I platinummed Assassin's Creed Rogue on the PS3

 Hello everyone. I recently platinummed Assassin's Creed Rogue on the PS3 and wish to talk about it. Fun fact, this is actually my first PS3 Platinum. I 100%-ed the game back in 2015 but never got around to platinumming it. I recently found my old PS3, saw the game was still inside that I was like 6 trophies off getting the Platinum so I went for it. According to PSNProfiles, it took me 9 years, 11 months, 1 weeks to platinum this game.

 

Most of the trophies in the game can be acquired naturally as you 100% the game. 100%ing the game in this case means going to every location and doing every objective or finding every collectible in those locations. There are trophies tied to that like "Cartographer - Visit every location in the game " and "I'll take that - Capture all settlements". Most of the trophies I missed in 2015 were ones that weren't necessary for getting 100% completion like "Camper - Loot 20 supply camps" and "What's yours is mine - Loot 20 ship convoys".  I looted around 10 or so in 2015 because I already had all the resources I needed by the 10 count. These were rather tedious to grind since they involved fast travelling to locations, hoping the thing had respawned and completing them. 

 

Ship Convoys were particularly annoying. At least for Supply Camps, they were static respawns so it was easy enough to wait for the ones at their locations to respawn so I could farm them out. But Ship Convoys are pseudo-random events. I looked up posts online and some said co-ordinates of where they tended to respawn but I had mixed success with these. The main issue appears to be that when these spawn, only that 1 exists and travels across the North Atlantic. So even if they spawned at the specified locations, they could have moved away by the time I came to investigate. My main approach ended up being Taverns as you can pay £200 at Taverns to get a chance to mark a Ship Convoy on your map. However, at the 17/20 mark, the game seemed to stop spawning them. Every Tavern I visited said "there is no intel available come back later". I did almost every other trophy while waiting for more to spawn.

 

I imagine this trophy would have been less annoying to get had I been consistently farming them throughout my playthrough rather than at the end. A similar case exists for the "Freedom fighter - Free 300 British Prisoners of War" trophy. The way this works is that a random event spawns where there is a prisoner ship guarded by 2 escort ships. The prisoner ship has 100 prisoners on it and any damage it takes (either from you or from its escorts) damages it and kills prisoners. To save the most amount of prisoners, you have to incapacitate the escorts as quickly as possible while minimizing the damage the prisoner ship receives. It's actually a pretty fun change of pace and challenge.

 

I was kicking myself because one of these Prisoner ships spawned while I was looking for a Convoy Ship and I sailed past it thinking I didn't need it. I could have saved myself the time. The most reliable way to get more Prisoner Ships to spawn, according to all the guides, is to Fast Travel to the Carin Morne location and do nothing for 20 minutes. Just put the controller down and wait 20 minutes and this forces a new Prisoner Ship to spawn. I did so and it worked and got that trophy. Like I said, I missed out on this one because 2015 me  didn't  feel the need to rescue more than 200 prisoners since he already had plenty of recruits.

 

I will praise the game for having a stats page that tracks everything you've done. Including stuff for the trophies so I didn't have to keep count myself. I wish more games had this even if there aren't trophies to benefit from. I love looking at my in-game stats. Even modern Ubisoft games have made this inconvenient as your stats are now on a separate Ubisoft Connect app that is so slow to load in-game. 

I also missed the "Nap time - Put 5 enemies to sleep with a sleep grenade at the same time" and "Instant Vikings - Hit 5 enemies with a berserk grenade at the same time" trophies because in my 2015 playthrough, I never found a scenario where 5 or more enemies were bunched up so closely together that the grenades would have gotten them. Fortunately, this was an easy one to get as one of the Supply Camps have a 5 man patrol I could easily hit with both grenades back to back and get these trophies. "Smashing - Destroy 100 Ice bergs" was another one I missed because in my 100% playthrough, I only destroyed around 56 Icebergs. But it took around 15 minutes or so to get the remaining. 

 

"Denied - Counter 15 air surprise attacks", on the other hand, is a trophy that's annoying to get naturally but trivial if you know how to farm it. Since the protagonist Shay is a Templar being hunted by Assassins, it makes sense there would be Assassins hiding on rooftops waiting to get the drop on him and he'd have to be careful walking around. But in practise, most Air Assassins are static spawns on specific rooftops in New York overlooking certain narrow streets. I tend to play AC games trying to parkour around on rooftops so I seldom end up in a position where the Assassins could Air Assassinate me. On top of that, their AI is ..... questionable. When I was first trying to get this trophy, I used the game's indicators to position myself in the alleys where the game said an Assassin was..... only to be standing there with a full meter with no Assassin trying to kill me. I climbed up and saw the Assassin was in a weird loop where they'd patrol the building above me but get stuck in a walking animation or never notice me. It was easier for me to Air Assassinate the Assassin that was supposed to be Air Assassinating me. Fortunately, there is a place where  Air Assassins spawn in the correct spot facing the correct position where they'd consistently attempt to Air Assassinate me every time. It was easy to fast travel to keep getting them to respawn to get the 7 I needed.

 

The most fun trophies were the "Supplier - Take over 10 large supply camps while only the VETERANS cheat is active", "Hunt the hunted - Sink 10 ships in North Atlantic without dying while only the HUNTED cheat is active", " ENDURE - Sink 10 ships in North Atlantic without dying while only the ENDURANCE cheat is active" and "Killing Machine - Kill 30 guards without dying while only the ENDURANCE cheat is active". Completing certain in-game challenges unlocks "cheat codes" you can use in-game although the game no longer saves your progress while any are active. Though the game's stats page still has entries for doing these activities with the cheats which is great.

 

The VETERANS cheat buffs all enemies to their strongest so they do a lot more damage and have more health. HUNTED gives you max notoriety and sends the strongest enemies after you. ENDURANCE prevents you from regaining health. It was fun trying to survive with these cheats on and trying to get the requisite number of kills. Ship combat was especially intense as I was quickly looking around for smaller ships to quickly sink all while dealing with bounty hunters after me. It was a mad dash as I was using my maxed out equipment, moving as much as I could and intentionally positioning myself to get rammed by enemy ships so I could boarded since I could then quickly engage in melee combat to keep my ship health high. Hands down these trophies are the best examples of how trophies should be used in games like this: opportunities to try out cool challenges that are optional in a casual run.

 

So yeah, overall, I imagine this game, while mostly easy to platinum, does get rather long and tedious. Especially if you aren't farming stuff across your playthrough. While Rogue's main story is arguably the shortest for any post-2010  Assassin's Creed game, it has more side content than AC4. I think I would have preferred if the game was shorter and didn't have so many "get 20 of x" type trophies. Instead, I would have liked a few "Do X challenge during specific missions" since you can replay missions in this game. Or more "do stuff while a cheat code is active" as the few that were here were quite fun.

 

As for the game itself, separate from the trophies, it's good. The best thing about Rogue is that's more AC4. It has the same pirate and ship gameplay from AC4, most of the same controls, tools, types of locations, activities etc. Except there are some improvements. The ship gameplay has some smart additions that improve it such as Puckle Guns you can manually aim to do damage even if there isn't an active weak spot. This can sink smaller ships on its own.  Shooting Icebergs now creates a mini wave that can damage other ships. And you can be boarded by enemy ships. 

Level design is also much more improved compared to AC4. In 4, a lot of locations, especially those on random islands and forests, tended to be much more linear with 1 path to R1 your way through. Rogue generally has much more criss-crossing paths on its smaller island/forest areas and more open ended forts in its proper larger areas. Almost like a predecessor to the forts in the RPG era AC games. Shay also has a grenade launcher with sleep and berserk grenades that are cool to play around with.

 

The game is also beautiful. Even the PS3 version I played generally looked quite good and usually ran at acceptable framerates. Seeing stuff like Penguins or Aurea Borealis was quite striking. And from a technical standpoint, the way the game seamlessly goes from on-land gameplay to ship gameplay while still having such high quality animations is still impressive all these years later. Rogue is arguably the technical zenith of the 7th gen consoles.

 

The biggest weakness I'd say is the same one I had with AC4. Namely. I am not into the sailing gameplay and the game doesn't make many improvements to its on foot gameplay. Here's an excerpt from my review on AC4 that sums up my feelings here quite well. I could copy paste it here and replace AC4 with Rogue and it still applies the same:

 

"

I will complain that the overall combat and stealth mechanics of AC4 are quite lacking, both for the time in 2013 as games like the Arkham games had much more satisfying and fleshed out combat and stealth, and now especially in 2023 as future AC games like Unity and Odyssey have really improved these aspects. AC4's combat and stealth do still look cool. The animations for the various counterattacks and takedowns are neat. But the actual gameplay with them does start feeling stale. For combat, it's extremely easy to press O to initiate a counter, even while attacking enemies making most encounters rarely challenging as you can chain kill/counter kill through entire groups of enemies. The game does try to mix it up with different enemy types that can't be immediately countered or chain attacked, but it's simple enough to then press X to break defence them or shoot with a gun or incapacitate them all with a smoke bomb. So just like in past ACs, it's often faster and easier to fight through areas rather than stealth through them.

 

And like its predecessors, stealth in AC4 isn't amazing. There's no manual crouch or dedicated stealth mode making it awkward to sneak through areas. There aren't many tools for distraction which can slow down stealth encounters. AC4 does make steps forward with more bushes to hide in, the ability to whistle from more places to attract nearby enemies, the aforementioned sleep darts, Eagle Vision being able to tag enemies through walls and the premise of combining parkour/climbing to navigate around large forts or similar areas is cool. But it's not until Unity when all these aspects would finally come together and make stealth in AC both fun and necessary/useful. 

AC4 also has its own take on the "Brotherhood/Trading/Mother Base" system. And I'm not too fond of it. It's simultaneously too involving yet too boring. I like the idea of it. The ships you capture can be sent to Edward's fleet where they can be sent on trading missions. Different ships have different stats which can affect their success, timings and actions. Trading routes can be made less dangerous by engaging in automated turn based battles.

 

There are a few issues with this. Lets bring up AC Brotherhood's system first. In that game, you just select the individual unit(s) you want, the task you want to send them to and just send them. It's quick and easy. And it makes nice passive income. You can access the menus from these pigeon coops scattered all over the map so it's not too out of your way.

In contrast, AC4 has these long elaborate but still basic turn based ship battles you can't fast forward which get boring. On top of that, you can "re-enter" these battles to reroll your opponents so you can never lose. There's no stress or tension here and very little stragedy. On top of that the money and resources gained from these aren't great. The long 10 hours of real time missions reward the same kind of money as capturing a couple brigs and frigates as Edward. The resources are exclusive to this minigame so you can't even give yourself the metal and wood you win from these.  And you can only access this from Edward's cabin on his ship. If you could fast forward battles, get more actual resources from missions and could access it from the pause menu or something like in AC3, then this would be a nice system.

Now for the section that might be the hottest take of this piece. I didn't enjoy the pirate gameplay in AC4. Which is odd given that is like 60% of the game and the reason why many people love this game.

The pirate and ship gameplay isn't bad. It is cool to sail around. And it is improved from AC3's sailing as you have more options and weapons, boarding is more dynamic and the strategies of positioning your ship in front of or behind ships or using waves as cover is neat.

But I found it rather repetitive and boring. After a few hours of taking ships, it stagnates. Capturing a ship requires you kill the crew or do the things the same way every time. There aren't new tactics or options. And the slow paced nature of certain animations like boarding end up feeling like a drag. At least Rogue added stuff like icebergs you could shoot to create waves and that you could be boarded by enemy ships to mix things up.

I wasn't as bored of ship sailing in AC3 because in that game, ship sailing was relegated to a handful of missions rather than being part of the open world. It worked better as an occasional change of pace so its shallowness didn't bother me as much. And in Odyssey, everything was sped up and more streamlined. AC4's approach feels like that side activity in AC3 made better, sure, but not deep or varied enough to sustain 60% of the gameplay.

On top of that, AC4 shifts away from the urban based environments of past AC games. Most of the map is now ocean with the land being islands or small settlements. And I find these sections not as fun in AC games. Like, yes, you can parkour on trees and rocks and cliffs here, but these lack the options or freedom of parkouring in cities. Trees typically direct you in a linear path and you can't climb them entirely or make a custom path while climbing. You can't even side eject when scaling up the branches. Small port towns don't have the same architecture or variation as Havana or Kingston. This was an issue in AC Brotherhood's Rome where a good chunk of the Eastern section was flat countryside, and in most of AC3's Frontier but at least there, a good chunk of those games were set in their mostly urban sections. And this becomes the norm in Origins-Valhalla as the series moved away from large urban cities towards massive rural environments.

I suppose it does complement the pirate fantasy. Being able to sail anywhere, and leave your ship to explore a random uncharted island and finding treasure is cool. And some of the side missions such as the Smuggler Dens, Music Sheets, Warehouses, Treasure Maps, Assassination Contracts were fun and I enjoyed them. The Assassin's Creed formula and gameplay does lend itself well to a pirate game where your pirate has to explore jungles, cities, use stealth and flashy combat and climb stuff.

But it often felt like I was grasping for that fleeting AC formula in between the Pirate gameplay it was enabling.

To use an analogy, imagine if the next Spider-Man game had a place like Manhattan with skyscrapers so you could do all the web swinging Spider-Man was known for and you always enjoyed. But now lets say that 60% of that game was set in like, the countryside where there were no skyscrapers so no web swinging. And instead, it was GTA style gameplay where you used cars and guns to drive and complete missions. Even if this GTA style driving and shooting was cool and fun and made cooler by Spidey's powers, you'd rather this Spider-Man game be set in Manhattan so you could do stuff like Web Swinging instead of driving and shooting. Except most people really liked this aspect so now future Spider-Man games moved farther and farther away from cities and web swinging and more into the driving and shooting in the countryside.

AC4 is a good Assassin's Creed game when it chooses to be. I had a blast playing in Havana and Kingston. It's just that it's obligated to be a pirate game most of the time. One I don't really enjoy and am bored of. Which is odd because I imagine for many people, it's the other way around. Most people probably enjoyed the pirate stuff more than the Assassin stuff."

 "

 

All of this still applies to Rogue. The ship sailing feels the same to me here. The game's main city is 1750s  New York which, while not the best city to parkour on, offered fleeting moments of Assassin gameplay when the game occasionally let me play there. It's a shame because this version of New York is an expanded version of AC3's (before a chunk of it was burned down in a fire). It was fun exploring it and seeing areas I recognized from AC3 . It even showed how Rogue was a step forward from AC3 as Rogue was able to render the same locations at a greater draw distance than AC3 did despite both games being on PS3. I do feel the parkour is mixed. Like AC3 and 4, Rogue uses a modified parkour system where you can climb most buildings and make safe jumps by just holding R1. Holding R1 + X will have Shay do unsafe jumps. R1 + O will make Shay quick drop below what he's standing on which combined with the ledge grab move, makes it more fun to descend. (Except if the thing is behind you. The Kenway games won't let you ledge grab stuff behind you which hurts the move).

 

But the thing I dislike the most is the way Ejects work in the Kenway games. In AC1-Rev, you can do side and back ejects at any point during a wall run animation or while climbing. The Kenway games limit the amount of animations where you can do ejects. For example if I do a vertical wall run and Shay starts reaching out for a handhold, I can't do an eject until that animation completes. So my ejects have to be sooner and are more dependent on the environment. I dislike this. Let me eject whenever as that speeds up and makes parkour so much more fun.

 

The other new aspect to Rogue is, as I mentioned earlier, the fact you play as a Templar rather than an Assassin. The game tries to replicate the paranoia a Templar would feel being hunted by Assassins by having Assassins present in the environment to stealth assassinate you when you come near them. The game warns you about them with a whispering sound effect, a slight pink border and the AC Multiplayer target icon when you get close to them in Eagle Vision but aren't highlighted in Eagle Vision. It's a cool idea that you are being hunted by the same Assassins that can do everything you can but like I said in the trophy section, the implementation doesn't reflect it. For one, Assassins spawn in static locations, are easily identified by their orange clothing so not being able to see them in Eagle Vision isn't a huge deal. And if you stick to the rooftops, you rarely encounter them. For ground ambushes, it's easy enough to counter them. Their AI isn't complex or stable enough to keep up with you.

 

Funnily, I feel AC Revelations did the "surprise enemy attack" concept better. In Revelations, crowds sometimes have a Templar spy in them. If you engage in a combat encounter in the streets, when you finish it and begin looting corpses or prepare to move away, sometimes, a Templar spy will run out from the gathered crowd, grab you and attempt to stab you which did catch me off guard when I played Revelations. Here it works better because these guys attempt to jump you while you are in the middle of something as more dynamic spawns. Their distraction works better. Rogue has pretty wide streets that aren't particularly crowded so it's not like you're using social stealth often so you need to watch out for Assassins doing the same thing against you.

 

If I could wave a magic wand to design this system, I'd set it up in the following way: There is now an "Assassin Notoriety system" that indicates how aggressive the Assassin response will be towards you. The more you expose yourself, for example, killing people, the higher it goes. The Notoriety only affects how the Assassins and French forces (indicated by orange) treat you since in the story, Shay is a Templar who are allied with the British. Originally, I was considering having the noterity system be maxed out all the time but I imagine that could be annoying for players that just want to casually play the game so this would be a compromise.

At Level 0, it works how it is in the game currently. With a few Assassins in Orange spawning in designated spots attempting to jump you. I'd still like to have "hallucinations" to add to the Shay's paranoia. For example, they could see Assassins parkouring on rooftops or ducking behind corners and disappearing if the player tries to investigate them. There could also be infrequent random spawns of Assassins disguised as regular NPCs. Just like in AC's multiplayer mode from the time, the player would have to rely on clues to figure out if there is an Assassin nearby. Maybe looking at their arms to see if they have a Hidden Blade or something that could conceal it. I'd love an event where the player goes on their ship without examining the crew and gets jumped while sailing. Would help in that paranoid feeling Templars feel. I'd also have a chance for an AC Revelations style ambush to also happen.

 At Level 1, French soldiers will be suspicious of Shay at first sight. The game will now also attempt to spawn Assassins to jump Shay based on his predicted movement. For example, if the player highlights a POI on their map and is running towards it, the game will attempt to spawn an Assassin either on the path or close to the destination. For example, if they are going towards a mission start point, there could be an Assassin hiding on a building nearby. Assassins will also be present mingling in crowds albeit in their orange outfits so they'd be easy to spot but aren't highlighted in Eagle Vision. There's also a chance for certain French and British soldiers to be Assassins in disguise and they will turn one of your counter opportunities into an Assassination move you have to counter again.

At Level 2, the French Soldiers be more suspicious at Shay but all Assassins disguise themselves and spawn more frequently and they are drawn towards Shay. I'm imagining a system where at this noterity where the player might be cautious about dropping from a rooftop to street level for fear there could be multiple Assassins down there...... but can't linger on rooftops as the Assassins could climb up and jump him there. 

The player would have to change outfits to manage noterity with less worn suits having less noterity. Feel like it would be a good excuse to get the player trying out new outfits. Of course, being a noterity system, I imagine the player could easily avoid it if they wanted to but I feel the proposed system at least gives a bit more to experience even at level 0. Ultimately, the effectiveness of surprise Assassin attacks are limited given that most of Rogue isn't set in dense city environments that give Assassins more avenues to attack and disguise themselves. Maybe have camouflaged Assassins for island/forest-y areas?

 

The Story:

 

Rogue's story is tough to talk about. In terms of premise, it's arguably the coolest premise for an AC game. An Assassin turned Templar hunting Assassins while also being hunted by Assassins? Sign me up. Unfortunately, Rogue's story is...... mixed. The stuff it does well, it does quite well. The specific plot beats, the performances, the acting etc it all shines. The section where Shay confronts Achilles after the Lisbon Earthquake is gold with how the other Assassins is dismissing Shay's feelings and implying he was at fault.

 

But rarely does the game's story take full advantage of its premise. The game rarely discusses the actual philosophy of the Assassins and never the philosophy of the Templars.  To the point I feel you could rewrite the story with Shay being a Templar that leaves the Templars for the Assassins and little would change about the broader points given how unspecific it is at times. With the way the game is currently setup, if you knew nothing about the Assassins and Templars, the main takeway you'd get from Rogue is that the Assassins "are a secret society that want to use the Pieces of Eden and hate the Templars" and the Templars "are a secret society that want to use the Pieces of Eden and hate the Assassins".

 

The game tries to sow Shay's anti-Assassin sentiments in a few ways. For one, having him Assassinate people like Lawrence Washington, a man who'd be dead in a few weeks anyway. Shay detests having to assassinate a dying man (despite it arguably being a less painful end) as well as it being gruntwork. And being responsible for the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake (fair enough for this one). But when Shay defects to the Templars, the game doesn't offer much of a reason for why Shay would leave his years of anti-Templar feelings aside from "The Templars (and especially Colonel Monroe) were nice to me while the Assassins weren't".  Shay's defect from the Assassins is mostly fine if shakey but his allegiance to the Templars doesn't get much development.

 

In contrast, AC1 and 3 do a much better job in distinguishing between the Assassins and Templars and the pros and cons of their philosophies. Take the doctor in AC1 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.

 

In AC3, much of the conflict is between Connor's naive but optimistic view of how the Assassins view on freedom is a net positive. While Haytham argues against that and provides examples of how Connor's recklessness made the situation worse. In the end, even Connor comes to realize the Templars had a point with how the Americans sold off his peoples' land and the consequences of the Assassin's approach. There's nothing like that in Rogue despite having Haytham present.

 

Basically, prior ACs show that the Assassins aren't just the good guys because you play as them. They are a faction with their own specific philosophy. A philosophy that can be critiqued. Prior AC games have shown how the Assassins with their "free will no matter what" philosophy can often result in a less stable society at times. Meanwhile the Templars believe that humanity isn't responsible enough to handle such free will so much be guided from the shadows and have often helped people and societies find a stability that Assassins couldn't. That is one of the reasons why the Templars typically have had the upper hand throughout the Assassin/Templar conflict. To quote Far Cry 6 "Democracy doesn't put out fires or fix famines".

 

If I could wave a magic wand to tweak Rogue's story, here's how I would do it:

Sequence 1 would mostly be the same. I think it does a fine job is establishing the status quo of Shay's life as a novice Assassin and the main figures in his life and highlighting his slightly rebellious attitude. The changes I'd make is to the targets Shay Assassinates in order to highlight the flaws of the Assassins and better sow seeds the Templars will exploit later. I'd have one of Shay's assassination targets be the leader of a community Shay is allied with or feels close to. This leader would either be neutral and an ally to the Templars or be a possible Templar. The Assassins would order Shay to assassinate him in order to "free the people". Shay would be apprehensive but be compelled to follow through. During the confession/memory corridor, you could have this leader lament how Shay made life worse for this community just because he's blindly following orders and that the people never chose this. Shay as an Assassin is overriding people's freedoms here. Have Shay be shaken and unable to respond. In the aftermath, you have Liam and Hope celebrating a bit with a dejected Shay before Achilles or Le Chevalier interrupt the "festivities" and order everyone back to work. So not only is Shay unhappy with what he had to do but isn't even allowed to acknowledge his happiness.

 I'd also have a copy of the Doctor Assassination from AC1 to show those doubts the Assassin would have in full swing. The point being is that rather than doing what current AC Rogue does and just paint the Assassins as entirely in the wrong, have the framing being that "these are the standard missions you've done in every AC game. Have you ever wondered what the consequences were?"

 

The payoff to these would be when Shay becomes a Templar and is dealing with Haytham, have Haytham use this as a means of further indoctrinating Shay into the Templar order. For example, lets say there's a potential target. Shay sarcastically and unhappily says something like "so you want to be assassinate him without question?" to which Haytham responds with something like "No. I see what you mean. I was an Assassin like you once. I left that life behind. You see, the Assassins believe that in order to make progress, you have have to be drastic. Sometimes they are right. But sometimes, it might be cleaner and safer to put your finger on the scale rather than burn down the building. Manipulate the status quo into more gradual but assured and safer progress rather than reinvent the wheel. In fact, look at slavery. You want to know how the Templars have been addressing it? We got governors to pass laws. In time, Slavery will be banned as a systemic change. The Assassins would say 'just assassinate slavers' but that never addresses the root issue nor will it give the slaves an actual path to freedom. They'll just end up under another slaver. Real change requires a deft hand and foresight, not blind and wanton murder".

 

The point being that have Haytham explain the idea of "the Assassins believe assassinating targets to bring free will is the best course of action. But the Templars believe just manipulating existing power structures from behind the scenes to achieve progress is the better, cleaner, safer and more long term solution".  Shay, who experienced first hand how radically assassinating potential politicians and Templars has ramifications, would be more receptive to what Haytham is putting down (in addition to this being a much cleaner introduction to the anti-Assassination missions). The game now presents a much more meaningful argument why Shay or anyone would now consider the Templars. Essentially the other side of the coin of AC4's approach where it showed why Edward, a pirate with all the freedom in the world, would join the Assassins. It showed the issues with the blind freedom that Nassau and the pirates had which swayed Edward over to the Assassins. This talk from Haytham would show an Assassin the possible holes in that philosophy.

 

The other change I would make is regarding Lisbon. Now, from Shay's POV, this is an adequate explanation of why he'd defect from the Assassins. The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake was a massive disaster and the game, if anything, undersells it. The whole city was wiped out by the Earthquake and tidal wave and had to be rebuilt from scratch. 45000 people lost their lives. And this isn't the first time the Assassins have even done something like this (see Cappadocia in Assassin's Creed Revelations). But from the player's POV, the whole section is a 10 minute mission. You barely spend any time in Lisbon before it gets destroyed. I feel having at least a few missions in a small Lisbon map where the player got to experience the parkour of an older European city, maybe with characters Shay and the players cared about, before it got destroyed would give players a bigger sense of Shay's loss. Similar to how Montergionni was destroyed in AC Brotherhood. You got a few missions in Montergionni before it was gone.

 

The final change I would add (and is inspired by Mirror and Image fanfics) is having it that whenever Shay climbs a viewpoint and synchronizes, he gets a small silhouette style flashback of his time in the Assassins and more positive memories with Liam, Hope, Achilles and Le Chevalier. Shay is supposed to be heartbroken going after his once family. Having these brief flashbacks showing that all these characters really liked each other would add to the heartbreak for even the player. I'm imagining a flashback where it's Le Chevalier going to bat for a younger Shay instead of Achilles. Showing that even if Le Chevalier is a dick to Shay, he ultimately did believe in Shay's potential as a Master Assassin and was only trying to prepare him for that role and that he is more hurt than he lets on at Shay's betrayal.

 

I feel these changes would elevate the current story of Rogue by adding in more of that Assassin vs Templar debate in a more interesting way.

 

-The Modern Day Story.

 

The Modern Story in Rogue is ...... not particularly notable. I am going to copy and paste what I wrote for AC4's Modern Day as I feel a lot of it still applies here:

 

"

I do agree the pacing and the actual story being told in it isn't particular exciting, but the appeal it has is a bit specific. One of my favourite parts of AC1 and 2's modern day wasn't playing as Desmond but rather hacking into computers or Subject 16's puzzles and peeling back the curtains to learn more about the world of AC.

Because AC is the only franchise that dares to ask the question: "what if every conspiracy theory ever throughout history and no matter how trivial or wacky was not only true but connected?"

 

In AC1, you could hack Warren Vidic's computer to learn that: "that Africa's population has been decimated by a plague; massive number of illegal immigrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border... into Mexico, resulting in a shooting war between the U.S. and Mexico; hurricane season no longer exists, since hurricanes happen all throughout the year thanks to climate change; and the last film studio has closed, as piracy has destroyed the movie industry". All this back in 2012.

In AC2 and Brotherhood, doing Subject 16's puzzles tells us that: Alan Turing was Murdered to prevent him from inventing too powerful computers. Cable TV is actually a method for transmitting brainwave altering signals and monitoring citizens. The Moon Landing was done to find an Isu artifact on the moon. The JFK assassination was done by an Assassin who defected to the Templars to recover JFK's POE. He uses his subordinates to kill JFK, stole JFK's POE, used said POE to create the illusion of gunshots and framed Templar Sleeper Agent, Harvey Lee Oswald for it. Which lead to the Templar Lyndon B. Johnson taking the presidency to accelerate the space program for that aforementioned moon landing. Or that Jesus Christ was someone who used Isu Artifacts and his crucifixion was spearheaded by the Templars.

Obviously this is quite unhinged and wacky and I am all here for it. I find this aspect of AC lore fascinating. Seeing how seemingly random historical events have some connection to either the Assassins, Templars or Isu is really interesting to me. And AC2 and Brotherhood in particular, I feel, nail this aspect well because of its presentation here. Subject 16's puzzles are presented in this really creepy and unnerving way. You have recorded phone calls from random civilians talking with Abstergo reps about how their cable TV has their private history storied on it. You have paintings that ask you find meaning in seemingly innocuous details. That photo of Napoleon putting his hand in his pocket? He has an Apple of Eden there. I remember back when AC Brotherhood first came out, I joked that we would eventually learn that BigFoot was actually real and was this Isu experiment gone wrong or something by the Templars to create an Isu. And after playing Odyssey, I think that might actually be true lol.

Part of this is to reinforce one of the themes of those early AC games. Of how skewed history can be and how difficult it can be to ascertain what really happened. And how the Templars are doing a really good job skewing and controlling history.

AC4's Modern Day......sorta keeps this up. I am a bit disappointed because I felt there would be more wacky, creepy and unhinged stuff here. Like, you're in Abstergo itself and can hack their computers. You're at the centre of all the wacky conspiracies, not receiving snippets from an insane computer backup of a dead guy in a USB stick. But while there is some stuff related to the Tunguska event, there's not much as wacky as JFK from Brotherhood.

 

But there is still some juicy stuff here I enjoyed reading. I loved all of Desmond's material. Seeing what happened to his body and DNA, and the contents of his phone and audio recordings. It retroactively makes AC3's modern day even more tragic given how Desmond was getting closer to his squad.

 

I loved reading emails from the higher ups at Abstergo. Stuff like cool potential ancestors from Desmond's DNA and shooting down why projects set in Ancient Egypt, WW2 or the Wild West wouldn't be good fits (and I agree with that lol). Oliver and Melanie joking about some of their work. Or one guy complaining that "we have the means to show history in its most accurate light through the Animus, and we are using it to make terrible and lowest common denominator movies and video games". Only for the truth to be that is intentional. Making terrible movies and Video games allows Abstergo to control pop culture and therefore people without them realizing it. Hell, that's what they plan to do with the footage you get from Edward's memories. And they do it. You can see a trailer for their terrible Pirate Movie with some of the "artistic liberties they wish to take". (and in Unity, you learn that movie bombed. So I guess humanity has some hope. Or perhaps the Assassins sabotaged the premiere?).

Another one of the standouts was Subject One. He was one of the first Animus test subjects and his experiences in the Animus exploring the life of Aveline de Grandpre was used 30 years after his death to create the hit video game Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation on the VITA. And the most unrealistic part of all of this is the fact that the VITA was a success in the AC Universe lol.

 

You can find material and recordings that explore some of his experiences and feelings.  He notes that his centre of gravity is lower, and he can feel the eyes of everyone looking at "his" attractiveness as a female, and finds the roles society expects of a woman restricting. He is also really uncomfortable with attraction she has to men, and asserts that he is not gay but now has a hard time separating his sexual feelings from Aveline's. Someone get Mirror and Image to write a fanfic on this because I would kill to read this story.

You also have the "Market Analysis" videos where an Abstergo executive explains why they passed on making movies/video games on Altair, Ezio and Connor but gave the greenlight to Aveline. And I love how funny and biting this satire is on how executives meddle with and change projects to better appeal to a mass market and ignore the context of the games. He talks about how Ezio is a lecherous old man with anger issues and not a "model leading man" as he corrupts impressionable youth. Or how Altair is a fanatic who breaks the taboos of his time and how Abbas (the guy that literally corrupted the Assassin order, kills many of his own people) is a model leading man. He puts in a request to find any descendants of Abbas. Or how people would take umbrage with Connor's personality and find his early life "foreign" and how it lacks the "balance" to tell the whole story of America. And they approve Aveline because they can edit her footage to show her as a well behaved girl inspired by her mentor Madaline as an empowering piece for female audiences (ignoring that their editing does the opposite from Aveline's already existing story lol).

Like, even though walking around Abstergo Entertainment as a floating iPad and doing basic hacking puzzles isn't the most exciting thing, I found getting the lore from it enjoyable. I honestly wish there was even more juicy lore or more wacky revelations to spice it up.

 

" 

AC Rogue's modern day is more of the same but with the lore a lot less interesting and novel. You go around repairing computers instead of hacking them. The main crux here is your manager, Otso Berg, being obsessed with researching Assassins that defected to the Templars as a way of showing how the Templars are better. The game ends with him sending the Assassins a trailer/montage of Shay's memories showing how the Assassins very nearly doomed the planet with Achilles even saying "Shay was right" and then offering the player character a choice of joining the Templars. We see some of the Assassins panicking in text. This is a cool ending and makes sense. The Templars already have taken over 90% of the planet and the Assassins are really the underdogs here so they by attacking the Assassins' moral certainty, it would hurt them far more. But, similar to other AC games from this time, nothing ever comes of this in future AC Modern Day games. Berg gets a few cameos but we never see the Assassins disorganized or demoralized or now more cautious of causing destruction. For all intents and purposes, you could remove the Modern Days of AC4, Rogue, Unity and Syndicate and little would change for the overall story and that's a shame.

 

 

In closing, Rogue is a pretty fun game. From a gameplay perspective, it does everything Black Flag does and then some. Its environments, level design and missions are generally prettier and more thoughtful. Even though I am not fond of the navel gameplay in these AC games, I imagine those that are would get more of a kick out of Rogue's improved version. The story is rather mixed. The premise and individual beats are fantastic but the a lot of the connective tissue suffers by not properly exploring the Assassin/Templar philosophies the way other AC games do a better job than the one game about that. It was also an easy if albeit tedious platinum.

 

 My next platinum review will be on the PS3 version of God of War 3. See you then.

A brief review of Splinter Cell Conviction on the highest difficulty

 Hello everyone. I recently beat Splinter Cell Conviction on its highest difficulty and wished to talk about it.

Firstly the game was rather challenging to get running. Fun fact, I first played Conviction on MacOS back when the game first came out because it was the only Splinter Cell game released on MacOS and on the Mac App Store. It was harder for us poor Mac bois because the Apple Magic Mouse didn't have a middle mouse button and you couldn't do a left and right click at the same time. I recall the Mac Port even warned you about this and suggest rebinding ADS to "Option/Alt". Those were wild times.

However, the game is no longer playable on Mac (Intel or Silicon) as the older Ubisoft Launcher no longer runs on Mac and Mac no longer supports 32 bit apps as of MacOS Catalina. In fact, a lot of older Mac Ports from the time like the early Assassin's Creed, Batman Arkham Tomb Raider, Bioshock, GTA and Borderlands games are unplayable now (unless you are a wizard with Wine and Rosetta). I tried running Conviction on my Mac running Linux Mint and no dice. The game and its Ubisoft Launcher didn't play nicely so I had to play this game on an Asus Vivobook Laptop running Windows 11 and the game in Windows 7 Compatibility Mode which still had issues. The game's performance and framerate kept chugging and would crash frequently. As someone who is "a complete baby in the world of PC gaming", I had to do something scary and install my first mod. The Conviction Fusion Mod which eased some of the performance issues and made the crashes a bit less frequent. It was confusing as the mod's instructions said "just extract and throw in the folder where the game executable is". I did literally that but it turns out you have to extract the folder and grab the stuff inside and paste that into executable's location.

 

This made some improvements. The controls were now closer to Spinter Cell Blacklist. The game was chugging a bit less and it skipped all the introductions when you first boot the game. But the game still crashed every 30-40 minutes. It would freeze for around a minute and then crash to desktop...... sometimes. Other times, pressing Escape would save the game after a minute and unfreeze it. The game's checkpoint system was generally good enough that I never lost a ton of progress and the game loaded pretty fast but it meant I couldn't really play the Deniable Ops missions for fear of losing everything. I imagine that wiser and more experienced PC gamers than me would probably and easily identify and fix these issues in my place but alas.

 

Back to the game itself, Conviction's highest difficulty, called "Realistic", mostly just tweaks damage, health and detection numbers. Enemies can detect Sam in light in under half a second from pretty far away, and can kill Sam almost as quickly. I also noticed ammo from guns you picked up seemed to be slightly lower though I am unsure of this. Enemy AI also didn't seem to be affected so it doesn't appear that enemies get new moves or tactics on Realistic Difficulty. Now, I have played other shooters from the time on their hardest difficulties like the Uncharted and COD games of the time and noticed I had a lot more fun on Conviction than these games which is what inspired me to write this post.

 

 Lets begin by talking briefly about Uncharted 2 and 3 which released around the same time as Conviction. Uncharted's 3rd person shooting gameplay gives the player quite a few options in combat such as climbing, melee/hand-to-hand, pulling enemies of ledges, swimming, swinging off ropes, taking cover, performing cover takedowns etc. As well as holding one pistol, one 2 handed gun and grenades. Uncharted on its easy and medium difficulties is quite fun as you can run-and-gun throughout the arena using all the cool movement options, alternating between melee and gunplay and brief respites in cover to heal before resuming combat. It's quite fun. I want to shout out that one shipyard gunfight in Uncharted 3. That level and encounter was peak.

 

However, Uncharted's hardest difficulty, Crushing, makes a lot of those options unviable as you get melted quickly for exiting cover. Gunfights often feel more tedious as you're pinned behind cover, occasionally popping out to do a few quick shots before immediately returning to cover and healing off the damage. You can’t really re-enter stealth or move around as efficiently. In my experience, I found I spend around 90% of an Uncharted crushing firefight waiting behind cover healing off damage, 5% shooting enemies and 5% moving around. Rather than testing my skills, I felt these gunfights were more a test of patience and luck as when I completed them, it was more because I finally got done slowly chipping enemies away from cover. If I had to replay the firefight, I don't feel like I would magically and skillfully complete it again faster.

 

I bring all this up as a comparison to Conviction as I feel the average gunfight/encounter on Conviction's Realistic Difficulty was more fun the average gunfight/encounter on Uncharted's Crushing difficulty as more of your options were available and there was more of an element of planning at play. Conviction may be the black sheep of the Splinter Cell franchise due to it abandoning a lot of the cool stealth that is synonymous with Splinter Cell in exchange for being a less novel 3rd person action shooter, but at least it was usually a pretty fun shooter as a consolation.

 

For starters and unlike other SC games, Conviction is generally designed to funnel players into shootouts. Levels are generally quite linear with few alternate paths that let you bypass enemies. Most alternate paths or additions to levels such as pipes you can climb, vents and windows that let you move around etc, function in letting you reposition, break line of sight or flank enemies instead. The earlier levels in Conviction feel a lot more like beta levels for Blacklist as they tend to have a lot more darkness (including light switches and lights you can turn off), pipes to let you get the drop on enemies as well as being a lot wider with more routes. So it's more feasible to use stealth knockouts to clear most if not all enemies in a room. Later levels (especially the White House) are a lot more frugal and spartan with their decorations making firefights a lot more necessary. You also don't have many stealth tools. Sam can't whistle or throw bottles to lure or distract guards. Sticky Cameras are limited and not the best at the role.

 

I feel the game's cover and shooting mechanics are interesting in this context. The game's default PC controls bind taking cover and rolling to holding Right Click and zooming/ADS as a toggle on the Middle Mouse Button. You can move between pieces of cover by looking at them (indicated by arrows) and pressing SPACE. SPACE also jumps over the piece of cover which did cause some issues. Moving when behind cover is cumbersome. In other shooters, including the game's sequel in Blacklist, when you are behind cover and press up or a direction at the edge of cover, your character will try slightly peeking around it. Conviction has Sam partially move out and position to aim. On Realistic Difficulty, you will get spotted if exposed for around half a second which meant that an unlucky position of the camera resulted in scenarios where the game thought me pressing Left meant I wanted to really peek above cover which got me spotted. This became less common as I became more careful with the camera and moving behind cover but it as an aspect of the game I was never comfortable with.

 

The game's cover system is mostly functional but lacks additional moves and features from other games from the time (thankfully added by Blacklist). You can't do proper cover or corner takedowns. The game will sometimes recognize you want to do a melee takedown from cover and trigger an animation of you going out and doing the move. But it was finicky so I often had to manually leave cover and try to do it. Enemies during shootouts would throw grenades which would kill you if you were caught in their blast radius and trying to escape from cover while exposed would often be a death sentence. Enemies also tended to rush me when in cover and even trying blind or hip firing often left me exposed.

 

Sam does have a few moves in combat. He can usually melee kill most enemies or take human shields in close proximity to him but is less reliable in firefights if the enemy is firing at him. Doing a melee move charges up the game's signature "Mark and Execute" feature. You can tag enemies by aiming at them and pressing Q. The amount of tags you can do depend on your currently equipped weapon. weapons like the five-seven pistol can tag up to 4 enemies, While stuff like the SCAR can only tag 2. When you have a "Mark and Execute" charged up, enemies in range will have a red icon above them and pressing E will have Sam instantly headshot all tagged enemies in range.

 

To the game's credit, the stealth elements work well and play nicely with the combat and cover systems. When you break line of sight, the game displays a silhouette of Sam that indicates his last known position. Enemies will target that location letting you reposition. Sam is mostly invisible in shadows (indicated by the game’s monochrome filter).

 

As a result of all this, I often felt the game was at its most fun the less you had to shoot. My favourite combat encounters often worked like puzzles where I analyzed the positions of enemies, tagged a few problematic ones, performed melee takedowns on 1 or 2, did a Mark and Execute, ran behind cover or hid somewhere and then dealt with 2 remaining enemies (either by shooting or melee). I remember the combat encounters in the Scientist facility being quite fun because those levels had a ton of enemies but also lots of stuff in the environment I could use like windows to hide and fight. That sense of “cat and mouse” where both me and the enemies were stalking and hunting each other at the same time was fun.

Remember the Uncharted Crushing difficulty section earlier? There, a lot of Uncharted’s movement and combat options were limited on its hardest difficulty. But in Conviction’s Realistic Difficulty, I was moving around and stalking my enemies more than shooting or waiting behind cover. Sam is quite agile and movement is quite fluid so the combination of movement, stealth and gunplay is quite fun. I best felt that contrast during the mission in Conviction set in Iraq where you play as Vic. Vic lacks most of Sam's moveset and even the Mark and Execute Ability as well as having even more limited level design resulting in his level playing like a far more generic 3rd person shooter which highlights just how much better Conviction's core gameplay is.

 

I will complain that towards the end of the game, the encounters start feeling more repetitive as the game starts lowering your movement and hiding options. For example, in the White House encounters, I remember there is an encounter set in a dining room with a lot of chest high cover but very few windows or pipes to use to climb around. I found myself having to rely more on straight up firefights and chucking grenades to clear out the huge number of enemies. 

Interestingly, some of the most fun I had was in the game's side mode: Deniable Ops' Hunter mode. Here you play as a Splinter Cell Agent that goes through various maps and takes out enemies. The game encourages using stealth as getting detected causes reinforcements to come in. These environments tend to have more of that more open level design and hunter-like gameplay I found fun. Even your progression and challenges from the main singleplayer is carried over allowing you to upgrade some of your gear. Unfortunately, I couldn't dive into this mode as deeply as I wanted as the game had a habit of crashing.

 

I do feel from a purely gameplay perspective, the biggest challenge in recommending Conviction (aside from it being a Splinter Cell game that doesn't focus as much on pure stealth) is that its successor, Blacklist, kinda does everything Conviction does but better and more. Blacklist has a more robust customization and equipment system as well as more open ended levels so even if you wished to play Blacklist like a "Conviction 2", Blacklist gives you more to work with. In addition to the fact that Blacklist better accommodates stealth and ghost playstyles which keeps the gameplay more varied.

 

Returning to Conviction, I'll briefly mention that the graphics, character models and UI were quite cool and impressive. The story was presented well and had some neat ideas. Ironside's performance as Sam was easily his best so far. You really feel Sam's "tranquil fury" as well as his more weary nature in this game. I also liked how the story kept you guessing with Grim's true alligence. But the actual plot and its events were.... questionable and I'll leave it at that.

 

In closing, Conviction on its hardest difficulty was a pretty fun shooter with stealth elements (when the game was running well). I'd still recommend Blacklist over it if you want to experience its particular action gameplay (in addition to stealth gameplay).