Know Thy Enemy: Thy Self

Well I said I would not post another rant on this site and guess what.. I lied. In fact, the enemy this week is myself. Not only did I lie, but I am a mega procrastinator when it comes to change. Here I am, about to move and really I waited until the last few days to do the hard work. My thought process was that I did not want to pack anything because I might need it. Now I look back and go, "really? Why in the hell would I need to leave old golf clubs I haven't touched in three years? What could I need those for?" I guess I might need them to fight my next battle against aliens or hipsters (or Hipster Aliens!) but its pretty doubtful. The point is that I think procrastination is an issue any twenty-something faces. We are from the lazy generation of procrastination nation. Now, I don't mean lazy in the since that all we do is sit in a chair and eat cheetos, but lazy compared to the generation before us. Hell, we will probably call the next generation lazy asses once their IPads begin to cook for them.

In other news I have a question that has been bugging me about hipsters. Would they all push for us to drive a Prius if that car was made by an American Company such as Ford? I am doubtful that any of them would want to show the sign that they actually like America. It seems as they go out of their way to prove America sucks the big one and everyone else is better. F*** that noise. July 4th is over but still support this great country of ours and remember in the words of the great patriot Toby Keith, "We'll put a boot in your a** it's the American Way!" Just kidding, but seriously wake up and realize you have it great and shut up about Europe.

The Killers Are Back... Please Don't Run Away!

My hype is probably showing right now, because it feels like it's 10 miles long. One of my favorite bands of all time is back with their new single and let me tell you... its exactly what I wanted! Lyrically, it is as cool as Brandon Flowers solo work (If you haven't listened to that album, Flamingo, check it out.. tis good) and it sounds as boss as Sam's Town did. Anyway, I hope Battle Born stays along these lines and gives us a taste of what was so great about Sam's Town. The story, the sound, the style was perfect for them in that album (Although, I know one fellow Broskington who would disagree full heartily) Well, I am going to listen to it again and prepare for the return. Not of the Jedi, but of the Killers!

ASS CREED!

Wha-Wha-wut up, bros? Dudez, not much over here in bobwinkle12’s end – Ha! That’s a lie! I’m beating the heat every God damned day. Lately, I’ve been busy preparing for the most AMERICAN thing ever since, uh, Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I don’t know if you have been keeping up with E3 (Videogamez expo 4 nerdherds) or any type of awesome news, but the next Assassin’s Creed will be set in the MOST AMERICAN TIME EVER. The American motherfuckin’ Revolution. And guess what? YOU’RE A FREAKING INDIAN – well half Native American – BUT THAT IS SOOOOO AMERICAN. It has you jumpin around in AMERICAN wilderness, hunting animals…and redcoats – those smarmy bastards! Oh and you need more incentive to play you say? YOU ARE A CAPTAIN…OF A SHIP…WITH CANNONS! Woo boy! I dunno bros, I’m pretty damn hype. 

Recall back to my Catherine review, I mentioned I bought several games during a ridiculous sale. NEWSFLASH: They were Ass Creed: Brotherhood and Ass Creed: Revelations. I convinced myself I had to be ready for the American assassinating; well that was worded funny. I had played Ass Creed 2, and I thought it was merely okay. It had a lot of good things going for it, but there was too much repetition mission-wise and Leonardo’s invention missions were one of the most frustrating things ever – I’m looking at you Flying Machine! Therefore, I had no remote interest in the sequels that were released over the past couple of years until the bald eagle dropped a dook on my car that turned into an elaborate shit-pic of Ass Creed 3. And now, I shall review them both individually, tell you which one is better, and lastly if you even need to play them for Ass Creed 3.

Let’s start off chronologically Ass Creed-wise; Brotherhood takes place immediately after the second game. Personally I love it when games do this rather than jumping 20 years or some boosh; it makes the game feel fresh – like you never left this crazy sci-fi world of Ass Creed. Any who, you play as Desmond Miles aka big nose who plays as Ezio Auditore aka Italian big nose. I don’t know if you caught what I just did, but Desmond and Ezio are related – see big nose. Ass Creed’s whole schtick is that they have some wacky device that lets you travel back in time to relive your ancestor’s life. It’s pretty handy when you and your buds are looking for some god device from aliens (Not the scary ones with mouths in a mouth!). It’s a pretty unique story, and it’s fun to find out more info about that crazy ass ish. So at a certain point at the beginning of the game your Uncle’s mansion/city is attacked by the Templars who want the god device you retrieved from killing the fucking pope in the 2^nd game – They are not the cool-ass Assassins, and they want god devices too. But they are bad for some reason. I think it’s cuz they like power? MAYBE REVALATIONS WILL EXPLAIN!? Anyways, so you run away, Uncle dies, and god device is stolen from Temps. Ezio runs off to Rome and meets up with some dude that’s in the Assassin order there. Then the rest of the game is about rebuilding Rome to its former glory, building an army of assassins, and screwing up the Templar’s and the new Pope’s plans. It’s pretty nuts. 

Gameplay wise everything is there. This game feels exactly the same as 2. Its nuts. It actually makes me very mad. I wish this game was 2, and not a new game. You meet up at Leonardo again at some point, and the invention missions are actually fun. I really like this tank one personally. The new feature in this game is gaining assassins under your wing, sending them off on missions, and using them to attack/kill dudes while you’re playing. The latter is literally the best thing ever. It’s really cool to be just chilling and send yo dudes to kill some guards guarding an entrance. Then just stroll on in..LIKE A BAWSS. Hot damn, that’s rewarding. There’s a leveling up system for your crew off assassins, so it’s fun to see them grow. The only way you get more of ‘em is to destroy Borgia towers – they’re the ruling family of Rome and Templars. For whatever reason they remove their dominance of Rome when you blow ‘em up. I actually did this as soon as I could, and it made the game really easy. I guess I want the most as soon as possible. And for an added bonus the tower is almost always a viewpoint that you can use to broaden your map. There are also these wolf-boys that are some cult of Romulus, and those are really fun side missions. They’re always posted up in some out-of-the-way ruins that you have to do some acrobatics and thinking to complete. You receive a piece of Romulus when you beat it, which will unlock some shit – I didn’t complete ‘em all. One of ‘em was super hard to get to. Anyways, the economy is still here, and that’s fine I guess. It doesn’t mean anything to renovate shops or landmarks; it just gives you the opportunity to earn free money every 20 min. I beat this game rather easily, but I won’t deny I really enjoyed this game. It was a lot of fun to become an exponentially badass as the game progresses, and to get your revenge on the Borgias. I won’t spoil this game for ya, but I will say so I can lead up to Revelations that everything is, more or less, set straight for Ezio. For our virtually non-existent hero Desmond things get really haywire. Thaaaat’s all I’m gonna say! ButIreallywanttoruinit!!!!! Oh and there’s multiplayer here too.

Revelations! Alright, so this game is, in my opinion, a huge improvement for the series. It really doesn’t add all that much new weapons or anything, but what they do add is memorable and engaging. I really felt like the whole theme of Revelations was very strong, and it was really great filling in the blanks. So plot-wise, this game jumps off RIGHT after the last game. I won’t tell ya Bro-hood’s ending, but I will say that Desmond falls into a coma. And then the game goes off in a very original and thrilling direction. I really didn’t expect this from them. The minor characters (always-annoyed Brit-dude and hot techie girl) decide to hook you up to the Animus (the reliving ancestor’s lives machine) to sort out your coma. It’s a really cool idea because the next part of the game is Desmond in this weird island. It’s like a sterile white cube place, and a strange island is there. Desmond meets this kind of crazy dude that had the same problem as Desmond – something happened and needed the Animus to fix his head/memories – except he failed/messed up. He informs Desmond that the only way it’ll sort out your memories is if you finish the remaining memories of Ezio and Altair. This is a stellar idea because you get to play out the lives of two different assassins in two very different time periods, and find out what happened in each time. It’s a bigger deal than it sounds, and it feels more rewarding than in the other games because it’s for your own survival. Without ruining much of Ezio’s story I’ll give you a basic rundown. You play as oldman Ezio, and he’s a bad ass. I love this version than the other two younger Ezios. He isn’t as cocky as before, and there is something more real to him. His sole purpose in this game is not to kill as many Templars as possible, but rather find out why there are even Assassins around. Ezio finds about these disc things that Altair made that reveals more information about his creed. This causes Ezio to go to Constantinople to search for them, strengthen the brotherhood there, and deal with politics of the Ottoman Empire. The politics side of the game isn’t all that interesting or new; it turns out that this one shady dude that is going to be king works for Templars – whooptyfreakin’doo! But you also meet this Italian scholar chick named Sofia, and watch how geezer Ezio falls for her. It’s more interesting than it sounds, and like I said before makes Ezio believable. So Ezio finds little Altair discs throughout the city, and at the end of an Act Ezio relives a part of Altiar’s life. These were really interesting because it tells the tale of how the Assassins fell apart, and how Altair took down the corruption. It was pretty cool. I’m not going to even remotely talk about the ending of this bad boy. 

Gameplay wise Revelations is super smooth. I was really impressed because I could immediately compare it to Brotherhood. At the beginning of the game you get this Constantinople assassin invention called a hookblade. I thought it was so dumb when I first received it. Basically it’s one of your hidden blades that’s a bit longer that has a hook to it. As I played the game for an hour with it I quickly learned the many uses for it. One of my favorite uses is that you can jump at a building, and if you don’t reach the roof you can hold a button and the hook will catch the lip of the closest thing. It’s SO HELPFUL. Especially when you have to run away from something in an intense situation because in the other games you would just fall to the ground and be royally f’d. You can also use it to climb faster because you can jump up and then catch the lip of something. It’s a lot quicker! Then there’s zip lines set up everywhere in Constantinople that you can ride with your hookblade. It’s so awesome! And fast! You can assassinate guards by jumping off the zip line on top of them! I love it! And in combat, you can run over dudes by hooking on to them and just sliding over them. It is really handy. They also add bombs to the series in this game. You can make diversion, lethal, and tactical. As each of them suggests, they each have different uses. You can create cherry bombs that can distract guards and check out where the loud sound came from. You can create crazy explosive bombs that kill everything – it’s ridiculous. And you can build ones like caltrops that you drop when peeps are chasin’ ya, and they fall over because those little b’s are small pointed things! Yikes! There’s actually a whole crafting thing behind the bombs and you can make and tweak bombs to your heart’s delight. It can be a lot of fun trying out different bombs. You create a brotherhood again in this game, but it’s actually a lot more interesting. Almost each amateur assassin has his own unique mission to hire them and other missions during their training. Some of them are very interesting like solving murder mysteries as 1151 AD Batman and Robin. It was really rewarding to watch your trainees grow into master assassins! They also throw in this den defense game if Templars overrun one of your assassin dens. It was kinda fun, but really easy. I only did it once at the beginning of the game because I’m so good at it that the Templars never had a chance to take over my territory! I took more time to play the multiplayer in this game, and it was a lot of fun. It is very unique. Basically in a match you have one or two dudes that are looking for the rest of the six players to assassinate; if you get assassinated you do the same until everyone has been assassinated. It’s kinda like Halo’s zombies in a way. But it’s cool because when you’re being hunted you can attack your hunter and get points for overcoming them. That feels so good, believe me! You get perks and shit, and level up – very CoD. It’s really fun, but I stopped playing it when I finished Revelations. I would recommend trying it in the very least.

Alright, so score time! Brotherhood gets a solid 8.5! Revelations gets a cool 9. I would say Revelations is altogether better because the pay-off is there, and the gameplay is tighter, smoother, and quicker. Some of the missions in Brotherhood can be repetitive, and there’s less repetition in Revelations, so that’s another plus for oldman Ezio. Now do you even need to play these for 3? Hell if I know! Haha! I don’t work for Ubisoft! I will say that you should check out Revelations because it ties up a lot of loose ends with Ezio and Altair, and sets up Desmond for Ass Creed 3. Brotherhood is a fine game, but I don’t think it would be necessary to play for the plot. But if you enjoy playing these games, I would recommend you playing both of ‘em. Alright! So errybody go get hype for Ass Creed 3: Most American Game Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cap approves this.

Know Thy Enemy: The Public Sector Lady

Usually we leave the rants to our man, Manher. However, today I realized there is one group of people I can not stand to deal with: the public sector desk lady. We all know her, we all have been her victim, and she has made us want to go all "Lollipop Chainsaw" on her at one time or another. (Shout out Bob!) Anyway if you are confused on the specifics, I am talking about the lady behind the desk at the courthouse, DMV, university, or any other time sink with a receptionist. It's as if they enjoy wasting your time with petty issues and find it interesting to screw your day up. Just today, I had to go back and forth from my home to the courthouse because they kept needing different documents. First she wanted the car title. Then, she wanted the registration sticker so they could give me a replacement. Now if your "WTF" flag is up, you know how I felt. Couldn't she just give me the new sticker and I could replace it when I got home? NOPE!! This behemoth manipulator of time was determined to keep me running around like my life was some dumb ass scavenger hunt.

This pretty much sums it up. Get the picture?

In the end, the problem was solved and I left a darker and angrier individual. It made me realize how all of these people were the same. Unaccommodating buffoons who get their giggles making other peoples day fall to crap. Now I apologize if you are reading this, work in the industry and go "Hey I'm the most accommodating gal I know!" But seriously, these folks need to get with the program. Let me know what I need beforehand and if for some reason I forgot some minor detail.. find a loophole! After all, it is what most people do for others.

Lastly, maybe it was just my angry mood this afternoon but what is it with old people drivers. I was leaving the Walgreen's parking lot, blinker clearly showing my plan of going left and this old geezer pulls up next to my left side trying to turn as well. Cut me off much? Anyway, if one more old person tries to play bumper cars with me, I am going to find the nurse most similar to Ben Stiller in Happy Gilmore and have them locked away. Anyway, I am done sharing my annoyances and hope that you will continue to support our "Mind Your Manhers" articles. After all, that guy is always pissed. (Skip to 1:20 on the vid)