The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Two things you should know about AC2:Episodes:

• The release date could be anywhere from April 2010 - March 2011. My guess is November 2010.
• It may be exclusively for Xbox 360.

If you don't have an Xbox or if you expect to get another $60 between now and November, my advice is to remove AC2:Episodes from the equation.

Thank you.
I will buy inFAMOUS, and if AC2:E is for PS3 as well, I will buy it somehow. Or wait for it.

You won't regret inFamous in my opinion. Remarkable game.

You should get InFamous now and get AC2:Episodes later. By the time episodes comes out you'll probably have the money to buy that.

I have bought inFAMOUS and it's one of the best games I've played so far. I've only done 10 Story Missions, but that's just because I like side missions and collecting Dead Drops (leaving the Blast Shards until the end, apparently they are a pain in the electrified neck). I have a question about it, if I collect Blast Shards during a side mission, do they disappear from the map? If they do that means by the time I'm done all the side missions I will have a very hard time finding the shards. What's a good map to find them with?

I think what I'm gonna do is just find them all on the Neon District before I leave it, like.. right now, with a map.
Thanks. And I still have like 40 bucks left.

The blast shards you get as rewards for missions don't count towards the 350. The only ones that count are the ones sitting out in the world that can be collected any time. You can collect them during missions as well as between missions.

Here is the map I made. I go by Sevael on the GameFAQs (and other) forums. I designed it to be printer friendly.

Here are a few tips:

• The shard at the far south of Neon is the very first one you get as part of the tutorial. You can't avoid picking it up and it's impossible to return to that exact spot later.
• The shard off in the water in eastern Neon requires the hover ability, which you pick up in The Warren. You have to wait until you come back to Neon later to get this shard.
• Shards will only ping on the mini-map if they're within a certain distance of Cole. This includes vertically. There are about 10 shards throughout the game that will not ping from street level. When looking for shards with tall buildings around, try to climb up four five stories, then ping again. The one directly south (and slightly west) of Ground Zero is a great example, as it's up near the very top of the ruined skyscraper.
• There is no way to know which shards and dead drops you have and have not picked up. If possible, print the map and scratch them off as you go. Otherwise you'll need to revisit all 382 spots later.

I highly recommend using Asaic's map. I tried to go it alone, figuring that a grid based search and constant pinging would quickly get me all the shards. After three searches of all the areas, I finally found the 1 shard I had missed.

Dougie helped out a bit when I was making the map, so he gets some credit too.

Thanks. I previously got a printer unfriendly version and I printed it black and white, cus I don't have colored ink, and some of the shards blended in with the background. I only have like 3 missing in the Neon.. 3 or so. I don't know how many I'm missing actually. Are there any tall building shards in the Neon that don't appear when you ping?

EDIT: OH THAT MAP IS YOU!? I saw it earlier, but didn't get it. Now I clicked it again, and I'm like "Wow. Asaic is godlike.."

EDIT2: Umm... I need to buy colored ink.. like.. now. (Goes to BestBuy) Brb guys.

The map was designed to be black and white printer friendly. You shouldn't need colored ink. I had no problem telling the shards apart from the background when I printed it. If they're blending together, your printer may be set too light or too dark. Try changing the print contrast, or perhaps use draft print quality.

Yes, there is at least one shard in Neon that doesn't ping from the ground. Do you see the four close together just to the west of Zeke's Place? I'm pretty sure one of those was too high to ping from the ground. Also, those four are actually closer together than the map suggests; I had to space them apart so that it was obvious that there were four dots there.

Don't forget to check for the shard over the water on the east side. You need the hover ability to get it, so you didn't pick it up your first time through the zone.

I haven't been on here in a while.
But I platinumed inFAMOUS.. and Prince of Persi: Forgotten Sands.
I have enough money to get Brotherhood, and if there's a clan-based thing going on, I'd like to join so I can get uber-training from the mastahz'.

PS3 or 360? I'll add you to the list.

PS3