Dear Master of Assassins
Hey,
It's been a while since I last wrote. Part of it was that Assassin's Creed 3 was so bad I didn't want to keep up with the series (although I heard good things about the pirate-assassin installment that followed) and then I just sorta stopped playing video games.
Over Christmas, I picked up a new Xbox One (because I'm a console scrub who has brand loyalty) and I've been playing through a few games.
First up, is Forza Horizon 3, an open-world, arcade driving game like Burnout Paradise City or Burnout: Most Wanted. The game is set in "Australia" and you go bombing around rain forest, beaches, farmland, outback, and urban centers. You unlock new cars and new events and just try to go fast and look good doing it. I really like it. The controls are responsive, and the physics are pretty good. I will say that, being Australia, there's a lot of off-roading so while the Lamborghinis and Ferraris are beautiful, they lose that luster once you get off the road. So my car of choice has been a Subaru WRX 05 rally car that handles highways and dirt roads no sweat. It's a solid game and I've been enjoying it.
Next, I gave Far Cry 4 a try. I really enjoyed Far Cry 3 and I was curious to give it another spin. So, often the series has a bit of the old "white guy saves native people" problem, although it does put twists and spins on it that helps it avoid a lot of this trope's issues. This time, you are Ajay, a refugee from the Nepal-like country of Kyrat. So although a bit of an outsider, you are actually a member of the ethnic group you're trying to save. Of course, you never really see your face and you wear gloves so it's not like your confronted by that visually very often but still.
Anyway, you're here to scatter your mom's ashes but then you get pulled into the civil war that caused you to flee in the first place. So you run around, kill bad guys, get near-supernatural powers to hunt down bad guys, and kill lots of endangered creatures so you make a bigger bag to store your ammo in. You liberate towns, forts, and radio towers. You take on various missions and eventually you reach the end only to realize it was all a huge waste.
See, the rebels have two rival commanders who have different approaches to waging war. You, as the son of the former rebel head, are used as a political football to help one or the other reach the top. So you'll get a mission where each rebel leader wants you to do something different. Despite the fact that you are the long-lost golden child of a fondly remembered rebel leader and despite the fact that you actually get stuff done, you can't become the actual head of the rebellion, nor can you try and work out a compromise between the conflicting things the rebel leaders want you to do. In the end, no matter who you back, you feel like you've just made things worse somehow. Which, actually, is something I kind of like about this series -- interventions may not always produce successful outcomes.
So the game is fun, but it gets a bit tedious and given your complete inability to actually affect any positive change, I mostly just pushed through to the end of the story and then dumped it.
What replaced it is why I'm writing to the Master of Assassins. I didn't pick up a new Assassin's Creed game, instead I picked up Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.
Um...this game is awesome.
So you play Talion, a ranger who works at the Black Gate protecting Gondor and watching over Mordor lest evil returns. Then...evil returns and kills everyone, including your wife and son. You, however, are fused with the spirit of an ancient elf and return to get revenge on the forces of Sauron.
You start off with a sneak attack and that's about it. Even two or three orcs will quickly overwhelm you. But as time goes on you gain more skills, your weapons (sword, bow and dagger) get runes that you can use to swap in and out various bonuses or powers. Eventually, you just wade into dozens of orcs and just straight-up wreck them. Even better, you eventually gain the power magically brand the orcs and put them under your control. So you sneak around, brand a bunch of mooks and then turn them against their boss.
The coolest part of this game, however, is the orcish chain of command. You've got your mooks and then your captains, verterans, chiefs and warchiefs. All of these guys have special powers and weaknesses and you don't know what they are until you track down and interrogate special "informant orcs". You can pick them off without researching them, but it helps to know more about them.
All well and good, but the brilliant bit comes when you kill one of these ranking orcs. See, when you do that, there's now this hole in the chain of command. Eventually, some lower-ranking orc will be promoted to fill his place. On top of that, if you get killed by some random mook (and it will happen), that mook will get promoted to captain and gain a name and special powers. And if a ranking guy kills you they often get stronger gaining new powers.
So you get killed by a mook and they become a captain. You go after him, but he kills you a second time, getting stronger. Let me tell you, you get real invested in killing this guy after a while. On top of that, ranking orcs have power struggles so the chain of command can change without you doing anything. On top of that if you mind-control an orc, you can help him rise through the ranks. To take out some of the later high-ranking warchiefs, I mind-controlled his lower-ranking bodyguard and had them turn against him. The overall effect is to create this dynamic environment of targets to go after and you feel like your actions are really making a difference.
Just a really solid game and I highly recommend it.
So no Templars, no business dealings, no bevy of beauties to strike down targets, but probably the best assassin's creed game I've played in a while.
later
Tom
It's been a while since I last wrote. Part of it was that Assassin's Creed 3 was so bad I didn't want to keep up with the series (although I heard good things about the pirate-assassin installment that followed) and then I just sorta stopped playing video games.
Over Christmas, I picked up a new Xbox One (because I'm a console scrub who has brand loyalty) and I've been playing through a few games.
First up, is Forza Horizon 3, an open-world, arcade driving game like Burnout Paradise City or Burnout: Most Wanted. The game is set in "Australia" and you go bombing around rain forest, beaches, farmland, outback, and urban centers. You unlock new cars and new events and just try to go fast and look good doing it. I really like it. The controls are responsive, and the physics are pretty good. I will say that, being Australia, there's a lot of off-roading so while the Lamborghinis and Ferraris are beautiful, they lose that luster once you get off the road. So my car of choice has been a Subaru WRX 05 rally car that handles highways and dirt roads no sweat. It's a solid game and I've been enjoying it.
Next, I gave Far Cry 4 a try. I really enjoyed Far Cry 3 and I was curious to give it another spin. So, often the series has a bit of the old "white guy saves native people" problem, although it does put twists and spins on it that helps it avoid a lot of this trope's issues. This time, you are Ajay, a refugee from the Nepal-like country of Kyrat. So although a bit of an outsider, you are actually a member of the ethnic group you're trying to save. Of course, you never really see your face and you wear gloves so it's not like your confronted by that visually very often but still.
Anyway, you're here to scatter your mom's ashes but then you get pulled into the civil war that caused you to flee in the first place. So you run around, kill bad guys, get near-supernatural powers to hunt down bad guys, and kill lots of endangered creatures so you make a bigger bag to store your ammo in. You liberate towns, forts, and radio towers. You take on various missions and eventually you reach the end only to realize it was all a huge waste.
See, the rebels have two rival commanders who have different approaches to waging war. You, as the son of the former rebel head, are used as a political football to help one or the other reach the top. So you'll get a mission where each rebel leader wants you to do something different. Despite the fact that you are the long-lost golden child of a fondly remembered rebel leader and despite the fact that you actually get stuff done, you can't become the actual head of the rebellion, nor can you try and work out a compromise between the conflicting things the rebel leaders want you to do. In the end, no matter who you back, you feel like you've just made things worse somehow. Which, actually, is something I kind of like about this series -- interventions may not always produce successful outcomes.
So the game is fun, but it gets a bit tedious and given your complete inability to actually affect any positive change, I mostly just pushed through to the end of the story and then dumped it.
What replaced it is why I'm writing to the Master of Assassins. I didn't pick up a new Assassin's Creed game, instead I picked up Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.
Um...this game is awesome.
So you play Talion, a ranger who works at the Black Gate protecting Gondor and watching over Mordor lest evil returns. Then...evil returns and kills everyone, including your wife and son. You, however, are fused with the spirit of an ancient elf and return to get revenge on the forces of Sauron.
You start off with a sneak attack and that's about it. Even two or three orcs will quickly overwhelm you. But as time goes on you gain more skills, your weapons (sword, bow and dagger) get runes that you can use to swap in and out various bonuses or powers. Eventually, you just wade into dozens of orcs and just straight-up wreck them. Even better, you eventually gain the power magically brand the orcs and put them under your control. So you sneak around, brand a bunch of mooks and then turn them against their boss.
The coolest part of this game, however, is the orcish chain of command. You've got your mooks and then your captains, verterans, chiefs and warchiefs. All of these guys have special powers and weaknesses and you don't know what they are until you track down and interrogate special "informant orcs". You can pick them off without researching them, but it helps to know more about them.
All well and good, but the brilliant bit comes when you kill one of these ranking orcs. See, when you do that, there's now this hole in the chain of command. Eventually, some lower-ranking orc will be promoted to fill his place. On top of that, if you get killed by some random mook (and it will happen), that mook will get promoted to captain and gain a name and special powers. And if a ranking guy kills you they often get stronger gaining new powers.
So you get killed by a mook and they become a captain. You go after him, but he kills you a second time, getting stronger. Let me tell you, you get real invested in killing this guy after a while. On top of that, ranking orcs have power struggles so the chain of command can change without you doing anything. On top of that if you mind-control an orc, you can help him rise through the ranks. To take out some of the later high-ranking warchiefs, I mind-controlled his lower-ranking bodyguard and had them turn against him. The overall effect is to create this dynamic environment of targets to go after and you feel like your actions are really making a difference.
Just a really solid game and I highly recommend it.
So no Templars, no business dealings, no bevy of beauties to strike down targets, but probably the best assassin's creed game I've played in a while.
later
Tom