Day 5 yields more Assassin’s Creed goodness, now in a much more directed assassination quest. It’s fun, although it turns out to be less assassination like than I wanted. And wow, there are a lot of collectibles in this game. I mean, just this session I add on two more goals to complete in addition to the main plot and the four other subgoals I currently have, not including Xbox Achievements and general equipment completism. Exactly how much time am I expected to play this thing? Spoilers within.
Assassin’s Creed 2 Day#4: Alla Toscana
Day 4 introduces me to my home base and my second assassination victim. I get out of the city for the first time, which is mildly interesting but not really different than the rest of the game, not that this is bad thing. I get some combat training, which has a bunch of stuff I’ll be lucky to remember. But I also get the intro to my second assassination, and that is quite rad. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 27, 2009
Assassin’s Creed Day#3: La mia vendetta prima
Day 3 in Assassin’s Creed makes me an assassin. I get a bunch of training in the arts of stealth and stealthy killing, and then I’m unleashed in quite a good scene. There’s a bunch of side quests as well. One of them involves an annoying series of new gameplay steps, but it’s only a minor annoyance. The shape of this game is very much avoid the polizia in Renaissance GTA, and that is fine by me. The open world is implemented with a very nice balance of freedom and direction. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 25, 2009
Assassin’s Creed 2 Day#2: Dammi il mio mantello, Dammi la mia spada…
Day 2 with Assassin’s Creed 2, and it will surprise no one, but this game is GOOD. There’s a little wonkiness in the complexity and context-sensitivity of the controls, but the combination of Prince of Persia style climbing/exploration play with GTA run-from-the-cops play is just wonderful. It’s a very immersive world, and there’s tons of fun stuff to do. And on top of that, nicely defined characters with a good plot of old fashioned Italian betrayal. After a long stretch of ehh, finally a game to enjoy. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 23, 2009
Assassin’s Creed 2 Day#1: Buon Giorno, il mio Assassino
Bored with Dragon Age, I’ve decided to put it on hold and try Assassin’s Creed 2. This is my first Assassin’s Creed, and so far it looks interesting even though the beginning game is pretty unforgiving for a title in 2009. The core narrative conceit is original for games but unfortunately kind of stupid, but it disappears from sight early enough that it didn’t bother me. Once past the intro, I found the core gameplay of exploration and fighting full of potential, but potential that is poorly demonstrated by the early play. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 22, 2009
Dragon Age Day#3: Let’s Have a Party
Day 3 gets me my party finally, and it’s not really a good thing. The banter is actually driving me crazy. I actually start adventuring for reals today and play a pretty long session, but it’s really just more of the same. The game is alternately finicky and simplistic. The combat is pure grind to me. The narrative is trying quite hard, but it’s too stuck to fantasy roots. I do a bunch of side quests and meet a bunch of people, but none of it is earth-shattering. I know these summaries are getting redundant, but that’s what the game is — redundant of other games in terms of theme and endlessly repetitive in its mechanic. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 19, 2009
Casual Smack: Drifting Afternoon
Quick little game today from the wonderful site Orisinal and its visionary, Ferry Halim. If you’re not familiar with Orisinal, it’s a perennial source of beautifully cute, short games with inventive mechanics. Orisinal is in fact one of the sites we innovative game people look to continually to remind us we’re not alone in the world. Orisinal’s latest is Drifting Afternoon and it lives entirely up to happy, smiling expectations. Hooray that the world has Orisinal. Short description (not really much to spoil here) below.
– November 16, 2009
Dragon Age Day#2: I’m an Army Man Now
Back to Dragon Age for some so-so combat and mixed storytelling. They are trying here in terms of making the story interesting, but the results are mixed. But to be totally frank, the basically cliched fantasy focus is biasing me very much against this game. I also get my first instances of group combat, which I clearly have not gotten yet, since I basically let my team do whatever occurs to them and can’t be bothered to go through the 14 tons of crap I typically pick up to help them. Maybe I just don’t like modern western RPGs either. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 14, 2009
Dragon Age Day#1: Nothing to Say but WoW
Today is Day 1 with Dragon Age. I got this game because I generally liked Mass Effect more than I disliked it, and wanted to see what the stepping stone would be to ME2. Also, I haven’t played a true fantasy game since World of Warcraft, and I thought is was time to see where the console genre was. Short answer: cloning Blizzard. Certainly the beginning of Dragon Age is just single-player WoW with more dialogue trees and better cut scenes. Oh, I think I can safely say now that I could never see another traditional sword-and-sorcery narrative again for the rest of my life and not care a whit. Jury’s out on Dragon Age still, but Mass Effect 1.5: The Medieval Edition this is very, very not. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 11, 2009
The Path Day#2: No Compass, No Guide, No Fun
My second hour into The Path and I think I’m done. I clearly made progress today, and I even had the game tell me I was successful, but I still have no idea AT ALL what I am supposed to be doing. And perhaps even more importantly, the game shows no indication that it has any interest in making a compelling play experience. There are moments in The Path that are interesting aesthetically, but there are an equal number of moments that are unforgivably bad design. I have no idea where a 79 metacritic score came from for this obtuse and unreadable experience. I may come back to this to be completist, out of curiosity, or for some good ole masochism, but I hereby give up. My next post will be on Dragon Age. Spoilers within.
– November 10, 2009
