#rantech

Let's start short and sweet for people who don't enjoy my lengthy walls of text. Impatient child-friendly summary: ______________________________________________________ What the game brings to the table:

Richer Graphics

1-4 player Co-op with a matchmaking system

An app for smartphones/Windows 8-10 that is used to unlock extra chest

Nostradamus eaglevision riddles

Mystery solving missions

4 random generated civilian evens you can aid in frequently (Thieves, beggars, public executions, and strong-arm thugs)

Controlled descent parkour

Far more animations for subtle nuances and weapon type combat

Customizable mix and match clothing pieces and color swatches

Chest that unlock witch challenges on tiers

Beautiful architecture

Bugs and crashes (Many being fixed as we speak)

A curious form of graphics optimization where max texture is no more impacting than minimum, hundreds of npcs make virtually no impact on FPS, but the game outright tanks when shadows,anisotropic filtering, or anti-aliasing is touched. 

Serious demands on ram, HDD space, VRAM, and CPU

Lack of support for a ~majority~ of PC users when it comes to  "minimum requirements"

Another protagonist who is on-par with Ezio in terms of likability, but doesn't get enough story to shine. 

Strange draw distance issues and environmental fogs

NPC pop-ins even within immediate vicinity of your character!

Absolutely MASSIVE NPC crowds

Some pretty top notch clothing textures

Some of the more impressive environmental sounds, conversations, and subtle audio nuances that I've seen

The magestic environs of France. 

Inner building environments to cut through or enter and infiltrate

A retuned and more difficult combat system and AI

Guns for every damn person in a suit....

More collectible stuff than you can shake a stick at.

16-18 co-op missions that can be played solo

About roughly a dozen brief side missions

A reboot-type story that stands alone and doesnt require ANY knowledge of the previous games as it has practically no ties to the older ones. (It's a spinoff that contributes NOTHING to the rich story of the AC Universe)

Decent voice acting as always

A huge arsenal of weapons

A RPGification where clothing and weapons contribute a sort of stats to your character

Skill points to learn you every day assassin moves at a more dragged out pace

Some clothes that make SENSE when stealth is concerned (Visually to blend in)

The ability to knock down enemies and kill the on the ground

tiered enemies with varying difficulty

Lockpicking mechanic which is BS

Line of site cover and detection (Crude stealth mechanic)

Microtransaction store to "Buy your way to not sucking because you don't want to invest time into a game you bought" you lazy ----s

A very basic Guild Mechanic which isn't fully utilized yet due to currently unavailable features. 

a Heist type of mission (Each time you or teamates are detected, the reward decreases)

_______________________________________________________ What the game takes away

Counter kills

Chain combo kills

Whistle-luring enemies to your cover to kill them (Replaced by a very clunky line of sight and cherry bomb mechanic

Those stylish robes Ezio wore. Apparently Ezio had better fashion taste than the French!

Plenty of story to help build character development and likability.

A longer more robust story that ties in the templars and their plot for domination via rare artifacts. (It was severely downplayed and felt more like a high school fanboy's writings)

The "National-Treasure"-esque  plot in the modern world which lead to a more complex mystery and a more cryptic type of plot development

Desmond's crew or ANY ties to the modern world save for a single lady who talks to you like a headset narrator/tour conductor.

Any sort of "magic mcguffin" you chase after to beat the templars to and is later trivialized by a more elaborate plot.

The slightly faster paced combat of the older games

the camaraderie and idle chit chat scenes

A great majority of the humor (what little it presented)

Tranquilizer darts

The insane number of bombs you could make in the ezio trilogy

The female escorts

pickpocketing random people

Punching random people

the ability to fight with the assassins blade/blades

Double blades (Although there is still a lingering doublekill animation that suggest it.....wut..)

Infinite duration/duration eaglevision (Now has radius + cooldown)

Side story arcs with more personal cutscenes and character building

A horse to ride

various zones to go to with stuff to do in each

Enemy ability to climb buildings and rooftops in most cases

That little aiming beam when lining up a shot

Variety of missions and events

Creativity

any sense of unpredictability

Backup assassins

Thieves and Warrior assistance

New things to do

The ability to engage with the crowds of people (Seriously, you should be able to start riots and mayhem at some point of the game!)

Epic scenes like being dragged on a rope at the back of a carraige just to get the guy you are trying to kill (Seriously, its now like AC1 all over again and is lather rinse repeat)

Another big city sand-boxish world full of repetition which feels overall hollow if you have been a long time Assassin's creed player due to a lack of stand-apart variety from the previous titles.

A lack of explanation for how Arno knew parkour and fighting skills prior to his encounter with the assassin. (The training for 2 months thing made made nice sense and was well executed without being a chore)

Those crazy eagle vision based easter eggs and cryptic messages based off old real life mysteries and puzzles

Continuity

For those of you who have never been to Taiwan, I wish to point some things out! 1. Garbage cans are hard to find in public most of the time. This is due to Taiwan's strong stance on recycling usually has a trash truck that plays a friendly (and rather repetitive) melody to signal you to bring your trash out to them. They run many hours of the day, daily. I hear there is a fee for disposing some recyclable materials as rubbish.  1-B. Oh yeah, Guns are illegal here. Knives are a grey area in legality. In some cases they are illegal, in some cases you better have a damn good reason (self defense ironically is NOT one of them) Even then, it is up to the cop to decide...so your best bet is don't have a knife on you!

2. Drink sizes for many well known American drinks are often smaller.  Your favorite 1 litre bottle of Mountain Dew? You'll be hard pressed to find that here! Same goes for the big boy cans of monster and rockstar. Rockstar is in red bull sized cans here.

3. Tea-Eggs: Broth-boiled eggs seem to be a common convenience store snack and while they may look unappetizing when you see them simmer a bit too long, they are actually not bad. Think of it like a soy sauce boiled egg, saving you the need to salt a hard boiled egg.

Also, In damn near every convenience store there is hot dogs as well.. typically like polish sausage or a hot dog with cheese bits in it.

4. Tea...glorious tea....soo MUCH tea.. You go to a convenience store.. or walk down the streets.. and you will find hundreds of varieties of tea.  entire WALLS of tea in place of tons of soda. 5. Taipei 101 is ENORMOUS. One of the tallest buildings on earth. balanced with an 800 ton damper, it is built to resist some of the strongest winds and earthquakes.

While the top ten floors are reserved for a top end private club/communication equipment/dampers, there is a mall attached to the base...and it may look tiny by comparrison.. but I have walked around in it and it is a rather large 4 story tall mall, complete with it's own supermarket.

How big you ask? Here are a few pics!

A majority of the stores in this mall are watch stores, cell phone stores, and designer clothing stores. In fact, asides from the food court.. that's all this mall consist of. If you want to look sharp and have a taste for fashion... this is your mall! A fashion designers dream. The food court was pretty awesome and had these chandeliers! 

HOWEVER...there is one place completely different....a coral shop!

Yeah, this place is loaded with coral art that you can buy!

Some are insanely elaborate!  here.. let's put more light on that!

Some are elegant!

Some are even lifelike!

Red coral!

Cinderella, your white coral accented with gold chariot (coach) awaits!

Check this necklace out! Its about $36,000+ USD (forgot to write down the price) The issue isn't the price... the issue is that no matter how many shots i took.. my camera could not capture its almost magical double-polish!  Like...seriously.. You have no idea! The camera i had could NOT capture it no matter what filter I used! Think about this picture.. see that amazing gloss? Now add an iridescent secondary layer of gloss.. like a soap bubble!  WHY my camera could not capture this almost makes me think that if there was a magic stone in the world.. it would be this red coral necklace.

Attempt 2

I took nearly 2 dozen photos and used 6 different filters to no avail. Just imagine the glossiest thing you can imagine, then add a second clear coat that has somewhat iridescent properties but only slightly above the base gloss..just enough to be noticed. You have to see it in person! At that price, I don't think it is going anywhere! 6. Public floors are astonishingly "clean" Take a look at the train station... Look at that nice floor!

COUNTLESS people travel this place between 5:am to 12:30am and yet it looks so shiny! Some places in the world could learn from these guys! 7. The tiny town of Toufen! I live there! Some pics of my area!

This temple is like a few steps away from my place! (I'm behind it)

I dated a rather nice girl in Taichung and she heard I liked chocolate...she said her friend gave this to her and she gave it to me...

I am by no means a little guy.. I'm 6'1" and around 260lbs (think a slightly chubby linebacker)  and this has GOT to be the most enormous chocolate bar I have ever seen!

It nearly eclipses my surface pro (which i had to clean up afterwards D: ) and my hand!

Remember koala yummies? yeah they still got those here!

You like Sturgis? How about a scooter variant? This is just an isolated example and i could take pictures of place that have ten times this amount!

Some pics in Miaoli

one thing that REALLY messes with my mind is red and blue LEDs. Typically reserved for Cop in the US... they are on little traffic zones in parts of Taiwan as if saying "This is a speed zone, cops are watching" And it makes me always think somebody is in trouble because usually the only time you see red and blue flashing lights is when a cop pulls over somebody! I won't even get started on some places in taiwan and how traffic lights/crosswalks work. Let's just say the rules are somewhat different here and it may explain why some Americans think Asians can't drive. Then again, with the way people drive around here, you have to adapt a different method of driving!

Cyrus here, 

     Periodically I find that I cannot resist the occasional anime here and there. Dragonball, DBZ, 8 man, Gatchaman force (G-Force), Rouroni Kenshin, Trigun, Bleach, Naruto, Digimon, Yugioh (to an extent), the occasional Voltron, G-Gundam, ronin warriors, and more have worked special places into my nostalgia center over the years.      There are some things in anime that have always bugged me however!

This is a list of things in anime that bug me.

1. Anime intro having superior art style or animation to the actual show.

I understand that an intro is supposed to suck you in and get your attention, but to me it is the same effect as using CGI cutscenes to represent a video game. That ship doesn't sail with me.

2. Lengthy cutscene transformations overused. 

We all love a good power up! We also love it when the protagonist gives it his all to gather enough strength to achieve the next level when he is struggling. However, using the same animation every single time he or she does it seems a bit lazy and more of a method to pad out time than to show of a flashy evolution.   If I was a bad guy, I would slap the snot out of the hero mid-transformation until he submitted. 

I am not a stranger to the concept of action time where the said evolution is actually instant but to the viewer is shown in its full glory, but it would not hurt to make it actually instant more often to show the viewer that!

3. The golden rule of anime: calling out your attack!

More often than any other anime trope, is the famous move-names.

The significance of knowing what the hell the hero or villain did by naming their power attacks is a staple of anime and has even become part of western culture to an extent!

Would it not make more sense to call out the name of the attack....AFTER using it? It is a shining red beacon of "Hey, I'm charging my best attack, please stand there and take it like a man so we can display how powerful we are compared to eachother okay?"

If I was a villain and I heard a hero calling out the name of an attack... you can bet your ass that the second syllable he uttered would be "GURLK!" This goes double for the villains who are already all-knowing of their adversary and know the attack being announced!

Naming your attack is important for the sake of sounding cool and letting them know what hit them... but naming it afterwards would be far more effective. If the attack actually REQUIRES you to shout out its name to use it, I consider that a tremendous design flaw.

4. Taking turns when the fate of existence is in the balance.

Here you have a whole group of bad guys or good guys playing 'bench warmer' until somebody either dies, fails, or stands out. The fate of the world or whatever hangs in the balance but the issue of pride and fair fights still somehow remains as the prime directive that is honored by good and evil alike.

Hello, bad guys don't need any rules but the ones they make! Why not just crowd pummel the strongest hero, then swat his weaker teamates like flies?

I understand the principles of a fair fight and the rules of engagement, but when a hero is trying to save the day or the villain is going all or nothing, there needs to be more weight on the battle besides "who is the stronger one" all the time. If the issue is severe enough, all of each respective side should be in a nonstop throwdown until one side is slain.

Anime logic:  ideal and cool as it is, it is terribly impractical.

5. Hero's trump card: sizing the enemy up.

We all know this one is for show. A hero tries to engage a clearly superior enemy while remaining in base form instead of going full power and turning his foe into a living mop.

The logic: Usually "I want to see how strong I have become" assuming he can take his or her now stronger base form and pit it against his enemy who finds the hero retarded (for good reason) for not opening with the strongest form and attack.  This careless move usually causes the protagonist and often his friends to become injured by the villain who cannot take the hero seriously for being so naive.

If you want to see how strong you have become, pit your strongest self against the foe, and if you lose, find a way to become stronger or adapt your fighting style to counter the foe!

Writers will sometimes slip in a reason the hero doesn't go all out on the villain like "Well the hero hasn't recovered enough to use that power" or they establish some sort of conditional cooldown which later becomes negated when a stronger power is found.

I think this is one reason I like Naruto despite the horrendous fillers; It isn't a power-game and requires tactics more than simple power. The foes are usually out of the heroes league and often have to be countered with a degree of strategy outside of "punch or slash at it till it falls down and surrenders".

6. Drama time! : Somebody has to die, luckily...it isn't you!

Killing off a character is often used for emotional motivation to make the hero stronger or to build team camaraderie. Typically it follows one of a few paths however.

A. The disposable: A former villain who has become hero or a weaker friend who the fanbase could care less about usually who is given one or two episodes of story to flesh him out just enough to try to make you care that he was a good person before he is killed off. (Sometimes just to be a good sport the writer uses some contrived reason to bring the fallen comrade back in the end to shut angry fans up)

       B. The Hero is Saiyan or something:  The main character is killed off as if on cue, usually taken out in a punk fashion that would have never killed him or her under any other condition. The hero then comes back from the dead using some sort of plot device, gimmick, spell, or journeys in the afterlife until they have received an important message which helps them grow in power.. then as if they were Jesus, the spring back to life, far more powerful than when they died... with no training or upgrades required in some cases! Vegeta would be proud. (I'll let you decide which one!)

      C. The sacrificial helper: A newfound tag along character who is often strong, cool, awesome and you want to see his power work with the main characters, but he is promptly killed in the blaze of glory. He sacrifices himself and his power to aid the protagonist in escape or a brief power boost to turn the tides. This character is more often than not a major power-player and possibly former foe who could help the hero win easily...if he didn't fail to dodge the blinding death beam of "Oh, you liked this guy? I'll let him become good too! PSYCHE!!" before being vaporized. (This guy is often either resurrected in the end to shut fans up, or is there as a spirit to help)

      D. The coma death: A close friend of the hero is disabled for an indefinite amount of time until the hero saves the day. This friend is often assumed to be dead, which invigorates the hero to not hold back. (In some cases, this friend was just unconscious or under some spell-like coma)  

7. The most badass character getting the least screentime.

Every anime has at least one. Some guy who insanely strong, cool, and probably a bit touched in the head when it comes to ideals and perspectives. This guy or girl could have their own damn show and we would all watch it without hesitation, but there is never enough. You want a good example? Kenpachi Zaraki from Bleach! The guy is a lunatic, but so interesting to watch in action as he takes down foes. Sometimes he is bored with them and destroys them in a single stab or blow, sometimes he goes ballistic and destroys a small country trying to fight his foe to test his strength to its limit!

These characters usually either have a very cryptic background to make them more interesting, or they give just enough of their origin to give you some basic premise, but never enough to delve into the mind of the character.

They are cool and you want to see them more, but you won't. Sometimes they get a multi-part subplot, but it ends up overshadowed by the main story as they fade into obscurity until the final battle. 8. American? Japanese? Asian? Neutral? The big debate! This has been an artistic debate between Akasen and I, but part of me thinks that Japanese characters in anime should be more properly portrayed artistically. The skin color is wrong, the facial shapes and styles aren't even close, and the hair colors are awesome but not as common.

I suppose this is one reason I respect Akira, because it felt like it was trying damn hard to capture the feel of Japan in animated form. 

Anime characters often seem too "White", and while that makes some white people who watch it feel awesome, I feel it is a missed opportunity. The white skin and colored hair is supposed to represent a form of neutrality I am told, but if that's the case, why not make a whole fake city and world for them to live in as well? To make things even more strange, elders in anime usually look more like asian elders than white elders, despite the skin color. I honestly wish there was some more racial diversity in anime, but fantasy is fantasy and I do not wish to incur the wrath of the otaku.

In many cases, it is established that the hero or villain can sense the other at some point... so by that logic they should know that the other is fine beyond the dust. So why not nuke the enemy until they no longer sense them?

I would also love to state the fact that with all these exotic moves anime characters present, nobody has ever considered something cool like slashing the dust cloud away or blasting it away with a circumference blast? I for one would be like "Stop hiding in the dust and let's see the results" before abolishing the dust.

9. The unspoken rule of power! When a character has just learned a new power or ability... how do they know how to control it, what it's name is, and how to use it with zero experience firsthand?

The writers of these stories leave it up to the viewer to decipher that the character has suddenly gained full knowledge and clarity to this newfound power the moment they understand it. Instant mastery! If only real life had anything that worked that way! 

The absurdity of this is that the character has seemingly mastered full use of a new ability they have only discovered just moments ago..and in some cases made up, yet the move never fails and is usually far more effective than the moves they have trained and mastered previously!

Symbolic or not, I would much like to see the hero have to learn control of his newfound ability in combat while bumbling with it a few times before they get the hang of it... it is just more interesting that way.

If you were given super powers and special moves instantly, you would have to practice with them a bit before putting them to full use! Some trial and error is part of the growing and learning process.

I'm aware these are possibly tropes, but they are little things consistent in animes that has bugged me over the years.

Cyrus here....aka Incognis: Lord of Rants As you know, I am not one able to make my thoughts short. THIS: http://kotaku.com/grand-theft-auto-blamed-after-eight-year-old-shoots-gra-1201375715?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow Is the current elephant turd in the punchbowl for the week. Already I am hearing controversy about all the wrong things and I have to say some things on that. Begin Rant: Americans are stupid. They are always looking to blame something or somebody else for their own dumb mistakes to save face.Not teaching this kid the basics of right and wrong, real and fake I leave the parents fault.Buying a mature violent game for a kid who cannot grasp these concepts is also foolish, again I blame the parents (or whoever purchased the game)The ESRB rates these games for a damn reason folks, don't be stupid!This is like giving drugs to a toddler and showing him how to inject other people and then somebody ends up overdosed.America has done this for decades. First it was rock and roll, then it was tv, then it was rap, now is video games. The blame is always shifted to what is most convenient and sounds the most violent at the time. Currently, video games win the violence award, so they are prime target for blame. It becomes more convenient because it is interactive violence.making a gun even remotely accessible to a child was another tremendous mistake of the caretakers/parents. Any gun using, red blooded american with a shred of intelligence knows that when a child is present in a home, the gun should be stored in a place the kid cannot find or access and should not be loaded at the time. My God this sounds so stupid that it almost feels fabricated by some people just to win points on the war against guns and video game violence....things that have been big in political affairs for a while now.Violent video games nor guns kill people. Carelessness, stupidity, and violent intent are things that kill people. Buying MATURE rated games for kids is dumb.A- Older kids and adults do not like hearing smart-mouthed little children trying to talk trash on multiplayer games.B- Some kids who have not yet learned the difference between fantasy and real life should NOT be allowed to participate in violence...even digitally.C- buying or leaving video games of mature nature accessible is foolish if you are trying to set a good example.Having a LOADED gun in the same home as a child and being accessible is also stupid.A- it is a blatant show of irresponsible gun ownership.B- the fact the kid knew where to find it is also concerning.C- The fact the kid could access it is troublingThe people involved here were examples of natural selection...nothing more. People who do this many dumb and careless things are prone to leave this mortal coil on an express train.Video games nor guns are to blame here.. just poor child care and terrible gun ownership care.I'm done. Spare me of this stupid sensationalism of idiocy. as Gord once said:"Im sorry, Im afraid I subscribe to the theory of intellectual osmosis. As such, I must now cease our conversation and move away from you before my intelligence begins to drop. Good day."