Adios Australia and Hello Ancient Egypt

Sadly, I've given up on Dinkum.  I was briefly excited when a new villager FINALLY decided to move to my town.  Things seemed to be moving in a positive direction as I was also able to unlock the plans for the repair bench...only to then realize that just having the bench is basically useless--you still need repair kits (something that I thought were sold at the general store...but are a specialty item sold by the same illusive character who I couldn't track down for the repair bench).  Even then, the repair mechanics for tools kind of suck.  One repair kit is fairly expensive--25,000 dinks.  Yeah, they do repair all the tools in your inventory...but why?  Why can't it just be simple and you can use readily available materials to repair the tools you use most frequently?  Ugh, I give up.  Weirdly, I found myself gravitating toward Assassin's Creed: Origins.  I've been in an AC friendly mood here lately for some reason--and I love Origins; in my opinion, it's the best of the RPG-style AC games.  Here's why:

1.) The Order

Every AC game has its giant conspiracy of very murderable baddies.  The baddies in Origins are sooo much badder than in Odyssey or Valhalla.  Sure, there are fewer of them, but at least each of them gets a bit of backstory that makes you understand why you should feel nothing but a sense of glee as you guide Bayek to stealthily stab them.  They kill kids, are corrupt, evil and all played a role in the death of Bayek's son.  I like the fact that Bayek gets a chance for a final confrontation in the Duat and you get the satisfaction of watching them all get dragged to their ultimate judgment.  Origins does revenge the best.

I love a good ancient Egyptian temple.

2.) Size isn't everything

I find Origins to be juuuust the right size--it's not as overwhelmingly huge as Odyssey or Valhalla.  Maybe part of it is the setting--personally, I think ancient Egypt offers up a variety in landscapes and biomes to be more engaging than the other games.  It just doesn't feel like it's overstuffed with too many map symbols and as a completionist I don't find myself wanting to do self-harm because I'm sneaking through my 5 millionth military outpost.

3.) Not too much modern mumbo-jumbo

There are some divided opinions in the AC world about how much of the modern story should appear in the games--some people like having the Layla/Abstergo/apocalypse/Isu/who the frak actually knows storyline.  I am not one of those people and feel like the modern stuff distracts from the story and I would rather have fewer interludes that pull you out of the ancient world.  Origins has a few moments, but it's minimally distracting.

If you're someone who hasn't checked out the Assassin's Creed franchise, I would encourage you to start with Origins.  It can be found relatively cheaply (and is totally worth the $12) and offers up, in my opinion, the best RPG-style AC experience.  Hours and hours of highly enjoyable stabbing right at your fingertips...what could be better?