I have now beaten AssCreed III. Apparently this game got a fairly mixed reception from fans of the series, but I'm not sure why. I thought it was great, and a big improvement of the general format of the series. The controls are simplified, the combat is much improved, with lots of fun animations that take into account details like the environment and the character you're playing as, the optional content fits the setting well and helps with immersion, and the story is fantastic. That last point stands out to me the most. It would have been so easy for Ubisoft to go the "rah rah America fuck yeah" route and end the game with the player assassinating George III or something, but thankfully the game largely averts that and keeps the moral focus of these historical events on the conflict between Native American tribes and settlers, regardless of whether they're British, French, or American. Personality-wise, Connor is a bit low-key, but I was fine with that. After three games of Ezio's flamboyance, a more dialed-down hero was the right call this time around. And speaking of our hero, I love that Connor is a Native American himself, rather than a benevolent white man come to rescue the helpless colored folk who can't...sorry. I've explained my distaste for the "white savior" trope in quite some detail before, no need to give a repeat performance. I'm just glad it wasn't here.
And then we get to the modern-day subplot. It wasn't all bad. Desmond and his friends have grown on me a little by now, the sections that interrupt the main story are very well-timed, and it's neat to try out your assassin skills in modern settings. But the story, this overarching apocalyptic crap, is just awful. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea? These games are about being an assassin in a historical setting. That's what gets marketed, that's what people like about them, and that's why they play them. They are not about the Matrix, mythical advanced races, or the end of the world. Those concepts are about as far away from the core element of being a historical assassin as humanly possible. I'm not saying they're inherently bad, or that they offer nothing to enhance the core game (I do actually like the idea of these magical MacGuffins linking all these individual stories together), but you can't just tease them for five minutes in every game up to now, then suddenly make it a huge priority five games in and expect everyone to be super-invested. I don't know who Minerva is, I don't know who Juno is, I don't know what they were arguing about in the final cutscene, and I don't really care. And I really wish they hadn't used that stupid "December 21st, 2012" crap as the basis for their apocalypse. That simply dated the game, dated it as surely as if they had made a dumb pop culture reference to Rebecca Black.
I've also been playing Just Cause 2. It's enjoyable, but I can't say it's deserving of the level of glowing praise that the Internet seems to have bestowed on it. It's repetitive, full of artificial difficulty (the enemies respawn so quickly they might as well be rising from the dead), and the writing and voice acting are so bad that it's actually pretty distracting. That Southern guy in particular is just agonizing to listen to.
Thankfully, I'm much more satisfied with The Witcher. roosroos's enthusiasm for these games has encouraged me to play through the trilogy.