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Mission: Dinner With Sasha

Agent Moya wants Cole to go to the Reapers underground lair, find their leader, Sasha, and kill her. To get there, Cole has to travel down a long deep tunnel that is riddled with Reapers. Game play begins, and Cole has to engage the Reapers in fighting to travel deeper into the tunnel. Half way down the tunnel, you can hear Sasha’s voice say, and “I’ve been waiting for you, longing for you.” More Reapers continue to come out from hiding that you have to defeat. Cole travels deeper down the tunnel. Sasha’s voice appears again and says, “What’s this.” “ No, that’s not possible.” “You lie!”

Cole is still fighting the Reapers, but he can’t defeat them in hand-to-hand combat. It was more effective to use his electrical grenade power. He can then stand at a distance and blow them up. During this game play, the Reapers have more advanced weaponry. They have machine guns, suicide bombers, sniper machine guns, grenades, and can use them while fighting Cole in the tunnel. Towards the end of the tunnel, Cole finds innocent people locked in cages. Cole tells Moya, “I found where they are making the Reapers.” ”There is a bunch of people locked down here in cages.” Cole continues, “Machines are spraying black tar all over the place. Moya tells Cole to get the innocent people out of the cages, and then deal with Sasha.

Sasha’s voice comes out again, “You think I don’t see her, the way you parade her around like a common Jezebel.” “I see everything now, Kessier (Cole’s last name), all of it.” Cole replies, “What’s your problem.” Sasha responds,” You think you’re smarter than everyone else.” “You’re going to pay.” When Cole finally arrives where Sasha is, she asks, “What took you so long to get here?” Sasha disappears for a second, then reappears in Cole’s face, and tries to attack him. There is a timing button that you can press the second she reappears that will block her attack. If you don’t time it correctly, Sasha can hurt Cole. Her attacks are repeated, while the Reapers continue to attack also. Once Sasha is defeated and lay dying on the ground, she tells Cole, “Look at me. “ “You’ll never control it Cole.” “Look at me. “ “Look at what it’s done.” “It controls you.”

The story enters the narrative comic book sequence, and Cole is speaking. He states, “Sasha was nothing before the blast, but looking at her now; is this what my powers are going to do to me?” “A warped body and a twisted mind.” “Is that my future?” Cole believes that Sasha knows about the First Sons and the Ray Sphere. ‘If I’m going to dig myself out of this hole…” Cole begins. Then an explosion occurs, and Cole is knocked unconscious for a moment. Upon awakening, Cole says, “They came in fast, smoke was everywhere.” “Sasha got pulled out, whoever they are, they must be pros trained for this kind of thing.” Water begins pouring in, and the place starts to fall apart. “With no way back, I went forward into the Slums of the Warren. Mission completes, and 500 experience points are gained.

Wet has taken a decisively annoying turn. I have had no progress this past week, just lots and lots of almost making it to a check point. The enemies kill her with just a little more than one hit from a bat or a plywood board, its just ridiculous. Anyways I can only hope that the game is easier on normal mode because hard mode has gotten really really hard and its been rather sudden, if I was one of the game designers I would have made the earlier stages harder so that the slope of difficulty was a little more gentle and not to mention less misleading. So heres to hoping that I make it though by the weekend.

I put more time into the game than I had the last few weeks. I was tired of doing all the side missions and I wanted to get back to the main story line.  However, this was not the case.  The whole night I worked on one side mission. ONE.  I played for a few hours and this entailed flying through a couple different solar systems and landed on a few planets in order to eliminate some Geth outposts.

The reason it took so long was the planets where very mountainous terrain and it took some work to navigate.  Once you get close to the base your radar becomes jammed so you have to keep switching to the map to make sure you are approaching from a good angle.  Then comes the fights.  Everyone one of these outposts were located on top of hills in small, carved out spaces and so maneuvering around in the Mako was difficult.  On top of that, the gun on top of the Mako is fixed in terms of moving vertically so hitting the enemy can be a very hard when trying to stay behind cover and use the terrain to keep you safe.  Time and time again I would spend about 10 mins trying to take out a base only to be hit a few times and my vehicle blows up.  One of the reasons this is irritated me was that the physical vehicle damage is really not a good indication that your about to die.  You have to use the hud to see your vehicle damage and then get out of sight from the enemy if you wish to repair – another problem when driving around on steep, sharp mountain tops.

Long, frustrating story short, I spent a few hours of my playtime doing one side mission because the games idea of difficulty is pitting you up against bad game design.  I still like the game, love the soundtrack, the story and the characters, but the gameplay is severely lacking sometimes.  This makes it hard to pop into my 360 to play knowing I could spend hours upon hours trying to complete a side mission.

When your are fighting a big battle against the legions with your armies you have to take out the shamans in order to proceed through the battle. If you don’t then the shaman would summon more legion for you and your armies to fight. Around the shaman is 5 totems that are use to protect the shaman destroy these totems so you can kill the shaman. When you kill a shaman during a battle you get dragon runes, you can hold only 3 dragon runes, which let you use the dragon that you have summoned earlier you can use the dragon to take out archers that could give you a hard time in the battle or you can use it to destroy the shaman. The problem that I have with the dragon runes is that you need 2 runes to kill the shaman but only 1 rune to kill the archers. As I mention this before you can use your rune powers to equipped your weapon and those around you with an elemental power. This would be very effective if you have to brake through the legions rank. After proceeding through the battle you come across on of Hel’s General who used to be a servant of Freya, the general is slow but has a powerful hit on you. I suggest that you dodge his attack rather being confident about your gamin skills. When his is week you can go for the kill which the scenerio of the final blow is somewhat similar to the God of War, where you have to press the button at the right time. Before you have a chance to kill the general Hel appears warning you not to side with Freya and saying that her new world would make everyone equal. After her speech she take her general you defeated and goes to Midgard. Freya come to you and send you and your armies to Midgard to defeat Hel’s legion and free the captive vikings.

Another trip to Kingdom Hearts was met with a surprising twist, fun.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were several problems and things I could complain about for hours on end, but I actually enjoyed some segments of my playtime this week.

First, let’s start with the bad. I started the game, and remembered that I had to go find monkeys in trees for some reason. I headed towards the trees, when I was met with one of the strangest, and quite possibly stupidest features I’ve seen so far. Menu-based vine swinging. Yes my friends, Kingdom Hearts features a section where the player must swing from vine to vine, using the same command system that drive’s the game’s combat. It’s stupid, it’s pointless, and one wrong jump will take you back to the ground (the same ground, no matter where you fall), and force you to start all over.

Now, my other issue with today’s playthrough was the actual story design. After I visited the gorillas, I had to go to the treehouse. When I went to the treehouse, I was told to go to the camp. After I quick cutscene at the camp, back to the treehouse. Then the camp. Then the treehouse. Then the camp. The Treehouse.

You’re getting my point here. Throughout the entire session, I ran back from one place to another, requiring numerous jumps off trees, and travels through the vine section.

Now, that said, I think I’ve finally gotten control of the combat system. The dodge button has come in handy, and while the camera is still more of a struggle than the actual fights, the combat is still surprisingly fun. Simple, but engaging.

Also, there were the tree surfing sections. I only did it twice through this session, but it was great fun. Sora joins Tarzan on a slide down the gigantic tree branches, and it really captured the magic of the actual movie. It wasn’t a command system, it was simply a character surfing down the side of a tree. Relaxing, fun, and easily repeatable. That’s more of what I want to see. I want to experience these worlds like the main characters do. I don’t need to fight heartless or swing what is quite possible the 2nd most confusing vine-swinging section of the decade, instead I would rather have more of this.

So, here’s hoping my entertainment will continue, perhaps not all is lost after all.

I believe that in one of my previous game journal entries I stated that I defeated the Warrior for the final time. Well, the truth is… I lied. He came back again, but I finished him off. In about twenty seconds. And I want to say that it was hard too. I want to say that I struggled to defeat a challenging boss. I want to say that I earned it after I didn’t give up, but I can’t because it was one of the easiest battles I’ve ever fought.

Once I hauled the Prince up the Warrior’s tower the battle started off the in almost the exact same way all the others did: on a square platform with a handy cliff on each side. They did try to mix it up a little bit and made it so only a narrow area on the edge of the arena was accessible, but it didn’t increase the difficulty. In fact, it just made it easier to decide which side I wanted to shove the beast off of.

This time, however, getting up to that final platform was more difficult, but over all, it still didn’t take me more than three tries to climb to the to. Getting up to the platform consists of a disorienting wall-running mechanic. To activate it, all you have to do is press Y over one of several colored plates. The camera angle then switches to give you a third person view looking straight ahead of the Prince as he defies gravity and wall runs sideways or upside-down across a wall. When I first encountered these wall-running plates, it was fairly simple and the player wasn’t instructed to use the left and right toggles at all. For one of these final areas, though, it was more challenging because as the Prince has a set speed to wall-run, the player has to dodge different obstacles that come into view with very little notice. While, this did add a challenge to the mechanic, it wasn’t long before trial and error, plus a little luck, got me all the way up to the top of the tower.

I also encountered a new obstacle—similar to the tentacles—on my way towards an area I haven’t explored yet. This obstacle isn’t stationary like the tentacles but it works in the same way and is easily dodge-able with proper timing. I’m already more than half way through and I’ve just reached beginner level obstacles. Personally, I think that both the tentacles and these new blob traps would have worked much better in the first part of the game.

I realize that a lot of what I have been addressing over the past several weeks has been my disappointment with the difficulty level of this game, which honestly, has weakened my desire to play it. Let me try to explain this better: anyone who has played the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time probably remembers the variety of traps and the somewhat frequent occurrence of sand creatures scattered among the levels. Well, in this version of the Prince of Persia, a good eighty percent of those traps and ninety-nine percent of those enemy encounters have been removed. What is left is a frustratingly easy experience.

So I last left the game Folklore in the Hellrealm, were I stopped playing because I had yet again died after traversing so many levels of folk fights. I returned with a renewed vigor , determined to make it to the top of the realm and beat the folklore. However this time there was no fooling around. I found myself before trying to take out the enemies in creative or new ways, as opposed to effective ones.  Also, the fact that some folk can be upgraded after extensive use encouraged me to use them. Not this time. I simply got my favorite folk out and went to town on anything that moved. I didn’t stray from the path at all and I made sure that I always dodged first and attacked later. As you can imagine, I was quite a beast. I got through the second part of the Hellrealm fairly quickly (like in 30 minutes) and reached another save point.

After a saved my game, I ran into Livane who evidently is still alive. She tells me that Ellen is on trial and was tricked by the faery lord. I figured that she would be put in trouble again; it seemed to be her thing.  So I head up and over (there were a few more fights) until I finally reach the courtroom. I was greeted with a cool cutscene that depicted Ellen’s trial before the main judge guy, who was some four eyed (literally had four eyes), old, long fingered folk who had a beard and a typical judge wig to boot. The trial accused Ellen of things like stealing the messenger robe which she wears, leading faerys into battle etc.  A lot of what he said did not make much sense to me, most likely because I was playing through as Keats as opposed to Ellen. Then, right when the verdict was about to be called the door opens. Enter Keats…what a badass. The crowd is stunned…almost silent. He reaches into his pocket…tension building…and pulls out….almost can’t stand it… a……a…..tape recorder. “Can I interview the accused?”

Classic stuff, and so begins (after another comic like scene) another boss fight. Like the others, this judge has many different forms that require different approaches.  Primarily, there are several mirrors surrounding you on the courtroom floor. The judge transports from mirror to mirror with relative safety, launching birds (owls to be precise) and energy attacks along the way. The mirrors also can hurt you if you get hit by them.  So (thanks to my handy dandy picture book) I punch out each mirror with some giant punching folk I have.  After that the judge is out in the open, but has a force field.  I follow up with some scythe wielding folk to slice through the shield. During this period he continues to launch energy and bird attacks, along with charging at me from time to time.  He also had an annoying ability to be able to sap my magic away, so all I could do was dodge. It is a very interesting and innovative attack, since for the most part the game only limited your attacks for a few seconds (the magic bar recharges quite fast). After his shield was down I fireballed the heck out of him. Rinse, wash, repeat.  The judge goes down. Overall, he was a very tough boss, since his moves were hard to predict and dodge.

I have some conversation with Ellen afterwards and we discuss how we can now enter the netherworld core, since we have been to 5 realms. However, the conversation is cut short because Ellen seems to be pushed off the edge into the abyss! By whom you may ask? Cecilia!…..wait….isn’t Ellen Cecilia? Curious, no?  The young little girl tells you some nursery rhyme and you get thrown back into the real world. There you deduce that you have to go to the henge (again) at night (again). You head to the said location at night with Suzette only to confront the HAG!!! (who looks a lot like Ellen) Alas, the time has come! But wait…the chapter ends. Since there is such a build up, I was compelled to continue but WAIT…I can’t. Apparently, in order to continue the story (as in end it) I have to play through as Ellen……

Wow…I am a little ticked off by this. I had planned on playing through as Ellen if my first playthrough didn’t last the 15 weeks, but I can’t believe that they are forcing me to play her story like this. I understand that the two characters create a form or replay value for the game as well as provide different takes to a similar story. However, in asking me to play as Ellen the game designers basically just told me to close the book, and start at chapter 1 again…just so I can read the final page.   It would be different if Ellen’s playthrough would be drastically different (as in different levels, enemies, abilities etc). Yet from what I’ve seen she only differs in story and the twists and turns her telling will take won’t be at all entertaining. Overall, I think this is a very poor move by the game creators which is unfortunate since the idea of two characters was once looked upon as a nice feature

This week, I went to place called Deep Darkness, a swamp. In order to travel through Deep Darkness, you have to obtain the Hawk Eye from the pyramid in Scaraba. Fortunely for me, I have the Hawk Eye so now i can travel to Deep Darkness.  Deep Darkness is the one of worst areas in the game because the swamp could harm you. Also it takes a long time to go through the swamp because the swamp causes the characters to move slowly. Once I reached towards the end of the swamp, a boss was blocking my path. As soon as I saw the boss,  I screamed in terror because the boss that was blocking my path was MR.BELCH! I thought  Mr.Belch was dead from my last encounter with him but he somehow survived.  I didn’t like Mr.Belch because he belches out loud every time you would speak to the guy AND THE BELCHING  HURTS MY EARS.

Now I have to face him once again in battle. Just as I expected when i talked to him he kept belching and belching and it annoyed me a lot. I wanted the beat this guy as quickly as possible. As the soon as the battle started, I used Jeff’s Multi Battle Rocket(the strongest item in the game) and it killed him in one shot. Then Poo came from the sky and did “PK STARSTORM” and overkilled Mr.Belch. I glad to have my fourth member back and and defeated Mr.Belch for good.

Well, I gutted it out.  After months of holding it off, purposely stalling, and finishing as many side missions as they could throw at me, I decided to finish Assassin’s Creed.  Now, if you plan on reading some spoilers, or you know what happens at the end, read along.  If not, you might want to read a different blog post.

I am pleased to say that I am intrigued.  The blood on the walls depicting differing end of the world stuff, the orb that gives insane powers, and most of all, the fact that very little was answered.  My jaw was on the floor as the final moments occurred, where he looks at the markings on the wall, says something along the lines of “What is this?” and the credits roll.  Now, I have talked to many people about this game, and they all seem to hate the end, and I see why.  The whole game is one big mystery:  why is he in the animus, who can be trusted, what are they looking for?  Usually there is a climax where these questions are answered, but not in Assassin’s Creed.

I plan on playing again, as hopefully more aspects of the game will make sense, and there is a chance I can actually attach feelings to the characters I had such trouble with on the first go-round.

I don’t have anything thoughtful to say about this game anymore. I’m grabbing at strings here.

Maybe I’m just reading into the game too much at this point because I’m trying to pull something intelligent from my brain for these game posts, but I’ve come to find that there appears to be some Alice in Wonderland imagery present.

The most prevalent masks appear to be rabbit masks, and I have noticed a lot of pictures depicting men in these masks. The studio that made System Shock was Looking Glass, no? Reminds me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Jack is kind of like Alice in the sense that he winds up in this hole that is simultaneously fantastic and horrifying. The plasmids may offer great things, but the world is mostly just horrifying. Some of the Little Sisters remind me of Alice, too.

I’m a pretty big Alice in Wonderland fan and just bought a poster of the rabbit, so maybe I just have the book on my mind right now. I’ve heard other people try to compare Bioshock to the book before, and it definitely does seem like a stretch. I just wish I had some better answers about the masks that the splicers wear. I know that they were all at a masquerade for New Years when all hell finally broke loose, but I find the choices of the masks to be interesting.