Just celebrated my 23rd birthday, and among other presents that I've been enjoying for the past few days, one of the real highlights has been getting my hands on some newer PC game titles.
Among those titles has been Assassin's Creed, and the reason why I've chosen this game in particular to review, is because I've discovered that I do in fact have a few issues with it.
To give you a bit of background, you play Altair, an member of an order of assassins who target political bad-guys in the name of the "greater good". It's the time of the third crusade, 1191 to be precise, and you're in Palestine. The game centres around your initial failure to uphold the Assassin's Creed, a sort of code of honour. You are now forced to regain your honour and the respect of your peers, by taking out nine assassination targets. With each assassination, you are restored a rank and regain lost abilities and weapons. Because you have been demoted, you are now no longer pointed directly to your target, but instead must go hunting around the city, be it Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus, finding quests and completing them, before you are allowed to carry out the assassination.
This is the first of many, many HUGE gameplay mistakes Ubisoft Montreal made in the production of this game. You are required to complete three out of a possible 6 tasks before you are allowed to assassinate your target. There are nine targets. That means that in order to complete the game you must complete 27 tasks. Many of these are extremely clunky, some are impossible to complete due to poor design, and others are just so repetitive because you have to keep going back to redo them due to constant failure.
Which brings me to another downfall. The clunky controls of this game. By god if I haven't already had enough of third person cameras that don't work properly and a character who seems to have a mind of his own about where he's going, Assassin's Creed had to come along and prove that in fact, no, I have not had enough, apparently I need even more!
At the top left hand corner of the screen on the HUD you'll find a little eye that tells you how your social status. White means you're unseen. Yellow means the guards are suspicious. Red means they see you and you're wanted. Now I've got a major issue with this purely because it goes straight from neutral to fifth gear without anything inbetween - it's either you're unseen or you're a suspect. Whatever happened to just being anonymous? The game claims that you're anonymous in the yellow state, but how can you be if the guards are constantly suspicious of you? Are they suspicious of everyone? This annoying little feature makes it incredibly difficult to do anything with any realistic degree of stealth, because the moment you so much as bump into someone the guards are chasing you out of town. This doesn't happen early on by the way, it's actually much easier early on in the game. This high-alert status when you're supposedly "anonymous" is something that happens later on, once the grind has begun to set in and you're beginning to tire of the repititive and totally superfluous quests that you're sent on.
What's really annoying is that they've obviously recognised that travelling around everywhere on horseback is a real grind, so they've allowed you to "fast forward" past that, which leaves you wondering how they could miss the fact that these quests ALSO need a fast forward button?
The next huge failure is simply how easy everything is. There is no skill involved with this game at all, which sucks all the fun out of it. Altair bungles around like a big oaf in broad daylight, there's no stealth whatsoever. Unlike splinter cell where you were totally in control over how noisy you were, how visible you were, etc. AC is totally devoid of it. You can either hide or "blend", the latter simply involving finding the nearest group of monks and joining in with them, as if all groups of four monks would naturally have a fifth monk who happens to be armed to the teeth and wearing a completely different outfit. Instead of requiring any amount of skill or input, the game has this infuriating and patronising way of "doing it for you". Sword fighting is done for you, you just sit there clicking in the correct order like some twisted version of dance dance revolution. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop is done for you, you just hold buttons down and change direction. Climbing is done for you, you just choose a path that allows him to continue climbing. There is some minor puzzle solving with regards to scaling buildings, which is briefly entertaining, as well as some small amount of finesse and timing required in some of the quests, but for the most part it's decidedly dumbed down. There is no real element of skill that goes into any part of the game - I could forgive one thing or another if it made a certain major area of the game possible - for instance the automatic wall climbing and free running would be understandable if the game revolved mainly around puzzles or something.
Quite what this game was hoping to achieve is beyond me, because they same to have removed or tamed most of the ideas and concepts they threw at it. I've given it up for now, I actually got so bored of the tedious quests in acre that I just plain walked out the city gate and went to Damascus. And now after the game has crashed to desktop, I've just left it. Even once you've completed the quests you're only given more long winded cutscenes, unnecessary dialogue, and poorly executed climaxes that go along with the assassination. There is no satisfaction in completing an area because it is only followed by more of the same tedious crap.
I actually cannot be fucked to load up the game again, because of the countless loading screens that you encounter. Because of that stupid fucking *spoiler alert* Animus machine, you get no less than 5 loading screens before you get to your game. One for the main program to start, another for the main menu, another for the animus section of the game, another while the animus is loading it's in-game menu, and one final one while it loads the actual savegame.
Despite all it's negatives, this game actually has an amazing atmosphere, the graphics are beautiful and the concept (save for the animus part) is fantastic. The design, and the recreation of the ancient cities of the holy land is amazing. There are some really fun elements to the game, some neat design ideas, and some really innovative features that show a lot of potential. The totally explorable environment is brilliant, and would be even better if you could enter buildings. The quests would be much better if they had more depth and were not just boiled down to such menial tasks and didn't feel like "cut and paste" clones from previous missions.
Actually if I'm honest I CAN see the direction they were trying to go with this game, I just think it's a shame that they failed to reach that mark. I think there were some ideas in this game that were intended to be bigger but got cut out at the last minute. For instance, it's obvious to me that the beautiful rendering of the riding around on horseback was something that had a lot of thought and effort put into it - you're taught how to fight on horseback and even blend in on horseback. But after the first few missions you don't even see another horse for the whole rest of the game, in fact you just fast forward past them. Early on in the game, if the horse decides it likes you, it will follow you around after you've dismounted it! Why bother with these elements if later on they're not even encountered? The whole thing just feels unfinished, perhaps even rushed, which would not surprise me.
But still, I'm glad I've played this game, despite all the bad things I have to say about it. It was a unique experience and I'll probably keep going back to it, so that I can eventually finish it. Personally, if I'd been in charge of development on this game I would've taken it more along the lines of Diablo II meets Splinter Cell meets Thief, and I would've left out the Animus as a useless, even disruptive and interrupting story element. I recommend that you all try this game at least once. Even if it's on a console or a friend's computer. It IS fun, it IS immersive, slightly addictive, and an inspiring concept. It does, bizarrely, make you want to go out and buy a sword, make a costume, and go stalking around rooftops!
So, in summary, I'll give this game 6 out of 10. It's a rushed, unfinished, dumbed down, no-skill-required hack and slash "adventure" with a monotonous and tedious quest system, that provides little or no satisfaction whatsoever. Despite how incredible and open the free-to-roam environments are, the gameplay manages to be so linear and gets samey after a while. The AI is pretty poor and the recycled game elements get very annoying quite quickly.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Saturday, 24 January 2009
What's so bad about being a railroad/model railroad enthusiast?
I encounter this question a lot. Both from myself and from others who have sometimes had the misfortune to come across someone who is intolerant of railfans and model railroad enthusiasts. I use the American terminology here because I find it less cringe-inducing, and I use it in lieu of other names like "people with a train set" or "someone who likes trains". I think you should understand where I'm coming from here if you yourself are a railfan or model railroader! ;)
What I find interesting is the relative similarity between model railroaders, railfans, and enthusiasts of other subjects. What I find more interesting, is how society chooses to accept or reject enthusiasm based on the subject. For instance, a classic car enthusiast is somehow more acceptable and regular than a railroad enthusiast. This poses the question of why exactly that is the case.
My point of view, is that it's all down to a matter of familiarity. A classic car carries a sense of nostalgia and heritage that many people will be familiar with; because many people own a car! It's no great mental leap to justify an interest in cars, because it's often in our best interests to have a working understanding of cars, their manufacturers and the many models available. Even if they don't know much to begin with, an eventual veteran car driver will know quite a bit from researching car purchases and having their cars repaired. This level of knowledge is only one step away from a beginner enthusiasts knowledge of a subject.
Now take a locomotive. Not only does it have a make and a model, it also has a year, optional extras, horsepower ratings, different paint schemes, and vintage predecessors going back a further 100 years compared to cars. But how many passengers are likely to encounter that information? Even fewer still, are the number of passengers likely to find themselves interested in researching this information. From this perspective, it's easy to understand why people don't understand railfans or model railroaders.
People can relate to cars, gardens, homemaking, DIY, food, drink, music, etc. because they are things that they frequently encounter, and have a working knowledge of. When relating to an individual, knowledge is everything - you cannot relate to what you don't know.
Interestingly, I find football enthusiasts repulsive, because I cannot relate to them on any level. I find it utterly impossible to empathise with someone who has such an intense, narrow and all consuming interest in what, in my opinion, is such a trivial game. We are probably not too different when it comes to enthusiasm for a subject, but we are a world apart in terms of taste.
In short, there's nothing really all that different or bad about people who find trains interesting compared to people who do not, so in my opinion there is no good reason that they should be considered "bad" or "boring". I have never encountered another like minded railroad/model railroad enthusiast who fits the "trainspotter" stereotype, except maybe a couple instances (out of hundreds) involving people with autism. And I'm pretty sure that an autistic enthusiast of any subject could bore someone regardless of whether they were interested or not. In fact, most railfans and model railroaders I know really defy the stereotypes - everyone from hardcore skateboarders with piercings and tattoos who got interested in trains by painting graffiti onto them, to football jocks turned hardball army men who started out in the hobby by building a layout for their kids!
What I find interesting is the relative similarity between model railroaders, railfans, and enthusiasts of other subjects. What I find more interesting, is how society chooses to accept or reject enthusiasm based on the subject. For instance, a classic car enthusiast is somehow more acceptable and regular than a railroad enthusiast. This poses the question of why exactly that is the case.
My point of view, is that it's all down to a matter of familiarity. A classic car carries a sense of nostalgia and heritage that many people will be familiar with; because many people own a car! It's no great mental leap to justify an interest in cars, because it's often in our best interests to have a working understanding of cars, their manufacturers and the many models available. Even if they don't know much to begin with, an eventual veteran car driver will know quite a bit from researching car purchases and having their cars repaired. This level of knowledge is only one step away from a beginner enthusiasts knowledge of a subject.
Now take a locomotive. Not only does it have a make and a model, it also has a year, optional extras, horsepower ratings, different paint schemes, and vintage predecessors going back a further 100 years compared to cars. But how many passengers are likely to encounter that information? Even fewer still, are the number of passengers likely to find themselves interested in researching this information. From this perspective, it's easy to understand why people don't understand railfans or model railroaders.
People can relate to cars, gardens, homemaking, DIY, food, drink, music, etc. because they are things that they frequently encounter, and have a working knowledge of. When relating to an individual, knowledge is everything - you cannot relate to what you don't know.
Interestingly, I find football enthusiasts repulsive, because I cannot relate to them on any level. I find it utterly impossible to empathise with someone who has such an intense, narrow and all consuming interest in what, in my opinion, is such a trivial game. We are probably not too different when it comes to enthusiasm for a subject, but we are a world apart in terms of taste.
In short, there's nothing really all that different or bad about people who find trains interesting compared to people who do not, so in my opinion there is no good reason that they should be considered "bad" or "boring". I have never encountered another like minded railroad/model railroad enthusiast who fits the "trainspotter" stereotype, except maybe a couple instances (out of hundreds) involving people with autism. And I'm pretty sure that an autistic enthusiast of any subject could bore someone regardless of whether they were interested or not. In fact, most railfans and model railroaders I know really defy the stereotypes - everyone from hardcore skateboarders with piercings and tattoos who got interested in trains by painting graffiti onto them, to football jocks turned hardball army men who started out in the hobby by building a layout for their kids!
Friday, 16 January 2009
I have found the person I NEVER want to become...
Whilst browsing for reviews on banks, I happened across this. It's a review of Natwest, about 3 years old. While I wasn't particularly interested initially given the age of the review, there was something else that caught my attention. There was just something about the guy that wrote this that came across to me in his writing.
The first thing this guy does, is he drops a subtle (yeah... right...) "hint" that he trades shares, by babbling on about the share price of whatever company he's reviewing, or the company who made the product. He does this a couple of times in this particular review, as well as elsewhere in his other reviews and on his many (very poorly designed) websites.
The next thing he does, is he gives us a fascinating insight into precisely the type of person he is, by making it known that not only is he on jobseeker's benefit, but also that he mostly spends his benefit on domain names, broadband, model railways and christmas presents. Seriously is that how jobseekers spend their benefits on these days? His entire complaint with his bank, centred around his own inability to keep up with his payments and manage his finances, rather than any fault of Natwest. While it sounds as though the bank may have made a few genuine mistakes, rather than going about it the right way and requesting that the situation be put right, the author of the review, who goes by the name of "John Duck", decided to just go off in a big huff down to his local branch and have a moan at one of the advisors.
"Ah, and now we come to the early months of 2005, when there's about £75 in my account and both Webhosting (£73) + ISP (£47) fees are due at the sametime..... and instead of bouncing one or both of them due to insufficient funds, they accept both at once and put me overdrawn as a result." So as you can see, instead of putting the extra £50 in his account BEFORE the payment was due, he just left it, hoping that the bank would bounce one or the other charge, when he'd already moaned at the bank to stop bouncing payments because he was fed up with having his services disconnected. They were doing what he'd asked them to do, but with this guy you're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't.
I love people like this, they fascinate me. It's like watching something disgusting; you don't want to look but you're too fascinated to turn away. He reeks of contradiction, self delusion and illusions of grandeur. His high flying "stock broker entreproneur" image contrasts fantastically with his jobcentre funded financial fiasco reality.
What's more delicious, is that the more I poked around and read his reviews, the more I began to realise what a perfect example of a loser this guy is. He has his own forum, which consists of one active member; himself. He owns approximately 100 domain names, and 27 websites, yet none of them do anything, nor recieve any traffic. He wants you to believe that he trades in stocks and shares and yet claims jobseekers allowance (which in case you don't know, you can't claim if you hold such investments - doh!). He ran a stock photography and website design business as part of a new deal self employment scheme, but he didn't advertise his services, nor did he have a single customer, nor did he register his business. He even wrote a review on a car that he'd never driven because he can't drive. He still lives with his parents, and he's never ever done any more than work experience.
Then I found out his age. He's 28. Twenty fucking eight.
This guy is everything I never want to be. Unemployed, bad at what he does, unable to drive, and living in a fantasy about being a share trading, stock photographer, webmaster and web designer.
But I've got to wonder about what the hell the jobcentre and social services are doing letting someone like this just sit around on his arse, playing on his computer with what he probably thinks is his internet empire of websites. After all, those are my taxes going to work there, being spent on budget domain names and hornby train sets. Didn't any of them ever stop to ask him if he actually knows anything about earning money from the internet? Did any of them ever stop to ask him if he's REALLY trading shares? Did any of them stop to ask him if he's learning to drive? Did any of them ever stop to ask him what he spends his benefits on?
The first thing this guy does, is he drops a subtle (yeah... right...) "hint" that he trades shares, by babbling on about the share price of whatever company he's reviewing, or the company who made the product. He does this a couple of times in this particular review, as well as elsewhere in his other reviews and on his many (very poorly designed) websites.
The next thing he does, is he gives us a fascinating insight into precisely the type of person he is, by making it known that not only is he on jobseeker's benefit, but also that he mostly spends his benefit on domain names, broadband, model railways and christmas presents. Seriously is that how jobseekers spend their benefits on these days? His entire complaint with his bank, centred around his own inability to keep up with his payments and manage his finances, rather than any fault of Natwest. While it sounds as though the bank may have made a few genuine mistakes, rather than going about it the right way and requesting that the situation be put right, the author of the review, who goes by the name of "John Duck", decided to just go off in a big huff down to his local branch and have a moan at one of the advisors.
"Ah, and now we come to the early months of 2005, when there's about £75 in my account and both Webhosting (£73) + ISP (£47) fees are due at the sametime..... and instead of bouncing one or both of them due to insufficient funds, they accept both at once and put me overdrawn as a result." So as you can see, instead of putting the extra £50 in his account BEFORE the payment was due, he just left it, hoping that the bank would bounce one or the other charge, when he'd already moaned at the bank to stop bouncing payments because he was fed up with having his services disconnected. They were doing what he'd asked them to do, but with this guy you're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't.
I love people like this, they fascinate me. It's like watching something disgusting; you don't want to look but you're too fascinated to turn away. He reeks of contradiction, self delusion and illusions of grandeur. His high flying "stock broker entreproneur" image contrasts fantastically with his jobcentre funded financial fiasco reality.
What's more delicious, is that the more I poked around and read his reviews, the more I began to realise what a perfect example of a loser this guy is. He has his own forum, which consists of one active member; himself. He owns approximately 100 domain names, and 27 websites, yet none of them do anything, nor recieve any traffic. He wants you to believe that he trades in stocks and shares and yet claims jobseekers allowance (which in case you don't know, you can't claim if you hold such investments - doh!). He ran a stock photography and website design business as part of a new deal self employment scheme, but he didn't advertise his services, nor did he have a single customer, nor did he register his business. He even wrote a review on a car that he'd never driven because he can't drive. He still lives with his parents, and he's never ever done any more than work experience.
Then I found out his age. He's 28. Twenty fucking eight.
This guy is everything I never want to be. Unemployed, bad at what he does, unable to drive, and living in a fantasy about being a share trading, stock photographer, webmaster and web designer.
But I've got to wonder about what the hell the jobcentre and social services are doing letting someone like this just sit around on his arse, playing on his computer with what he probably thinks is his internet empire of websites. After all, those are my taxes going to work there, being spent on budget domain names and hornby train sets. Didn't any of them ever stop to ask him if he actually knows anything about earning money from the internet? Did any of them ever stop to ask him if he's REALLY trading shares? Did any of them stop to ask him if he's learning to drive? Did any of them ever stop to ask him what he spends his benefits on?
Monday, 5 January 2009
The Inch to the Gallon rule
For those of you who aren't fishkeepers, the "inch to the gallon" rule is a general rule of thumb for how many fish you can keep in your tank. According to the rule, you can have one inch of fish per gallon of tank, so if you've got a 20 gallon tank you could expect to be able to keep 10 x 2 inch fish. The idea of the rule is to make sure that the filter (which keeps the water clean) does not become overloaded.
I've been keeping tropical fish for a while now and I've discovered that while this rule is useful to newbies, on the internet it has become no more than a fish keeping forum meme. For a start, the rule is the same in the US as it is in the UK, however a US gallon is four fifths of a UK gallon, so already we see that the rule is flawed, and either all US tanks are overstocked, or all UK tanks are understocked. Considering that the rule originated in the UK, I think we can safely say that the rule is more of a rough guide than an absolute law. Yet to see how people will bark at you about how you're "abusing" your fish if you don't stick to it, you'd think it was more of an upper limit than an approximation!
The other flaw to the rule is that it does not take into account the type of filtration you are using. For instance, on my 20 gallon tropical tank I have an oversized, high power external filter capable of supporting a MUCH larger tank. As a result, I can safely keep many more fish than someone who had the same size tank but was just using under-gravel filters or even worse, internal power filters. Even so, I have in the past managed to maintain a 6 uk gallon tropical tank with an undergravel filter, with 7 fish in it! Not only did I not suffer from problems with water quality, but my fish remained very healthy indeed and are still alive today.
A lot of people maintain that the inch to the gallon rule is more to do with water aeration, and that if you exceed it then your fish will suffocate. I won't go into this because as much as anything else it's pure garbage anyway, since in order to suffocate your fish you'd have to have it so badly overstocked that they'd die of toxic water sooner than they'd run out of air. But the point is that people will make up whatever theory they want to justify the rule, because in truth a lot of them don't even know what it's based on.
So as you can probably see, this rule is far from accurate, it is just a general guide. Technically a tank is only "overstocked" if the filter cannot cope with the load, resulting in toxic water. So long as the fish are happy, you're doing everything right.
However, like I said, this rule has become a forum meme. These days you'll see photos of forumers' tanks and be hard pushed to actually spot any fish, because they've fallen into the trap of working to gain peer approval, or avoid abuse, even if it is only from people they've never even met. Unless you want to have abused hurled at you by forum zealots, it's probably best not to announce that you have an overstocked tank. Even on the practical fishkeeping forum there's a lot of misinformation, misinterpretation and zealous behaviour over this rule.
So the point of this post is to just forewarn all of you out there who are looking to find their way into the hobby; beware the forums, and beware their bizzarre fetish for the inch to the gallon rule.
I've been keeping tropical fish for a while now and I've discovered that while this rule is useful to newbies, on the internet it has become no more than a fish keeping forum meme. For a start, the rule is the same in the US as it is in the UK, however a US gallon is four fifths of a UK gallon, so already we see that the rule is flawed, and either all US tanks are overstocked, or all UK tanks are understocked. Considering that the rule originated in the UK, I think we can safely say that the rule is more of a rough guide than an absolute law. Yet to see how people will bark at you about how you're "abusing" your fish if you don't stick to it, you'd think it was more of an upper limit than an approximation!
The other flaw to the rule is that it does not take into account the type of filtration you are using. For instance, on my 20 gallon tropical tank I have an oversized, high power external filter capable of supporting a MUCH larger tank. As a result, I can safely keep many more fish than someone who had the same size tank but was just using under-gravel filters or even worse, internal power filters. Even so, I have in the past managed to maintain a 6 uk gallon tropical tank with an undergravel filter, with 7 fish in it! Not only did I not suffer from problems with water quality, but my fish remained very healthy indeed and are still alive today.
A lot of people maintain that the inch to the gallon rule is more to do with water aeration, and that if you exceed it then your fish will suffocate. I won't go into this because as much as anything else it's pure garbage anyway, since in order to suffocate your fish you'd have to have it so badly overstocked that they'd die of toxic water sooner than they'd run out of air. But the point is that people will make up whatever theory they want to justify the rule, because in truth a lot of them don't even know what it's based on.
So as you can probably see, this rule is far from accurate, it is just a general guide. Technically a tank is only "overstocked" if the filter cannot cope with the load, resulting in toxic water. So long as the fish are happy, you're doing everything right.
However, like I said, this rule has become a forum meme. These days you'll see photos of forumers' tanks and be hard pushed to actually spot any fish, because they've fallen into the trap of working to gain peer approval, or avoid abuse, even if it is only from people they've never even met. Unless you want to have abused hurled at you by forum zealots, it's probably best not to announce that you have an overstocked tank. Even on the practical fishkeeping forum there's a lot of misinformation, misinterpretation and zealous behaviour over this rule.
So the point of this post is to just forewarn all of you out there who are looking to find their way into the hobby; beware the forums, and beware their bizzarre fetish for the inch to the gallon rule.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Mandatory Welcoming Post
Privyet comrades, and welcome to the Bovine Post!
This is my public outlet for my opinions, thoughts, reviews, and other stuff of that nature. A "soapbox" if you will. This blog will cover PC games, music, news, politics, culture, and pretty much anything else that I have an opinion on.
For too long I've amassed notepad text files of my thoughts, so I've decided that I should finally start publishing them!
From time to time, I intend to offer advice. I've seen far too much bullshit in my time, and I've learned the hard way more times than I can care to remember. The world is full of hype, bad taste, and mistakes just begging to be made. I hope that my experience can serve to help others make this a better world, both for themselves and others, by disseminating the advice they read here.
Well, that's about it for now. Hope you enjoy the posts from now on, and that you keep coming back for more!
Oh and happy new year. Blah. About the only thing these stupid "celebrations" are good for is the time off work.
Anyways, bye for now.
This is my public outlet for my opinions, thoughts, reviews, and other stuff of that nature. A "soapbox" if you will. This blog will cover PC games, music, news, politics, culture, and pretty much anything else that I have an opinion on.
For too long I've amassed notepad text files of my thoughts, so I've decided that I should finally start publishing them!
From time to time, I intend to offer advice. I've seen far too much bullshit in my time, and I've learned the hard way more times than I can care to remember. The world is full of hype, bad taste, and mistakes just begging to be made. I hope that my experience can serve to help others make this a better world, both for themselves and others, by disseminating the advice they read here.
Well, that's about it for now. Hope you enjoy the posts from now on, and that you keep coming back for more!
Oh and happy new year. Blah. About the only thing these stupid "celebrations" are good for is the time off work.
Anyways, bye for now.
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