by Graham Hall
Assassin’s Creed - A Review
Yes I know this is an older game but bear with me. I picked up this game a few weeks ago at GameStop because I was curious to try out the series. After finishing White Knight Chronicles (a game I have very mixed feelings on) I started on Assassin’s Creed.
Assassin’s Creed puts you in the shoes of an assassin named Altair…or rather it puts you in the shoes of some guy named Desmond who gets put in the shoes of an assassin named Altair. See, some evil mega-corp is trying to use Desmond’s biological memory (which apparently stores every detail of every memory that ones ancestors ever had) to help them find some treasure. In these memories, Altair has been tasked with assassinating 9 very evil people who may not be evil, but maybe they are, I don’t know.
Now Assassin’s Creed is, at it’s core a very fun game. The story is ok, though a tad predictable, and the gameplay is fun. Nothing is more satisfying than sneaking up on an armed guard and taking them down before they even know what hit them. The concept is great, but in execution the game falls flat.
First off, the controls are terrible. There are different button combinations that you have to press just to do basic tasks, and while you do get used to it after awhile, the fact that Altair takes your input as mere suggestions gets very frustrating. I try to jump a gap between 2 buildings but Altair decides he’d be better off swan-diving into a haystack.
Secondly, combat is ridiculous. This goes under controls too I guess, but whatever. You can use attacks or counter attacks. Attacks are generally useless unless you’re going after a single enemy, and counter attacks, while useful in more dire situations, don’t always work. And even if they do work, Altair seems to just kick the enemy down 90% of the time, or kill them epicly the other 10%. In fact, I’m rather sure Altair has a mind of his own. At first I forgave the crappy combat system because the game was supposed to be stealth-based. Well apparently the game forgot all about that at the end when it basically forced me to take on about 8+ guys at once.
Thirdly, repetitiveness. There are lots of repeating elements. There are only 4 mission types (and each of the 9 targets have 6 missions associated with them). Dialog gets repeated over and over. Seriously, how many times do I have to hear a crazy man rambling about the will of God? And why the hell is this man following me to every town I go to? It’s creepy! Then there are beggars who badger you non-stop for money. I’m sorry did I say ‘beggars’? I meant to say beggar, who stalks me along with the ‘God man’.
Fourthly, crappy sound. Besides the repetitive dialog, there’s some pretty crappy sounding audio throughout the game. Due to the multi-platform nature of this title, the game was constrained to fit within a DVD, which meant a few corners had to be cut. The most annoying are the low-quality, highly compressed, voices. You’re walking along hearing fairly decent quality vocals, when out of the blue a robot-like voice starts asking you what you’re doing. Why this is even an issue on the PS3, which uses frikin’ Blu-Ray for heavens sake, is beyond my capacity to understand.
Finally, the visuals. For some reason, the game designers thought it would be cool to make the game all glitchy-looking. You’re about to die and the screen starts flickering and rather than try and run away you just get distracted. Or maybe thats just me and my ADD. Either way, it would be nice to have an option to turn it off, like WET does for it’s annoying film grain.
To the games credit though, the environments are well designed, and very fun to jump around (when Altair isn’t feeling grumpy). Not to mention the stealth aspect, which is fun until the game chucks that out the window. Unfortunately, these do not make up for the fact that overall, Assassin’s Creed is a mediocre game. I really wanted to like this game (and for the first few hours I did). The concept is fun, the story is interesting, but the execution was so poor.
I would say don’t buy it, but the game is old enough where you’ve probably already bought it and either loved it (for some reason) or hated it. But if you are one of the lucky souls who have yet to play this game, I suggest you keep it that way.
2001-2010: A Decade of Tech
So this is it. We’re in the second decade of the 21st century. The past 10 years have been interesting in many ways, especially when you think about how much the world of technology has changed.
Back in 2001 nobody could have predicted where we would be today. Nobody could have guessed that we’d have entire music collections in out pockets. Or that we would be able to stream HD movies to our living-rooms over a high-speed Internet connection. Or that we’d have constant access to the web wherever we went.
The prevalence of technology has certainly increased as well. There was a time when all anyone had was a computer and maybe a cell phone that just did calls and texting. Now almost everyone has their own laptop, smartphone, and even portable game consoles (my grandmother has a Nintendo DS for crying out loud!) My mom, who swore she’d never buy herself a computer for the house bought 2 MacBooks (the first one was stolen)!
The biggest revolution this decade was in how music is purchased. Do you remember a time when you had to go down to the record store and physically buy a CD? It’s almost unfathomable in this age of iTunes and AmazonMP3. Sarah Bareilles has a new album out? You can just log on to your computer, buy it, and download it all within a minute.
It all seems so natural to us now, but 10 years ago nobody could even fathom this stuff. Technology now plays an important role in more peoples lives than ever. More people than ever are able to share their ideas (case and point, this blog). People are more connected than ever possible. And yes while there are downsides, I think the benefits far outweigh them. I for one cannot wait to see where we end up in 2021.
I Don’t Get It
Why do we send messages out into space? As a society, have we learned nothing from our science fiction films? When aliens come to Earth in these movies they seldom come in peace. Any aliens that would bother to drop by out planet most certainly wouldn’t be here on vacation, they would come to conquer. So why call attention to ourselves?
Thankfully if aliens do come to our world, we have a secret weapon that no alien invasion could ever withstand: Justin Bieber. Just broadcast his latest hit single to the alien mothership and they will flee, spreading the word of Earth, and warning others to stay clear of it and it’s dreadful pop music.
LittleBigPlanet 2 - A Review
It was early 2010 and I was looking for some good games for my PS3 and I stumbled upon one such game called LittleBigPlanet. Hours upon hours of hopping, playing, crafting, and sharing were spent. Nearly all my free time was consumed by this game. Then I learned of a sequel and I became excited. The sequel would boast more robust tools for crafting levels and that was one thing I could not wait go get my hands on.
LittleBigPlanet 2 has a heavy focus on user created content, one might argue even more so than the first game. As such many of the new features in this sequel are made mostly to benefit creators.
One of the major innovations is the “Controllinator”, which allows aspiring level designers the ability to map controller buttons to objects and contraptions, and can even allow for entire games to be created. Another major new feature is the music sequencer, which allows musically inclined players to create their own music to use in their levels or games.
Another welcome addition to the creation tools are Sackbots which are programmable NPC characters. You can even dress then up, and add stickers and decorations, just like you can with your Sackboy. Sackbots can be programed with a set actions or with predetermined behaviors. They can be great friends, or worst enemies with the player.
Like the original, LittleBigPlanet 2 has a story mode. Also like the original, the story mode serves as more of a showcase of what’s possible with the games creation tools. Despite this, it is quite fun and has a much greater variety than it’s predecessor. It not only consists of good ol’ platforming, but also competitive mini-games and a few shoot-em-up-style levels.
My
only gripe with the game has to do with a pretty significant bug which should be fixed in an upcoming patch. The first is a very annoying lag and random loading screens. This wasn’t a significant problem while playing with my friend just a few towns over, but it ended up making the game unplayable while playing with someone in Germany. I don’t recall having any similar problems with the first game.
The best part of the game are its create and share tools. Even if you’re not that into creating, browsing the seemingly endless stream of user made content gives this game an infinite replay value. I say this is a must buy for all PS3 owners.