I downloaded the Assassin's Creed Ezio bundle now that Ubisoft+ is included with GamePass (if I'm paying for it, might as well get the use out of it). Assassin's Creed II is a much nippier game than I remembered! Almost too quick, to be honest; the speed at which Ezio goes from rowdy womaniser to slicing up carotids is incredible.
It looks fucking atrocious, though. Shaky mocap, wildly inconsistent facial animation, terrible voice acting, a script that would make Dan Houser embarrassed by its lack of subtlety… It's not aged well. Nor have the controls, which make traversing the world at speed an exercise in blind hope.
It's kinda nice, though. Low-pressure stuff, though I'm not looking at the map much if I can help it.
Play
The new Double Fine game, Keeper, is pretty good but a bit confused about what it wants to be. It's a bit Journey, by way of Avowed's art direction (and a bit of Expedition 33), but there are a lot of puzzles. They don't block progress—they are very easy—but do add friction that I'm not sure is necessary. I'm not finished it yet, but I am hoping it's not got much more to go.
I feel like it's too long and too linear; it needs more side-path exploration and discovery stuff, but a more focused main route.
I found that the focus on collecting in Arceus left me less invested in it. I never built a relationship with my team, because I didn't have a team. I had a continually rotating cast of random Pokémon that got punted the moment I managed to snag a higher level version. Capturing Pokémon was so easy that it never made sense to invest in the ones I already had.
I've got down to sub layer 1000, I don't know how far through that is but it's a reasonable way I think, and I'm pretty much done with it.
1100 is fun, at least. Worth making it there.
I found 1000 to 1204 kind of a slog, but 1400 is maybe the best layer in the game. It's also worth remembering that, unlike Mario Odyssey's Moons, progress isn't gated behind Bananas so you don't have to stick around rinsing any levels you're not enjoying.
For reasons unknown even to me, and despite my complete inability to deal with horror as a genre, I am extremely tempted by Silent Hill f. If it wasn't £70 I might have cracked already.
aniki