![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nothing is true, everything is permitted
Dec. 23rd, 2011 01:24 amBack in NYC for the holidays, as usual! Had a slight delay with the flight, but still got to the 'rents by 8pm.
On the flight, finally watched the season finale of Dexter. ( spoiler cut )
Anyways, looks like I was able to transfer my saves onto![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparkyboy's PS3, I would have been quite sullen if I was not able to play AC:B or DW7.
DW7 blather- Tried another one of the XL DLC missions. Wow, these are intense! This time, it was Wei vs Shu, commanded by Pang Tong. So you had to rescue a couple of allies, also stopping an ambush or three on Cao Cao and fighting your way to Pang Tong. Its a long and hard (well, not that hard) battle, but the end is in sight, right? Wrong! Then it turns out its a trap and Lu Xun shows up with a crapload of Wu! And now you have to beat both Pang Tong and Lu Xun to beat the board. Its like two battles crammed into one!
AC blather- So I'm a little past the halfway mark in terms of main story. But, I think I have most of Rome renovated- I think I have all but one or two shops, possibly 1 more broken Aquaduct, maybe a random landmark or two. Definitely burned down all the Borgia towers, so I have a full complement of assassins, and all but two are full fledged Assassinos. But those two should be maxed out soon since I can give them a crapload of xp just by having them tag along with the experts.
I will say I'm starting to see the value of these recruits. I like to take everyone on myself, but I finally ran into trouble with the second to last Borgia tower I did. The captain was on horseback and I was worried he was gonna gallop away, but he didn't. We had a running battle a little ways beyond the tower. After taking care of him and the 5 or so guards with him, I thought to myself, I have this! Even though all my assassins were off on assignment, I went in anyways without backup.
So, I walk back to the tower, and there are still guards around, so I figured I should clear them out so they don't interfere with me scaling the tower. I don't know what the hell I did, but I was assailed by a dozen or so guards. Normally, no big deal- that mission where the Frenchies attack Bartolemo's HQ, since I was having trouble disengaging from fighting so I could run and close the damn gates, there were a whole lot of dead bodies at the end of that, with me no worse for wear.
Only this tower was the first time I encountered guys on horseback attacking with crossbows. That was really bad, because their bolts would interrupt my attempts at a kill chain on the non mounted troops, and the fact they were on horseback made it really hard for me to get up to them without taking a bolt (or four!). And even then I couldn't knock them off the horse fast enough before the guards on the ground caught back up to me. Like this would have been the perfect time for an arrow storm, and there were enough enemies there I would've totally gotten the airstrike trophy if I did. Owel. In any case, used the smoke bombs for the first time, which allowed me to quickly take out a few of the brutes, and I ended up fighting for so long, I got one assassin back, so I called him for help, and that got me some relief. Eventually, we managed to kill everyone, though I had some armor damage and went through a bunch of my medicine.
Other idiot moves so far- one, I didn't realize you could explore the rest of Montessori (or whatever the hell the name of the town Desmond and crew are at). I thought all that you did out of the Animus was talk to Shaun, Rebecca, and Lucy and check e-mails. Two, for some reason I idiotically didn't realize that you got the treasure maps for an area from the art shops IN THAT AREA. I was like checking the art shop near me and wondering, "Hmm, why does it only sell the treasure maps for this section of rome?" It took me embarassingly longer than it should have to realize I should check the art shops in other sections to find the treasure maps for that section.
If there is one weird thing I find about this game is the discrepency between the stats of a weapon and the ease of getting it. I mean, the dagger of Brutus is the best dagger, and accordingly, you have to beat all the Romulan lairs to get it. But, the sword of altair is the best sword, with 5 stars in power, speed, and deflect, and all you need to do is complete all the assassin guild challenges, which are far easier to complete than the other guild challenges. And for a while, I was using the spadone, which is a 5/4/4 heavy weapon, which is far better than things you unlock from shop quests or start showing up as you progress the game, and all you need to do is renovate 10 blacksmiths! I mean, since I love weapons anyways, I'm still buying everything, but there's no real benefit to using them other than you want to use a certain weapon type.
Of course, maybe its because I'm not one who tries to go through the story as quickly as possible and leaving the side quest for later. I got caught up in side quests, one because I'm paranoid it might be something that won't be available if I go to far in the story. And two, it may be something that makes me more powerful, and I'm always up for statting up so the main parts are easier. So, maybe they didn't expect me to fulfill all those requirements as early as I did?
But even with all the Borgia towers gone, there are tons of side assignments left- assassination missions, courtesan missions, templar agent missions, Romulan lairs, Da Vinci War Machine missions, I'll be busy with this game for a while.
I will say I have a whole lot more missions I need to redo for 100% sync. Heh, while I don't feel the need to immediately redo things where I accidentally touched the ground, or was seen, or whatever, I do have to immediately redo the missions where it wants you to kill someone a specific way. Like there was a templar agent mission where you had to kill a guy with the hidden blade, only when I was sneaking up on him, I accidentally shoved him off the roof instead (ironic, since I was after him because he was pushing people off rooftops). Or the Leonardo mission where you have to kick that one guy first before killing him, he had a whole lot of guards in front of him. I didn't realize the arrow storm kills everyone on screen, not just a really big clump. So I had to go back into the DNA and immediately redo the missions to "get it right".
And while I could've easily killed The Banker at any point in that mission, since the 100% sync requirement was to kill him while sitting a bench, I made sure I killed him that way. I don't like "ugly" kills, and if I don't do it the way they want, then I'm doing it wrong.
On the flight, finally watched the season finale of Dexter. ( spoiler cut )
Anyways, looks like I was able to transfer my saves onto
sparkyboy's PS3, I would have been quite sullen if I was not able to play AC:B or DW7.DW7 blather- Tried another one of the XL DLC missions. Wow, these are intense! This time, it was Wei vs Shu, commanded by Pang Tong. So you had to rescue a couple of allies, also stopping an ambush or three on Cao Cao and fighting your way to Pang Tong. Its a long and hard (well, not that hard) battle, but the end is in sight, right? Wrong! Then it turns out its a trap and Lu Xun shows up with a crapload of Wu! And now you have to beat both Pang Tong and Lu Xun to beat the board. Its like two battles crammed into one!
AC blather- So I'm a little past the halfway mark in terms of main story. But, I think I have most of Rome renovated- I think I have all but one or two shops, possibly 1 more broken Aquaduct, maybe a random landmark or two. Definitely burned down all the Borgia towers, so I have a full complement of assassins, and all but two are full fledged Assassinos. But those two should be maxed out soon since I can give them a crapload of xp just by having them tag along with the experts.
I will say I'm starting to see the value of these recruits. I like to take everyone on myself, but I finally ran into trouble with the second to last Borgia tower I did. The captain was on horseback and I was worried he was gonna gallop away, but he didn't. We had a running battle a little ways beyond the tower. After taking care of him and the 5 or so guards with him, I thought to myself, I have this! Even though all my assassins were off on assignment, I went in anyways without backup.
So, I walk back to the tower, and there are still guards around, so I figured I should clear them out so they don't interfere with me scaling the tower. I don't know what the hell I did, but I was assailed by a dozen or so guards. Normally, no big deal- that mission where the Frenchies attack Bartolemo's HQ, since I was having trouble disengaging from fighting so I could run and close the damn gates, there were a whole lot of dead bodies at the end of that, with me no worse for wear.
Only this tower was the first time I encountered guys on horseback attacking with crossbows. That was really bad, because their bolts would interrupt my attempts at a kill chain on the non mounted troops, and the fact they were on horseback made it really hard for me to get up to them without taking a bolt (or four!). And even then I couldn't knock them off the horse fast enough before the guards on the ground caught back up to me. Like this would have been the perfect time for an arrow storm, and there were enough enemies there I would've totally gotten the airstrike trophy if I did. Owel. In any case, used the smoke bombs for the first time, which allowed me to quickly take out a few of the brutes, and I ended up fighting for so long, I got one assassin back, so I called him for help, and that got me some relief. Eventually, we managed to kill everyone, though I had some armor damage and went through a bunch of my medicine.
Other idiot moves so far- one, I didn't realize you could explore the rest of Montessori (or whatever the hell the name of the town Desmond and crew are at). I thought all that you did out of the Animus was talk to Shaun, Rebecca, and Lucy and check e-mails. Two, for some reason I idiotically didn't realize that you got the treasure maps for an area from the art shops IN THAT AREA. I was like checking the art shop near me and wondering, "Hmm, why does it only sell the treasure maps for this section of rome?" It took me embarassingly longer than it should have to realize I should check the art shops in other sections to find the treasure maps for that section.
If there is one weird thing I find about this game is the discrepency between the stats of a weapon and the ease of getting it. I mean, the dagger of Brutus is the best dagger, and accordingly, you have to beat all the Romulan lairs to get it. But, the sword of altair is the best sword, with 5 stars in power, speed, and deflect, and all you need to do is complete all the assassin guild challenges, which are far easier to complete than the other guild challenges. And for a while, I was using the spadone, which is a 5/4/4 heavy weapon, which is far better than things you unlock from shop quests or start showing up as you progress the game, and all you need to do is renovate 10 blacksmiths! I mean, since I love weapons anyways, I'm still buying everything, but there's no real benefit to using them other than you want to use a certain weapon type.
Of course, maybe its because I'm not one who tries to go through the story as quickly as possible and leaving the side quest for later. I got caught up in side quests, one because I'm paranoid it might be something that won't be available if I go to far in the story. And two, it may be something that makes me more powerful, and I'm always up for statting up so the main parts are easier. So, maybe they didn't expect me to fulfill all those requirements as early as I did?
But even with all the Borgia towers gone, there are tons of side assignments left- assassination missions, courtesan missions, templar agent missions, Romulan lairs, Da Vinci War Machine missions, I'll be busy with this game for a while.
I will say I have a whole lot more missions I need to redo for 100% sync. Heh, while I don't feel the need to immediately redo things where I accidentally touched the ground, or was seen, or whatever, I do have to immediately redo the missions where it wants you to kill someone a specific way. Like there was a templar agent mission where you had to kill a guy with the hidden blade, only when I was sneaking up on him, I accidentally shoved him off the roof instead (ironic, since I was after him because he was pushing people off rooftops). Or the Leonardo mission where you have to kick that one guy first before killing him, he had a whole lot of guards in front of him. I didn't realize the arrow storm kills everyone on screen, not just a really big clump. So I had to go back into the DNA and immediately redo the missions to "get it right".
And while I could've easily killed The Banker at any point in that mission, since the 100% sync requirement was to kill him while sitting a bench, I made sure I killed him that way. I don't like "ugly" kills, and if I don't do it the way they want, then I'm doing it wrong.
