On Assassin's Creed

So, whilst I have nothing better to do, in that I've finished college and I'm sleeping in a messed up pattern that leaves me awake most of the night, I figure I'll get back to trying to do some sporadic updates for my blog.

So I figured I'll talk about something someone drew my attention to over on the Escapist. By which I mean: I read someone's post about it and found it interesting enough to warrant further thought, about the characterisation of the main characters (not Desmond, he sucks) in the Assassin's Creed games.

For a quick summary to get us started: At the beginning of Assassin's Creed, Altair is a cocky, high ranking and skilled assassin, so cocksure of himself that he ignores just about everything he's been taught, which leads to one of his comrades dying, and another losing an arm below the elbow. Because of this he's punished and reduced to the rank of a novice, and he starts out angered by this, arguing with the leaders of the Assassins Bureaus, and in time, through killing his targets he becomes wiser. He also questions his targets as to why they do what they do, which provides a philosophical element to the game similar to that in the original Deus Ex. His attitude generally remains quite cold, but lets remember that this is a guy who's been brought up by an Assassin order.

Now lets compare him to Ezio, who I'd take a guess that most people consider the 'better' character out of the two. He was brought up as a Florentine noble, so he's pretty cocky too, and then, throughout the story, he stays cocky. He's pretty much only interested in sex and revenge. He kills his targets and doesn't give a damn why they do what they do. All he'll give is a bit of condemnation and a Requiescat in Pace. Throughout Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood the character never really changes at all.

My point can be summed up thusly. Ezio might be the more colourful character, in terms of how he acts, but is he necessarily the better one?

And as a final note, Ezio may be the charmer, but I know far more girls who melt over Altair's cold, blunt nature.
The women I know are strange.
And are going to kill me for writing that.

Would you believe me...

...If I said lack of updates was because I have absolutely no interest in most things that come out until March or so? I'll try and get this site back on track, no promises, some demo reviews may be upcoming, as well as whatever news I can get my grubby mitts on. 

In the meantime, a more serious piece of quasi-news. Just as a warning, there's a bit of nightmare fuel at the end. Damn slow-mo.

So much for bringing families closer together, eh, Microsoft? Kinect just causes child abuse.

I'm going to hell for laughing at this, aren't I?
Lets finish this off with a little quote.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks.

Bulletstorm Demo Hands On

A glimmering city rose up in the distance as a calm, serene sunset brought twilight to the tropical landscape of Stygia. I was awestruck at the beauty that I beheld on this world, my senses astounded by the orchestral score that sounded around me.

I gripped the controller in my hands and selected the only available option 'Echoes' on the menu. The only available course to me being some sort of run down building. I pressed A, frightened of what was to come.

That's when I met Grayson Hunt. That's when he called me pasty.

When introductions were over I was given my guns, and that's when hell broke loose.

So, Bulletstorm. I want to get the bad things out of the way first, just so I can gush for the rest of the preview, the demo is stupidly easy. I don't know why, maybe it was stuck on the easy difficulty setting, maybe my muscled body turned aside bullets as easily as my boot heel turned away the foes, but I had no problem, even when enemies were attacking from all sides, and even when the screen starts flashing and instructing you to take cover, there's ample time to score a few kills whilst sliding your way home.

And it may just have been the fact that Echoes is basically a quick, story devoid mission, but the characters lacked much amusing to say, I spent at least five minutes kicking one of them to try and get a response, not even a stagger. Aside from that, the only other gripe I have is the dusty urban area you play through, rather than one of the more lush, and I'm sure more colourful areas that the game could provide to sell itself with.

That said, the game is definitely a good looking one, with fairly crisp graphics and good looking character models, as much as I could tell, at least, most people I encountered seemed intent on trying to tear my face off until they got a boot in theirs and a bullet up their ass.

Attacks have a nice and varied range of use, you can charge your telekinetic energy whip thing to clear out a room of bad guys easily, you can simply shoot their heads off, or you can kick them away to buy a little room for yourself, and it all works very well, with a good variation of attacks paying off, though kicking can sometimes feel a little off, feeling as if it's nowhere near connecting with the enemies.

And you might think it gets old to kick an enemy into a bunch of spikes, but it really, really doesn't. Power cables happen to be my favourite so far, and the game should be a bucket load of fun when it's released.

Castles in the Skyrim

More stuff from VGA, with Bethesda shocking everyone by announcing Elder Scrolls V, under the title of 'Skyrim' which, as anyone who's played The Elder Scrolls should know, is the harsh and desolate homeland of the Nords. What does this mean? Vikings.
And probably snow.

And another large surprise, if we look at this here teaser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRifj-2EEKs

Holy crap! Dragons!

Betcha weren't expecting that.

Brit Effect

So, that post I put out like, a month back.
Well, now the mystery has been uncovered, and the trailer was?
Mass Effect 3.
Bioware are idiots.

I mean really, Bioware, everyone was going to buy this game anyway, you only have two franchise at the moment and they're both pretty successful, you should release a mystery teaser if you're going to do something new.

Lets put aside Bioware's horrifyingly incompetent marketing department for now, anyway, and have a look at the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WcQvjTcxY0

There appears to be some kind of futuristic British soldier guy, being all gritty and sniping some mysterious figures that vaguely resemble Geth from a window, he talks about how we're pretty much doomed if Shepard doesn't get a move on and, lo and behold, he's in London.

Which apparently hasn't changed a bit in the last 200 years.

So I suppose this means we finally get to go to Earth, and perhaps even to England, under it's new National Trust rule, if the look of the trailer is to be believed.

Will we be charged ten credits to get in?

Bioware Mystery Teaser, appealing to the shooter market?

So for those not in the know, Bioware released a teaser not long ago, one that they explained nothing about, but it was futuristic, and looked gritty. The teaser featured a man in dark, futuristic armour climbing over, or perhaps out of something and pointing a scoped rifle of some kind out of a window, and challenged viewers to find out what it was at the VGA awards, being covered on Spike.

The teaser can be seen by following the below link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jf3YHEga0w

Rumours, however, say that the game will be a spin off of the wildly successful Mass Effect games, designed to appeal to the 'Call of Duty market' featuring a shooter style of game progression, and with a single-player not starring Shepherd. This coming from an 'Anonymous Source'

Call of Duty: First Contact, anyone?

Peeping Kinect

No, seriously. You know how Kinect takes pictures of you? A certain person playing Dance Central forgot that. Or perhaps the thought of some robotic camera watching them in their birthday suit didn't bother them, until they realised it had taken pictures of them. Needless to say that things went bad, and fast. Leading to this being posted on Dance Central's support forums.

'I was trying out the Kinect Dance Central game and I was getting hot so I took off my clothee [sic]. I had no idea that the game was going to take A BUNCH OF PICTURES OF ME WHILE DANCING WITH NO CLOTHES ON!!! I can go back and look at these pictures but HOW DO I DELETE THEM?!!! HELP!!!!'

Can't help but think of a VG cats comic. Wonder if those pictures are going to turn up on Facebook.

Don't want to know what else Kinect watches you doing though.