Topics I Have An Opinion About - Blog Posts

Christmas 2017 (My thoughts)

Christmas. We are supposed to feel… Well. Happy, peaceful, full of spirit and joy. But this year… Too much happened. We don’t feel safe, we don’t feel content. We can’t relax, we can’t enjoy it… Too much happened this year and even in the Month of December the month of mirth and contemplation… We got bogged down by worry and it became even worse as our worries became reality again and again. How can we be joyful if we see a dark future? We will stand up against the nebulous and uncertain future, a future that is scaring us. We have too or the next Christmas may be even worse than this one. But we shouldn’t have to think about this, we shouldn’t drown in worries but we do because there are so many, even Christmas can banish them temporary this year, this year called 2017. And this isn’t just true for Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and many other important Holidays were not so enjoyable this year for the people who celebrate them. Many had a bad 2017, many deserved a better one. Even if this Christmas, no ALL the holidays are not as great this year, just remember that the next year can, no HAVE to become better for us all. Do your best next year, so that next Christmas, that the next holidays will be a magnificent event that can make us all happy once again. Until then and despite everything: I wish you all a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: After the Fact

I just finished “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” a few days ago. By the gods, it was way too hard.

Let me explain.

I waited some time before buying it so that I would get it for less money and more patches repairing the problems of the game. The game still had a lot of problems, including the difficulty.

Maybe I was used to much to some of the easier mechanics of the other Assassin’s Creed games but let me list some of my Gripes.

  SPOILERS AHEAD!

·      Why did so many chests need locks with different levels of difficulty to open them? It was tedious to let so many unopened until you got enough Sync points to unlock the required abilities.

·      The lack of an instant kill-counter made combat rather tedious after a while. The counter could have at least taken some health from the enemy.

·      Stealth-Sections got frustrating because the enemies were sometimes too easily alarmed.

·      The Non-Lethal takedowns took too long. I like to take out my enemies without killing them but this made it way to often very risky.

·      Free-Running could be very problematic especially if fine-manoeuvres were needed. Arno seemed to love to get stuck on certain objects or did things he wasn’t supposed to be. It needed more fine-tuning.

·      The story had potential but the game didn’t use this potential to its fullest. An Assassin-Templar Alliance during the Revolution against a third party would have been really interesting. But that didn’t happen. Instead we got an Assassin working together with a lone Templar Lady who wasn’t a part of the stronger Templar Faction.

·      Also the fact that the Templars were behind the French revolution was a bad idea. The entire event was too great and complex to reduce it too “Templars stole away some food and made all the French people hungry and mad”. I would have preferred to see Templars and Assassins trying to get the upper hand in all the chaos caused by the Revolution or something like that which could have lead to the mentioned alliance.

·       The commanding Templars weren’t that interesting. We got a lot of information and characterization out of the Templars from “Assassin’s Creed II” for example but almost nothing in this game. Even the Big Bad, François-Thomas Germain was not all that developed despite the fact that he was a Sage.

·       The Death of Elise. Was that really necessary?! We don’t need more women in the fridge in Assassin’s Creed Ubisoft!

But biggest problem of the game is a different and simple one: It plays to slow and feels like it. In the other games if you got into combat it was faster solved in battle or it was easier to escape the enemy. Both are more difficult in this game than it should be. The combat isn’t all that difficult to master but the tedious nature of the fights made them annoying after a while. The stealth sequences fared a little better even if the whistle ability was missed and the cherry bombs were a bad substitute. After finishing “Unity” I started to play “Assassin’s Creed: Rogue” and I noticed how much faster the pace was and how much more fun the gameplay. Having the command over a ship again did also help because the gameplay with the ship is as engaging and fun like it was in “Assassin’s Creed III” and “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag”. If a game feels to much like a chore, there is no fun in it. Other Assassin’s Creed games felt like a chore at times, but it was never as bad as in “Unity”. It felt like “Fake Difficulty” at times. Making the gameplay mechanics more difficult to use to give the player a greater challenge. A very cheap tactic to increase the challenge in my opinion and not a good one. In short: I think “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” is to slow.

A Black Widow Movie vs A Hawkeye Movie

Most people will not be happy should a Movie about Hawkeye come out before a movie about Black Widow. The Black Widow fans will not be happy about it because it upstages Natasha Romanoff. Feminists will not be happy because a less popular male superhero will get a movie before a more popular female superhero. Fans of Hawkeye will not be happy because the controversy will overshadow the movie itself, regardless of how good it is.

Nobody will be happy. So please Marvel and Disney, please give Black Widow a movie before one for Hawkeye gets announced.

The Discworld Adventures for PC

I learned about the “Discworld” universe over a Videogame magazine called “Bravo Screenfun”. I read in one of the issues about the second Discworld Adventure with Rincewind the sorcerer, the worst wizard who ever lived. I later read the walkthrough of that game named “Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?” in the another issue of “Bravo Screenfun”, reading about the weird adventures of Rincewind and how he was able to solve many riddles and overcame obstacles. I played the two Discworld games with Rincewind and played “Discworld Noir” too.

Those games made me interested in the books. It was surprising how different the books were. I figured out over time that the games took several of the Discworld Characters and plots and sprinkled them anywhere into the narrative and the gameplay. The first game was a adaption of “Guards! Guards!” and has elements from “Moving pictures” with Rincewind being the main protagonist and not the Vimes, Carrot and Co. Rincewind has to find a summoned dragon and stop that dragon from destroying Ankh-Morpork.

The second one is a adaption of “Reaper Man” AND “Moving Picutres” in which Death decides to stop working and going on vacation because his job is stressing him out and he doesn’t feel appreciated.

“Discworld Noir” on the other hand was about the private detective Lewton, ex-member of the watch. It was like a Noir-Movie, very atmospheric and grim, yet still a parody of the noir-genre at the same time. No pre-existent book-plot was used but many of the characters from the books were.

Because of those games I started to read the books. It was surprising how different the game interpretations of those characters were. Especially of Havelock Vetinari who ordered a hit on Death for becoming too popular. A rather absurd action of the Patrician when considering how he acts otherwise.

Those games I love so much guided me to the books I love so much.

Thank you Terry Pratchett, thank you for those games and your books. Nothing is like them; nothing I know is like them and will ever be.

R.I.P.

Clothing choices

The Spell Fencer class in the game Bravely Default.

Question Squarenix:

Why not have the option to choose the type of clothing for this class? Why not having the option to choose between the attire that envelops the entire body and the sexy belly dancer outfit instead of having only one default setting for the female and male characters?

Everyone would be happy if we all had the choice between pragmatic-rational- and fanservice-sexy type of clothing, armour, etc., for playable female and male characters from the start in video games with no change in the stats.