A Native American Male (mixed race) - only got half a game to himself, the other half was white guy
It doesn't change the overall point all that much, but this is quite the misrepresentation: Haytham Kenway is only the player character in a small part of the game. The vast majority has you playing as Connor.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
A Native American Male (mixed race) - only got half a game to himself, the other half was white guy
It doesn't change the overall point all that much, but this is quite the misrepresentation: Haytham Kenway is only the player character in a small part of the game. The vast majority has you playing as Connor.
Yea I momentarily thought I was crazy and misremembering something.
Connor was the main character of that game without a doubt.
Our games are very diverse, we feature both Western and Eastern Europeans!
I gotta say, though, I find that comment somewhat grating. Obviously it's still all Whitey McWhiteyson, but there are major cultural differences between a Victorian Brit, a Renaissance Italian and a Greek from 400BC. There are still issues with respect to representation, clearly, but acting like that list isn't diverse strikes me as having a rather reductive view of cultural diversity. Plenty of problems with how Ubisoft does (or does not do) diversity, but it definitely ain't that the protagonists all come from countries, times and cultures that only vary to the slightest degree.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Our games are very diverse, we feature both Western and Eastern Europeans!
I gotta say, though, I find that comment somewhat grating. Obviously it's still all Whitey McWhiteyson, but there are major cultural differences between a Victorian Brit, a Renaissance Italian and a Greek from 400BC. There are still issues with respect to representation, clearly, but acting like that list isn't diverse strikes me as having a rather reductive view of cultural diversity. Plenty of problems with how Ubisoft does (or does not do) diversity, but it definitely ain't that the protagonists all come from countries, times and cultures that only vary to the slightest degree.
Victorian Britain, who were heavy on the influence from... Renaissance Italy, who were all about... ancient Rome and Greece.
Your big list of cultural diversity is just a timeline of what's considered "history" and "culture" by European/American history books.
Which is my point. It's really easy to claim "look at how diverse our games are!" without having any focus beyond white people from Europe... despite that most of the world isn't white people from Europe.
Good points, though I'd argue that Victorian England's take on Renaissance Italy was very different from the actual thing. Cultural influence tends to be heavy on transformatoin. I'd say that Assassin's Creed is one of the most culturally diverse video game series I know, but that it's still very Euro-/ethnocentric. Even Connor's role in the game was at least in part one of playing the Native American Forrest Gump to all the familiar names and faces people associate with the American Revolution. And the stories that are written within these worlds tend to default to the same relatively small number of tropes (revenge, betrayal etc.), so that I'm not sure Assassin's Creed games that embraced a more racially diverse cast of protagonists would be all that much more diverse. But, as I said, to me the point is more immediately about representation than about diversity. The locations and cultures of Assassin's Creed are diverse, but it's a shallow, meaningless diversity that is more for show than anything else. In that respect, having more female POC leads wouldn't be meaningless, but it would be very much limited if the games still rehearsed all the same tropes. There are the beginnings of something more diverse in many of the games, but none of them go the distance.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Actually Local H Jay, we now know it took less than an hour for the team on AC Unity to demonstrate they could make a playable female character at the time. The higher ups still stuck to their ridiculous claim, despite the team proving otherwise and it led to a lot of bafflement and confusion there.
Essentially, anything that they've said if you can imagine it's actually worse in reality, it probably was.
I've not played an AC game since Assassin's Creed 3 solely because of that comment, even though I was really tempted to give Odyssey a go. Now I'm not really sure what to think about the series or if I ever want to try another AC game again.
I don’t know, just not playing AC at all is publishing the developers as well as the publishers, and I still can’t think of a game series with a main cast as diverse as the AC games.
You have (counting playable characters in main games or DLC)
A Syrian Male
An Italian Male - white
An Englishman (minor character) - white
A Native American Male (mixed race) - only got half a game to himself, the other half was white guy
An African American Female (dlc/ps vita, mixed race) - side game nobody played
A Welsh male - white
An African american male (dlc)
An Irish male - white
A french male - white
An english male - white
An english female - white
An egyptian male
An egyptian female (minor character)
A greek female - white
A greek male (alternate non-canon character) - white
A scandinavian who apparently switches gender at will via some kind of technomagic - white
That’s... pretty diverse by AAA video game standards, especially considering all the games are single playable character games (With a few split protagonist games).
That is not that diverse at all. Of 16 games, a whopping 5 non-white characters. And of those 5, only 2 is a playable character for an entire full-length game.
Yeah, Im sorry, you can’t argue that 2 hours of playing Hatham kenway in a 30+ hour game constitutes a split protagonist and discount a whole game with a black progonist because “nobody played it”.
And oh wait, name a AAA game outside AC with a non-white, non-asian protagonist that isn’t a gang member in a modern american city.
Altair from OG is Syrian. (white)
Aya from Origins is from Greek upper class. (white)
With Bayek you could argue either way. Are people from North Africa not considered white in America?
Altair from OG is Syrian. (white)
Aya from Origins is from Greek upper class. (white)
With Bayek you could argue either way. Are people from North Africa not considered white in America?
It depends on where you are at. In most of the American south (possibly even most of America) Altair and Bayak definitely aren’t white, and in some of the more extreme parts you would get arguments on Aya, Alexios, and Cassandra.
There are dimensions to diversity, so Assassin's Creed is very diverse in some ways, and lacking in others.
The AC games put a great deal of care into presenting characters and their culture, so lumping all those characters together as "just white" glosses over it. There is a huge cultural diversity that gets glossed over by equating a 1400's Renaissance Italian man with a 400's BC Greek woman.
The series needs greater racial diversity and gender diversity, definitely, but it is diverse.
I have a bad feeling that Valhalla is going to return to the humorlessness of Origins.
I liked Origins a lot, but Bayek was rather dismal. He wasn't a bad character by any means, but he was depressing.
Like Kassandra is flippant and ridiculous and sure that comes with its own problems but I just prefer that at this point.
Bayek had a kindness and compassion to him which I think worked well. While he started out dismal with the revenge plot, a lot of his interactions with like side characters and especially children were really earnest and warm. It really endeared him to me
Also from what I can tell Valhalla will have at least some levity as there are Viking rap battles, meadhall songs, that kind of stuff
Yeah from what short footage we have of Valhalla I think I like the tone of it, and it seems similar to Odyssey.
Odyssey was actually the first AC games I've played since Black Flag and Rogue, which I did like. And I was surprised how much I liked Odyssey! I felt the game carried a lot of charm, and I enjoyed both the gameplay and the story.
I actually own Unity and 3, but never played them. I tried the first couple hours of both and neither hooked me for reasons I don't understand myself.
OpposingFarce on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
You know its funny. Between the twin mechanic in Syndicate(which I liked for the most part) and the male/female thing in Odyssey/Valhalla
While options are nice I always felt like it was them not wanting to fully commit to a female protag only.
And everything I'm hearing makes that sound right.
+3
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
As long as I can continue to whore myself throughout ancient history, I'll make do.
A game having a protagonist I don't necessarily relate to has not ever turned me away in any specific cases I can think of. Games with really boringly obnoxious child protagonists are probably the closest to a bug bear I have in that situation. I find it really interesting when the protagonist IS very different from myself and I have to try to roleplay that situation (in a story game). The Walking Dead: Michonne was a really fun one for that reason. I made every decision on the basis of "what would Michonne do, in my estimation" more so than trying to get good story outcomes or whatever. If I ever get around to Witcher 3, that's also how I'll be playing that one.
For the Bioware games I've gone through, I preferred male Shepard over female specifically because I liked dating all the female characters. When I did a female Shep playthrough, I enjoyed Jennifer Hale's voice acting quite a bit, but just sort of defaulted to dating Garrus. It was fine, but didn't feel that different to being his friend, while dating say, Tali, felt COMPLETELY different as a story. Dragon Age 2 was an even more extreme version of this. I really liked Merrill and Isabelle and included them in the party whenever possible. Dating them made the story way more engaging as it went on. For the female playthrough, it really seemed like a desert to me, Sebastian is boring, Anders is shit, and Fenris is iffy to me. Yes, in DA2 specifically I could have just dated Merrill or Isabelle again, but I was going for the maximum possible variety. The straight female options didn't really appeal to me from a romantic story sense, so the male playthrough came off as much more engaging. I thought modern Tomb Raider's attempt to do an Uncharted was really hampered by not having the deep friendships and romances that Nate did in his games. Why not develop a love story between her and Sam over the course of the series, or have the side characters stick around and grow as Lara's support team? They really fell flat in that respect, in exchange for NO ONE'S favorite story: Lara's daddy issues.
In a more recent example, when I originally played Fire Emblem Awakening at launch, I did the male playthrough and got so sidetracked by support conversations and matchmaking the party, I never took the story missions anywhere and eventually moved on. I decided I wanted to get back into it this year and started a female Robin playthrough to make the new file distinct. I'm way more into the story this time when my character married Chrom instantly. She feels more intricately tied to the situation having married the leader, Lucina being our kid, etc. If I ever go back for the male playthrough on that one, it's going to seem inferior to me.
I don't need a protagonist that I can relate to, but I do need a protagonist that I don't actively dislike.
I will say that in choice based games with romances, I prefer dating women in all cases, regardless of whether I'm playing as a woman or as a man. If I can't date a woman, I prefer to go celibate. That actually ended me on ACO - my Kassandra was going to end up with a guy? Nope! Uninstalled, never reinstalled. On the other hand, when the game doesn't pretend to offer me choices, I have no issues - Evie's romance with Peter Green was fun.
That's probably moderately weird.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I will say that I certainly do prefer playing as a male and that's why when given the option I choose male, not because of an social thing but it is legit my preference and has an impact on how much I enjoy a game experience.
That doesn't mean I won't play a game with a female MC or think that shouldn't be a thing.
But I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer playing as a male, but in the same way I prefer to play as young to middle aged adult instead of a child or old character. I also prefer a character I find aesthetically pleasing and attractive. Having a character like that will make me able to get into a game more and in turn enjoy it more.
Because of this I also understand that having other characters is good because it allows other folks that are not me to have that same sort of experience that I get to have when I play as the kind of main characters that I prefer.
So I told myself I'd finish the Fate of Atlantis DLC and kinda hunkered down to do it which uh, is not really the ideal approach to a leisure activity. I'd finished the base game and really, really liked it and then did the first blade thing dlc, which was sorta spotty and they made that weird thing happen with the mopey kid that you fuck but don't fuck whaaaaat a baby from where? Anyways, I got through the basic intro to Elysium and then bailed for whatever else game I don't remember. Getting back into it, I went through the first chapter and it's a lot of *fucking* running around as opposed to a lot of woo! running around, but the place looks gorgeous. I went assassin so the various enemies never really mattered because they always got one shotted but a few times they got off some irritating low elysium orbit ion cannon attack before dying. I finished the first chapter up and got dumped into the fight with Cerberus which was sort of a shit boss fight but got through it, but now well, everything is fucking brown. At some point some character calls some place or other the asshole of the underworld and I was like yeah, it really is and why did they go from the best environment in the game to this? I'm kind of just playing it and not enjoying it and it doesn't really look good and then I meet Phoibe and although it feels like she's been kidnapped and murdered already a few times, Kassandra sends her off in fucking hell by herself and she gets kidnapped and murdered again and like, for fucking real? What, didn't learn the first time?
I'm really not feeling it and now I'm not even sure I want to buy AC: Valhalla (or as I prefer to call it, Ass Vikings) and this DLC is really souring me on an otherwise great game. Oh, and people I already killed show up and well, fucking whatever, I kill them again. The highlight was some forgettable cultist named Catfish or Swordfrog or something who started to go on about how he'd been waiting for me and I stabbed him in the throat with the spear, he stumbled back and fell of the cliff and died and I was like, "You're every fucking enemy in this game pal, barely even a speedbump." Like, I just fucking beat down Perseus and you think you matter in the least? I was really sad there was a cliff to push the cyclops guy off, or that we didn't get to stuff part of him into a goat's ass again, like his whole head.
Honestly, I think what really irks me is aside from the present time people that I don't give two shits about, there's been basically little to no Atlantis. I wanted some crazy ass awesome city under the water with a big ole space magic dome and whales and stuff swimming around outside it. I'm only casually into AC, but the whole present day thing could be jettisoned and I wouldn't even miss it. I do sorta feel for people who like the classic non rpgish games.
Also, don't call Syrians or well, anyone from that region white - because a lot of them don't identify as "white people." and uh, they're sure aren't. Speaking as someone with Persian co-workers, that will land you in some hot water. Moving forward the series just needs to do the pick male or female protag at the start and roll with whatever the fuck you are, Japanese (I hope next) or IDK, Slavic or ancient Roman although that has some heavy overlap with the feel of the Greek setting and the Egyptian one but oh damn, it would be slick to maybe do a run set against the decline of the Roman empire and the colliseum and such. The characters as chosen don't even have to be siblings or anything like in Odyssey or whatever the other one was and if Valhalla is literally just pick if you're the male or female and then on it goes and the one you didn't pick never appears that's totally cool, much like Bioware and male/female shepherd. Personally I liked Kassandra, but the guy who did the male voice went for the Ezio swagger and I can respect that, he definitely didn't work for me early on but I've heard some of the work from later in the game and it's alright.
I'd say the DLC is worth pushing through.
Yes, the Underworld is brown and miserable, but it is Hell. There are certain expectations there.
Chapter 3 is a lot brighter (though the whole DLC really leans into the fact that most of the Isu were kinda dicks and I'm not sorry they're gone).
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
The problem I had with the DLC was by chapter 3 of Legacy is f the First Blade I was 120 hours in an thoroughly done with the game.
Oh, I definitely get Creed Fatigue.
I set myself a Lockdown Challenge of platinuming every Creed game on the PS4.
I've now done all of them except Russia and the multiplayer of 4, and I've now made sure I won't be buying Valhalla until the Everything Included Edition is out and at like 50% off.
For me the weirdest thing about Fate of Atlantis was how ... anticlimactic the ending felt. I did everything -- I mean, everything -- in all three chapters, and I was expecting some kind of big boss fight, or at least a cut scene, but nope, just time to hit the portal and exit because there weren't any map markers I hadn't checked off yet. (Unless it had already happened earlier in the chapter? Or unless I missed something?)
Well you do have your big boss fight. You're just allowed to stick around afterwards because if they kick you out of areas permanently in an open-world game, you get angry emails.
I was pretty underwhelmed with the Atlantis ending too. I felt it was leading up to something much bigger and/or cooler, but it was like
Oh, yeah, ISU are still dicks and experiment on humans. And there was just the boss mutant and exploding zombies or whatever. I was kind of hoping to expand on this enemy type, but it was too late in DLC. They're introduced and then gone. I was hoping the human labs would be more grotesque or body-horror. Something really shocking. Nah.
I will say that I absolutely LOVE the bit where you're alone and your character talks to themselves right before the end. I went with the 'so very tired' dialogue and it felt very authentic. Like, damn, I bet Alexios is very tired. I don't know, it was another moment of charm. It felt really sincere. I was upset when it was interrupted to finish the plot.
Oh, I definitely get Creed Fatigue.
I set myself a Lockdown Challenge of platinuming every Creed game on the PS4.
I've now done all of them except Russia and the multiplayer of 4, and I've now made sure I won't be buying Valhalla until the Everything Included Edition is out and at like 50% off.
This is the proper way to Assassin Creed. Or any open-world game.
I just bought the ultra complete edition of Shadow of War for 12 bucks. That's how you do it!
I was pretty underwhelmed with the Atlantis ending too. I felt it was leading up to something much bigger and/or cooler, but it was like
Oh, yeah, ISU are still dicks and experiment on humans. And there was just the boss mutant and exploding zombies or whatever. I was kind of hoping to expand on this enemy type, but it was too late in DLC. They're introduced and then gone. I was hoping the human labs would be more grotesque or body-horror. Something really shocking. Nah.
I will say that I absolutely LOVE the bit where you're alone and your character talks to themselves right before the end. I went with the 'so very tired' dialogue and it felt very authentic. Like, damn, I bet Alexios is very tired. I don't know, it was another moment of charm. It felt really sincere. I was upset when it was interrupted to finish the plot.
Oh, I definitely get Creed Fatigue.
I set myself a Lockdown Challenge of platinuming every Creed game on the PS4.
I've now done all of them except Russia and the multiplayer of 4, and I've now made sure I won't be buying Valhalla until the Everything Included Edition is out and at like 50% off.
This is the proper way to Assassin Creed. Or any open-world game.
I just bought the ultra complete edition of Shadow of War for 12 bucks. That's how you do it!
Yeah, then you don’t have the awkward dlc moment of “well this dlc came out, I don’t remember what the fuck was going on with my character or the story because I played the game a year ago, do I spend 50 hours replaying with a new guy or just muddle my way through awkwardly with my old character”.
I still haven’t played Nuka World or the last POE2 dlc for that reason.
Its especially more relevant now that AC games actually have builds and whatnot.
So just finished up liberation, it actually grew on me.
Its not an epic story, by any means, it’s a small and very personal story. It isn’t always handled the best (IMHO too much exposition is hidden away in diary entries or optional citizen E finds which can make the main story a bit hard to follow at times), and the gameplay doesn’t play as much to its strengths as it could (the persona system could have been brilliant but doesn’t get used as much as it could, most of the time I ended up just running in assassin or slave depending on mission and never felt much reason to change or pay attention to it). It also has way too many insta-fail missions, like AC3.
That said, I enjoyed it. Not a great game for the ages but a nice addition to the III-Black Flag-Rogue canon. Aveline is a great character, and I actually enjoyed the conceit of having the game show you the whitewashed “slavery wasn’t too bad” history then confront you with the real story. Worth playing through especially given that its pretty much free.
Yes, I had definitely not actually finished Fate of Atlantis -- for some reason, it seems like the final quest chain (with the adorable moppet looking for his parents) didn't show up on the map when I had initially left. So I went back and now it's done & dusted, and god help me I just started the other DLC and the 200 hour mark is approaching very, very quickly.
Yes, I had definitely not actually finished Fate of Atlantis -- for some reason, it seems like the final quest chain (with the adorable moppet looking for his parents) didn't show up on the map when I had initially left. So I went back and now it's done & dusted, and god help me I just started the other DLC and the 200 hour mark is approaching very, very quickly.
You mean legacy of the first blade or whatever?
I like that decidedly less than any of the three arcs of the atlantis DLC, soooo
Got to the final chapter of the Fate of Atlantis DLC. IDK, first one had the look of the area going for it. Second...I just ground through because welp, I'd paid for it. Now I'm just dragging my tired carcass through this fucking thing to finish it and uninstall. A sort of poor end to what was a pretty solid game.
Yes, I had definitely not actually finished Fate of Atlantis -- for some reason, it seems like the final quest chain (with the adorable moppet looking for his parents) didn't show up on the map when I had initially left. So I went back and now it's done & dusted, and god help me I just started the other DLC and the 200 hour mark is approaching very, very quickly.
You mean legacy of the first blade or whatever?
I like that decidedly less than any of the three arcs of the atlantis DLC, soooo
Yeah, whatever the one that starts up in Makhedonia and gives you a set of Junior Woodchucks cultists.
So I got bit by the AC bug again, but I also wanted to go actually better myself just a little bit- so I've been working on the historical tour portion of AC: Odyssey. Is there any sort of a map or a walkthrough that shows you where all the hidden points are? I love the idea of the tour, but if they pull the "let's hide the hidden point in a tiny little cave no one enters" bullshit, well... given that the points don't seem to show up until you're within some 30m of them on your radar... or do they show up when flying with Ikaros?
Either way, I love the material, but I don't have the time to comb every inch of the landscape any more...
I can has cheezburger, yes?
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Posts
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Yea I momentarily thought I was crazy and misremembering something.
Connor was the main character of that game without a doubt.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Victorian Britain, who were heavy on the influence from... Renaissance Italy, who were all about... ancient Rome and Greece.
Your big list of cultural diversity is just a timeline of what's considered "history" and "culture" by European/American history books.
Which is my point. It's really easy to claim "look at how diverse our games are!" without having any focus beyond white people from Europe... despite that most of the world isn't white people from Europe.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Yeah, Im sorry, you can’t argue that 2 hours of playing Hatham kenway in a 30+ hour game constitutes a split protagonist and discount a whole game with a black progonist because “nobody played it”.
And oh wait, name a AAA game outside AC with a non-white, non-asian protagonist that isn’t a gang member in a modern american city.
I can think of maybe one.
Aya from Origins is from Greek upper class. (white)
With Bayek you could argue either way. Are people from North Africa not considered white in America?
It depends on where you are at. In most of the American south (possibly even most of America) Altair and Bayak definitely aren’t white, and in some of the more extreme parts you would get arguments on Aya, Alexios, and Cassandra.
The AC games put a great deal of care into presenting characters and their culture, so lumping all those characters together as "just white" glosses over it. There is a huge cultural diversity that gets glossed over by equating a 1400's Renaissance Italian man with a 400's BC Greek woman.
The series needs greater racial diversity and gender diversity, definitely, but it is diverse.
Yeah from what short footage we have of Valhalla I think I like the tone of it, and it seems similar to Odyssey.
Odyssey was actually the first AC games I've played since Black Flag and Rogue, which I did like. And I was surprised how much I liked Odyssey! I felt the game carried a lot of charm, and I enjoyed both the gameplay and the story.
I actually own Unity and 3, but never played them. I tried the first couple hours of both and neither hooked me for reasons I don't understand myself.
While options are nice I always felt like it was them not wanting to fully commit to a female protag only.
And everything I'm hearing makes that sound right.
This is an interesting chain which I never thought about.
Personally I don't mind games with female protags and I've played plenty but when given the option I always choose male just cause.
And I never thought about how that data could be twisted to say people don't want female protags. Why sometimes its better not to have the option.
For the Bioware games I've gone through, I preferred male Shepard over female specifically because I liked dating all the female characters. When I did a female Shep playthrough, I enjoyed Jennifer Hale's voice acting quite a bit, but just sort of defaulted to dating Garrus. It was fine, but didn't feel that different to being his friend, while dating say, Tali, felt COMPLETELY different as a story. Dragon Age 2 was an even more extreme version of this. I really liked Merrill and Isabelle and included them in the party whenever possible. Dating them made the story way more engaging as it went on. For the female playthrough, it really seemed like a desert to me, Sebastian is boring, Anders is shit, and Fenris is iffy to me. Yes, in DA2 specifically I could have just dated Merrill or Isabelle again, but I was going for the maximum possible variety. The straight female options didn't really appeal to me from a romantic story sense, so the male playthrough came off as much more engaging. I thought modern Tomb Raider's attempt to do an Uncharted was really hampered by not having the deep friendships and romances that Nate did in his games. Why not develop a love story between her and Sam over the course of the series, or have the side characters stick around and grow as Lara's support team? They really fell flat in that respect, in exchange for NO ONE'S favorite story: Lara's daddy issues.
In a more recent example, when I originally played Fire Emblem Awakening at launch, I did the male playthrough and got so sidetracked by support conversations and matchmaking the party, I never took the story missions anywhere and eventually moved on. I decided I wanted to get back into it this year and started a female Robin playthrough to make the new file distinct. I'm way more into the story this time when my character married Chrom instantly. She feels more intricately tied to the situation having married the leader, Lucina being our kid, etc. If I ever go back for the male playthrough on that one, it's going to seem inferior to me.
I don't need a protagonist that I can relate to, but I do need a protagonist that I don't actively dislike.
I will say that in choice based games with romances, I prefer dating women in all cases, regardless of whether I'm playing as a woman or as a man. If I can't date a woman, I prefer to go celibate. That actually ended me on ACO - my Kassandra was going to end up with a guy? Nope! Uninstalled, never reinstalled. On the other hand, when the game doesn't pretend to offer me choices, I have no issues - Evie's romance with Peter Green was fun.
That's probably moderately weird.
That doesn't mean I won't play a game with a female MC or think that shouldn't be a thing.
But I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer playing as a male, but in the same way I prefer to play as young to middle aged adult instead of a child or old character. I also prefer a character I find aesthetically pleasing and attractive. Having a character like that will make me able to get into a game more and in turn enjoy it more.
Because of this I also understand that having other characters is good because it allows other folks that are not me to have that same sort of experience that I get to have when I play as the kind of main characters that I prefer.
So I told myself I'd finish the Fate of Atlantis DLC and kinda hunkered down to do it which uh, is not really the ideal approach to a leisure activity. I'd finished the base game and really, really liked it and then did the first blade thing dlc, which was sorta spotty and they made that weird thing happen with the mopey kid that you fuck but don't fuck whaaaaat a baby from where? Anyways, I got through the basic intro to Elysium and then bailed for whatever else game I don't remember. Getting back into it, I went through the first chapter and it's a lot of *fucking* running around as opposed to a lot of woo! running around, but the place looks gorgeous. I went assassin so the various enemies never really mattered because they always got one shotted but a few times they got off some irritating low elysium orbit ion cannon attack before dying. I finished the first chapter up and got dumped into the fight with Cerberus which was sort of a shit boss fight but got through it, but now well, everything is fucking brown. At some point some character calls some place or other the asshole of the underworld and I was like yeah, it really is and why did they go from the best environment in the game to this? I'm kind of just playing it and not enjoying it and it doesn't really look good and then I meet Phoibe and although it feels like she's been kidnapped and murdered already a few times, Kassandra sends her off in fucking hell by herself and she gets kidnapped and murdered again and like, for fucking real? What, didn't learn the first time?
I'm really not feeling it and now I'm not even sure I want to buy AC: Valhalla (or as I prefer to call it, Ass Vikings) and this DLC is really souring me on an otherwise great game. Oh, and people I already killed show up and well, fucking whatever, I kill them again. The highlight was some forgettable cultist named Catfish or Swordfrog or something who started to go on about how he'd been waiting for me and I stabbed him in the throat with the spear, he stumbled back and fell of the cliff and died and I was like, "You're every fucking enemy in this game pal, barely even a speedbump." Like, I just fucking beat down Perseus and you think you matter in the least? I was really sad there was a cliff to push the cyclops guy off, or that we didn't get to stuff part of him into a goat's ass again, like his whole head.
Honestly, I think what really irks me is aside from the present time people that I don't give two shits about, there's been basically little to no Atlantis. I wanted some crazy ass awesome city under the water with a big ole space magic dome and whales and stuff swimming around outside it. I'm only casually into AC, but the whole present day thing could be jettisoned and I wouldn't even miss it. I do sorta feel for people who like the classic non rpgish games.
Also, don't call Syrians or well, anyone from that region white - because a lot of them don't identify as "white people." and uh, they're sure aren't. Speaking as someone with Persian co-workers, that will land you in some hot water. Moving forward the series just needs to do the pick male or female protag at the start and roll with whatever the fuck you are, Japanese (I hope next) or IDK, Slavic or ancient Roman although that has some heavy overlap with the feel of the Greek setting and the Egyptian one but oh damn, it would be slick to maybe do a run set against the decline of the Roman empire and the colliseum and such. The characters as chosen don't even have to be siblings or anything like in Odyssey or whatever the other one was and if Valhalla is literally just pick if you're the male or female and then on it goes and the one you didn't pick never appears that's totally cool, much like Bioware and male/female shepherd. Personally I liked Kassandra, but the guy who did the male voice went for the Ezio swagger and I can respect that, he definitely didn't work for me early on but I've heard some of the work from later in the game and it's alright.
Yes, the Underworld is brown and miserable, but it is Hell. There are certain expectations there.
Chapter 3 is a lot brighter (though the whole DLC really leans into the fact that most of the Isu were kinda dicks and I'm not sorry they're gone).
I set myself a Lockdown Challenge of platinuming every Creed game on the PS4.
I've now done all of them except Russia and the multiplayer of 4, and I've now made sure I won't be buying Valhalla until the Everything Included Edition is out and at like 50% off.
I will say that I absolutely LOVE the bit where you're alone and your character talks to themselves right before the end. I went with the 'so very tired' dialogue and it felt very authentic. Like, damn, I bet Alexios is very tired. I don't know, it was another moment of charm. It felt really sincere. I was upset when it was interrupted to finish the plot.
This is the proper way to Assassin Creed. Or any open-world game.
I just bought the ultra complete edition of Shadow of War for 12 bucks. That's how you do it!
Yeah, then you don’t have the awkward dlc moment of “well this dlc came out, I don’t remember what the fuck was going on with my character or the story because I played the game a year ago, do I spend 50 hours replaying with a new guy or just muddle my way through awkwardly with my old character”.
I still haven’t played Nuka World or the last POE2 dlc for that reason.
Its especially more relevant now that AC games actually have builds and whatnot.
Its not an epic story, by any means, it’s a small and very personal story. It isn’t always handled the best (IMHO too much exposition is hidden away in diary entries or optional citizen E finds which can make the main story a bit hard to follow at times), and the gameplay doesn’t play as much to its strengths as it could (the persona system could have been brilliant but doesn’t get used as much as it could, most of the time I ended up just running in assassin or slave depending on mission and never felt much reason to change or pay attention to it). It also has way too many insta-fail missions, like AC3.
That said, I enjoyed it. Not a great game for the ages but a nice addition to the III-Black Flag-Rogue canon. Aveline is a great character, and I actually enjoyed the conceit of having the game show you the whitewashed “slavery wasn’t too bad” history then confront you with the real story. Worth playing through especially given that its pretty much free.
You mean legacy of the first blade or whatever?
I like that decidedly less than any of the three arcs of the atlantis DLC, soooo
Yeah, whatever the one that starts up in Makhedonia and gives you a set of Junior Woodchucks cultists.
Either way, I love the material, but I don't have the time to comb every inch of the landscape any more...
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Game is honestly looking really awesome.
Gonna be hard waiting to play this until after Cyberpunk but good to know I'll have another big world to get lost in afterwards.
I’m going to wait on this, maybe wait for the full Series X enhanced version.
I still have Origins to play through, and as you say, after Cyberpunk I think I’ll take a break from 100 hour open world games.
I’m looking forward to it, though.
Alright the settlement stuff + what we know about the gear upgrading system is really setting this game up to be something super rad.
This is why I bought a PS5 and an Xbox Series X - this way, I can play both games at the same time.
I still need to buy a second tv tho
Some breakdowns of the new info.
http://thecodex.network/acv-settlement-info/
http://thecodex.network/acv-news-oct13/
WOLFY!
But like serious, this game is sounding better and better. May be a legit GotY contender which is a crazy thought.