Tour of Duty (1987-1990)

Much like World War two, the Vietnam war is a seemingly endless time period in which all sorts of military tomfoolery went off. Renowned for being one of the worst defeats suffered by the United States military, the repercussions of the war can still be seen and felt today.

Despite the humiliations though, Americans seem to view the war with a curious mix of nostalgia and disgust.

                                                           (Series Title Card)

"Tour of Duty" ran for 58 episodes, spread out over three series and aired between 1987 and 1990.
The three series can be seen as distinct from each other as the core group of main characters change locations in between series, which is explained as them being "assigned to other duties", but in the real world, it was due to the producers wanting to cut down the cost of location filming.

Initially filmed at a marine base in Hawaii, series two saw the production move to Los Angeles, explained in show as the unit being "Reassigned to SOG duties" and being based in Saigon; this led to a running joke of the same locations being used multiple times, but always as "something different". The second series saw the introduction of numerous female characters in an attempt to entice viewership away from rival network ABCs "China Beach", which was also set during the Vietnam war but focused on the lives of a group of Army nurses, it didn't work.

The core characters of this series are introduced in the first episode, which starts the series off in early 1967:-
2nd Lt. Myron Goldman is the officer who is assigned to command Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon; following the death of their commanding officer in combat during the opening scenes of the pilot episode.
Staff Sergeant Zeke Anderson has been in effective command of the unit, and as a long time Vietnam veteran, he provides much needed advice to Goldman.
Both characters bond over the course of the series, with both men learning to respect each others abilities.
The remainder of the unit changes over the course of the fulls series, with troops either returning home at the end of their terms of service, being killed or being removed from the unit for various reasons (its usually a sign that when a new face appears in rank and file of the unit, it means that they will either be killed by the end of the episode, or discharged for some, usually dishonourable, reason). The unit itself is made up of a variety of "stock" characters, and over the course of the series the unit goes through various iterations of these characters, complete with their stereotypical back stories explaining their various outlooks on life and hangups etc, what is surprising though is that the series writers have no qualms about killing off established members of the unit.

The series writers also had no qualms about making whole episodes which had very little by way of machine gun exploding things action and instead concentrated on individual characters and stories looking at things like racial prejudice, drug abuse, sibling rivalry etc etc. This is one of the things which makes the series stand out amongst series of a similar premise, as not only was the war and its various foibles explored, but so was the everyday lives of the people fighting in it, and moreso, the consequences associated with their particular foibles.

By the time of the third series, which saw Carl Weathers  in the role of Colonel Brewster take over and assign the platoon to undertake "secret" missions behind enemy lines; came around, viewing figures for the series had dropped significantly, which wasn't helped by CBS "schedule hopping" the show so that it eventually ended up directly competing with NBCs "The Golden Girls". The series was cancelled after the third season drew to a close.

One of the things about the series was its use of time accurate pop music, so much so that several compilation albums were released, however, in a legal oddity, when the series was released on DVD in the US, all of the series music was replaced, including the shows iconic use of "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones as its theme tune, by generic "soundalike" tunes or original instrumental compositions, this didn't go down too well, especially as fans of the show outside of the US got a completely unedited DVD release, including all the music and a lot of the violent bits that were cut out for US release.

While the series started out strong, the gradual erosion of its main concept and attempts to make the show more "family friendly" led to its eventual position of being yet another generic military program with talky bits.

Comedy Spotlight - Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers was a British comedy actor known for his many roles in film and on radio. Although he was christened "Richard Henry Sellers", his parents opted to call him "Peter", which was to have been the name of their first child, however this child was stillborn.

Sellers began his career on stage as a drummer whilst touring with his parents, who were both members of a touring variety troupe. Over time, Sellers developed a talent for mimicry and comedic performance, this would serve him well for most of his career.

Sellers himself led a rather odd life, from an early age, he developed a very close relationship with his mother, to the point at which his long time friend, Spike Milligan, regarded as being somewhat worrying and un natural. Sellers also had a rather odd relationship with religion, with his father being an adherent to the Church of England, and his mother being a non practicing Jew. He didn't find out about his Jewish ancestry until he entered a Catholic school, and took it upon himself to follow the tradition of Jews taking the beliefs of their mother, although it was not clear as to why he found it important to do this, as Sellers himself was never a practicing Jew. Spike Milligan noted that Sellers seemed to have a deep resentment of this Jewish heritage, and was once moved to tears when Milligan presented him with a Jewish candelabrum as a christmas gift, an act which Sellers misunderstood as being an anti-semitic insult.

Sellers joined the RAF at the age of 18 in 1943, although no record exists of whether he joined willingly or was conscripted but it is known that his mother attempted to have him exempted from military service on "medical grounds", this request was denied.
Due to his chronic myopia, for which he wore glasses his entire life, he was excluded from pilot training, and instead found himself performing mainly administrative duties, which he found to be exceptionally boring, although the experience he got from dealing with senior RAF officers provided the inspiration for "Group Captain Mandrake" one of the characters he played in "Dr. Strangelove".

To escape the dullness of administration work, Sellers volunteered to join the "Gang Troupe", a unit of performers who provided entertainment to troops and personnel throughout the UK and India throughout the war. Although Sellers toured extensively with the Gang Troupe, he was known to have greatly exaggerated the time he spent touring and entertaining, as well as his importance to the company.

Sellers was posted back to England in 1946, and eventually demobbed in 1947, however his attempts to get back into theatre were somewhat lackluster, with him only being able to secure work sporadically. Sellers, being somewhat vain and egotistical (something which caused numerous problems throughout his entire career), took all the rejections he recieved personally, and allowed this resentment to build up over the years, frequently resulting in fits of unfocused rage being directed against anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

Sellers eventually decided to try and kickstart his career by auditioning for several BBC radio productions, and enjoyed a decent amount of success, being cast in various radio and TV broadcasts, however, it wasn't until he telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer directly, whilst pretending to be Kenneth Horne, a major radio personality, to "recommend" himself. Speer saw through this deception, but decided to audition Sellers anyway, admiring his cheek. This led to him becoming a top bill star on BBC radio, and introduced him to many lifelong friends, such as Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, with whom he went on to perform extensive work with in "The Goon Show".

Sellers met Australian actress Anne Howe in 1949, and they later married in 1951, after Sellers had begun to find fame in films, with his first big break being cast as "Harry" in the 1955 film, "The Ladykillers". Their marriage started off seemingly idyllic, but as time went on, Sellers' strange behaviours and fits of rage, largely directed against his wife and children, began to erode the relationship.

Sellers career as a comedy actor plodded along, as did his rather strange home life, for the remainder of the 1950s, however a big turning point in his life came in 1960, when he was cast opposite Sophia Loren in "The Millionairess". Sellers was initially not interested in the role, however when he found out he was to share extensive screentime with Loren, he changed his mind. This was due to him having an obvious attraction to her, and seemed to be under the impression that she was attracted to him, despite both of them being married and also the fact that Loren couldn't stand him. This culminated in Sellers returning home one night and declaring, in front of his wife and two children, that he didn't love them as much as he loved Sophia Loren, and that he intended to leave them for her.
The "relationship" with Loren never materialised, and soon after, Anne Sellers began an affair with their decorator, having gotten tired of Peters continual abuse, humiliation, drug and alcohol abuse, and, above all, his flagrant womanising. Sellers was known to regularly have sex with female extras and production staff, and made no secret of it, even speaking about his sexual exploits to his children, both of whom were still very young and had no understanding of what he was talking about.
Sellers son, Michael, stated that his father once woke him up in the middle of the night and asked for advice on whether he should divorce or not, and later directly asked both Michael and his sister Sarah, who were aged 7 and 4 respectively at the time, who they loved more. Sarah answered she loved both parents equally, while Michael answered he loved his mother more, this response received yet another violent outburst. The marriage ended in divorce in 1962, with Sellers remarking that he hated both his children and never wanted to hear from them or their mother ever again.

Despite his off-screen antics causing problems for both him, his family and his work, Sellers continued to get regular work, being a "bankable" star in films and still a hit on radio, however his runaway success playing the inept French detective Inspector Clouseau in 1963s "The Pink Panther" served only to fuel both his egomania and his paranoia, but did establish a long term working relationship between Sellers and director Blake Edwards. This came after Sellers decided to relocate to America after the death of his father in 1962, and his close friends noted an increase in Sellers erratic behaviour and soon he became increasingly difficult to work with, as he became more and more dependent on alcohol and drug abuse.
More film success followed, with Dr. Strangelove in 1963, and A Shot in the Dark in 1964, which was a sequel to The Pink Panther.
Soon after, Sellers met and married Swedish actress Britt Ekland, based on a misplaced recommendation by his astrologer friend John Morris. They had only known each other for 10 days when they married.

During the filming of "Kiss me Stupid" in 1964, Sellers and actress Kim Novak butted heads over how things should be done, causing numerous problems on set. Sellers left the production as, on the evening of the 5th of April, he took copious amounts of amyl nitrate in preparation for sex with Ekland, which caused him to have 8 heart attacks over the course of three hours. Director Billy Wilder was quoted as saying he didn't care about Sellers heart attacks, as you had to have a heart in order to have them.

It took Sellers a fair while to recover from this, however he made appearances in several major successful films, including "Whats new, Pussycat?" and "After the Fox", in which he appeared with Ekland.
During the filming of this movie, Sellers tried to have director Vittorio de Sica fired for "disrespecting his wife", a move which was unsuccessful and led to problems on set. Sellers also caused problems by loudly and repeatedly humiliating and berating Ekland during filming (nobody disrespects my wife but me!)
Sellers career chugged along until 1967, when he was cast in the James Bond spoof "Casino Royale".
For some reason, Sellers was under the impression that he was being cast in the role of James Bond, and was to play the role straight, as he had constructed the false reality in his mind that he was now going to start playing "serious" roles in movies. Unfortunately for Sellers, this was not the case, and the film itself was intended to be a satirical comedy farce, lampooning the James Bond films.
On set, Sellers and Orson Welles openly hated each other, this stemmed from Sellers jealousy of Welles imagined friendship with Princess Margaret, as well as Sellers disgust at Welles being allowed to perform magic tricks on film, this, along with the director demanding that he ad-lib funny dialogue and do stupid things on film, angered Sellers as it destroyed his vision of the film being "straight". Sellers eventually left the production, it was never established whether he was fired or if he quit. The film itself was eventually reworked as most of it had been filmed, but as Sellers was no longer available to film missing scenes, a new storyline had to be woven together from both old and new footage, resulting in a bizarre farcical movie which made very little sense, but was still a hit nonetheless.
Later in the year, whilst filming "The Bobo", a poorly received comedy film in which Sellers starred alongside Ekland, Sellers mother suffered a heart attack and died, this affected Sellers greatly, as his scarily close relationship with his mother had always been there. It was at this point that Ekland said the abuse she received from Sellers began to get physical, and Sellers drug habits became more and more out of control.

Sellers career took a sharp downturn after this, with his marriage to Ekland ending in 1968 after she tired of his abusive attitude towards her, both at home and when working together, and a string of unsuccessful films, including a further three Pink Panther sequels. Sellers relationship with Blake Edwards deteriorated as well, with Edwards describing Sellers mental state as akin to that of an inmate in a lunatic asylum. Sellers himself had long become resentful of the fact that, in his words, "people didn't like Peter Sellers, they only liked the characters he played", and he soon began to describe himself as being little more than an empty, personality free "shell" into which various persona's flowed and channelled themselves.

Sellers married actress Lynne Frederick in 1977, and almost immediately their relationship was an abusive one, with Sellers being known to repeatedly physically abuse her. in 1977, Sellers suffered another heart attack, and was fitted with a pacemaker, as the years of drug and alcohol abuse finally caught up with him whilst on a flight from Paris to London.
Sellers filmed "Return of the Pink Panther" in the same year, and the film was a success, reigniting Sellers career as a film star, although by this time, Sellers was sick of playing Clouseau, and the head of United Artists wasn't sad to see him go either, as by now, Sellers mental problems were becoming a very serious issue, compounded by the fact that Sellers refused to seek any professional help.
1979 saw Sellers film "Being There", a film project he had wanted to do since the late 60's, mainly as he identified with the original books main character, the personality free gardener "Chance", struck a chord with Sellers, as "Chance" simply ends up being whatever other people want him to be, similar to how Sellers saw himself to be.
The film was a critical success, and led to Sellers appearing in various other productions, however the film caused a rift between Sellers and his 15 year old daughter Victoria, who, when asked what she thought of the film, said simply "dad, you looked like a fat old man". Sellers took an immense dislike to this description of his own "masterpiece" and after a violent confrontation, disowned both her and his other daughter Sarah.

Sellers final film, "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu", released in 1980, was critically panned as being an "inept attempt at comedy".
Sellers had numerous projects in the pipeline following this disaster, however his health worsened, and his marriage to Frederick ended in divorce. he did make an attempt to reconcile with his son, however on the 22nd of July 1980, shortly after taking lunch in his room at the Dorchester hotel, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack. Although he was hospitalised, he eventually died shortly after midnight on the 24th of July.



I first encountered Peter Sellers whilst watching one of the "Pink Panther" movies during my childhood, and although the inept behaviour of Inspector Closeau was funny at the time, when I saw Sellers in other roles, I realised that although Sellers was a brilliant comedy performer, his abilities were somewhat limited.
His life is interesting to me, as his "funny" personality on screen sharply contrasts with the dark off screen personality,  to which, by all accounts, meant he was a complete and utter bastard to everyone around him and was quite rightly despised by just about everyone who knew him.
He represents the physical fusion of the concepts of both the "unhappy clown" and of the stereotypical "diva", who is allowed to carry on doing as they please with no one willing to tell him "no".
He is quite rightly regarded as a comedy genius, as his ability to"nail" characters and get laughs is unparalleled, although this ability came at the price of his sanity, as he frequently was unable to "get out of character" once the need for it had ended, almost as if he enjoyed being someone other than "Peter Sellers".

Space: Above and Beyond (1995-1996)

Space: Above and Beyond (Also known variously as Space 2063, Squadron 58, Space Marines, Space War 2063, Space Commando, Star Squadron and many others, depending on which country you are from) was a short lived military Sci-Fi TV series created by X-Files writers/Creators Glen Morgan and James Wong as a side project while that series was still ongoing.

                                                               (Series Title Card)

The first, and only, series takes place between the years 2063 and 2064, a time in which mankind has begun to explore and colonise not only the outer solar system, but also due to the discovery of predictable but highly mobile wormholes, other star systems as well.

The series begins proper when the first extra-solar colony, named "Vesta", comes under attack by an advanced alien species, ironically while the colonies leader delivers a speech about mankind being alone in the universe.
A second colony, named "Tellus" is planned, however the colony ship is attacked and heavily damaged as it makes its landing run on the planet.

The Tellus colony ship is what sparks the beginning of the series storyline, as prior to its launch a colonist named Nathan West is forcibly removed from the program on the orders of US Government senators for political reasons. This removal separates him from his long term girlfriend Kylen, whom he pledges he will find and be with again, which leads him to enlisting in the US (Space) Marine corps, as there is a slim chance that he will be stationed to system monitor duty in the Tellus system, which will allow him and Kylen to be together again, the destruction of the Vesta and Tellus colonies puts a damper on this plan though, as for the first time, mankind has to fight a war against a completely alien enemy.

Initially, the series plays out along the lines of what is seemingly a "humans v evil aliens" type storyline, however, as time passes, it slowly becomes apparent that the aliens, who are nicknamed the "Chigs" (due to their passing resemblance to a chigoe flea - their real name is never revealed) are not as evil as it was thought, and that the cause of the war is not a straightforward question of "Us vs Them".
Nathan West is eventually assigned to USMC 58th Squadron, attached to the Carrier vessel USS Saratoga, where, during the course of the pilot episode, they distinguish themselves by thwarting a Chig plan to directly attack the planet Earth.
The remainder of the series follows the members of 58th Squadron as they fight their way through the war one day at a time, hampered by the various bits of infighting and politics that are as still prevalent amongst mankind in the future as they are now.



Numerous plot arcs and story lines are followed in this series, and, unlike most Sci-Fi offerings of the time, are intelligently written, examples include:-



Racism/Prejudice - Part of the series backstory is that about 5 years prior to the series beginning, mankind fought a war against "The Silicates", a race of human created androids intended to perform labour considered dangerous or too menial for humans. At some point, a computer programmer, seeking to revenge himself upon a supervisor who took credit for his work, inserted a virus in the Silicates programming, which urged the androids simply to "take a chance" instead of following logic. This petty decision led to all of the worlds androids rebelling, which in turn erupted into open conflict, causing the deaths of millions of people.
In response to this, Human genetic engineering gave birth to a race of artificially created humans, referred to as "in-vitros", who are created in laboratories and who were originally intended to be used as soldiers to fight the AIs. However, this backfired, as in-vitros, known mostly by the derogatory terms "Tanks" (referring to both their method of birth and the fact that they are generally tougher than normal humans) and/or "Nipple-necks" (due to them having a noticeable navel on the back of their neck, as opposed to being on the stomach as it is on a normal human) are "born" with the physical age of 18, but the mental age of a newborn baby, they are then quickly and brutally rushed through education and indoctrination, which although instilling the required level of military knowledge into them, instils none of the psychological knowledge which normal humans acquire through years of life (most of the in-vitros shown during the series appear to have an adolescent type of mindset).As such, the in-vitros are considered to be both lazy and cowardly, as during the AI war, very few of them actually fought or performed any of the duties they were created for.

Most humans are shown to treat in-vitros with extreme prejudice, who for most of the series are shown to be treated as little more than slaves and/or animals.This leads to various plot lines where they are openly defiant and rebel against humans, and are even used by humans in plots to cause trouble with the war effort.

Loyalty/Betrayal -  One of the recurring themes is the intense loyalty that 58th Squadron develops for each other, sometimes at the cost of disobeying their superiors. Conversely, one theme that also recurs is betrayal or distrust of "outsiders". Numerous characters pop up during the series whose motives and true intentions are either never made clear, or who outright betray everyone. While this is an expected trait from AIs (all of whom harbour an intense dislike of humans) when it is displayed in other humans, it usually ends up being something shocking or unexpected.

Conspiracies/Cover ups -  One thing that crops up at various points in the series is the involvement of the megacorporation "Aero-Tech" in numerous aspects of both the war and human space exploration in general. Aero-Tech is shown to be a major aerospace company who manufactures space craft for the various Earth governments, but also seems to have numerous hidden agendas, and, who as it turns out, may have had a hand in inadvertently causing the war in the first place, a fact which they try, using various underhanded means, to cover up.

Psychology/Torture - Throughout the series, both the humans and the Chigs are shown to make extensive use of disinformation and psychology to try and outwit each other, up to and including psychological torture and "reprogramming" of individuals to perform some purpose inherent to their respective war efforts. On the human side, things such as hypnotic suggestion and psychological programming are used to make people believe things that are not true, or to coerce them into performing deeds which they normally wouldn't. Both the Chigs and the AIs are shown to make extensive use of terror tactics and terror weapons in order to destabilise the human war effort.

Although S:AAB didn't really tread any new ground (similar plot lines were explored in the TV series "Tour of Duty") , it did bring forth a fairly interesting, although sometimes dry, Sci-Fi tale which was set close enough to "now" to still be recognisable to the causal viewer, but just far enough into the future to allow for convenient Sci-Fi trappings to give the writers enough freedom to explore plotlines without having to make too many nods towards realism.

Although the series was well recieved, its convoluted plot and expensive special effects, coupled with it "schedule hopping" led to the decision being made not to commission a second series.
As such, the series ended on a cliffhanger, which the creators hoped to resolve in a possible feature length episode or movie, however as time went on, people lost interest in the project and thus it never materialised.
Since then the creators have given rough outlines to what would have happened if the series had continued, including most of 58th Squadron being killed or captured and the various survivors encountering personal problems, both due to their experiences and with the replacements for those killed.

In the years that have passed since the series aired, actor Joel de la Fuente, who played Lt. Paul Wang in the series, has been vocal in his criticism of the way in which the series handled stereotypes, labeling his character as being little more than a stereotypical "Asian coward" and most of the other characters as being "cardboard cut outs". Understandably, de la Fuente has not been asked to take part in many of Morgan/Wongs other projects since, unlike many of the other people who starred in this series.

S:AAB is a nice series, but some of the series 24 episodes are just downright boring to watch, as the writers seemed to be trying too hard to make the series cerebral, and ended up instead making convoluted and dialogue heavy scenes which confused many viewers and created plot holes.

Its not a bad series, but its not a great one either....

Video Game Review: Assassins Creed: Rogue (2014)

Been a while since I waxed lyrical about a "current" video game (yes, yes I know, the game came out in November 2014, but for me, that's "current") and being as I managed to pick up a second hand copy of this game el cheapo, I thought it was a groovy idea to give it a go.

So yeah, the 7th entry of the Assassins Creed saga (well, on the 360 anyway, not counting the next gen stuff) takes place BEFORE the events of Assassins Creed 3, AFTER some of the events of Assassins Creed 4 and BEFORE some of the events of Assassins Creed 4 and even manages to cram in some events in "present day"....(brain...confuzzled....emergency..shutdown...in...progress...arrgh!).

*ahem*, anyway, the main story takes place during the years 1752 to 1760, roughly covering the period in and around the Seven Years War , a war in which the major powers of Europe decided to have a little argument over which parts of Northern America belonged to who (nobody really won this war, a series of treaties were signed, gentleman's agreements were put into place, and a lot of the outcome of the war was binned a short time later )

SOoooooooo, as per the usual premise of these games, you, as the protagonist in the present day, use the Animus device to "relive" the memories of the past through the eyes of someone who lived in it, via accessing genetic memory, which, since AC4, is now no longer limited to your own personal genetic history.

As the same un-named employee of Abstergo Entertainment (A wholly owned subsidiary of Abstergo Industries) that you played in AC4, you are tasked with reliving the memories of Shay Patrick Cormac, an American born man of Irish descent who lived and took part in the events of the Seven Years war. You are tasked with doing this as the Abstergo Entertainment building appears to have come under attack by a computer virus, released when Cormacs memories were accessed, and as such, they need to be reconstructed in order to find the cause of the cyber attack...apparently.

Shay begins his life as a junior member of the Assassins order, under the tutelage of Achilles Davenport, however pretty soon, Shays rebellious streak and strong sense of moral righteousness lead him to becoming disillusioned with the Assassins cause, particularly so when a mission he is given ends with thousands of innocent people getting killed due to poor planning and a poor understanding of the forces that are being dealt with.

Its at this point the game really begins, as Shay sets out to right wrongs in his own way, which ends up having him fall in on the side of the Freemasons..sorry, the Illuminati...sorry, the Templars, and become an important figure in the North American cell of that organisation.


Yeah so, once again, AC:Rogue is a "journey of discovery" type game, same as all the others, offering a nice alternate history slant on recorded events, I like this, its one of the reasons that I keep playing the AC games and regard them highly.
As has become the norm for the AC games now, Shay must spend a lot of time gathering resources in order to renovate run down areas of his home town of New York, and these resources are gathered by taking to the high seas with his tricked out ship, The Morrigan, and "liberating" them from hostile powers, such as the French, the Dutch and the odd Assassin controlled ship.

Play takes place over a large map, covering the areas in and around the Northern Atlantic, including some parts of the Canadian coastline and the Arctic. Being as this area is generally very cold and icy, your ship is eventually fitted with an icebreaker prow and swimming in the freezing waters is generally discouraged, however theres plenty to do while your sailing around, as icebergs can be rammed to collect goodies, enemy ships can be attacked and boarded for loot, and unmapped areas can be explored for further loot and goodies, then of course there are the various hunting and fishing challenges you can partake in for bonuses and crafting items.

And here's where I get to my first complaint..... the storyline of AC:Rogue is fairly short, and the developers have placed a much, much greater emphasis on the "side" activities.
Yep, there are now 200 animus fragments to collect, as well as 50 Templar/Treasure maps, viking swords, native artifacts, cave paintings, "prosperity" markers and blueprints which are required to fully upgrade both your ship and your personal equipment, oh, also, there are a selection of sea shanties for you to collect for your crew to sing.
Then of course there's "legendary" sea battles to take part in, fortresses to capture, warehouses to loot, assassin hunting missions and other various puzzles and object gathering tasks that you need to do in order to fully complete the game.

Yeeeaaaahhhhh......

My second complaint is that the game seems to be somewhat glitchy from time to time, thus far, I have found the following:-

1. Sometimes when you have sailed somewhere, if you get killed, you and your ship respawn in the middle of the land area where you died. While initially, this is a little funny as your ship majestically sails over land, it soon becomes annoying when you want to get back on the water and continue whatever it was you were doing, but the game now sees "water" as a barrier and "land" as the sea, resulting in your ship sinking as it tries to "sail" back to water and then respawns on land, rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. In order to escape this, I found that getting off the ship and then swimming or taking a lake crossing to another town causes a save point to trigger, which then deposits your ship in that areas dock and allows play to continue unhindered. This is a pain in the posterior and shouldn't happen..Grr!
2. For some unknown reason, if you are using a wireless controller with the vibrate function turned on, every time an alert is triggered your Xbox instructs your controller to turn off. At first everyone who has reported this problem assumed it was something to do with the controllers battery being low, but no, its not, its down to some really weird foible of the programming which equates the "vibrate" command with "power off controller"... The problem is easily remedied by turning off the vibrate function, but unless you know this, it leads to being killed a lot as you get swarmed by a load of assholes while you furiously hit the "Big X" to switch your controller back on, only for it to turn off again as soon as one of said assholes hits you....Grrrrr!
3. As with all of the AC games, from time to time, Shay sometimes cannot climb or step over things when you really need him to, such as when chasing sea shanties or chasing after someone...its fucking annoying then when you have to hang around and go back once the thing has reset...Grr!, also, sometimes instead of jumping/climbing over a wall, you'll squat down on it Spiderman style and stick there until you release the sticks/buttons. This usually happens at the worst possible times...double Grrr!

The games combat system has also been changed slightly, with more emphasis placed on "counter" attacking enemies using your sword and racking up long strings of "combo kills", in a similar manner to the "Arkham" batman games, and also the tactical use of Shays new grenade launcher weapon. Less emphasis is now placed on the "sneaky sneaky" aspect that was the main aim of the Altair/Ezio era AC games.


So, do I like AC: Rogue?, well, yes and no.

YES because its still a good enough game, despite its various shortcomings, short campaign missions and over reliance on "collectables".

NO because of the glitches, and the feeling that the game is just a reskinned version of AC4.

If you've never played an AC game before, Rogue is not a good starting place, as you have to be somewhat familiar with the AC games as a whole to understand what you're supposed to be doing and why.