Will the real sequel to Assassin’s Creed II please stand up?
As much as I enjoyed Brotherhood (and despised Revelations), they are essentially Champion Edition and Turbo sequels. Their innovations were minimal and their overall impact to the bigger story was inconsequential. Case in point, the start of Assassin’s Creed III make virtually zero reference to Ezio’s later adventures.
Now that ACIII is here, is it the leap forward we’ve been hoping for all along?
Saw Wreck-It Ralph when it came out and thought it was great. Beyond the cameos from real video game characters, it’s a movie that lives up to Disney standards. Whether you’re a kid or adult, there’s a lot to enjoy here; especially if you’re a fan of video games. With that said, I think there were opportunities to be even better that it doesn’t capitalize on. I think that it could have handled some of the main conflicts a bit better and pull the heart strings a bit more, but it doesn’t stop the overall experience from being a pleasure. This is one of the safest recommendations I can make to virtually any moviegoer.
I picked this up last week. Roughly 6 hours in and it’s starting to pick up. Working through some other writing projects, but I will have some early impressions soon! If you’re playing Assassin’s Creed III, what do you think so far?
Not too long ago, I played Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the first time. I was really digging its first-person stealth action in theory, but the experience fell apart for me very quickly. I got to a point early on where Riddick had to fight his enemies in a head-on manner and it just did not work out well for me. Even when I lowered the difficulty to easy, I kept getting smoked by the computer. It seemed like when I was forced to defend myself in a non-stealthy way, Riddick was seemingly useless.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not good at stealth games. But I think there’s something to be said about the way stealth is implemented in games, particularly when a player has to fight outside the context of stealth.
Immediately continuing where God of War II left off, Kratos finds himself riding a titan as they venture together to the top of Mount Olympus to give Zeus a cold serving of revenge. I had some concerns going into God of War III, because the tried-and-true God of War formula got stale to me towards the end of God of War II. However, the start of God of War III turns the formula on its head with one of the best opening sequences I’ve ever played in a video game, as it has you fighting while on top of the titan as it’s trying to climb the mountain. It’s so wildly creative, violent and downright fun to play, that I would imagine this being better than most ending sequences in video games. As I was playing through this, I kept asking myself, “How does the game keep this momentum up from here?”
After three ‘beta’ episodes, Jason, Mat, and I are finally doing the podcast thing for realsies!
In this debut outing, we trade Hurricane Sandy survival stories and gush over Taylor Swift’s hot new album (well, at least I). As far as games go, we go in-depth reflecting on the relationship between the video game hobby we love and our significant others that put up with it. Also discussed on the show are the games we’ve been playing, including Assassin’s Creed III, Dishonored, Skylanders Giants and more!
Jett – In Third Person
Jason – Downstab
Mat – Biff Bam Pop
Lets get the obvious out of the way: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is Sony’s take on the Smash Bros. franchise. While conceptually bankrupt, not all games have to reinvent the wheel.
Having played this a few months ago at Fan Expo, I came out of it with a fairly positive impression. Now that I’ve gotten to play a bit more of it through the public beta, my feelings towards the whole thing have cooled off some.
When you’ve been the reigning video game hoops champ for the last few years, the next logical step is to add Jay-Z and Justin Bieber. Wait, what? NBA 2K13 is quick to tell you that its a Young Hova production, but did they make the on-court experience any better? Find out on Splitkick!
A wizard, knight, and thief walk into a bar. No, this isn’t the setup for a bad joke, but a bad setup for a Trine 2 review. In this 2D puzzle platformer, your objective is to use the three characters you have at your disposal to get past any obstacles in your way as you search for the a magical treasure. Though it was released last year on PC, Mac, XBOX Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, I didn’t really give it much thought. However, I always did hear great things about it, and I picked it up when it went on sale recently on XBLA.
As much as I love Trials Evolution, I haven’t played it since wrapping up my review. Once I unlocked the extreme tracks, which I will never have the skill to complete, I set the game down and moved onto other things. Sure, I could have kept myself busy all of this time with user-created tracks, but it just fell out of my rotation. The Origins of Pain DLC pack aims to bring players like me back to the fold with 36 new tracks, more skill games, and a hundred extra track creator objects to play with.
In Third Person 