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Assassin’s Creed III (Wii U): COMPLETED!

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Well, I’m glad I didn’t spoil the ending for myself before getting to it at least. Not nearly as bad as people had made out though. There may be spoilers to follow…

I didn’t like the final two “boss” fights. Haytham’s was complete rubbish and different to any other fight in the game, and Charles Lee’s was basically a chase followed by a cutscene. You don’t actually get to properly assassinate either of them – it’s done for you by the game.

There’s no way I’m going back to the game to do everything it suggests I can do. I’m not going hunting, collecting things for the homestead, doing naval battles, collecting feathers or doing any liberation missions or assassination contracts. Unlike similar things in previous games, all these things seem completely superfluous to the narrative. Sure, they weren’t essential before, but they’re an unnecessary chore here – not a fun character and/or money building task.

Speaking of money, there is literally no point to it in Assassin’s Creed III. You gain enough from simply following the story to unlock all of the extra weapons like rope darts and poison, and you never need to restock any as people you kill replenish them easily enough. As a result, I ended the game having only spent about £2000 on such unlockables, with a good £70,000 still in my pocket. At least in other AC games you could buy better swords and things, but here you don’t even need a sword and I never used one, intentionally at least (there’s a bug where you sometimes automatically get equipped with one for no reason), at any point in the game.

What I did do, however, following the end of the game, was find all the pivot points to get the “animus hacks”. Which was fun for a bit, although Fast Travel stopped working again so I had to go everywhere à pied. Sadly, these hacks were not as fantastic as they sounded (invincible, unlimited ammo, fast reload) as when applied you can’t save your game. Tch.

Overall thoughts on Assassin’s Creed III? Yeah, it’s aight.

Assassin’s Creed III (Wii U)

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And so the neck-stabbing continues.

Well, I say that, but in fact it doesn’t. One major issue I have with this version of Assassin’s Creed is that you have no way of telling when you’re supposed to press Y to assassinate anyone. You have to guess, whereas previously it would appear as a prompt on-screen. Which means that most of the time you either miss, or worse, miss and everyone notices you.

As a result, picking off guards one by one is rarely possible, and you instead have to go for the all-out fight. That’s fine, as the fighting is excellent (I especially like the slow-mo attack reversals), but it’s not usually the best option. Far better to wipe out as many redcoats as possible in secret first – especially if they’re the harder to kill types who you don’t really want to take on in open combat. Yet another reason why it doesn’t feel like Assassin’s Creed.

So yeah, less neck-and-back stabbing, more chest and face slicing. Mmm.

Plotwise, I’ve just met up with Daddy and am “bonding” with him. We did some missions together and did a terrible naval battle thing. He berated me a lot, and I told him he was a bad man. Then we stabbed all the men.

Site updates

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Not much to add here, but I have updated the Games Museum section again. I’ve taken it over 2000 titles now!

Hopefully, I’ll be adding some more bits and pieces to the site soon. Yeah, I’ve been saying that for a long time, but you never know…

God(s) Eater Burst (PSP)

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Okay, so there seems to be some confusion about the title of this game. Sometimes GOD eater, sometimes GODS. Who knows what it actually is. In game, the team you work with are known as GOD eaters so we’ll go with that one.

Regardless, the premise is simple. You kill ridiculously large monsters with ridiculously large swords and ridiculously large guns. There’s an amount of corpse-scavenging, an amount of crafting and the whole thing is designed for multiplayer. Sounds just like Monster Hunter, you cry. And you’d be right – it’s very like Monster Hunter. But with one important difference (well, two, but I’ll get to that); it doesn’t have the same brutally difficult leaning curve, particularly with regards to the controls. You can, to an extent, get away with flailing wildly at things in the early missions but you’d do well to learn to duck, weave and dodge. The difference is, God Eater Burst has fluid, fast and responsive controls and (in my opinion) Monster Hunter… doesn’t.

I’ve only played through the tutorials and 1st Tier missions, so I’m not hugely far in, but I have gone backhand replayed missions to improve my rank as well as to just try some things out and see what different strategies yield. All in all, I can see myself spending rather a lot of time with this one.

Rune Factory (DS)

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This shouldn’t be possible. How can I be addicted to a Harvest Moon game again? They’re all the same (more or less) and yet I’ve been addicted to every single one of them. Rune Factory, though, is a wee bit different. Kinda. Sorta. You’re still put in charge of a farm. You still grow crops, upgrade your house, make friends, get married, raise children and all that other lovely Harvest Moon goodness.

Except they’ve added dungeons. And monsters. And levels. And stats. And more OCD-triggering collectibles than you can shake a stick at. In short: I’m doomed.

So anyway, I’ve played the first four hours and here’s what I’ve achieved. Got some land organised, tidied away some sticks to kick start my woodpile once I get an axe, grown some radishes and potatoes and things. Met most of the people in the town – including one called Sharron. I have designs on Sharron. Oh yes :)

After doing a fair bit of ploughing and preparing the ground, I was given a pass for the first cavern system (which, incidentally, you can plant crops in and which stay the same season! Handy!). Sadly, I almost got ganked by a monster as soon as I went in, and if your HP falls to zero, you die. Not good. So I ran away. I’ve also done rather a lot of fishing. There’s something deeply relaxing about it.

So – plan B. I’m going to leave the caves alone for the first year, at least until I can afford some decent gear.

Oh! And there’s mining.