First Impressions: Brink (360)

Future Tech: Non-stick low-friction pants. Classy.

First impressions are usually easy to write. You just put a new game in, play for a few hours, and then write what you feel. With Brink, however, it was a little trickier to get a bead on things.

After my first day with the title, Brink still has me a bit conflicted. Developer Splash Damage managed to pull of some amazing things with this game.They also managed to ship the game with some fairly major flaws. I can walk away from one play session and feel completely satisfied. Then the next time I head into the game I walk away frustrated and annoyed. 

Review: Mortal Kombat (360)

If you’ve read our ‘First Impressions’ on the game, you already know that my first look at NetherRealm’s newest  Mortal Kombat was a positive one. After spending more time with the game, all I can say is that the quality and experience that I enjoyed so much from the onset has only been reinforced by repeated and prolonged play.

It’s very easy to get bored of a fighting game. I’ve mentioned many-a-time that I’m not particularly fond of the genre in general. Part of that stems from my fat, slow fingers and the fact that I’m horrible at them. The other issue I have with fighters is that they tend to be extremely repetitive. There’s very little room for variation in game play aside from a usual assortment of gimmicks and “mini games” that hardly ever feel welcome.

Even when I made up my mind to buy Mortal Kombat I knew that whatever excitement I had for the game probably wouldn’t last. I was just hopeful that the game would be fun and that it would bring back fond memories of staying up all night with a few friends as we tried to experience every fatality, babality, stage-specific death, and ‘toasty’ secret level.

Even if the new game was able to do those things, I thought that after a few dozens fights I’d get bored. I still wanted to give it a try, but I wasn’t expecting the game to become one of the favorites in my collection. What a nice surprise it’s been! I’m not ready to change direction and call myself a fighting-game fan, but Mortal Kombat has easily been one the most fun games I’ve played in the last year.

Green Lantern Gameplay Trailer Lights ’em Up Lantern Style

The first gameplay trailer for the movie tie-in game Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters has been released. Do my eyes deceive me, or does it look like there’s a chance that a movie tie-in game might actually be good?

I’ll maintain a proper level of optimistic skepticism, as the problem with these games rarely comes from the graphics, but rather hurried and broken game mechanics, which don’t typically show in game trailers.

Like most tie-ins, versions are planned for about every console. The above represents the PS3/360 versions, but Green Lantern will also light up the Wii, and DS.

The game is being developed by ‘Double Helix’, the studio behind titles such as Front Mission Evolved, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra – The Game, and Silent Hill: Homecoming.

So yeah. We’ll see.

First Impressions: Forza 3 (360)

Okay, yesterday I noted that I would be writing a new ‘First Impressions’ on a game that was particularly awful, and that I was eager to break out my mean side. Are you ready for it? Well, sorry, this is not the one.

I had never intended to play Forza Motorsports 3. I always say I’m not a fan of racing games. I’m not a car person, and I often find racing games to be monotonous. Sure, there’s some arcade racers I like; I spent hours upon hours playing Crazy Taxi (that’s right, on Dreamcast baby.) Who doesn’t like Burnout? I would probably like Blur if I had played it for more than five minutes.

But real, honest-to-goodness racing sims aren’t something that normally appeal to me. I did play Gran Turismo (1 and 2), but considered that part of my gaming past and not part of my current gaming likes.

Wide lanes with ample opportunity to pass are for sissies.

Long story slightly less long, a discussion over on another forum turned to racing games and so I had been thinking about it for the last few days. Forza 3 was specifically mentioned. I knew the game had been out for some time, and that the next installment was due out this fall. That usually puts the price of a used copy in the “sweet-spot.” Add to it the fact that I had a $5 off coupon and I thought, “What the hell? What better chance will I have to give the genre another look?”

Best stupid decision I’ve ever made. I’ll explain the ‘stupid’ part first — as I noted yesterday, between trying to maintain regular and interesting updates to this site, working my actual nine-to-five, working on development of an Xbox indie title, and trying to actually live some life in between it all . . . well, days are dreadfully too short as is.

Bulletstorm Demo Impressions (360)

I didn’t plan on writing this tonight. You see, I only downloaded the demo last night, and didn’t get a chance to fire it up until I got home from work tonight. I thought I’d need some more time with this before I could form my impressions.

The demo lets you try out the ‘Echo’ game play mode. Basically, you run through a level with the goal of gaining the highest score you can. The demo level is short (the target time for completion is six minutes.) When it’s complete, you try again. And again. As much or as little as you want.

I’ll admit; after my first run through I thought “That’s it? I guess I’ll give it another go, since I want to do a write up.”

And I should probably mention that ‘Bulletstorm’ hasn’t exactly been on my ‘most anticipated’ list. Nothing against it, but I just never thought it would be a game that I would really find appealing.

Well, after my second run through I figured I’d give it another go. What the hell, there was still about 20 minutes before the hockey game started anyway. I had nothing better to do.

I probably ended up running through the level seven or eight times. I was surprised at my desire to try new kills and my need to top my previous scores.

I did find that things were starting to get repetitive. Part of the problem is that I’m not particularly creative. Leash and shoot. Kick and shoot. I found I was using the same tactics on the same enemies each run through. But in my defense, a lot of the encounters are set up to promote using the same tactics over and over again.

Game play was fast and frantic, as I had expected it to be. Controls are pretty good most of the time (as a first person shooter, there’s really no excuse for bad controls in this day and age.) I did find the lack of a dedicated jump button to be a bit of a distraction. Instead, you press a context-sensitive action button (‘A’ on Xbox) when you approach a low object you need to jump over. There were more than a few times, however, when my player failed to jump, instead finding myself twitching and sliding along the obstacle while enemies pumped bullets into my face.

Also, because much of the action happens close up (you’ll find yourself kicking or sliding into enemies to start combos), there’s many times where you’ll miss an enemy and have to flail awkwardly to try to spin around and find where they ended up. Keep in mind, I tend to be clumsier than most with console FPS controls. I’m an old school PC keys-and-mouse guy. I can’t help it — it’s how I was raised.

In the end, the demo confirmed what I thought. There’s some fun to be had, but it won’t be something that’s on my personal “must play” list. It’s creative, edgy, and full of personality, so I’m sure it will have it’s rabid fans. If it’s the kind of game you’re in to, you’ll probably love it.

Of course, what the single player story has to offer, and what the multiplayer has to offer, is yet to be seen. Set to hit shelves in just under a week, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

Review: NHL 11 (XBox 360)

Roughly three weeks after purchasing NHL11 and two weeks after writing my ‘First Impressions’, I’m ready to write my review of EA Sports’ latest hockey title.

I’m still churning through my first ‘Be a Pro’ season, and it’s fun to hit the ice as my virtual me. Starting out as a young right-winger in the CHL, I managed only good enough to be taken high in the second round of the draft.

Growing up, my favorite team was the Pittsburgh Penguins. I remember begging my mom for a Penguins jersey (“I’m not spending $80 on a shirt!” “But moooooooom!”) Mario Lemieux was the big name in hockey. And the ‘Jackets weren’t around yet, so we Ohioans had no home team to call our own (though anyone who actually knew anything about hockey tended to be a Redwings fan.)

. . . Then I moved to Pittsburgh, and was in walking distance of the arena (technically, I didn’t own a car so everything was walking distance), but I never attended a game. Partly because I was a poor college student, largely because I didn’t care about hockey, and largerly’er because I found this new stuff called “beer”, which consumed a big portion of my free time. Now I’m back in Ohio and the little part of me that likes hockey is a Columbus fan. But I never forgot my Penguins, in fact, I’m wearing a Penguins shirt as I’m typing that (Take that, Mom! I can spend *MY* money however I want!)

My point? It just made it that much cooler when virtual me got drafted in the second round by . . . that’s right . . . the Pittsburgh Penguins! Woo! And even though I was taken in the second round, I was assigned to the first line.

But nobody really cares about any of that but me. So on to the game itself. Most of what I said in the “first impressions” still holds true. Now I said I’d like better stick control on defense, but it’s really not bad. I just needed some time to get the controls down.

As for the controls, I think they feel a bit sluggish. I understand that on the ice, they want to convey a sense of momentum, but often I feel like it’s less momentum and more slow response. Part of it is likely due to the fact that my pro is still a young player with relatively low speed, balance, and agility.

Body checking can be annoying. If you are creating your pro, I highly suggest making him a bigger guy. I am not a big guy, and so I made my virtual pro relatively accurate to my body type. In 20 games I think I’ve knocked someone over once. And the controls to check aren’t very good either. EA has a “how to check” tutorial video on You Tube, which tells me I’m not the only one who has trouble with the timing of this. To make it worse, the ‘body check’ control sometimes seems unresponsive or lagged, and it can be difficult to guide your player into the opposing player in the first place.

The AI seems consistent with FIFA 10’s, in that while it is largely pretty good, there are also many times where players will do things that make absolutely no sense. Defensemen will skate the puck up to your blue line, often aiming for the same spot of the ice you are occupying, only to run into you, then pass it to your skates. Even if you’re lucky enough to receive the pass, you’re already getting hit since the opposing defense is already in the area. It’s kinda the equivalent of the option toss in football, when the QB keeps the ball until it’s time to get hit, then tosses it to some poor back or receiver to let him take the hit instead.

Worse is the Goalie AI. Goal-tending is pretty standard for video games. They do an okay job. It’s when they come out of goal or take a puck on the stick that things get . . . well, stupid. For instance, if they go behind goal to retrieve a loose puck, to kick it back out to his team. Well, every pass is going to end up hitting the back of the net and deflecting to some odd angle, because apparently the AI can’t calculate an accurate path. Sometimes they’ll even flip the puck up over the goal, landing it in front of the now-empty net. I’ve even seen them pass it straight to an opposing player with no teammates in the area. It’s ugly.

The only other gameplay complaint I have is that players seem to drop their sticks too often. Maybe it’s a realistic amount; I don’t watch enough hockey to pay attention to how often a stick breaks or is dropped. It just seems to happen a lot in NHL11.

The ‘Be a Pro’ mode in NHL11 is as engaging as the Virtual Pro mode is in the Fifa series. The premise and execution is largely the same. It can be a little annoying that the ‘milestones’ or objectives are so formulaic; I started out as a winger on the 1st line. I only had a goal or two, and maybe three assists in the first 5 games. Then in the sixth game, I churned out a 5-assist, 1 goal, +6 game. I was excited! My coach was bound to have good words for me after, right?

As I returned to the menu screen, a note popped up. “Your coach wants to talk to you.” “Yes!” I thought. I wonder what kind of praise I’ll get? Maybe even a stat boost? Assistant captain?

“Your performance hasn’t been what we expect for a first-liner. We’re moving you to the second line until you can get your stats up.”

*Blink*

“What? What do you want from me?!!” . . . now, my stats over the first handful of games weren’t that good. But 5 assists and a goal with a +/- of 6 in the last game, and now is when you chose to demote me? Come on! What coach would do that? “Well, you’d been slow but we see you caught fire in the last game. So we’re going to punish you, and hopefully that’ll be positive reinforcement for your great performance. Congrats, jerk!”

And I find as a winger that my assists go largely unappreciated. It’s all about the goals. I lead the league in assists and I’m languishing on the second line, with meager XP after each game. If I hogged the puck and fired a shot every time I got the puck, my personal goal numbers might increase, but our team’s performance would suffer. Oh well. I’m a martyr.

I had to tear myself away from ‘Be a Pro’ mode in order to check out some of the other features NHL11 has to offer. The ‘Ultimate Team’ mode was one that had initially sold me on the thought of buying the game — EA’s card-system appealed to my collecting/character (team) development side — but in practice, I found it to be too involved for me. It’s probably great for those who are really into hockey, or stats, or management, but that’s not me.

Then I stumbled on to the EASHL mode. This mode is not new to NHL11, but I’d never played it before. I avoided it for a while because I don’t belong to a ‘team’, but I thought I’d try out a ‘Drop In’ game. Now I think I’m hooked.

The EASHL mode allows two teams of six players to square off online. This means that you’ll have your assigned position and stick to that throughout the game like you do in ‘Be a Pro’ mode. This is something I prefer (as opposed to switching control between players.)

These games have their share of annoyances — mostly caused by people who want to be annoying. It’s no secret that about half the players online on XBox have the video-game maturity level of my niece. The youngest one. And by the end of the game, my team of six people is usually down to two or three, as players drop out. I’d imagine in rated games with an actual team of friends or online buddies, a lot of these problems wouldn’t be so prominent. But either way it’s fun.

 So two-to-three weeks in, and I’m really enjoying NHL11. I’m even improving! Slowly . . .

I can certainly see why this year’s offering got such high praise from sports-game fans, and I’d be quick to recommend it to anyone who enjoys hockey games. Or anyone looking to get into hockey games. Though I probably wouldn’t recommend it to people looking for a first person shooter, because it’s not one of those.

Review: Lumi (XBox Live, Indie Title)

 

I recently ventured into the ‘turn your controller into a personal massager!’ ‘buy this game, here’s a scantly clad girl on the cover!’ abyss known as the XBox Live Marketplace’s Indie section.  Somehow, not only did I make it out unscathed, but I managed to stumble upon a little gem of a title called ‘Lumi’, by Kydos Studios.

The small, two-man studio out of France took home the 2010 Dream. Build. Play. contest’s top honors, and for good reason.

Visually, Lumi is stunning. The levels are vibrant and solid. The characters are simple but very well designed and animated. It’s just a fun game to look at.

The gameplay offers up a welcome twist from the standard platforming fare. At it’s heart, it uses a simple ‘grapple’ mechanic — your character can either emit red or blue light. Doing so will attract you to nodes of like color, or repel you from nodes of the opposing color. There’s a handful of variations, such as ‘light rails’ that speed you along your way, cannons to shoot your though the air, light nodes that blink on and off or move, etc.

The objective is simple; make your way around the level and collect fireflies, which you use to power-up ‘light trees’ that are scattered throughout the level. Once full, these trees will light up, which will turn the already beautiful landscape into a more stunning and vibrant environment.

Light up enough of these trees, and the exit will activate, allowing you to pass on to the next level. Once completed, you can always replay the level in order to light any trees you may have missed. There’s a hand full of other ‘events’ that will break up the action a bit and add a welcome change of pace throughout the experience.

The obstacles are fairly simple; a handful of enemy types; each with their own weakness that you must exploit in order to defeat them. You have to avoid touching water. And that’s about it.

But it’s never as easy as it sounds. You have unlimited lives, which is good. Because you will die. A lot. At least, I did. And there were many times where I’d be screaming in frustration, ready to give up. But I knew I was just one split second or a slightly better aimed jump away from success. I never felt like it was impossible. Which is good — I don’t do well with games that are “impossible.”

I do have one minor complaint — when you are ‘attached’ to a light node that is on a moving track, the arrow that you use to judge your jumps becomes erratic. I don’t know if this is by design; but it made a few parts that were already difficult a maddening exercise in guesswork.

The game is sh0rt, and I’m not sure the replay value will be huge. Trying to finish all the levels to 100%, or trying to beat each level without dieing will give some motivation to replay the game, but I still don’t see spending a ton of hours in this game.

Still, for the price, this is a hard game to pass up.

Review: Dead Space (XBox 360)

. . . As the debris field clears, you find the USG Ishimura. It looks dead. And it’s in space. It’s Dead Space! . . .

 And now you know why I write blog entries and not video game intros. You’ve probably heard of Dead Space. It’s not exactly a new title, or even an old one that never got much attention. It got a lot of attention. And it has a sequel that’s set for release in just under a month. And that’s getting a lot of attention.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Dead Space, or aren’t familiar with it, it’s a third-person survival-horror game set in space. And everyone’s dead. Dead Space. Again!

My first gripe about Dead Space is more of a gripe against the genre. “Survival-horror.” I’m not a fan of the term in general (most games are about surviving. Red Dead isn’t a survival-cowboy game. Mario isn’t a survival-platforming game. Just call it ‘Horror’)

And to that end, I’d call it an ‘Action-horror’ game anyway. Sure, it’s scary and atmospheric. At first. Monsters suddenly appearing from the vents. Loud machinery that drowns out the ability to hear something coming. Plenty of dark corners and dark rooms and dark . . . everything. There’s some masterful shadow-play that can make you jump out of your skin. It is a game that is built from the ground up to make you feel uneasy. And it does. For a while.

In my ‘Assassin’s Creed’ review, I revealed that I rarely finish a game. I’ve had ‘Dead Space’ for quite some time. I enjoyed it when I first purchased it; but it fell victim to having another even more-fun game purchased shortly after (Dragon Age, perhaps? Or Mass Effect. I can’t recall.) So the Dead Space playing fell by the wayside.

When the Dead Space 2 demo was released, I decided to head back into Dead Space and finish it before the sequel became available. Having been away for so long, I started over from the beginning.

Sadly, by the time I reached the point where I had left off (literally standing in the same elevator, deciding which floor to send it to) I had a revelation; this is the point where Dead Space quit being fun for me. I just didn’t care anymore. The “Oh god, I have to go down that dark corridor?!” feeling had melted away to “Okay, here’s another dark corridor, which means things popping out or charging towards me.”

And I also got sick of Hammond (the ‘security cheif’) “Hey! This is broken. Isaac, why don’t you go fix it for us, okay? I’ll stay here in this room  with my machine gun–OH MY GOD ANOTHER ONE!”

. . .

Another one? Another ONE? Come one! I just had to fight off dozens of them, and I’m an engineer. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to admit that I’m more badass than some glorified security guard.

. . .

Anyway, the “go here, fetch this, fix that” way the story progresses gets old fast. I only made it about a third of the way through the game, and perhaps the story gets more complex (There’s a girlfriend that had been on board the Ishimura when this all went down, so I know that plays a part), but to be honest, it stayed monotonous for too long and I just didn’t find myself caring. At all. I’ve since read over how the story plays out. Hopefully the experience is better than the read, because it just sounded monotonous.

And while the occasional scripted event will throw something totally new and unexpected at you, after the first few times, you learn to just always expect something to happen. Because something almost always does. You might be thinking, “But Fazor, I want all that action! Bring on the hordes of aliens!” and that’s fine. But it doesn’t make for scary.

Take a look at Silent Hill. The original Silent remains one of my favorite games of all-time. The way they would build up the tension until your head was ready to explode, and right as it reached the climax,  . . . nothing happened? Then tension would rise again . . . followed by more ominous nothing. Or maybe there would be something clamoring, stalking, or swooping at you from out of the fog and darkness. Sometimes the tension would pass, and just as you start to relax, BOOM! It had you on the edge of your seat, truly never knowing when something would attack, or what was around the next corner.That’s horror. Constant onslaught? That’s action.

Again, if you like constant action and always being under attack, then that’s not a problem. I prefer to have a horror game mess with my head (admittedly, not a hard thing to do.)

In all, Dead Space is a game that I started out loving, then liking, then suddenly not caring for in the least. Maybe I’m fickle. I don’t know.

Still, I am looking forward to see what they can do with the sequel.  Now that I’ve officially given up on the first, I might pop in and try out the demo. As for the original, I’d recommend it to anyone who is not turned off by the things I’ve mentioned above. Presentation is solid and it is a quality product, it’s just not a game that kept me hooked on the experience.

First Impressions: NHL 11 (XBox 360)

Okay, I’m not an EA Sports shill, I swear. Not that I don’t highly recommend many of their titles, and I’ve sure ‘donated’ a lot of my money to them over the years, but the fact that my first ‘Review’ was Fifa 10, and my first ‘First Impressions’ post is NHL 11 is but a coincidence — owed in large part to the fact that I had been playing a lot of Fifa throughout the soccer season, and then had the itch for a the new NHL offering due to that being the only sport currently in season that I really care about (Okay, so the NFL is still plugging along, but I’m a Browns fan. Our season ended sometime in September, and the Buckeyes’ bowl game is still two weeks away.)

Last week . . . I cannot remember well enough to be more specific than that . . . I finally caved in to said itch, and stopped by the store to pick up a copy of NHL 11. I grew up going to farm-team games, and I’ve been to a Columbus Bluejackets game or two, but I’m far from being a big hockey fan. But like soccer games, I’ve always loved hockey from a video game perspective. There was one game in particular that me and a few friends would play every day after school for what had to be an entire year. Sadly, I do not remember which exact year/title/franchise it was.

Anyway, so since whatever day it was last week, I’ve been playing the new NHL 11. At this point, I’ve really only been playing the ‘Be a Pro’ mode, though the ‘Ultimate Team’ mode was one of the other ‘bulletpoints’ that contributed to my desire to pick up this title.

Now, less than a week — or about a week — or a little over a week? into the game, and I’m having fun so far. The menu system is very similar to Fifa’s, and probably similar to other current EA Sports titles. EA’s menu system(s) are a pet peeve of mine, though I’ve dealt with much worse. When moving up the nested menus, EA likes to make the least-likely action the highlighted-by-default option. For example; choosing “Play be a pro mode” moves on the the secondary menu selection for said mode, but defaults you to “Start New Be a Pro” rather than “Load Existing Be a Pro”. Considering a play-through of this mode emulates a player’s entire career, why would the default action be to start a whole new career every time I play? Of course, pressing ‘down’ to select ‘load an existing save’ is only a minor annoyance, but as this type of issue applies to just about every menu selection, these minor annoyances add up. (For the record, Fifa’s menus are  even worse in this regard.)

As for the game play; I do feel like everything’s a little sluggish and unresponsive. This could be due to the fact that I’m new to the game, and I’m just not good at it at all yet. On defense, I feel a bit helpless. You can perform a poke-check or quickly sweep your stick by holding the same button and manually moving the right thumbstick, but no good option to really use your stick as a consistent blocker. I’d love to be able to control my stick in such a way that I’m continuously adjusting it relative to my skater’s movement and position to attempt to choke off a passing lane. There is a button to block a pass, but the (relatively) lengthy animation and the fact that your player steps out to stretch out his stick means you’ve just lost your ability to make any quick positional adjustments until the animation is done, so if you miss (which as a newbie, I *always* do) you’ve just taken yourself completely out of the play.

And checking! Isn’t the body-check always the most exciting part of hockey? NHL11 boasts its new physics system which instead of using canned animations for the player on the receiving-end of the hit, it uses this new system to calculate the hit and result. This means that “no two checks are the same” (which isn’t true, necessarily, but you see what they mean.) Body-checks in hockey games have come a long way since my SNES hockey days. You cannot rely on skating around and knocking over anyone and everyone that moves. In NHL 11, not only is it hard to even make contact, but when you do, your stats, player’s momentum, and player’s sizes are all taken into account, which means you’ll have to carefully pick and chose when and who you decide to hit.

I have no problem with this, except I’m not a big guy, and when I make my virtual athletes, I try to portray myself as accurately as possible — you know, except athletic and with at least a little coordination and balance. But as a new player with no points devoted to checking ability, and with my small size, I can’t knock over anyone. Even the hapless guys I hit from behind after play is blown dead (and thanks, EA, for giving me the ability to do these cheap shots!) Oh well, I guess my guy’s a lover, not a fighter.

My only other real complaint at this point is that once you start a ‘Be a Pro’ career, it doesn’t look like you can change any of the game options. For instance, the first night I brought the title home, I had limited time to play, so I popped the game in and fired it up and launched a pro career with the default settings. This puts the period length at 5 minutes, which to me is way too fast for a career simulation (but great for a quick game when you don’t have a lot of time.) I understand not being able to change a game’s duration during a contest that’s in progress, but when Saturday rolled around and I had some real time to play, I couldn’t go in and make the games any longer.

The same is true for the difficulty level. I started at the default ‘Pro’ difficulty, but decided to try the next step up. I had to go back and start a whole new career (after already doing so once to change the game duration.) After losing my first 5 or 6 games, and finding that I was struggling to even earn the meager 14% of the XP my “manager expected me to earn”, I decided at this point I needed to stick with Pro difficulty, at least until I get better. So restarted my career again. Either the ability to make these changes mid-career is hidden somewhere in a nested menu that I cannot locate, or it’s just not there. Either way, that’s a big annoyance.

As for the thing that matters most — the time on the ice — the game has been both challenging and rewarding. Hopefully, as I get more time with the game, the experience will continue to improve.

Assassin’s Creed 2 (XBox 360)

Ah, ye olde dagger, doth thou feel thine pain? What? Not only is that a poor imitation of old English, but also they didn’t actually speak old English in Italy? Well, I tried. But my fake Italian text accent is even worse.

Assassin’s Creed is an intriguing concept, as the success of the franchise shows. I’ll admit, however, that I have not played the first title. It was one of those games that piqued my interest, but I never got around to it. Then, when the sequel was released, and having heard nothing but good things about it, I decided to give it a go.

As for AC2’s plot; I can definitely state that it has one. I’m assuming it builds off the first game, and lends itself to the recently released third. My opinion on the story may not be the popular one (or maybe it is?), but the overall story didn’t add much, if anything , to the game. The player starts out in control of modern-day antagonist Desmond Miles. I hate modern day antagonist Desmond Miles almost as much as the rest of the modern-day cast around him. I’ll give Ubisoft credit for coming up with an original story and a “plausible” (as in, this is a video game) way to deal with restarting after death, having a HUD, etc. Kudos for that. But I don’t like it. To me, it pulls me out of the experience in a jarring and not very fun way. Fortunately these segments are few and far between.

Unfortunately, I had read in a developer interview that due to demand from fans, there will be (are, since it’s out by now) more Desmund segments in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. What fan demand? Give me a list so I can punch each one in the face.

But I don’t want to talk about ‘Brotherhood’, since I’ve yet to play it. Back to AC2; As I said, the overall story didn’t add much, if anything, to the experience for me. There’s the usual; conspiracy, revenge, more conspiracy, survival, and some conspiracy. But I never found myself caring about the next plot twist, turn, or reveal. I just wanted to bound from rooftop to rooftop and kill.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of this in the game. One of the keys to Ezio’s success in game, and Assassin’s Creed’s success in stores, is the fluidity of motion when climbing, jumping, running, and fighting. It really is a lot of fun, though the control isn’t as tight as I had hoped it would be. On more than one occasion, I found myself leaping from one roof, only to miss the next one and plummet to the earth; or attempting to run across a rope or plank bridge, only to plummet to the earth. Admittedly, much of this was due to user error. Despite my two-plus decades as a gamer, these aren’t the nimblest, most coordinated thumbs around.

But the control and AI pathing really became an ‘issue’ during chase sequences, when the master-killer Ezio would randomly climb the wrong wall, or the terrified target would take a route that left him running back towards his pursuer.

There are plenty of side-quests in addition to the main story, as well as some collectible items to reward exploration. None of these ‘extras’ are particularly breathtaking or groundbreaking, and mostly boil down to two categories. First are timed races, be it a literal race, or a race to make a delivery or perform some dead within a set time limit. Then there are the find x person and do y to them. An example of these are assassination contracts to carry out (my favorite of the ‘extras’). There’s more, but they all boil down to pretty much the same thing.

The writing was good; ranging from somber and dramatic, to personable and funny. In fact, AC2 has one of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard in a game (and yes, it’s intentionally funny, not ‘all your base’ funny.) I won’t ruin the surprise, but will just say the line is a nod to another successful game franchise.

I don’t often play a game to completion. I have the video-game equivalent of ADD. In fact, I probably have the real-life equivalent of video-game-ADD also. Oh look, a bird. Wait. What was my point? Oh, yes. I don’t often play games all the way through, and AC2 is not an exception to that. Though, from talking to a friend who has played to the end credits, I was very, very close. I may go back and finish it one day, but for now I’ve moved on.

And that doesn’t mean I thought it was a bad or boring game. Coming from me; making it past the first 20% of content really means something. I while I didn’t find Assassin’s Creed to be an incredibly deep game — there’s story there, I just failed to really care about it — maybe that’s because I enjoyed the game enough even at it’s most superficial level. When it comes down to it, I do recommend this game to people who haven’t played it. And I also plan on playing Brotherhood, eventually.