Arknights Endfield Platinum

 Hello everyone. I recently platinummed Arknights Endfield and want to talk about it.

 

Originally, I had no interest in this game but my friend who is addicted to only playing Gacha games triple dog dared me and I could not let that slide 😤️. She was already ahead of me so I vowed to beat her at her own game or die trying!

 

One advantage of these gacha games is cross-progression across PC/PS5/Mobile. So I could chip away at the game on my phone during my commutes and on my laptop during boring work meetings.  Endfield is a lot more Linux friendly than the Hoyoverse games so Heroic + Dw-Proton could make the dream work on Pop!_OS (as long as I disabled FPS display and MangoHud. That crashed the game. Bazzite ran it better on both PC and ROG Ally for some reason).

 

For those unfamiliar with the game, Endfield has a lot of different gameplay systems. The bulk of the game kinda resembles a version of Genshin Impact. You control 4 characters (though they all physically show up in the world) and can switch between them on the fly as you explore open world maps. You can jump but you can't climb or swim.

 

Combat has you controlling 1 character at a time while the other 3 "try" to do minimal damage and draw aggro. Holding Square does your attack string. O lets you dodge. Dodging through an attack gives you iframes and bonus Energy (called SP) for special attacks. L1 + a face button lets you spend energy/SP to have a character do a special move. L1 + Holding a Face Button lets you do an ultimate attack if it's charged up for that character.

 

Characters also have "combo attacks". A sequence of tag attacks/moves 2 or more characters can pull off if you trigger the correct condition and seem to have a cooldown. For example, if you have the character Perlica on your team, if your controlled character does a full attack string on an enemy by holding Square, the game then prompts you to press R1 to have Perlica come in and hit the enemy with a lighting strike. Or the character Endmin has a Combo Attack where they'll do a physical attack if someone else does a Combo Attack or Skill first. If you have both Endmin and Perlica on your team, you can do a full attack string with Endmin, triggers Perlica's Combo Attack, which then triggers Endmin's.

 

Some Combo Attacks are contextual. Like Snowshine dropping an emergency heal if your controlled character's hp drops below 60%. Combo Attacks, Special Attacks and Ultimates also serve another purpose, they can interrupt certain strong enemy attacks (indicated by a red glowing ring) which can give you more chances to attack (which is important for endgame). Combat is a mix of attacking and dodging to generate SP and trigger Combo Attacks, cycle through special moves and resource management. On controller, I found it a bit too basic but it's about what can be reasonably done on a touchscreen.

 

The other gameplay element is exploration/building. Endfield wants you to explore the open world maps, manually place down relay towers to transmit power and signals, manually place down mining machines to mine resources and set it back to your storage. Then, at your home bases, use those resources to build factories similar to games like Factorio. I admit I got addicted to this aspect specifically. I'd spend hours just trying to set up and optimize my factories to produce more with less or waste less time waiting for other machines to process materials even when it wasn't neccessary for a quest or getting the platinum. It honestly makes me want to purchase Factorio and play it lol. One of the memes I saw on the game complained "there is a waifu gacha mode in my Factory Game". Even the Gamepad Controls aren't bad.

I will complain there's no automatic "undo/redo" command when building. So when I messed something up, it was so much work to go back and try to fix it that I generally avoided editing stuff I already made and tried to build stuff around it which often ended up making these spegetti-fied monstrosities.

 

Factory Gameplay also feeds into Outpost Management and the in-game Stock Market. You have to build products residents of outposts want like batteries which you can sell to them for "Stock Bills". Stock Bills can be used to upgrade certain elements of your factories and logistics, and purchase certain upgrade items and currency outright (at very steep costs). Trading with outposts also levels up outposts which increases the amount of stuff they can buy.

 

Endfield has a lot of "Death Stranding/Souls Social features".  Ziplines, defense towers, message beacons placed by other players can also show up in your game and you have to repair them to keep them around. But it doesn't seem either they or you benefit when others use it. There's no "like system" or "here's a reward because someone used your thing". A shame because I was often grateful to find a spare zipline and wished I could reward the guy who made it. Stock Trading and Visiting Friends actually does benefit both players. You can visit your friend's ships and sell your stock at their prices. This saved me a lot of time as I'd buy 300 units of  I had at its lowest price and sell it to my friend's stock depot at a higher price every day and also give their facilities a short boost.

 

With all that game info said, back to the trophies, Endfield being such a new gacha game meant guides were a bit more fragmented than I would have liked and the game doesn't shower you with goodies to get you up to speed like Honkai Star Rail did. But it was overall an easy platinum. I was rushing to flex but you can casually beat this in 1-2 months even as a F2P player. The endgame required for the Platinum can technically be beaten with certain underlevelled 1 characters instead of a full 4 man team if you're skilled enough. And is really easy if you have a full 4 man squad of level 90s with decent weapons and gear. And about moderately challenging but still doable with a good Level 80 Character as your main and 3 underlevelled support options. More on this later.

 

One issue I ran into was that in the early-mid game, you don't have a reason to spend your stamina (called Sanity in this game) on farming for character upgrade items since most story quests aren't too demanding and don't have frequent jumps. Moreover, the game gives Sanity restoring items that will expire in several days. As a result, I let a lot of my Sanity go to waste as I played the game with full Sanity and a lot of expired consumables.  So when it came time to prep for the Endgame, I was short of a lot of resources and sitting around waiting for stuff to replenish. I got so impatient that I started burning the premium currency reserved for pulling characters to give me more Sanity.

 

My advice for anyone going for the platinum (and to my past self) is to pick which 4 characters you want to build early and look ahead to what you need to max them out and try stockpilling stuff for that. For example, to get Endmin from Level 80 to 90, you first need to "promote" them so they can then be upgraded after Level 80. So you level them to Level 80, then you  need 100,000 T-credits, 8 Blood Cap Mushrooms (around 10 are available in the second region but then 2 grow per day once they're picked. And trying to grow more takes 80 real time hours), 36 Protosets (a Level 80 farm tends to give 7-8 and can eat up to 80 Stamina per farm), 20 Metadiastima Photoemission Tubes  (a Level 80 farm tends to give 7-8 and can eat up to 80 Stamina per farm). Mind you, at that point, I had a max cap of 300-ish Sanity and it took around 2-3 days to completely refill. 

 

And mind you, this just "unlocks the ability to upgrade Endmin to  level 90". You still need like 50,000 more T Credits, 30+ Character Upgrade Chips etc to actually get them to Level 90. And if you want to upgrade their skills to Level 9, that's around 30,000 Credits, 30 Protoprisms, 20 Vitrodendras etc. Repeat if you also want to upgrade their weapon.

 

My point is that I wished I looked ahead and started stockpiling at least T-Credits, ProtoSets and Upgrade Chips etc when I had more spare Sanity in reserve to save myself needing to wait later. There's so many Character Progression Bottlenecks 😭️!

Unlike other Gacha Games, you can get the platinum which just 1 team and even one that's not fully levelled. I went with this F2P Squad:

Main DPS: Endmin. The MC. Their gimmick is decent damage with physical attacks and can throw rocks at people which can stack and do more damage.

 

Ranged: Perlica. I sometimes switched to deal with certain annoying and ranged enemies that weren't fun or too risky to fight in melee range.

 

Secondary DPS: Chen. I slept on Chen big time. This game should be called "Arknights Chenfield".

 

Support/Heal: Snowshine. I mentioned her 60% heal ability but she also had a special move where she could time a counter attack and do a lot of physical damage to stun/stagger foes.

One of my biggest mistakes was that I did 99% of my playthrough and upgrades with Endmin and Perlica so Chen and Snowshine were underlevelled with fewer upgrades. So when I was doing the Endgame with a Level 90 and nearly maxed out Endmin and Perlica, and level 70 Chen and Snowshine, I was struggling so hard 😭️. I was legitimately like "everyone is saying Endgame is easy but I am suffering!".

Lets talk about the Endgame. The rarest trophy in this game is "Le Monument C'est Moi - Complete all [Umbral Monument] stages under "Inorganic Construct" and "Those Forsaken by the Land" in agony difficulty" with a 13.37% rarity on PSNProfiles and 4.0 Rarity on PSN. The endgame consists of 6 challenge maps that require you to defeat all enemies under a 10 minute time limit and with some additional constraint.

 

Lets take "Inorganic Construct - Rock Solid" as an example, in this map, you face this giant rock monster thing that reminds me of the Spiderants from Borderlands. Its front is armoured and its back is kinda exposed. But on Agony Difficulty, it moves faster and deals more damage, has more health, recovers way faster from being stunned, takes longer to stun, and gets an Attack Buff if its not stunned fast enough which can stack. In addition, you can no longer bring in healing items (meaning if you want healing, you need a dedicated healing character) and your stamina is cut to what feels like a quarter and recharges super slowly so you can do 1-2 dodges max at any given time if you're lucky.

 

I tried so hard and threw so many attempts at this thing. But by the 8 minute mark, 3 of my 4 characters would die and poor Endmin didn't have the DPS to clutch it out before the timer expired. I was frustrated like "Do I really need to get everyone to Level 90 with maxed out weapons and level 9 skills and level 70 Gear just to stand a chance?" I couldn't believe people were saying "Endgame is easy. You can beat it with level 70s".

 

Then on a whim I tried out Chen since I messed up a dodge and Endmin died early and I didn't feel like resetting. And Chen, despite being level 70 instead of 90, despite having a blue level 70 weapon, despite not even having her skills at level 9,  made more progress than I ever had with Endmin! I stopped levelling up Perlica's weapons and prioritized Chen's upgrades. I remember that day clearly, I spent that day at work burning all of my Sanity Restoring Items to get Chen to Level 80. Then on my commute back, I grinded that challenge map over and over again on my phone. Over time I learned this monster's attack patterns. I learned its tells and could spend my limited dodges perfectly. It honestly wasn't as bad as I felt first fighting this thing.

 

But the key was Chen. I don't know what her deal is but her basic attacks did more damage and stagger than Endmin. I also learned Snowshine's special move which counters enemy attacks that I had been using was worthless here.  I just need Chen, Endmin and occasionally Perlica’s Special Moves. After several attempts, I beat this monster on the train on my phone and couldn’t believe it. The platinum was finally within reach and this fight was actually fun!

Only for “Those Forsaken by the Land - Unorthodox Tactics” to smack me back down to earth. The gimmick here is that you have to beat 13 archers then 3 worm things in waves. They can’t move around but can use ranged and melee attacks that do extra damage. Your operators can’t use healing items but at least have regular stamina.

I hated this one. I could never keep an eye on every archer and their red flash so I’d keep taking hits which would burn my hp. Even Chen struggled here. I felt like I was running around. Landing 1-2 hits and forced to dodge to keep alive rather than make progress. Once I took out 13 archers, 3 worm monsters would spawn that were very tanky and did insane damage with their ranged slime attacks. It wasn’t long before I was down to just Perlica to 1v3 some damaged worms. I wish I had the recording of it because I never felt so locked in. I had to get as close as possible with Perlica so her ranged attacks could do more damage but that gave me less time to react to their slime attacks. I had to intentionally dodge into their slime attacks to generate SP fast enough for Perlica to do her Special Attacks. My eyes would bounce between Perlica, her damage numbers, her health, her SP Meter. The Worms, and the timer etc. every mistake hurting me to my soul. I didn’t want to play this again.

I let out the biggest sigh of my life when I had 0:02 left on the clock when Perlica’s final combo move took down the work.

 

I wish Endfield had some kind of command system you could issue to control your CPU teammates. I’d have  killed foran option like “I don’t care if you guys do zero damage. Just draw aggro! Please!”.

“Inorganic Construct - Rampaging Shields” was one I completed before discovering the light of the Goddess Chen. The gimmick in this one is that this 4ft tall Rock Rhino spawns and you have to defeat it. At around 50% HP, a second will spawn and you have to defeat both of them. However, when you kill one, the other gets a massive boost to their attack and defence. The trick is to damage both Rhinos to as close to zero as possible, then kill one then quickly kill the other.

The main issue here is that these rhinos keep trying to do charging attacks which do massive damage. They’ll also pursue your character specifically so your squad mates are terrible at drawing agro. I wish the game let me switch characters like in FF7R where the camera switches to them instead of the typical gacha way of transforming your character so I’d at least get some breathing room. I kept getting overwhelmed and had to bite the bullet to do attacks or something.

Their charging also takes them out of the way so I’m wasting time trying to pursue them to land a few hits in. It would seesaw between me getting overwhelmed by getting charged by both at once so I could properly attack or they’d charge out of range so I’d be wasting time.

Perlica shined in this one. She could do ranged attacks so I’d at least keep getting some chip damage in. And Snowshine’s counter attack could stop a charge and even freeze or stagger them if I was lucky. It took a lot of attempts but I was able to clear this one.

“Those Forsaken by the Land - Ballista and Axe” was one I was initially dreading. You fight a 12ft tall absolute unit with a giant axe while his twin and/or lover shoots at you with a giant crossbow. Once you defeat axe boi, he tags out with Crossbow boi and throws rocks from offstage. Defeating crossbow boi has them both come in at the same time.

However, I attempted this one after learning about Chen and this ended up legitimately being one of the more fun fights in the entire game. It was this dance of dodging, attacking and shifting targets. I always felt like I had options and was never scrambling and could always read the enemies. I recall finishing this with 4 minutes to spare.

 

“Those Forsaken by the Land - Survive The Gas” was arguably the hardest one and legitimately made be question if I could platinum this game. The gimmick is that the arena is covered in this toxic gas that drains Operator HP every second. The only solace is that any healing your controller character gets, your squad mates also get 50% of that healing. Moreso than the other challenges, you’re even more on the clock. Any mistakes or damage taken are more fatal since you might not have the HP to spare. Depending on your team comp, you might only have 4-7 minutes to complete this instead of the usual 10.

I kinda messed up because I built Snowshine as my healer instead of Ardellia. Ardellia can heal on demand with her special move and with her Ultimate (which you can bank as an emergency heal). Her combo move also coats enemies with a poison that increases the damage they take from operator attacks at no extra charge.

Snowshine in contrast, aside from being ranked C tier in the meta, lacks on demand healing. She can only heal with her combo move when your HP reaches 60% and this ability is on a cooldown and there’s no way to bank or store it. You can’t be like “I don’t need healing now, do it later” or “I need 2 stacks of healing right now in exchange for more of some resource now”.

Sbowshine’s combat prowess is also lacking. I already didn’t upgrade her weapon past level 60 so her raw DPS is quite low. Her Special Attack isn’t worth using given the time pressure. Moreover, she’s a melee fighter which means she’s always close to enemies which means more chances for her to get hit and die early. Leaving me without a healer for the rest of the fight.

I did try building Ardellia up to take Snowshine’s place. But she needs to be level 70-ish minimum to have the HP required to not immediately die with the first few minutes. And I already burned much of my resources upgrading Chen to level 85. My options were:

-1- spend time upgrading Chen more so she’d have more DPS.

-2- upgrade Snowshine more so she can survive longer and provide more healing.

-3- upgrade Ardellia for the same effect.

I was preparing to go for options 1 and 3 until I saw a YouTube video of someone doing this mission with just a level 70 Chen in under 3 minutes. That inspired me. If it’s possible to beat this with an even worse Chen solo, surely my team could do this? For better or worse, Snowshine was gonna have to carry this team or die trying.

I spent what felt like 3-4 hours doing attempt after attempt at this. This challenge felt a lot more RNG Dependent than the others. The challenge consisted of 6 weak foot soldiers and dogs, then 5 sword ninjas, then finally a giant boss with explosive shotgun gauntlets with dogs as ads. The Strat was to try bunching up enemies and hit them with Chen, Admin and Perlica’s Special Moves to kill as many enemies as quickly as possible. I’d have attempts where enemies would refuse to bunch up so I’d burn too much health and time on killing individual enemies so I’d be fighting the boss at 40-50% HP. I’d have attempts where my squad mates would get unlucky and take too much damage early thereby causing them to fail early.

Eventually, after a few upgrades to Snowshine’s healing move, I started seeing promising attempts. I was in the zone. Maybe my luck improved but my squad mates weren’t taking as many hits so they lasted longer which meant they could stick around to deal damage but also Snowshine could keep the squad topped up around 50-60%. I’d get to the boss with 6-7 minutes left on the clock. And die with him only having 50% left.

My hands were legitimately hurting. Is this what it feels like to be an unc? I started another attempt.  The same opening I always do. Switch to Chen, rush in. L1 + O -> R1 -> L1+ Square. This fills up the stagger meter on hopefully 1-2 enemies so Chen can do a "Finisher" Type move to deal bonus damage. I messed up. 1 Dog got launched too far so he took minimal damage and his friend still had 25% HP left after the combo. I sighed as I went in for a regular attack string. Occassionally switching targets due to the auto-lock on and just rolling with it to avoid wasting time. Weaving in Chen's L1+O and Endmin's R1s to try stacking damage.

 

Minute 9, I briefly Switched to Endmin since she had 55-ish% HP. After a few seconds, Snowshine noticed that and dropped a heal. I switched back to Chen. The idea being that if anyone dropped low, I could briefly switch to them to jostle Snowshine into healing early to keep everyone topped up for longer. 

 

 As I fought, I was mashing R1 with my Index Finger the whole time. Praying that the exact frame I met the trigger for a Combo Attack, it would happen. Because every Combo Attack did more damage than basic attack strings or it would trigger Snowshine to heal early.

 

 At 8:15, Only 4/11 enemies were down but Endmin was at 60% but Perlica was at 45%, Chen at 30% and Snowshine at 25%. By some miracle, Snowshine locked in and offered another heal. This got the squad to about 80/70/55/55 respectively.

 

I already blew at the HP at 7:50 because I took some stray ranged hits. Squad was down to about 60/40/20/30 when Snowshine kept the run going with another heal.  We were back to about 70/65/55/55 and 8/11 enemies killed.

 

07:10, I noticed Snowshine's Ultimate was charged up. I deployed it. The raw damage wasn't as important as the fact it had the Freeze Status condition. Frozen Enemies took extra damage from Endmin's L1+Square. And somehow, Snowhine dropped another heal.

 

07:04. 10/11 enemies killed. The Boss spawned.  One of my slower runs to get to this point. My squad were all around the 60% HP range. Not great but I had to continue. 

 

06:25. My luck is terrible. I already took extra hits from the boss. Worse, I deployed, Chen's ultimate. The boss has a move where he enters a blocking state. If you attack him head on, his gauntlets absorb the bulk of the damage and throw out grenades. Chen's Ult is a series of super quick attacks and I deployed it right when the boss started blocking. I watched in horror as my Ult did zero damage and flooded the arena with grenades that would surely KO my own teammates 💀️. The only solace is that Snowshine remembered to drop a heal a few seconds later. Boss was at 80% HP while my squad was barely in their 60s.

 

 05:48. For a moment, I had hope this could be the run. Snowshine had dropped another heal. The squad were back up to 60-70% while the boss was at 60%. Maybe it was doable! I felt my heart rate rising a few seconds later when I was able to drop Perlica and Endmin's Ults on him bringing him down to 52%.

 

04:53. Snowshine dropped what could be her last heal and Ult. She was at like 10% HP while the rest of the squad were in their 60s.  Unfortunately, this Heal was cut short. The Squad were at about 40/20/60/20.

 

04:27. The boss did one of their charged aerial ground pound attacks. Snowshine took the brunt of it and went down. No more healing. The squad could now never go above 40/20/60/0. At this point, Perlica would have a minute tops assuming she didn't take another scratch. Endmin maybe 2-3 minutes if I was lucky. Chen would go down before the timer. The boss had around 40% HP left.

 

03:55. Perlica dropped one final Ult and combo Attack before going down. Endmin was at 10%, Chen at 40%. The boss at 20%.  With Perlica down, the Team's DPS took a hit. No Perlica means fewer Combo Strikes and no Ranged Special Attacks to Knock the Boss out of certain attacks. The dog ads the Boss Spawns were now more dangerous as there was less to take agro.

03:32. Endmin went down. Chen was at 25%. Boss at what felt like 5%. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't choke on this. I played safer. I avoided dodges that would have awarded extra SP. My eyes darted around keeping an eye on the dog ads. I didn't know if I could do it at this point.

 

03:16. I let out a squeak. With exactly 4.06% HP left, I used one final special move to topple the beast. I stood there for minutes at the Mission Complete Screen. I did it.

Yeah. That was the hardest challenge in the game. Nothing else comes close.

“Fully Rigged and Digging - Place mining rigs on every mining spot of Valley IV, and keep all mining rigs in a state of production"  was interesting. It asks you to place mining units on every ore deposit in each of the 5 open world zones in the Valley IV region. I expected this would be a late game trophy where I’d unlock a new base or outpost in each map I’d use to start building. But completing the main story and side missions didn’t unlock any new outposts. I was confused…. Until I took a break and started working on “Valley Crate Master - Open 270 Valley IV storage crates”.

My mind was blown when the YouTube guide I was following carried a Relay Tower/Line from one map to another 🤯! Turns out, I incorrectly assumed each map was separated from each other via loading screens or something like Borderlands 2 or Batman Arkham Asylum. Turns out, they’re all connected to each via the same paths and tunnels you access them during the main story. You have no reason to use these paths ever again since you can just fast travel between the maps. But these were the key. The map works more like Dark Souls 2/3 or Jak 2!

It was long and tedious to get the chests and mining spots because I missed a few or a few were not partially active so they weren’t marked on the GPS, or required doing a side quest first to fully unlock the side areas hosting them. I’m glad the videos pointed out which side quests you had to complete (or at least partially progress and could then leave hanging) to complete this.

My last trophy for the platinum was “Valley Investigator - Gather 1 investigation report in Valley IV". This requires you find collectibles to complete a set and has a 20% PSN Rarity and a 31% PSNProfiles Rarity. I completed one….. in the Wulling Region which didn’t count 💀.

There was one partially completed one in my Inventory at 3/4 pieces. I figured I could do this one and get the platinum but the guides I saw all said “You need to upgrade one of your outposts to level 4 to get the 4th and final piece”. I was so annoyed that I would have had to force my other factories to produce Batteries and drugs for IRL Days to sell to these refugees just to level them up 😤”. But I luckily googled all investigations and found there was one you could complete instantly by just buying the 4 pieces from the stock market store at a perpetual 30% discount. Could have saved myself so much time there 💀.

That's all the trophy stuff. While I'm here, I might as well review other aspects of the game.

 

-Production Values:

 

The game's menus, sound, music, graphics, UI and artstyle are quite cool and slick. The main menu alone looks especially rad. The PS5 version has 2 graphics options: Quality and Performance and I couldn't tell the difference between them so I left it on Performance.

 I will comment that funnily, the game might look "too good". On my iPhone 13 when I set everything to the lowest settings and my old GTX 1060 gaming laptop on everything very low minus resolution, the game was still taking "50-60%" load according to its in-game profiler. Plus, even on the lowest graphical settings the game still looks good. Like, if I didn't know any better and you showed me the game on very low, I'd assume it was on medium. Character models still look really detailed. The environment still retains a lot of seemingly high detailed textures. It just looks slightly blurry in places.

 

I don't play a lot of PC games (My most played Steam games are Assassin's Creed 1, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Eternal Card Game and Batman Arkham City) so I could be off but I was under the assumption that "very low" settings make a game look super muddy and blurry to be able to run better on underpowered hardware or take up less resources in general.

 

Worse is the resolution settings. In every other PC game I have ever played (granted, that's not a lot), you can maintain the game at fullscreen mode while knocking down the resolution. Endfield PC has it where you can either have the game at fullscreen at native resolution, but any resolution less throws the game into Windowed Mode. So on my desktop where I was running Radeon 780M Integrated Graphics, I had to play on about 60% of my monitor to get like 720p. On my spare Gaming Laptop with an RTX 4060, I did have an option for DLSS which significantly dropped Device load down to 20-30% when enabled which was cool. 

 

-The Story.

 

Can't say much here because I skipped every cutscene in order to beat my friend. She wasted time soaking in the story and exploring every cutscene while I zoomed ahead (I think this is the 4th game I've platinummed while skipping any and all story content?).

 

My friend says the story is actually interesting since it actually explores memories about the PC and mentioned she was sad at a few character deaths. So uh.... take that for what its worth.

 

All I got from the story was that you play as a future Jeff Bezos with Amnesia and Rock Powers and an Anime Harem selling Super Asbestos to refugees on a faraway Moon.

 

In Closing: 

If Chen has a million fans, then I am one of them. 

 

If Chen has ten fans, then I am one of them. 

 

If Chen has only one fan then that is me. 

 

If Chen has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth.

 

 If the world is against Arknights ChenField, then I am against the world.  

Assassin's Creed 1 Director's Cut

 Hello everyone. I just finished Assassin's Creed 1 Directory's Cut after putting 45 hours into it and wish to talk about it.

Assassin's Creed 1 Directory's Cut is the PC port of AC1 that came out a year after the original game on consoles. As someone that doesn't play PC games, I can't offer too much insight on how this game fares compared to other PC ports. From my experience, once the game got going, it seemed to run quite well. Initially, I had issues setting it up on my 2015 MacBook Pro and 2019 iMac. The game would take 10 minutes to even launch the application, then it would lag on menus so hard that it would take 4+ minutes just to move one screen. So it would take 4-ish minutes to get to the main menu, 4-ish minutes to select "Create Profile", 4 minutes to type "w", 4 minutes to hit confirm, 4 more minutes to confirm again, 4 more minutes to mouse over and exit the game.

It took a lot of tinkering. My solution was downloading SteamTinker and setting the game to disable something called FSYNC and ESYNC prior to launch. After that, it generally ran really well with 1 hard crash across 5 different devices. On my 2015 MacBook Pro, I got around 28 FPS at the lowest settings (although the little guy's fans were on full blast. I knocked the resolution down to the 800s). On my N95 DreamQuest Pro, I could get around 30-50 on the lowest settings and a 720p resolution. And my Lenuvo Ideapad Slim 3 and iMac could get max settings at 70 FPS at a 1920p resolution. I did chuckle when I first launched the game and said I met all the minimum requirements except for the CPU and the minimum Operating System of Windows ME. Sadly, no controller support.

 

I did run into a multitude of issues that seemed to vary across devices. For example, Hitting Command-Tab or using the workspace switcher or clicking anything outside the window when using multiple monitors would throw the game into a permanent "window-ed mode". I couldn't ever seem to full screen again for that session. Moreover, the window wouldn't capture my mouse which made it impossible to use the mouse as a control option as my now invisible mouse could ever so slightly move outside the window where a click would freeze the game until I respositioned the mouse again. My Lenuvo and Asus Laptops would sometimes "freeze" for around 30 seconds as if it were loading the game despite the game being saved to the internal SSD. The game also seems to be  missing features like Steam Cloud Save. Even exiting the game requires exiting to the Animus and from the Animus to the main menu and from the main menu to the desktop (or Command-Tab-ing out and closing the application from there).

 

If there's any praise I can give AC1's PC Port, it's that once it got going, it generally ran really well and I was enjoying my time. And that secondly, getting AC1 going was painless compared to installing AC2 PC. I felt that was impossible 😭. I had to give up, refund the game and buy Hades 1 instead (and find a more......unorthodox means of getting AC2 running on my Mac without the DRM. Thanks a lot Ubisoft 🙄)

Onto more positive aspects of AC1's PC Port, it offers an alternate control scheme to play Keyboard only which I immediately used since I am terrible at using Mouse and Keyboard at the same time (and also the aforementioned windowed mode issues). I wish every PC game I played offered this option. I bound movement to "WASD", contextual camera to "Q", Reset Camera to "E", Lock on to “F", the 4 weapons to "1, 2, 3, 4", the camera to the arrow keys, and high profile to left shift.

 

On my keyboards with a numpad, I bound HEAD, WEAPON HAND, LEGS and EMPTY HAND to numpad up/8, left/4, 5 and right/6 respectively. Those without a numpad instead were bound to "P", "L", ":" and " ' "  keys. I found this keyboard only setup the most intuitive to me. The biggest issue was that I couldn't move the camera and perform actions at the same so I was relying a lot more on the Reset Camera button. The default Mouse and Keyboard controls do address this by giving you full camera control while moving and doing actions but I found it more confusing to "remember" the controls in this state. I also found my left hand more "overwhelmed" by needing to hit Space Bar for LEGS. "Keyboard only" also let me use only my fingers while resting my hands on the keyboard in a more comfortable way. My friends said I was weird playing like this. The game does have a built in control scheme for a 5 button mouse and now I wish I had one just to try it out. Though, the game is a bit of a rebel as you can still bind and use the mouse on the "keyboard only" control scheme lmao.

With all that said, how was the game itself? AC1 has a bit of a mixed reputation online. It's not uncommon to see people refer to it as "a glorified tech demo" and a game whose sequels (especially AC2) improved on every aspect of it. People especially complained it was repetitive with boring missions. I was apprehensive playing this game. It had been nearly 13 years since I last played it when it came as a free install with my PS3 Copy of Assassin's Creed Revelations. But to my surprise, I had an absolute blast with it. I'd play it for hours at a time. Which I imagine probably sounds weird to people.

Imagine the following example: Lets say there is a fighting game. This fighting game is pretty bare bones in terms of modes. All it has is a pretty basic ladder. No fleshed out super cinematic story mode. No Verses/PVP or multiplayer mode. Not even a practice/tutorial mode. And this ladder/arcade mode is pretty easy, you can get through by just using your basic attacks. Each stage/fight doesn't change what it asks from you. I imagine from the average player's POV, this game wouldn't be too remarkable or win them over.

But now imagine if someone else plays this game, finds out not only does this game have combos but they're really cool. Even though the individual fights don't require combos and can be won with basic attacks, it's really fun to still juggle enemies, lab moves and do them. It's more fun messing around like this than actually completing the fights.

That's how I feel about AC1. On the surface, it feels incredibly lacking and never shows you any of its qualities, but actually messing around with them is something novel.

AC1's most unique selling point (and indeed, the USP of the AC franchise) is its parkour/climbing/free-run system. By holding down the "HIGH PROFILE" and "LEGS" buttons, you make the protagonist, Altair, automatically run up walls, jump and climb structures. From just a gameplay perspective, this alone is cool because it offers you more options. If you need to enter a heavily guarded area, instead of being limited in how you sneak in, there are way more ways to climb buildings to get in. You are only limited by the handholds around you.

 

 This is enhanced by the animations and "physicality" of it. In something like Zelda Breath of the Wild or Spider-Man, the character climbs all walls the "same way" every time. Makes sense in Spidey's case. He has superpowers, he doesn't need to care about handholds. But in AC1, Altair climbs and moves with a sense of weight. He reaches out for handholds, feels like he is managing his weight. His arms and legs shift depending on what he's climbing. Obviously his climbing is superhuman by normal standards but the game still tries to make Altair feel "heavy" enough to be somewhat believable while still feeling light enough to be acrobatic and not tedious to control.

But just climbing alone isn't what makes movement in AC1 fun. After all, AC Origins to Valhalla also let you climb everything (if anything they let you climb even more stuff). The secret is something these older AC games never tell you about: ejects and grasps.

When wallrunning or climbing, pressing "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" will make Altair jump off the wall behind him. Pressing "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" + a direction will make Altair jump in that direction. And holding "EMPTY HANDS" + a direction in midair will make Altair stretch his arms out and stick to anything he reaches. 

 

So imagine you have a wall in front of you, you could just  "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" into it and Altair will climb normally. You don't need to think or plan anything out. Or..... you could wallrun, then side eject to a beam, wall run up that then side eject again to climb the wall in a fraction of the time in a much cooler way. You can also use this to make horizontal movement by jumping along a wall, ledge catching the wall just as you're about to fall and horizontal wall eject to continue your path. Essentially giving you a "realistic double jump".

These movement mechanics transformed the way I played the game. Now instead of just mindlessly moving towards an objective, I was analyzing my environment, looking for cool routes and executing quick sequences of button commands to climb more stuff quicker and cooler. It's that fighting game example from earlier. It was fun to just run around in the open world, improving my technique and learning tricks. I always had a smile on my face whenever I'd bypass a slow climbing section by ejecting my way up to a higher point. Even if that move was unnecessary, it felt cool and that I was expressing my style of playing the game that was unique to me.

I was watching old YouTube videos and found AC1 has a vault/"parkour down" command you can execute by doing 2 jumps + "EMPTY HAND" on beams/rails. It was so cool whenever I pulled it off. Especially when I used it to land next to a guard, assassinate him and move on without breaking flow. You think web swinging in Spider-Man games is fun? This is more fun for me lmao.

The controls for this are a double edged sword. One of the things AC1-Rev do well here is that ejects and grasps are manually triggered. If I wall run up and input the command for a side eject right, Altair will side eject right every time. Granted, he may snap/lock onto a beam, or do a full jump. It's finicky without ways to offer more controls. But at least he gets the idea. Compare this to AC Unity, a game with far cooler animations and even more moves. In that game, side ejects require you to point the camera in that direction and tap "HIGH PROFILE" + that direction and its a contextual action. Meaning the game decides if there is something Arno for something to side eject to, and if it's what you wanted. Leading to a system that, when it works, is way cooler but less consistent.

The biggest issue here is that "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" are your only inputs for 99% of your parkour jumps. The game has to use just that to decide if you want to jump far, or snap to a beam or structure with no way for you to influence it. I wish there was a "parkour mode" you could trigger that swaps your buttons with more parkour commands. For example, lets say pressing "Q" twice enables parkour mode. Now you can still do regular ejects with "HIGH PROFILE + LEGS" but maybe "HIGH PROFILE + HEAD" tells the Animus you want to jump far and ignore snap targeting, "HIGH PROFILE + WEAPON HAND" tells the Animus you want to decent/jump low. "LOW PROFILE + HEAD" tells the animus you want to swing around and climb on a pole/beam.  "LOW PROFILE + WEAPON HAND" tells the Animus you want to vault over a thing. Etc. 

Of course, there are issues with this suggestion. For one, most AC players don't know about the moves that are already there and rely on the auto movement which works fine for them. Or they are distrustful of the auto parkour with how finicky they can be. Moreover, the games never require you to use any advanced parkour technique. You can beat AC1 without ever doing an eject. In AC2, ejects are used sparingly in one off Assassin Tombs which are optional so a lot of players probably have no idea they can be used in the open world. AC2's main story tutorializes the Lunge but not the ejects. Brotherhood has races which allow the ejects to shine......but they are hidden away in the menus. AC1 and 2 have races but they are so easy even with the basic movement that there is never an incentive to ever push the mechanics. For the players that don't care and are fine with the basic movement, they aren't affected. But I imagine there are players that would enjoy AC's parkour way more if they even knew parkour had more to offer and there were chances to use it.

The Spider-Man games actually handle this well. A while back I was playing Ultimate Spider-Man (2005). In that game, there's a ton of races, including a chain of racing side quests to beat Johnny Storm. The races are grouped into Easy, Medium and Hard with Bronze, Silver and Gold Times for each. The easy races are easy to clear with even a silver without trying but later hard ones require mastery to even Bronze.

While that would probably be too intense for AC, some kind of Bronze, Silver and Gold ranking system for a chain of races introduced as side quests as part of the story with the minimum being bronze for completion/progress would probably be sufficient. For players that don't want to learn, the bronze is sufficient. For players that want something better but don't know about advanced parkour, this could be the nudge they need to learn it. And for the players that do know, they'd be ecstatic.

-Combat.

AC1's Combat has been criticized by many people for being slow and dependent on counter-kills. I used to think the same, but after watching videos by Kinosphere, I had a change of perspective.

Firstly, lets talk about how combat works. When entering combat, you lock onto enemies. You can cycle between them by moving towards them. Tapping "WEAPON HAND" does a basic strike. Holding it does a charged strike. Doing strikes in rhythm as you hit enemies does a combo which can lead to a combo finisher. "EMPTY HAND" lets you grab and throw people. "LEGS" lets you step. Combining this with "WEAPON HAND" lets you break through the defense of an enemy. "HEAD" does nothing. Holding "HIGH PROFILE" enters a defensive state which lets you counterattack with "WEAPON HAND", break grabs with "EMPTY HAND" and dodge with "LEGS".

What's cool about AC1's combat even compared to many of its successors is that elite guards and Templars have the same moves as Altair. They can break his block (requiring a dodge in time), counterattack/parry, do a combo move and break grab. So it can actually be somewhat challenging to fight a large horde of elite enemies.

 

AC1 actually gives players the tools to be proactive in fights to end them quicker. Sitting around waiting for counters, although viable, is super slow. Especially as elite enemies can bait out attacks and do grabs, slow attacks and break defenses to throw off your rhythm. For example, you can break out of combat by disengaging, use "HIGH PROFILE + EMPTY HAND" to perform a run/shove and knock an enemy to the ground, switch to the hidden blade and assassinate them instantly. This can cause other enemies to either do a flinch, cower or taunt animation which can leave them open to being instakilled by the hidden blade. So the strat can be to wait for an opening and do a counterkill or tackle, and use the chance to read enemy animations to sweep through them. A technique dubbed "Shock and Awe" by players. It looks goofy as all hell but is so satisfying to pull off because of the timing, reaction and perception required. Especially as the more enemies you kill in quick succession, it breaks the morale of the remaining ones, often leading to the last 2 running away in fear. It feels like a manual version of the chain kills in AC Brotherhood onwards which makes it feel that much cooler. That I am the one tearing through all these enemies like butter rather than the game doing it for me.

The biggest issue with combat, similar to parkour, is that the game rarely gives you the incentive to get more out of it. Most combat encounters are against basic guards which never counter or do anything threatening so you can get by with basic combo attacks. It's not until Sequence 6 when the guards start packing more bite. Hell, that criticism can also be directed at parkour. You don't unlock the grasp until Sequence 4 which really hampers parkour's potential until then.

-Stealth.

I remember when I first played AC1 back in 2008 after my dad traded in his copy of Devil May Cry 4 for it, I stumbled across a walkthrough for it online. It straight up said "Don't be fooled. AC1 is not a stealth game. It has some of the elements of it, but it's not a stealth game. Stealth is slow and optional".

Which......isn't entirely incorrect. With how rudimentary the stealth mechanics are and how OP combat is, stealth doesn't exactly put its best foot forward. Based on my review so far, you might be thinking I am going to pull out a "well actually Stealth is super deep". And my response is...."kinda?"

Watching a few of Kinosphere's videos, it was cool learning about how to exploit blending, how AC1 does have Air Assassinations and a version of the high profile ledge assassination from AC2, how throwing knives work, how to scare away beggars while maintaining low profile, how to cheese pickpocketing, how to lure guards using dead bodies etc. And it is possible to do a manual version of AC Odyssey's chain assassination move in AC1. It's enough to actually be fun at times but I still found myself "roleplaying Stealth" rather than actually doing stealth many times.

Mission Design:

AC1 is unique in the series for how much it commits to the "Hitman mission design". Every target requires you to gather at least 2-4 pieces of intel before you can even begin the assassination mission. Intel comes from completing missions like pick-pocketing (sneak behind someone and steal their document), interrogation (beat someone up to get intel), eavesdropping (sitting on a bench and overhearing info).

The Director's Cut actually makes some changes here. Players complained a lot about these investigation missions being really repetitive. So the Director's Cut swaps out around 2-3 investigation missions per assassination with "Informant missions". There are 4 types of informant missions. Assassinations (assassinate 2-4 targets without getting spotted under the time limit), Archery Assassinations (assassinate 2-4 archers without getting spotted under the time limit. Don't ask me why these are considered a separate category of mission with their own icon). Flag Collecting (Collect all flags under the time limit) and Merchant Stall Destruction (Throw people into merchant stalls to destroy them under the time limit). These missions are fun and do mix up the pace but the 2-3 time limit they have is so generous. I felt it could walk there and back and still have time to spare. 

 

I do actually like what these investigation missions are going for. Altair is supposed to be one with the crowd and learn from the people. By spending time amongst them, he picks up intel that leads him to his target. The Bureau leaders may give him leads but the rest is ultimately up to Altair. It feels more....."organic" compared to later ACs which opted for more traditional missions. I especially love and recommend and Mirror and Image's fan novelization of AC1 for how they really brought life to this aspect.

Moreover, a lot of the intel actually comes into play during assassination. Take William of Moffat's assassination. You can get intel that gives you a map of outside scaffolding you can use to take an easy route around the battlements dealing with easy archers. And a map that tells you where William likes to sulk after meetings. And you can actually read and act on these maps. And this intel is missable depending on what missions you chose to do beforehand.

Later ACs rarely operated like this. AC2 for example, being more story focused, kinda gave you the info and path upfront. You could take different routes but it never felt as freeform. Unity had Sandbox assassinations that while cool and fun, didn't really rely as much on intel. Odyssey actually kinda had intel in its Cultist Clues. I remember collecting clues that 1 Cultist was a slaver and in x region. I made the guess he was in the stone quarry I passed earlier, went there and killed this guy in purple robes and got the popup saying it was legit.

It's a shame AC1's specific version of the Hitman mission design was never expanded upon in future entries. I can imagine a version of AC1 - 2 where when pickpocketing, you can get keys you can use to open certain doors. Or how certain investigations/opportunities are exclusive. For example, completing one investigation makes it you have a guy on the inside who can open the door when the target is assassinated vs you have a different guy on the inside who can't open the door but tries to make the target less guarded. How about one where the target has decoys and you can use intel to get ideas on which one it is without the game telling you (e.g target has a limp and a cough so you have to look out for that or assassinate every possible decoy). Hell, I'd love Odyssey's Cult Clues idea where you could assassinate key targets before you get all the intel.

 

I will complain however, that the repetitive approach of the missions does start to creep in eventually. My second playthrough did start to drag at times. In between my AC1 sessions, I did some wrestling with the Ubi Connect launcher to get a version of AC2 running. And despite the combat being a huge step back, the variety in mission design for regular missions, Assassin tombs and set pieces did feel like a breath of fresh air at times. I imagine an ideal scenario would be a game where you had AC1's approach to investigations and assassinations, inter-spliced with AC2's regular missions and side content (kinda like Unity).

Maps:

AC1 takes place primarily across the cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus, as well as Masyaf and the countryside connecting them.

First off, these cities are absolutely beautiful and atmospheric. There were times I noticed areas later ACs even on the same generation improved (e.g, AC3 had more bustling NPCs and even animals), AC1 still impressed me with its artstyle and aesthetics. Between the sound effects, Jesper Kyd's theme, visuals etc, these look really good and detailed. I found myself really getting immersed. Say what you will about Ubisoft open world games, but AC games never miss in details.

Damascus and Jerusalem did start blending together as I played. There wasn't as much to visually separate them. Acre at least had the blue-ish and cloudy aesthetic as well as more burned buildings. All 3 cities were nonetheless fun to traverse. I will note that AC2's 3 main cities felt a lot better to parkour through. Venice and Florence had taller buildings, more diverse structures and varied terrain than AC1's cities. 

Masyaf felt lacking from a purely gameplay perspective, but the Kingdom was the absolute worst. It's this massive span of empty countryside between the cities. And it is not fun to play through. The lack of buildings and cities means most of the gameplay is just riding your horse between POIs which aren't even that interesting. There are a few areas I enjoyed. Such as the docks and those set of ruins with 5 flags. Those were a fun puzzle for me to figure out how best to climb them. But aside from those, the Kingdom has little offer. Take those few POIs out and transplant them into the cities.

 

The only solace is that once you reach Sequence 3, you can fast travel between the major cities and completely skip the Kingdom. Which shows just how lacking this area is. Good thing Assassin's Creed learned its lesson and would never design entire maps and games around primarily rural environments in the future.

 

I do want to make a sidenote regarding Altair's robes/outfit. In AC1, from what I have heard, Altair's robes were designed to look visually different in low profile (being very narrow) and high profile (being more flowing). And it's neat to see here. In later AC games that recreated Altair's robes like PS3 Revelations and 3, they are often a lot more rigid which hurt the aesthetic and make it hard to image the character running or parkouring.

I also want to highlight the UI and aesthetic of AC1. The game is able to blend its historical setting with a sci-fi/high tech look thanks to the Animus in a way that feels visually cohesive and cool. If the Witcher 3 had the UI of Cyberpunk 2077 or Watch Dogs, it would feel out of place. But AC1 doesn’t have that issue. Stuff like the DNA Double Helixes, map, weapon icons etc feel “high tech enough to feel novel but not overwhelming but still look congruent”. The SSI icon has small text flickering below it and the pause menu looks like a system monitoring tool. It reinforces that Abstergo is here, utilitarian and watching your every move. They don’t care about style and sleekness like Rebecca’s Animus. They’re not hiding their debugging from Desmond the way Abstergo polished up the Omega and Gameplay variants of the Animus. As a result, I feel AC1 has the strongest and arguably most novel aesthetic in the series.

-The story.

I really enjoyed the story of AC1. I wish it had subtitles to help me out. I read Mirror and Image's fan novelization as I played and it was so fun seeing elements of the base narrative expanded upon.

Altair's story and arc was interesting. He started out as an arrogant d!$khead (thanks to the events of Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles). His actions ended up greatly costing the Assassins and getting him demoted. He works his way back up by completing several key assassinations. What carries it for me is the progression, tone and writing.

In Sequence 2 and 3, Altair is still visibly annoyed and impatient with everything. Causing him to butt heads with Malik in Jerusalem (since it was Altair's actions in Sequence 1 that got Malik amputated and his brother killed) and Rafiq in Acre (who takes offense to Altair's attitude) with only the Rafiq in Damascus offering anything friendly to him (with some light roasting. My man, what was with that "I don't envy you" comment?). However, as Altair assassinates his targets, he starts to see his own flaws in them as they point it out ("I see what happens to men to place themselves above others").

 

Moreover, AC1 makes an effort to paint the main targets in shades of grey. Take the doctor in Sequence 3. Originally, the Assassins paint him as evil because he is kidnapping mentally ill people from the streets and experimenting on them. After Altair assassinates him, he confesses his reasoning. Altair confronts him about ripping these people off the streets, taking away their freedom and experimenting on them. The doctor counters that -1- what freedom? These people were dying on the streets and had no mental faculties? In fact, killing him means that these people would be cast out on the streets again and -2- The doctor's work was advancing medical knowledge that Altair now stopped. Altair doesn't have a rock solid counter to this and is shaken about this afterwards.

The game even shows the consequences of Altair’s actions using gameplay and story. In one of the later assassinations in the Acre docks, the area is full of annoying beggars and disturbed folk that can knock you off your balance into the water for an instant failure as this version of the Animus doesn’t support swimming. Just as Altair’s previous targets predicted. By assassinating them, it means there is both no shelter for mentally ill patients nor anything to prep for upcoming famines.

Al Mualim also walks a fine line between "wise and caring mentor and father figure that speaks in riddles to help Altair learn" and "shady af". It was fun with hindsight seeing all the hints of his betrayal as I played. AC1 has a simple story but it works well. After reading Mirror and Image's novelization of AC1, The main thing I will complain about on Altair's side is how little we get of his thoughts and feelings. Especially in the final Memory Sequence. Emotionally, this is Altair's "Empire Strikes Back". He was betrayed by the person he looked up to as a father figure his entire life, was forced to kill some of his fellow Brothers and just learned the world has magical artifacts made by a race of time time travelling aliens. And he's..... still the same stoic guy. Mirror and Image's version captures a lot of the horror, fear and confusion Altair was going through while the game makes Altair seem like business as normal.

We also have the modern day story. Poor Desmond Miles is kidnapped by Abstergo and forced to relive memories of Altair via the Animus v1.28 in order to get valuable intel to them. As someone who is a fan now of Desmond thanks to Mirror and Image, it was great seeing the ways they were able to "Draw Blood from a stone" to make Desmond's story interesting. And I got a kick out of seeing how potentially wacky the lore is here. I am here for that. But man, AC1 the game doesn't do Desmond any favours for people that aren't fans of him.

Desmond's sections often break up Altair's story, don't progress the plot or have much synergy. Mirror and Image's approach was to have Desmond, Lucy and Warren commentate Metal Gear Solid Codec style when in the Animus. Allowing Desmond's personality and situation more opportunities to shine. AC1 the game on the other hand..... well, I am reminded of a quote by Desmond's Voice Actor Nolan North describing Desmond as "whiney" and "the part of the game nobody wants to play". Like yeah, he was joking but.... poor Desmond 😭.

 

The funny thing is that we can see hints of how having commentary from Desmond and co could have improved the experience in quite a few places. In the manual for AC1, it's actually written as a semi in-universe manual that Lucy wrote and Vidic is giving feedback on. And his notes include stuff on how the controls are confusing and how Lucy should shuffle certain sections around, or how recent updates to the Animus allowed for some memories to be skipped or done out of order. It's really fascinating stuff. Later AC games would sadly only continue this commentary approach sparingly. Be it in their manuals or brief spurts of conversations outside the Animus or a couple sentences max to Desmond in the Animus. It is a huge missed opportunity.

 

I will complain the the unskippable cutscenes and slow sequences make the early game and replays drag quite a lot. For both Desmond and Altair's sections. The game doesn't really get good until Sequence 4. I did find a way to skip some of the cutscenes. Normally, stuff like rescuing citizens or talking to informants locks you into an unskippable cutscene where you can move around a bit. But if you jump at the NPC, lock on them to initiate the cutscene, Altair will bump into them and this will instantly skip the cutscene. I exploited the hell out of this on my replay to skip a lot of the more repetitive cutscenes. It is limited to NPCs that can let you jump at them so it is kinda situational but better than nothing I guess.

-Conclusion.

In the early 2010s, there were no shortage of memes and posts saying Assassin's Creed never changes. The funny thing is that I'd argue that despite there being 13 mainline AC games, 16 spinoffs, 1 live action theatrical movie, 5 short films, 10 novels and countless comic books, in many ways, AC1 is kinda unique. AC2 dropped its approach to combat and  mission design in favour of something more standard for open world games. A lot of AC1's ideas never got fleshed out in future games, or were cherry picked and mixed and matches in parts rather than as a whole.

I'd still recommend people new and familiar with AC1 to give it a shot. But even though I loved it, I believe that's because of how I was playing it. I was going into the game looking to explore more of its sandbox and features. Especially getting more out of its parkour and combat. I imagine the average player probably doesn't expect that. Imagine telling someone "bro, you should play this racing game, the manual transmission with no assists is rad". I imagine they'd be won over more by stuff like an interesting or varied career mode or progression or cool variety of cars or something.

AC1 is a very "YMMW" type game, but it's one I feel deserves a chance for more people to take a second look, flaws and all. If nothing else, to see a game that in many ways, is still the most unique there is.

GOW Acension

 Hello everyone, I recently finished God of War Ascension on hard difficulty on my PS3 and wanted to talk about. I was planning on platinumming the game but it has online trophies😢.

 

-Gameplay:

 

The best thing about GOW Ascension's Combat is that it retains about 90% of the stuff from GOW3, and GOW3's combat was fantastic so Ascension's combat is great by default. So this section will focus more on the new stuff Ascension does:

 

I read online that people complained Ascension only having 1 permanent set of weapons: The Blades of Chaos, while other GOW games typically gave you 2-3 other weapons/abilities, typically a short range DPS focused weapon (like the Blade of Artemis, Barbarian Hammer and Cetsus) or some long range projectile weapon (e.g Zeus Lightning, Bows, Spears). And I don't mind this aspect. In past GOW games, players would main The BoC for 90-100% of the game since the game is built around them. Most encounters have Kratos deal with groups of enemies while the camera is zoomed out. The BoC have good range, are fast, do decent damage and have great combo and dodging potential. Expanding the Blades to do more is neat. 

 

But my main issue is that GOW Ascension doesn't go far enough with the concept. You get 4 elemental effects on the BoC: Fire, Ice, Lightning and Soul, that change some of your combos and special moves but as a whole, play the same. There are some strats with now, if you finish enemies with a charged rage meter, the element used gives you a bonus (like Ice giving you extra Red Orbs or Soul giving you extra Green Orbs) but it's too inconsequential. 

 

Moreover, only the Fire Element comes stock with a Magic Attack. For the others, their final upgrade is their magic attack. You need to invest like 10000 Orbs into an element to finally make it fleshed out, in addition to upgrading the BoC themselves separately. On Hard Difficulty, for me, I found I only managed to fully upgrade the BoC, Fire and Soul elements by the time I finished the game. The end result being that rather than adding variety, this limited what I was doing for most of the game. 

 

I also want to complain that Magic is now segmented into pre-selected charges. Each Magic Attack will eat 1 charge in a massive AOE. Past GOWs had different magic attacks consuming different amounts of magic rather than using pre-set charges. So you could, for example, drop multiple Chronos' Orbs and then fit in Eurayle's head so managing effective magic usage added variety. 

 

Here's a suggestion: You can spend Rage to do a "mini-magic/elemental attack". Lets say I press L1+R1+square, I spend 25% Rage to immediately switch to the fire element and do a fire slam attack that coats enemies in weak DoT fire. If I then hit enemies with Lightning Blades for a while or immediately press L1+R1+Triangle to switch to Lightning and do a Rage Lightning Slam, it coats enemies with electricity. Enemies coated with Fire and Lightning do a chain explosion. 

 

Kinda like what Genshin Impact would do later with its elemental interactions. I'm imagining this is a bonus add on for GOW Ascension's combat since it's already the hardest GOW (even regular mooks would kill me on hard which is just embarrassing 🥲). You could have enemies or groups of enemies weak to certain elemental combinations to encourage exploration and switching between elements as well as encouraging getting Rage going by fighting well normally and spending a little Rage or keeping the Rage and switching Elements to get those bonuses. 

 

The Rage Meter itself, I am mixed on. In past GOWs, the Rage Meter built up as you hit enemies and could be used to enter a "Devil Trigger State" where you were near invincible and ultra powerful. I usually would use this as a last resort "I am about to die, time to enter my final phase" move. But in GOW Ascension, the Rage Meter now fills as Kratos deals damage and decreases when you don't deal damage quickly or get hit. When full, it gives you access to Kratos' default moveset from GOW3 with a few more explosive endings on some attacks.

 

I suppose it works narraitively. This is Kratos at the start of his adventure. He is more driven by desperation and concern rather than pure anger. He's even against killing innocent people. Makes sense he'd have to push himself in fights to really get going. It puts you in Kratos' shoes. You have to fight more desperately, barely hanging by a thread, and have to push yourself more than ever because you aren't that unstoppable monster yet. Like a Hulk who can't go all out because Bruce Banner still has some control and is holding him back. 

 

But gameplay wise, I can't deny it feels rough to have to work to max out the meter just to get Kratos where he is at the start of GOW1, and lose that immediately with 1 hit. 

 

Another change, which helps make Kratos feel weaker and requiring more skill from the player, but feels worse to play is how parrying works. In past GOW games, you just tap L1 right before an attack to parry. You can argue this doesn't really feel justified since if you're too early, you can block most attacks. But this approach worked in improving flow and keeping your combo going. I remember in GOW: Ghost of Sparta on Hard Mode, the early game was rather challenging. But once I got parrying down, I was tearing through enemies and getting high combo counts and it felt so good. I was in the zone. 

 

Ascension changes it that parrying requires you press L1+X right before an attack. If you're too early, Kratos gets hit. It means Parrying is now too risky to use in combat unless you really get good at knowing enemy patterns. And even then, you can sometimes "whiff" a parry counter attack if the enemy moves out of the way or Kratos tracks the wrong target. In past GOWs, getting a parry but whiffing a counter attack didn't feel as bad since it still pushed enemies back and gave you some breathing room. But here, given how aggressive enemies are, how challenging it is to even pull off a parry, the whiff stings more. 

 

Ascension also shuffles the controls around. R1 now does a grab/tether that lets Kratos tether enemies, hit others around him and pull in and throw the enemy. I wish this was expanded a bit more with letting the player have more options. Maybe with a toggle in the options menu to expand the moveset with R1+ other buttons. Maybe R1+square makes Kratos do a GOW3 style Hyperion Ram so he can zoom over into an enemy. And R1+O makes Kratos do the current Tether move. 

 

The other change is the Circle button. Just pressing it normally makes Kratos do a basic kick/punch that can disarm some enemies (although they still fight normally). You can pick up their weapons and press O to use it or L1+O to throw that weapon at the enemy in a stun attack. 

 

I didn't use this much. O attacks don't build Rage so you're better off using the BoC. You only have one combo with just O and it's not really intuitive to weave them into a normal BoC combo. The only ones I got use out of were the Club since that could send some enemies flying, and the Sling and Spears since they acted as Ranged weapons. 

 

Ascension also adds "Tether minigames". Some finisher sequences in past games that would just be regular QTEs now play out a sequence where you mash square to damage enemies, move the left stick to dodge their attack and continue mashing square until they die. I don't really like this. In past GOWs (and even Acension), the QTE finishers were long enough to give you a quick breather and look cool but short enough to not feel like a drag. The Tether ones go on for too long and the added interaction doesn't add enough. There's no "challenge" if I will fail. I already won when I started the grab. Save them for solo minibosses at most. The Trial of Archimedes really started to drag when I had to keep repeating the Tether Minigame on every Gorgon as a safe way to kill them and get some Blue orbs. 

 

One aspect GOW:Ascension unquestionably does better than GOW3 are the sub items (well, 2 of them). GOW3 had 3 sub-items. The Bow of Apollo (which was goat-ed), Helios' Head (which was too impractical to use in combat and didn't provide much extra use) and Hermes' Boots (which I only used for Air Dodging). Ascension's Amulet is what Helios' Head should have been. When maxed out, it fires a quick beam that freezes a target and creates a bubble that slows down nearby enemies. It becomes invaluable on Hard mode to help either freeze an enemy for you to beat up on, or temporarily get out of the way so you can focus on others. 

 

The other is Orkos' Heart which pulls a doppelganger to do some damage and draw heat off you. I used these 2 a lot. The Eyes..... less so. I feel they could have worked as a recharging nuke or strong AOE attack. 

 

Other notes on the gameplay, the puzzles were quite mind boggling and I had to consult walkthroughs a lot of times. The creative uses of heal/decay and Orkos' Heart always stumped me. I suppose that's a me problem but part of that is due to how "rigid" heal/decay are. You can only use it on specific spots and move it to specific "times" so the challenge is more in figuring out what the game wants rather than figuring out the puzzles on their own terms. A lot of the later chain puzzles had me scratching my head with a "Damn, that looked so confusing. I don't think I would have figured it out. There was one conveyor belt puzzle where you have to drop your doppelganger that I was like "damn, this one is cool. I'm not even mad I didn't get this one. It gets points for creativity alone".

 

Also,  I am not fond of the climbing in Ascension. Ascension ditches the blade climbing in GOW3 where you could do a bit of combat for Uncharted style climbing. While it does look better, it lacks the gameplay variety of prior GOWs. It also "feels slower and longer" which meant it felt a bit more tedious on average.

 

I want to give a shout out to the Trials of Archimedes. I had heard this would be a rough section in the game but I wasn't worried. I've beaten prior GOW games on Hard Before. This can't be that bad. I was wrong. The Trials of Archimedes humbled me. It throws so many hard to hit enemies at you with attacks that can't be blocked and requiring tight timing to dodge, it's easy to get overwhelmed and there are no health refills or checkpoints for 2 rooms! This section is not for the faint of heart. It will separate the wheat from the chaff, the gamer girls from the girls, the femboys from the boys.

 

 -Story:

As for the story, I am a bit mixed on it. In terms of the broad strokes and on paper, it is rad. GOW Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta already cover a lot of Kratos' past and family life. Ascension opts for a Kratos at essentially the start of his "career". Resulting in a Kratos that, for the first time to us, is arguably a full on babyface despite being in his Greek era (Even Chains of Olympus Kratos was kinda a dick). Even his rampage and quest here feel the most justified and even noble. We have a Kratos that, excusing the cliches, feels more human. He uses sarcasm and humour when talking with Orkos, going so far as to have a decent friendship with him that feels legit. He shows concern to people like Oracle and even innocent civilians. Pushing them out of the way of enemy projectiles and saying he hates killing innocents. Like, this Kratos is what Atreus probably thinks his father was like when he was younger. 

 

It adds to the tragedy. This is Kratos without the nightmares and traumatic memories as a result of amnesia, and his quest is about finding the truth which gives him back the nightmares, memories, trauma and anger that leads him down to the path to GOW1 Kratos and as a result, GOW3 Kratos. GOW1 Kratos would have regretted the decisions he made in Ascension. Ascension Kratos shows that, without all that baggage, Kratos would have been a solid guy and could have been a proper and legit Greek Hero. Dude could have been a better Hercules.

 

In a weird way, Ascension is kinda GOW's Metal Gear Solid 3. Kratos is Naked Snake before the events of the story make him into the villain we see later on. If you're making a prequel to GOW, Ascension chose arguably the only point in the timeline that has the potential to be novel. Because the previous earliest game in the timeline, Chains of Olympus, took place during Kratos 10 year servitude to the Gods. At that point, he's become way more cold, stoic and angry. We still see some of his desperation and brokenness/trauma, but Ascension explores a Kratos before that.

 

The issue is more in the finer details. The Story can't seem to decide how much of Kratos' amnesia is "active". He cuts off Orkos before he talks about Lysndre and Calliope's deaths. Implying Kratos knows he was was responsible there. But still acts like he is searching for knowledge and the truth. But he shouldn't have Amnesia yet since he wasn't yet tortured by the Furies.

 

I feel the story would have been stronger if it was both more clear on Kratos' amnesia and leaned into it more. Have Kratos be doubtful and even insecure about his reputation and adventure. Regular people are scared of him despite him trying to be a bit heroic. Maybe Kratos wonders if what he did in the past he can't remember really was an unforgivable sin. Also lean into it for the adventure. This is meant to be Kratos' first adventure. When he fights monsters like the Heritoncles, have the game lean into how even Kratos is out of his element here. Dude is pushing on from sheer force of will, tactics and planning rather than pure anger and brute strength.

 

Kratos should be surprised at how far he's getting as well as being something of an underdog. He should have doubts if he will even make it since nobody has any expectations on him. The game sorta does this in places. Like how he is vulnerable to the Sisters' goo and needs to use Orkos heart to escape. Or how he gets covered in scars, scratches and cuts by the end. Rather than looking powerful, the game tries to show us a Kratos that really is making it through by the skin of his teeth. I wish the game pushed this further. The idea of babyface underdog Greek Kratos, who tragically is going on a quest to make his life worse when he already has what he wants later, is cool.

 

I also dislike how Ascension tries to add more context and explanations for future GOW games. Like how Ares planned to overthrow Olympus which is why he sought out Kratos, and Kratos is destined to kill Ares in revenge. This is something I always disliked about the GOW prequels. Like, what I loved about GOW1's story was the simplicity of it. Ares is destroying Athens because of his warlike nature but also as a show of pride and jealousy. He is competing with Athena in the eyes of Zeus.

 

Ares did manipulate Kratos but as the ultimate servant for him and the Gods to mess around with. Which showcases how shortsighted and cruel the Gods are. And Kratos' motivations for getting Pandora's Box are framed in an excellent way. GOW1 initially makes it look like Kratos is doing it for revenge but then pulls back the curtain and shows Kratos is motivated by like 80% guilt and 20% revenge. You get the impression that if Kratos could cure his trauma without needing to kill Ares, he would do it. Moreover, there is a sense of doubt if Kratos could even pull this off. You get the sense that for Kratos, this is a "win-win" for him. Either he does the impossible, gets Pandora's Box, kills Ares and this cures his trauma. Or he dies in the attempt and doesn't have to worry about it anymore. 

 

The prequels, by adding in stuff about Destiny, prophecy and other planning, takes away from this. GOW2's reveal that Kratos is Zeus' kid is weakened if Kratos already knew that from Ghost of Sparta. Kratos' suicide quest in GOW1 that nobody, not even him, is sure is even possible, feels less impactful if we get the impression that Kratos was always destined to succeed and even he knew that. It also muddies the moral ambiguity in GOW2 whether if the Gods or Kratos was in the right. 

 

I suppose Ghost of Sparta and Ascension didn't have much choice. I love of Chains of Olympus added to Kratos' character without undermining too much of GOW1 and 2 but it is ultimately "filler" in a sense. You want a new GOW game to feel important. I suppose adding more to the story is a way of doing it even if it's one I am not happy with.

 

 

-Presentation and performance:

 

GOW Ascension looks and sounds fantastic. My poor little PS3 was sweating as I played the game. Environments look massive in scale and are extremely detailed. To the point I feel this could pass for an early PS4 title. The game also sounds incredible, with Kratos' echo-y Orkos scream in particular sounding so guttural. A lot of the music feels like it's been taken from past GOW games but still suitably fit Ascension.

 

Compared to GOW3 PS3, (which was a rock solid 30FPS  no matter what), I did notice a lot more performance drops in Ascension. The game seems to hover around 30-45 FPS when playing regularly, but drops to a choppy 23-ish during certain cutscenes and down to 17-20-ish when doing certain extravagant magic attacks with a lot of enemies around. The sound and music would also cut out or lag for a while sometimes and the game would sometimes stop and throw up a loading screen as I was moving through levels. In Past GOWs, that only tended to happen if I were to intentionally backtrack through an area or roll fast through certain levels and even then, it was brief. At least there were zero crashes but there was one game breaking bug I encountered.

 

Early on, you fall into a sewer and the game introduces the climbing tutorial. You need to climb out, open a grate and jump out. For one reason, the game doesn't seem to load the outside area and the camera is so zoomed back and washed out by external light that I can't even see what's going on so I spent 30 minutes of slowly climbing out, then trying to jump out only to fall to my death multiple times. Had to restart my PS3 to fix that.

 

My conspiracy theory is that GOW Ascension was rushed to meet its March 2013 release date. Any later and it might have been competing with Sony's other big 2013 PS3 release, The Last of Us 1 as well as Grand Theft Auto V. And any later and it would have been overshadowed by the PS4 launch. Poor Gran Turismo 6 is the "worst selling GT game in the series" due to its release date. I do wonder if it would have been better to delay the game to 2014 or even 2015 as a crossplatform PS3/PS4 title? Even the multiplayer mode might have fared better being on PS4 (certainly helped TLOU1). 

-Conclusion:

 

Ascension is often treated as the "black sheep of the GOW series" in online discussions (which is saying something when Betrayal exists lmao). Its changes to combat didn't resonate with people. Moreover, it's the 7th game in a series with similar gameplay to its 6 predecessors. The funny thing about Ascension is that, by the standards of any other game or series, it's a technical marvel and easily one of the most impressive and fun games I've ever played. But by GOW standards, it's only..... good. The other GOW games raised the bar so high and did so many of the same things well that poor Ascension feels overlooked.

It's like you're an A grade student with tons of projects and accolades under your belt and easily one of the top students in your class..... but you have 6 other older siblings that did the same stuff as you (and slightly more) before you so you don't stand out. I imagine if Ascension was someone's first GOW game, it would have blown their minds. It's about as epic in scale as GOW3, looks slightly better (runs slightly worse), packs an interesting world etc. 

 

Ascension is a PS3 only GOW game releasing in 2013 after GOW3 already wowed the world with its scale, spectacle and near perfect combat system. It's hard to stand out after that, especially if you make some divisive changes. Ascension isn't even novel as a prequel as GOW Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta cover a lot of ground. Ascension's only novel aspect, underdog babyface Greek Kratos, isn't explored in enough depth to compensate. No wonder the poor game hasn't stood out much.

 

A shame because despite everything, I had a good time with Ascension. It deserves to be preserved better with a current gen port/remaster along with the other Greek GOW games besides 3. If nothing else, its visuals and graphics would shine a lot brighter because everything else is pretty solid already. I don't feel any rush to replay Ascension if I want to replay a GOW game (I might do any other GOW game first since I like their flow and combat more), but its "last place" status is still better than many other games' first place attempts.

 

 

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Assault Playstyle with Stealth Loadout on Expert Difficulty

 Hello everyone. A while back, I got the itch to replay Splinter Chaos Theory. Rather than doing another stealthy playthrough, I had an idea, "what if I played it like a shooter?". A lot of people like to complain that Splinter Cell Blacklist is way more of a shooter than a stealth game and the original Splinter Cell games would never let you use combat to progress and ammo was scarce but how true is that? So for the fun of it, I decided to do a run of the game with the following rules:

 

-Play on the Expert Difficulty and select the Stealth Loadout for every mission.

 

-Kill Every NPC I come across with bullets.

 

-In missions/scenarios where I cannot kill people, I must tag every NPC with a bullet with a body shot and then KO them. 

 

-In missions/scenarios where I cannot fire a gun, I must KO or Knife NPCs and Whistle to get other guards' attention.

 

-I can't shoot out lights. 

 

As a quick refresher, Chaos Theory has 3 difficulty modes. Normal, where guards don't immediately get suspicious if they catch a glimpse of you or barely hear you. Hard, which  makes guards slightly more alert and do more damage. And Expert, where guards instantly become suspicious if they catch a glimpse of you and seem to hear you if you make slightly less sound than the environment when close to them. As well as instantly shred your health to 0.

 

At the start of almost every mission, Chaos Theory offers you 3 loadout options. The Assault Loadout (which gives you extra lethal bullets and equipment at the expense of non-lethal options), The Stealth Loadout (which gives you 50 bullets max and more non lethal options), and Redding's Recommendation (A sort of middle ground between the 2). The main obstacle I was worried about was the lack of ammo on Stealth Loadouts. In a casual run, 50 bullets + 4 Sticky Shockers, 3 Ring Airfoils, 2 Gas Grenades, 5 Sticky Cameras are enough for every level. Most of your bullets will be spent on shooting out lights to create more hiding spots. Chaos Theory gives you an EMP Jammer called the OCP with unlimited charges that can temporarily disable lights without drawing attention which cuts down on the number of bullets needed. Sticky Shockers and Ring Airfoil rounds can KO a lot of the more troublesome guards. So in a casual run, you usually have enough supplies.

 

I decided to do this on the PC version as having Quicksaves would make this challenge way less frustrating. As well as using the Mouse Wheel to scroll which makes sneaking a lot easier. I will complain the PC version has a few issues. Widescreen would cut out some info when doing the hacking minigame. The Steam Overlay doesn't seem to work without some Windows Configuration I had no idea how to do as a MacOS and Linux boi. There's no Cloud Saves. There were also said to be some physics and shadow issues if the Framerate ever got too high. There are mods to supposedly both fix that and let you max out the game but I have no idea how to install them. So to be safe, I just maxed out the game's graphics settings and shader models. Without the Steam Overlay, I couldn't confirm what the framerate was but I was confident it hovered between 20-30 FPS (the game seemed to only max out one of my cores, take up around ~500 MB of RAM and around 46% of my GPU. I suspect the poor game is really single threaded).

 

 

 

So I began playing. I  noticed a few things. Firstly, The Pistol is relatively quiet (I could get away with shooting it and not immediately alert everyone) but pretty inaccurate. In the classic SC games, the pistol has a bit of bloom/sway even if you are completely still and crouching. In Pandora Tommorow, you can press L1 to  toggle a laser view and realize that yes, even when crouching still, the pistol's aim wavers. Personally, I prefer that system. If you didn't want to chance a miss, you would have had to get closer to the thing you were shooting and risk the noise. Or shoot from further back using the laser to more accurately predict the shot and risk people spotting the laser. CT and DA keep the RNG Bloom but took away the laser view. I don't mind the bloom but I'd rather have a way to play with the RNG than have to rely entirely on luck. If I miss with laser view, that's on me for making the choice and messing up and not getting the timing and pattern down. 

 

 

Back to Chaos Theory, I also suspect the base Health of guards even without armour is boosted as they take multiple body shots to go down with both the pistol and SC20k and entire clips if they are armoured. With only 20 Pistol rounds and 30 SC20k rounds on the Stealth Loadout, there really isn't enough for me to be careless. Moreover, they shred your health really quick. I will admit it is hard to play it as a straight up "typical aggressive shooter" as you don't have the health for it and enemies react really fast to gunfire. So you have to be a lot smarter with your positioning.

 

My main strats were to fire a headshot and immediately start shifting away from my position (preferably towards cover). CT uses a "Last Known Position" System and guards can't see you in shadows. Meaning it is possible to shift enough away that they are firing at where they think you are rather than where you actually are. Letting you reposition and fire again. If there 2 or 3 guards in a pack, this would usually let me kill 1, reposition and take out another.

 

This was surprisingly hard in areas without cover. The Bank Level's courtyard required a lot of retries because after dropping one guard, the others would lock onto me well enough that I'd get shredded. Their senses are good enough to track you if you make even a little bit of sound or get lit up even a little. But thankfully, there are some narrow trees and benches that work as good cover. Flashbangs were partially useful as they stun a group for only a few seconds so you have to move fast if you use them.

 

Alarms were a mixed bag. At high alarm levels, enemies would crouch or take cover at specific chokepoints and not even move an inch (they don't even have a breathing animation). Which meant it was easier to headshot them especially if they were facing where I was coming from. The main issue was helmets. CT appears to use some amount of "bloom" when firing and hitboxes are a bit questionable. For example, I shot an enemy from behind around the base of the skull where their helmet didn't fully cover it. But it just popped their helmet off rather than go for the headshot. Othertimes, side and front headshots through helmet gaps was more than sufficient. If helmets were a bit more consistent, the challenge would be a whole lot easier. In its current state, it's doable but a bit finicky.

 

I noted that, outside of lasers and cameras, CT is a bit hesitant to hand out alarms. You need to be actively firing at guards to spook them enough to trigger an alarm safely. But they won't rush to trigger any more. The same laser and camera also won't trigger multiple alarms. In the bank, I ran around the front lobby multiple times. The Camera would make a sound and I'd hear a voice on the intercom say "Intruder in the Lobby" (sidenote but CT seems to have unique dialogue that accurately locates you on cameras) but no reinforcements arrived. Guards will sometimes be drawn to where you trip a laser or camera but only if they are really close (like 1 room over max).

 

Lighthouse and Bank were the easiest to clear out of the 3 missions I played. They only have 16 enemies total with no reinforcements so I had plenty of ammo left by the end. Funny because Lambert's Bank dialogue warns you not to trigger alarms as you'd have the entire Panamanian army after you. But turns out he was just gaslighting you lol.

 

 

Cargo Ship was challenging because there are over 34 guards (of the ones I remember. One of the guards you interrogate says there are 36). I killed 31 in my playthrough with 3 needing to be knifed in the Engine Room. I could have played better but ran out of ammo and also had to knife Lacerda and his 2 men. The Redding's Recommendation and Assault Loadouts would have easily had enough to kill everyone and still have plenty left over. The Stealth loadout only barely has enough for everyone if you play well.

 

 

Overall, this does highlight a few gaps in CT's guards and AI. Guards will almost never leave their immediate room/area nor will they be proactive in dealing with you. This meant that during these 3 missions, only like 3 bodies were found according to my stats and that was because I whistled and lured guards over to the bodies. So the game is relatively forgiving regarding detection.

 

In Metal Gear Solid 2, for example, when you trigger an alert, it will cause armoured guard squads with riot shields to start clearing rooms actively searching for you. They'd also respawn in areas to make sure you weren't safe just because you killed everyone there. Upcoming areas and escape routes would be better protected so you can't just easily escape by leaving the immediate area. Guard you knock out will wake up after a while and other guards will notice some guards are missing. Something like Hitman Blood Money as has levels where the guards can bring in reinforcements as well as move targets to secure areas.

 

For all its flaws, this is something Blacklist actually improves upon. While levels are still segmented into individual "sections" guards tend to be able to freely move across an entire section. They will buddy up and interact with any other guard they come across rather than the one they happened to spawn with. They also "are drawn to your position" (especially in Charlie's missions) so you can't entirely camp them out. They will also notice missing guards.

 

Interestingly, it sorta highlighted how, if you play CT using a stealth playstyle, the stealth loadout isn't too constricting. Since you aren't going to be shooting people, you have 50 bullets for lights. How many lights in the game require you to shoot them out entirely vs just use the OCP on them and move past? You also have around 4 Sticky Shockers, 4 Ring Airfoils and 5 Sticky Cams (which can also be used to KO people). Depending on the mission, that's enough to safely KO over half the guards present. So CT is surprisingly generous for stealth players that want to KO guards instead of ghosting past.

 

Like, if I had a magic wand and could make a "modern remake of CT however I wanted", I'd keep most of the game and its levels the same but add in a higher difficulty that seriously tweaks the AI. Firstly, I'd add the ability for guards to be able to patrol more throughout the level. For example in Lighthouse, I might have a few guards that are capable of traversing from near Morgenholt's room all the way to the Technician's room. Or on the Cargo Ship, a few guards that patrol the entire upper section of the ship and move between floors. I'd also have guards respawn and at least investigate areas where you knocked out guards. Maybe even being ordered something like "hey, x guard hasn't reported in y room. Go take a look and bring z guard with you as backup. If I don't hear from you in q minutes, something is wrong".

 

 

Anyway, back to the missions. The next mission is Penthouse and, to my surprise, I actually had a blast. This feels like the first mission that was built for my unorthodox playstyle. Even right from the start, you have giant dumpsters and blind spots to flank enemies. Even though I often need 2 headshots to drop enemies, it’s fun to fire one shot, shuffle around so the guard fires at where I was, then reposition for another headshot to finish the job.

 

The other highlight section is the kitchen area. You can headshot one guard’s helmet, he and his friends start firing at you which shatters the glass windows and railings, but I can use the vent to enter the kitchen in front of cover, pull off another headshot and reposition. This level was a fun mix of positioning, firing off a headshot, using the OCP to create more zones of darkness to be able to zoom around while guards fire at where they think I am. Even ammo isn’t a problem because the game offers 20 extra SC20K rounds for free as a pickup I didn’t even need. So generous. Finished the level with 28 kills and 7 bodies found. Probably because the National Guards and Displace Guards don't barricade themselves as much and stumbled over the bodies of their comrades.

 

I don’t think I can legally recommend this fun play style for this level because every Splinter Cell player is going to crucify me for daring to suggest that. I’ll just say that if I ever had to replay levels with this playstyle again, this is the one level I’d really be looking forward to.

 

Interestingly, this is 1 of only 2 levels that actually sets traps for you for high alarms. Penthouse sets more wall mines in places like the bedroom when you backtrack. I didn’t see these coming so I got the biggest jump scare. Almost fell out of my seat and nearly had a heart attack at the sound lol. The only other level to do this is Bathhouse and it kinda cheats. There's this circular loop between the dry baths, pool and massage area connected by hallways. I was making my way through slowly headshotting when I turned around and was suddenly killed by a turret that had suddenly spawned in behind me in the hallway despite there being nobody that could have set it up. I quick loaded and decided to move forward and got jumpscared by another wall mine death. I quick loaded, avoided all mines and saw there was another turret in the hallway ahead.

 

So Bathhouse starts spawning in turrets and wall mines in that central area when you get high alarms to catch you out regardless of if you move forward or backwards. Quite a clever and devilish ploy. I wish more levels did this.

 

Anyway back in chronological order, after Penthouse is Displace. The first proper “No kill level”. Even Lambert knew about my challenge run because in the briefing, he says, “I hate to do this to you but no fatalities”. So for the sake of the challenge, I set it that I must land a body shot on every NPC at least once before going in for the Knockout to satiate my bloodlust while technically not breaking the rules. I feel bad for Lambert and how much paperwork he must fill out every time this Sam goes on missions.

 

Displace was also fun despite my updated rules. Lots of corners, blind spots and cover meant it was easy to land a shot and slink away then come in for the KO. CT AI never adapt or realizes they are shooting at a corner I'd have long since moved away from. I feel this level would also be fun even if I could kill them. Plenty of ammo for all guards. Around 18 KOs and 4 injured and 3 bodies found.

 

Hokaiddo was fine. While there is an alarm system, it's oddly hard to trigger them since it's all up to the guards to do it. One section that highlights how inconsistent this is with Nedich. I wanted to kill him and his goons in his meeting room rather than waiting until the end when they'd all be in the open. It took a lot of attempts but I got it down. Foregrip sniper head shot on Neditch followed by a Foregrip Sniper Head shot on the guard close to me as when he turns around, he "sprays and prays" so I can survive his onslaught for a few seconds. Then back up to the right to have the 2 remaining guards fire at where they think I was. Then, just improvise what happens. Around 30% of the time, they'd hit the alarm that is literally right outside the door. But even then, there's so few guards and alarm panels are scattered that by the time you hit 3-4 alarms, most of the level is finished. Hokkaido's level design generally works fine for this challenge but isn't as varied as Penthouse or Displace. Still, there's plenty of ammo for everyone. 26 killed and 3 bodies found. Hokkaido Guards rarely patrol outside their area.

 

Battery was kinda annoying. It's a lot more open with fewer cover and blind spots. But at this point, I had gotten good enough with Foregrip Sniper headshots that I could usually 2 tap even helmeted guards if they approached from certain angles. My favourite part was up after the elevator. When I opened the door, about 4 guards were rushing in. It took a lot of attempts but I was able to essentially get a 4 kill streak. I guess this is what Mouse and Keyboard Players were talking about when they said Mouse Aiming was OP. Still, it generally felt like I was fighting uphill in this level. 26 kills and 4 bodies found.

 

Seoul's encounters were more of a coin flip whether they'd go well or be finicky. This was the first level where I really wished I had the Sniper or Shotgun attachments as they would have made my life so much easier or was allowed to use Sticky Shockers. Some encounters like the mobile command center or long drop were fine as there was plenty of cover to hide behind even when enemies were firing at me. Others like the plane wreckage and building drop were rough because there was only really one angle to shoot from and if the enemies ever rushed me together, I'd be toast. Granted, Seoul isn't even the best level casually so at least it's fitting. At least there's extra ammo pickups so the challenge is doable. 23 kills, 1 injured and 7 bodies found. I am unsure how that even is lol. Maybe the UAVs picked them up?

 

 

I was dreading Bathhouse. The first part of the mission went swimmingly. The hallways and multiple angles and hiding spots meant I never felt like I was fighting uphill. This was also one of those levels where enemy pathfinding was also limited. Like, even though I kept headshotting guards in the Dry Bath Room from the Massage Room literally next door, guards would never cross over to investigate the Massage Room. Meaning the hardest part that kept killing me were the surprise spawning Wall Mines and Turrets the game would spawn behind me as it were karmic punishment for my playstyle. I did get a nice setup where 5 ISDF soldiers walked into a hallway to investigate bodies and I kept landing pistol headhots on them to have 5 of them right next to each other.

 

The final part of Bathhouse was absolutely brutal. On Expert Difficulty, Displace Guards have Thermal vision and can spot you instantly if they have line of sight on you even in the dark. This shot my main strategy because I usually relied on getting 1 free headshot which would knock off their helmets and make them do a flinch animation giving me just enough time to follow up with another headshot or move away and follow up later. This wasn't viable anymore because even scooting a bit out of cover would have them see me and start firing at perfect accuracy and shred me before I could even get 1 headshot off.

 

I was forced to rely on gadgets for the first time this run. Using a combination of the Sticky Cameras, Smoke grenades and Flashbangs to lure them out and stun them for a precious few seconds to take them down. I was elated when I accomplished this. Even casually, I dread this part and usually rely on Sticky Camera KOs to get past this.

 

The bomb defusal was the final stop, and it too was brutal. On Expert Difficulty, the whole room might well not even have a light meter. Just assume you are at 100% light anyway. My first series of attempts resulted in me getting softlocked after the 3rd bomb because there was no way to escape without getting shot to death. Fortunately, I had a manual save from just before I could use to retry. The strat I came up with was the following: break the entrance lock then go in and disable the first bomb. This spawns the first guard who will investigate the broken lock then climb the stairs. You can move in quickly and 2 tap him from the side before he can see you. Leave his body there and go disarm the second bomb then climb the pipe to your left to the spot overlooking the entrance. Disarming the second bomb spawns 2 enemies that will at first be delayed by the broken lock and the body of the guard you killed earlier on the stairs. This gives you a chance to snipe the very tips of their heads before they see you and is just barely possible. Then disarm the 3rd bomb and position myself such that when the final guard spawns, I can snipe him from the side.

 

Yeah, Bathouse went from really fun in the first part to a chore in the final part. Which, to be fair, is accurate to the real thing. At least there are ammo pickups so you have enough to headshot everyone. 37 kills and 10 bodies found. Likely because Bathhouse actually spawns in new guards in some of the areas where you encounter others which brings up the count. That and I used corpse piles to draw in more enemies.

 

Kokubo Sosho is the final mission. I played the first part of this mission using my Displace Rules and intentionally let myself get caught and interrogated for the meme. But even still, this mission was absolutely brutal. Sosho is a lot of open areas and hallways with minimal cover you are expected to either sneak alongside enemies or KO them silently. It does not lend itself well to even a regular assault playthrough. Never mind my weird one with the Stealth Loadout.

 

The final part of the mission removes the no kill rule but introduces a new type of guards that also countered my strat. Gas Mask enemies. These guys wear gas masks that completely block their front and sides from headshots and never come off no matter how many headshots you land. If you want to headshot them, it has to be from the behind. But good luck given how lit up this area is and the 3 minute time limit. Even I had to cut my losses and leave 2 alive in the elevator room and run in order to make the time limit. The missile defuse room is thankfully much easier. There's 4 gas mask guards pointing their guns all facing the same direction. Once I defused the missile, I could exploit their formation by sneaking behind them and headshotting them with the SC Pistol. It's quiet enough and the room is naturally loud enough that they didn't hear this. Finished the mission with a score of 54%, 19 KOs, 2 injuries, 5 killed and 1 body found.

 

All in all, if I had to rank the experience:

 

S Tier levels: Penthouse was the easy highlight and most fun level to play. It truly felt like the only level that was built around this playstyle despite the no kill "Rule" with proper cover, flanking routes, blind spots and places to exploit the AI.

 

A Tier: I'd put Displace here. Despite the no kill Rule, the level was fun to play with enemies actively hunting me. The first part of Bathouse could also fit here. These are the levels/sections I'd consider replaying if I ever did this challenge again.

 

B Tier: Lighthouse, Bank, Hokkaido. Generally solid but with some problem spots for this playstyle. I was hoping for more cover and options than what was there.

 

C Tier: Cargo Ship for being the only level where there are enough enemies that you might not have enough ammo for everyone. The layout also leaves a lot of exposed areas. I'd also put Battery Here.

 

D tier: Seoul. Doable but more of a chore than fun with few bright spots.

 

F Tier: Final part of Bathouse and Kokubo Sosho. Those levels were brutal and made me wish I wasn't doing this challenge.

 

 But yeah, in closing, it was overall fun revisiting the game for this challenge. I do feel this challenge might be more fun on Hard or Normal difficulty since you have more wiggle room with shadows, sound and enemies being slower to lock in on you. Having extra health would help in making more consistent pushes and not being as dependent on cover to help.