-game is basically every flash Tower Defense game you've played with an Assassin's Creed skin in that it's slow, unbalanced and is just generally not fun to play. I'm not a fan of Tower Defense games as it is, and this certainly did not change my opinion as, if anything, it only strengthened it. It's not really thematically fitting for Assassin's Creed, what with Templars playing fair and only attacking in waves, giving you time to bring in Assassins wielding rifles and other Assassins that just like to punch whatever comes past the flamethrowing barricades you are given ample time to build, unless it's a battering ram to assault a building that the Templars want to inhabit, in which case you probably need to signal unseen Assassins to fire cannons at it that are also basically unseen. Because that makes sense.
Similarly awful are five easily missable missions called "Desmond's Journey" which offer a special slice of hell for you, should you choose it's wise to attempt to brave them. It's not that they're difficult because they're not at all and in fact there's such a lack of difficulty that they're basically superfluous, but that there's a specific bug for the PS3 version at least that I encountered in a big way until I went to consult the internet. In Revelations your 'hub', as it were, is the Animus Island, which is a sort of default program that you're allowed to wander around in if you're trapped inside the Animus as Desmond is for Revelations. On this Island, there are five gates for the five missions that are only unlocked after you find Animus Data Fragments hidden around Constantinople (and another location) serving as the 'flags' of this game which makes even the barest amount of sense as opposed to the Borgia flags of Bro. Now, the bug for the PS3 version is that if you do anything but WALK inside the gate, as in if you fast walk, if you run or if you jump into the gate and try to load the level, your PS3 will freeze about 90% of the time. Four times, I attempted it without knowing the correlation and thereafter, simply walking into the gates never gave me a single issue. That is piss-poor QA.
About as equally piss-poor as the levels themselves, unfortunately, which feature very very basic 'puzzles' that involve you throwing down blocks in a way that allows you to get around. Sometimes you make bridges and sometimes you make elevators and sometimes you make stairs. That's....it. There are things you have to dodge because they'll kick you back to the nearest safe zone to try it again, but they are very, very easy to get around and again, they really offer nothing resembling a real challenge. Throughout them, you're given the barest hints of development for Desmond that tastes specifically of Retconning even though I don't remember a lot of the original game (and even though it's included on the PS3 disk which would probably highlight said differences) and given the most meager sense of 'resolution' I've experienced in a game in quite some time. That they're in the game is confusing to me, but that there's specifically a DLC pack that adds more of them baffles me, and not in any way that is good. They really do not belong whatsoever and I thought all the nay-saying about them that the internet had to offer was a little overmuch, but after experiencing them first hand, I have to take part in the echo chamber.
The only other 'addition' that the game has to offer is the Hookblade, an improvement to your wristblade and its newness is minor at best. You will be primarily using the Hookblade to use ziplines which are pretty fun and offer a nice way to get around when they're available, but the game -does- offer some other things for which they are apparently useful. Such as the battle uses they've implemented, and by uses I mean use, called the "Hook and Run" which basically allows you to ninja flip over an enemy if he is in your way and you decide the best way around him is through him. If you use it on anything but a guard, however, Ezio will instead default to running up to them, stopping and tripping them like a gigantic asshole which not only kind of defeats the Hook and Run thing, but also makes it -dangerous- to use if you're honestly intending on getting away. For instance, the game insists that you are able to take down scaffolding with the blade as you pass by them, taking out guards under it and causing a blockage for a few seconds of escape time. However, any attempt by me to use that technique (specifically for the Mousetrap trophy) met with disturbing amounts of failure as Ezio saw fit to do everything -but- hook the scaffold. Tripping old women, jumping over an old man, actually jumping -on- the scaffolding, never just hooking it and taking down the thing when it was necessary, like the brief window that you have before guards come back from the caltrop dance.
The core of AssRev, however, remains as the core of AssBro was, with Ezio having a heaping dose of murder to hand out to anyone standing in his way through a multitude of fashions. Beyond the new ways like the bombs, you still have the trusty dual wristblades (even though one is a hookblade now and strangely doesn't change some murder animations as you would suspect), a main weapon of your choice (default being a sword of course), a secondary weapon which means knife, throwing knives, poison darts, your hidden gun and a crossbow, should you chose to repurchase that. I don't know why it's necessary to give you everything -but- the crossbow, but it's only 18k and you'll make that really really fast. You also have access to the Brotherhood early on which is just as overpowered as it was in AssBro and just as satisfying as well. Even in AssRev, there's nothing quite like walking past some guards, calling in a set or two of assassins and just walking away, listening for the sounds of them getting shanked, knowing that's just what is happening without even looking.
Similarly, you are again allowed to send your assassins off on missions to do various things that occur well off-screen and only bring you numbers to dine on and then look at more numbers to increase other numbers. Numbers. What I don't like about the Assassin missions in Rev, however, is that every place you send them to has a Templar rating at first that you whittle away at with missions, eventually causing a mission to show up that allows you to wrest control of the city from them. Following that, you're given a bunch of missions that will raise your control of the city as well as make it profitable for you in new and exciting ways, like raking in bomb ingredients for you with no fuss. The downside of this is that your control is also represented by a percentage, and one that is only raised temporarily before it's ebbed away at by the flow of time. If and when you start to neglect your missions, your control will slip away and Templars will eventually contest your control, meaning all those benefits you've installed are inaccessible to you. After time, they probably even recapture the city if you do not deploy Assassins to defend it successfully (that you thankfully do not have to play a terrible mini-game for), but I never found out.
I've been told after-the-fact that you can apparently install an Assassin to a city to make the percentage static, or at least reduce the amount it goes down by, but I cannot check the validity of that, nor do I care to, as the game certainly didn't want me to know as much. It was merely presented to me as I presented it - a battle that you cannot win, but merely prolong the amount of time that your grip is absolute. Even still, I imagine the amount of cities you have access to is greater in number than the amount of assassins you can hire, so the point is a little moot anyways if it only applies to -most- of the cities and not all. I'm not sure if it was implemented as a quick-n-dirty way to ensure longevity without relying on 'randomization' or what, but it really kind of detracts to one of the things I personally actually enjoyed from Bro, even though it was a completely menu-based system that had no real payoff whatsoever.
Something else that felt the sting of a tarnish between AssBro and Rev was the Borgia Towers which pains me because I liked the Borgia Towers so much in AssBro. In Revelations, the Towers are the Dens, specifically starting out as Templar Dens before you go through much the same means as you did to claim a tower in AssBro to claim the den for the Assassins. Specifically, you have to find the captain in charge and murder him, then go up, light the fire and suddenly, you are victorious! I didn't think it was possible to make me dislike that set-up, but they managed it by drastically cutting the amount of times you get to do it, and making the bulk of the Templar Captains cowards, which meant that if they saw you and you weren't able to get to them in time because you were, oh, say, caught up on something because of the awful controls or you couldn't lock on to the captain because I don't know, why wouldn't you work lock-on?!, then they would escape and you could only rush off impotently and wait for the next in-game day to try it again. Because of sniper dens and the like, you -are- going to get noticed early, which completely kills any ability to build tension and wait for the perfect moment to strike, effectively neutering all the fun to be had.
Unlike AssBro, I am able and willing to talk about Multiplayer -before- I wrote this and, by that measure, as I write this as well. I gotta say, I'm still rather impressed with not only the concept, but the execution of the multiplayer direction that they've taken and even moreso in Rev. Rev's multiplayer just works and they've fine-tuned it and improved it in many ways from the few matches I managed to find in Bro when I tried it out. Joining the original modes is a slew of what I am fairly sure are new modes, all based around some popular other multiplayer modes while still steeped in AC's different controls and setting, bringing a new freshness to them. Capture the flag, base capturing and tagging are all styles executed with a little flair, becoming Artifact Assault, Chest Capture and Corruption respectively. They play as you expect, with the first two being self-explanatory - grabbing a flag and bringing it back to your base and standing next to chests to 'capture' them (or defending them if that's your duty), where Corruption has you converting people to your team with violence, necessitating you survive or convert the survivors before the time limit runs out, allowing all the points you accrue to be your score.
So long as you're up for Deathmatch games and the odd Artifact Assault or Chest Capture game, you'll have absolutely no problem in finding a match to play, and in most cases, I found that the netcode was rather good, never really giving me any issues I could blame on lag, even with my entirely poor internet and poor NAT type. Of course, if you're looking for that shiny Explorer trophy, which necessitates that you play one round (rather, finish one round) of every single multiplayer type offered, you're going to find a bit of a problem as most nobody wants to play those 'extra' modes. And...for good reason in some cases. Still, if you find yourself in a group who aren't quite as attentive at the end of matches as they ought to be, you can hope that your vote and perhaps the vote of someone else who might be similarly searching for a trophy will steer the game into one of the modes you might need, but it's hard to count on. But so long as you can muscle your way into a game somehow, even if you connect in the last minute, so long as you finish out a round, it'll log as a play and then you'll never have to try that again.
When I can say that I had fun with a multiplayer game, you know that it's something to look at with a little interest at least, because I just cannot stand most multiplayer experiences for whatever reason. Still, AssRev's MP offers a good amount of choice and personality in the way you try playing, which necessitates different strategies depending on how your prey is playing. Some decide to go with the more impatient method of playing, choosing to run around, taking to the rooftops and searching around for their kill. This has the advantage of allowing for air kills which cannot be contested, and if you're on the top of a building, you're practically requiring your hunter(s) to come up and get you, which blows their cover entirely. Then you'll find the more methodical players, the ones that walk everywhere and try to be as discreet as possible, oftentimes choosing the option to poison whenever possible (when that ability is purchaseable at least) because it's quite effective. I know several times I keeled over from poison without even knowing when I was injected and that alone is impressive. The downside to this style is that if you're pursuing someone, you might find your kill taken by another templar as you try to build up your approach meter for more points. Then there is the middleground play which most people will end up falling into for the first few levels at least, I think.
The whole meta-game surrounding the Multiplayer, or the meta-story at least, is rather impressive as well, and certainly a step up from Bro's offerings. It really pushes the Templar angle, having you in the 'advanced training' of the MP, and as you advance in in-game ranks, you'll sometimes get the odd cutscene here and there where the 'perks' of becoming an influential and effective Templar become more and more obvious and granted. At level 20, the highest I made it before I was done because I wanted to move on, Vidic (the guy in charge) basically showered me with riches an inducted me into the high-life, ensuring that my life couldn't get better as I had all the money I could want, servants to attend to my every need, a mansion to inhabit, and the best of the best for my family. For a very brief moment, I forgot that it was just a meta-story and I wondered how I would be able to celebrate, in-game, that I had 'arrived'. But I then discovered the only way to do that was by spending Abstergo points on some abilities and/or playing some more matches. Maybe some later date, but not right now as I have a ridiculous backlog as is.
And while I'm on stories, let me finish this out a little ranting about Assassin's Creed 2's overall story, as it's quite a bit overdue. Since we have the entirety of the story now after this third game, I'm now finally able to voice my opinion on the overarching nature of it because there's no more "oh, are they going to explain this before AC3" or "is that going to make sense before AC3" and while I'm not going to outright spoil anything here, this is your warning that I -am- going to talk about the endings in vague terms, so skip the next paragraph or two if you don't want anything even resembling a spoiler. Now, the answer to both of those issues that I raised is a resounding NO, and if anything, each title serves only to further obfuscate the predecessor's already confusing groundwork. And if it's not bad enough that the ending bits don't make sense at all, they're jarring and completely out of place as well. They could be completely excised from the game, and not only would you not notice, but all three games would probably be better for it. If you've played them, then you -know- what parts I'm talking about, and you probably agree unless you really, really like cryptic bullshit.
Of course, they are slightly more intertwined into the 'actual' story more than I would suggest, but only barely which I think is exemplified by the fact that you -only- get these bits at the end of each game. It's 99% 'normal' stuff and then in the last ten minutes, here's the game to wiggle its fingers and go "WooooOOooooOoOOoooo" at you that I'm guessing is meant to leave you wanting the next game so it'll explain any of that, but as Bro and Rev have taught us, the next game does -not- do that and doesn't even touch on what's presented there unless it's in another one of those sequences. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and I'm just happy I bought the game for $10 because that part alone frustrates me to no end, despite any good will I have to the game for what it is. I'm not even going to delude myself in thinking that AC3 will manage to explain these sequences in a satisfactory manner, much less one that will occur in any actual part of the gameplay proper. It'll be less disappointing that way, and perhaps even surprising if they decide that it's important enough to actually put some effort into trying to actualize, instead of using it as a shock tactic.
That all aside, the actual story of Revelations proper is decent, perhaps even good, in that it's actually easy to follow, even if it's not necessarily the best story the series has to offer. (I'm not sure what would be, but certainly not Rev) All throughout, it's pretty clear as to what's going on, and there's not a whole lot that's decided and/or done without you knowing about it or participating in it, and if you're participating, it's pretty obvious as to why. That was refreshing among the rest of the confusion sprinkled about the entire series and in Rev's over-arching story itself which will leave you scratching your head if you don't remember the whole artifact angle and explanations from both games that came before. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that remember, there are a -lot- of artifacts and I'm guessing that some of them might be similar? Or something. Just.....just go with what the game offers and don't think about it too much and you'll do fine. Because trying to make sense of these things without some help will leave you wondering how this guy has that when this was there for four hundred years and it's just better to not put yourself through that. Just be satisfied that most of the game in Rev is understandable enough.
The Good
Combat remains visceral and satisfying and offers slightly more variety
Ezio's final chapter is pretty easy to understand and follow, thankfully
The parts where you play Altair and get more insight into him are rather enjoyable and entertaining
Calling in Assassins to kill guards? Nope, still not old
Bombs, bombs, bombs, I love them because they're fun
The multiplayer is also incredibly fun and deep
The sheer variety Ezio has when it comes to death-dealing is impressive, if nothing else
The actual scale and flow of some of the missions is really rather wonderful, and there's not a one that I 'disliked'
Full Synchronization was never incredibly difficult to achieve
The Bad
Desmond's Journey was a chore at best, not to mention the severe bug associated with playing them
Den Defense sucked and was completely out of place
Templar Dens did not effectively replace Borgia Towers in a fun way
Assassin Missions offer only a way to fight against time and is ultimately unsatisfying
That Ending
No, really, I still don't understand anything not pertaining to Altair and Ezio what are you doing
The controls still aren't great and seem a little less optimized than Assbro's own
The Hookblade never lives up to its potential aside from allowing you to zipline and feels wasted, much like bombs, which is not how you treat new toys
Mogs Says
It's impossible to say Assassin's Creed: Revelations is the best of the three titles in the Ezio Trilogy because it's not. No one game really is, in my opinion, as they all have some rather glaring issues that prevent them from being really elevated in any fashion. Still, had Revelations not packed in the things that ultimately were only detrimental to it, it would have been the sum of the other two games and would have been a strong contender for that 'best' spot. Strong Multiplayer, decent story (for Ezio), and the strong combat from AssBro make it a game that's enjoyable, and things like bombs that add versatility and extra enjoyment really nudge it towards that golden zone. Tying up Ezio's story and Altair's story in a single game without feeling exceptionally rushed is an impressive feat as well, and Rev is probably worth it for that alone, but the fun bits make it worth staying around.
