Assassin's Creed

Look, all this discourse is like whatever. My only agenda here is knocking over Christian Churches for their gold like medieval Al Capone.

CallMeIsmail said:
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Your settlement is then expanded and built up entirely with goods derived from raiding – specifically raiding churches and monasteries (you literally do not seem to be able to resource raid other types of settlements, stick a pin in that, we're coming back to it too).
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stratigo said:
Both the ancient order plot and the whitewashed colonialism elicit mixed feelings from me.
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I mean, from a social justice perspective I personally don't really care? Because it's not like this is colonialism against an actual modern oppressed group having whitewashed colonialism done against them, it's white European Christians, they're fine.

Them being the targets of video game violence just does not ping my fucked-up radar the same way blowing away brown people in COD does. It's the same reason I'm fine with Amon Amarth songs about burning down Christian villages. It's nowhere near, like, actual Nazi metal.

Also, I'm not a fan of throwing around the word colonialism in these cases as if you can just neatly draw a line between the European colonialism of the last few centuries, and the repeating cycle of migratory invasion, subjugation and assimilation that's been a dominant fixture of European history. It's the kind of erasure of specificity and context that allows Irish-American shitheads to go "The Irish were slaves too!" to get one over on black people.

Especially considering it's both what put the Saxons there in the first place and the descendants of those Norse settles were victims of wholesale mass murder at the hands of William the Conqueror in the next cycle. And especially considering how the English can be fucking shameless about whitewashing their own colonialism.

I really wish I had a gif of that old Mike Tyson's Punch-Out parody of Mario going "I'll allow it", because that's how I feel here.
 
I'm extremely happy to take Ubisoft to task for things like, say, softballing police complicity in the British surveillance state or whitewashing the British government's involvement in anti-refugee policy in Watch Dogs Legion, or its flag waving for US military adventurism in Ghost Recon Wildlands, or this enormous list of positively baffling shit from the various modern Far Cry games, because those games engage with modern situations and promote certain values in respect of real lives and real marginalised people, today. But this is somewhat like going after Assassin's Creed Black Flag because it romantacises being a pirate. Like after we're done here are we going to knock down the gates of the Crusader Kings thread and lecture everyone there about their complicity in the promotion of monarchic dictatorship?
 
What baffles me is that Monastaries provide basically building materials, shouldn't they provide gold you need to buy the supplies?
 
I'm more baffled by the inability of the player to kill villagers and priests in a Viking simulator. Like I get that they're trying to present you as a heroic figure, but I'd think there'd be at least a little appeal in letting you go full GTA on Dark Ages England as a Viking. Just get bored with the story and game so you just row up to some village and kill everyone you see.
 
Do you at least get to do that viking thing that is seducing away the wifes of the english by bathing, dressing up with nice clothes, jewelry and braided hair?
 
Ford Prefect said:
I'm extremely happy to take Ubisoft to task for things like, say, softballing police complicity in the British surveillance state or whitewashing the British government's involvement in anti-refugee policy in Watch Dogs Legion, or its flag waving for US military adventurism in Ghost Recon Wildlands, or this enormous list of positively baffling shit from the various modern Far Cry games, because those games engage with modern situations and promote certain values in respect of real lives and real marginalised people, today. But this is somewhat like going after Assassin's Creed Black Flag because it romantacises being a pirate. Like after we're done here are we going to knock down the gates of the Crusader Kings thread and lecture everyone there about their complicity in the promotion of monarchic dictatorship?
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everything has context.

The ancient order secret cult thing hits different in the era of Qanon than it did 12 years ago when the first game dropped. I'm not entirely sure how Ubisoft can shift away from it, but like, it's starting to make me uncomfortable, so I'd want to see them give it a shot. Especially considering how Ubi's other games also fall into bizarre right wing fantasylands and the whole, uh, huge issue with racism from management.

The norse colonialism stuff is essentially an echo of what Dr. Deceraux noted on his blog, although I don't feel as strongly here as I do about the conspiracy stuff. I'd honestly be happier if it was just colonialism and not colonialism against the ancient world order in a way that echoes modern conspiracies.

Destynova1 said:
If we go that far, then it is best to just stop buying/playing video games and use the money for food and toilet paper for when the next Corona spike hits.
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I've only got to fuck other vikings so far in the game.
 
Anyone else feel like Valhalla's level balance is weird? I've fought bosses hundreds of levels above me and won within a dozen attempts. I mean, I'm good at learning patterns and all that because i've played Fromsoft games since I was a kid, so figuring out how to beat bosses isn't hard. But the actual power of the enemies seems to cap out at nearly enough damage to kill me in one hit. I'm playing on the second hardest difficulty and often it only takes a good six to fourteen Hel's Rage (or whatever the tackle move is) and it's over.

The only boss I've ever needed to actually retreat from was the Black Shuck, since that move didn't work on it and I kept losing my entire health bar from the grapple move it had. But I was still over a hundred levels lower then that thing and I brought it down to half several times.
 
I am now nearly done with game and I have to say I find it quite lacklustre compared to Oddysey, even if I do not share some of the fundamental misgivings others have about the game (I certainly don't share the opinion that the game portrays the norse or even you as the good guys...). Partially it is simply that Viking age England is not as interesting to travel through and explore as for example ancient Greece or some of the settings of the earlier games but I feel like what really drags down the game in the later half is its lacklustre story design (and don't get me started on what happens in modernity), especially the whole "territory arc design". They are decent time-wasters and can be quite fun though some of them really stretched my suspension of disbelief pretty hard but they are at best loosely connected to the main storylines and their design lead to a massive,useless and unused expansion of the cast at the cost of the central characters and the Raven clan itself which really starts to hurt the game at the later stages when a lot of the emotional beats hinge on said characters being important to you which is hard if they are not present for most of the game.

And the same can be said be said of the "antagonists" of the game, the Order of the Ancient is filled with forgettable characters and it really tells you something that you kill the majority of its "leaders" not by doing interesting quests or even infiltrating a stronghold of some kind but by chasing after a few clues and then killing a random nobody posing as a stablehand in some village - congratulations you killed one of the five or so leaders of a century old conspiracy. There are glimpses of something more in some of the city arcs and with a single order member but overall this was the most soulless and unimaginative "templar order" I have encountered so far and it really seems they only included it because they think an AC game needs a conspiracy of some kind. And it is not like the people outside the order are much better either, even Alfred is little more than a sidenote and that is just sad.

And considering the game hammers home the importance of the clan every time it can what it actually does with said clan (and its connected raiding mechanic) is pretty disappointing, nearly all your interactions with the clan members are based on them being merchants of largely cosmetic items with maybe two or three small quests connected to some of them and the majority of your buildings do nothing but other some insignificant and boring percentage bonus to a timed buff with the village leaving little to no impression on me.

Eivor is an okay main-character but she is no Kassandra or Enzio and I really miss the mysthical/open minded attitude of their predecessors instead of the what at times seems utter antipathy Eivor seems to have in regards to anything not fighting related.


It really feels to me like the developers either ran out of time or passion with this game with the start clearly having some of the best moments (though admittedly it is also where the "good vikings, bad saxons" idea is most problematic) while a lot of the later parts feel disconnected and/or soulless to me which is sad. On a more personal note I also really dislike the blue colour scheme the game employs in regards to "your" soldiers and at last a quick tip for making some of the "puzzles" quicker to go through, the exploding trap arrow ability allows you to destroy destructible walls etc without having to look for and lug around those explosive amphoras.
 
I am probably about halfway through the game and.... I agree.

Every time the main story came up I kind of wanted it to go away again. I felt way more interested in the kingdom quests that had nothing to do with heir to the gods nonsense.
 
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