And, of course, there are plenty of people who will trouble Aveline, because Liberation employs the same annoying, contrived elements as every other Assassin's title. That means you'll constantly encounter things like the knots of three men who stand around talking and ignoring everyone else in the city, yet who are drawn to Aveline like iron filings to a magnet the instant she walks past. Rather than asking for money or strumming a lute like the beggars of yore, these guys take a more disturbingly aggressive approach by physically assaulting her, grabbing her by the arm and shoving her back and forth. And, as in previous games, it could be a convincing game element -- an unnerving, sexually tinged assault -- if it happened in moderation. The problem is that the exact same trio of thugs appears all over the place and does the exact same thing over and over, and always only to Aveline, revealing the utter artifice of the entire thing and rendering it a tiring nuisance.