A Brief and Dazed Evaluation of Assassin’s Creed 3

The following is being written at 5:30am on a Saturday while in the delirium of personal issues.  THIS IS GONNA BE FUN.  I’m being fairly spoiler free, but I might make an mistake.

Devil May Cry - DmC

I have some problems with the upcoming DmC game.

Let me preface this with a possibly bizarre standpoint: I think I could like this game if it was not part of the Devil May Cry franchise.

Devil May Cry has been a big part of my life for many, many years.  I've cosplayed DMC3's Vergil, I've got a cosplay tucked away for Gilver (which was vastly less expensive than DMC3 Vergil).  I have roleplayed in story writing format for these characters, and I have written my share of fanfiction.  The games provided me so much entertainment that I purchased all games, soundtracks, and when DMC3:SE came out, I bought it to partner with my original copy just because I would be able to play Vergil, despite the fact that all it was was his skin and battle moves laid on Dante's frame.

I even have a soft spot for DMC2.  It's sort of the bastard child of the four games, but I appreciate the insinuated development for him there.  He's been at that schtick a long, long time.  I realize DMC4 was a slight retcon of that personality due to the sheer outrage, but I still personally accept DMC2 to be Dante's future after the fourth game.  He's older, he's tired, so he just gets what he needs to done with very little to say about it.  Maybe he's outlived his mortal friends, maybe something happened and Trish is no longer with him.  I fathom Dante's later years became very lonely.

So, what about the upcoming DmC?

Names, Names~ Rambletimes.

When I was in high school, I took a Creative Writing class.  My philosophy teacher said it would benefit me, having been a great supporter of anything his students took an interest in, so I did so.  While I believe that these courses likely do some good for people, I never enjoyed it.  Well, that’s a lie.  I enjoyed listening to the stories others created, but after being marked down for my stories being ‘too dark’ (the content not being unlike supernatural shows found on NBC and WB these days), I just took a passive stance and reveled in the gender inequality that allowed the male students to write firsthand accounts of someone ready to commit suicide.

Funnily enough, though, that’s not what I’m writing about today.  When I was in that class, before my discouragement set in heavily, I used some of my near and dear characters of the time for one of the assignments.  Now, I still have these characters, though their personalities and stories have changed dramatically.  That’s why this still bothers me for the silliest of reasons.

 

On the Subject of ‘Muses’ From a Writer’s Perspective.

Whenever I see people discussing a writer’s claim to have a connection to ‘muses’ as either being ‘insane’, or being suspect of some paranormal influence, I always want to have a sit down with them to explain what having ‘muses’ mean as a writer.  This isn’t to say that there aren’t people out there who have some difficulty discerning voices in their minds, or that there aren’t people who may have some otherworldly connections (after all, many very famous and successful actors claim this very thing), but the average writer who mentions muses isn’t speaking from either of these directions.

 

First Impressions: Alice: Madness Returns

Well, I've been playing this game for a while over on youtube.  Well, when I say 'for a while', I mean I've had to stretch out a couple hours worth of gameplay over the course of a couple of weeks because of some physical issues I'm having.

There are spoilers ahead, but only for the first part of the game.

The Woman (2011)

I don't know how I got there or why I sat through the whole thing, but regardless, I just finished The Woman, directed by Lucky McKee.

IMDB.com summarizes it as:

When a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to "civilize" the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades, he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy.

So, watching this movie, I have to wonder if McKee wasn't looking to give some sort of homage to Quintin Tarantino or something.  A lot of scenes that should have had the dramatic scales we're used to in this sort of movie were replaced with a sort of old rock theme.  (I'm not much into music that isn't the classical scales for movies, so bear with me on that.)  However, the style that the movie was filmed in was not conducive to the music.  I'm not a professional, but as a viewer, had the filming been sharper and not focused on that same look that more typical movies have (slightly grainy, supposed to look more realistic as opposed to sharp and bold colors), I think the music would have meshed better for me.

The acting of some actors left much to be desired, as did the character building.  When the beginning started to roll, I thought I stepped into some sort of freaky, artsy bullshit like Antichrist.

Positives, however.  There were some seriously creepy moments, and it was definitely gut-wrenchingly horrific in other parts.  I think the 'family secret' that's revealed at the end was rather clever.  Maybe I didn't pick up on the hints, but when the main character's wife told him that just what he had going on out with the dogs was enough to land him in prison, I was thinking animal abuse.

My brain can be quite literal.

I liked the actress who played The Woman.  That probably seems funny, since she didn't have a whole ton to do until the end, but I have a great respect for women who manage to put themselves into roles like that.  that sort of feral role, that fringes on looking possessed.  You know.  Of course, my friends and family know I'm a fan of Jennifer Carpenter in The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  As historically inaccurate as that movie was, that girl was amazing.

Overall, I... didn't completely like the movie, but I didn't hate it!  The camerawork was actually very good, and the makeup was good.  I liked the family's interactions with each other.  I suppose, besides the music gripe, I would have liked to see that hour and almost forty-four minutes used to build the family more.

And I guess I just am mostly baffled about seeing what I saw.  I'd love to see Rifftrax do a thing on it, if they haven't already.  I should go check it out.

Jesper Kyd versus Lorne Balfe

Jesper Kyd has been the long-running composer to the Assassin’s Creed OSTs.  On Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, this task was shared with composer Lorne Balfe.  Balfe will be taking on the duties solo-style for reasons I am not privy to, nor does that matter.  People have been apparently concerned that this will significantly affect the experience in Assassin’s Creed.

But I need to emphasize that the duty was shared for AC:R.  Nearly half the OST was done by Balfe.  So, for those of you who are concerned that the feelings and sensations brought by Kyd’s contributions are long gone, and AC3 is going to be awful in that respect, I want to emphasize no it won’t.  If you’ve played AC:R, you already know!

I think it’s because the initially released OST only included Kyd’s tracks.  However, if you go here to Amazon.com, you can see the AC:R OST in its complete format.

Frankly, when having the chance to listen to the entire thing, I’m more impressed with Balfe’s largely orchestral and haunting vocal tracks than Kyd’s more ethnic pieces.

Guys, the main theme of AC:R was Lorne, not Kyd.

Assassin’s Creed is a powerful experience of emotion and action, of victory and defeat, and Kyd brought that every time… except I wonder if he just ran out of steam by AC:R.  I love Jesper Kyd.  I have his album, Ultimatum, even.  For those of you freaking out about Kyd leaving and Balfe taking the job solo, relax.

Balfe did the trailer music for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.  He has stood in partnership many times with Hans Zimmer.  He’s worked on projects such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes (both movies), and even Iron Man.  This is a guy who knows his stuff.
Listen to this video courtesy of a user over on youtube.  Balfe!

Ubisoft, I don’t think you understand how bad I am at video games.

As I type this as a personal affront, and not just a natural progression in the Assassin’s Creed series that is actually a callback to the first game which I completed anyway. (hurblearblarbpoopoopoo)

So, Assassin’s Creed 3 looks amazing.  Pee-your-pants amazing.  I’m an avid fan of this series, and have it and the Vita bundle on pre-order.  Even despite finding out that there is no way to heal yourself during battle, I will get the game and I will play it.  I will play it hard.

But really?  Where are all my drunk assassin jokes going to go now?  I can’t be the only one thinking that Ezio in AC:Revelations saying, “This will dull the pain.” means the medicine is liquor.  Or when the doctor in Rome in AC:Brotherhood told Ezio he was old and so all he could do was help with the pain, that he was basically doing the Italian version of, “Here, drink vodka, vodka will make pain better, comrade!”

I’m just really bad at video games.  Well, mostly because my most defining exposure to video games of recent years has been the Devil May Cry series, which… explains why I drive assassins and zombie killers like tanks.  I can never nail stealth missions, and I almost always fail at free running.  Who else spent the last part of Brotherhood not realizing it was the last part, and half their armor was damaged and things wouldn’t stop?  I know that was me, at least.

So, I’m intimidated by the lack of in-battle healing abilities.  I hope that it works sort of like in the first game where there was no medicine, but if you danced around long enough without being hit, you could retrieve health.

…of course, many missions are times, so maybe not.  “Full Synchronization Failed” is burned into my eyeballs, I see it so much.  (I’m getting better, but mostly on third and fourth replays.)
Either way, I still love you, Ubisoft.  Other than this flaw, things look perfect.

Resident Evil 5: Way late on the opinions train...

...but, in light of Resident Evil 6 coming out on 10.02.2012, I decided to finally sit down and actually play Resident Evil 5.  I had this lingering self-disappointment going because I’ve played virtually all the other games all the way through, save RE0, so I needed to play it before then.  Killing time needed, I plopped it in and took it serious.

So, I should point out that I am terrible with manual aim.  Like, I am hopeless when it comes to that, so I tend to ammo stock because I go in with a flurry of explosions and bullets.  In the older games, auto-aim was my tell that something I heard in the shadows was indeed not my imagination.  I remember distinctly going through a hall that was painfully dark in REmake, and hearing the sound you never want to hear: a Crimsonhead.  Auto-aim and screaming got me through that.

But I managed to get through RE4 and I will make it through RE5.

My biggest props goes to Sheva’s AI programming.  I enjoyed Ashley from RE4 because she actually sometimes did things.  Suddenly, we have Sheva, who will intelligently fight and heal you—as long as you know when to appropriately work with Cover/Attack.  Now, keep in mind I’ve not touched the alternate control settings, but it’s so annoying that I have to waste so much time to make her attack, but it’s so easy to make her cover.  Other than that, Sheva is brilliant in my opinion.

I miss the attache case, though.  I really preferred the puzzle system to fit as much as possible to it compared to having nine slots per character—two of which get eaten up with additional armor you can buy.  Really, the toughest part of the game to me is trying to stand there, passing items back and forth with Sheva while we’re about to get our faces ripped off by not-zombies.

I do like that you can go for upgrades whenever you hit a new level or you die, I like that you don’t need to worry about comboing treasure to make it more expensive, and I like that you can replay levels so easily.  It’s very Devil May Cry (and I’m sure other games too, but if you friend me on XBL, you can see how many games I’ve played).  Better yet is the ability to go replay a mission, and then just keep going.  No getting kicked out to the main pick screen after you’re done like in Assassin’s Creed (my favorite series evar).
If you’re looking for that eerie environment and unsettling images, but you’re a longtime adventurer into survival horror, outside of the first sequence, you might find yourself a little disappointed.  There was only one place where I found myself going, “Oh.  Well,  This isn’t good.”  And that’s when a classic Resident Evil monster is about to come out to play (look at me being good with no spoilers).

Now, I’m not saying it’s not Resident Evil because of this.  It’s just not the haunting and gut-wrenching anticipation creating Resident Evil like it used to be.  They gave us daylight, and with it, it’s about surprises and stress.

Frankly, I’m thankful the video game series hasn’t fallen victim to the issue the Silent Hill franchise has, meaning falling victim to the movies.  I would never buy a game again if they had.  Anything that has happened similar to the movies (judging by what’s happening in RE6’s trailers) has been through a storyline progression and not just ‘so, here’s a super chick and let’s let the world all be zombies’.
Because most of the mechanics issues that I have are 95% my fault, I give RE5 a round of applause and recommend it to anyone who likes shooters, stress-inducing games, and light horror elements.

The above was written around mid-July 2012
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UPDATE: I have since finished RE5.  I REMAIN FIRM IN MY JUDGEMENTS THAT IT'S MOSTLY BECAUSE I'M A FAILGET AND IT'S A GOOD GAME.  Story-wise, I would have liked more.

But.

It's Resident Evil.  We take what we can get.

Michael Fassbender and Assassin's Creed?

NOTE: I'm moving this article from a post over on my tumblr with this same username.  That's why it's slightly out of date.

Article in Question

Normally, I don’t put stock in articles declaring these sorts of things.  However, the Assassin’s Creed official Facebook page did reference this link directly.

I’m personally with the commenters that say that this could work, if Fassbender was enlisted for a lead role that isn’t Altair, Ezio, Connor etc.  Since Connor Kenway establishes English blood in Desmond Miles’s past, Fassbender would be a great English assassin.

Likewise, if he played the main villain, a Templar, that would rock as well.

I’m a very big fan of Michael Fassbender, and of Assassin’s Creed, but I don’t want to see the mains white-washed.  It’s about time we see an awesome Middle Eastern actor get some badass showtime.  (I’m sure it’s happened somewhere, but after Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender… and btw, I don’t even know Avatar.)

The big positive here is that they mention that Fassbender is going to co-produce the movie.  If this is true, I hope this means he actually knows Assassin’s Creed and will do his best to make sure it stays loyal.  The other big positive is that Ubisoft will have their hands on it, and after seeing Assassin’s Creed: Lineage (you can download this on X-Box Live, or find it on the interwebs on the Assassin’s Creed UK youtube channel), I hope their influence on the movie will be as great as I’m sure AC loyalists are hoping.

Profilers

So, for my birthday in September, I received a Nook Color from my parents.  It's a fantastic device, by the way.  I now recommend eReaders to everyone I know.

Anyway, the first thing I did was start looking at things in the vein of psychology--specifically criminal psychology.  It's something that has always fascinated me and I remember wanting to do it when I was younger, but the years have slipped away.  I'm not old, but I feel old (28-years-old).

I've come to really admire the following: Roger Depue, Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas.  These three men were amoung the group of firsts coming out of the tyrannic reign of Mr. Hoover in the FBI, breaking into the scene of truly professional, legally sound criminal profiling.

One thing that I noticed with their writing is that their books show their personalities very well.

Roger Depue, who used to be the supervisor of the other two, writes in a very warm and friendly manner, but is very straight-shooting about his perspective.  Roy Hazelwood is incredibly informative and intelligent, but very clinical in his delivery.  He is professional but clearly is eager to share his experiences.

John Douglas's books have stayed with me, however, because he's an incredibly passionate victims' rights activist.  They all are for the rights of the victims (as there are understandably many in any atrocious crime), but Mr. Douglas is passionate and downright angry about his views.  It reflects his no-nonsene attitude, but his deep understanding and empathy of the pains people live through when rape, torture or murder happen in their lives, to those they love.

I would never recommend any of their books if you cannot handle narrated descriptions of crime scenes.  But I feel as though Mr. Douglas's books, particularly Obession, his 1998 novel that speaks extensively about and for victims, are a good read for anyone not only interested in profilers, but in how to deal with trauma and victimization.  If you've ever found yourself telling a victim close to you to 'move on', you may not enjoy the harsh slap that he delivers in this book, but I think it's a good way to help you look from a different point of view.

Likewise, if you yourself are a victim, I think Obsession is a good book for you to read to know you're not alone and there are people out there that can help you without telling you to move on when you're nowhere near ready.

But again, he is writing--as are Mr. Hazelwood (who actually explores the cases I've always been most horrified by, but what made me interested in the subject at all) and Mr. Depue--to tell stories of their careers.  So there will be tales about cases in the past.  So this is definitely a cautionary recommendation.

(Also, because it will forever need to be said, John Douglas is said to be the inspiration for character Jack Crawford from Silence of the Lambs.)