A bit late with this weeks Screenshot Sunday (Screenshot Monday?) this time as we just had our “New Year” celebrations and whatnot. Numero 37 is upon us, and since I’m currently enjoying me some Connor and Assassin’s Creed III at the moment. Combat is super fun, parkour is upgraded compared to the more rigid Ezio and Altair era, and there’s even naval combat now, so that’s nice. Connor is not my favorite main character, mainly due to me not really feeling his Voice Actor’s delivery. It just sounds flat. But he is still a super interesting character, despite this lackluster performance of his VA, kinda like Altair in the very first Assassin’s Creed.
So, here’s one of my favorite shots (from a 19GB folder yet I just finished the second tutorial stage). It’s not as iconic or memorable to me as the intro of the second game, mostly because of how good the Ezio Family tune was, but it still looks amazing. Enjoy!
Funnily, AC3 intro moment was way more memorable to me than AC2’s. The storm, the fight, and finally getting to see the land was way more tumultous than climbing buildings with your brother, although the 2nd one definitely stings with nostalgic pain of loss. ;_;
Also, Connor is definitely a very interesting character, though when I was playing AC3 as a teen it was less obvious to me, since I wasn’t paying him and his troubles enough attention, especially when compared to the Desmond’s story reaching its finale. I fear that is a common mistake, making him commonly regarded as a pretty weak protagonist. :/
Tbh, all are “weak” when compared to Ezio, mainly because he had a full story told. AC2 was the beginning, ACB the middle, and ACR the end. But all the rest only had parts of their stories told. So, that’s why I think most consider Ezio to be the best and a fan favorite, if you only consume the main games that is. We simply spent way more time with him. Can you imagine if ACR was a portable system game, like Bloodlines? It was supposed to be. Glad it wasn’t.
As for the intro, I’m a sucker when it comes to specific melodies and instruments, and the “Ezio Family” tune struck all the right chords. It was just perfect for me. I wonder when all of this is said and done (my AC marathon), where each intro will rank. I know AC1, ACB, and ACR are at the bottom, as they didn’t really have these kinds of intros.
And Connor was not liked much, I believe, because of how charismatic Ezio was. Connor just feels like a tree compared to him. I forgot pretty much most of the game tbh, only remember the ending, so my opinion on him will change (already is). But I still don’t like his VA, which I would actually credit most of the dislike Connor got. He just lacks emotion to me. I think the first time I played the game way back, I (probably many other) couldn’t separate the two (VA and Connor as a character), so he got flak for being a poor character. But now, I can, so should be interesting to see my final opinion on him and how all of the protagonists rank in the end. Considering the Revelations Ezio was my favorite version of him (he was serious, but not ACB level serious, he was charizmatic, but no AC2 levels of flamboyant), I think Connor will fair well, as I enjoy him so far, minus the VA’s performance which stings from time to time.
The gameplay tho, it’s super fun. So far, I spent 15 hours in the tutorial (first and second phase) mainly because I just walk around the city and forest areas. The frontier section specifically reminded me of my time with RDR2, when I just picked a random donkey and travelled across the game’s world. It’s not as good as that, but it’s still fun. I also found a cool little screenshot “hack”, but I really dislike that I can’t turn off the entier HUD (during missions, the objectives are constantly present on my screen, and the enemy white outlines kinda ruin my combat shots). All in all, I’m having fun, which makes me super happy, considering I couldn’t get myself to play anything since like Dec 14 (I did stop cuz of Steam’s stupid Year in Review counter, which only counts games you play from Jan 1st to Dec 14th of that year), but after the New Year began, I still couldn’t bring myself to actually play a game. But now that is thankfully behind me due to Connor and his escapades.
One day I’ll review all the main games (perhaps even Liberty and the 2.5D ones). I kinda dread getting to Syndicate and then the true RPG era ones. Those are just bombastic in size (I should know, I played Valhalla, but only the main story, and it took me 100 hours, which were all fun, never felt bored or like it was too much).
Some fair points here :o
Hope you’ll avoid what I faced - the AC series burnout after playing 1, 2, B, R, 3 nearly back to back :v
The fact that you’re having fun by playing your own way might mean you are safe though :3
And wow, the steam review thing - why did you say it? o.O
Now I might have similar thoughts this December xD
I never collected all the titles so I gave up on playing everything tbh, but I still munch on some lore on youtube from time to time. If I don’t miss your reports on these games, I might read them too :)
I played Valhalla without any hud or mini-map. It gave me a way to just enjoy the game’s world, without feeling overwhelmed by all the activities. That’s what I did from 1 and now doing it in 3. I had a slight “scare” in Brotherhood, because I wanted to review all these before Mirage hit Steam. But then I realized that it only hampred my time with the game as I was starting to worry how long beating each game would take me. And that right there is a death sentance imo, as I’m now more worried about a different game than the one I’m playing. So, as I said, I’ve literally walked across Boston for a good 2-3 hours, just walking and taking in the city. Then I explored the wild a bit, and am now back in Boston as Connor. Gonna stick with no HUD for all games and exploring the city so I can know it (if not like the back of my hand, cuz they all huge, at least know it well). This is something I did with RDR2. I knew how to travell to each city of the game without a mini map because of landmarks I remembered as I made my way from one to another while just exploring. I think in gaming today, we are more focused on the mini map, where we see all the little icons and stuff. We then feel overwhelmed by all the stuff we can do. But that magic of exploring and finding something interesting is lost, because you see it already on your mini map. So, I did away with that, and hope more games (open world) take this approach where playing like that is viable. In Valhalla, the crow is really cool at showing your some points of interest near you, and it’s a nice way to scan the landscape around you for something to explore.
Also, sorry for the Steam thing, ha. I don’t get what Valve is doing with that. They give us the recap a few days after 14th, so I don’t know why they don’t include the data from that point till the 1st of Jan as well. Or just give us the recap on Jan 1st, with the end point being the 30th or smt.
Hum, hum, you spell out correct and interesting stuff again.
One moment of not using HUD is very memorable to me. It was on my 5th start of Fallout 3 (not that I finished the game 5 times :p ), when I actually started noticing some NEW stuff in the environemt when I stopped looking at my compass (and enemy/location icons on it). So I see how you can take in the game in entirely different way without the minimap :o
Maybe I’ll start doing the same in some games that allow it tbh…
Thanks for the food for thought :3
Yeah, RDR2 “opened” my eyes. I finally saw how much time I spent looking at my mini-map instead of the game I was playing. I was more focused on finding the next icon on my mini-map than looking at the word itself. And it really was interesting to play that way. A bit rough at the start, because I was constantly feeling like I was “missing out” on some missions, etc. But over time, I got rid of that voice and started enjoying open world games in a whole different way. I also stopped using fast travel, ha. It’s kind of a given bc I want to be able to know how to get from point A to point B on my own, so gotta put in the work, can’t just fast travel. Plus, you never know what funky thing might happen while you travel. Horizon Zero Dawn was never dull, despite me walking to 99% of the locations, only using the horse thing on a few occasions.