Another Sunday, another batch of screenshots from something I played (or am playing). This time it's off to the Middle East to hang around with Altaïr and his assassin buddies. Still have not found the perfect format for my Screenshot Sunday stuff, but I am getting close, so that's nice. Need to figure out some HTML shenanigans and then it will be done. But I digress. This is about Assassin's Creed after all.

Despite my nostalgic tinted glasses, the game was fun. It had one of the better stories in the franchise, only stained by the poor work Altrair's voice actor did. The gameplay tho feels like a prototype like it needed more time to fully blossom into a proper game. So, I like to say that if you look at the franchise as a skyscraper, Assassin's Creed is not the foundation, but rather the pit dug for the foundation, which I believe Assassin's Creed 2 to be in many ways. Still, the parkour was fun, and combat was hit-and-miss, with stealth okayish at best. Side content was tedious and none should bother with those flags, and the assassination missions could have given a little bit more freedom to the player in how to deal with their targets. But for something resembling a prototype to me, it was fun, and quite revolutionary when it first came out due to the unique traversal system.

So, here are just a couple of screenshots from the start of the game, hope to get the format done for next week and share more, as the game, despite being quite old, still is ripe with incredible beauty if you take a moment to just stop and look.

So, that's it for this week. The Steam sale is now also here, got me some games, and also a couple of gifts from a dear friend for my birthday, which was yesterday, and it was just an all-around awesome week in general. Here is hoping the next one is as good, if not better, for me and all of yous. I'm off to play some Blades of the Shogun I got recommended during the last month's challenge, and hopefully beat it before Resident Evil 4 Remake drops next Friday.

Cheers.

This is just a quickie after my 13-ish hours with Assassin's Creed I wanted to share, having beaten the game again after 15 years. A more fancy review will come later.

Damn, what a fine trip down memory lane this was. Gameplay-wise, it still holds up. The janky combat was fun. But I liked that stealth and not drawing attention to your actions were the core focus of the game. The series needs to go back to its root with the next entry. Leave the nonsensical combat and Spartan Kicks with insane "magical" abilities behind. Return that more grounded approach.

The presentation was good, and given this was made in 2008 (damn, I was 13 then… How time flies), the visuals still hold up pretty well. It's mindblowing how detailed each city is. Sure, it might not be amazing by today's standards, but even then, the game's city architecture is ripe with an abundance of extremely high detail little pieces that function as a ladder of sorts you use to scale the walls of each building.

Parkour was a big part of the traversal around the three cities and seeing where and how you can climb each wall, window or ledge, was part of the gameplay. Shame they went away from this approach with the new RPG stuff.

I did learn a few new things this time around. If you see "glitches" occur when an in-game cutscene plays, press any button and you'll get a cinematic look of your target. I also found out you could do 6 total investigations before each mission, but the minimum you had to do was 2 at first, then 3 before you could start each assassination attempt. You didn't really get much for doing these extra investigations, and I mostly opted to not do them given how repetitive they are. So, I stuck with the minimum amount needed. I think that's about it. Oh, and the horse galop is also funny. Isn't a new thing, but I thought I should mention it.

The game does cramp up at times, mainly because of the limitations of hardware available back then. LOD detail is quite poor (no shadows are cast by these objects), constant pop-ins, low-range high-quality shadows, pretty dead in-between zones connecting the city, a lot of copy-pasted faces, and so on.

Still, none of these aforementioned issues stopped me from raking in 2108 screenshots when all was said and done. Not all good, perhaps around 500 decent (need to do some cleanup). Look, the point I'm trying to make is that the game has plenty of beauty to offer despite some of these graphical limitations plaguing it.

So, there you have it. A rough, freshly baked take right after the credits rolled about the game that started this amazing franchise.

And now it's time to play the one that shattered expectations of what a sequel should do.

It's time to play the best entry in the series.

E’ tempo di visitare Ezio a Firenze🤌🤌

Another Screenshot Sunday? Indeed. But no Assassin’s Creed Valhalla shots this time. No. This time we go back in time, to when you had a white hooded robe, a hidden blade that had to be used and stealth as a central part of the gameplay. That’s right, it’s Assassin’s Creed, the first one.
Ah does time fly. Still remember playing this for the first time when it came out. I was blown away. Truly a revolutionary concept Ubisoft concocted that only got better, but also stagnated in some areas as the years passed.

And as I decided to deal with my gamer burnout by doing an Assassin’s Creed binge from the first to the last entry and reviewing each, in order, you can also expect some nice shots in the foreseeable future.

The eagle of Masyaf overlooking Jerusalem

The first of many

I’ve got to run, lots of stuff to stab and leaps of faith to be taken.
Until next Sunday, may you all have a fantastic week.
Cheers.

It’s time for yet another Screenshot Sunday. And while Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is still on the menu, this time a special guest appears. Perhaps those who played the previous entry might recognize this fine lady who accompanied Eivor in the Isle of Skye on a quest to uncover an artefact of great power and one that made me giddy when I saw it.

You shall not pass!

The side adventure ends, and a new comrade, nay, a friend, is made

The crypt — a place of worship, sacrifice and revelations

It's always easier to make friends when you have something in common

Illusion or not, the hurt of a severed bond once had is real

Until next Sunday, keep on keeping on, and I need to go play games someone picked out for me.

What horrible beasts we can make ourselves be in our minds — TheAudio, circa 2022

REalM Walk of Soul employs the show, don't tell approach for its storytelling, which I adore. I like not being treated like a toddler incapable of understanding subtext and needing everything to be spoon-fed to me. So, I was delighted to see this twisted, nightmarish world ingrained with symbolism, metaphors, and subtle hints which slowly revealed themselves to me.

Besides the visual aid, the game draws from many other avenues to tell its story — collectables description, creepy homemade short videos, NPCs design, and sporadic dialogue. It all comes together to tell the tale of our heroine, Iris. Who is she, why is she in this bizarre world, and what dark secrets lurk deep within her heart? All your questions will be answered when the credits roll for the nth time. Yes, multiple playthroughs are required to fully comprehend the tale of Iris.

Where it all begins — the heart of the realm, the Nexus

But this is where I'll stop any form of story discussion altogether. The reason is simple — the game deserves the honour of taking your virginity, not me.

We can talk about the gameplay — nothing to spoil there besides prepare to cry.

Brains over brawn

While there is a bit of platforming, enemy and spiky things avoiding, REalM is primarily a puzzler. And a tough one at that — which is why I fell in love with it. The puzzles don't utilize any gameplay mechanics for their solutions — it's just titillating word-based puzzle porn for your grey matter to enjoy. And me and my grey matter likey, we likey very much. Also, bonus points for some of the puzzles activating my masochist card. Having to actually put pen to paper and labour 4 hours on my answer made hearing that oh-so-sweet correct answer sound effect play so elating. Just úžasný. But best of all — the game has NG+ with new puzzles and new secrets to explore.

And I'm not joking about the time spent on a single puzzle. Many took me hours, but then others minutes. Occasionally I would put my hands up in defeat and go to another area and different puzzle only to solve that seemingly impossible-to-crack puzzle in seconds after returning later. From my 85h playtime, I would say maybe 5 hours were of actual gameplay, like platforming, walking, and interacting with the world of REalM. The rest was Iris standing still, with her little idle animation playing, while I shed very manly tears as I begged my IQ to stop sinking. So, if you aren't prepared to be confused and made to feel stupid, you might loathe your time with REalM and its puzzles.

But for me, each Eureka! was bliss. It felt incredibly satisfying due to how much time and effort went into overcoming the puzzle in front of me. REalM delivered what EA could not — a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Speaking of platforming, it is present throughout the game, indeed. The best compliment I can give it is passable. Essentially, you'll evade being licked, ticked, and pricked, hide from giant insects, and jump over earbugs, babies, and many other unholy creations birthed by TheAudio, the mind behind REalM. But they don't pose any real challenge. It was akin to a welcome respite after a painful workout my brain had just endured. And this lack of challenge may disappoint some. However, it did make it easy to ogle and ingest these outlandish creatures and many other disturbing sights REalM's ripe with at my own pace, worry-free.

There are also four unique abilities you'll unlock for Iris. Two, the dove and crow, or as I like to call it sexy goth lady power, impact gameplay. The dove gives you "wings" to reach higher places, and the crow returns you to the Nexus, which acts as a hub of sorts where you pick one of the three worlds to explore, each enveloped in a unique theme. The other two, Iron-Irsi and Prickle-Iris have zero impact on gameplay, literally.

And except the sexy goth lady power, all aid in opening previously closed paths, unearthing the many buried secrets REalM has. But the chances you miss a secret is nigh-on-impossible due to how in-your-face the secret "doors" are. Still, there were a couple of superb hidden surprises as a reward for fully exploring every nook and cranny — I'll give the game that much.

But secrets aren't the only incentive to explore, as you'll also come across mementos in the wild. Basically, these mementos act as tokens you use to get a second puzzle hint or sacrifice them for an instant solution to a particularly challenging puzzle.

To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.

Knight's bishop to queen five, checkmate, I hear you say, creaming from excitement, itching to abuse the memento system by saving scumming to get puzzle solutions for free. But pawn to king square five, king's knight to the third square on the bishop's file, queen takes F7 — now that's a checkmate, courtesy of Yoxter, the puzzle master, and the rest of the dev team. Or, in simpler terms — you can't abuse this system as the game doesn't show you the puzzle solution when using mementos to solve them.

Lastly, the audio and visuals sing in spectacular harmony, coming together like cream and pie, providing your senses with a mouthful they'll thoroughly enjoy. The game relishes furnishing you with disturbing hand-drawn imagery accompanied by the sweet cacophony of brass and piercing sounds. There is a certain level of elegance to its violation of mother nature and all these unholy marriages of deformed flesh, metal, insect, and leather roaming the game's world.

But just looking wasn't enough — I had to touch it, fully and thoroughly explore it. I just had to. My own bedlam urge drove me. And this I absolutely adored — I was the mason of my own dread. In the wise words of a ghostly whisper in a large cornfield, "If you build it, he will come." Did Kevin Costner come? Sadly, no. But the uneasiness from looking at the abyss longer than the WHO recommends sure did. And each first encounter would leave a long-lasting impression on me. Or was it 'scar me' that Dr. Bob said? Tomato, potato.

Gaze long into an abyss, and it smiles back

Penance

And rather than offer a quick summation of the game's strengths and weaknesses as a parting gift, I'll instead share a very discomfiting reality I was the sole architect of — I lied. Not in this review, as the game is superb, and I stand behind my recommendation and everything I said 100%. No, I lied to the good people at Quantum Sheep.The people who put their trust in me.

For context, REalM: Walk of Soul is the very first game sent to me by me initiating contact with the developers. People I didn't know probably read what I wrote and liked it enough to send me a code for their game. It meant a lot to me. But as I said, I lied to them. I promised a review would drop in January of last year for an event I wanted to do, but I didn't deliver on both fronts. I overestimated my own abilities and broke the promise given. There is a reason why that transpired, but that is of little importance. The uncomfortable truth is my own gluttony led to my downfall and the unintentional lie. But despite my shortcomings, I was only met with kindness and even welcomed to discuss my interpretation of the game directly with TheAudio.

So, REalM isn't just a game to me — it's a testament to my greatest failure. However, this is a queen-sized mess I made, with a second opprobrium on its way — Space Gladiator, the next game I'll review.

If you enjoy this review, come and read more wisdom from the Gospel of Sv. Prolivije.

It’s time for another Screenshot Sunday and more Assassin’s Creed Valhalla love. And I wager this is what most of my subsequent Screenshot Sunday events will be about, as I have about 5000 screenshots in my folder, and am in the process of seeing which are posting worthy. So, I would say, maybe between 500-1000 will make the cut. Will I post all of them? Maybe. Days Gone is on my to-do list and it also has a photo mode, so, might mix it up once I start playing it.

But for now, I hope you enjoy some of my Assassin’s Creed Valhalla shots, with more to come next Sunday.

England, get ready for my axe!

Don't let the warm glow of the fireflies fool you — an ominous threat lurks in the shadows they cast

We all have skeletons in our basements

Hope y’all are having a great weekend, and a fruitful week that’s to come.

The current number of games I have recommended in my curator

I’m gonna start a Screenshot Sunday thing, and look to post a couple of cool screenshots each Sunday (if I can). Besides writing reviews, I also immensely enjoy using the photo mode in any game, and sometimes that may even make up a great deal of my playtime. To start off this amazing event I’ll be posting some of my screenshots from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The game is simply amazing to ogle and comes with a pretty decent photo mode that made many of my screenshots possible.

The Three Viking-eers

The gods' beckon

An assassin born

Only the worthy may enter

Well... which one of you forgot to turn the stove off?

Since I just joined this nice website and saw how amazing it’s post tool is, I decided to share my most recent review, as that is something I’m very passionate about — reviewing. I will try and post here often, either new (and some of my older reviews) reviews or perhaps a screenshot or two. You never know. And I can’t wait to actually take this post tool for a spin and see what it can really do with my reviews. It’s gonna be amazing. So, without further ado, here is my cool review for Milli & Greg a fine precision platformer and a heck of a challenge to beat.

Imagine, if you will, a lovely lass, pure as the Niflheim snow. You are classmates and very close friends. A couple of awkward glances later, you become more than that. Then the big day arrives, and it's time to take it to the next level — it's time to become one. There is some foreplay, some string, and suddenly she turns on the lights. The sudden burst of light ravages your eyes, causing an uncomfortable photophobia episode. As your eyes slowly acclimate to the brightness, you see her. That ain't no maiden at the foot of your bed. That there is the finest dominatrix and manhole spelunker this side of the Pontar Valley. How you know that is not important, but her motto sure is, "Pain is mandatory." And you will welcome it — one way or another.

This is Milli & Greg.

An absolute chonker

The story boils down to cat ran away, now find him. And we don't need to concern ourselves with why a 16-year-old chonky cat ran away and how it made it past all the deadly gizmos. Probably some weird cat magic and stuff. But before moving on to the actual meat of the game, I want to quickly praise the occasional dialogue present in the game. It had that deadpan humour I enjoy, and grandma was full of wisdom. That is all.

I hope this sunset was worth it Greg, because you are grounded, mister!

And now, it's time for the pegg-, I mean, let's discuss the gameplay.

Sometimes being fast can be a positive

After I was explained how to press buttons, my cheeks were awarded a gift — a meaty welcome-slap courtesy of its first proper level. As I progressed, the slaps got meatier, with the cheeks redder. And with 1753 slaps received by the time I 100% the game, my buns were cinnabar red. Granted, it was all my fault — I couldn't resist gathering all the collectables and completing the two secret worlds. I'm just a tad bit masochistic and love me a good challenge. So, not being able to sit for a couple of months was a small price to pay for the pleasure I was given.

But what is the secret behind its marvellous spanking power? -Swiftness.

This is the main shtick you need to embrace. The game demands performing back-to-back actions quickly with precision and immaculate timing to avoid the many environmental hazards, or Milli goes boom, literally. Yeah… I don't know why that's her death animation, but we move.

And the bane of my buns was the wall-slide and dash duo. Dash almost exclusively comes at the end of your wall-slide adventure, and it is here that the swiftness I spoke of comes into play. You have to move your finger from one movement key to another. And you might sit there and think, "Ok, this doesn't seem that tough. What you on about Slav-moustache-man?"

Oh, my sweet summer child.

The devs made sure there was a catch. If you let go of the movement key that is making you wall-slide, you immediately enter free fall and race to the ground like a giant bag of bricks at the speed of light. And letting go of the movement key is a must. Otherwise, you can't use the other movement keys to aim your dash towards any cardinal or intercardinal direction opposite the direction of the movement key you are holding to wall-slide.

Here is a rough summation of what all my blabbering refers to:

• To wall-slide you must hold the left/right movement key corresponding to the placement of the wall on the screen (left/right)
• Once the bottom of the wall is near, it's time to go fast and execute a dash
• Let go of the left/right movement key while immediately pressing the dash button and aiming your dash towards safety (which is in the opposite direction of the movement key you just let go of)
• Profit/Boom

You are chonky and all, Greg, but, at this point, I'm just gonna get a new cat.

So, apart from some precise and expertly timed jumps, you mostly be trying to perform the dash correctly. And this is where the actual challenge of being swift originates. If you aren't quick when switching between the two actions, you go boom.

Also, you have only one chance to execute your perfect dash. After your first and only dash attempt, you must recharge it by having Milli touch grass (the ground). Add to this that levels are usually cluttered from head to toe with pointy things, and thus any miscalculation on your part, a dash performed too soon or too late, a jump too high or too low, all end with a glorious explosion.

Now, one thing that took some adjusting to was the slide gimmick. This is thanks to the game's weird physics shenanigans, which adds extra momentum to Milli's movement, making her perform a short slide if you stop mid-run. Personally, I am not a fan, as it usually ended with me sliding into the pointy things DMs and exploding.

Speaking of pointy things, I must applaud the game's superb level design. It's simply amazing. 150 levels, evenly spread across 5 unique worlds, without a trace of that oh-so-familiar lazy copy-paste stench. Instead, every level is handcrafted with lots of care put into creating something challenging but also visually appealing and unique. While many environmental hazards repeat, their layout makes each level feel fresh, giving off that new book smell.

And sure, some levels are cluttered due to how many traps the devs decided to throw at you. Frankly a wet dream for any trap hoarder out there. But being stuffed to the brim and offering little space to manoeuvre can also be good. Now the game's precision challenge is elevated even further, with each move, slide, jump, and thrust having to be executed with pixel-perfect accuracy and timing. So, the masochistic among you will relish playing these levels. I know I did.

How many pointy things do you want? Milli & Greg Devs: Yes

There is one weird thing — level difficulty isn't tied to progression. Instead, each does its own thing. Some can be easy, some stupid hard. This is all related to how the level sets up the layout, which is always unique, and thus may be more forgiving of your mistakes than a previous one, despite it perhaps being the last level of the world.

And I already praised the level variety enough, but its partner in crime, the audio, is just okayish. Besides the chiptunes music tracks, which you'll either enjoy or loathe, and the boom sound on death, there isn't much to judge. Wish the cat would meow from time to time while it waits for you at the finish line. 'Tis your typical adorable pixel graphics and 8-bit music combo. Nothing special. Greg does look like a cat, so that's nice. However, you can't pet him?! Devs, please, fix this!

So yeah, that's Milli & Greg — a trap. I saw the cuddly cover and thought, "Why not? I'm in the mood for something chill today." Instead, I received an unexpected backdoor knock, which stunned my nervous system. But after loosening up a bit, the feeling in my palms came back, and I was able to help Milli avoid all the traps and save the absolute unit that is Greg.

If you enjoy this review, come and read more wisdom from the Gospel of Sv. Prolivije.

I’ve arrived