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Assassin's Creed blather: Things I need to work on- recognizing climbable surfaces. Sometimes I'll free run up a wall thinking there's something to grab at the top, but instead it does the wall bounce, which can be pretty inconvenient when you accidentally do that on the rooftops.

Got gold medals on short (nowhere near 1000pts yet!) and medium kill streak, and silver on flawless hidden blade and long kill streak (I was very friggin close to getting that gold though!). The key things I learned about trying to get a high kill chain, timing is imperative, as is both paying attention and ignoring visual cues. When you kill an opponent and you're in the middle of kill animation, select the next enemy and press the attack button immediately, don't wait for Ezio to "finish" the kill, otherwise Ezio will just be attacking normally, rather than continuing the chain. So on the one hand, you have to ignore what Ezio is doing, and just trust that you're already automagically going to kill the next guy as soon as the current animation is over.

At the same time, you have to pay attention to your other opponents, getting ready to immediately counter if someone tries to interrupt your chain by attacking you. Again, you have to ignore what Ezio is actually doing- even though it may look like he's committed to a move, and there's no way he'll be able to counter, just ignore that it seems physically impossible and do the counter move, he'll counter the attacking opponent no matter what the hell he's doing.

Which is the dangerous thing about attempting the double kills, because if you're holding attack to trigger a double kill, it makes it really hard to counter because you have to quickly release and then press attack again.

Also, try your damndest to select the "special enemies" during your kill chain so you can automagically kill them. Otherwise, you'll be slowed down with the normal BS you have to deal with to kill them. Also helpful, picking the enemy with the flashing dots above him, as he's the next one attacking, and its easier to kill chain him rather than trying to counter him as he tries to interrupt your chain.

In any case, you do get into a rhythm with the chains so you can rack up a high chain without even realizing it! In fact, maybe ignoring what you're at is good, because checking your current streak can be distracting enough to end it!

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Hit the mall today to finish up my Christmas shopping, since this is the most convenient time before I fly up to NYC. I forget how ridiculously crowded the parking lots get this time of year!

Assassin's Creed blather- Lest you think I've just been playing the VR training, I have been progressing the story. If you didn't guess though, my favorite part of this game is the combat system. Its just so well done, simple, yet intricate. The counters and chains, with every enemy having their own little idiosyncrasies on how to deal with them (though for a lot of the "better" enemies, its simply kill one of the loser ordinary soldiers with him, and just chain kill of the scrub to kill them).

I'm doing better with the movement and stealth, but I definitely still need practice. Like one of the Borgia towers, I basically massacred the entire guard contingent there, but it took me like 20 minutes afterwards trying to figure out how to get to the top of the damn thing to burn it down. I took more damage messing up and falling than I did fighting the guys!

Heh, I think one of my favorite things to do in those guarded areas right now is to kill a spearman, grab his spear, then sneak over to the next guard and chuck it into him. Hmm, I've thrown axes and spears, I haven't tried a hammer yet. I'll have to remember to do that. One thing I've noticed as well, does your hidden pistol not use the bullets if its used as part of a melee "kill move"? Like in the normal game and in training, there were a couple of times that Ezio finished an opponent off with a quick shot, but that didn't seem to use up any bullets.

Oh, also, what's up with all the friggin beggars!? I have no coins for you! Didn't you just see what I did to all those guards! Get out of my face! But yeah, I do like that mechanic of having to destroy the Borgia towers so you can start renovating the city in that area in order to get access to all sorts of goodies, its a nice, fun activity to do between the real missions.

Also interesting, all the database entries you get from wandering the city! Its like taking a tour of Rome, and getting a history lesson on Renaissance Italy! What they say about the places sounds reasonable, I don't know how factually accurate it is. After finishing this game, that's prolly going to be the extent of my "Italian history" knowledge, much like DW taught me about Ancient China and SW taught me about 1600s Japan.

Finally, Ezio is pretty cool, but I swear sometimes he can be so dense. Like the attack on the villa came as a surprise to him. Well, I'm sure it was well planned by the Borgias, but still, when he was telling Machiavelli "I had no idea they'd find me so fast!" I wanted to shout at the screen to him, "Gee, yeah, I wonder how they knew you'd be in your FAMILY'S ESTATE?!"