They're all tedious, unfun missions that prove right every negative thing that's ever been said about the stealth and bad mission design in AC games
They're a bunch of "don't get detected and don't kill anyone" stuff but for some reason you use Jacob exclusively, who sucks at stealth and specializes only in killing people
Luckily they aren't enough to drag down the game but hoo boy
Then I just paused just now and saw that there's a free steampunk outfit for Evie on the store right now? So I go to download and it's 1 gig for some reason. I can't imagine why a costume would be 1 gig
mgsv presented optional objectives perfectly, i.e. not even telling you them until you've finished it at least once
assassin's creed has weirdly gone back and forth on how it presents its constraints, but AC3 definitely had the worst presentation by flashing them on screen in red whenever you failed one. I legitimately believe that's why so many people got as mad about the chase as they did, because the game tells you YOU FAILED YOU STUPID IDIOT when you bump into a person
ac should really just adopt metal gear's ranking system, with a granular %sync as your score and a base 50% just for completing the mission. e-rank at 50-59, d-rank 60-69, c-rank 70-79, b-rank 80-89, a-rank 90-99, s-rank 100%
and then if you do really, really well you can get above 100% sync which creates a glitch in the animus and you collect all the glitches to unlock a juno audio log talking about how she'll totally finally take over the internet in next next year's game
The rating system is a thing I've always hated in MGS, but luckily in the MGS games I actually enjoy you only ever get one, and it's at the very end after the credits, so it's not like it discourages you from playing more (which is what it would do if implemented on a mission by mission basis)
ac should really just adopt metal gear's ranking system, with a granular %sync as your score and a base 50% just for completing the mission. e-rank at 50-59, d-rank 60-69, c-rank 70-79, b-rank 80-89, a-rank 90-99, s-rank 100%
and then if you do really, really well you can get above 100% sync which creates a glitch in the animus and you collect all the glitches to unlock a juno audio log talking about how she'll totally finally take over the internet in next next year's game
Best "traditional" AC game yet. The Assassin's Creed parts of this game are the best to date, and the assassination missions are so good, though a little too few. I still think Black Flag is better but that's really apples and oranges comparing the pirating gameplay to bumming around London.
I like that they're picking back up on the future story. The ending was...interesting, even if it only moved things forward a tiny bit. I also really dig the Templar counterparts of the Assassin team.
Evie totally got short shrift at the end of the game, which is a bummer. They kept things at a pretty even split for most of the game, but sequence 8 is all Jacob all the time.
She also got screwed on the assassination missions - she only gets one on her own and a shared one with Jacob. Jacob gets three or four and then a shared one with Evie.
I LOVE STARRICK SO MUCH. I love a good charismatic villain like that.
Spoilers
I love that Shaun has finally come around and stopped being such an asshole and talked up his respect for Desmond. Also in the future story, I hope Rebecca's wound is not fatal.
Good stuff. Real great game! Now to finish clearing out the rest of London
the modern story always moved fairly slowly, syndicate I think pretty much matches the previous pace but when 2014's pace was 0 it is understandable to hope for more
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Right finished up all the missions. Only have Ned and the betting guy loyalties to max but I dont care much about them.
At this point this is probably at the top of my GOTY list.
I pretty much regret setting any other part of the game to 5 stars, if only because now I couldn't rank this section any higher.
I did run into a few bugs - Lydia suddenly turned into a mute (but at least I had subtitles on, so I could pretend she was still talking when Churchill was giving her the low-down on which targets she needed to hit next), and the Master Spy jumped off a bridge - when I went to follow it immediately cut to Churchill congratulating me.
Despite that though, I can't even describe how much I want that World War AC game. Just, geez. I hope they end up using this as essentially a preview of a full game they could make with that setting in mind. They could easily base it on stories likethese.
Looks like getting all the helix glitches doesn't actually matter, except for 100% sync I guess. I think you can be a few short and still get the final piece of Modern Day Assassin Intel. No trophy popped either.
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have "smell o vision"
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have it
Probably just a cost cutting measure?
helix is abstergo's cloud servers that they use to stream memories to home consoles, so they don't have to actually give people an independently functional animus
To that end it is probably less immersive than a real animus, on the same level as what you'd get from an oculus rift
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have it
Probably just a cost cutting measure?
helix is abstergo's cloud servers that they use to stream memories to home consoles, so they don't have to actually give people an independently functional animus
To that end it is probably less immersive than a real animus, on the same level as what you'd get from an oculus rift
What if the animus home consoles had full functionality but just locked out so people don't lose their minds from the bleeding effect, but then juno hacks them all and unlocks them
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have it
Probably just a cost cutting measure?
helix is abstergo's cloud servers that they use to stream memories to home consoles, so they don't have to actually give people an independently functional animus
To that end it is probably less immersive than a real animus, on the same level as what you'd get from an oculus rift
Okay, yeah, that sounds familiar. That was all introduced in IV, right?
I appreciate that that's keeping in line with AC 1's manual, giving an in universe explanation for why you're using a game controller to interact with memories
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have "smell o vision"
Probably just a cost cutting measure?
Helix is
a cloud based version developed by Abstergo to make it easier for the populace to view people's memories and also I think it sends data back from all the players. Not sure about the version you as a player are running, it might be hacked by the Assassins to keep it from sending data back to Abstergo.
Meanwhile I had some story-related oddness last night (spoilers for sequence 7 and flower collection)
The first thing I did was play Evie's mission, and Henry Green gets grabbed which screws up the hunt for the Shroud which of course it does this whole thing is a fucking wild goose chase but anyway...Evie is very pissed off at him.
So the very next thing I do is get cracking on my flower collecting. When all the flowers are collected there's a marker on the train for Henry Green which triggers a conversation in which he proposes and Evie says yes. Which is funny to me because for me their interaction just prior was not so friendly.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
So I've been wondering where the last set of companion missions is. There's one more besides Dickens, Darwin and Marx. It's
Victoria.
They don't unlock until after Sequence 9. Which as far as I can tell is the last sequence. I hope they're worth playing in the postgame.
Thinking about going for the platinum in this. I think the toughest thing I have left to do is hijack 20 police wagons. They made that very tricky for some reason.
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
I did not have nearly as much problems with the climbing and running as I did in previous games.
Previous games there would always be numerous parts where I'm chasing someone and the character leaps sideways off a building to their death instead of going the way I'm pointing. It would always be super frustrating.
This game I only had a couple of not leaping down the right way, usually involving those little bridges connecting warehouses.
Finished last night. A lot of the early thoughts I had actually stay the same.
Non-spoilery stuff:
-At the risk of sounding press-releasey, yeah, the biggest star of the game is the setting and the city. This game is just beautiful, all the little things I found are amazing. I stopped multiple times to listen to musical performances. This game easily has the best use of historical character interactions out of any of the games in the series.
-I know folks said this about boats too, but I have no idea how they can make AC games without the grappling hook now. It's a thing that was needed three games ago. It's the best addition to gameplay other than, well, boats.
-Ending wasn't fulfilling, but far better than I expected. Assassin's Creed gonna Assassin's Creed.
-Kidnapping would had been so much more enjoyable if they explained it better, and maybe didn't make the awareness circle look exactly like the hidden aura when you're in a crowd. It was maybe sequence 5 before I figured this out.
-Jacob and Evie are the best protagonists in AC since Ezio, and would have been horrible if it was only one of either of them. AC needs more characters like this to play off each other.
-It would have been nice if all my rooks were not three different people as I killed a rival gang of the equally diverse beard guy, big guy, and woman. Yes, yes, The Animus Did It, but still. A bit of laziness in an otherwise gorgeous game.
Spoilery stuff:
-Starrick is a great villain, but the lack of interaction from him weakens the impact of his motives. It's a shame that his scenes with Evie are at the very end of the game. The lack of Starrick having any actual interaction with the twins until the very end removes the aura of Starrick being an actual menace for me. Instead, I feel like I'm reminded he exists in the occasional cutscene. I didn't feel any threat from him or like there was a cat-and-mouse thing or anything like that; the game was just you doing stuff and him being angry about it from his desk like Dr. Claw. He needed far more screen time. And his vindictiveness was easily overshadowed by Maxwell Roth.
-Every AC game seems to have at least one "well this is ultimately useless" tool, and in this one it actually seems to be... the Rooks themselves. I could never use them in half the side missions because they'd just run in and tip off scouts or guards. By midgame I didn't really need them, especially when setting up multi-kills was far more fun. I liked the aesthetic of having more and more show up over the run of the game but in the end they got in the way.
-This is super-nitpicky, but I found it weird that the game specifically focuses on Evie and Henry developing a relationship, and then the WWI sequence notes that Lydia is... Jacob's granddaughter. Why not just... I dunno. Just strange to me.
-The precursor outfit is awful. I'm mad that it's the ultimate outfit for Evie because it looks silly and the glitching pattern actually made it hard (like, actual eyestrain wise) to look at and I had to switch her to something else.
-I get that it's a cliffhanger but if they kill off Rebecca I'm going to be really pissed. I assumed Shaun was untouchable because he's effectively the "voice" of the modern day database stuff, but all the introspection into her and Shaun's friendship in this game has me really concerned they're fridging her to advance the modern day storyline.
I think at the end of it, I still rank Brotherhood as the best AC game, because I don't have the "okay I just finished this... I want to start a new game and pay it all over again right now" feeling with Syndicate that I did for the former. But Syndicate is either second by a hair and maybe even tied. The biggest thing about Syndicate is that it's just a correction of everything wrong with Unity. The more I played Syndicate the more I found myself being angry at how many mistakes were made in Unity. Syndicate is just a good game.
he might have been this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Worth
Who was an actual criminal mastermind, was actually called the Napoleon of Crime, and used the alias Henry Raymond for a time
but the dates and ages don't match up
Posts
They're all tedious, unfun missions that prove right every negative thing that's ever been said about the stealth and bad mission design in AC games
They're a bunch of "don't get detected and don't kill anyone" stuff but for some reason you use Jacob exclusively, who sucks at stealth and specializes only in killing people
Luckily they aren't enough to drag down the game but hoo boy
Then I just paused just now and saw that there's a free steampunk outfit for Evie on the store right now? So I go to download and it's 1 gig for some reason. I can't imagine why a costume would be 1 gig
assassin's creed has weirdly gone back and forth on how it presents its constraints, but AC3 definitely had the worst presentation by flashing them on screen in red whenever you failed one. I legitimately believe that's why so many people got as mad about the chase as they did, because the game tells you YOU FAILED YOU STUPID IDIOT when you bump into a person
and... syndicate returns to that
For some reason they just decided to completely shit the bed in sequences 8 and 9
and then if you do really, really well you can get above 100% sync which creates a glitch in the animus and you collect all the glitches to unlock a juno audio log talking about how she'll totally finally take over the internet in next next year's game
The rating system is a thing I've always hated in MGS, but luckily in the MGS games I actually enjoy you only ever get one, and it's at the very end after the credits, so it's not like it discourages you from playing more (which is what it would do if implemented on a mission by mission basis)
She's totally gonna do it! Any day now, really!
(Sequence 7)
Thoughts:
Best "traditional" AC game yet. The Assassin's Creed parts of this game are the best to date, and the assassination missions are so good, though a little too few. I still think Black Flag is better but that's really apples and oranges comparing the pirating gameplay to bumming around London.
I like that they're picking back up on the future story. The ending was...interesting, even if it only moved things forward a tiny bit. I also really dig the Templar counterparts of the Assassin team.
Evie totally got short shrift at the end of the game, which is a bummer. They kept things at a pretty even split for most of the game, but sequence 8 is all Jacob all the time.
She also got screwed on the assassination missions - she only gets one on her own and a shared one with Jacob. Jacob gets three or four and then a shared one with Evie.
I LOVE STARRICK SO MUCH. I love a good charismatic villain like that.
Spoilers
Good stuff. Real great game! Now to finish clearing out the rest of London
At this point this is probably at the top of my GOTY list.
Ned has the best gun at level 5 and it's really good.
Robert Topping has the best sword-cane but he's a real pain to max. You have to do all the fight clubs and get first place in all the races.
Ummm
Hey, Kitty
I did run into a few bugs - Lydia suddenly turned into a mute (but at least I had subtitles on, so I could pretend she was still talking when Churchill was giving her the low-down on which targets she needed to hit next), and the Master Spy jumped off a bridge - when I went to follow it immediately cut to Churchill congratulating me.
Despite that though, I can't even describe how much I want that World War AC game. Just, geez. I hope they end up using this as essentially a preview of a full game they could make with that setting in mind. They could easily base it on stories like these.
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
Which would have Vladimir Bartol, author of alamut, as a character
Yeah a rumor that comes from you
-Tal Report strikes again!
I've spent sequence 7 methodically grabbing collectibles in every borough, only one left to do is Westminster.
If you're missing some, I've found that the last pesky few are usually hanging around tall churches.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I definitely had trouble with it to start with
I can't tell if I just got used to it it the environments got better for it, but in either case I definitely enjoy it now
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Yes. I think because if you're on the ground, you're outside the radius for them to pop up on your map.
Is it just a less advanced Animus for home use
In one of the beer testing notes Shaun mentions that he had to load it up in the old Animus 3.0 to smell a sample, since Helix didn't have "smell o vision"
Probably just a cost cutting measure?
To that end it is probably less immersive than a real animus, on the same level as what you'd get from an oculus rift
Did I mention I love Assassin's Creed
I appreciate that that's keeping in line with AC 1's manual, giving an in universe explanation for why you're using a game controller to interact with memories
Meanwhile I had some story-related oddness last night (spoilers for sequence 7 and flower collection)
So the very next thing I do is get cracking on my flower collecting. When all the flowers are collected there's a marker on the train for Henry Green which triggers a conversation in which he proposes and Evie says yes. Which is funny to me because for me their interaction just prior was not so friendly.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
They don't unlock until after Sequence 9. Which as far as I can tell is the last sequence. I hope they're worth playing in the postgame.
Thinking about going for the platinum in this. I think the toughest thing I have left to do is hijack 20 police wagons. They made that very tricky for some reason.
Previous games there would always be numerous parts where I'm chasing someone and the character leaps sideways off a building to their death instead of going the way I'm pointing. It would always be super frustrating.
This game I only had a couple of not leaping down the right way, usually involving those little bridges connecting warehouses.
Non-spoilery stuff:
-At the risk of sounding press-releasey, yeah, the biggest star of the game is the setting and the city. This game is just beautiful, all the little things I found are amazing. I stopped multiple times to listen to musical performances. This game easily has the best use of historical character interactions out of any of the games in the series.
-I know folks said this about boats too, but I have no idea how they can make AC games without the grappling hook now. It's a thing that was needed three games ago. It's the best addition to gameplay other than, well, boats.
-Ending wasn't fulfilling, but far better than I expected. Assassin's Creed gonna Assassin's Creed.
-Kidnapping would had been so much more enjoyable if they explained it better, and maybe didn't make the awareness circle look exactly like the hidden aura when you're in a crowd. It was maybe sequence 5 before I figured this out.
-Jacob and Evie are the best protagonists in AC since Ezio, and would have been horrible if it was only one of either of them. AC needs more characters like this to play off each other.
-It would have been nice if all my rooks were not three different people as I killed a rival gang of the equally diverse beard guy, big guy, and woman. Yes, yes, The Animus Did It, but still. A bit of laziness in an otherwise gorgeous game.
Spoilery stuff:
-Every AC game seems to have at least one "well this is ultimately useless" tool, and in this one it actually seems to be... the Rooks themselves. I could never use them in half the side missions because they'd just run in and tip off scouts or guards. By midgame I didn't really need them, especially when setting up multi-kills was far more fun. I liked the aesthetic of having more and more show up over the run of the game but in the end they got in the way.
-This is super-nitpicky, but I found it weird that the game specifically focuses on Evie and Henry developing a relationship, and then the WWI sequence notes that Lydia is... Jacob's granddaughter. Why not just... I dunno. Just strange to me.
-The precursor outfit is awful. I'm mad that it's the ultimate outfit for Evie because it looks silly and the glitching pattern actually made it hard (like, actual eyestrain wise) to look at and I had to switch her to something else.
-I get that it's a cliffhanger but if they kill off Rebecca I'm going to be really pissed. I assumed Shaun was untouchable because he's effectively the "voice" of the modern day database stuff, but all the introspection into her and Shaun's friendship in this game has me really concerned they're fridging her to advance the modern day storyline.
I think at the end of it, I still rank Brotherhood as the best AC game, because I don't have the "okay I just finished this... I want to start a new game and pay it all over again right now" feeling with Syndicate that I did for the former. But Syndicate is either second by a hair and maybe even tied. The biggest thing about Syndicate is that it's just a correction of everything wrong with Unity. The more I played Syndicate the more I found myself being angry at how many mistakes were made in Unity. Syndicate is just a good game.
It's funny, I thought:
Who was an actual criminal mastermind, was actually called the Napoleon of Crime, and used the alias Henry Raymond for a time
but the dates and ages don't match up
I really wish
How amazing would it have been to have that be when they finally reveal who he is
All in all the Dreadful Crimes stuff was kind of great? There were only one or two that I didn't like for being obvious, like
But a lot of times they subverted that themselves
It's definitely made me realize that I just want a full game of these, maybe in 1930s New York or something