torstai 31. joulukuuta 2009
Avatar 3D
Because I'm feeling generous and bored I'll write up a small blogpost about Avatar. I went to see it the other day, in 3D! It wasn't all about the in-your-face effects, it was more about drawing you in and I believed it. It really felt like I was there. I loved the movie, everyone should go see it. I've heard people complain about it's plot but there's a huge difference between bad plot and bad execution. The plot is your standard anti-war bullshit but the way it's done is very cool and you won't even notice the message until after the movie even though in hindsight they could've just as easily written WAR IS BAD MMKAY in blazing neon letters on the opening credits.
Assassin's Creed 2 - Again - A review
I like Italy. I like the language and I like the country.
What I don't like is a half-assed voice actor doing a horrible Italian accent that suggests that the voice actor Ubisoft hired to voice Ezio Auditore de Firenze in their new epic Assassin's Creed II was a bum the designers picked up from a gutter while on their way to work.
Ok ok, he actually fares pretty decently when he actually speaks Italian but at least drop the accent if you can't do it. Or better yet Ubisoft, the next time you make a game not set in America, most likely it will be Assassin's Creed III or Revenge of the poorly scripted scifibullshit-characters or what ever you end up calling it - how about you make the voice actors talk the language their supposed to fucking talk in the first place. In this case it being Italian. Yes, it would upset some console gamers who want to play their game without a functioning brain but you probably pissed them off by the time you introduced puzzles to the AC-series.
So after this rant you are probably right if you guessed that I am going to talk about Assassin's Creed 2.
Let's get right on that.
I'm a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed-series. And by series I mean the first game because I am a PC-gamer and will have to wait till march for the second installment.
So I was waiting for this new addition with anticipation and got a chance to test it out on the PS3 at my cousins' house. It did not disappoint.
You play Ezio Auditore, an Italian noble from Florence who sees his father and two brothers executed as a part of a Templar-conspiracy and learns that his father was an assassin fighting against the templars. After a bit of persuasion Ezio agrees to fill his fathers' shoes and hunt down the templars responsible for the loss of most of his family.
Everything that was good about the first game got improved and almost everything that wasn't so good was fixed. First of all, the game is gorgeous. It's just plain stunning how beautiful it is, especially in the Italian setting. That's all I'm going to comment on the graphics, yeah there were annoying texture popups and such but it didn't bother me.
The gameplay is as solid as it has always been with this series. Ezio is nothing short of Altaïr and scales buildings with relative ease and with this new installment can even dive, swim (dur) and row gondolas. Some of the new things introduced with this game is the possibility to, for example, buy weapons. The weapons have individual stats for speed, damage and how well it can deflect attacks. It works in theory but in practice the difference between these stats is really not that visible. Ok ok, one of the best swords in the game, Sword of Altaïr will allow you to attack much faster than, say, a mace but that won't help anyone because Ubisoft still hasn't fixed the overly powered counter-move that let me breeze through every fight without even breaking a sweat. I would end up in situations where I'd have half the city on my ass and it didn't even get scary because I knew that if all else failed, I could always fight my way out. Of course, it would have been extremely boring, tedious and would have taken lots of time to do it but I could have done it if needed. Thankfully there is only one type of enemy that is affected by Ezio's counter-move so much that one counterattack will end up in a gory finish. Other enemies you need to beat around a bit before the counter-move works the way it did in AC1, instantly killing the enemy. So some progress as been made on that part but next time Ubisoft, just fix the broken thing instead of distracting us from the flaw.
Also, Ezio can now assassinate people more cleverly. You can hang from a ledge and drag an unsuspectible guard down from a roof if he's near you, you can now perform air assassinations, meaning that if you are in higher ground than your opponent Ezio will leap toward him, knock him into the ground and hit him in the neck with the hidden blade. Because you have two hidden blades this time you can also assassinate two guards at a time.
Ubisoft has heard your complaints on the side-missions lacking variety and added a whole bunch of side-quests for you to do. Sadly, they are not mandatory now and the only reason for doing them is to gain more money and you won't need money for anything. Except medicine and repairing your armor but by the time you get Altair's Armor you won't even need that because the fucking thing will not break.
The missions progress GTA style now, with you heading out to the mission-marker on the map and doing quests leading to you assassinating person x in the end of the questline.
Now for the story. Oh GOD the story. For 99% of the game's duration the story is ok, you are hunting down templars and killing them, because they killed your father etc. But during the final moments the story gets drunk and shits itself and goes scifi once more with characters pulling superpowers out of their asses.
So that's Assassin's Creed 2. I cut some corners writing this mostly because I lost my train of thought and because all in all I love the game so much and if I'd go into detail about everything this text wouldn't be finished even by tomorrow.
TL;DR: Buy it.
9/10
What I don't like is a half-assed voice actor doing a horrible Italian accent that suggests that the voice actor Ubisoft hired to voice Ezio Auditore de Firenze in their new epic Assassin's Creed II was a bum the designers picked up from a gutter while on their way to work.
Ok ok, he actually fares pretty decently when he actually speaks Italian but at least drop the accent if you can't do it. Or better yet Ubisoft, the next time you make a game not set in America, most likely it will be Assassin's Creed III or Revenge of the poorly scripted scifibullshit-characters or what ever you end up calling it - how about you make the voice actors talk the language their supposed to fucking talk in the first place. In this case it being Italian. Yes, it would upset some console gamers who want to play their game without a functioning brain but you probably pissed them off by the time you introduced puzzles to the AC-series.
So after this rant you are probably right if you guessed that I am going to talk about Assassin's Creed 2.
Let's get right on that.
I'm a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed-series. And by series I mean the first game because I am a PC-gamer and will have to wait till march for the second installment.
So I was waiting for this new addition with anticipation and got a chance to test it out on the PS3 at my cousins' house. It did not disappoint.
You play Ezio Auditore, an Italian noble from Florence who sees his father and two brothers executed as a part of a Templar-conspiracy and learns that his father was an assassin fighting against the templars. After a bit of persuasion Ezio agrees to fill his fathers' shoes and hunt down the templars responsible for the loss of most of his family.
Everything that was good about the first game got improved and almost everything that wasn't so good was fixed. First of all, the game is gorgeous. It's just plain stunning how beautiful it is, especially in the Italian setting. That's all I'm going to comment on the graphics, yeah there were annoying texture popups and such but it didn't bother me.
The gameplay is as solid as it has always been with this series. Ezio is nothing short of Altaïr and scales buildings with relative ease and with this new installment can even dive, swim (dur) and row gondolas. Some of the new things introduced with this game is the possibility to, for example, buy weapons. The weapons have individual stats for speed, damage and how well it can deflect attacks. It works in theory but in practice the difference between these stats is really not that visible. Ok ok, one of the best swords in the game, Sword of Altaïr will allow you to attack much faster than, say, a mace but that won't help anyone because Ubisoft still hasn't fixed the overly powered counter-move that let me breeze through every fight without even breaking a sweat. I would end up in situations where I'd have half the city on my ass and it didn't even get scary because I knew that if all else failed, I could always fight my way out. Of course, it would have been extremely boring, tedious and would have taken lots of time to do it but I could have done it if needed. Thankfully there is only one type of enemy that is affected by Ezio's counter-move so much that one counterattack will end up in a gory finish. Other enemies you need to beat around a bit before the counter-move works the way it did in AC1, instantly killing the enemy. So some progress as been made on that part but next time Ubisoft, just fix the broken thing instead of distracting us from the flaw.
Also, Ezio can now assassinate people more cleverly. You can hang from a ledge and drag an unsuspectible guard down from a roof if he's near you, you can now perform air assassinations, meaning that if you are in higher ground than your opponent Ezio will leap toward him, knock him into the ground and hit him in the neck with the hidden blade. Because you have two hidden blades this time you can also assassinate two guards at a time.
Ubisoft has heard your complaints on the side-missions lacking variety and added a whole bunch of side-quests for you to do. Sadly, they are not mandatory now and the only reason for doing them is to gain more money and you won't need money for anything. Except medicine and repairing your armor but by the time you get Altair's Armor you won't even need that because the fucking thing will not break.
The missions progress GTA style now, with you heading out to the mission-marker on the map and doing quests leading to you assassinating person x in the end of the questline.
Now for the story. Oh GOD the story. For 99% of the game's duration the story is ok, you are hunting down templars and killing them, because they killed your father etc. But during the final moments the story gets drunk and shits itself and goes scifi once more with characters pulling superpowers out of their asses.
So that's Assassin's Creed 2. I cut some corners writing this mostly because I lost my train of thought and because all in all I love the game so much and if I'd go into detail about everything this text wouldn't be finished even by tomorrow.
TL;DR: Buy it.
9/10
tiistai 29. joulukuuta 2009
Assassin's Creed 2
So. I just started playing Assassin's Creed 2 at my cousin's house. Will be staying here a few days, trying to get into the swing of things and hopefully finish the game before heading back home but if luck isn't by my side I'll have to wait till the game gets released on the PC so I can finish it, and review it proper.
If I do finish it however, you'll be the first to know cause I'll be posting the review here. In my blog I started in the heat of the moment because everyone else has one and I'm all for jumping onto the mainstream bandwagon.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pretend that I'm an Italian ninja.
Edit:
Fuck me the game is long. I'll just enjoy the ride and play what I can and review the game proper after it gets released for the PC in March. At least I hope it'll be March.
If I do finish it however, you'll be the first to know cause I'll be posting the review here. In my blog I started in the heat of the moment because everyone else has one and I'm all for jumping onto the mainstream bandwagon.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pretend that I'm an Italian ninja.
Edit:
Fuck me the game is long. I'll just enjoy the ride and play what I can and review the game proper after it gets released for the PC in March. At least I hope it'll be March.
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