I’ve been replaying the earlier Assassin’s Creed games recently, namely the first four. I’m in the middle of the third, Brotherhood and reminded of just how great they are. Riveting story, beautiful scenery, and the smooth flow of combat and movement—when it flippin’ works.

Truly, movement is almost as smooth as Mirror’s Edge when you freerun across rooftops, and when you can move through a crowd without a single glimpse you feel like a ghost’s shadow. But that rarely happens because more often than not, Ezio Auditore da Firenze will decide it’s a positively capital idea to leap with all his might off the safety of his handhold fifty feet above the streets of grandiose Rome, severely damaging himself from crashing into the stony streets below. Or better yet, he’ll be in the midst of a game of mass subterfuge. The mission? Trick a French general into letting him and a fighting force inside the general’s camp. It requires stealth, quick action and no mistakes. Surely, the famed Assassin would not pickpocket some poor yokel in the middle of this operation? Surely he would refuse to do something that would certainly make said yokel shout at him, calling attention to the entire mass of disguised guards?

NOPE NOPE NOPE he just does it anyway and here I am, repeating this fun-but-maddening mission for the fifth time because some control fuckup causes a fail state. Nevermind the occasional bugs that can induce an apoplectic state, such as an entire battalion of the Borgia’s finest materializing out of thin air after you’ve just cleared a tower, or a guard spontaneously turning on a heel, immediately going into full alert and failing a mission despite said guard being on the other side of a solid wall. I was silent. I was just walking.

giuro su dio che se fallisco ancora una volta questa missione di scorta trovero lo sviluppatore che ha lavorato a questa missione e gli daro il trattamento bartolomeo