Mansions of Madness, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Oh those mad mansions, they always flummox me. I was on the side of the investigators in Mansions of Madness, exploring a school building that apparently spent every moment being plunged in darkness. This scenario is a weird one because the keeper doesn’t have a lot of monsters running around, so their only options is to build up strength and cause the lights to go out, and attempt to scare the crap out of the investigators as much as possible. My investigators were doing pretty well, I picked up on the clues, but I got screwed in a couple of ways. First, one of the items I found was a ceremonial skull, which either gives the player some skill points or the keeper threat. It takes an action to use, and tests luck, so it’s barely worth it, but when the keeper has the ability to force you to use it? It can get bad, because more often than not he will get double the threat for his effort.
There was also this terrible moment when I was storming around, ready to complete the objective, when my detective Joe Diamond has the misfortune of losing his last sanity point. Usually not that big of deal; you go a little crazy, you become a bit instable, but nothing REALLY bad can happen, right? Actually, no, the keeper threw down a trauma card that causes the investigator to kill himself. It’s a terribly frightening card that really raises the stakes, and it sealed my loss, because it took out the only fighter. A great moment.
Also kinda played Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Well, I definitely played it, but I sure wasn’t winning. I have decided that I’m not that big of fan of the new Assassinate mode, just because it’s a pretty wishy-washy system. The free-for-all means that you are getting attacked a lot, and scores seem to skyrocket quickly. I like having a little control and not having to watch out for seven other people. Up to four is enough.
But, now that I’m level 50, I no longer care if I win or not, just if I’m having fun, and I did have a lot of fun. Disguise continues to be a surprise favorite, especially during Manhunt, because they are looking for those other guys, so they will pay no attention to you, and you can get some sweet stuns. The new map is also really cool, Alhambra, with a lot of different levels and some cool flavor. It’s funny because the word instantly triggers in my mind that popular board game that I’ve never played that seems to have 12 different expansions. So I didn’t actually know what it looked like, just that it looked Middle Eastern like. Turns out, it’s actually in Spain. Huh.
Oh those mad mansions, they always flummox me. I was on the side of the investigators in Mansions of Madness, exploring a school building that apparently spent every moment being plunged in darkness. This scenario is a weird one because the keeper doesn’t have a lot of monsters running around, so their only options is to build up strength and cause the lights to go out, and attempt to scare the crap out of the investigators as much as possible. My investigators were doing pretty well, I picked up on the clues, but I got screwed in a couple of ways. First, one of the items I found was a ceremonial skull, which either gives the player some skill points or the keeper threat. It takes an action to use, and tests luck, so it’s barely worth it, but when the keeper has the ability to force you to use it? It can get bad, because more often than not he will get double the threat for his effort.
There was also this terrible moment when I was storming around, ready to complete the objective, when my detective Joe Diamond has the misfortune of losing his last sanity point. Usually not that big of deal; you go a little crazy, you become a bit instable, but nothing REALLY bad can happen, right? Actually, no, the keeper threw down a trauma card that causes the investigator to kill himself. It’s a terribly frightening card that really raises the stakes, and it sealed my loss, because it took out the only fighter. A great moment.
Also kinda played Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Well, I definitely played it, but I sure wasn’t winning. I have decided that I’m not that big of fan of the new Assassinate mode, just because it’s a pretty wishy-washy system. The free-for-all means that you are getting attacked a lot, and scores seem to skyrocket quickly. I like having a little control and not having to watch out for seven other people. Up to four is enough.
But, now that I’m level 50, I no longer care if I win or not, just if I’m having fun, and I did have a lot of fun. Disguise continues to be a surprise favorite, especially during Manhunt, because they are looking for those other guys, so they will pay no attention to you, and you can get some sweet stuns. The new map is also really cool, Alhambra, with a lot of different levels and some cool flavor. It’s funny because the word instantly triggers in my mind that popular board game that I’ve never played that seems to have 12 different expansions. So I didn’t actually know what it looked like, just that it looked Middle Eastern like. Turns out, it’s actually in Spain. Huh.
A whole lot of older buildings in Spain are actually very Arabic in design and construction. Islam kind of swept across North Africa and up into Spain in its first few centuries, and it took a while for the Christians to kick the Muslims out of the Iberian peninsula. The Reconquista is something I'd like to learn more about, it was barely even mentioned when I was learning history in school!
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