Assassin's Creed

PUBLISHER: Ubisoft
DEVELOPER: Ubisoft
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Medieval killing spree... no wait, what? Oh, ok...

Liked:
- Story (Past)
- Environment (Past)

Disliked:
- Story & Environment (Present)
- Repetition
- Quirky Controls
- One Odd Glitch


On The Fence:
- Lack of Trophies


The year is -- well I'm not sure but I'll claim it's the modern day/alternate reality where sci-fi junk exists. You're Desmond, some unknown schmuck who apparently is a distant relative of a great assassin from the middle ages. You're being held captive, made to use the Animus, a sci-fi inspired device that allows you to interact with genetic memories. As far as sci-fi plots go, this was... believable but unexpected.

Into the Animus - The year is 1190. It's the 3rd Crusade and the Templars are attacking the 'Holy Land' like crazy. In the midst of all this the assassin's guild is trying to thwart their every move. The Templars are after a powerful relic. After the opening, you are stripped of all your weapons and your rank in the guild. You have to prove you are worthy of them by pulling off a number of assassinations.

Liked
Not much to elaborate on.
The Crusade-side of the story was interesting. It kept me coming back.
I loved the look of the towns too.

Disliked
The modern day stuff, both story and environment, didn't really catch my interest. Maybe because it wasn't the direction I thought the game was going to take - not really sure. Something about it kind of irked me every time I was forced into it.

Repetition was this game's biggest flaw. Get assignment. Go to a town. Climb some towers to fill out the map.Help townsfolk in trouble. Gather info on target. Get approval from Assassin's Bureau. Kill target. Escape. Repeat. After target number 3 it felt more like a chore than anything else.

What totally didn't help was the controls. As I stated before, once I equated the touchy controls to the same crap I went through in inFAMOUS, I was in a better place - but that aside, it was still a pain in the ass.They teach you all these fancy techniques to use in fights but you're pretty much reduced to "hold block, counter their attack" for every fight. I wasn't able to pull off any good moves aside from the random pissed off button mashing made something ridiculous happen moves every once in a great while. Combos shouldn't be so difficult, and this comes from a guy who loves playing Ivy and Yoshimitsu in Soul Calibur.

There was ONE ODD GLITCH that I couldn't replicate but damn if it didn't totally fuck me up. I was fighting the end bad guy. I chased him around the garden and went for a jump-kill while he was running away. I missed him but managed to slip through the game mesh and into an area where I kept falling... and falling... and falling... for about 15 seconds. I eventually died from such a high fall but it took forever.

On The Fence
There are NO PS3 trophies for Assassin's Creed. None. Not even a "congrats for beating the main story line" one. While that's not really anything to hold against the game - because a lot of early PS3 titles were lacking them until Sony made it a requirement - it was kind of disappointing. Yeah I can say I beat the game and all but having a piece of code unlock a little icon that says "yup, he beat the game" is nice every once in a while.

I give Assassin's Creed a 7 out of 10. The controls are frustrating but the visuals more than make up for it. It's worth playing only so you get the whole story before diving into AC2.

7/10

Post-Holiday Haul and Activities

This season was very kind to me. Here's what I acquired:

PC: Plants Vs. Zombies GOTY, Bully: Scholarship Edition, NWN2 Platinum (all from the Steam sale)
PS3: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed 2, God of War III, Prototype, Darksiders, Bayonetta.

I also got the PS3 keyboard. This thing is great. The hunt/peck with the controller and the on-screen keyboard a few times was bad to the point where I nearly resorted to txtspk. Thankfully this little keyboard saves the day. It's costly considering what it is - just a Bluetooth keyboard - but to me it's a worthy accessory. I think the more you use PS Home or send console-mail the better it is. I don't go to Home much but I do like to send the occasional lengthy console message...

All that aside, the only games I've been tooling around with over the last few weeks have been Ghostbusters and PvZ (until last night when I fired up Assassin's Creed). GB is all about acquiring trophies. I had a vague idea of what needed to be done for a handful of them and those few came easy. I was working on some game-spanning activities (collecting all the cursed items, drinking from all the water fountains) when I picked up Plants Vs Zombies for about $5.

Plants Vs. Zombies
My cursory complaint with PvZ is that they tie you to the story-based "adventure mode" to unlock other game play modes. Having already been familiar with the PvZ game I wanted to see what else the title had to offer but sadly discovered they want you to toil through level after level of "adventure mode" in order to slowly reveal mini-games. I have yet to unlock anything in "puzzle mode" and I only have three out of twenty mini-games available. Still, it's a casual/puzzle game to begin with so I shouldn't really be too upset with it. I do not like the first mini-game you unlock where the zombies shoot back. Zombie bowling is fun, as is the slot machine mini-game.

In bowling you are supplied endless Wall-Nuts to roll at the oncoming horde. Some of these explode on contact, though mostly they will bounce among the enemies like a pinball, racking up precious coins you use to buy upgrades. The slot machine game is a crap shoot on what defenses you will have. You use Sun power to activate the slots then pull the handle. You may get 1 or 3 of any number of defenses, upgrades or more sun power. It gets frantic when you are lacking defenses and the zombies are closing in.

Assassin's Creed
I started Assassin's Creed last night. I had already heard it had some screwy controls and I was prepared. At one point I was running from a guard and went to climb up a building to escape. I scrambled upward, dodged right, ran around a tower and climbed upward some more. The next thing I knew I was sailing through the air to my death. The game reloaded faster than I could utter a "what the f..." and I continued on. Again I found myself being pursued by the law and attempted to escape by climbing to safety. I found Altair grabbing on to some random parts of the building and just sitting there. The guards were hacking apart his kidneys but the deadly assassin was dangling like a dumb ape from an awning.

Then it hit me - I've experienced this kind of bullshit control before: inFAMOUS. Cole did the same stupid things. Once I equated AC to InFAMOUS I was in a better place.

BioShock 2

PUBLISHER: 2k Games
DEVELOPER: 2k Games
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Would you kindly have more fun in Rapture?

Liked:
- Story
- Environment/Art Style
- Plasmid Upgrades

Disliked:
- Length
- Some glitches



On The Fence:
- New Hacking system
- New Research Camera
- Trophies

Liked
Honestly, for everything I liked about BioShock 2, see what I said about BioShock. It would be nearly identical. The story is different but I found it every bit as entertaining.

Sequel or Prequel?
I see a lot of people talking about this being a prequel because you play as the first Big Daddy, and that's half true. Without spoiling much of anything, you play as Delta, the 4th Big Daddy (if my Greek alphabet is correct) but the first successful bonded guardian of a Little Sister. The game starts in 1958, before the events of BioShock 1 but it isn't too long into the game that an event causes you to go into a sort of suspended animation until 1968 - nine years after the events of the first game.

There are new enemies like a Brute Splicer and the Big Sister - who will attack you after so many Little Sister interactions. She was interesting, and later in the game when you get to see them a bit better you can really appreciate the style.

Disliked
To say I'm not pleased with the length is somewhat a double edged sword. It was short. I just started playing this game on Friday evening, and now, the following Sunday, approximately 15 hours of game play later I am done. I find that both disappointing yet rewarding. Another game I can equate that to is Portal.

I think what I dislike the most about the length is that it seems the game got nipped a bit to make room for multiplayer. I haven't fired that up yet but I can tell you I'm at about 40% of the trophies because I haven't touched MP.

Some glitches I found are strange. I was fighting a Big Sister and nearly had her dead when she disappeared. I don't mean she ran off - I mean she vanished. The fight music (which sounds like it was written by Bernard Hermann) kept playing until I finished the level. Another glitch comes from using an awesome tonic called "Fountain of Youth" that allows you to regain health and Eve when standing in puddles of water. It didn't always work, and sometimes the meters refilled really fast while other times it went gut-wrenchingly slow.

On The Fence
The old hacking system in BS1 was pretty much Pipe Dream. You have x# of seconds to connect point A to point B before the liquid fills the pipe. This time it was a strange meter where the needle sweeps left to right and back again about 3 times before you instantly fail. You have to stop the needle in the green or blue zone on the meter's face. Sometimes I had this not register correctly and hit a red zone, setting off the alarm.

The new Research Camera is good because it does four awesome new things:

1. Starts recording video and instantly switches to your last used weapon
2. Makes the tagged enemy glow gold.
3. Has a running meter to show you how well you're doing on gathering research
4. Keeps a total of how much you've researched every enemy.

What didn't I like about it? Oh, same old thing... I kept forgetting to use it. I think I managed 100% on almost all of the types of enemies. I know I missed some of the basic splicers.

The trophies for BS2 are good and bad. Good because they throw one at you for doing good things - there is a moral choice to be made in a few sections and they give you a trophy for that. They're bad because you'll get some just for doing story-mandated tasks (really? A trophy for completing an area you have to complete to advance the plot?) as well as the aforementioned reliance on exploring multiplayer.

All in all I think this is an awesome follow-up to BS. If you weren't sure about it but loved #1, at the very least rent this one. Biblical and Philosophical overtones aren't as heavy-handed as the original, and that's not really a bad thing.

8/10

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

What: DLC for RDR 
Cost: $20, or $30 bundled with the other 2 DLC offerings.

PUBLISHER: Rockstar
DEVELOPER: Rockstar
Played on: PS3

Initial Impression: Old West 4 Dead



I knew I was in for a good time when I started. It was a separate storyline starring the one and only John Marsten. (Love that guy!) It starts out at the time in the main storyline where John has finished his government business and returns home. There's a wicked storm rolling in and 'Uncle' isn't back from his errands. Everyone's getting concerned but figure he's old enough to take care of himself. They all go to sleep, figuring they'd see him in the morning. Oh, he comes back a bit earlier... and a lot less alive than when he left. He attacks John's wife, then she attacks her son. You kill Uncle, tie up the other two and go searching for answers with only your Cattleman Revolver, a Double Barrel Shotgun, your lasso and enough ammo to reload those weapons about 5 times.

The UN story missions, much like the RDR story missions, send you all over the place in search of whatever the current NPC you're dealing with is after. There are side quests, challenges and random encounters just like the main game, and all with their own undead twist. Every town, post or fort you encounter is under attack and saving them comes in the form of finding and providing ammo as well as fighting off the horde. Once saved, they'll be stable for a while but keep your eyes peeled because they may get overrun at any point. You also acquire a new weapon each time you save a new town, though ammo is severely short.

Nearly every story-based NPC from the original game is encountered, and it's interesting to see how they are dealing with the zombie apocalypse. Speaking of Apocalypse...

There are Four Horses you can find and break. Pestilence. War. Famine. Death. Each has its own rare ability that proves rather invaluable when facing flesh-eating monstrosities. Pestilence is nearly impossible to kill (except when you slide casually down a short slope, apparently). War is on fire, and sets enemies on fire if they come in contact with it (handy to plow through groups of undead!). Famine has unlimited stamina (which is actually useless... all these horses have that). Death leaves a trail of - well - death in its path. A blue spectral haze travels behind the horse, detonating the heads of every zombie it passes.

The horse called "War" being captured.

There are new weapons - a blunderbuss that uses corpse parts as ammo, holy water that erupts in a blue flame when thrown at undead, undead bait and boom bait - the latter being the same as the former with the addition of a stick of dynamite.

Dislikes
The only things I can say I didn't like were the lifespan of Pestilence and the somewhat wonky aiming at times. The only way to stop an undead is to get a headshot. I had SEVERAL times when I've made perfect headshots (even while in Dead Eye) and it registers as either a miss or a body shot. I read that most people just put on the auto-aim because it goes right for the head, but I prefer to just scream at the TV.

Also - There were a few moments where I had to clear graveyards and got overrun, died and had to start over a few times in a row. That was frustrating. At least when you're clearing a town there's an indicator to let you know how much more you have to endure.

For paid DLC I kind of expected a tad more play-time, but overall it was fun and worth the basic $10 I ended up paying. I wouldn't purchase it any other way than as the bundled 3-pack.

9/10 - Worth Playing.

Post #102010-2

I'm not sure what to call this post. It's mostly mental vomit about games.

LOTRO

• It went free to play and I've met up with at least one person I know. It's a lot of fun helping people again.
• I reconnected with someone who I was very angry with for a long time. We resolved our differences nearly a year and a half after 'the incident' that drove us apart. It feels good to put that to rest.
• I started a new character - a burglar. The name is one I've used before, and it's not a dwarf.
• Harvestmath - the harvest festival - is active. I tried to get the horse last night ant the game glitched me out of a token. I was pissed, but I'll try again tonight.
• I'm working on my Return to Thorin's Hall skill. I am Kindred with the dwarves of Ered Luin and have 50/100 Dourhand crests. After this I'm working on Moria reputation.
• I'd like to max out all reputation, though some areas are difficult.
• I'm trying to get every horse, though some require meta-deeds. These are a specific combination of completed deeds and it's a pain in the ass.

L4D/L4D2/Alien Swarm/Borderlands

• All three need more attention. Need to play more MP games with friends. Too bad one is in a radically different time zone...

PS3

• I want to finish off the trophies for Dead Space, inFamous and Red Dead Redemption. I'm close to the end of all three.
• Beatles Rock Band needs more attention. Some group attention would be nice too.
• Fallout 3 needs to be completed. So does God of War and Heavenly Sword. And Tomb Raider Underworld. And Little Big Planet.
• Fallout New Vegas is getting a lot of hate lately but I still want to play it.
• I need to catalog and evaluate the games I have. Put them in some sort of order of status... whether I'll play them again or if I'm completely done with them.

Back In the Saddle

This week I decided to revisit Red Dead Redemption, mostly because I like to wander around in the environment and not have to worry about story elements sucking away all my precious time. When I first fired it up I was reminded about the one thing I didn't like -- I finished the story mode.

***SPOILER ALERT***

This means I was stuck playing as Jack. I don't like Jack. His voice and repeated phrases annoy me.

*** END SPOILER ALERT ***

Thanks to an update that brought in two new outfits to acquire, I also remembered I had a few outstanding trophies to try to claim. The first one I went for seemed easy. Manifest Destiny: Kill all the buffalo in the game on Single Player. I'd already shot one for the other trophy where you need to shoot one of every species, and though I felt bad about it I finally gave in to the fact that it's only a game. I got out my trusty Buffalo Rifle and went looking for the herd. No sooner did I resolve to accomplish this task that I ran into them. Every remaining buffalo stood before me. I raise the rifle and took aim. As I let one shot ring out, instantly killing the animal, I went into Dead Eye and took out another. The group started to scatter so I threw it into Dead Eye as fast as I could and took out another five. Since the Buffalo Rifle is a single shot weapon, the game drops you out of Dead Eye after every kill. I managed to get ten total from this initial run-in, and I made sure to skin each one.

The next half hour I spent looking for the rest of the herd. In this time I decided to terrorize Blackwater citizens a bit in hopes of raising my bounty amount. For one of the trophies you have to use a pardon letter to remove a $5,000 bounty. Having completed the game, this is difficult since all crimes are reduced by half. Shooting a lawman, for example, will only add about $50 to my bounty. I rode up to a heavily populated area and tossed a Molotov cocktail into the crowd. This not only set a dozen people on fire but caused the cops to take notice rather fast. I rode hard and fast away from town and waited for them to catch up, Buffalo Rifile in hand. If a gun can kill a 3,000 pound animal in one shot, just imagine what it'll do to a 180 pound man riding a horse. Distance helped a bit to knock a few off their mounts before they got anywhere near me, but then the posse was rounded up and started to close in from all sides. I took out my trusty High Powered Pistol and went to town.

Another of the trophies involves getting something like 1,000 kills with one weapon. Any weapon will do, but you need all the kills to come from using the same one. Seems I already have about 300 kills with the HPP, so I use it as much as I can now in an effort to speed that up. Its name is appropriate - one to two shots per target. By the end of the night I racked up $1,200 on my wanted poster. Things were going great as far as the trophies were concerned - I found the rest of the buffalo and sadly earned that one. I had amassed a bounty that I could easy triple the next night if I devoted myself to it. It was late and I was tired, so that's the only excuse I have for what happened next.

I was headed back home, riding along at a slow pace, taking in the scenery and planning my steps for the next session, when out of nowhere I was being chased by the law. Someone on the road recognized me? I have no idea - I think that's what happened... All I know is I was being chased. I shot up some deputies, took out some horses just to keep them at bay when I was hit with an ambush. A few appeared in front of my path and blasted away. I had no chance to react because I had the camera swung around behind me. 

DEAD.

My bounty was reset as the game loaded. I was pissed but vowed that the next night I'd start it again, only this time I'd wreak havoc on Mexico.

Free Time, Claptrap Rebellion & RDR DLC

I haven't purchased any of this, but I am interested in them...

Borderlands: Claptrap Rebellion

I'm too lazy to look up the correct title, but that's the jist of it. Frankly I found the Claptrap character funny at first but quickly became obnoxious and I never wanted to kill an NPC as badly as I did the Claptrap in New Haven. It just got really annoying, really fast.

The new expansion turns Claptrap(s) into the enemy. Apparently some previous bosses make an appearance in the form of special claptrap models. No level cap elevation, so aside from just having more stuff to shoot at there isn't a great reason to get this one - not yet anyway.

RDR Expansions

Briefly, there are 3 expansions - 2 out there already and one coming. I think most of them are Multiplayer geared, giving avatars and new activities for MP. The only one that holds the majority of my interest is the zombie one. Shocker, right? As someone online has already said, the appeal (for me) is that all this time, zombie games have been you and your modern weapons and gear versus the undead. RDR is set in 1910, in the old west. It's you and your six-shooter. Dead Eye will be helpful.

Other Junk - Rock Band

I played some Rock Band 1 yesterday. I never made it through the official campaign because I got bored. I'm now in London, don't know any of the songs left to play at the venue and am back to being bored. I played the Coheed and Cambria song in Tokyo -- why do people like that band?

Anyway that leads me to Rock Band 3. The tracklist has been shuffled around the 'net a lot recently and, again, I groan in disgust. At least they aren't being totally fake like Guitar Hero III was; You can't call your game "Legends of Rock" with a track list like that, idiots.

Going back to RB3, something about the track list that pisses me off is that it seems like they go out of their way to throw on unknown bands or totally obscure (which doesn't always mean GOOD) songs. 20th Century Boy by T-Rex? Echo & the Bunnymen? They lose me in the 2000's. I only know "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age.

My point? Dunno. I just rant about RB tracks. I'm a jerk when it comes to music.

Speaking of Rock Band - they need to add more Beatles RB albums. Let It Be (Naked), Magical Mystery Tour, Past Masters 2 and The Beatles (aka the white album) need to be there.

Other Junk - Valkyria Chronicles

A fellow Kotakuite suggested I give the game a shot after I commented how much I liked a figurine featured on the site. It took me a couple weeks to locate a copy, and about a week more before I popped it in the machine. Long story short - it's great fun! Expect a review... when I get to it.