Tuesday, January 22, 2013

AC3: Day 2


Some silly ship stuff happens – I did like the little board games that I could play to kill the time, though.  We arrive in America none the worse for wear, and I start getting acquainted with my five fellow Templars.  Again, are we not supposed to know that?  They really seem like the evil dudes, to me.  We wantonly murder our way through the streets of Boston, after all.  One of my guys shoots a dude point blank in the face.  Anyhow, there is some loose explanation about how they need some native assistance to read the inscriptions on the stolen green circle necklace.  Therefore, we need to rescue some natives that are being kidnapped and sold into slavery.  After that, make friendly with the de facto native leader lady, who is a strong, independent, fiery Ubisoft archetype.  And now, we know where we are going with all this – the real main character will be their tragic, somewhat conflicted offspring.  Let’s just get to it, already, then!  I plow through the next missions as fast as possible.
Haytham finds the self-same grotto that Desmond and Friends just entered at the beginning of the game.  But without a proper Apple of Eden, there’s no way for him to open the door.  Frustrated, he sets up Templar shop in Boston to continue pursuit of his nefarious goals.  And, I suppose, this is where the bomb is supposed to be dropped, according to Desmond’s reaction.  I remind you, we've seen hints before in other ACs that Desmond’s ancestry is littered with both Assassins and Templars, don’t you remember!  My question is, why is his dad still such a jerk about things.  Everyone else on the Mystery Van Troop is perfectly friendly enough.
Did they up the ESRB rating?  I don’t recall us swearing quite so much in previous ACs.
I forego further exploration of the grotto in the present time for now to hop back into the Animus and leap into the shoes of our proper main character.  Let me take this opportunity to mention that Nan literally said, “Great, we’re finally in America, and that means characters with names I can pronounce.”  What amazing prophetic powers he has, because the main character has a particularly unpronounceable name!  Let’s call him ‘Ken’ until someone gives him a pronounceable nickname.  We play hide and go seek with our fellows, cheating outrageously by use of our eagle sense and new batman-like Greatest Detective skills.  Naturally, during this interlude, the Templars show up and burn the village to the ground, killing Mom.  You saw it coming, right?  You've played all the other ‘burned village, orphaned hero’ games, right?  Great.  Fast forward nine years, where we’re learning the new mechanics of free running through trees and hunting animals.  They seem like good additions to the manifold of AC tricks. 
Naturally, I’m  granted a vision of the First Civilization fellows, who basically tell me that I’m the last piece that Desmond needs to see in order to unlock the last door.  Great.  My character doesn't even understand, but decide to go for it, and doggedly waits outside a stranger’s door to receive training.  How did he know about this guy?  Did someone tell him and I missed it?  Anyway the guy is an old black guy with a cane named Achilles, and he eventually agrees to train me in the ways of the Assassin.   Somehow, my character also knows about his father, and understands that he must kill him to succeed in his goals of defending the village, etc.  I must have missed that part, too, where someone told him his father was Haytham.