You might be able to tell by looking at the picture above that Twain — my character in Skyrim — is having something of a crisis of confidence right now. That’s him on the barstool, drowning his sorrows at the Vilemyr Inn, and I can’t blame him for his despair. While Steam tells me I’ve spent nearly 18 hours in Skyrim since I started keeping this diary, I can’t help but notice that Twain’s still wearing the same grungy furs he’s had since early on in the game. What’s worse, I could pull up a menu showing that despite all that in-game time the poor guy is still only level 11. If we were able to ask him, Twain would probably take a swig of Honingbrew Mead and express that he felt like he’d been through all this before.
After the jump, mod-induced deja vu syndrome Continue reading →
I need money. More money. I’ve got some money, but not enough for the really nice weapons. For instance, the dual pistols would be nice for the aesthetic appeal of flintlocks akimbo. The three-round magazine on the pepper pistol would be really sweet for setting up chainkills. Of course the most practical firearm would be the cute little pocket pistol, because Aveline can use it when she’s disguised as a slave or out on the town as a proper lady. I would love to be able to whip out that pistol when Aveline, dressed like a lady, starts getting grief from those thugs at the docks, or in the slums to the northeast. They don’t care about Aveline when she’s dressed as a slave, and they know better than to mess with her when she’s decked out in her assassin’s gear. But when I show up in a dress, they’re downright impertinent. A pocket pistol would be just the right response.
Otherwise, Aveline can only pack heat when she’s in her assassin outfit, and that attracts far too much attention for just getting around town. I suppose I could lower the assassin’s wanted level by paying off New Orleans magistrates, but that gets expensive. Once Aveline has knifed a few soldiers, the going rate for hush money is a few thousand dollars. I’m never going to get better weaponry if I keep paying corrupt politicians.
But what I really need the money for is a hook axe. It hits hard, it’s fast, and it can set up dramatic chain kills on up to four enemies. Chain kills are cinematic freedbies without any counterpart in the other Assassin’s Creed games. Once I’ve built up charges, I can pause the game, pick as many targets as Aveline’s weapon allows, and dispatch them in a flurry of dramatically presented automatic kills. With a hook axe, I’ll be a melee powerhouse. And this is important, because the melee in Liberation isn’t quite the gimme that it is in Assassin’s Creed 3.
A hook axe costs 24,000 from the weapons shop. By the way, don’t buy anything expensive from the wandering smugglers. They may talk a good game, but they’re only good when you need to buy something cheap in a hurry. They’re selling hook axes for 31,000. Fools. Do they know that I’ve made thousands of dollars dealing drugs in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars? Do they think I have no business sense when it comes to open-world games played on handheld systems?
After the jump, they might be right. Continue reading →
