• 7Dec 09

  Were going waaay back

  I normally refrain from talking about PC titles because quite frankly I have a serious lack of PC gamers on my friends list (shame on all of you!) so it'll likely be received with little interest but recently I've had a crazy desire to play some classics. I normally go through this phase sometime during the year. It's one of the reasons why I enjoyed Retro Revival Week from back in the day on Gamespot. As it turns out, I found out that my Acer Netbook works as a great retro machine due to the 1024x600 resolution and the portability (thank you China for my 9 cell battery *_* ).

  

  Right now I'm getting into Baldur's Gate II, everyone keeps mentioning how Dragon Age Origin's is its spiritual successor and one of my all time guilty sins (aside from never finishing a single Mario game) is never having played Baldur's Gate II which is unacceptable being the huge RPG aficionado that I like to claim to be.

  

  is it me or does this portrait look surprisingly like Vin Deasel?

  On the TV side if things, I just finished watching the latest episode of Dexter. I can only sum it up with a HOLY SH#$%T! I didn't see that one coming , probably the best television episode I've seen this year (or should I say online) Any Dexter fans out there?

  

  • Posted Dec 7, 2009 8:45 am PT
  • 11 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 30Nov 09

  Assassin's Creed 2 Impressions - Take 2

  The Good

  Visually similar but artistically superior…

  The sandbox games of this generation have had certain familiar design traits, modernized locations like Liberty City (GTA IV), Stillwater (Saints Row 2) and a fictional empire city (Infamous) all come to mind, so it shouldn't be a surprise when I say that it's extremely refreshing to play a game set in these old aged cities of yesterday.

  

  While Assassin's Creed II sports the same basic visual pallet as the previous version, from a design perspective it looks different enough to still make my jaw hang open. Fifteenth century Florence looks far more beautiful than any city I'm accustomed to seeing in a videogame, the clothing and even the NPC behaviors scream of authenticity. I'm about 12 or so hours in and having seen Romagna and Tuscany in all there digitized glory; it makes me want to go back to Europe. Simply put, the game looks just as beautiful as before, if not more.

  Assassin's need purpose too…

  One of the most glaring flaws in regards to Assassin's Creed's storyline was Altaïr's personality. To put it simply he had none, he was flat as a character and killed simply because he was ordered too. We had very little background information about the character or the personal motivation he got out of his job as an Assassin so as gamers we were left feeling very little for him as a character -- At least that's how I felt.

  

  Ezio on the other hand is the exact opposite and this is perfectly illustrated in one of the first running missions you're given -- Comically trying to escape an angry father who just caught you in bed with his daughter while you try to deny the allegations during the chase. So yes, he's an Assassin with a sense of humor but naturally he didn't start out as one. Without revealing too much about the storyline, I'll simply say that due to a betrayal of sorts you begin to understand why Ezio has to take up the calling of an Assassin and it's this fact that made all the killings performed feel justified.

  The Music..

  Amazing…

  Being an Assassin never felt so badass…

  I remember commenting about the sheer amount of ways there were to kill people in this game during my short time with it, but I don't think I completely understood just how much you could do providing that you had enough imagination. Instead of describing all the various upgrades you can gain I'll simply describe a memorable situation I encountered.

  • I had my character walk casually towards the square where my target was located. In order to get In I ordered a few prostitutes I just hired who were lingering near to distract the guards at the entry way. As they did there thing I casually walked in and eyed my target while I stood next to a group of NPC's having a conversation. I made sure to make note of the amount of guards surrounding the area before I proceeded. There were conversations being held conveniently around the square so I reached for my gold coins and dropped a few on the floor which momentarily caused a ruckus. Afterwards while the crowd mostly centered on the dropped change I went in for the kill from the back. After the short exchange of words the guards were suddenly aware of what happened and I patiently waited for them to close in before dropping a smoke bomb which engulfed the area. I then knifed every damn guard, about 8 in all before the smoke even cleared. I then looted the bodies to the dismay of onlookers and dashed out.

  ..crazy

  Micromanagement…

  
  

  Everything you collect in this game provides you with money, every kill you make results in money, every person you loot, provide you with…yes money. At a certain point in the game you end up in a villa that is basically yours to maintain. It'll go from a crusty hellhole with a relatively small population into the same sort of beauty you'd find in Rome with a large populace to boot. It all depends on how much coins you end up putting into the renovation of different structures. As a result you'll receive discounts at stores as well. It all gives the act of collecting and currency some worth.

  The Bad

  Where am I?...

  Well the overall map needs some work. It's still pretty easy to get lost in the middle of a city when you're just trying to find an exit. A simple dot on the screen doesn't do a good enough job sometimes despite the countdown timer. When you have large areas surrounded by walls that are impossible to leap over, it makes finding the two only possible exits an annoying headache.

  Facial animations look...Less than human...

  Movement animations aside, which are still amazing btw, say little in the defense of the pretty poor facial animations in Assassin's Creed II. It's nothing that particularly bothered me too much but it was an unfortunate flaw considering how polished the rest of the game looked.

  ---

  Final Thoughts…

  I think Assassin's creed II towers over the original in the narrative, gameplay and length based on what I've played so far. The fighting is a lot more fun and varied, the characters are so much more appealing, the environments are sometimes breathtaking, the music is excellent, and the missions aren't as annoying as before as most of them are optional. I think if you even remotely liked the first game, you should definitely pick this up and there's not much to say after that.

  • Posted Nov 30, 2009 9:31 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 5 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 5Nov 09

  Assassin's Creed 2 impressions

  Just yesterday I got the opportunity to try out Assassin's Creed II alongside one of the developers from Ubisoft Montreal.

  For the few of you who caught my previously deleted entry, I actually thought I was going to visit Ubisoft's new Toronto studio but it turns out some wires were crossed in the translation so it turned out that I actually ended up going to a pretty trendy lounge/bar that just happened to have a ton of HD televisions and developers within along with an open bar – an environment I can definitely get used to.

  

  ("stop talking!", but really he was a cool guy lol)
  

  I wanted to have more play time but the funny thing is that I made the mistake of starting my interview with the question "could you start off by telling us what's new with Assassin's Creed II?" So he basically went over everything while I pretended like I didn't want to just grab the controller from his hands and start playing, this lasted a good 15 minutes...ugh, I definitely have to work on my interview skills.

  Well let me start off by saying that one of the striking things about this game comes from how brutal it is, despite all the ways you were able to take out foes in the first, this edition just seems to take it to another level. Placing the game in debug mode, the developer showed me several ways to take out opponents. Taking a guy's own sword and sticking it through his chest, using dual wrist blades and sticking it in the temples of two guards who just happen to be standing side by side, using opponents as shields and then killing them afterwards, I mean the list goes on. I'm convinced at this point that they must have a team dedicated solely to figuring out just how to kill people in the most badass ways possible

  

  Visually the game looks amazing as you can tell by the vids and screenshots, not a huge step above but when you consider how great Assassin's Creed looked in the first, I was left satisfied. It also seems like they did away with most of the repetitive missions and made them somewhat optional based on what I was told. You're able to hire people this time around to handle certain tasks for you, along with creating distractions which seems like a great addition.

  

  One of the possible flaws however is the notoriety aspect. It works much like the first game where for a certain point in time you had the attention of guards everywhere, but this time around they make it a chore to get rid of it. You're tasked with removing wanted posters, bribing etc, I can see it becoming repetitive after a while especially for a gamer who isn't keen on stealth. So far I'm really looking forward to it, especially since our main character has an actual personality this time around where you actually know what he's fighting for, makes all the killings seem slightly more justified. Felt good, looked good, played good, I'll just have to see what the finally product brings.

  
  

  On an unrelated note, I finally got Batman Dark Aslyum and picked up GTA: Episodes from liberty city. Combined with Forza 3 and that Left 4 Dead 2 demo..

  

  ...I'm in gaming heaven right now.

  • Posted Nov 5, 2009 1:28 pm PT
  • 13 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts »