Playing catch up

Okay, after some disc cleaning and testing it looks like my Assassin's Creed disc is not readable . . . for the first mission anyway.  I borrowed by brothers disc and downloaded the game to my hard drive.  Since then it's been smooth sailing . . . at least for the disc.

My playing style in these free-roaming games is to rob and steal everything I can and make as much mayhem as possible.  Either intentionally or unintentionally.  Well, Assassin's Creed is a game to played completely differently.  You have to walk, not run. Put your head down and be meek, not shove everyone out of your way.  You have to watch out for guards and Courageous Citizens, not kill everyone who gets in your way.  It's hard.

I'm finding myself doing a lot of other things instead.  Like climbing up to roofs and jump . . . or dance around.  Doing the "eagle eye" thing while up there is nice too but it's not showing me very much.  But then again I'm only on my second mission (the first being the training).

I find these types of games enjoyable but I always have a hard time playing them because I don't conform to how the game should be played.  Just the other night I had a Pickpocket side quest pop up.  I was excited.  Finally something up my alley.  But . . . since I knew Assassin's Creed is about stealth and not bludgeoning someone to death I tried to find a nice quiet way to relieve this guy of his throwing knives.  Except I bumped him to hard and he drew his sword (my character's got nothing at this point) and chased after me.  This caused other characters to join in the fight as well.  There was no amount of wall climbing, roof hopping I could do to get away from this guy or anyone who was helping him.  I eventually jumped off a building when my health was low so I'd die.  I wasn't going to give that the satisfaction of killing me.

I spent the rest of the night looking through the strategy guide trying to find tips and hints of how to be cautious, silent, unnoticed and deadly instead of my usual ogre pounding approach.  And I read up on how to deftly remove some knives from their owner's satchel.  Hopefully I can put that in to practice. 

I really want to plan this game.  Everyone says it's a good series and I really want to play some of my older games.  The only achievement I had was the achievement for finishing the training.  And I got that back in November 2007.  I figure it's time to play these older games and see what they're like. 

I'm also trying to play Halo: Anniversary but I'm having a hard time with the checkpoints and dying all the time for what seems like no apparent reason.  I know people have said I should just start playing Halo 3 or Assassin's Creed II, but I like to start at the beginning.  No matter how long ago that was.  I will eventually finish these games.  There might be another generation of consoles out by then, but it will happen.  Of course I'm sure I'll be playing catch up on those systems as well.