Some basic looking online found this, which basically says they are having stock issues. Fine, I think, and wait patiently.

Today, I got a call from the local store saying they got them in, and one is waiting for me… a week after release (which is certainly better than 2 weeks). While picking it up, I chat with the guy at the counter, and he’s actually a bit annoyed by the whole thing, because the stores in Portland (a primary market) all got enough on launch day to meet pre-orders, plus about 10 extra. The Eugene store (a secondary market, I’d guess), got 20. They had 80 pre-orders. So B&N basically ignored their numbers, or decided people in Eugene could wait. I’m not sure which, but it smacks a bit of Nintendo’s launch of the Wii. Big markets got priority over small (which is fine, sort of), but isn’t a purchase a purchase? We have a national currency, Eugene’s money isn’t worth less than Portland’s.

Apple isn’t flawless, nor is Microsoft by any means, but when they launch a product, they attempt to have enough ready for launch day to meet demand that’s built up to that point. What happens after launch day for Apple usually results in sell-outs. B&N should have just sat on the product another few days to have enough stock to actually meet demand. I’m just glad I didn’t plan on one of these being a Mother’s Day gift.

The movie starts off already moving, and Loki shows up in no time ready to wage war against the helpless humans. Samuel L Jackson quickly makes the call, and the team is assembled with some stragglers (Thor shows up on his own, later, since getting in touch is not exactly a phone call).

As expected with a group of type A personalities (except possibly Captain America), conflicts abound within the team, but eventually they all come together to conquer the challenge.

As expected, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, really is the “star”, though the script that director did a very good job at giving all the individuals a good amount of time, story, etc. As usual for a Joss Whedon film, there’s a good amount of sarcasm, jokes, and humor for an otherwise serious film. And, as also typical, a “main” character dies. I won’t say who, but when it happens, it’s hard not to curse Whedon for his “signature“.

While it was obvious the movie was “long” it wasn’t unbearable, and the climax action scene, even though it was probably 15-20 minutes, it wasn’t boring like many action sequences can be. And I HIGHLY recommend you stay for the whole credits, and what comes after. It’s good for a laugh.

Highly recommend the movie, though I think Hollywood needs to re-examine their trailer writers/designers, because coming into this movie I was a bit concerned based on the trailers. Thankfully, those concerns were un-realized. This was easily the most enjoyable of the Marvel movies, with maybe the exception of Iron Man (1), but even that would be tough.

Rating: ★★★★¾ 

But one thing that’s always been a problem is that there’s no good way to shutoff the supply to the refrigerator ice maker/water dispenser. Rather than being normal, and attaching the supply line under the sink, they ran it under the house, and the needle valve is down there, but after trying twice to shut it off, it refused to work. So, I did something that should be standard anyway: installed a valve on the fridge side of the supply line. I found a 1/4″ ball valve, and 2 compression to NTP nipples that screwed into each side of the ball valve. Simply placed the valve between the fridge and the water supply (after shutting off the whole house water main), and I have a simple way to shutoff the water supply, unhook the fridge, and wheel it out. Also means if the fridge starts leaking (or the water line to it), I can shut it off quickly.

I don’t know why they can’t charge an extra $10-20 when you buy water supply kits for refrigerators and include a valve on the refrigerator side. Needle valves suck, and are not going to work reliably for long periods to shut off a water supply.

Simply put, you plug the device into the main outlet, and then the vacuum into an “accessory” outlet (and maybe a work light into the other). When you switch on the primary load, a simple hall effect sensor sees that, throws a relay, and the accessory comes on. After the load switches off, the accessory continues to run for 3 seconds to clear the line (which is awesome). Since using it while my wife has been sanding cabinets, the dust creation has been minimal, and there’s been no more forgetting to turn on the vacuum.

Sure, a whole shop vacuum would be better, but I don’t have a shop… I have a garage. So using my shopvac, and an auto switch, is far superior when it comes to multi-taskers, and space usage.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Jump to: Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Assassin’s Creed
The first game starts off a bit weird, and you’re left to figure some stuff out on your own, but in style befitting a Metroid game, you are soon stripped of all your fancy abilities and weapons, and sent to regain them over the course of several missions (each of which culminates in the killing of a specific target). The gameplay feels fairly natural, but the controls a bit complex (especially after just playing Skyward Sword), being broken up to “subtle” and “agressive” actions, and then different weapons, etc. All of this being carried out in the context of retrieving some specific memory from the ACTUAL protagonist, a guy in modern times being “forced” to relive the memories of his ancestors². Anyway, the goal seems to be to recover enough memories that access to a specific memory can be regained. I’ve been told gameplay is about 10-15 hours, which seems about right at this point…

I finished the game after about 11 hours, and while the story seems compelling, the ending was terrible. I know it’s supposed to lead into the next game, but I have the luxury of having that game already. I can’t imagine having this game when it was new, and having to wait 2 years after that terrible terrible ending. It basically amounts of Desmond seeing something, going “WTF?” and then credits.

Based solely on the gameplay, I’d give this game a solid score. But after that ending, I think I have to remove a star just out of shear spite.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Assassin’s Creed II
Assassin’s Creed II (AC2) started off pretty strong, and fixed all the niggling issues from the previous game (though, still no way to skip sequences that I could find). Until I figured out how to turn on the subtitles, however, the game was like a lesson in Italian (lots of random italian phrases dropped throughout dialog). The game was longer, and felt more and more like some form of Prince of Persia with the assassin’s tombs (basically, big jumping puzzles). The addition of so much side content was nice, though a bit tedious if you wanted “The Truth”… though the puzzles were fun (except when they got way to close to the Myst difficulty boundary).

Time will tell how Brotherhood and Revelations compare, but so far, AC2 was a bit step up from AC1 (just the graphics improvement alone was amazing). It makes me think AC1 was a project being worked on for the PS2 and was quickly ported to the PS3/Xbox360 when they dropped. That, or Ubisoft just got a LOT better at their design between the two. Could also be the Havok engine got that much better.

I gave AC1 a 3.5/5… this is easily better than that. While the ending was decidedly Luc Besson… it was still better than AC1 (though again, it ended with Desmond saying “WTF?!”).

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (AC:B) starts off fairly quickly, with some brief work as Desmond, but soon enough you’re back in Ezio’s shoes. In an opening and equipment loss worthy of a Metroid game (yes, almost as bad as AC1), you’re nearly back at the start of AC2, only with a bit more abilities. The entire game takes place in Rome, and it’s actually better for it. There’s none of the traveling between Cities, and even better, you can ride a horse around town (even better, you can summon a horse pretty much any time you want). The villain of the game is seemingly the son (maybe) of the man you left alive at the end of AC2. And the entire game basically revolves around, you guessed it, the Apple of Eden. And during that time, slowly getting back your items. The graphics appear much the same, but in a quest, no doubt, to make the game easier, everything has again slowed down. After AC1, then AC2, this game just feels like it’s taking place under water. Movements are slow, and ease of stabbing has gotten slower as well.

Gameplay isn’t interrupted really, at all, by exiting the animus. You can exit and live as Desmond anytime you want, but you don’t have to. Basically, the beginning and the end of the game are the only times you’re forced to live as Desmond.

Game time is pretty low if you just stuck to the plot. I took about 5 days to finish the game, and pretty much gave the game 4-5 hours a day. So, A good 20-25 hours should do it. And I could have gone much faster than that, but I spent a good amount of time raising my Assassin minions up to full fledged assassins (level 10). This mechanic, plus the crossbow, make the game exceedingly easy. The only hard parts are the parts where you have to avoid detection. Getting 100% of the game would be extremely time consuming as most of the key missions have a “completion” option, and a “full completion option” that throws an extra challenge in. Like, “Do this” or “Do this, but don’t swim” or “Do this, but don’t kill anyone”. Now, that’s just silly. It’s “ASSASSIN’S Creed”. *sigh* But, it’s ironic, because I’ve lamented that the game was too much Prince of Persia, and not enough Deus Ex. But, c’est la vie (or whatever that would be in italian).

Most annoying, by far: I finished the game with 43% completion. That’s just silly. You mean I beat the game, and I had only completed 43% of the content? That can’t be right. It seems you have to get all those extra bits of challenge done to get a higher rate, but no idea what percentage that would even give you. Nevertheless, you should NEVER beat a game with less than 50%. Ah well.

All and all, the game was solid, if a bit easy. I think I liked it better than AC2 because of the minion mechanic, but all the extra silliness reduced that score back down to the same aggregate as AC2.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (ACR, or Revelations from here on) is an evolution of AC2 and Brotherhood. In a way, this is kind of cool of Ubisoft. They’ve taken game development and moved it more toward software design. They introduce something in one, and “perfect” it in the next. Take the crossbow. In Brotherhood, it was a game changer. Basically, once you bought it in the game, the game became extremely easy. You could snipe people off, and they’d never even see you. But, occasionally, you’d miss a target that was right infront of you, and not know why/how. Revelations fixed this, seemingly, with the ability to aim better. You can aim like you do the pistol in Brotherhood. Missing is a thing of the past. Also, the things you do with Minions in ACR is much more polished. You can actually accomplish something with them: “conquering” Europe. Mind you, you never actually succeed, and it still needs handholding, but you do get some sense of satisfaction out of it.

The thing that really breaks the game, though, is the “Master Assassin Armor”. You get this by assigning assassin’s to specific locations, and then walking them through extremely easy missions. Once you do all 7 of these (1 of which is done early in the game), you get the second best armor in the game that is unbreakable. You can do this, at least as early as Session 3 (where I got it). At that point, the game is pretty much over. No one can kill you unless you’re really careless, and all but the absolute highest falls will not kill you. The “hook blade” (sounds like someone played too many Final Fantasy (Gunblade), Kingdom Hearts (Keyblade) games) is a nice edition since it seems to make leaping and grabbing a bit easier, though they further complicate the game with extra stuff you can do with it (long jump, jump over people, etc).

Anyway, the game takes place in Istanbul, while Ezio is off looking for the keys to Altaïr’s (the guy from AC1) library. The contents of which no doubt have something to do with the Apple of Eden (what seemingly is the true antagonist of all the games). After recovering each of the keys, Ezio gets to relive a memory of Altaïr (which is a bit annoying since they used a different voice actor for him, and having just played AC1 a month ago, is a bit distracting). Most people probably didn’t notice since it’d been 4 years between the two games. My only complaint about the game (at this point) is that some of the areas you have to go to retrieve the keys are incredibly dark… so seeing where you have to jump next becomes somewhat of a guessing game. But jumping along areas at this point is almost automatic, so once you get going on a path, you barely have to do anything but keep running. Gone are the days of AC1 where a slightly off center jump would result in death (desynchronization).

The worst part of the game is the tower defense “mini-game” where you protect your bases from Template attacks. But, you’re “rewarded” by not having to do it at all (other than the first time) by completing 6 additional master assassin missions (after the ones you do to unlock the Master Assassin Armor listed above). The second missions might actually be easier than the first missions, and as an added bonus, you get the best sword in the game (Altaïr’s sword). After doing all these missions, the den’s are no longer able to be threatened, and you can basically ignore your notoriety.

Other than these things, the game is quite good, albeit, short. Both Brotherhood and Revelations are pretty short if you don’t take the time to do any side quests, or mini-games. They’re almost short enough to be more like DLC, though if you include all the side stuff, probably not.

While there are 9 sequences (like the previous games), the final one is basically just the end sequence. And before that, the final boss was not so much a fight, as a game of whack-a-mole. But, it closed the story, and the end was the end. And for once, the game didn’t end with Desmond saying “WTF!?”, it ended with him knowing where to go for AC3 (due in October of 2012).

Rating: ★★★★½ 

1. Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, in that order
2. in an explanation that seems ripped right from Frank Herbert’s Bene Gesserit and their “other memory”