My Games of 2012, Part 2

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.

Review - Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation

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.

Also this happened.  A lot.

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.

AssLib begins by thrusting you directly into the role of Aveline de Grandpré, the Assassin for this go around.  And when I say it thrusts you into the role, I mean -you- as there is not exactly a person on the outside of the Animus.  Instead, the animus of this game is presented as something of a Mass-Market device released, of course, by Abstergo, with the end-goal being taking the Assassins down a peg in public opinion.  (Even though it would be a theoretical public opinion since Assassins and Templars both operate unknown)  I'm not going to tell you how it really attempts this, but that should be fairly obvious enough and regardless, it's a fairly neat touch doing it that way, rather than tying it to DNA memories and this and that.  I'm not really sure of the entire end-goal of this aside from, again, making it public opinion that Assassins kind of suck and the Templars who totally don't exist are righteous, but perhaps that is something for a future game.  Or maybe it was just a hook for AssLib.

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.

If you were one of the folks that was just all about owning property in AssBro/Rev, then I have some rather unfortunate news for you - AssLib offers no such little pleasure.  Sure, you can still buy properties as it were, but you see absolutely nothing from doing so and that's reflected, I believe, in the 500 écu flat cost for every single building you could purchase.  These are Dressing Chambers (locations where the only point is to change your persona), Tailors and Weaponsmiths which operate as normal and, again, there's no cute little meta-game to it that gives you money for owning them or discounts or anything like that - you simply buy them and then you can use them.  It is that simple and indeed that unfortunate.  It is made slightly more interesting in that the Tailors and Weaponsmiths require you to do a "Business Rival" mission which generally involves you killing a corrupt business owner and stealing their deed (and then buying the properties anyway), but it's a band-aid, if anything, on the real problem.

Speaking on buying things, I should throw out a mention for the little 'mini-game' that was included in AssLib, presumably, in the stead of the Brotherhood missions.  Aveline's father is, as stated earlier, a wealthy merchant and, as his daughter, Aveline holds a little bit of power in that.  At least, enough power to have input on the actual importing and exporting of goods, as that is what the Mini-game entails.  You can purchase ships (up to 8) that have different designs, styles and stats and send them from port to port, buying goods where they're offered and selling them where they're demanded.  More ports unlock as the story proceeds, which means more and more goods become available for shipping, eventually becoming a balancing act of risk versus reward since there are dangers along every path and if you're not careful, your 8,000 or so écu ship could turn up missing which is a very bad thing indeed.  It's about as involved as your basic Brotherhood missions, which is to say not very, but it's a very profitable venture if you can handle the waiting that it requires.  It's not quite as engaging as, say, Grand Theft Auto:  Chinatown Wars drug trade, but it's along those lines in a sense and has a similar appeal.

Still, if you haven't noticed, there is quite a bit of game inside AssLib to be played and enjoyed, and I can say with some confidence that you will probably enjoy the bulk of it if you enjoyed the previous iterations of the franchise.  The collectibles will make up a good portion of it, but as I said earlier, you can sort of 'mark' them with eagle vision (just remember to turn it on every now and then and do a camera pan) and run around and get them later on.  Since the free-running has been improved so much even this task, tedious as it could be, isn't so bad.  For one mission, you also get to see a face that may or may not be familiar to you, depending on what other AC games you play, and that is, indeed, a rather cool moment.  (I'm also told that it's part of the whole tie-in with AC3, if that's not a big enough clue for you)  Really, the complaints with the single player portion of the game is solely that there could be more of it, which is fairly positive when you look at it.

Ugh.

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.

So, I Have Put Time Into Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation

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 obvious already, 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?

Something Like An Update Post

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.

Assassin's Creed Liberations Touch Controls Seem Cool

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.