T w e n t y S i d e d
Link (YouTube) |
Someone pointed out that you can pick up swords from fallen foes? I had no idea. (And apparently, neither does Josh, unless his refusal to do so is just yet another layer of meta-trolling, which cannot be discounted at this time.)
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Dead Island
A stream-of-gameplay review of Dead Island. This game is a cavalcade of bugs and bad design choices.
Bad and Wrong Music Lessons
A music lesson for people who know nothing about music, from someone who barely knows anything about music.
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
Trashing the Heap
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
I would use the axe everywhere. I’d pick it up every chance I got!
He cuts down trees, he eats his lunch,
he writes down his comments!
Well, in Brotherhood you can buy a holster for big weapons like Axes and Broadswords so you can carry them around with you.
“(And apparently, neither does Josh, unless his refusal to do so is just yet another layer of meta-trolling, which cannot be discounted at this time.)”
I’d believe it. (Though I think he just didn’t know.)
Actually, I think he just FORGOT. Josh gets really distracted upon occasion.
Actually, when I played it, in the early points here, you couldn’t pick up a weapon. They wanted you unarmed, and you were going to like it.
Kind of pissed me off.
I would go out of my way to butcher armoured guards with spears or any sort of polearm whenever I suspected I’d be in a fight. Their charge-up attack is a sweeping move that will floor everyone in a very very wide arch around you and Ezio rarely does a killing move with it that involves the spear ending up lodged inside an enemy the way the axe does.
I’d have given up my main weapon, side weapon, punching, throwing knives, the poison blade; hell, even the flash bombs and the pistol, just to be able to hang on to a polearm. But then again… it’s not very assassin-esque.
Same here. The spear was my favorite weapon and had my favorite counter moves including one where you stab someone and the fall back and then slowly slide down the spear.
In Brotherhood they addressed the using enemies’ weapons issue by having any weapon you pick up become your permanent weapon if you didn’t already have one. They even let you permanently carry axes and broadswords. BUT STILL NOT A SPEAR DAMMIT.
Actually, at least once in AC2 I picked up a sword and it became my permanent sword.
Since it was inferior to the one a lucky guard had just disarmed from me, I was a bit irked by it. I had to go back to the villa to switch it.
I’m unsure what picking up a weapon I didn’t already own would have done.
I ran into that in Brotherhood, but I could replace it back with my old weapon when I found it. I’m not sure if AC2 let you do it…
I would go out of my way just to butcher gaurds.
Comments: (I miss viddler) Yep, skipping to 1:05 again. The edge of the screen goes gray once you’ve become anonymous sucessfully. You only get spotted for running when notorious. Josh beats physics! “You can hear these guys from 50 meters.” Yep, because you’re
an Assassin/TWCB descendant. You’re punching him with your blade out! Bad assassin is bad. STOP SHOOTING MEE! Oh, Rutskarn.Stop shooting me indeed. I was wondering how long we would have to wait to hear that…
I’ve missed that. Made me happy to hear it return.
Yeah but he didn’t scream it. It just doesn’t feel right without the obnoxious volume.
I don’t think the archers are going away, so hopefully this is just the first of many.
The beauty is that its not just archers,but when you are running away,everyone is throwing shit at you.
I have to dispute shamus’s appreciation of the engine a few episodes back – All it ever gave me was patchy distorted unsynchonised sounds (effects voice and music) and gameplay was jittery and staggered every five seconds…
#bitter
Though I do like how you can actually use the wristblade like a sword in this game, unlike the previous, where all you could do is counter with it
Unless I’m reading your comment wrong: your complaining about the engine because you didn’t meet the minimum system requirements?
Minimum:
OS: Windows® XP (32-64 bits) /Windows Vista®(32-64 bits)/Windows 7® (32-64 bits) *
Processor: Intel Core® 2 Duo 1.8 GHZ or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHZ
Memory: 1.5 GB Windows® XP / 2 GB Windows Vista® – Windows 7®
Graphics: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0″“compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (see supported list)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0
Hard Drive: 8 GB free space
Sound: DirectX 9.0 ““compliant sound card
Supported Peripherals: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller
* This product does not support Windows® 98/ME/2000/NT
Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: ATI® RADEON® X1950, HD 2000/3000/4000/5000 series NVIDIA GeForce® 7/8/9/100/200 serie
my requirements are all the same as these (or only a little bit better)… maybe I’m the fool for expecting minimum requirements to mean the game will run ok at these standards. Though I also saw that many people with far better rigs were also having sound problems, I eventually gave up on getting it to run, I think I have fair call to get annoyed.
I haven’t heard anything about sound problems so I can’t comment on that, but regarding the minimum system requirements:
Those are pretty much always a big fat lie. At best it means you can play the game with huge slowdown and/or other issues, and at worst it means you can get to the main menu without your computer exploding.
I thought up a new rule for the drinking game:
Every time the crew beats on the already dead, raised as undead, and re-killed horse of Ezio’s flamboyant costume, take a drink.
Our livers would fail before the end of the week.
Guaranteed.
Oh, so it’s just like all the other rules, then? Perfect.
We’ll stop mentioning it the moment it stops TOTALLY SCREWING US OVER.
So…. never?
Wait till you start getting different capes!
Are any of them made of Assassin’s Tweed?
I’m sure they’re made of everything Assassins need
I’ll raise an assassin’s mead to that.
Well since Ezio’s wanted level is no longer “notorious”, it will stop screwing him over next episode. However I seriously doubt that Josh will ever again attempt to keep his notoriety down.
But his costume is so styling…
Seriously, I actually like it. So I’ll just drink water.
But I can easily see how its asymmetry, being covered in a lot of weird belts, the half-cape and the coat-tails would be a distressing sight to have to look at for hours on end. Giving the player such a unique costume really detracts from being an assassin, it forces to your mind the reality that you’re a medieval superhero who kills people.
Ignoring the fact this is not medieval times, there are way, way worse things to be than a medieval superhero who kills people.
You can pick up swords. Hell, picking up dropped weapons became my go-to move toward the end (well, OK, taking their swords then stabbing them with them did).
And the grey stuff shows up every time you Hidden Blade someone, IIRC.
There really is no reason to pick up weapons,except the spear.Yours already are much better.
The funniest thing you can do is start looting a corpse while it is sliding down,and when it falls off the roof,you continue looting the air,and still get the money.
Will assassins blend?
Watching the beginning-credits dive off the tower again, I think they need to add a violent shake of the camera or other “impact” effect when you hit the hay. As it is, you just kind of vanish into the wad of pixels. It looks like a clipping error.
It’s interesting how these tiny visceral things can make a big difference to the effect of a game.
Please dont give them ideas!Im sick of shaky cam in my movies,I dont want it in games as well.
It’s not “shaky-cam”, which I’m sick of in movies as well. What’s the point of even having action scenes if it’s just a big squirming blur? But in games, most of the real impact comes from visual/auditory clues like these. There’s a huge difference between the visceral “feel” of the game depending on how you set it up.
Please don’t say ‘visceral feel’ – it’s really just another industry buzzword that’s used and abused by publishers (hello, Bioware) and pr-people to the point where it’s lost any meaning.
It’s become a buzzword because it’s an important part of game design. The trouble is that, like most things, there’s a very fine line between “just enough” and “wayyyyy too damn much”.
DDO does it pretty well overall because they’re consistent. Nothing’s really over-the top, but there are some good knockback/around effects in the right spots. Diablo 2 was pretty good in that regard.
Bioware hits it every once in a while. Not often.
It also looks likes to me that he drifts over to the middle of the stack at the last second, like they hadn’t planned the arc out properly to begin with and had to correct it after the fact.
Yeah, like his head should have hit the edge of the barrel, and we all know what would happen then.
Excuse me, what SHOULD happen. He’d probably just get up and walk away.
Anyone else looking forward to hearing Rutskarn witnessing Ezio meeting his uncle?
I expect there will be much shouting and groaning.
I already groan when I see that.
Rutskarn will just make it worse. MUCH worse.
Lol. I was wrong. Rutskarn actually had the logical reaction, instead of, you know, having a field day and going nuts with that. You were much closer :P
Im a bit disappointed there was no Assassins Speed pun at ~7:30.
But glad to see they cut down the conversations with your victims, at least in this assassination. Stabbing a guy in the throat and then listening to him blabber away for minutes was annoying.
Arrgh! Josh, you passed up two of those hidden glyph things. I guess I can’t blame you, though. Those puzzles aren’t the most fun thing to watch if you’re not in the room helping to solve them. Though on at least one of them there’s this big patch of hexadecimal hidden on the picture, and it’d be kind of amusing to watch Shamus just do that all in his head.
Also, there’s a pretty good reason for why Ezio stands in a crowd and announces himself after murdering someone: he’s not an assassin yet. He’s just an angry 20-something out for revenge. He doesn’t give a shit about stealth beyond using it to get in front of the one guy he’s out to murder.
Finally, as much as I’ll defend Ezio’s outfit, there’s one thing I cannot justify: he has not one, but two popped collars on it.
http://s3.guyism.com/up/popped-collar-52608-3.jpg
;-)
He did that before he got the outfit, actually.
Ezio pre-Assassin INSTANTLY makes me think “douche”. And I don’t even use that word.
I think they were deliberately going for that, in which case they absolutely succeeded. Ezio pre-Assassin seems to be pretty much the king of all douches. Although he is nice to his sister, about his only redeeming feature.
At least he’s got his looks going for him…
ACII Art Department: Hmm…people love T ‘n A…soo wait! *snap* I got it! We’ll COMBINE THEM!
I finally found a guide that explains the keyboard layout on the PC. That was driving me nuts, it wasn’t obvious how it worked/mapped.
I can finally play along. :)
It’s all there in the options menu, and is remappable to boot.
It’s not immediately obvious what the “body part” buttons do, but that’s covered in the in-game tutorials and the HUD. It would be NICE if the tutorials would use the actual key, sure, but it’s there if you look for it.
Your hidden blade has been on your left arm the entire time. It`s just hard to see when it`s buried in his chest.
I`d point out the distinctive stabbing noise, but I know it would be hard to hear while filming.
Gun isn`t the only ranged option. There are throwing knives too.
To be less snarky, so far AssCreed is the best Spoiler Warning since ME 1. Kudos.
They’ve all had their moments. Vegas in particular was fantastic at times.
ME2 was kind of meh. Just tons and tons of ragging on Cerberus :/
Just a question: In this Let’s Play, are you guys going to do the glyph puzzles. I’m just curious because I thought that was one of the more interesting parts of the game.
Also, I think Josh just didn’t know about taking weapons. By the time they tell you it’s possible, you’ve already got two hidden blades, a dagger, a sword, and are about to get throwing knives and smoke bombs. (Basically, Ezio is a waling armory).
Hopefully they at least get around to doing the Villa glyph, if only to get rid of the GIANT BARCODE on their nice mansion.
How Ezio doesn’t rattle when he starts lugging around two concealed blades, a host of throwing knives, a sword, several smoke bombs and enough money to make the Medicis jealous is completely beyond me.
Boring history fact: Lorenzo de Medici (the ruler of Florence) inherited a fortune from his father so big it effectively made the Medicis the richest family in Europe. These guys were absurdly wealthy at this point, and Lorenzo was one of the Medicis considered to have contributed the most to the “Golden Age” of the Medici dynasty.
Also, one of them married the French king. This was before the French found out that beheading royals for shits and giggles was fun.
Really? I’m honestly curious what you found interesting about them.
I found those sorry excuses for puzzles to be downright awfull (most of them come down to guesswork or trial & error) and you didn’t even get a decent reward for them.
I`m guessing he either means the puzzles themselves or maybe the background information about Assasin`s Creed history.
On a personal note, the historic facts of this universe reminds me a lot about the Not-So-History-After-All Channel.
They do have some backstory/conspiricy nutcasing going on, and the reward is a pretty good hint as to the batshit craziness of the AC backstory – but again, Brotherhood hugely improved on them with far more conspiricieness, more and more varied puzzles, lots of hidden coded messages, and tying some sort of story to the computer(?) narrator.
Steal someone’s broom, they’re the best weapons.
Stolen Pixel flashbacks go…
Wait, is it a pushbroom?
You can die from falling, jump of a really high building, like that tower, you do die.
I’m pretty sure Elvis was an assassin.
The first week Josh was billed as the worst assassin ever. Having watched Rutskarn play Hitman, I doubted that claim. I now want to apologize to Rutskarn.
Kevin Macleod: Ezio Audio-tore.
Ye gods, I hope nobody’s made this pun yet.
Hey with his music and a bunch of awkward high-schoolers, one of them in a wheelchair, they could make a special episode of assassin’s glee.
Oh god I’m disgusting. Sorry internet.
No worries, mate. From now on before you make such a terrible pun you will know to take Assassin’s Heed.
Meh, it was my last one anyway.
You say that now, but you won’t be able to help yourself. After all, puns are that upon which Assassins Feed. As we all know, a balanced diet of puns, limericks, jests, and trolling is something that all growing Assassins Need. Too much?
Technical question: Could someone direct me to that one post where they talk about how they do this? I want to do guests on my Let’s Play (or possibly the next one), but I’m not quite sure how I would do it. I’m assuming Skype/Vent for the guests, but how do you stream it?
That would be at http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=9696 , where Shamus explains Where Spoilers Come From.
Short answer: madness and torture.
I was afraid of that… I couldn’t think of any other possible way to stream it (obviously justintv or something could be used instead of livestream, but same concept.)
what the HECK kind of computer does Josh have that he can run Assassin’s friggin Creed 2, be on Vent, FRAPS it, AND stream it?
My computer occasionally decides to lag playing Mass Effect, and I’m not doing one of the more CPU intensive ones in that list! (streaming)
Of course, my PC also SERIOUSLY needs reloading… I’ll just have to try after that gets done this weekend.
Though I don’t get why only having one set of headphones would cause an echo effect… oh wait yes I do. He’s streaming what’s going through his headphones. I actually can’t think of how he could do that without having two separate computers…
Thanks. This is going to be harder than I thought…
*self-promoting edit* If anyone’s interested in said ME LP… Here’s the playlist. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7A2CDDF0A9768781&feature=viewall (Sorry to Shamus if you don’t want this. Feel free to block this or edit it out or anything like that)
Josh has 2 computers. He can’t handle Vent on the desktop that’s doing the playing/streaming/recording*, so he uses his laptop for vent and recording vent. One set of headphones for each computer.
*Gee, I WONDER WHY.
So he DOES use two computers. And I would think Vent would be the least intensive of the 4. *shrug*
So, I just have to hope my computer can handle playing/streaming/recording, hmm?
Ezio’s outfit is bad, but I had some ideas on how to make it more flamboyant.
Also, was that Pegasus thing a Super Bingo reference?
That’s fantastic!
Quite. The references are all there in perfect order, and you even have an Assassins -eed pun for a title :D
Brilliantly done! I love how we can even see some Cuftbertian chops under the bonnet.
Shamus needs to see this.
About all the guards: Italy, for much of its post-Roman history, had mercenaries as its primary export. Loads of able-bodied men would roam the streets, armed to the teeth, and would get hired to expand the security team of a nobleman, fight in battle against some other nobleman, or just get hired to fight somebody else. Later on, you can hire some yourself.
Italian mercs were EVERYWHERE in medieval Europe, no lie. That many guards being in Florence is quite understandable in light of that fact.
Yeah, but those are city guards. Mercs are ANOTHER group, and they’re on your side.
The point is, the over-abundance of mercenaries, who can be a rowdy lot (being basically fighters for hire by definition, violent & selfish folks), a city with a large merc contingent will have much more guards than average, to keep the mercs in check. That’s why Florence is justified in having so many guards, they are there to balance the mercenaries.
When I played the game, there was no reason to pick up others’ weapons. The ones you get and buy are for the most part going to be better than the ones mooks carry, and spears I can understand as too cumbersome for parkouring unless Ezio plans to vault all over the place (which of course if the game lets you then Josh would be all over that).
When I saw the word Bustaterianism in the title, I thought “like vegetarianism?”, rather than a form of religion, then I thought, “that’s taking jokes about Rutskarn’s age a little far”.