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Weekend Confirmed 120 - Dawnguard, Day Z, Diablo 3
by Garnett Lee, Jul 06, 2012 11:00am PDTDespite the summer's dearth of new releases, the Weekend Confirmed crew get into some spirited discussions about Diablo 3's questionable end-game, and what it's like to be a vampire in Skyrim's new expansion, Dawnguard. Garnett, Jeffs Cannata and Mattas, and regular guest Andrea Rene also delve into some talk about the Day Z beta mod that brings hardcore zombie survival to ArmA 2, and opine a bit about ZombiU and Sim City Social as well. The eclectic mix of topics all wraps up with another batch of Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 120: 07/06/2012
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Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Show Breakdown:
Round 1 00:00:30 – 00:28:15
Whatcha Been Playing Part 1 00:28:49 – 00:58:47
Whatcha Been Playing Part 2 00:59:43 – 01:29:24
Listener Feedback/Front Page News 01:30:16 – 02:04:42
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Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter @delriomusic.
Del Rio's next album, Club Tipsy, is also just a few days away from its July 10 release. Check out his official web page for more information.
Comments
If you compare this to say nanomachines in Metal Gear---a lot of the plot elements using nanomachines are really rediculous (ie, Liquid Ocelot's talking arm, remote control of an entire army), but at least the concept of nanomachines is a logical extension of military technology. Its a device to warn us of the perils of war and technology---something Ray Bradbury or George Orwell would be into.
The Animus has no logical purpose for existing, other than that there is some MacGuffin in the plot having to do with finding details from peoples' memories in historical periods. Its sort of like if all the Harry Potter books were about the Pensieve, but we never even learned like what magic was, about Hogwarts, or anything about trying to find Voldemort's Horcruxes.
That said it is impossible to become involved with any of the characters in the AC history segments, because we have no clue what the relevance of these Assassins' memories is. If you block out the segments of the game involving the animus then the story is just a poorly written, cheesy adventure.
Ezio isn't a good character. I mean there is nothing to him. He's just a generic guy with an Italian accent. And like, the games' do things like put Leonardo DaVinci in---but the point isn't to make him a character---its to say "look, how novel! a historical figure from history in your video game!" I mean, to me, at best Assassin's Creed's stories are something akin to old cartoons like The Magic School Bus, or where some kid time travels with a talking animal to learn about history.
What I'm getting at is there's this really important distinction arising maybe across multiple mediums---but in video games especially---between actual story telling, and franchise construction through layered meta devices, and lore. In AC the Animus doesn't really serve a purpose except to raise questions about the universe itself.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 65 replies.
Ubisoft seems to have taken these prioritise when developing AC games, Story -> environment -> gameplay -> multiplayer -> side missions. There's really nothing wrong with that approach but everything feels so disconnected to me, I don't feel like a bad ass assassin I feel more like a charging bull and the stealth gamepkay is out dated and unimaginative, in fact I really enjoyed the stealth gameplay in prototype 2 a ton more, it was imaginative, unique and wasn't hit and miss thanks to hunter vision.
AC3 looks half-ar*ed I can skin 12 different species...? Yay! I can experience a naval battle (with what looks to be and judging by previous AC games) clunky gamepkay and AC's terrible aiming? Woot! I can free run on trees (3 different kinds judging from the E3 presentations, right branched, left branched and a v shaped one)!? Hurrah! I guess what people find interesting about AC3 is the revolution but even than Ubisoft is giving mixed signals "you're not on either side" Here's everything we're showing on AC3 where you kill red coats in each one! That's just patronising, if you want to show an impartial assassin than do so but if Conner is siding more with the revolution than just say so.
I don't like how the series has turned out, when I first heard about the training assassins in brotherhood I was excited that the series may finally be getting creative but that machanic was just underwhelming. AC revelations was the first AC game I though was a good game and that was mostly because of the creativity in switching between Ezio and Altiar (can't remember how to spell their names), it was also more story focus which I loved and had an amazing trailer, you also got to play as old people! Anyway to clarify I haven't bought an assassins creed game for myself but for other family members, I've played them for achievements and so I know and can follow along with discussions on podcasts.
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