Assassins Creed III

Dark Souls, Just Cause 2, Infamous1/2, Dragon's Dogma, hell even Batman AC are awesome because they give you a playground and let you just have your way! AC3 is one of these games with the exception of the forever intro... I'm really bewildered at how they thought it was a good idea. Hell even the later missions are better then the first missions, which you would think for new players they are trying to hook you in not run you away lol.

I think another problem is always the people I know who are into it. They think it has an amazing story and talk to me about how amazing the idea is and how "Deep" everything is.

That's probably made it so I can never just enjoy it as entertainment.

Honestly, the story at best is ehhh passable lol. It reminds me of the direction of the Final Fantasy series. FF13 is by no means a garbage game, however; I think they were taking it down the wrong direction. So they create FF-13-2 to which I'm like oh ok try to fix things I guess I get that. But to be making Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns... kinda just blows me away. Stop forcing these characters onto us, we get it you freaking love lightning but not alot of people are screaming for her return. Its just like Desmond, ok sure the story is there, but really feels unnecessary....

At least when everyone told Kojima they didn't like Raiden, they didn't try to force with his stand alone...Oh...

Actually Rising doesn't look bad to me despite the fact that I hate Raiden. It actually looks like it might be fun. It seems like it really should be a whole other game series though.

I'm glad they are not calling it "Solid" and it does look like it has potential though. I didn't hate Raiden but it was a punch in the balls having to use him instead of Snake in MGS 2 lol. I got my Zone of the Enders HD collection at home waiting for me, kinda excited to play the demo for it when I get home.

As far as it all relating to AC 3 though they really shouldn't be trying to shove this story down our throats at this point. Give us our Assassin, and let us go about our Assassin ways lol. I think Revelations was a success in that matter, even if it was a war of attrition at that point lol.

That's my view when it comes to gaming. "Let me actually play my game."

I forgot about Dragons Dogma. How could I? I thoroughly enjoyed that game in my break from DKS between PTD and console DLC.

From a purely visual standpoint, I actually like DD more than DKS. I've always wanted a Greek type landscape with mythological creatures that I was familiar with as a kid. DD gave it to me. I just wish it would have stayed purely Greek and not mixed with midieval and fantasy as well.

While as a whole the gameplay in DD can't stack up against DKS, all of the enemies you face were very memorable to me and a few of the areas really stand out in my mind.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:While as a whole the gameplay in DD can't stack up against DKS, all of the enemies you face were very memorable to me and a few of the areas really stand out in my mind.

Dragon's Dogma is the perfect companion game to Dark Souls I believe. Yes to me Dark Souls trumps it in many ways. However, I love the way Dragon's Dogma makes you feel as compared to some elements in Dark Souls. Let me explain, Dark Souls makes no means to attempt to make you feel like a badass. Even the spells effects are not their to please you, they are their to do a job. This works great really because if you're skilled enough you make yourself feel like a badass by doing well with the game. Dragon's Dogma while difficult in the beginning seems to go out of it's way to make you feel like an overpowered god, in most games this doesn't work, but it does for some reason here.

Not sure if you've heard but they are adding a pretty big expansion to DD sometime next year. New areas, bosses etc. It's called Dark Arisen and supposedly they are adding in a "hard mode" which I really look forward too. Even if it will prolly only artificially raise the difficulty by bumping up mob stats I'm ok with that lol.

*Edit 1 OH! and I was freaking sold when I found out that Berserk Armor was in the game. That got me soooo excited to see that. Then all of the Berserk references started pouring in =)

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:I forgot about Dragons Dogma. How could I? I thoroughly enjoyed that game in my break from DKS between PTD and console DLC.

From a purely visual standpoint, I actually like DD more than DKS. I've always wanted a Greek type landscape with mythological creatures that I was familiar with as a kid. DD gave it to me. I just wish it would have stayed purely Greek and not mixed with midieval and fantasy as well.

Oh and a Greeky style game in the same vein as DD or Dark Souls would be extremely interesting. Similar to Assassin's Creed they need to take what works and improve upon it, and honestly the story has never really worked lol. Ezio's story was great but they milked it CoD style and everyone got tired of it. Really I want them to polish the game play elements, make more interesting missions and improve upon the whole stealth assassin type gameplay. Other than that just change the setting.... like ancient China, Japan, Mesopotamia, India.... To me most Assassin's Creed games are about the area, that's the true star, the character while important can always take a back seat in these cases.

I really want a massive open world set in ancient Greece and Asia minor. I want the story to be that you are a warrior on a quest to seek fame and honor. I want that to be the entire depth of the story. You never beat the game, you are perpetually seeking that great battle that will make you a legend. The game will be designed so that the difficult just keeps growing and growing, until one day you'll have to retire because it will become too hard. Players would compete for high scores, so to speak, though I would want the game to last for hundreds of hours before it got to the point of impossibility.

There would be different areas and each one would hold its own legends. Golden fleece here, Cyclops there, mountain of the gods o'er yonder...

You make a great victory, people reward you, you buy better weapons, you hire men to fight for you.

I want slow paced, methodical combat akin to DKS, but with more move variations, and the enemy attack patterns are more randomized, so that the combat is not a matter of recognizing patterns but more spontaneous and realistic.

The majority of the enemies would be human, and only in the most remote places would you chance upon mythical creatures, and when you do they have to be outstandingly difficult. They would also take special techniques. Poking a giants feet won't do, you have to use your own imagination to find a way to fell him and cut his neck. I don't want giant monsters that could realistically never be defeated by a sword, I want creatures that just barely push pass believability and take you from intense man vs. man fights into something even more intense.

I don't want any in game menus whatsoever. I want everything to be done visually. No upgrades, no stats. You have a character who controls well and you use weapons that you buy or loot. The weapons have no names, descriptions, or stats, everything is learned by use. Weapons will have realistic damaging, i.e. you bash your sword against a shield twenty times and now you have a metal club. This way you are always having to use different weapons. No two weapons are the same. The autogenerator from BL2 is the idea here, but with ancient weaponry not going beyond the bronze age.

For ranged weapons, bows, javelins, bolo's, slings, etc, there is no crosshair or aiming aid. You have to learn to do it instinctually.

No magic, no healing. No horses. No fast travel. No maps. Everything is done by description and memory. Searching for an old sailors vague description of a great treasure would be an adventure in itself. The more you suck at paying close attention, the bigger the adventure. I want AI that fears death and pain, and thus most fights end in a route, not all at carnage. I want gaining a kill to be difficult to the point that it feels like a huge success when you finally get a deadly blow.

I want characters like those in DKS, who are on their own journeys and may or may not aid you. I want them to be quiet and stoic and to reflect the psychology of the era. I don't like characters who are meant to be either good or bad.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:I really want a massive open world set in ancient Greece and Asia minor. I want the story to be that you are a warrior on a quest to seek fame and honor. I want that to be the entire depth of the story. You never beat the game, you are perpetually seeking that great battle that will make you a legend. The game will be designed so that the difficult just keeps growing and growing, until one day you'll have to retire because it will become too hard. Players would compete for high scores, so to speak, though I would want the game to last for hundreds of hours before it got to the point of impossibility.

There would be different areas and each one would hold its own legends. Golden fleece here, Cyclops there, mountain of the gods o'er yonder...

You make a great victory, people reward you, you buy better weapons, you hire men to fight for you.

I want slow paced, methodical combat akin to DKS, but with more move variations, and the enemy attack patterns are more randomized, so that the combat is not a matter of recognizing patterns but more spontaneous and realistic.

The majority of the enemies would be human, and only in the most remote places would you chance upon mythical creatures, and when you do they have to be outstandingly difficult. They would also take special techniques. Poking a giants feet won't do, you have to use your own imagination to find a way to fell him and cut his neck. I don't want giant monsters that could realistically never be defeated by a sword, I want creatures that just barely push pass believability and take you from intense man vs. man fights into something even more intense.

I don't want any in game menus whatsoever. I want everything to be done visually. No upgrades, no stats. You have a character who controls well and you use weapons that you buy or loot. The weapons have no names, descriptions, or stats, everything is learned by use. Weapons will have realistic damaging, i.e. you bash your sword against a shield twenty times and now you have a metal club. This way you are always having to use different weapons. No two weapons are the same. The autogenerator from BL2 is the idea here, but with ancient weaponry not going beyond the bronze age.

For ranged weapons, bows, javelins, bolo's, slings, etc, there is no crosshair or aiming aid. You have to learn to do it instinctually.

No magic, no healing. No horses. No fast travel. No maps. Everything is done by description and memory. Searching for an old sailors vague description of a great treasure would be an adventure in itself. The more you suck at paying close attention, the bigger the adventure. I want AI that fears death and pain, and thus most fights end in a route, not all at carnage. I want gaining a kill to be difficult to the point that it feels like a huge success when you finally get a deadly blow.

I want characters like those in DKS, who are on their own journeys and may or may not aid you. I want them to be quiet and stoic and to reflect the psychology of the era. I don't like characters who are meant to be either good or bad.

That's a big order and really ambitions lol However, the game sounds pretty amazing if it was pulled off in the right way. Saddens me to say but I don't know if we'll see anything like that this generation. Saw you mention the G.I. bill in a different post. I'm currently in the AF (don't hold that against me =P) gonna stick in for 30 I hope. Either way thanks for the service and I'm sure you're excited to get out.

Excited? I suppose, but I describe the feeling more like this...

Back in the olde days when men ruled the world and we didn't have modern notions of compassion, love, and kindness, people killed eachother in all sorts of interesting ways. One that was popular all the way up until eigthteenth century (as far as I know) was death by crushing. The victim was lain on a board and sandwhiched between another on top of him/her. On top of this board, one by one heavy stones were layed, until eventually the victims ribs and skull would slowly be crushed and they would die from internal bleeding.

I feel like I've been being crushed for about the last three years, and yet through the corner of my eye now I can see a faithful friend running to my rescue. Soon he will arrive and pull the stones off of me and I will have my life back.

Thats how I feel.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:Excited? I suppose, but I describe the feeling more like this...

Back in the olde days when men ruled the world and we didn't have modern notions of compassion, love, and kindness, people killed eachother in all sorts of interesting ways. One that was popular all the way up until eigthteenth century (as far as I know) was death by crushing. The victim was lain on a board and sandwhiched between another on top of him/her. On top of this board, one by one heavy stones were layed, until eventually the victims ribs and skull would slowly be crushed and they would die from internal bleeding.

I feel like I've been being crushed for about the last three years, and yet through the corner of my eye now I can see a faithful friend running to my rescue. Soon he will arrive and pull the stones off of me and I will have my life back.

Thats how I feel.

I'd say that's a little deeper than excited. Military life can blow especially the Army, I'm glad to hear you're getting back to getting your life back! On a less serious note... Did you ever play the Rygar PS2 games? Yeah they were GoW cheap cash ins but you might enjoy them for the setting alone.

No. I went from N64 to xbox to 360. Never played Playstation.

And I actually really like my job, I just have serious ******* fatigue. You know that overwhelming feeling you get when you've been surrounded by assholes for years on end?

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:And I actually really like my job, I just have serious ******* fatigue. You know that overwhelming feeling you get when you've been surrounded by assholes for years on end?

And there is nothing you can do about it if they out-rank you or until you PCS. Then you PCS just to be tossed back into another office of power-junky dumbasses? I totally understand but not in an Army sense, that is a totally different beast and much more military than the Air Force depending on the job.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:No. I went from N64 to xbox to 360. Never played Playstation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rygar:_The_Legendary_Adventure Looks like they re-released it on Wii too lol

Is that a bolo made from shields? If so, had to have been a win.

Back on topic:

I've finally slain the mighty prologue of boredom and am playing the actual game now. It is pretty impressive graphically and size wise, but it's too unfocused. I am heading out to the next story mission even though I still can't force myself to care about what is happening, and I am bombarded by fifteen different optional things to do.

I don't know why the latest craze is to jam so much content into a game. It might just be me, but I can't stand multitasking, or having to sit there and prioritize what I should be doing. It's just distracting.

I don't like it when there are more game mechanics than I can be introduced to in thirty minutes. I just can't keep focused, so despite there being 12 thousand things to do in ACIII I get bored fast.

I thought I might get a kick out of just exploring the woods, hunting, and causing mayhem, but its all just too easy, and the hunting is mind blowingly unrealistic.

The freerunning animations are superb, but it is all controlled simply by holding down the trigger. You dont have to time jumps or anything. I think if they made it to were you had to press a button to jump at the right moment and another to grab onto an object, as well as not made the character autograb anything he is close to automatically, it would be really engaging and fun.

Quick Time Event climbing might be interesting, though that would be a nightmare to program.

I really don't see myself finishing this game, which is a shame considering the money, time, and effort that went into creating it..

I read about how big a deal this games production was. Three years in the making, revolutionary this and that. It all just went into the graphics. The gameplay is a flat out bore.

I think I might have liked it as a teenager, when I would have been oo'd and aah'd by the style, and I imagine most of their fanbase comes from younger, or at least less mature folks.

Maybe you should just forget the missions, and just do side stuff. Try to make it like you are just living in that world and ignore the assassin crap.

That's what I do with a lot of those open world games these days.

Tolvo wrote:Quick Time Event climbing might be interesting, though that would be a nightmare to program.

I don't necessarily mean QTE. I just mean like basic Super Mario type platforming. Instead of me holding down trigger and watching my character do crazy acrobatics, make me have to actually press the jump button at the right time to make the jump. If I don't press it and keep holding the run button, let me fall of the edge. Let me actually make an error, that way I have to actually be awake to play the game.