The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I plan to nearly 100% Rogue first... still a LOT of locations to explore and things to try out... then it's on to inFamous: Second Son, The Last of Us and Unity (in no particular order).

The Last of Us is incredible, especially if you've never played it. I'd recommend that one first.
Fantastic story, fantastic presentation.

inFAMOUS: Second Son is also incredible. Fantastic intro to the story, gets you into it very quick. It's an open world game unlike TLoU's linear non-genre-ness (it's seriously Action/Adventure/Stealth/Horror/Survival) so the story in it tends to be presented with less flow. (As it always is in Open World games.)

I don't have much to say about Unity. Arno x Elise is great. Assassin Intel/Modern Day story unlocked from Rifts is great.
With patches, running around HUD-less is great.
Everything else is okay.

All in line with what I've heard elsewhere. Picked up The Last of Us for $23 and inFamous: Second Son for $20 on Black Friday. Hesitant to spend $60 on Unity right now, and I have plenty of other things to play for the time being, but I will probably start Unity in the next couple weeks (unless I get too wrapped up in one of those other ones).

Oh this will be fun.

7 words:

Don't release a broken or unfinished game.

There. Not too difficult.

Let me at this survey, holy damn.

I hope it's not a survey that disqualifies you when you enter your location.

The first half asked me about games I play/enjoy. It narrowed it down to EVERY AC game, along with Batman: Arkham Origins, Grand Theft Auto, and a few others. It asked fishy questions about what I liked or didn't like about Unity eventually. Most of it was asking, "Did you like the graphics?" Well, yeah, the game looked great. Or "Do you think Co-op is a good addition to the series?" Of course. We've been wanting something like this forever.

Questions like that make it hard for me to actually tell them what's wrong with the game.

But finally it asked about what I thought of the pacing of story, the stealth mechanics, the level design, etc. I was honest. When it came to level design, I thought it was fine, but I tried to stress the importance of making the mechanics work well with the rest of the game.

I know I'm only one of many that actually did this survey, but I hope it counts in the end.

I wish it asked about riflemen on rooftops. I usually screw up a mission because they see me 3 miles away.

Yeah they really overdid it with the riflemen, they can somehow spot you from an abnormal distance and are usually out of phantom blade range. And on top of that if you try to approach that particular rifleman most of the time there will be another sniper who will spot you which you then have to take out first, and then that cycle repeats itself a couple of times untill I have killed about 5 or 6 riflemen just to clear the area a bit for observation.

It really feels like Ubi's idea of "difficult stealthy gameplay" is just throwing a lot of riflemen into an area. It just feels obnoxious to me, especially since the (stealth) mechanics are pretty flawed still.

whoa whoa whoa... wait just a second.

we were told pre-release there there would be no rooftop guards to deal with. ... hmmm...

Question: Which game introduced burning an enemy to death?

I was just dicking around in Rogue, in a massive melee combat... I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one enemy was on fire and was writhing around in pain until he fell over and died. He must have run through the fire in the campsite.

Since this was the first time I've seen this, has anyone seen it in Black Flag or ACIII? If so, why has there not been a burning of a main target in a variety pack? I'll see what I can do in Rogue when I'm done exploring the areas (soo soo many areas to explore).

They should just stop trying to release a Assassins Creed EACH YEAR, instead of taking their time between titles to polish and delivery us a better experience.

AC is a cash cow, sure, but isn't Mario, who can pop a new game each year and still make Nintendo rich.

Something tells me it might be possible in ACIII. Definitely not earlier though.

That's what I was thinking too.

I've shown that Braddock can be messed with, maybe there's a fire nearby...

From my thread in the black flag forums:

So it is possible in AC:4

The only thing I can remember of an enemy burning outside of a scene is in Black Flag in sequence 12. The barrier walls that pop up in the temple incinerate anyone who passes through.

A well is nearby in the Braddock assassination, North East I think. Throw him in and he'll survive.

There are few gunmen on roofs in the game. Most of them are in missions, which makes sense for the challenge. This is also the first AC game that guards cannot climb. They can vault over low objects in pursuit of you and climb some ladders, but that's it. Might have to do with how tall the buildings are. They'll shoot you if you try to get away by climbing, and it doesn't take much to die.

So uh... This was in that AC Unity survey apparently?

I honestly never saw that what that screencap shows.

{src}"So as you might know, there was a recent survey Ubisoft sent out to a select few people. Today, someone took a screenshot from that survey and sent it to the Access the Animus facebook page, which shows possible future settings."

I'll be online on PS4 tonight if anyone wants to play.

I just started re-watching "Firefly" while exercising and was struck again by how amazing it was. ("Firefly", that is. not the exercising.)

I heard about that show. It was one of the few to be revived by fans after it was cancelled. I think it might be on Netflix right now. Worth watching? Okay, that is a rhetorical question because you already answered it.

Only heard about Firefly through a joke on Community. "We made an agreement that if one of us dies, the other one will make it look like a suicide because Firefly was cancelled. We're gonna get that show back on the air, buddy."

Hey guys...

That's right. I got them sweet MS paint skills, yo.

Also, if you don't celebrate Christmas, here's this:

this is the best

I recommend "Firefly" highly, especially if you already enjoy Joss Whedon shows. The revival was only for one movie, not a resumption of the TV series, sadly.

And your art was adorable, Gerund!

Warren Vidic was right. Research conducted with mice has shown that memories may be passed down to your offspring through DNA, and that this is the cause for (irrational) fears.

Genetic memory, guys. It's a thing now.

On vacation. Will check in on the forums but won't be playing any video games until Jan 2 (hopefully I'll be in a good mood after watching my Ducks destroy FSU in person the day before).

Mele Kalikimaka and a Haoli Makahiki Hou to all you stabbers...I hope Santa brings everything you need to destroy as many Templars as possible in the New Year

Aloha,
sg

Merry Mid-Winter Offering! Or Yule if you so prefer.

Isn't Christmas until tomorrow?

Oh, sorry. Where I'm at we celebrate that i'm-my-own-dad guy a day earlier for some reason.

I was in Hawaii last year, and will be next year again, for Christmas. Mele Kalikimaka to you as well.

I thought I'd pull this trick again...

May the new year bring you lots of stabbing.

Gerund, that made me grin just as hard this time as it did the first.
Happy New Year to you too, all of you

Now to unveil the first glitch/exploit I helped discover. Back in the day (couldn't have been much longer than a decade ago) we were playing on the Super Nintendo and found this:

the three best words to any scientist after submission of a manuscript to a journal... "accepted without revisions."

Congratulations!
What was it about?

Without getting too technical, it was a followup to this paper. In the new one, I synthesized many new but related compounds and tested them for activity against the target enzyme in order to try to figure out what was so special with the original molecule.

"Inhibitor of the Tyrosine Phosphatase STEP Reverses Cognitive Deficits in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease"

I didn't say the paper wasn't technical, just my explanation...

"It's a follow-up to {this}, where I changed some things to try to figure out what was important."

If you have the technical expertise or experience, the article is linked if you want... or you can just selectively read the title "Inhibitor ... Reverses ... Alzheimer's Disease"

Yeah... I know some of those words...

Dude, McStab, that is freaking awesome!
Congratulations, man, that's quite the achievement!
Especially considering what subject you were writing on.

cross your fingers for the wife and I... we're getting a dog... okay, most likely 2...

local adoption center has an extensive process to place dogs. we'll have a home visit by a volunteer Sunday, then a session to meet all the dogs a few hours after that. if all goes well, we'll get to take the little guy(s) home right then.

if I'm not playing ACU, it's because I have to make the house look good enough to pass any inspection they have!

Don't worry. After a month with two puppies it will no longer be possible to make the house look good.

Only ending up taking one home... and he's a delight.

D'awww...

He also (unbeknownst to us) came pre-housetrained! (so far)

And I've never heard him bark.

When other dogs bark at him, he cowers and/or plops down on the ground and won't go further. haha

Now if he also doesn't poop I'd say you got the perfect dog right there!
What did you name him?