Assassin's Creed III: The Super Secret Character

Assassin's Creed III is a third person sandbox stealth/action adventure game. I can't really think of any better way to categorize the game then that. As far as I can tell it was developed and published by Ubisoft. It wass released Oct. 2012. Assassin's Creed III follows the story of Ratonhnhaké:ton, a half Native American/ half British character. We follow him by viewing the memories of one Desmond Miles through his use of the machine called the Animus. A device which allows you to relive the memories of your ancestors, and boy does Desmond have a lot of mixed blood.

But first the game has to pull a fast one on you! All of the pre-game press for this game talked about the character Ratonhnhaké:ton (aka Connor). But when you first play you are dropped behind the guise of Nathan Kenway. Wait, his name is Haytham? I always thought it was Nathan. Well glad I got that out of the way.

So we start the game playing Desmond for a little as the backstory of the series is laid out for you. I got to admit that the backstory of Assassin's Creed is more then a little confusing. Especially when they decided to involve space aliens but this one has gone and tied the whole game to the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy. Good thing I started playing the game now before the world ends.

Shortly after the intro Desmond passes out and his dick of a dad shoves him into the Animus to learn what he's thinking about. It's somehow related to these space aliens. One space alien tries to guide the Assassin's and I guess the other one guides the Assassin's mortal enemies, the Templars. Space aliens have kind of sucked the fun out of the backstory for me, I'll be honest.

Anyways once in the Animus we meet Desmond's ancestor Haytham. Haytham is a very proper British man-of-action type character. We follow him from England to the American colonies where Haytham is on a quest to find a secret cave of the Precursors (the space aliens). Once in America Haytham recruits a team of characters to help him with his quest. This eventually includes the Native American woman Kaniehtí:io (Ziio).

I'm not going to go to much into his story as it is a very quick portion of the game (2 - 3 hours if you don't do sidequests) but I will talk about the big twist! As you follow Haytham around you never for a moment suspect that he is anything but an Assassin. He climbs buildings, uses a hidden dagger and has the eagle vision. Everything about him screams Assassin.

After Haytham finds the cave of the Precursors, fails to find a way in and greatly frustrating him he spends a night with Ziio. I really start to feel sorry for Desmond, he's had to relieve all of his ancestor's having sex at some point in there life. That has to be like some major creepy version of walking in on your parents or something. The poor guy would probably be scarred if he had a personality. Anyways Haytham goes back to his merry band of men and they induct a new member into their order. I was expecting this guy's finger off. Instead they put a ring on his finger and declare his a Templar! Shock and amaze! Desmond has more Templar blood in him!

Now I really didn't see this coming so kudos to Ubisoft for pulling it off. But it's not a big deal for Desmond since Altair's wife Maria was a Templar as well. The difference is that Haytham remains with the Templar's while Maria eventually left them.

So that was the big plot twist. I think Ubisoft was trying to make Haytham a little more engaging of a character by having you play him for a bit. All it ever really does is annoy me though. I didn't like playing as Roxas in Kingdom Hearts II. I kept waiting to get to Sora since he was the character I cared about. I didn't like playing as the Arbiter in Halo. Again, I kept wanting to get back to Master Chief. So I can say that I'm not a fan. I wanted to play as Connor. But now that I've got the chance to play as Connor I may regret that.

So I Feel Like Posting

Ugh, haven't touched this thing in nearly a year. Happily working and when you throw in my family it all keeps me really busy. Not like I have any followers to worry about right now. Maybe if I was more consistent. So let's talk about some of the games I have been playing recently.

I joined Playstation Plus for the Instant Game Collection. Sadly I missed out on Just Cause 2 but I did get a few others and these will be some really quick thoughts.

Infamous 2: The Continuing Story of Cole McGrath.
My biggest complaint with the first game was the camera and that the entire story was just a big build up for the second game. Well the second game pays off. The camera is still an issue but gameplay is really tight and the story is fantastic. The moral dilemma at the end of the game really works, will Cole save himself or will he save Zeke. Oh and how they tie in The Beast. Well played Sucker Punch.

My only real complaint was the companion switch at the very end of the game. I liked Kuo. I didn't care for Nix, at all. I took the moral high ground so I assumed that I would be fighting alongside Kuo at the very end of the game. Instead I ended up working with Nix and fighting Kuo. Not the type of twist that I really enjoyed.

Saints Row 2: Please Sir, May I Have Another.
I almost turned this game off shortly after starting it. It was the very dated graphics that got to me but then I remembered something I always like to say, "Graphics don't make the game." So I pushed forward with the title and I was well rewarded for it. Saints Row 2 is an excellent game. It's got that level of crazy that I really liked from San Andreas and it wraps it all up in a great sense of style. This game knows what it is and the ludicrousness of what it is all about so it does not hold back. Definitely worth checking it out.

My gripe, cars that purposefully got in your way. I hated when I was doing a chase scene down a busy street and every car seemed to swerve straight for you. I knew there was an issue when I could tell how a car was going to behave. It started to become really easy to guess which ones were going to target you.

Oh, and I went with the British voice. Totally made the game for me.

Starhawk - Single Player: MultiPlayer Training Only. 
Oh geez is this bad. Starhawk is the spiritual sequel to Warhawk, a multiplayer only game that was designed to show off the Six Axis controller. The catch with Starhawk was they added a single player mode! Well good for us. Except that story, characters and overall gameplay just sucks. I can't even tell you the main characters name, only that the story involved him having to kill his brother who was possessed by some Mako Stream energy source stuff.

The game's single player mode is all about teaching you how to play the multiplayer mode. It's roughly 5 - 6 hours long and it gives you all the tips and tricks to survive with your buddies when online. Except that I didn't care. The novel resource management and RTS elements never really seemed to click with me. You could build up energy and drop a turret into the battlefield and that was about all I did. With waves of enemy troops coming I would drop nothing but turrets in the enemy drop zone so they would die immediately. I only used the other options when the game said I had to.

And the flight sections, those just made me miss Star Fox 64.

Well, I will leave it at that for now. I'm playing through Assassin's Creed III at the moment so if I post about that then I will almost feel relevant. I also have a game of Warhammer: Space Marine in the works. *Sigh*

Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - Quick Thoughts

Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3. Where do I begin with this? I'm going to make this short and quick but I wanted to say something about it.I'm a casual fighting game player so I don't get into the mechanics of it very often. I don't really notice the re-balancing of characters or how some moves have been nerfed. Dante is still a massive powerhouse to me and I still enjoy playing him.

You know what I don't enjoy about this game? Phoenix Wright. What a wasted character he is. He has to be the weakest, most annoying character ever to appear in a fighting game. His mechanics and gameplay are just SOOOOOO awful. I kept trying to see his ending but the way he randomly flails about makes it really hard to attack. I couldn't believe how bad of a character he is. There were so many other characters out there who would've been SOOOOO much better.

I actually enjoy Nemesis though. He's a pretty slick powerhouse of a character. Still not happy with him being another Resident Evil character. We really didn't need 4 of them in this game.

That's probably my biggest complaint with this game though. A lot of the new characters feel like wasted choices. Off hand I would throw out Rocket Raccoon, Phoenix Wright, Nemesis, Vergil, Nova, Iron Fist and Firebrand. Wow that half of the dozen new characters that were added.

Now for who I would've replaced them with? Rogue, Silver Surfer, Blade, Nick Fury, Ms. Marvel, Daredevil, Cyclops, Psylocke, Nightcrawler, Black Widow, or Luke Cage would've been better choices on the Marvel side. Seriously they should have just studied Marvel Ultimate Alliance for a great character list. Squirrel Girl should have been the most obvious choice for this game.What a missed opportunity.

For Capcom, how about classic Mega Man (and no, not the crappy North American boxart version. I liked the joke for Mega Man Universe but having that version show up in Street Fighter X Tekken is taking it a lot to far). Rival Schools and Power Stone both had characters ripe for the plucking. How about Regina from Dinos Crisis? Or how about someone from the Onimusha games? Why not someone from the Breath of Fire series? There were so many untouched games with much more potential then what was used.

Part of me hopes for character  DLC in the future but I think Capcom will stick to lame costumes and call it good. (Seriously, why would anyone pay money just to change a costume? That crap should have been included on disc.)

So I fell for the double-dip. That's my choice. What can ya do? I'm just going to have to deal with it.

Warriors Orochi 3 - The Great Gut Wrench!

Hey. It's been a bit but no one actually reads this blog anyways so I'm not all that concerned. I just felt that typing this out will help me vent a little bit. Maybe fix this bum mood that I'm in. This is probably a very silly reason to upset but I will admit that it did get to me. You see, I'm a big fan of of Koei's Warrior series of games. I was bummed when Samurai Warriors 3 was Wii exclusive (I still think that was a dumb move). But I've been eagerly awaiting the announcement that Warriors Orochi 3 was coming to the U.S and that I could get it for my PS3. On January 23 that announcement finally came!

Man was I excited. It was supposed to launch on March 20th which is right before my birthday so I thought that this was perfect. It would make such a great b-day present. But today I was looking up some info when I ran across the news, some really bad news (to me at least). The game will be released in with Japanese vocal track only.

WTF?!

Now I understand that the Warriors games have become more a niche thing and are no longer the massive seller here in the States that it once was. But now the series has gone super-niche. It will appeal only to those who enjoy subtitles.With the Warriors games being fast paced it's not exactly easy  to read during battle. It doesn't help that I only have a standard def TV and no one makes text readable for those types of TVs anymore. It's really frustrating not being able to tell if it's an 8 or b that's on screen and this isn't going to help me any.

So I'm going to pass on Warriors Orochi 3 for now. My excitement level is completely crushed and I will admit that I feel kind of betrayed by Koei. I've always been a day one purchaser of their product. Now I get that they don't actually owe me anything, but it doesn't change the way that I feel about it. I may still pick it up when it's going for under $20. And then it will probably be used too...

Now if they happen to announce a free English voice pack download to fix this horrendous mistake then I will reconsider my purchasing plans. But at this point I just don't care if they stop releasing the games overseas. I would like to listen to the game in my own language. Anyone else is afforded the same right. Just as I have to forgo my purchase.

Thanks for memories Koei. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm sad to see that you've stopped trying.