Dead and British, just like 'ELLO GUV'NAH!

Yes, it was fun to keep a tired joke going for a bit, but we’ve decided to retire the ‘ELLO GUV’NAH segment. There are a few reasons for this.

-I’ll pretty much always be playing a game highlighted by the theme week, so the feature often becomes redundant.
-Scattered Storming is more flexible, more interesting, and usually includes what I’ve been playing, anyway, so it renders ‘ELLO GUV’NAH a bit redundant.
-Noticing a redundant trend in these redundant bullet points?
-Also, what is this site? A podcast? No! There’s no “what have you been playing” at the end of it. Ridiculous.

Anyway, to counter this fact, Scatter Storming is now going to be an at least weekly feature on Wednesdays. It might prop up more often, but it will be at least on Wednesdays. I’m also considering making it appear on Fridays regularly as well. Would you guys be down for that? Anyway, I gotta move on to talking about Assassin’s Creed.

Yes, I have played it this week. Yes (excepting the brief Brutal Legend demo), it is the only console game I have played this week. I was talking to Riddles last night and mentioned that it’s probably a bad thing that I’ve picked this game up again after playing (and beating!) Batman: Arkham Asylum. I have been spoiled by the excellent combat. When sword fighting and grabbing in Assassin’s Creed, I’m expecting it to have the same tactile, fun, intuitive, yet challenging feel that Batman had. But no. It’s just flat out not fun. I’m good at it, I understand how it functions, but it is just aggressively mediocre. In fact, Assassin’s Creed seems to excel at creating really fun mechanics and then systematically draining said fun out of said mechanics. Let’s go through them, shall we?

-When Altaïr free-flow runs on top of buildings, it is an amazing feeling. The animation is fantastic, the environment is absolutely gorgeous, and Altaïr makes death-defying jumps. But apparently that’s too much fun, so Ubisoft decided to throw some guards on the roof to shoot you with arrows and make your GTA-like “wanted” siren go off like crazy. Not fun. Annoying. That brings me too…

-The stealth. Another aspect that starts off awesome. In fact, this is one of the few parts that is mostly awesome. If you’re able to go undetected to pull off a mission, it feels great. It’s thrilling to walk right past mortals enemies armed with the dramatic irony that you are a lethal assassin. However, the perpetual presence of this system is a bitch. Similar to my complaint about the free-flow running, it’s not always exciting to be constantly wary of that flashing yellow and red light. The stealth is great, but it shouldn’t be all reigning, at least not in the same stranglehold way.

-Pickpocketing. Seriously, it’s pretty cool at first. I feel like a badass sneaking up behind a dude and swiping whatever document from his cloak. But then after my success, he instantly notices, gets flustered and walks off. Umm…Maybe, just maybe it was the suspicious dude who was walking right behind you and then started to walk away the moment your precious piece of paper disappeared? Apparently that incredibly important information that he risked his life to obtain isn’t worth pestering the very obvious suspects about. It also makes me feel less cool.

It’s also kinda stupid that if I spend more time completing all the missions, it doesn’t really give me more information which I could use to shed light on new ways to make the big kill. In fact, unlike in games like InFamous, it’s really not satisfying at all to go the extra mile. Ultimately I seem to have come to the same consensus many others have: Assassin’s Creed has a lot of really cool stuff, but it just doesn’t come together in any meaningful or powerful way. But I suppose that leaves enormous potential for the impending sequel. Moreso for it, actually, than for the new Prince of Persia. A bit ironic, because I think the latter is the better game, but I think Assassin’s Creed just shows more potential as a series at the moment. The DLC for PoP was just…so…upsetting.
But I ramble! I’m still going to try and beat the game before the week ends! Wish me luck!