[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I think my only real complaint thus far is its a pain in the ass to check those challenges. They need to be in the database somewhere. (My other complaint being Notoriety increasing in real time. If I kill a guard and no one sees me do it, I shouldn't take the hit until the shift change)

Ask and you shall receive!

They are in the Database. Go to your menu and select DNA and go to the far right. You may want to check the other parts of the DNA out while you are in there.

[The Final Dakar]

DNA. Oh. That's intuitive.

[The Final Dakar]

I have to say, they did a fantastic job creating strengths and benefits to the various guilds. Last night I felt compelled to change a guild house for a local assassination mission, and it paid off handsomely.

I also enjoy the vigilantes. More than once I've picked fights with guards in front of them just to have the guards get held down so I can easily dispatch them.

I have to admit, I did have an escort mission I kinda enjoyed last night. I basically had to avoid all roving patrols. So I took back doors, back alleys, huge detours, all to avoid the guy getting spotted (subsequently attacked). At one point I saw a horserider approaching and using quick thinking, I poison darted him, which netted a nice stealthy solution to what could have been a big problem. Later on I found a station of guards on a path I didn't wish to double-back on, so I called in an Arrow Storm. Completely awesome. From nowhere several arrows thunked into each guards chest, clearing the path to continue. Awesome.

---

Not a strike against the game, but once again the money becomes useless once you own a few properties. I find it amusing I get a shop discount for the more I own. The more I own the less I need those discounts.

It also makes me note that while cool, stealing is mostly useless (even from the get go). That makes it twice as aggravating that I can almost never fast walk anywhere, because the risk of accidentally stealing is too high (at which point I risk attracting guards). This was a big point of contention during my escort mission last night. The guy was willing to all-out run, but to me that broke the context of what I was trying to accomplish (stealthily go down streets). The other strike, is fast walk stands in direct contrast to horse controls. I imagine the reason it's set-up the way it is is for multiplayer. Tough situation.


Oh and I was looking at the multi leaderboards and chuckit has logged almost a full day on it. That impressive.

[Kevin Bogues]

I need to put some more hours in, this holiday has been unusually busy, i was hoping for some serious gaming time.

I'm honestly shocked how glowing your impressions of this game are, for some reason i thought you would "like" it but no enjoy the gameplay as much as it seems you are. I think what your demonstrating is the polish around the different aspects of assassinations. From the poison dart to the arrow storm, i think each mission can be tackled in many different ways (all which feel distinctly different)

My favorite portion of the game is the quality of the environment, although climbing can be "easy" it seems that every obstacle or structure can be tackled but requires some scouting and thought on how to approach it.

Another favorite addition to AC: B from AC II is the Leonardo missions, while somewhat shallow in their approach (go to x, burn the plans, and destroy the machine), i think they add a nice mix of a stealth approach and action packed ending.

I think that possibly later on in the game the ability to call in the assassins could make missions "easy" but it depends on your personal use of them, i become slightly addicted to the pigeon coups and found myself rushing after a mission was complete to get my assassins leveled up on different missions across europe. I found some sense of accomplishment when i had a group of 5/6 level 10 full assassins at my disposal.

[Kevin Bogues]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

Kevin, you must almost be done the story. Have you collected all the feathers and flags?

I still haven't tried the multiplayer. I should give that a try.

i've completed the main story and most of the side missions, i've completed all of the feathers but no where near the flags. I plan to stick with multi for a while before i go back flag searching.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

I'm honestly shocked how glowing your impressions of this game are, for some reason i thought you would "like" it but no enjoy the gameplay as much as it seems you are. I think what your demonstrating is the polish around the different aspects of assassinations. From the poison dart to the arrow storm, i think each mission can be tackled in many different ways (all which feel distinctly different)

Well, I'm a huge fan of the Hitman series (which has been conspicuously absent this gen), and this is closest thing to that type of gameplay I'm aware of. While it lacks some of the creativity and intrigue in tackling most missions, it certainly makes up for it in depth of gameplay. I'd say I had some high expectations going in, and the game has surprisingly managed to exceed them.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

Another favorite addition to AC: B from AC II is the Leonardo missions, while somewhat shallow in their approach (go to x, burn the plans, and destroy the machine), i think they add a nice mix of a stealth approach and action packed ending.

A flimsy, transparent vehicle to introduce some unique gameplay.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

I think that possibly later on in the game the ability to call in the assassins could make missions "easy" but it depends on your personal use of them, i become slightly addicted to the pigeon coups and found myself rushing after a mission was complete to get my assassins leveled up on different missions across europe. I found some sense of accomplishment when i had a group of 5/6 level 10 full assassins at my disposal.

I'm fine with easy. To me, the game is about style and approach. I was starting to become worried that in the end I'd face situations where I'd have to annoyingly coordinate multiple guilds simultaneously in order to succeed.

5/6 Assassins at 10? I dunno how many I'm limited to in Memory 5 (I think there's 3-4 Borgia Towers I frustratingly can not approach), but whatever the limit is (I think 7) I already have all of them maxed.

[Leonard]

I think you can have around 9 assassins in sequence 5. I think the other Borgia towers are walled off currently.

I finally got one of the blacksmith shop quests done - the one to get the sword. Now I need the one to get the armor. I've been side-tracked training my assassins and getting all the shops, treasure and flags.

[The Final Dakar]

I like the idea of shop quests, but the reality of hoping to randomly get the stuff you need through the course of your missions is too hit and miss for my tastes. I do have advice, though: Thieves and Romulans seem to carry some of the more desirable items.

[The Final Dakar]

More notes on the multiplayer; The game is incredibly difficult to read; When seemingly contradictory things occur its impossible to discern the reasoning. A couple of examples:

The stun: I've learned that a properly deployed stun is still vulnerable to an attack for a moment (i.e., assassins have priority). What's hard to understand is the reversed stun – when you stun someone from behind and they flip you over your back killing you. This happened to me last night when at the beginning of a game a the defenders stuck together, the attacks showed up and we dropped some serious smoke and I stunned two attackers, got cocky, restunned the first, and when I was about to restunned two he reversed it, cockblocking my fourth stun in a row.

Additionally, I had a sequence on offense where a brawl broke out on street below me and asI was about jump down a defender came flying up a rope and stunned me in a one swift action. I didn't get an x even though I was mostly facing him. Just weird.


High Profile: I started a game last night and in the early going I spotted an assassin running towards our group. This then triggered the red diamond (high profile) but after two seconds it disappeared even though she was right in front of us. Really confusing.

Edit: Looks like I have my answer

In regular wanted I think it appears the moment you are loosing your incognito status. Otherwise I cannot explain to be jump killed by people with red markers on their head, who then still get at least 300 points on it.

Ib advanced wanted there are no red markers unless a chase has started.

This might explain how people spot me sometimes, too.


Scoring: It's just impossible to understand when on defense. Consistency is impossible to discern. I read a story about some guy and his buddy were taking turns stunning a guy when he finally managed to reverse on and he got the incognito bonus – even though it was plainly obvious that he was an assassin because they'd been stunning the shit out of him for the past 30 seconds.

I'm also not fond of how if two guys zero in on you, and you smoke bomb them, but only manage to stun one, the other will get an incognito kill. Sorry, but if you get smoked too, your bonuses should be reduced.


Lures: This is when someone kills an NPC that looks like you. From the but I sometimes get this when no one near me died, and other times I don't seem to get it when they kill an NPC right next to me that I morphed. Confusing.

Chases: One pursuer will activate it because they're free-running like a moron and right before I complete my escape (blending into a crowd the entire time) another free-runner will activate an escape... which apparently resets my first one. So instead of earning 100 pts, I lose out because the second guy manages to kill me during the reset.

Linebackers: I've seen people who just rush into a morphed group of NPCs I'm hiding in knocking everyone around. It seems to break the group up and cancel it, meaning you're left standing around like an idiot while the NPCs regroup. Haven't figured out if this is part of charge or a stupid annoying strategy.

Blending/watching: This may be the most inconsistent thing of all. When I'm standing in some crowds I can turn the camera in any direction without my character turning their body (and giving me away). Other times I can barely turn the camera without giving myself away. It's really frustrating since the ability to watch my back is gone (and the majority of these times is when I'll die to Templar Vision). It doesn't seem to be certain types of crowds (aside from moving ones which you can always look around in). Sometimes it woks with a crowd listening to a vendor. SOmetimes it doesn't. Sometimes it works with a crowd standing talking ot each other. Sometimes it doesn't. Very frustrating.

[The Final Dakar]

I just learned something very cool (if true). I've noticed in SP that either by music of situation there's some crazy whispering that goes on. Well apparently it happens in multiplayer too.

When on defense, supposedly you'll start to hear whispering as your pursuer closes. Further this might mirror the heart beat/thumping that you get when hunting (and which I think I only really noticed last night). I'm going to need to test this out.

[The Final Dakar]

YouTube - Playtime with Rainie - 018 Smackdown Pt 4

18 stuns in one match. Some seriously dumb players there.

On the plus side, I did pull of a dodge like the on seen the 8.30 mark last night.

[Leonard]

Finally got to see what assassins can do today (I wanted to get my assassins to their top level - I lost 2 early on because they were too green). I sat back up in my perch and got a group of mercenaries and assassins take care of 20 French soldiers. All I did was give them directions! This is quite a different AC in some ways.

I did play multiplayer a bit a couple of days ago. I didn't do bad on my own. Made it into 3rd place a couple of times. Had a bit of trouble in the team version. Had a lot of trouble telling the computer controlled citizens from the human citizens. You look at. Group and it's damn hard to tell them apart. They all pear to be talking to each other and not looking at me.

[The Final Dakar]

This game is so rewarding when you accomplish things using merely the environment. I finished Sequence 5 and unlocked access to new areas (though the map still shows the memory borders as unchanged…), so I immediately jumped on the new Borgia Towers. One of them, a 4 star was just a ridiculous fortress of guards. I decided to try to penetrate the area from behind (that's what he said), and as luck would have it I saw a group of peasants to jump into and blend. They meander closer to fortress (giving me some time to scout) then who should I see than the Borgia Captain doing a patrol on horseback with two lieutenants. Keep my cool, the peasants keep walking the path which is taking us close to the captain when, bam! he highlights, I call in an arrow storm he and his lieutenant instantly die, problem solved.

On multiplayer I had a crazy sequence last night that resulted in a triple dodge turned stun.

[The Final Dakar]

Boy, the game really speeds up once you finish Sequence 5. Or to be more accurate, the sequences seem to hold less missions.

And I absolutely love the Assassin's Guild. Arrow Storm will take out a surprising amount of foes at once.

[The Final Dakar]

Great game, but it left me practically livid last night.

Apparently, you shouldn't even start Sequence 8 unless you plan on sitting in front of the XBOX for a while. I decided to do a mission last night and was rewarded with a never ending parade of undeclinable missions afterward, each frustrating me more and killing both my immersion and enjoyment in the storyline. Seriously, put up a warning, idiots.

I think my "favorite" part was when it had me climb an object and had put me into one of those periodic and inexplicable locked camera views. I could figure out what the hell I was supposed to do until, while running and jumping around in desperation I started climbing something that turned out to be a ladder that was completely hidden because it was in profile.

I also did the final boss battle and got zero enjoyment out of it thanks to everything proceeding it. Way to go.

[Leonard]

Man, sequence 8 doesn't sound good. I've never seen a set of missions that you couldn't decline. That's sort of uncharacteristic of AC.

I'll keep that in mind when I get there. I'm still sidetracked with some of the side missions right now - like the templar agent missions and Caterina missions. I see they took some of the multiplayer characters from the templar agent missions.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

Man, sequence 8 doesn't sound good. I've never seen a set of missions that you couldn't decline. That's sort of uncharacteristic of AC.

Well, you'll be fine now that you know.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Well, you'll be fine now that you know.

Yeah, but I still had to go through the pain.

I see what you meant by sequence #8 and #9 being a pain. In sequence #8 there is no reason some of that couldn't have been broken down into separate accept or decline missions. I found alot in #9 that didn't even make sense. For instance the first tower. You climb it, only to have it fall. WTF was that for. And some of the camera angles were definitely bad. The final boss battle, as you name it, wasn't that great, sort of repetitive. Oh, let's undress this guy, armor piece by armor piece.

And my Pet Peeve for games that do this, why do we have to wait for all the credits to roll to get our last game finishing achievement (and to continue playing the game).

Another thing that Dakar pointed out, is the tomb style (Prince-of-Persia style) scenes where you have to jump, climb and crawl certain ways around a tomb or bunch of rooms has expanded from AC2 to AC:B (it didn't exist in AC1 I believe). I think they're expanding this a little too much. Even in the last Coloseum scenes, there is ALOT of this tomb style jumping, crawling and climbing.

Anyway. I finished the story, I'm going to go back and finish all the single player achievements. I think I missed 3.

I'll probably also continue playing the multiplayer for awhile. Not every day, though, as I still want to play Halo Reach MP.

Oh, I did like the Christina missions, in a way, it gave some history of Ezio and the missions weren't bad. It added to the variety of story, assassination, cortesan, Leonardo, and other types of missions. Lots of side missions.

[Leonard]

BUT, I should add, I still really like this game or franchise, and I like the newly added part of being able to instruct other assassins to strike. That little whistle call and hand gesture.

[The Final Dakar]

I played some GTA yesterday and I instantly realized something. Assassin Creed's camera is near perfect. I really can't remember being annoyed by it (except for those inexplicable times it locks). Aside from occasional feelings of sickness induced from having to flick it around too much it's probably the best implementation I've ever seen.

[Leonard]

Hey Dakar, what level are you at in the multiplayer of AC:B? I'm at level 19 already.

Starting to get a hang of some of the gameplay. It seems the higher your level, the more advantages you have. I just got templar vision last weekend and put it in one of my profile sets. I've got to try it out. I've been using morph alot to find my prey in groups. Morph every APC to my character and you find the enemy in a group, but it sounds like templar vision will work too. On the defensive side, I've been using morph alot lately too. It seems to last longer than disguise.

[The Final Dakar]

Yes, the multiplayer is too heavily weighted towards the higher ranks.

I'm somewhere in the low 30s.

[Leonard]

At least they have a very quick leveling system. I'm already at level 21 and heading to 22. I noticed they have a few simplistic challenges, even, to help you level up. Didn't notice them until I started get half my score/XP from challenges.

I see there is also news of a DLC update on the way.

[The Final Dakar]

Yeah, I forgot about that. I was thinking it would have been here already.

I have to say, that ending really burned me out on the game. Well that and what I have left is an annoying Romulan lair and a Thief Mission that is a really annoying race. Hopefully after the animus 2.0 I'll come back. Good knows every other day my ability to tolerate Black Ops flips.

[Leonard]

Man, there were some pros in MP on the weekend. I had a hell of a time in some of the matches. When I was hunter in some of the Manhunt (team) sessions, I had the prey acting like hunters. They would run up behind me and stun me... one even stun me twice in a row from behind. I had no chance to get up.

Then I accidentally shot one of the prey with my gun, as I didn't know how the gun worked. I assumed incorrectly that it worked the same as in the single player.

[Leonard]

Alright, some new single and multiple player DLC for AC:B!!

YouTube - Assassin's Creed Brotherhood DLC: The Da Vinci Disappearance Teaser Trailer [North America]

[Leonard]

I see the new DLC is available. I'm not sure if it showed up this week or last week. Last week I didn't play much ACB as I was in Halo Reach.

I guess I'll purchase it for the 800 Microsoft points this week. I want to check out the new single player story additions.

I perused the achievements. Some of them sound fun. I'll have to find a way to get 10 guards around me so I can kill 10 guards with one arrow storm. Shouldn't be too hard.

[The Final Dakar]

Receive 100% synch in ACB and full synch in all missions of the Da Vinci Disappearance.

**** no

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

**** no

OK, I'm going to have to look at them harder next time. I saw that one too and didn't realize what it meant until now. They seem to love putting some impossibly hard achievements this time around. They didn't do that in AC I or II!

I guess I could still get the DLC and not do that 100 point achievement. BUT, I'll have to check if the other achievements are achievable.

[Leonard]

I see Assassin's Creed has made the Borgia popular - I saw an advertisement for a series called "The Borgias"!

Watch The Borgias on Showtime: Watch Exclusive Videos, Mobile Apps

[Leonard]

Receive 100% synch in ACB and full synch in all missions of the Da Vinci Disappearance.

**** no

After finishing the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, I'd have to say that the 100% sync achievement is the only hard achievement from that DLC. The other 9 achievements are easy.

I probably won't go after the 100% sync achievement, but if you have 100% sync before the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC (or close to), it would be easy getting this achievement as it's not too hard to get 100% sync in the DLC missions.

The single player missions themselves are fairly short and easy and don't take too long to finish. There is one tomb to go through, so if you don't like the tombs I've warned you. At least it isn't a race-the-clock tomb. But there is alot of crawling around. The ending is a little bit of a let-down too.

I haven't tried the multiplayer part of the DLC yet, I'll probably try that tonight or this long weekend. I plan on doing alot of gaming this long weekend.

[KCrosbie]

Resurrection time...

Amazon's Deal of the Day has this game for $25

[Leonard]

Yeah, I didn't pre-order Resurrection. I'll have my time filled with MW3 and Saint's Row 3. I'm not sure when I'll start Resurrection. Probably after I'm done SR3 or close to being done.