General Update 15: Only A Ninja Can Sneak Up On Another Ninja (or Assassins!)

So this is really my first post of 2011, but before I get into the New Year I do have one thing to clear up and that is my Christmas gift list. I received Nier, Gears of War 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, and Dead Rising 2, I also picked up FEAR and Dead Rising in the Game sale. I completed my First play though of Nier before returning home, I then moved onto Gears of War 2 which I completed on Saturday evening.

I started the game on hardcore and managed to get to the last chapter of act 4 on hardcore and then when I loaded up to finish off the game for some reason it changed the difficulty back to casual so when I completed the game I didn’t get the achievements for the other difficulty settings. I do aim to go back and play the remaining levels again in order to get the outstanding achievements.

After completing Gears 2 I tried Dead Rising, the original, as I want to know the story first before playing the sequel. Unfortunately I’m not sure if I am actually playing it right as I keep dying when trying to save survivors. It could just be that my getting the priorities wrong and I should just try and focus on the story until I get more experience.

After dying several times I moved off that and started Assassins Creed Brotherhood. While I’ve not get very far I have changed my mind about something. uPlay. I touched on uPlay in my post about Online Play for all, but it would appear I had it a little wrong. The points you unlock for completing certain tasks in the game allow you to download certain rewards related to that game. For example in Assassins Creed 2, the rewards are an xbox dashboard theme, a new map to explore, a new outfit and an increase on the number of throwing knives you can carry. I like this idea because the amount of points you earn from the game is the same amount that you can spend.

For Assassins Creed Brotherhood which has the same system and number of points available, there are more rewards than there are points available, which means you need to choose which rewards you want but can’t have them all unless you buy a different game and choose not to download the rewards you unlock for that game but it seems to me like a fair trade off. I’m not everyone wants the theme for the game they are playing. If you’ve completed the game you might not want to increase the number of throwing knives seeing as you’re probably not going to be playing it again.

Demos: Ilomilo & Raskulls

Over the weekend I tried a couple of demos from XBLA. I’ll admit now that I never actually finished the Raskulls demo, not because I didn’t want to, but because I was cooking my dinner. I enjoyed what I played, it’s an action-platformer that plays well, and looks great.

Ilomilo is a puzzle based game where you play as both Ilo and Milo who are two characters that you have to work out how to get them to meet. The premise is simple enough; get the two characters to meet and the game looks great as well.  

Out of the two my money went on Ilomilo, and while I’ve still not finished the prologue it’s defiantly one I will play, when I get some time.

Previous GamerScore:  51555

Current GamerScore:    52270

Increase:                         +715

Review: The Saboteur

Pandemic, the developers of The Saboteur, were one of the unlucky companies that has had to shut it's doors, and in this case before their product had even shipped to stores. I liked the look of the game from what little I had seen, and when I had it as one of the choices in my elite bundle it was difficult not to choose it.

I'm glad that I did take the chance and pick this game as I really enjoyed playing it. The game is set in Nazi occupied Paris, you play as the Irish rogue Sean Devlin, a mechanic caught up in the occupation after a visit to a motor sport race in Germany. You then join the French resistance and help in liberating Paris from the Nazis. 

In my opinion the game plays like Assassin's Creed crossed with GTA. you can run from roof top to roof top and then fall to the floor and then blast a Nazi in the face with a shotgun.

Overall the game works really well, but there were a couple of things that bugged me with it though. The game gives you "free-play events" which are much like the races and delivery tasks in Assassin's Creed 2 however I did feel that there were too many of these. Also during the game when you died you're spawned at the closest hideout, unfortunately once the main story is finished you only spawn at the first one.

I did like the awards system that allowed you to unlock other abilities and weapons and cars. Speaking of cars you can collect cars and take them back to a resistance garage and you could then keep them, I felt this could have worked with the weapons as well. I also liked the artistic style that had areas that haven't been liberated were in black and white, while areas that have been liberated were in colour.

Overall I recommend this game if you liked Assassins Creed or GTA, although I personally didn't like GTA IV, otherwise try it if you looking for something new.

Review: Assassin’s Creed 2

I had to wait until just before New Year to actually get the game but was the wait worth it?

The story follows your ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, from birth to adulthood, and following on from a family tragedy his growing into the role of an assassin. The game starts in Florence but later on takes you to the bustling city of Venice. The story is engrossing and kept me interested throughout the game however I wasn’t too sold on the game’s ending. I’ve thought about this for a bit and I feel that the ending cliff hanger breaks the “rhythm” of the rest of the story.

Much like the first game the locations are visually stunning and fun to run from roof to roof, the addition of being able to swim also helps with getting around and a leap from the roof tops into the water pulling off a flawless dive is very satisfying. However it was pointed out to me by a friend, that in this game the people don’t look like they live there, they look like tourists. There are a few people that are actually doing something like painting or fishing, but the rest are walking around or standing talking. In the first game you had people setting up stalls and selling stuff, but that’s missing in this game.

The achievements did seem to be a step in the wrong direction. While they got rid of all the flag collection achievements which is a good thing, it’s also gotten rid of all the rewards for doing all the side quests. You don’t get anything for climbing all the viewpoints, or for completing the side missions. The game makes a fuss about these codex pages which you can display on a wall in your villa, which once you have them all you get nothing for it, some extra heath squares but that’s it. This doesn’t seem right to me, yes I thought that in the first game the side missions got repetitive, but the side missions in this game are good and varied enough to not get boring, but with no rewards I don’t see the point, and that has to be my biggest gripe with this game.

To sum up it’s a decent sequel that builds on the strengths of the first game, and the few downsides don’t detract from the enjoyment of the rest of the game. This game also has the best gaming culture reference joke I’ve ever heard in a game, I’ve tried to keep this review spoiler free so if you’ve yet to play you in for a real treat.