assbro - complete for various definitions of complete
I think I burned through AC: Brotherhood about as fast as I've ever gone through a game. So yes, addictive and interesting. Packed to the gills with various missions, searches, events, and other crap to keep you occupied for a while - I maybe have done a quarter of the total unlockables in the game, and this time they even tied a portion of them to unlockable story - nothing keeps me playing a game like more story.
Speaking of story, let's talk about the one part of the game that continues to let me down:
**SPOILERS FOR ALL OF AC: BROTHERHOOD. I GO INTO SOME DETAIL ABOUT WHY DESMOND SUCKS AND OTHER THINGS AS WELL INCLUDING THE ENDING**
What I don't understand at all about Desmond's complete lack of anything resembling interest or a personality is that the game has proven with Ezio that the writers know how to make you care at least enough for these characters to keep the game moving. One of the early unlockable memories involved you carrying the bodies of your dead family down to the river after they were hanged in the first game. It honestly felt a little sad to stand there with Ezio's brother's body in his arms, because at that point you have a game-and-a-half invested in him and you can pretty well imagine what he's feeling.
The game couldn't even commit to bringing Desmond in as a total unknown who could at least be forgiven for his lack of understanding or personality - he grew up as an assassin until his early teens, even though this apparently didn't translate into any sort of rudimentary knowledge or skill set - I honestly don't know why it's there in his past and I don't think the writers do either.
Especially since these devoted 'Assassins' spend their time e-mailing each other about how they wish they could go back to 'normal' lives. Which sort of seems to go entirely against the entire history you're living through with Ezio, with the brotherhood and the purpose and the high ideals of individual freedom they're fighting for against the Templars... but anyway.
So we've had two and a half games now of Desmond Miles, and he continues to be blessedly personality or interest-free. He has tepid, sentence-long conversations with his 'team,' dropped in between two or three hours of game time, and I think less than five encounters with Lucy that might actually be classified as even minor character development. Which are pretty much instantaneously destroyed by her immediate return to brusque, disinterested silence.
Every single attempt for me to build any sort of emotional connection to Desmond or his story is cut off at the knees by the writers refusal to actually let a conversation happen. The only reason I'm partial to Shaun is because at least he uses his allotment of syllables in the bitchiest, cattiest, most childish way possible.
So the big climactic moment of this game is that Lucy gets stabbed, and I'm supposed to think there's something bigger going on here than Desmond just losing a tenative ally, because Lucy is a girl and vaguely attractive so OF COURSE it must be True Love For Reals.
Pretty people always fall in true love. Especially in games or movies or comics, where everyone is pretty. See it totally makes sense.
I mean, my reaction to her getting stabbed - and presumably getting dead - was: "Wow, I'll sure miss all that time we spent ______. Oh yeah, and that time she _______."
Apart from one vaguely personal, utterly cliche moment, the only thing Desmond's possibly going to miss is all the time Lucy spent telling him to STFU about his life and his fears of being driven irrevocably insane and get his ass back in the Animus.
Misty watercolored memories, I tell you.
So yeah, you say, but Desmond is only 1/5 of the game anyway - the stories are all about Ezio and Altair, etc. Well, they are for now, but the overarching story belongs to Desmond, his journey is going to be the Climactic Final Battle, and not only at this point do I not give a shit if he wins it, I kind of doubt he has the capacity to show that there's anything at stake.
In conclusion, the Assassin's Creed games have a fun mechanic, absolutely beautiful design elements and enough to keep me coming back, but if they don't do something to make Desmond actually worth paying attention to, it's going to be one of those games I love "except for..." when that 'except for' is supposed to be the backbone of the story.
Speaking of story, let's talk about the one part of the game that continues to let me down:
**SPOILERS FOR ALL OF AC: BROTHERHOOD. I GO INTO SOME DETAIL ABOUT WHY DESMOND SUCKS AND OTHER THINGS AS WELL INCLUDING THE ENDING**
What I don't understand at all about Desmond's complete lack of anything resembling interest or a personality is that the game has proven with Ezio that the writers know how to make you care at least enough for these characters to keep the game moving. One of the early unlockable memories involved you carrying the bodies of your dead family down to the river after they were hanged in the first game. It honestly felt a little sad to stand there with Ezio's brother's body in his arms, because at that point you have a game-and-a-half invested in him and you can pretty well imagine what he's feeling.
The game couldn't even commit to bringing Desmond in as a total unknown who could at least be forgiven for his lack of understanding or personality - he grew up as an assassin until his early teens, even though this apparently didn't translate into any sort of rudimentary knowledge or skill set - I honestly don't know why it's there in his past and I don't think the writers do either.
Especially since these devoted 'Assassins' spend their time e-mailing each other about how they wish they could go back to 'normal' lives. Which sort of seems to go entirely against the entire history you're living through with Ezio, with the brotherhood and the purpose and the high ideals of individual freedom they're fighting for against the Templars... but anyway.
So we've had two and a half games now of Desmond Miles, and he continues to be blessedly personality or interest-free. He has tepid, sentence-long conversations with his 'team,' dropped in between two or three hours of game time, and I think less than five encounters with Lucy that might actually be classified as even minor character development. Which are pretty much instantaneously destroyed by her immediate return to brusque, disinterested silence.
Every single attempt for me to build any sort of emotional connection to Desmond or his story is cut off at the knees by the writers refusal to actually let a conversation happen. The only reason I'm partial to Shaun is because at least he uses his allotment of syllables in the bitchiest, cattiest, most childish way possible.
So the big climactic moment of this game is that Lucy gets stabbed, and I'm supposed to think there's something bigger going on here than Desmond just losing a tenative ally, because Lucy is a girl and vaguely attractive so OF COURSE it must be True Love For Reals.
Pretty people always fall in true love. Especially in games or movies or comics, where everyone is pretty. See it totally makes sense.
I mean, my reaction to her getting stabbed - and presumably getting dead - was: "Wow, I'll sure miss all that time we spent ______. Oh yeah, and that time she _______."
Apart from one vaguely personal, utterly cliche moment, the only thing Desmond's possibly going to miss is all the time Lucy spent telling him to STFU about his life and his fears of being driven irrevocably insane and get his ass back in the Animus.
Misty watercolored memories, I tell you.
So yeah, you say, but Desmond is only 1/5 of the game anyway - the stories are all about Ezio and Altair, etc. Well, they are for now, but the overarching story belongs to Desmond, his journey is going to be the Climactic Final Battle, and not only at this point do I not give a shit if he wins it, I kind of doubt he has the capacity to show that there's anything at stake.
In conclusion, the Assassin's Creed games have a fun mechanic, absolutely beautiful design elements and enough to keep me coming back, but if they don't do something to make Desmond actually worth paying attention to, it's going to be one of those games I love "except for..." when that 'except for' is supposed to be the backbone of the story.