Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Review.

I've got to say before we start, I was pumped up for this game. So excited about it. Assassin's Creed 1 was really good but repetitive and all the missions followed the same basic pattern, sneak up, stab, get away asap. then came Assassin's Creed 2, it dealt with the repetition issues as well as adding customisation in the form of weapons and clothing and building up your city to fund your extravagances. So it's up to Brotherhood to go further, well with the addition of multiplayer it's trying to bridge the replayability gap, but can it do it while still maintaining the strong single player that the first two games success has been built on? Here's what i think...


Singleplayer
Probably the most important part for someone who bought the first two games, well it's a follow on from AC2 (hence it not being called AC3), and starts roughly after the end of AC2. It's essentially AC2 with frills and pretty ribbons. Which is a very good thing. The main improvement is MORE. More of everything, things to do, weapons, clothes, things to buy, shops to purchase. Everything is increased in quantity and quality. 


Missions, as well as the main story there is now; Territory missions, shop quests, faction missions (Courtesan, Thieves and Mercenary), Followers of Romulus missions, Private Assassination contracts, Leonardo missions collecting and commanding your brotherhood of assassin's and more that i can't mention without it being a spoiler. 


This leads on to the next great edition The Brotherhood these are citizens you rescue from the enemy that then join your side as a trainee assassin. They have 2 purposes you can send them on contracts to gain XP and also bring in some money and sometimes items necessary for shop quests, the second purpose they have is even cooler... To assist you, target a person with L1 (PS3) then with a quick flick of L2, in runs a member of your brotherhood and attacks this person. The Brotherhood come in "signals" your first signal is a single assassin so 1 tap of L2 will bring in one, then each signal contains 3 assassins each. The other option you have is Arrow Storm, hold in L2 with 3 full signals and your assassins will shoot every enemy in sight (unless they're the target).


The one way in which Brotherhood has less than AC2 is in the map. Brotherhood one location, and less is certainly more. The sprawls of Rome seems endless with a small amount of outlaying country makes the map conplex and interesting, but can be fast travelled across using the tunnel system (but each exit has to be renovated when you find it above ground) Brotherhood manages to appear bigger than AC2 and AC1 by cutting out the travelling through countryside and keeping it more confined to the city's winding avenues and alleyways. 


The actual storyline, without going into it to the extent of a spoiler, is addictive and compelling and while at times you find yourself distracted by the extras of the game they nearly always add to your experience of the main story. The additional features keep the story fresh as well as giving you advantages. My favourite new feature by far is the full-synch feature. To full synchronise a memory you must complete it in a certain way; do not be detected, don't kill anyone but the target, do not touch the ground, do not get wet, etc. these are absolutely brilliant and add a completely new element that keeps each mission refreshing and exhilarating. Oh and riding a horse through the city is very cool.


VR Training is an additional feature in Brotherhood and I won't lie i haven't really played it, it looks like it's for practising your skills in fights and time-trial style modes and that's not really for me. Not to sound cocky but I don't feel I need to practice my skills on this game. Also my first reaction was "Ripped from MGS" harsh i know but whenever something says VR it's what I think of.


One criticism of the singleplayer... Ubisoft you've added the ability to carry heavy weapons; axes, maces, longswords, WHY OH WHY CAN'T I BUY A SPEAR! :(


Minor I know but I always want one each game.


Multiplayer
I took part in the Beta for the multi-player and enjoyed it a hell of a lot. Thankfully Brotherhood is very very similar to that, but with more maps, characters, modes etc. 


So far I've played mainly singleplayer so i'm not very far online (level 8 I think) but it's very good. Game ranking uses points to determine the winner and points are awarded for style, stealth and streak. Combining these 3 will get you huge points scores and 2 excellent kills will get you a far better score than someone who charges around and gets 5 kills. There are 4 gamemodes of which I've played two; Wanted and Alliance. Wanted is a FFA were you are both the target and the assassin and it's one big circle between the players and Alliance is similar but it's 2v2v2. 


Rankings are point based and points are earned through the style, stealth and streak of your kills as well as various other means such as; Escaping, Variation and Co-op kills. 


Another addition to the multiplayer are things called Chase Breakers, these are doors or gates that slam shut if you run through them and are great for not letting you pursuer come through, and then they re-open afterwards and make for an extra element to what otherwise would be a boring straight chase.


My only real gripe with the multiplayer is that connecting takes a long time, I'm pretty sure this is due to a low number of players and because the game doesn't enter you into already running lobbies (a good thing). Overall the multiplayer side of the game is breathtakingly refreshing, innovative and cleverly worked. It's also fun while still being competitive enough to get you annoyed if you're getting beat, but it's a good annoyance since it makes you want to play better rather than just quit. 


And now it's time for my verdict...


10/10 - Without a doubt, it's stunning and while the graphics haven't been updated they're still very good, Vista's, Chases, Guns and the brilliant Crossbow for stealthy range kills, what more do you need in a game. Coupled with the excellently worked multiplayer makes this a must own game.


Unfortunately the multiplayer won't appeal to everyone, if you only like your mindless shooters then it's not for you, to do really well at this game you need to outsmart your opponents, and that's what makes it really great, it's about more than physical reflexes to dodge through crowds, it's about predicting and planning the enemies moves and not blowing cover until the knife is sliding into their ribcage (or fan is slitting their throat, since I play as the Courtesan).


Summing this game up in one sentence? "Pat yourself on the back Ubisoft, GOTY with ease."


Oh yeah and...

That's mine.

Also add in some trailers for you.

Sorry... (update)

So... yeah, I haven't really updated this recently for a number of reasons;

1. I'm busy, most of my coursework is in during the next few weeks
2. I've barely played any games, I'm about 2 hours of my Dead Space platinum trophy though
3. I considered doing a Dead Space review but I really can't be bothered at the moment

But yeah, coming up I'm going to have an Assassin's Creed Brotherhood review up, it's out on the 19th over here so I'll do a first impressions style review (similar to my Fallout one) hoping to get that done and posted by the 21st at the latest, earlier if my preorder comes early.

So I'll see you then.

Fallout: New Vegas Review

Fallout: New Vegas Review

This review has taken a while to get around to... first off my copy didn't get to me until 6 days after release (thanks play.com), then i was busy at uni, then i discovered Fifa 11 Creation Centre (and my team of fiction characters, politicians and genocidal maniacs/serial killers). Anyway.

I was later to the fallout craze, I played it a few times at a friends, and thoroughly enjoy blowing myself sky high with a fatman, ut never got around to getting it. I love Oblivion (also by Bethesda) so eventually got around to picking up Fallout 3 about May. I found it heavy going at first, lots to learn and take in. But after a few hours i got into it and really enjoyed i, so when NV came around I was pretty pumped, so here's my review.
ps. Can i please get some comments about the style and layout of this review since I wasn't sure how to lay it out, and also on my general writing style, thanks. :)

Right then, Game-play. It's exactly the same as FO:3 which in this case is a good thing, it's relatively heavy but not inhibiting, and has a good feel of realism to it. One difference does seem to be that Damage seems to be far higher, which makes you less of a tank and actually makes it more fun.

Another very good improvement is that the game as a whole is way way more in-depth; weights, more items, locations packed map, more weapons, items, Bethesda have excelled in expanding the catalogue of items in NV as well as making weights to decimals to make up for the realistic differences betweens items unlike FO:3. Also there's a lot more enemies, and radscorpions seems a lot stronger. I've yet to survive and attack against a giant radscorpion but i am still low levelled.

Factions, big big big positive for me, I love the idea of having factions which face each other, who's opinions of you are regulated by your actions both to them and their rival faction, and punishments/rewards you receive based on your choices, eg. Powder Gang - Goodsprings, you help the people in Goodsprings and you get a discount at the stores there HOWEVER the Powder Gang will attack you if the see you. This is something that appeals to me massively and I love the fact that your actions have consequences and it makes for a much more interesting aspect to the game and expands on the Karma system.

The main positive for NV for me is that it feels like a natural evolution from FO:3 and it feels like it's moving on the right way, they've made it a bit harder, added in some cool new features and expanded on most of the old ones while not really removing anything from FO:3. Bethesda made a big deal over this not being FO:4 but it certainly feels like it could be FO:3.5 and that's a very good thing, i'm a great believer in once you've got a good game base don't change it, don't go radical and mess around with the core elements that made the original so good, whatever that may be; in depth details or plain simplicity *cough*Mw2*cough*, stick with what made your original game good and tweak it to be better and the people that matter, your hardcore fans will be happy, and that's exactly what Bethesda have done. They've tweaked and improved without messing and radicalising.

The one big change away from FO:3 is hardcore mode, but cleverly it's an optional choice to give people the choice to play it like the Fallout they know or to take it that extra level of realism, and most people I know who play FO have said that they're playing Normal first then moving on to try Hardcore, so it adds even more playing time for gamers.

To deny that there are a few issues with New Vegas would be like saying that the world's flat. And here's the big one;

Freezing/Glitching/Generally Screwing Up, unfortunately it's plagued by the same issues that ruined FO:3 (especially DLC) for quite a few people. Glitching, enemies falling into the ground then getting stuck, freezing very often, are 2 things i've experienced  while playing for only a short time (about 7 hours) also failing to load textures.

This is a photo I managed to take because my camera was actually put together and out, of the textures failing to load and it stayed like this it wasn't just slow loading, it felt like I was playing minecraft again. All these issue are annoying and potentially game ruining, freezing especially, for me it'll freeze and I'll just turn it off I won't try again. Another far more minor negative is that the graphics haven't improved, not a very important thing for me but it might be for some people.

Storyline so far is weak for me, compared to FO:3 anyway, the opening is poor and you feel far less attachment to your character. It also doesn't seem to have the same addictive, compulsive effect on my that FO:3 had although like the story that might come as I get further into the game.

7.5/10 for now, fixing the issues would get it up to a 8.5/10 and a 9/10 if the Story picks up, if you like Fallout 3 you'll enjoy it, if you don't you won't because it's very similar. If you're thinking about picking up Fallout for the first time, get Fallout 3, see if you like it, then consider New Vegas, by then it'll probably be down in price or a GOTY edition with DLC will be released. You can pick up Fallout 3 GOTY pretty cheap now anyway, thanks for reading. :)

Flower HD Review

Flower HD Review


Flower HD, if you see it, if you're reading this review then i'm hoping that you'll watch the trailer i'll add at the end, you'll think "What the hell is this?" I 99% guarantee it. It's what I did at first. You'll be sat there thinking "How can this be a game?" (Let alone a GOOD one) Well here's what I think;

Flower... it's innovative, it's conceptual, it's interesting to say the least...

It's based on the concept of a flower on a window sill slowly dying in a dirty, grimy city devoid of freshness and consumed by noise and blandness (something i can certainly relate to after living on a main road in London last year). The game is the flower's dreams of filling the world with flowers. And the dreams follow the journey of the flower to the city bringing the colours and beauty with it. Before the final level in which you recolour the city.

Gameplay wise you take the role of a petal, it's your job to bloom other flowers in order to refill the dream world with flowers and recolour all the grass, once you bloom all the connected flowers in an area this will allow you to access the next areas or give you the means to access them in the form of windmills which give you extra propulsion. You move using the six-axis motion control of the PS3 controller to determine your direction and the X button to propel yourself forwards.

Graphically Flower HD is extremely pleasing, it uses strong vibrant colours for the flowers you bloom while for each flower you bloom a petal of that colour joins your Flow a sort of tail behind your original petal that can grow to huge proportions. The evolution of the levels from grey to full colour as you're playing through them brings a real sense of completion with the game, you feel that every step you're going you're getting somewhere.

Flower HD is surprisingly addictive for a game that you would feel would get repetitive after the first 2 levels, each level has a unique way to be completed, from blooming flowers around a stone circle to move rocks, to breaking pylons to open your way through. It also has it's main aim, it's incredibly relaxing, it does wear on you and you can just casually meander your way through levels at your own pace, need to stop? press select and it'll play music and show a slideshow from the game. It allows you to play the game at your own pace which is a refreshing alternative to high pressure, pace dictated games like COD or Fifa.

There are a few negatives to Flower HD, firstly and unfortunately for you Xbox players... it's a PSN exclusive, sorry. Probably because it's motion controlled with the six-axis, so it won't be appearing on marketplace.

The only other real negative with it for me is length, it's only 6 levels long, plus the credits level that's interactive that makes 7 levels. I finished it in a few hours while on and off it, not really paying attention. However it does have good replayability and there are 3 "secret" flowers to bloom in each level which allow you to complete the game 100%.

8/10 - An involving and innovative game with a very interesting concept, that gives a break from standard games that saturate the gaming market, main criticism is the length. This game won't appeal to a lot of people, but if you're looking for something a bit different from the norm it's definitely worth a try.

Flower HD is available for £6.29 or $10

Trailer - V

Portal Review

First off i know that Portal is about 3 years old now but i want to do "classic" games in this blog as well as new games, and in my eyes Portal is exactly that. So read, enjoy and comment. :)

Portal Review.

Portal, one of Valve's masterpiece games, not a new game but something i'd place in the “modern classics” section, I first played Portal a few months after it game out at a friends and never got around to playing it again. Orange Box is one of those games you always think “hey I want that” when you;
a) have no money.
b) are going to get a different game.

So a week ago after seeing it while buying Borderlands GOTY I decided i'd take the plunge and get that game that's always on your peripheral but never the game you pick up, because something else always seems that little bit more enticing.

You take the role of a test subject (Chell) in the Aperture of Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre, you are told by the eerie voice of GlaDos that you are scheduled to take part in a series of tests with the aim of learning and fun. Portal is essentially a puzzle game, you are armed with the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (Portal Gun) this allows you to create linked blue and orange portals which you have to use to navigate the varying puzzles set out for you. Your other tool s are Cubes which are used to weight down buttons or as stepping stones to help you climb. There are the normal Cubes or the Companion Cube (a normal Cube but with hearts on). As I used the Companion Cube I found myself getting more and more attached to it which made destroying it (part of the level) pretty damn hard.

The effect Portal has on you is weird. The extreme concentration sometimes needed to work out how to complete the challenge added to the droning constant sound of GlaDos speaking to you adds a psychological effect to the game, this is added to by the constant promises of a party and cake and GlaDos' continued insistence that “she” cannot lie to you. This is further increased by the discovery of hidden areas and messages left by a previous test subject which start the games discordance and give you hints that everything is not as it seems of the Aperture of Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre.

While not quite a complete original with it's Portal concept (which comes from Narbacular Drop), Portal introduced the idea to the mass market. The graphics of the game actually make it feel like you're playing a concept game, crisp sharp colours, which bright whites dominating the enviroments giving it a clincal feel, which actually reminds me of physics testings for game engines, and that's exactly what it feels like you're playing sometimes, a note must be made of Portal's brilliant physics that are near perfect, which helps with the puzzles.

The only real downside to Portal is the length of the story, it's incredibly short for a game that doesn't have multi-player, probably 3-5 hours depending on how fast you work out the puzzles. But then the game doesn't really feel complete, it feels like it was a test from Valve to see how people reacted to the ideas and style of the game, and with Portal 2 scheduled for 9th February 2011 it's just a short wait for the next, hopefully slightly longer instalment. Also the ending track Still Alive by Jonathon Coulton is one of the best tracks made for a game EVER.

9.5/10 – a refreshing and highly entertaining game, that is a MUST PLAY and will be a classic for years to come.

WARNING – if you want a mindless game this is not for you, it requires a brain.

Ps. You better hurry up to the party. Before someone cuts the cake.

My Internet.

just thought i'd give you guys a quick peak at my internet connection at the moment.

yeah i think i'll go down and talk to someone tomorrow. :P

Medal of Honor

So for my first review on this blog i thought i'd post up my MoH review, just thought i'd get one up for starters.

SP
Singleplayer in MoH is short but sweet, it's really not very long at all probably 30 minutes shorter than MW2 Singleplayer so coming in at around 4-5 hours, combat is actually quite refreshing, you're asked to take up a number of roles through out the game like taking point, watching your 6, covering fire, picking your shots. You take control of 3 different characters during the game Dante Adams a US Ranger and Rabbit and Deuce, US SEALS, surprisingly you don't feel as detached as you'd expect taking control of 3 different people over a short game. It also contains some traditional EPIC MoH scenes that remind you what made the beach landings in the old MoH just so damn great! slow-mo is kept to a minimum so when it does kick in you feel exactly how it's meant to feel rather than a nonplussed reaction you get from a game that over uses slow-mo.


Pro's
-Guns are heavy but responsive
-Recoil is there but not over the top
-Mission are varied in style and aren't the "everything goes wrong" or "rampage smoothly through" that you get a lot of the time where missions tend to twist one way through out the entire game, there's a mix of the 2 that makes it feel more realistic rather than set up and keeps the element of surprise without a discernible pattern
-Sounds guns sound clearly different to each other
-Stealth missions don't feel like you're James Bond and nothing can go wrong for you, you feel like a guy trying to be as stealthy as possible and stay alive.

Con's
-Grenades, underpowered as hell which isn't useful in SP
-AI - both friendly and enemy AI are so dumb it's unbelievable, friendly AI just walk in front of you when you're shooting, enemy AI sometimes just stand in the open doing nothing, other times they're the best sniper in the world with an RPG and hit you from 200 metres away

MP
In MoH multiplayer you're one of 2 sides, Coalition or Taliban OPFOR you fight both sides in a round each one as US, one as OPFOR there are 4 modes and a hardcore playlist containing each of the modes, mode are as follows;

Objective Raid; 2 objectives, 1 team attacks the objectives 1 team defends you need to plant charges or defuse the charges depending on which side you're on.
Team Assault; A basic teamdeath match
Sector Control; A domination style match 3 sectors to take and hold for each sector you gain x amount of points every x seconds first to 1800 wins.
Combat Mission; Coalition team has to fight their way through and assault 5 objectives while the OPFOR side has to defend these objectives,

MAPS 

-the main issues with the maps is that they seem to be so one sided towards defenders or attackers depending on the map, it doesn't really matter because you do both on each map but it's a shame they're uneven.

LAG 

-Lag is pretty good, servers seem to be holding up very well unlike what happened with BC2 where the servers got screwed over causing massive lag. one thing i really like about it is that even if you're lagging badly (and on my current awful internet i do) the server compensates for your connection (don't ask me how) in terms of hit detection, meaning that even though every time i stop running my guy moves backwards 1 metre i can still kill and play the game to a decent standard.

Weapons
-Grenades are perfect for online they can be used to dispose of a camper and well placed grenades are a useful tool for a good player but they're not noob heaven and don't cause a fragfest which is ideal.
-Sniper are normally a 1 hit kill it would seem and it's a pain when you get some guy on a roof and you can't get him and your team are too useless to, from what i've played there don't seem to be an over-abundance of snipers on PS3 but i've been told that on Xbox there are quite a lot of people using them. For the most part they're bearable but occasionally they'll really get on your nerves when they can cover a stupid amount of ground from their position.

Killstreaks
-Well if you read my review before this edit you'd notice there was nothing on killstreaks. They're that well blended into the game, they're not anonymous and they certainly have an effect and give your team and advantage with the defensive streaks and get on the other teams nerves with offensive (i'm an offensive killstreak beacon)
-The defensive streaks are things like UAV, flac jackets for your team, fmj rounds for the team just to give you a slight advantage over the enemy
-Offensive streaks are things like Mortars, Rocket Strikes. While powerful and getting you kills they're also reliant on an element of luck since you have to target where you think the enemy will be, there best use is probably holding down and objective with indirect fire and being a deterrent rather than just for kills
-They're built up by a SCOREstreak which is what they really should be called you build up score with kills, assists, headshots, but also capping sectors, planting charges and the objectives scores earn you far more points about 3x as much as a kill and so this encourages objective play in those modes which is very good for the game.

Spawns
-Are pretty damn bad. predictable and hard to change, and sometimes in direct line of site to the enemy, weirdly though it doesn't effect the game too much for me i get spawn killed a few times but then i get out of the trap.

I've given MoH 8.5 because SP is refreshing and fun while a little short and the idiot AI bring it down, added to the fact you have to get a boost for EVERY little climb, MP is solid while not being anything special and is lag free which is a large positive, main negative of MP is the unbalanced maps so if I was scoring separately i've give;

SP - 9/10
MP - 8/10

so and overall of 8.5/10 for MoH

Me

Me
I thought the best way to kick off this blog would be to have a little paragraph about me. I'm Sam, i'm 19 years old, a student at London Metropolitan University studying Advertising, Marketing Communications and Media Studies (simply put it's boring as hell for the most part but i'm good at it). As hobbies i'm a digital artist mainly doing gaming based designs on photoshop, i'm also an amateur photographer and a football fan (Stoke City FC). Oh and i'm also an avid video gamer (but you may have guessed this because you're on my gaming blog) .


I'm going to be using this blog to write up reviews for games that i'll also be posting on http://adrenalin-zone.forumotion.net/forum.htm you can sign up there as well if you want *wink wink* i may as time goes on use this blog for other things up we'll see about that when we get to it.

so right now i'm going to post up my review of Medal of Honour, just to get the ball rolling, then i'll bid you good night and when i get up tomorrow i'll set about making this blog nice and pretty. :)