Steam Summer Sale - Or "Why I Hate Slaz"

I generally try to limit myself to 3-4 new video games a year.  I don’t end up playing a ton over the course of time, so I figure if I can just play the ones I get and not spread out too much from there, I should be fine.

Then one of my friends, Slaz, tossed a wrench in that plan.  He introduced me to the Steam Summer Sale.

I’m a PC gamer all the way.  I tried consoles from time to time but they’re never as fun to me as PC gaming.  I don’t really know why that is.  I just hate working with consoles.  So when Steam, the online PC gamers haven, puts up new games during the year, I keep a passing eye on them.  Little did I know that during the summer they would tempt me with all manner of great deals.

Back as I was finishing up Mass Effect 3 again, Dan told me that I should try out Bioshock Infinite.  I pushed him aside saying I would wait until it came down in price.  I figured that would buy me a year or so before going through the game.  What happened next?  Steam Summer Sale.  The bane of my gaming existence.

So I picked up Bioshock Infinite at 50% off.  While I was at it, they also had the Walking Dead computer game, which I had heard great things about, for 75% off.  So that went in the cart.  And then there was this interesting-looking Sim game called Anno 2070 for under $10.  With James, my new son, just being born I was looking for a fun game I could play one-handed.  So that went in the cart.

The next day I picked up some DLC for Skyrim and managed to avoid buying anything more (though there were a couple things of interest).

After spending some time cursing Slaz’s name, he took pity on me and picked up System Shock 2 for me, as well as the Alan Wake franchise.

Here I am, less than a week into the sale, and already with five games now in my queue to play.  Damn you, Slaz.

I’ve only been able to play a couple of them so far. 

First, Bioshock.  I have to say, I am very happy to have picked up this game.  The plot is a twisting maze of confusion and mystery.  I am about half-way through, Dan tells me, and every step I’m taking drags me deeper into the storyline, trying to figure out how it all works together.  I am not a huge fan of the gameplay, though it’s certainly not the worst I have dealt with before.  The lack of saving frustrates me.  It auto-saves at random times, which might have done fine for me in the past, but when my gaming time is dictated by when my son isn’t screaming his head off, I don’t always have time to reach the next save point before having to shut down the game and move on.

Second, Anno 2070.  This one hit the top of my list because it’s a one-handed game that’s not too loud, so I can play it while holding James in my other arm.  It was a bit light on teaching you how to play the game (there was a tutorial in the game, but it’s not easy to find) so I had to spend the first few hours bumbling through it.  Now I’m starting to get the hang of it, though, and am enjoying it.  Basically it’s a city-building game in the year 2070.  Oceans have grown and you have to build trade between different cities on different islands in order to keep them all functioning well.  You can build underwater as well, and there will be other groups out there you can find and trade with too.

Once I’m done with Bioshock, I’ll see where I end up next.  Walking Dead seems like a good stop, though I may jump over to System Shock or Alan Wake.  And all of these have to be done before I can head back to Fallout 3 to play all the DLC I got for them.  Or the new DLC I got for Skyrim.    I hate you, Slaz.

Hard Work

It's another slight break for me.  I had hoped to put up more about M2E - there's a lot going on with the project and I've been having a ton of fun playing the game, but sometimes life just gets in the way.  And this time, it's in the form of my son.

James Vete, born June 28th.

He's been quite a handful for me.  I had been hoping while I was at home from work helping to get him under control, I'd have time to post or work on other things.  All my friends who were parents before just laughed at me.  I understand why now.

Since his birth, I've gotten only two games in (thanks Dan for giving me a few hours away from the house).  Gaming, as you can imagine, is a bit of a lull.

But where miniatures has fallen, I do find that I have more time for computer games.  Slaz introduced me to the Steam Summer Sale (something I curse his name to eternity for).  Bioshock was discounted 50% for a while, so I picked that up.  Also got the Walking Dead game which I've heard good things about.  And another game, Anno 2070, which seems kinda like a Sim City type game.  The bonus of that one: it's quiet and I can play it with one hand, so holding James doesn't get in the way of that one.

Also been catching up a little on some TV shows.  Almost caught up on Falling Skies and Continuum.  Started watching Justified.

But most of my time is taken up with James.  Hopefully I will have something more to report soon.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Four (The End)

 I finally finished playing through Mass Effect 3 (for the second time).  I already knew that the ending of the game had some issues, so there was not the big let-down that there was the first time.  Though to be honest, I did not have nearly the same rage against the end of the game that most seemed to.  I felt like Mass Effect 3 was, on the whole, a success, even the first time through.  I played for over 30 hours on the game.  If the last twenty minutes were subpar but the rest of the game was really good, I called it a success.

Note: there will be a lot of spoilers below.  Read on at your own risk.

CHOICES IN MASS EFFECT 3

So what did I decide to end up doing?  There were a lot of big choices.

The Genophage – I was working with Wrex, having seen him survive the previous two games.  He was one of those characters I did not grow incredibly close to in the first game, but always wished I knew more about.  He was a tough character – stubborn (like my Shepard).  I liked seeing the two of them butt heads.  I didn’t really want it to happen, but I knew there was no way we would both get what we wanted.  He wanted the Genophage cured.  I wanted peace in the galaxy after the war.  The Krogan were not going to be that peace.

Heck, even when Mordin arrived to try to cure them, almost every Krogan wanted to kill him.  Eve and Wrex talked them down, but it would be nigh impossible for the two of them to hold back the entire species from trying to wage war.  Once I found out that Eve was dead too by the end of the mission, I knew the Krogan could not be allowed to repopulate.

I tried to delay Mordin, but he saw through my attempts.  I have to say when he turned around and shouted that he wanted to cure the genophage because he had made a mistake, I got chills.  A fantastic revelation for the character.  Unfortunately, I was trying to do something bigger.  I needed to save all life, not just Krogan.  I tried talking Mordin down, he refused, and I shot him in the back.  Made me feel about the worst person in the galaxy at that point.  I hated seeing him try to crawl to the console to release the cure.  Shepard tossing her gun away after shooting Mordin was just about exactly how I felt.

The Quarians and the Geth – I knew this was coming and was dreading it from the beginning.  The friggin Quarians are dumb.  Every time I feel a little bit of sympathy for them, they go about trying to bring about their deaths faster again.  They attacked the Geth at every turn, and then came crawling back to me again to try to save them.

Once the Geth were freed from the Reaper, I was given the choice of letting Legion upload the upgrades to the rest of the Geth (and give them the ability to overwhelm the Quarians) or leave them to die.  To me it was not much of a choice.  At every turn I had argued that the Quarians should not be following this path.  The Geth had tried peace with the Quarians several times only to be attacked each one.  I was done with it – the Geth had as much a right to live as the Quarians.  They had tools – let them use them.

Fortunately I was given the chance to say pretty much exactly that to the Quarians.  “I’m done trying to save you.  If you don’t stand down in 30 seconds, your ships will be blown out of the stars.”  The Quarians finally listened and sought peace.  Seeing the Geth and Quarians work together at last made me quite happy.

The End – I have to say, I liked the new scenes added in to the end.  Being able to say goodbye to Liara (who I ended up choosing this game over Garrus) was touching.  The extra conversation pieces with the kid at the end were fun to explore (especially in light of the Leviathan DLC).

The first time I had played through this game, I went with the Destroy option.  It felt the most in-line with what I had done up to that point.  I couldn’t justify spending so much time working towards the death of the Reapers only to give in at the end.  I couldn’t take Control because I had just argued with the Illusive Man that it was a bad choice.  And Synthesis just did not feel right to me.

This time through, after a lot of conversation, I ended up going with Synthesis.

Sadly, there’s not much to really say about the ending.  While I had a lot of emotion during the part with Mordin (disgust at myself, desperation to keep the Krogan in check) and in dealing with the Geth (anger at the Quarians, defensiveness for the Geth), I didn’t have nearly as much in the end of the game as a whole.  I had already said my goodbyes to the characters and come to terms with the fact I was probably going to die.  I was confused to see that the Krogan started repopulating anyway (so… what was the point of all that?), but it was nice to hear EDI’s voice-over end with “Because of Shepard, I am alive.”  A nice touch.

CARRYOVERS FROM OTHER MASS EFFECT GAMES

There were a lot of choices that moved from the first game to the second and then the third.  I was surprised at how much actually impacted the future.  There were some big events – like not killing Wrex in the first game.  Keeping my crew alive during the suicide run led directly to a lot of them returning in the third game.

But there were also minor changes that happened.  For example, in the first game, I played through a bunch of the minor missions.  One took me to Luna where there was a rouge AI.  In the second game, when I first met EDI, there was an extra line of dialogue that talked about how I was untrusting of AI, partially because of the rouge I fought against in the first game.  I thought that was a nice touch but didn’t think much of it.

Then, in the third game, I was rewarded with a full couple-minute scene with EDI where she revealed to me that she was, in fact, that same AI from Luna I had fought with before.  She explained that was when she first “woke up” and that it was a particularly confusing time for her.  It was a nice add-in and felt like it was helping to bring pieces of the story full-circle.

That’s one of the things I liked most about this playthrough.  I found the green-skinned Asari because I helped her on the plant-world in the past.  The Rachni sent someone to speak with me in ME2 because I had saved her in ME1.  Convincing Miranda to speak with her sister in the second game led to different interactions between them in the third game.  Everything built on itself.

DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT

In order to prepare for my trip through Mass Effect 3, I downloaded all the extra missions I could.  Since this might be my last playthrough (though I am already thinking about going again down the line), I wanted the full experience.

Omega – Of the three Mass Effect 3 missions, the Omega one was certainly the worst.  Which, to me, says a lot, since it was still a significant addition to the game and felt fun.  I was disappointed that I could not take my team with me, though, and overall the missions felt a bit more hollow than the rest of ME3.  I enjoyed it, but mostly because I enjoyed any time I could play Shepard.  It didn’t really add much to the story.

Leviathan – This one, on the other hand, provided a ton of great stuff.  It slid straight into the overall plot and added a lot of answers to the mystery.  It took us to some pretty creepy locations (heading to the place where you first started sussing out Leviathan where all the people seemed eerily calm, or the floating ship in the massive ocean), but also stuck is in some real boring spots too (the place we sought out the scientist’s daughter).  The end conversation was fantastic and added a lot to the mythology.

Citadel – I can’t say enough good things about this piece.  Getting to see all the characters again in a light-hearted, self-referential mission was fantastic.  My favorite parts were certainly when Shepard used Joker as bait at the beginning and he figured it out, and when Shepard was finally captured by evilShepard and stuck in the airtight vault.  The most important thing to Shepard at that point was making sure people agreed with her that she sounded better than evilShepard.  A top-notch “epilogue” to the story, and a great chance to see everyone again.

INDOCTRINATION THEORY

After the game ended, I went back to read more about the Indoctrination Theory.  I haven’t gone through everything yet (some of these videos are almost two hours long!) but I intend to watch more.  I have to say, I think some of what it’s suggesting is pretty compelling, and I do not think that the extra material in the ending completely closes the door on it.  At the same time, there’s obviously nothing in the game that completely points to it.  There’s just a lot of circumstantial evidence that if it’s lined up right leads to the idea of Indoctrination.

I think I’m okay with the ending being ambiguous like that.  I know some people will say with complete certainty that the Indoctrination Theory is wrong.  Others will say with complete certainty that it is right.  Bioware hasn’t weighed in on it.  Yet.  Maybe they will some day.

But for now, I think I prefer thinking of the Indoctrination Theory as true.  It does leave some rather big holes (like: what happens in the end, then?  If Destroying the Reapers was just in his mind, doesn’t that mean they’re still out there?), but I always prefer games that are a psychological mind-twist to those that come out straight-forward.

So there we have it.  My trip through Mass Effect is over for now.  I had a great time doing it, and while my intention started off that this would be my last journey through the Mass Effect world, I may well start back up again sometime in the future.  Can’t close the door on all this yet.

But what’s in the future for me?  I had considered starting up Fallout 3 again.  I always liked that game.  Or I heard that Dishonored had a new set of missions that you could play.  But Dan is whispering in my ear that I should give the new Bioshock game a try.  That might be the next playthrough.  Whatever it ends up being, be sure that I’ll be writing about it here.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Three

I have been continuing my Mass Effect playthrough and discovered something: it’s not as much fun to poke fun of this game as it is other games.  As such, I’ve been a little light on updates of late.  Then Dan had the nerve to call me out on Facebook, so now you’re stuck here listening to me for a brief period of time.

Some spoilers from Mass Effect below:

I finished off the Mass Effect one game and there were, as far as I could tell, five major choices I had to make:

Who to mack on

Well, I was playing female Shepherd (her voice is so much better than male Shepherd’s) so I had only two choices.  Kaiden and Liara.  My wife thinks it’s hilarious that video games let you play lesbians all the time.  I managed to convince her that she was like Liara, she finally agreed, and then I had to choose Liara.  Besides, Kaiden was a whiny bitch.  So that was easy.

Who should die

Going back to the above issue, Kaiden is a whiny bitch.  That was no contest.  Let him die.

What to do with Rachnai

As I was playing through the Rachnai mission, I had full intention to kill off the Rachnai queen if I ever found her.  I mean, how could I let her live after all this.  But when I got to the end, I had an Ender moment and couldn’t quite pull the trigger and wipe out a whole race (yeah, not sure how I’ll deal with ME3 at this point).  I let her go, but reasoned that if she ever went crazy, I would hunt her down and kill her.

What to do with Urdnot Wrex

I saved him.  This was mostly an “on a whim” choice.  I wasn’t going to let the genophage get cured no matter what.  I was fine killing him to make sure of that.  I didn’t have to, so I kept him alive.  It was fun seeing how he talks to me more like a respected enemy in the other two now though.  I found I liked the character more after I “betrayed” him than before.

How to deal with the Council and who to put as the Human Representative

I wanted to save the Council, but in the end, I didn’t feel their lives were worth possibly failing to stop Sovereign.  I would have liked to keep them around, but they hadn’t done much to endear themselves to me, and in the end, they drew the short straw.  As for who to put on the council, there was never any question.  Anderson was a far better choice.  Udina was a weasel.

So with those choices in tow, I headed on to ME2.  I didn’t really get a chance to deal with Liara much, just on the Shadow Broker extra stuff.  I could tell that overall the choices I made has some impact on the second game, but not a tremendous amount.  Whoever I let live between Kaiden and Ashley would end up mad at me for being with Cerberus.  Urdnot Wrex had some fun conversation options since he was still alive.  Anderson being the Councilor did not seem to do a whole lot.  And the Rachnai were mentioned briefly, but they didn’t matter too much.

I did manage to get a whole new set of choices in the second game that got carried on to the third.

Who to mack on

This time I went with Garrus.  The romance scenes with him were comic gold.  Besides, he seems like he’d be cool enough if we don’t stick together in the third one.  Liara’s my girl.

Maelon’s Genophage data

Oh, I wiped that.  I wiped it right out.  Having seen how easy it was with Urdnot Wrex to have an ally in the Krogan turn enemy, I wanted no chance of another Krogan Rebellion.

Tell the Quarians what happened with Tali’s father

I wanted to tell them.  Only my loyalty to Tali kept me silent about her father.  I didn’t want her to end up in trouble, but her preference was to be exiled over having her father exposed, so I honored those wishes.  Fortunately I’m the mack-daddy at making people realize how dumb they are when I speak, so I convinced them to leave Tali alone and let her remain in the fleet.

I didn’t end up weighing in on the war effort, though.  I had my own problems to deal with.  I wasn’t going to get myself into their mess too.

What to do with the Geth Heretics

I decided they were too dangerous to let live.  I didn’t want them coming back and screwing with Geth programming again, so I opted to wipe them out.

Save or Destroy the Collector Base

I destroyed it.  That Illusive Man is pretty untrustworthy, regardless of whether he sounds like he’d make an awesome President.  I swear, the first time I heard him talking, it took me a while to not see him as President Bartlet and automatically assume he was wise beyond his years.  I think by about the third or fourth time he strung me out to die, I was ready to do whatever it took to piss him off.  If it destroyed a huge base in the process, so much better.

Did anyone die

I really worked hard at it and managed to keep everyone alive.  I had them all loyal until Tali went all buck-wild after she found out Legion was sending information about the Migrant Fleet back to the Geth.  I sided with Legion, saying that she was doing the same thing that he was, so let it be, but she evidently wanted me to side with her regardless of how much she was trying to screw over the Geth.  Unreasonable woman.

So with all those choices in tow, I have fired up Mass Effect 3.  I’m already about 15 hours through it, having made my first really tough decision (I like to think that if I was going to shoot Mordin in the back, I’d at least have the decency to shoot him in the head so he wouldn’t suffer – he was a great singer!) but I simply refuse to risk another Krogan Rebellion, especially with Eve, a stabilizing voice, having died.  The fact that only she and Wrex were able to put the Krogan in place implies to me that once both of them are gone, the race will descend back into chaos.  I’m not ready to risk that, especially when I can gain their support against the Reapers without worrying about it.

Anywho, with that, I’ll be heading back to Mass Effect 3 and trying to save the galaxy.

All this does make me want to run a sci fi roleplaying game though.  Dan told me I’m not allowed to stop running Legend of the Five Rings.  Jerk.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Two

My playthrough of Mass Effect continues.  I managed to get through the first game for the first time. Honestly, it left something to be desired.  If I had played ME1 before playing 2 or 3, I'm not sure how much effort I would have put in the other ones.  The game was shorter than I expected, the inventory system was clunky, and the stupid car driving parts were terrible.

I did find, however, that the game controls were a lot easier to master than I remembered them being the first time I tried to play the game.  I think part of that is because I had just finished ME3 before I tried ME1 the first time, and my brain was wired to work with the updated format from that game.  Now I'm finding the shift from 1 to 2 a little harder.

I did enjoy the story, though, and I'm happy to see some of the things I did in ME1 actually impact the story in ME2.  I saved Wrex, mostly by being a jerk to him.  I tended to do that to a lot of people in ME1.  (And so far I'm doing that to a lot of people in ME2 too).  Romanced Liara, let the annoying guy, Kaeden or something like that, die.  Sacrificed the Council and put Anderson in as the lead of the new one.  Just seemed like a much better idea than to put the sniveling politician who sold me out in place as the leader.

The game took me just about 15 hours.  I'm already about halfway to that playtime in ME2 and have only found five crew members - the two Cerberus ones, Garak, Mordin (who is certainly my favorite) and the bounty hunter.

I'm getting into familiar territory now.  This is the game I finished already three times.  I know this one pretty well.  But now I've got some more DLC to play through, and I have a few changes to how the story will go based on what I did in the first game.  Still rolling through - still enjoying it.

It is having the side-effect of reminding me of all the different ideas I have for a sci fi roleplaying game.  My L5R campaign is still going strong, but I think sci fi may be on the docket for next.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part One

I have been playing through Mass Effect lately.  My intention was to stop on my blog from time to time and talk about the funny things I was involved with (assassinated canines while my real targets fled, etc) but I am finding it hard to do with Mass Effect.  I've never played the first game all the way through - I am only about three missions in now and already farther than I ever have been before - and I'm having trouble finding those funny moments in the game.

Okay, so I can complain a little about driving my Rover around and how impossible to navigate that thing is.  Or I can talk about how frustrating it can be trying to move past some of my own allies when they decide that the place they need to stand is the spot right in front of me and I can't get around them.

But it's not really funny to talk about the actual game that much.  In Assassin's Creed I could talk about how frustrated or angry I was with the characters and wanted to just jump off the edge of the skyscrapers.  But that doesn't happen in Mass Effect.  The characters are much more interesting, even in the shorter time I've been working with them.

Besides, there's less humor involved when I say things like, "I chose to murder the entire colony of people that were being mind-controlled by plants."  No one laughs when you pull that one out at a party.

Mass Effect Replay

With the DLC Citadel released recently, I've been thinking a lot about the Mass Effect line.  I played through the second one with all of its DLC - it still stands as my favorite game I've touched.  The third one was good as well, though it didn't reach the heights of the second one.  I played through it once (compared with the three times for the second one) and was satisfied with it.  I never got any of the DLC.  I tried going through the first game, but I never got very far before I ended up turning to other things.

So when Citadel was announced, I decided I should go ahead and give the game another run-through.  No doubt it'll take a while to play through all three games, but I'm looking forward to it.  There's a lot I've never seen - most of the first game, and any of the DLC from the third game - so I'm hoping there are still enough surprises in store.

I'll try to keep a log going of how the game turns out for me.

Oh, and for those who liked my Assassin's Creed 3 log, sorry that one kinda hit a sharp stop.  The game never really gelled for me.  I enjoyed some of it, but I had really been waiting for one specific encounter between two characters, and when it happened, I was left completely unsatisfied and lost interest in continuing.  I may go back to it one day - I feel like I'm over halfway through - but it won't be for a while.

Assassins Creed 3: The Second Day

I wasn't really expecting to hit each day that I played this game, but so far I've had some pretty bizarre occurrences each day, and I just can't help myself.  I've learned some key things about how life in the Assassin's Creed world differs from that of the real world.

How Not to Get Caught
I was given a mission where I had to sneak through a heavily guarded portion of Boston.  My skills have improved since my first day where I was falling out of trees and jumping off churches (well... I still jump off churches).

I've figured out how to read the screen as I'm going along too.  For example, if Red Coats see something unusual, they'll start to get suspicious and you can watch the bar of their suspicion rising.  Often that's your cue to hide or get out of the way from where they're moving.  I was so excited to have figured this part of the game out that while I was standing beside a warehouse on the docks, I was trying to keep an eye out for those cues.

My friend was with me.  My goals were to keep him safe and keep us both hidden from the enemies.  So sure enough, I see one of those bars start filling up and spring into action.  I turn and start running the other way to get into hiding.

Only my friend was standing right behind me.  So as I turned around and began running, I did what I do to anyone in my way when I start running.  I shoved him hard to my side.  He was standing on the edge of the docks.  I shoved him anyway.  Into the Atlantic.

As I started running, a warning came up saying that my friend had died.  Evidently that was the wrong choice to make.


How to Master the Art of the Assassination
Later, I had a bunch of friends (including the guy who took a drink in the Atlantic) who were disguised as British soldiers and pulling a wagon of prisoners in to a camp to try to infiltrate it.  I was leading the wagon and my friends would rush ahead and lay ambushes for any Redcoats they might see head of them.

It was fun.  I'd sit in the wagon, watch for my allies to get into position, and then shout for them to spring their trap before the Redcoats knew what was going on.  It all worked pretty well.

One time, I had a couple of my guys on rooftops while a Redcoat walked down beside the building under them.  He started to realize I wasn't the normal guy and I ordered my men to attack.  The guy on the rooftop dropped with his knife and plunged it deep into, and killing... the dog sitting next to the Redcloak.  The Redcloak was startled but had the presence of mind to pull out his gun and shoot my friend in the head (he survived the hit - it probably really hit him in the leg).

Sometimes I wonder how my team of ineptitude is actually going to achieve anything in the upcoming war.

Proper Chair Etiquette
Once I got away from the missions in Boston, I started wandering the countryside.  It was winter and snowy, so I figured I was probably cold and when I passed a tavern, I stopped in to warm up.  I muscled up to the bar, but no one wanted to talk to me.  I mean no one.  Weird, right?  Most games I play, I can usually throw the bartender a few gold for a drink or something.  Not in the colonies, evidently.

So I decided to go sit down at a table and listen to the music that someone was playing.  I walked by the table and moved to the chair.  Now I know I can sit on benches - I've done it before - but the best I could manage was standing on top of the chair.

I turned around to leave, but I couldn't!  I was stuck behind the stupid chair!  I finally figured out how to leave by leaping on the table and walking over it until I got to the other side.  Note to self: taverns are for chumps.


Clarity of Directions
Later, I finally tracked down a woman who really did not like me.  I mean, I don't know why she wouldn't.  I've only stalked her for miles through the snow and kept tracking her down.  And insulted her (only out of ignorance).

But finally she was okay with me enough to give me a chance.  So as we stood in the middle of the wilderness, snowcapped hills and forest all around us, she said, "Close to here, there's a hill.  Meet me there."  Then she headed off.

Really?  Close to here there's a hill?  Lady, there are four hills in my immediate field of vision.  You want to give me some more guidance than that?  If it wasn't for the tracker that popped up on my map, I'm pretty sure that would have ended poorly.

 
So my day two of Assassin's Creed went a bit better than my first day.  I am enjoying the game, but I think I'm enjoying making fun of it a little more so far.  Dan and I were talking about the beginning - he's going to be happy to stop playing the British guy and start playing the Native American character.  Personally, I love the British character.  He's got attitude, and he's proper.  It's the kind of roleplaying character I love to play.  Dan, on the other hand, doesn't like all the talking and smugness about him.  I say that's the best part.

Assassins Creed 3: The First Day

I started playing Assassin’s Creed 3 last night after several weeks of dealing with the fact my computer would not install the game (a whole new story that ended with me having to upgrade to Windows 8).  I figured it would be fun to put down some of my initial thoughts.  I have not played either of the first two games.  This one was interesting to me primarily because of the American Revolutionary War aspect.  That time period has always interested me.  I actually have ideas in my head about running a pre-Revolution roleplaying game at some point, but like so many of my ideas, it may just stay in the “wouldn’t that be fun if I did that” category.

Anywho, back to Assassin’s Creed 3.  I knew next-to-nothing about the game before I started.  Imagine my surprise when I start off somewhere in the future.  And I’m being given a lot of information about the Templars.  And Assassins.  And weird computer artifacts.  And all of the sudden I was in a holodeck-like computer program.   Wow.  This is lame.  In my Revolutionary War story, I don’t even live in that time period?  I’m just going through a memory of that time period?

But that’s okay.  I’m sure by the time I’m mixed up in the game, I’ll forget all about the stupid premise.  I mean really, why bother with any of it?  Why not just have the story in the historical time period and be done with it.

Anywho, I started out in London in an Opera House.  I had to kill a guy who was sitting in one of the box seats.  So I had to find a subtle way to get to him without being noticed.  Awesome – having just come off of Dishonored, I love this kind of thing.  I started following the hints around the map and managed to climb part of the interior wall.  Until it got to a point where it said I had to climb out along the wall into the main audience area.  Wait.  How is that supposed to be subtle?  I assumed someone would see me straight away, but nope… they were all ignoring the obviously-dressed, grunting man who was climbing all around the opera house.  Wow.  Must have been a very enthralling show.

I got back stage, made a ton of noise as I climbed across the stage without being seen (I only messed up a bunch of their props and setting pieces, so I wasn’t THAT obvious), and then made it to the box.  There was an awesome cut-scene where I killed the guy, and then I had to walk out of the opera house as the body was discovered and people were questioned all over the place.  I have to say, it was pretty cool how tense they made that part of the mission.

Next step – I’m off to the Colonies.  I spend a couple months on a boat (which takes over an hour of game time and is remarkably boring).  I get in a fight with some sailors, everyone hates me, and someone tries to kill me.  Oh, and I climb around.  A lot.  I guess this is all just getting me used to the gameplay, so I’m fine with it.

I finally get to the Colonies and start off.  There’s someone there waiting for me to arrive and he starts telling me about what’s going on.  Red dots keep appearing on my screen which I quickly learn are the British.  Okay, so my screen will let me know when the Red Coats are near.  Red is usually reserved for enemies, so I decide to walk up to one of them.  He ignores me.  Then I see a woman with a basket of apples trip and spill her apples.  Some guy grabs one and bolts while the woman yells, “THIEF! STOP HIM!”  I’m a good guy.  I take off after him.  He ducks down some stairs in an alley.  I follow him, and he stops running and turns to face me.  Uh oh, is this going to be a fight?

Then he drops the apple and it starts floating in midair, and he walks away casually, ignoring me.  I’m mesmerized by this floating apple and can’t seem to figure out how to pick it up.  After a moment, I realize the real ploy… I stopped watching the thief!  Did he escape!  I turn around and find him a few steps away, leaning against a wall.  “How dare you steal a floating apple!” I want to yell at him.  Instead, the only thing I can do is walk into him repeatedly.  He doesn’t seem to care, but it makes me feel like I did at least something to him after his magic-apple-incident.

Later, I find a bunch of rifles leaning against a board.  I pick one up.  Then I drop it and pick up another one.  Then I just leave with it.  No one seems to care, though one person did comment as I walked past, “That man really shouldn’t be armed.”

No worries.  As soon as I talk to Ben Franklin, my new rifle disappears.  Ben Franklin tells me about his Almanac.  Find the missing pages!  Okay, we’ll see how that rolls.  I go to buy a new gun and sword (the only two things it seems this store sells) and then head to the tavern where I am told that my first mission is to recover a box of research so that my new friend can figure out where I’m supposed to go next.

I head to find a guy who’s tracking the thieves, only there are too many of them for him.  Not too many for me, though!  I pull out a rifle and shoot the lookout, then climb into the thieves fort and sneak along.  I find some guns and shoot one of the bad guys and take aim and… whoa, it takes a while to reload these things.  Oh yeah… ball and powder.  That’s right.  Maybe I should just grab another gun that I’m sure they left sitting here already loaded and… OH MY! I’m being stabbed by four people!  I pull out my sword and make short work of them.

We make our way through the fort to the research and find the leader.  We spend some time offering each other the opportunity to leave without being killed.  I pull my gun on him and aim it.  Then he starts pulling his gun on me.  SHOOT HIM!  SHOOT HIM!  But I don’t.  I wait for him to aim it at me first before shooting him in the head.

A brief fight later and the cut-scene reveals that my shot at his head ACTUALLY hit his leg.  These things are dreadfully hard to aim.

I start picking the pockets of every dead man I can find, grab a gun and head out to fight some more.  Shoot, shoot, shoot, and more shooting.  Soon they’re on me and hitting me.  I kill them with my sword.  We keep moving.  More guys, this time with some on the rooftop.  We kill all the ones on the ground, then I try to shoot the guys on the rooftop.  My gun won’t work.  I think it’s loaded.  I start picking the pockets of the dead people on the ground for more bullets.  Fortunately muskets are terrible aim and I can just wander around without worrying.

No dice on the bullets.  No idea what to do.  I stare at the building for a while as I’m being shot at and then flash back to my days climbing around the ship.  I can climb!  I guess that hour of boring gameplay was worth something.  I run up to the building, climb it, and stab one guy.  Then I climb to the chimney and leaping-stab another guy.  Awesome!

We keep walking.  More people, more inability to shoot a gun, and more stabbing with my sword.  Soon we’ve escaped with the research.

Next task, find some dude that’s on my list of sympathetic-to-my-cause people.  I head in and find his home has been trashed.  Where could he be?  I start trying to track down some rumors, listening to conversations people are having and soon have a new goal… FIND MORE CONVERSATIONS!  So I tell my ally to meet me somewhere and I’m going to go high to listen in.  Um… really? Okay.  Evidently my goal of going high to listen in on conversations involves me climbing to the top of the highest point in the city.  Now I know that I personally am partially deaf and could not hear conversations from that height, but I’m pretty sure no one else could either.  Sure enough, my ascent to the highest point in the city ends with me leaping into a bale of hay.  Um… why did I just do that.

So I get out of the hay, wander around, and climb some more.  I find a conversation I’m supposed to be listening in on and sit in a tree above them.  Unsure of what I’m supposed to be doing, I accidentally fall out of the tree (this one’s completely on me) and a Red Coat comes around and starts yelling at me.  I run away from him and find another conversation.  I hide behind some boxes with a couple other people standing nearby and listen in on the conversation.  But soon the Red Coats are there too, yelling at me.  Damn… I’m doing something wrong.  Maybe if I… wait… did that Red Coat just stab me?  Well, I’ll stab him right back!  Uh oh.  He’s got friends.

And that’s the story of how I got chased around Boston by an army of Red Coats and then shot down by a gun line as I tried to climb a building to escape.

Better luck next time…  Despite my making fun of a lot of it, I am really enjoying it so far and looking forward to seeing what happens.  I know I've barely scratched the surface and I'm probably still in the part that's teaching me how to play the game.