Assassins Creed: Origins

 

I've never been interested in Egyptian history. I've always found the names confusing, the time period hard to wrap my mind around, and thus despite being referenced a lot in modern times, it is not anything that has piqued my interest. I've been playing through Assassin's Creed games, and with Origins being based in ancient Egypt, it may have been one that I wouldn't have selected to play in the past. However, we saw a replica exhibit of King Tut's tomb in North Carolina last year which has sparked my interest in Ancient Egypt. Additionally, one of my daughters is really interested in ancient Egypt, so I decided to give Origins a go. I was not disappointed. Below is ChatGTP's summary of the plot:

You play as Bayek of Siwa, a Medjay (protector of the people). After a mysterious masked group abducts Bayek and his son Khemu, Bayek is forced into a struggle that results in Khemu’s accidental death. The masked conspirators are part of a secret organization called the Order of the Ancients.

Consumed by grief and guilt, Bayek swears vengeance and begins hunting down the Order’s members across Egypt.

Bayek reunites with his estranged wife, Aya, who is also pursuing the Order. As they eliminate its members, they uncover a vast conspiracy manipulating Egypt’s politics.

The Order is backing Ptolemy XIII, while Bayek and Aya ally themselves with Cleopatra VII, who promises to restore Egypt’s greatness. Together, they help Cleopatra reclaim her throne with support from Julius Caesar.

However, Cleopatra ultimately sides with Rome and tolerates the Order’s continued influence, betraying Bayek and Aya’s ideals.

Realizing that tyrants will always rise so long as power goes unchecked, Bayek and Aya conclude that their fight must be bigger than revenge.

They form a hidden organization dedicated to fighting oppression from the shadows—what will become the Hidden Ones, the precursor to the Assassin Brotherhood.

• Bayek establishes the creed in Egypt.

• Aya (who takes the name Amunet) operates in Rome.

• The iconic Assassin tenets begin to take shape.

Aya later assassinates Julius Caesar, linking the series to real history.

Per the usual in AC games, the bigger plot is the Assassins vs the Knights Templar, in this game labled as the Hidden Ones vs the Order of the Ancients. What's especially cool about this setup in Origins is that it establishes the Hidden Ones, it is their Origin story. Additionally, roaming around in an open world set in ancient Egypt was just cool. The Great Pyramids are always looming, seeing the lighthouse of Alexandria on the coast of the Mediterranean, and thinking about how amazing it is that these structures existed thousands of years ago. The whole setting was quite enjoyable. And I have to mention my trusty Camel Billvadore, who transported me around for the duration of the game and was quite enjoyable to ride. 

Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Ptolemy, etc. are hugely famous historical characters that honestly I didn't know much about. Anything I knew about Caesar came from Shakespeare's play. It was really interesting to learn a little about these people and the political struggles of the area going on at the time. The scenes that take place in modern times are a weak point. They're confusing and pull me away from the main story. Other than that small complaint, I really enjoyed this game. It's definitely one of my favorite AC games, and is an early game of the year contender for me in 2026.

Fallout (Season 2)

 

Fallout season 1 was my introduction to Fallout. I was aware of the games but had never played them. I had a general understanding of the premise. Nuclear bombs were dropped, people living in vaults survived, and chaos occurred on the earth's surface with mutated animals, people, etc. Post-apocalypse settings have never been my thing, nor has first person views on games, and thus I never played the games. Season 1 got really good reviews, so I decided to give it a watch and I really enjoyed it. This led me to play Fallout 4, which I also really enjoyed, so much so that I made a trip to Boston to visit the Commonwealth. With this enjoyment and newly found love for the Fallout universe, I was really looking forward to watching season 2 of the show. I was only a bit disappointed. From ChatGTP:

Season 2 shifts much of the action toward the Mojave Wasteland, bringing in major factions and locations familiar to longtime fans:

• The New California Republic (NCR) emerges as a fractured but ambitious power trying to restore order.

• The Brotherhood of Steel faces internal conflict as its ideology is challenged.

• New settlements and rival warlords compete for control of technology and territory.

The season explores how different groups interpret “rebuilding civilization”—through democracy, militarism, or brute force.

I didn't include ChatGTP's expanded character summary, but basically Lucy traverses the Wasteland, arriving at New Vegas to find her dad. She struggles with her own moral code in how it conflicts with survival in the Wasteland. The Ghoul goes with her to find his family, but learns they've left their vault. Most of his important scenes are from the past, however, when he is Cooper Howard, interacting with Vault-Tec executives learning that they are responsible for dropping the bomb. The scenes from the past are great, but the show pulls the rug out from under itself when it first frames Cooper's wife as being the bad guy, but then retracts this by saying she was forced to move the bomb dropping forward by an unidentified external power (the enclave maybe?). 

The entire plot and writing of season 2 seemed to be a bit off. A lot of time seemed to be spent on inconsequential stuff, asking more questions than it answered, and feeling like it was purposely leaving questions unanswered in order to have something to discuss for season 3. Some of the side plots especially felt rushed, and it seems like this is a show that would benefit from a longer season as 8 episodes forced some rushing of the plots.

Not everything was bad, however. As always, the music was fantastic. The video game nods were amusing, even for games that I've never played like New Vegas. I enjoyed seeing New Vegas and Mr. House, and the slow-mo bullet shots were cool and featured in Fallout 4. The flashback scenes were very well done too, and some of the more enjoyable scenes of the season. I just think the season progressed somewhat slowly, and left a lot of important questions unanswered, but not in a good cliffhanger kind of way. I'll likely watch season 3 (though we're dropping Amazon Prime - more on that in a future post) and am excited about potential remakes of Fallout 3 and/or New Vegas, games not currently playable on the PS5.

Forza Horizon 5

 

My first post about Forza Horizon 5 (FH) diverted into a post about console wars and the importance of this game being on the Playstation. Since then, I've played FH quite a bit more, so it is time to talk more specifically about the game. Having previously never owned an Xbox, FH5's appearance on the Playstation last year was my first opportunity to play a game in the famed Forza series, and I was quite excited for the opportunity. The Horizon version of the Forza games are a bit more of an arcade style vs. the more sim-based games in the Forza Motorsport series, but I was so excited just to play any game in the series that I was fine with it being Horizon. The game has an open map where you drive around to various locations where races are being held. FH5 takes place in Mexico, and the feel of the map with lawless driving gave the game a bit of a Los Santos from Grand Theft Auto V vibe. There were times when I was a bit annoyed by how much driving I would have to do to get to some of the races (it takes about 10 minutes to get from the west coast to the east coast of the map), but then I realized that part of the charm of the game is the driving experience. This is one of the unique aspects of the Horizon games versus most other racing games, and is similar to The Crew Motorfest. My commuting car to get to the races was an Audi RS7, a fast and easy to drive car. Once you get to the race, you are given the chance to switch cars to whichever car is most appropriate for the race. And there are a lot of different race types, from off-road Baja style races, to street races, to cross country races. Additionally, there are various ways to interact with the scenery on your way to races, such as drift zones and jumps. All together, it took me around 30 hours to complete nearly all of the available events at least once. It's an impressive amount of content. 

Additionally, there are stories and missions for local Mexican car culture as well, which is cool. The number of cars is impressive, especially if you're a virtual car collector. You really only need a small handful of cars to compete in the races, however. In addition to the RS7, I utilized a C8 Corvette and Ford Hoonigan Escort quite a bit. The 'Vette was a great road racing car, and the Hoonigan Escort was great at the off road races. The stories told during the game were intriguing and did a great job of setting the stage in terms of why we were in Mexico putting on a car show and racing event.

The racing action was quite good. The competition would adjust based on the car you selected for a race, and if you were too good (or bad) the game would ask permission to adjust the difficulty level to make the racing more competitive. Overall I enjoyed the game quite a bit. The visuals were amazing (some of the scenes where storms were occurring were fantastic looking and sounding) and the game had a bit of a plot to it which was enjoyable and unique for a racing game. The racing action was engaging and enjoyable. As I said above, it took me around 30 hours to complete the majority of the events one time. This is a game that I could continue to play for hours on end, but after 30 hours I was ready to move on to my next gaming adventure. Forza Horizon 6 comes out later this year and takes place in Japan, and I'm quite excited about it. The next time I pick up a Forza game it will likely be 6 in Japan.

Long Way Home

 

Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman have taken some epic motorcycle rides across the globe. On this trip in Long Way Home, Ewan and Charley ride from their homes in the UK through Scandinavia and back through northern Europe on their way home. We've been watching their shows from the beginning, initially traveling around the world starting in London and then going across eastern Europe and Russia to Alaska and all the way across the US to New York City in Long Way Round. They then traveled from the UK to Cape Town, South Africa in Long Way Down. Next, they traveled from the southern tip of Argentina to Los Angeles in Long Way Up. Finally, their trip through Scandinavia on Long Way Home.

One of my favorite parts of a show like this is getting able to learn a little bit about different countries, especially their landscapes and geography. Scandinavia is a part of the world that we rarely get to see on TV in the US. All three countries - Sweden, Norway, and Finland - looked quite nice, but Norway was by far my favorite. The Norse mythology and Viking history is cool enough, and in addition to that the country was littered with quaint fishing villages squished against a mountain backdrop that was really quite picturesque. Finland was heavily forested, and seemed quite peaceful as well. I think the other country that caught my eye on the trip was Austria, with its valley towns surrounded by the Alps. 

Of course, the other major part of this show is the trip itself and the challenges they face on motorcycles. This time around, they both selected older bikes for the trip. They did face some minor malfunctions, and Ewan even some semi-major malfunctions, but overall their old bikes held up well on the lengthy trip. Of course, the landscape was nothing like crossing Siberia on Long Way Round, where there were large stretches without roads and they were crossing rivers without bridges. This trip was almost entirely on tarmac. 

The rarely seen scenery, the challenges of the adventure, and Ewan and Charley all make for an interesting and entertaining show. I hope they continue to make this series in the future, although at this point they've been just about everywhere on earth. Maybe a trip around Australia or more into Asia is in store next?