While I am typing this post my PS Vita is charging after a really long session of Assassin's Creed Chronicles.
It is the type of game I can really get lost in.
Stealth games and I actually come a really long way. At the start of this millenium I was still spending hours on my PS1 playing this game by Konami called Metal Gear Solid. For those of us who were brought up on First Person Shooters, Arcade Fighting Games and 2D Platform Games this game actually introduced a really fresh concept to keep us nailed behind our consoles.
No matter how good your reflexes were or how quickly you could mash buttons- it was no longer a good thing to just attack anything that moved. We now entered the era of Stealth Gaming- and trust me it was pretty intense...
Now ammo and weapons were mainly reserved for boss battles and you actually had to get from point A to point B without being detected. It also gave us the thrill of the Stealth Kill! My favourite character in the series shall always be the original Solid Snake. I am not to crazy about the games that followed later in the series, but I acknowledge the contribution the franchise has made to our current gaming experience.
Thing is- this stealth idea really caught on. Eidos Interactive soon experimented with a stealth attack sequence for Lara Croft in Tomb Raider Chronicles where Lara was temporarily without her weapons and had to sneak up on a cook to knock him out with a crowbar. In the last chapter of the game Lara was able to find a bottle of chloroform and a cloth with which to subdue unsuspecting enemies.
When the PS2 came on the scene Lara had a full-blown stealth mode for armed and unarmed stealth kills and even a leopard crawl! :D
Other games soon followed. My personal favourite was Red Ninja: End of Honour featuring the super sexy Kunoichi (female Ninja) Kurenai. In this game hand to hand combat was definitely best avoided as on the harder levels Ninjas would spawn out of nowhere to end you if you got yourself detected.
Kurenai's most awesome weapon is definitely her blade wire, which enabled her to decapitate enemies from a distance. Stealth kills rewarded the player with items and filled the bullet-time gauge that made boss battles really cool. (Oh! The Matrix was released around that time and games like this one and Max Payne quickly made sure to exploit the whole bullet time experience.)
Kurenai is definitely the hottest female character in stealth games. Her short red kimono and thong were sure to keep me very intent on keeping her out of harm's way. It is a pity that PS2 is no longer on the market. This game is really awesome...
Hitman: Contracts followed a bit later on. This ended up being the last stealth game I bought for PS2.
In this game you could not afford to go all Rambo... Agent 47 had no hand to hand combat skills (in the game- not the movie) and he was definitely not very fast. So- stealth was the word. Along with silencer weapons, a garrot, the odd automatic and sniper rifle and poison you had to move about without drawing too much attention to yourself. Stealing an enemy's clothes helped a bit, especially if you managed to get them without getting blood on them (by using the garrot instead of a gun). Enemies were able to tell the difference from up close, though, so this form of camouflage did not grant you 100% safe passage through enemy territory. I swear- even the SWAT team outfit with its face mask and all is no guarantee...
I am still looking for the other games. There is still hope of Blood & Money showing up in a store somewhere...
I loved the previews I saw of Assassin's Creed at the time of the first game's release, but with the emergence of the super expensive PS3 and the end of new PS2 games being released I decided to protest this outrage in the gaming industry by refusing to buy these new consoles. My PS1 games were good enough for my PS2 and the idea of now pledging allegiance to this new console that did not accept them was preposterous.
Fate had other plans, though. Seeing that I was not really going to give up gaming at the advanced age of 32 my brother gave me a PSP for my birthday. My first Assassin's Creed game was soon to be played on it.
That game was Assassin's Creed Bloodlines. In this game the player gets to meet Altair Ibn Lahad if he did not already meet him on PS3 or X-Box and got to learn some really badass Steven Seagal style combat moves, parkour skills and a whole new level of stealth.
Now this was not just sneaking past guards or sneaking up on people from behind. Altair and his brothers from different times in history remained invisible by blending in with the people in their environment and by not doing anything suspicious like scaling walls in public. :D
The most awesome weapon in the Assassin's arsenal is the hidden blade. I was happy to receive an upgrade that combined this weapon with a gauntlet so that it can be used as a proper melee weapon as well.
Not so stealthy, but really cool in its own way- is the contextual input system used in the game's fighting. Instead of just hitting an attack button timing and choice of button means a huge difference between landing a really cool move that instantly disposes of your attacker (or sometimes even more than one assailant!) and getting shot/ sliced up before you can even get one blow in.
I must say- Altair's hand to hand combat skills are the most awesome.
When I got my PS Vita I had to go and find its first game. Because I knew that Batman is fully on board with the stealth approach as well as the smart fighting of Assassin's Creed his game Blackgate became my first choice. Aside from striking from the shadows and gliding with a cape the game also lets you search for clues and secrets and employs some awesome gadgets in Batman's utility belt.
Fighting against Catwoman at the end, though, is not so much fun. Timing and choice of button have to be spot on...
I have actually not bought any new games for a long time until recently.
Having bought 7 of the books in the series, however, finding a new Assassin's Creed game for a console that I actually had was bound to result in a new purchase.
Now I have a new Assassin that not only caters to my love for martial arts and Asian women, but also offers lots of opportunities to deal death from the shadows to most deserving foes.
Shao Jun has officially replaced Altair as my favourite Assassin. Unlike her predecessors she does not carry a hidden blade. She has one in her shoe, but not like the wrist mounted blade we have come to love. The absence of this weapon is not a handicap, though. Shao Jun has a Scorpion Style "Get Over Here" rope dart and a Chinese straight sword with which to deliver swift stealth kills. She also uses firecrackers to blind and stun enemies and has two sets of projectile weapons. One a throwing knife for combat and severing ropes (to manipulate the game's environment) and one a dart made for nothing more than diverting a guard's attention so that you can either sneak past assassinate without being seen.
So- my hobby for the moment is clearing Assassin's Creed Chronicles 100%.
