Today's game is Assassin's Creed 2. I started this up today, and did a little tinkering with reshade. I still want to mess with it a bit because i feel it's way too saturated, but it's definitely got less of that ugly filter games of that era had. So, just consider this a disclosure that mileage will very if someone decides to replay this and sees my pictures.

I first wanted to start off by saying that the soundtrack to this game is absolutely amazing to me. The piece earth alone absolutely captured me with it's calm opening followed by the (what i assume) to be the electric bass.

Ezio's performance can come off a bit flat at times, but despite that there's something about him that has captured me in the same way my other favorites have. I think it's similar to Arno and how he goes from this almost cocky individual to something more reserved and at times furious. With my only other brush with him as a character being Revelations, it makes for a fascinating character arc. Especially since he gets a full 3 games to grow, something as far as i remember no one else gets.

This game really feels like they took the flaws of AC 1 and refined them. The parkour feels far nicer. So does the combat and the story. The characters feel like they have far more depth too. I suspect this will be as short as Assassin's Creed 1, but i'm hoping i'm wrong and we get a little more time. Obviously nothing crazy like Shadows but a Shorter game feels perfect, especially for a trilogy.

With the screenshot posts getting their anniversary yesterday, I decided I was feeling in the mood for Halo. So I gathered my friends together to kick off year 3. I decided to mix things up and do some maps and game modes we don’t usually do. Get a fresh perspective and all that. And on top of that I decided I’d limit myself. When I take my Halo Screenshots now. I do it with ReShade and take two versions. A version without filters (for these posts) and a version with for myself and friends/artsy sharing. I decided this time I’d do it without ReShade to see if that makes a difference. I’m proud to say to myself I think it did, and the photo above I feel is proof of that.

I like the framing of him running with the flag and the sun right over him. It makes for a strong image I really like. Plus with the way the shadow reflects across the ground it makes it an even more powerful image to me. If I could I think I would have gotten a different focal length. But I can’t really be a beggar with games and things like that. So I’ll take this.

From a game perspective we tried the duel game mode which honestly, I didn’t know it existed. For people who don’t know it’s basically just Slayer but the leader gets a big marker so they can’t hide. Honestly, that game mode is the most balanced one we’ve ever had. We usually have a point divide of ~10 Points between our skilled players and not so skilled players. This one everyone was around the same point level.

My assumption as to why is that everyone being clustered while also having a big target resulted in people favoring targeting the leader while also being up to jump another player by surprise. It was honestly interesting to see that be a result of the game mode, as I hadn’t expected it.

Anyways. I just thought playing one of my favorite games I’ve played on here would be a great way to start a new year of this. Tomorrow I’ll start AC2, though this has awakened another lust for Halo that may result in another day straight…

Today's is (if i did my math right, and i'm like 99% sure i did) the 2 Year Anniversary. I decided i'd do things the way i did it last time with a normal post with all the extra stuff attached at the end.

To celebrate 2 years i decided to just relax with my friends on the Minecraft server i set up. Setting up this server was a little bit of a headache, and I even set up docker to keep things a little tidier when handling it which added some extra work. But it's worth it to have a space like this to hang out with friends.

In the 2 Years the group i game with has grown from Me and My Best Friend with maybe an occasional other person, too almost 8 other people. Not all of them join for the same games, but that's fine. It feels unreal to an extent to have a group of friends like that, especially ones i feel i trust to such a degree.

Anyways, less about my feelings and more about the Server. I set up a series of secret tunnels running from my base too everyone else's along with secret windows. One of my tunnels got nearly discovered though so i also obfuscated them with a series of mazes armed with booby traps that would discourage anyone from exploring even if they did find it. It was a long project but well paid off in the end to essentially mess with my friends.

I also went to Tropicraft again which was fun. All my friends tagged along too, which in concept sounds fun but it somehow lagged the hell out of the server. I set up an Portal there to warp back and forth and we decided to just leave that place be for now.

2 Year Anniversary stuff

For the 2 year anniversary i wanted to do something different from last year. This is a lot less about the photos and instead i wanted to reflect on the games i played. The way i went about this was too first combine a (mostly) complete history of my screenshots into a stats sheet.

I say mostly because i didn't want to sift through 2 years worth of posts, so i wrote a script to do it for me, then i used that to sift through the incorrect info. It's still a little messy, but i thought it'd give a fascinating look into the screenshots.

For anyone curious though, the top 5 are:

• Halo (at ~82 entries (if we're cheating and counting the MCC as one entire game))
• Fallout New Vegas (at ~23 Entries)
• Alan Wake 2 (at ~22 Entries)
• Ghost of Tsushima (at 18 entries)
• Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered/Assassin's Creed Shadows (at ~17 entries)

Obviously i can't talk about this year without mentioning Halo. I didn't grow up with this franchise. Until i became an adult the only brush i had with it was a weekly LAN party we ran in my Middle School woodworking class which stuck strictly to Boarding Action Slayer. After that i didn't touch it again until i turned 18 and my Best Friend created a monster that would go on to have over 700 Hours and Climbing in Halo MCC.

The franchise has resonated with me in a way not many games have. I'm not a big PvP game person, but it's given me a space beyond that with my friends. It's became the spot where i'd say some of my most treasured memories with them have been made. All over a Voice Call and a game of Slayer, or Infection on Zealot, or hell even just replaying Halo 3 for the 500th god damn time. I can understand why the franchise is so dear to others, and i'm so glad i got a chance to experience it.

I'm going to skip over New Vegas, because it's New Vegas. I don't feel like it needs much more introduction. I ended up replaying Alan Wake 2 this year. I had gone into the semester enrolled in a Photography Class and was starting to feel like i could take on anything. So i decided to replay the game. It has one of my favorite Photo Modes of all time. So knowing that it felt like a perfect match.

As for the contents of the game? It's a story that just hit all the right feelings for me. The meta commentary alone is enough to catch my attention, and then all the extra stuff like Alan's character arc and the beauty and simultaneous horror of the world. Remedy truly crafted something special that i am not afraid to admit I cried a little when it was over. It was one of those games that left a hole in my heart and i don't think anything will ever fill it.

And with the subject of games that left a hole in my heart; Oneshot. I'm moving off the list here now. But this game to me was something special. It nailed every part of it's presentation in so many perfect ways. It made me feel attached to Niko in a paternal way i'm not sure i've ever felt for a fictional character. I was about to cry at the end when Niko left. And it manages to do all that without introducing any sort of combat mechanic or action. Every moment of this game was perfect to the point i don't think replaying it could ever recreate that feeling.

I will touch on one last thing, as though i had more planned, my Wi-Fi has unfortunately gone out and i'm using a hotspot with a supper spotty connection to write this. And that one last thing is The Last of Us Part II. It's the earliest game i remember from this year, partly because i made a blunder and assumed everyone knew a plot twist. I thought since it's what i remember earliest, it's what I'll end with. A proper closing to the last year of pictures.

I liked the game, i know it's a but controversial but on it's own i really liked it. I'm a sucker for a story of the cycle of violence. Is it corny and tacky, yeah. Probably, but i can't help but enjoy them. It looked pretty too and it made me feel invested in all the same ways the original did (which ironically was one of the last games i remember ending off last year with as i was 100% it around that time). I still need to 100% this game and finish my crushing run, but as a closure to the last year i think it's good.

Anyways, that will be all from tonight. I had been up sorting games for the last few hours and debugging a script i put off for far too long to get those stats for games. There was a bug where it could only scan like the first 476 Posts which was weird. I fixed it though. Sorry Lemmy api if there was anything weird going on. That was me. Anyways, before my hotspot disconnects me again I'm gonna end today here.

Today's game is Assassin's Creed. I finished it today, and the ending segment, gameplay wise, was rough. Like here where you have to kill the target? It throws like 10+ enemies at you with a combat system i struggled to grasp. What i ended up doing after about 10 retries was just standing up here and slashing at the enemies as they tried to climb up. A bit cheap? Probably. Is what Altair would do? Probably not. I was ready to be done with that fight though.

The boss fight towards the end had the same kind of issue, i did start to notice after all these deaths though that for some reason all the enemies put away their swords when you die and put their hands into fists. It's funny imagining Al Mualim throwing hands with Altair.

After a few rounds of that though i managed to get a few good counters in and beat the boss fight. I think it was the only one with waves like that which is interesting to me. Assassin's Creed isn't really a franchise i associate with having bosses with waves.

Anyways, as much as i enjoyed it, i see why people say it felt like a tech demo or a demo for it's older brother. It got repetitive, and it's combat felt really janky in a way. I know AC has always had kind of janky combat but this felt off even by it's standards. I still really liked it though. The story beats were engaging to me, and despite the jank it felt like a new experience i haven't gotten to with the AC Franchise.

I would say more on it, but i really don't have much more to say beyond that other than the story. I will briefly mention that i like Malik and his whole forgiveness of Altair and eventually coming to his rescue. It really i feel added to accentuate Altairs turn from how arrogant he was at the start.

Today's game is some more Assassin's Creed. I did the mission where you assassinate William of Montferrat. Gotta say, most of the assassinations in this game have been mediocre, but somehow this one nudged it's way in as one of my favorites of recent memory. It felt like a very solid Assassination Mission. Sneak into the fortress, find the target, get out. My one wish was it was easier to pull of air assassinations. Apparently it is possible, but it's difficult to pull off from everything i hear.

I do feel like the enemy detection in this game is bullshit though. I was trying to scale down. And there definitely wasn't anyone who could see me, and yet somehow an enemy would start to notice me anytime i so much as grabbed the ledge.

I am kind of starting to get tired of all these investigations though. They all boil down too: Do objective, get plot exposition, repeat 3 more times. It kind of dulls the experience.

This one was kind of fun though because i stunk locked the guy into a corner and beat the shit out of him. I do feel bad though because Altair always kills the guys.

Anyways, i presume i'm coming up on the ending soon. It's a shame i know how it goes. I feel like the twist would hit a lot harder if i went in blind years ago. Regardless i am excited though. And i'm even more excited to get to 2. I've never played it so I'm really excited to try it out. I'm open to modding the experience to making it better so if there's any suggestions i'd love to hear them.

Today is some more of The Attack of The B-Team Server we have going. I got another friend on. That makes 6 so far with another on the way (i stopped and properly counted). What was the first thing me and this friend did? We dug a tunnel. We're going to fill it with water. But we spent a grand total of nearly 3 hours just digging this out. We still have to clean it up but so far i think our work is something to be proud of, at least in terms of big tunnels in minecraft.

Unfortunately the cobblestone went mostly to waste as i ran out of chests to put it in. But that's fine, with the sledge hammer i built i can get a ton of cobblestone anyways with only a little destruction of the natural environment.

I also went exploring for a certain kind of tree. Long story short, one of my friends couldn't find some wood they were looking for so i tracked it down for them. While i did i found this spot where the Terrain Gen just absolutely crapped the bed. it's funny to look at to be honest. It would make an interesting base if it wasn't so far away and i wasn't already set up somewhere else.

I ended up putting together an Airship too. That was always one of the highlights of this modpack for me. Getting to sail airships was awesome. It's just a cool thing to me to have a flying base like that.

After my Airship build though everyone was starting to get off. I decided to follow suite and join them, so i gathered whoever was left and made us all take a selfie together on the server. I'm the Iguana, my friends are morphed into other mobs.

Today's game is some more Assassin's Creed. 4 More days until 2 years! (assuming i did my math right). It's weird thinking about. I remember the day i put the post up i was up playing Halo 3 with some friends. It's just weird thinking about how much time has been between now and then.

Anyways, Assassin's Creed. I was thinking while playing that this game really hits a bleak tone that it doesn't address. I feel the other's explain it. Unity has the whole cut scene with the guy losing his leg and Syndicate has the Asylum with the lobotomy cut scene. But this one just has bodies in the street outside a city. It really helps add to the idea that the city is being decimated by the war.

I also noticed playing this i get these popups a lot. It's ironic to think that even back then, the Ubisoft that's known now was kind of kicking around too a level, at least in terms of the annoying constant popups.

Anyways, the final thing i wanted to appreciate is that this game is the only one i feel where the hooded outfits look like they could be actual disguises. Syndicate is maybe a second closest with it's robes. Everyone wandering around has a hood or a head covering of some sort. So it's not unreasonable for Altair to pass undetected. Well, assuming you ignore the whole arsenal he's carrying on his back. But besides that, i feel like it works as camo. Especially when you compare it to something like Ezio's outfit.

Anyways, This game is freakishly shorter than i expected. I wouldn't be surprised to be moving on to Assassin's Creed II any time soon. Honestly i might pad it with something just to keep from burning myself out.

Today’s game is some more Minecraft (Attack of the B-Team). I’ve made a ton of progress in it and decided to dedicate today just to showing of me and my friends progress. Like if you look in the above screenshot you’ll see my base. I feel the inspiration is obvious (Old console edition tutorial world). Mine is far from the most interesting though.

One of my friends has a base inspired by what seems to be a Virus, or so I can assume with the leg design. It used to be more obvious but he filled in the legs so now I’m not to sure what the inspiration Is. I wonder if he’s just free balling it.

I also went to the moon. It was pretty interesting to be up there. A bit barren though. I went ahead and set up a base and then made my way to a dungeon to get the tier 2 rocket schematic. I want to build a Space Station before Mars though, so that’s next up on my list.

Anyways. That’s the most interesting progressions on the server. I thought it’d be fun to update it every once in a while. It’s been a bit since I had something of a consistent multiplayer thing like this.

Today's game is some more Assassin's Creed. I mainly made my way through the Jerusalem assassination. it was here i really started to feel the slowness of this game's parkour. With the other games (not-RPG ones) Parkour feels snappy and like constant lunges. Here it kind of feels like Altair is afraid to grab a ledge and i feeling it out first. Realistic? Yeah. But also it does slow things down a little.

Also, with Altair's face just being Desmond's it really cracks me up a bit. It's just funny seeing that he has the exact same face as him, especially coming from the games where all the Protagonist's have their own faces.

The actual assassination part was fun, albeit it felt a little light on story. I liked actually getting to chase the guy through the streets despite my gripe about the parkour. The fight though kind of boiled down to standing around and countering until he died. And i mean that more so than what the other games are known for.

It also throws me off they don't search for you. Like, i can just hop in there at a yellow and wait them out. I'd expect them to at least search around for me. But nope. They just walk away like they suddenly had something better to do.

Anyways, i'm enjoying this. It's interesting to see the roots of one of my favorite franchises growing up, so exploring this is a fun time. After this i want to go to 2, and work my way up from there. I have a friend who's trying to complete every Final Fantasy game; I'd like to dedicate myself to finishing every Assassin's creed game, even if i'm dreading Odyssey and Valhalla, and Shadows too actually. The story for Shadows was ungodly long, i liked the game play though. I should upgrade my CPU though with how much of a Bottleneck it became for that game.

Today's game is Minecraft, specifically Attack of The B-Team. I had setup a server for me and my friends, and it had gone unused since April. We finally remembered it existed though and all got on it. What initially was expected to be a server of 3-4 people has become one of nearly 12. It's fun having something large. Plus it's all self hosted, so no need to worry about the server turning off or anything.

One of the things i've been dabbling in is the Necromancy mod. I've had fun stitching together weird things. One creature i made had a Zombie Skull, Villager Body, spider legs, and Chicken Arm. I brought it too life but it vanished into the Ether. So... i made a whole new cryptid i suppose.

I started building this castle like thing to live in. Initially i Retrofitted a witch thing i found, but i eventually moved closer to my friends. I'm the "Tinker's Construct guy" so it made sense. I have the Necromancy stuff in the basement along with the forge. I've been working on hollowing out the base and cleaning it up and then finishing the main area. Next i want to turn the rest of the island i built it on into a keep. Then use that as a staging area to launch myself into space and beat everyone else in the Space Race i declared (I'm the only other competitor)

I had something downloading on Steam towards the end of the play session, and it absolutely tweaked out the game. Models started falling apart, mobs were lagging, even the sky seemed to be stuttering. Honestly feels like material for a short story. Imagine if the sky just kept jumping backwards by a few hours. It would be scary as hell.

Anyways, i wanted something interesting to break up the monotony of the first Assassin's Creed. It's fun but not a lot happens. So consider this a break from it while i made some more progress in the background (the Wizard tower belongs to my friend)

Today's game is some more Assassin's Creed. I've been playing through it, and it's an interesting experience compared to the newer games. I assume the Ezio trilogy brought it closer too what i know, but the differences I'm noticing are interesting.

One of the differences I've noticed is that there's these sections where you sort of "stalk" your prey up close in a crowd. These are actually pretty cool to me. I don't feel like i get to see a lot of these in the newer games. Usually i feel like we get a pan out shot showing the target instead. Maybe the only example i can remember is in Black Flag where you're stalking the guy and stab him from the bench.

Also, there's something about Desmond's model that's makes him look constantly pissed off. I mean, he has good reason too be, but it's just funny too me. Plus with the head bobbing thing he does where he looks like a chicken, it's funny to me.

Altair is a interesting protagonist to me too. He's cocky and almost seems apathetic to the creed and authority, which is ironic considering the themes. It's an interesting protagonist to me because i don't feel like we really got one like it. Arno maybe, but even then i feel like he was different.

Anyways, that's kind of my perspective on the first game based on the first 2 units. Overall it's a fairly interesting experience contrasting this with the rest of the games in the franchise, especially against Unity/Syndicate (my favorites) and Shadows (The latest one i've played)

Today's game is Assassin's Creed. The first one Specifically. I have played and enjoyed most of the Assassin's Creed games. Specifically: 3, Black Flag, Rogue, Unity, Syndicate, Origins, Valhalla, and Shadows. With Black Flag Resynced on the horizon, I would be lying if i said i wasn't hyped about it having grown up with the franchise the way i have. I'm hoping to wait until launch to hear about it to even consider it (or even better acquire it through other means), as i'd love to give it a try and form my own opinion on it, regardless of my own personal bias.

Anyways, so i decided to play the First Game, which i have never beaten. I thought if i sink myself into it so maybe i can quell any sort of desire for the Black Flag Remake, at least until i can find out whether it's good. Hopefully though it sates all desire so i don't want to play it. Then again, i'm sure my local library will get it, i can for sure borrow a copy from there.

I mean, my major complaint with Shadows was the story being way too long. Black Flag has an amazing story in my opinion. I don't know how they could fuck it up, so with trust i could believe it will be good, but Ubisoft does not have my trust in this matter.

Anyways, about the game. It looks surprisingly good. Like, the models are a bit eh. And i noticed some NPCs almost look like they're bobbing their head like a chicken. But lighting and texture wise it looks fine. I imagine some of it is carried by having maxed out graphic options. But still.

I appreciate the difference between this too and the modern formula. It's unique to see how the open world is a little less open compared to the sequels. Having gotten countless games with the open world formula it's nice to experience it.

It's also interesting seeing how different the Brotherhood is here. They feel far less secret compared to normal. I mean, they have a fucking castle adorned with their symbol. Not exactly the pinnacle of secrecy. Then again, back in ages like that i imagine word traveled a lot less fast, so it'd be harder to find somewhere like that. Especially with it supposedly being in the mountains.

Also, it cracks me up that the save icon resembles a SIM card. For some reason it's funny to me.

Anyways, i wanted to play this and explore a something from my childhood i never really touched. I've also had a desire recently to replay L.A. Noire too so if that shows up and this doesn't assume it replaced it.