Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018)

I know that there are people who want Ubisoft to drop the sci-fi plot of Assassin's Creed and to turn the series into a purely historical game. Which I do think does make sense on some levels and seems to increasingly be where the game is going. Even so, I'd really like Ubisoft to fully commit to the plot one day and give us a game set during the Isu Civilization, one where we see the Isu, Isu architecture and humanity as it was during that period. I want to climb Isu buildings, kill Isu targets and take part in what I would expect to be humanity's rebellion against the Isu. I might be the only one who wants this, but I'd so play the hell out that game.

Incidentally, I still want a Desmond as full assassin game set in the contemporary, but guess that ship sailed.

About two thirds of the way through a fight with a mercenary (that's maybe a few too many levels too high), I somehow enraged the entire town I was fighting in. Suddenly, instead of fighting one mercenary, I'm fighting hordes of little old greek grandmas and grandpas. And they all happen to carry firebombs in their pockets. So, here I am fighting one mercenary and a geriatric legion of shot-putting arsonists. Then a second mercenary shows up, and a third. Now two of the three mercenaries lob poison bombs that have enourmous areas of effect. I'm dodging multiple overlapping AoE attacks while still trying to whittle the original mercenary's health down while also trying to take out some of the townsfolk so that I have fewer firebombs to contend with. Naturally, more townsfolk shop up to the party.

I sometimes wonder if the devs at Ubisoft start their day wondering "how can I make this game less fun to play?"

I suppose I would consider myself a fan of the Assassin's Creed series. I defeinitly likne more of hte game I dislike (I really only dislike Unity out of hte mainline games). Odyssey is more Assassin's Creed, and more of what we did in Origins, which is fun. I like hte increased gear nuance (stack all that assassin damaage for hte stealth win) and I enjoy the protagonist Kassandra quite a bit. But this wouldn't be a true AC game without the bugs.

I was on a mission to protect a man from some lions. I found him sleeping at the base of a hill. I spoke with him and informed him I would act as his protector. He warned me that the lions were approaching, and proceeded to lay down on this sleeping roll. regardless of his decision to sleep through the event, I made quick work of the lions with my dual blades (well, knife and spear head). I turned to see if I needed to speak with him to progress the mission and he was still lying in his bed. As I approached his body suddenly twisted itself up and he let out a death cry. Here was this schmuck, who I just risked my life to save from lion, up and dying in his sleep. Needless to say I failed the mission. Thank you Ubisoft, for your usual level of quality control ;-)

They eyebrow rant.

I'm playing the new AC and I'm all excited because it takes place in Greece and my father's family is from Greece. I'm wondering what words I'll recognize and what they imagine Athens and other famous historical sites look like. Was this the first thing I noticed? Nope. It was the fact that Kassandra's Greek eyebrows are GROOMED. Now, this probably doesn't matter to the average gamer. Who pays attention to eyebrows? There are other more noticeable standards of beauty that video games love to hold on a pedestal (such as body type) but to a half-Greek girl who was relentlessly made fun of for my unruly, large, and bushy Greek eyebrows, it stings a bit. First of all, it's just historically inaccurate. Her eyebrows should look like mine circa 2009. But instead, she has these perfectly shaped and sharp eyebrows. I started wondering if this was just in this game or in a bunch others.

Turns out, I have never been able to find a single female video game character with un-groomed brows. The closest some on twitter helped me find was Aloy from Herizon Zero Dawn, but even her eyebrows are more groomed than the average twelve year old Greek kid. Lara Croft may be in a remote, hidden city in Latin America, but somehow she found a place to get her eyebrows cleaned up. Aya may be from New Kingdom Egypt, but some how her eyebrows are perfectly pencil thin against Bayek's great large brows.

So why do I care about this so much? I have been told by everyone except for my mother that my eyebrows were ugly. I am horrendously self conscious about the way they look and I get them waxed to perfection every month. I wasn't allowed to do this until I was an adult because my mom refused to let me get them waxed while I was still living with her (but she didn't care about other shit. Mothers are weird sometimes). I'm grateful that she didn't let me touch them because now having thick brows is "in" but seeing every female video game character even in a mostly historically accurate video game with perfect eyebrows makes me sad. Just another standard of beauty unconsciously constantly projected.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk about eyebrows. See my original rant on my twitter (shameless plug) @okayzoeyk.