#SerIously the borgias were nuts

[goblingourmand]

Wait, White Jesus is based on THE Cesare Borgia? As in "The man Machiavelli was inspired by to write about statecraft and schemeing" Cesare Borgia? As in "that guy who managed to turn a tiny scrap of land in north italy into a full on duchy" Cesare Borgia? As in "The dude who, alongside his dad (the pope) was so infamous for poisoning people that they basically had a BRAND NAME OF POISON" Cesare Borgia? That's the dude they've been worshipping all this time? Incredible.

[m39]

History of the Creed - Part 1: Assassin’s Creed 2

So… I’ve decided to do a marathon of my favorite game series, Assassin’s Creed (minus [probably] the first one) because Valhalla (which I’ll not buy until one year after its release) and some part of me decided that I should review them.

But wait a minute… I hear one you saying. Don’t you have over 250 Doom WADs to check?

Well, yes. But then again we kind of like to pile on new idea after another to do when there’s an opportunity. There is still the Galaxia WAD in make for one of you who liked my WAD reviews but I believe that the AC reviews will take a lead for now.

Also the reason that I’m not reviewing Assassin’s Creed 1 is because now when I think about it, it doesn’t sound that good as it was.

You are having a PTSD attack over flags, Templars and “side missions”.

Okay, let’s talk about something else. What I’ve decided to do is to play these games in a semi-completionist style, in other words: if there are some side activities in missions, I am not expecting to replay them to get it all 100% because I would go nuts restarting the mission/control point every time I failed this one, specific side activity. But the rest as in: all collectibles, side missions and places to clear? I’ll do my best to do them all… Even Odyssey…

…

I’m fucked.

But enough of that. Let’s talk about the game that is proclaimed to be the best game in this series.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 2 (The original PC release in Europe: March 5, 2010)

PLOT

It is Italy in the early Renaissance times. You are Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young lad from a family of nobles who’s head of the family, Giovanni, is an Assassin. One day you find it out when your father and brothers are imprisoned and the next day they end up executed so you swear revenge on those Templar MoFoes for what they did.

Ah, revenge, the good, old plot device that never gets boring when it’s done right. And by being done right I mean when it has a nicely written characters. And that character is Ezio. I mean, who doesn’t like him? This motherfucker oozes with charm and personality. And Roger Craig Smith only solidifies it. He even gets a good character development. Example: When Ezio kills the guy who betrayed his family, his next goal is to run away to Spain with his mother and sister. After living two years in his uncle Super Mario’s villa, training under his eye and reading about Assassins and Templars, while still wanting to escape Italy, he’s now having a doubts about this plan and not until the harsh talk with his uncle decides that he’ll help destroy the Spaniard’s band of goons and get a revenge on him.

The secondary characters are fine but that’s it. They are perfectly okay with few of them standing out like Leonardo da Vinci (seriously, your best friend is Leonardo. Fucking. Da Vinci.). The villains are also just okay. Some of them have a personality of a Saturday cartoon villain, some of them are more dimensional. Rodrigo Borgia however goes to the former group. I mean, I don’t find him terrible at all, it just I wish he were better. But props to Manuel Tadros for playing him. He did a very good.

Oh yeah there is also some stuff in the modern times. It’s not bad but it basically exists only to move the plot forward and give us a reason why you can see the stuff from the past. But hey, the Desmond Saga is still better than this Initiate bullshit of the modern days plot.

GAMEPLAY

Assassin’s Creed 2 is basically the first game on steroids. You assassinate targets, you sometimes run using your parkour skills and sometimes fight with the enemies. There are some new stuff when you care this to Assassin’s Creed 1 like: Being able to use two hidden blades at once, healing yourself with medicine, shooting enemies with your loud hidden pistol, using smoke bombs, throwing money on the ground (LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BARD HYENAS!) and poisoning people, making them go apeshit (which I used only once in this run, in 13th sequence to be exact). Asides from the regular guards and archers there are three new types of enemies: Brutes, the heavy armored fatsoes, Agiles that can dodge your regular attacks and Seekers, who have a long ranged weapon and can easily find you in a haystack. You can also buy new, better weapon/armor and a bigger sacks for your knifes/medicine/poison. There is also a notoriety meter. When you fill it to 100% the guards will automatically be suspicious when you are in their line of sight. You can decrease it by ripping off posters, paying off heralds and killing the witnesses.

However, in spite of all of this crap that was added, this game feels easier than the first one. It’s not like it’s somewhat major con for me (I would rather play the game that is too easy than too hard) but I can understand some of you have a big problem with that. Imagine this: in theory, when you are spotted, you must use your abilities to run away from the enemies and use combat only as the last resort. But then I ask: why should you do that?! You are so powerful, you can destroy the entire Venetian army in 10 minutes! You are getting more durable and powerful with each sequence! Agiles can die by one counter attack! You can steal Brute’s/Seeker’s weapon, then one-shot them and then use their weapon to one-shot another fool who’s stupid enough to attack you! The fights are that easily! Sure it’s kind of tougher than I remember but still! Even if you don’t want to fight, smoke bombs helps you tremendously in both running away and fighting. Not to mention the enemies being stupid and that they couldn’t catch you most of the time.

Changing slightly the subject, you can also hire mercenaries/courtesans/thieves to help you distract guards. They are pretty helpful in missions, both the main ones and the side ones but outside of them they are rather useless because... well... I already explained you that.

Remember how in the first game you couldn’t swim? Well, now you can do this and use gondolas. Personally, however, I felt like I was faster on my own than on a venetian mini-boat.

ACTIVITIES

There is many stuff to do in this game. Like much more than you think. You can for instance buy paintings, collect money from chests/codex pages/feathers, find glyphs and solve their riddles, (like in previous game) you can climb on viewpoints to reveal a huge chunk of map, deliver letters, race to beat the best time of members of the guild of thieves, beat up unfaithful husbands, collect 6 seals to get Altair’s armor and fund for renovations of many buildings in Monteriggioni. Most of this stuff gives you more and more money every 20 in-game minutes by increasing the town’s status (which you have to withdraw from your villa).

In other words, the predecessor of your typical, modern, Ubiconic game. Personally I enjoyed doing these stuff but be warned; if you want to go after feathers, check a guide on their locations (same with Monteriggioni’s roman gods’ statues). I know at least one guy who went insane after trying to find the last one in Tuscany.

Liquid Bogan (in the background): F̴e̸a̴t̸h̶e̵r̵e̵s̷ ̶a̴r̷e̵ ̵l̴i̸f̵e̶,̴ ̶b̶r̸o̷t̷h̸e̸r̶.̸ ̶W̷e̵ ̶m̵u̵s̴t̴ ̸c̷o̸l̴l̴e̴c̸t̵ ̷a̸l̸l̷ ̸f̸e̸a̶t̷h̴e̶r̴e̵s̵,̶ ̷y̵i̵s̵?̶

He’s definitely fine.

THE GRAPHICS AND SOUND

This is where it turns into mixed-bag. While the sound effect are still very good, the graphics however, didn’t age well. Sure, the landmarks still look awesome and I love some of the details like the fact that some dust from buildings comes off when you climb but the character models… I don’t think they survived the time after the game’s release. The textures look sometimes blurry as shit, facial animation looks from time to time wonky, it looks especially bad in cutscenes. Then again, I don’t think people liked how they looked even in 2009 since I remember watching a review from my native country and the reviewer said that the character models lack polish when you take a closer look.

The soundtrack though… Jesus. Like, what can be said about it after so many people said earlier? There is a reason why people are calling it one of the best soundtracks in video games of all times. I would choose you three of those worth a listening but asides from the first three in the official soundtrack (for obvious reasons) there is too much to choose. So, here’s the whole bloody soundtrack.

STABILITY

Even though I played the PC version (and I heard that the PC version was a mess at the beginning) I didn’t really had many problems. Framerate was constantly smooth and I didn’t notice any drop in it. There were however 2 nasty bugs. The first one crashed the game when you have to choose if you want to play the memory or not; it happened at least 3 times. The second was when trying to assassinate Antonio Maffei and that monk fucker decided to noclip himself into the tower. Like- What the- WHAT THE FU-

Technical Difficulties.

Maybe it was because I paid the nearby herald. I don’t know.

SUMMARY

Despite its graphics getting somewhat dated and the game being kind of buggy, Assassin’s Creed 2 is still a fantastic game and I fully recommend it to you. Check it for yourself (if you haven’t already) and while at it, tell me your opinion about this game.

Thank you all for reading this long-ass review and I’ll see you next time.

Bye!

[spunsugarj2fantasy]

Tag Game

OK @mooseintheocean, thanks for the tag! 

FYI sometimes I overshare...so enjoy or skip, whatever floats your boat!

85 Questions:

1. drink: tea, mainly herbal

2. phone call:...I'm assuming this means last phone call I made? Husband

3. text message: to co-worker, wishing him a happy bday

4. song I listened to: last one was Leonard Cohen "You Want It Darker"

5. last time I cried: when @mooseintheocean told me to watch the Kodaline "Brother" video...last week sometime? :)

6. dated someone twice: well I married him, sooo... yeah?

7. kissed someone and regretted it: no...but I have regretted NOT kissing someone

8. been cheated on: no, thank Chuck, can't imagine the pain

9. lost someone special: yes

10. been depressed: yes, though I'm not sure if it was actual clinical depression or just a really rotten year from hell 

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: surprisingly no.  I've been drunk and tipsy, but I have never (yet!) thrown up due to alcohol...though never say never. 

three favourite colours:

12. black, although technically it's not a colour 

13. green

14. purple

in the last year have you:

15. made new friends: yes! you know who you are!!! :D

16. fallen out of love: no

17. laughed until you cried: yes, may times

18. found out someone was talking about you: yes

19. met someone who changed you: well, this may sound silly, but THIS!  ALL of this here! I was a closet J2 fan before I met some awesome people right here!  Now I can openly talk about everything and they won't think I'm totally crazy.

20. found out who your friends are: I kinda always did.  I've been besties with my bestie for 27 years, and still going strong.

21. kissed one of your tumblr followers: virtually via emoji yes. irl no, haven't had the pleasure.

general:

22. how many of your tumblr friends do you know in real life? None. (YET!!!!) Like I said, never say never!

23. do you have any pets? no :( but I wanna!!!

24. do you want to change your name? already did, when I got married.  First name, no, I kinda like it :)

25. what did you do for your last birthday? my co-workers had a lovely lunch and cake for me, husband took me out to dinner, I went out with my friends the next day.  At this point in my life, my BDay is basically just another excuse to see everyone :)

26. what time did you wake up? 6:30am, BLECHHHHH! NOT a morning person.

27. what were you doing at midnight last night? reading fanfiction.  Yeah Jo, me too, lol.

28. name something you can’t wait for: OCTOBER!!!  S13 and meeting J2 again!

29. when was the last time you saw your mum: two days ago

30. what are you listening to right now? Jensen Ackles acoustic version of Simple Man

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom? yes, but over 5 years ago.

32. something that is getting on your nerves: fanaticism. entitlement. inconsiderate selfishness. idiocy/stupidity. willful blindness. and stupid drivers.

33. most visited website: Twitter, Tumblr, GroupMe (LOL), AO3

34. hair colour: dark brown

35. long or short hair: long

36. do you have a crush on someone? yes?...ahem, YES.  And yes, my husband knows.

37. what do you like about yourself? hmmmmmm...please hold....

...please continue to hold...

...

...I'm friendly! As far as features go, my eyes I guess.

38. piercings: yup, a few...9 in total.

39. blood type: I actually have no idea...may be a good idea to find out.

40. nickname: Oh god... here we go... Magda, Maggie, Lenka, Madzia, Magzz, Meg, Psupa, Sweetie, Magoo, Morwa, ok seriously, I think that's enough, no?

41. relationship status: Married. Hitched. Ball and chained! :D

42. zodiac: Cancer, July 20th.

43. pronouns: she or her...possibly answers to YO! as well.

44. favourite tv show(s): Supernatural (duh!!!), X-Files, Firefly, The Borgias, Game of Thrones, The Blacklist, Eyewitness, Black Sails, Lucifer

45. tattoos: nope, though I have some interesting ideas...

46. right or left handed: right handed

48. sport: Me no.  But I like watching hockey.

49. vacation: next bit of time off will be in October for SPN Con

50. pair of trainers: I assume you mean shoes, yes.

more general:

51. eating: oatmeal, raspberries and vanilla milk for breakfast.  And tea.  GALLONS of tea.

52. drinking: vanilla milk atm...and tea.  GALLONS of tea...is there an echo in here?

53. i’m about to: get my ass off Tumblr and actually get some work done.

54. waiting for: 5:30pm when I can go home :)

55. want: really? u got enough room in here for this??? I'll keep it short: EVERYTHING.

56. get married: been there, done that, didn't get a tshirt, but still have my dress. 

57. career: well I AM working right now (literally! supposed to be) and I like my job, so I'm pretty happy

58. hugs or kisses: BOTH!!! AND snuggles AND hand-holding AND hot sex AND flirting AND porn ... OK I stop now.

59. lips or eyes: both, ALL OF IT, especially if you're Jared or Jensen

60. shorter or taller: well, seeing my answer above, so I'd say tall please

61. older or younger: if you mean life partners? I don't really care.  It's the fit & chemistry that matters, not he age...WITHIN REASON of course!  My husband is 5 years older than I, if that helps.

62. nice arms or nice stomach: ME? Neither, especially not the stomach part (see #48 where I don't do sports).  In other people...both are nice but neither is absolutely necessary and lack of either or both does not automatically warrant rejection or dismissal.  The outer shell is important, but not as crucial as the inner mush.

63. hookup or relationship: well, seeing as I'm married, I'd have to say relationship.  (with the occasional hook-up thrown in?  My husband and I are adventurous, LOL). 

64. troublemaker or hesitant: mostly reserved and hesitant, I try to avoid or resolve conflict as soon as possible.  Until someone stupid pisses me off on purpose, then it's all hell breaks loose.

have you ever:

65. kissed a stranger: yes

66. drank hard liquor: yes

67. lose glasses/contact lenses: I have not lost either. I kinda need them so I take good care of them.

69. sex on the first date: depends.

70. had your heart broken: yes, though he totally didn't do it on purpose!!! I had the extreme misfortune to fall for a gay man.  Nothing either of us could do about it.

71. been arrested: no.

72. cried when someone died: yes.

73. fallen for a friend: yup.  See #70. 

do you believe in

74. yourself:  sometimes

75. miracles: sometimes.

76. love at first sight: not Love. Intense attraction, lust, chemistry, strong magnetic pull, yes.  But Love grows from getting to know someone.  At first sight you only see the outer shell.  You may really like the look/touch/taste/smell of the outer shell, but it's what's inside that engenders real Love.

77. santa claus: I'm waaayyy to naughty for that. 

78. kiss on the first date: depends...(see #69)

79. angels: hmmmmm....I believe in supernatural and extraterrestrial beings... it's a big universe and it's be an awful waste of space if humans were the only beings around.  I also believe in human angels.  Those selfless human beings who share their light with others, hoping to change the world for the better.

other

80. eye colour: green.  sometimes hazel, depending on what I wear.

81. favourite movie: WOW...OK, I'll try to narrow it down.  All the Harry Potter movies, all the Lord of the Rings movies, A&E Pride and Prejudice (miniseries), pretty much all the adaptations of Jane Austen books, most versions of Jane Eyre, Dark City, Merchant of Venice (2004 Al Pacino version), there are lots more that I won't list of this will be miles long.

82. height: 5'7

83. siblings: two younger half brothers

84. favourite season: I don't like weather/temperature extremes so spring or fall

85. sexuality: Bi for sure, possibly Pan - though that's only theoretical atm.

OK, that's it.  If anyone needs any clarification just ask!  :D

Dear Followers: if you want to do this, feel free, go nuts, tag me so I can see!

XO!