I'm gonna let you all in on a little secret. That newest Assassin's Creed game? It's great!

That take is hotter than 50 Shades of Sparky, I know, but I'm wildly happy with this game. I should be - I've been playing it off and on for a damn month pretty much exclusively, and with over seventy hours in, I'm barely past the 60% storyline mark. That's partly on me, because I like monkeying around in the universe and because I have a hard time spotting certain objectives or things to destroy. But it's also because I'm just having a great time exploring.

Now part of that is due to the fun I'm making for myself. I've been swapping pretty freely between weapon types, and at level 55 or so, I'm pretty much just ramming through combat encounters for funsies. That aspect was a little frustrating for the first ten or so levels, especially when it came to the mercenaries who breathed on me and I died. Now I'm playing drums with three or four mercenaries' skulls at a time while fire-lovin' ladies are spitting at me with their devil bows and I'm loving it.

Kassandra's a dope character, voiced particularly well by Melissanthi Mahut, who I hope is a name we see featured in a lot more games. Kassandra's alternately full of wonderment and brashful exuberance, and is a fantastic counter to Abubakar Salim's equally likable Bayek from the previous game. The islands aren't quite as fascinating as that setting, but navigating Kassandra's world is still a great deal of fun.

My enjoyment is also aided by books on tape, which if you haven't tried before, grab yourself a good podcast game, get to your library, and bullshit with your librarian about Overdrive on your computer or device. I've been mowing down Craig Johnson's Longmire novels playing Odyssey and the combination of cowboy procedural and old timey hackin', whackin', and stabbin' has been a riot.

And that's it, I suppose. Sometimes I just gotta give a game its due, and this is one of those times. AC Odyssey is a real delight.