Assassin’s Creed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

About 4 years after its release and my purchase of Assassin’s creed I have managed to play through it entirely. Although my loyalty currently lies with Sony, this was in my Xbox pile of shame.

Why the long wait? I was always drawn toward the series by the scenery and story line presented. The seed was planted for me to become a huge fan, but for some reason I could not grasp the controls. I would get to that first tower and struggle to climb, dying repeatedly. Once I finally made it to the top and the time came for that incredible, first leap of faith I would jump wrong and fall to my death. After I finally got past it the long walks between cities killed my interest and I put it away.

Why now? I would try it again with every new Assassin’s game release with the same result mentioned above. I never even assassinated the first target. I had been seriously considering purchasing Assassin’s Creed 3 since its release and just jumping into the story from there. The time period and Native American protagonist were an extra enticement for me but I had been putting it off due to the negative experience with the first. I finally decided to buy it off Glyde with my $15 credit. Since it takes some time to receive items bought on Glyde I decided that night to sit down and give Assassin’s Creed one final shot, and it’s been my nightly go-to game for the past week.

Thoughts? It is an incredible game. Even after 4 years I feel like the game holds up pretty well. I have heard others say that if you have not played it already, you should just start with Brotherhood, however, I am very glad that I did. I am very much looking forward to AC3 now and even more tempted to purchase AC2 before I play.

EDIT: Also, I recently sold my Xbox copies of Battlefield 3, and Mortal Kombat. Since I am no longer paying for Xbox Live these are useless since Multiplayer was the only draw left. I used the credit from these to purchase Assassin’s Creed 3 for only $1. I never got into the series, but the time period got me interested.

Ouya controller (Photo credit: Saad Faruque)

I’m feeling a strange sense of deja vu… oh right, I already wrote this post once today.

After getting my tax return I set aside appx $200 towards future gaming purchases. Originally this was going to be part of what was spent getting a PS4, but the price was never announced. I knew that meant it wouldn’t last long enough to make the purchase. Almost the next day I started looking into other options, and a few came to mind right away. I could get a PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS, or a Project GAEMS Sentry/Vanguard.

I had decided to get a VITA when I saw one for $170 on Amazon. Knowing that I already had several games for it thanks to PS+ this seemed like a great deal. It was when I was about to add it to the cart that I realized it did not include a charger, or memory card. In order to get this much-needed items I would have to spend appx $250. I just can’t justify spending that much on a hand-held system. It’s a good thing I decided that too because I went to Best Buy the other day and picked up a VITA for the first time. I felt immediately like I would not be playing it for more than a couple of weeks. I love the changes that have been made since the PSP and the integration with the PS4 is certainly a draw but it feels like more of a novelty item than a game system for me.

During that same trip I picked up a 3DS XL for the first time since Christmas at the mall. I didn’t really spend a lot of time analyzing it then but I immediately felt like it would be more fun than the PS VITA. I’m not exactly sure why either. The price was much better at $199 but I would have no games and therefore be spending $250 and only have one to play. My son also immediately asked for his turn when I picked it up which pretty much tells me that it would quickly become “his” and join his DS on the bedroom floor.

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to see a Project GAEMS unit up close. This is something I have wanted since I first heard about it. It would be great for gaming during long on-call shifts at the office where I’m doing nothing but waiting on a phone call. I got as far as placing one of these in my online cart when I changed my mind, and it came down to price. The total cost of a GAEMS unit is equal to a 32 inch TV currently and since I primarily play at home it seemed like a bit of a waste. Additionally they cannot currently confirm whether it will work for PS4 and only know that it will work with future Xbox systems. This could leave me with a portable PS3 forever since I may not buy the next Xbox.

Those were really the only options I had considered until a day or two ago. I was unexpectedly reminded that OnLive is supposed to be available at launch on the Ouya. My computer only briefly ran OnLive the way it was supposed to so I’ve got a couple of games that I have not been able to play. I was holding out on buying an OnLive system once I heard about Ouya and once I remembered this it was a matter of adding the system and an extra controller to the cart. Although I will not get it until April I am very much looking forward to it and hope to do an unboxing and review on YouTube, if not more.

Overall I felt the announcement was pretty lackluster. Due to the various leaks over the past month there weren’t any big surprises. This is probably why it was announced early on. Having the specs confirmed is great and all but who really cares about the specs? I work in IT and I love computers, and I get that it’s really the only way they can say what it’s capable of, but none of it means anything until we get our hands on the system and the games developed exclusively for it. Only then can we really see what the machine can do. On that note I’m going to break down some of the announcements below and what I like/dislike about it. I’m not addressing sequels or anything that’s not new (at least to me).

Knack – I feel like this should not have even been part of the announcement. I don’t understand why after all the specs they listed, they show a game with the animation style Knack has. I’m not saying it can’t be a great game, it could have the most amazing gameplay and story ever, but I lost interest as soon as I saw what it looked like. It’s like using an HD TV to watch old looney toons.

Diablo 3 – Cool, never played Diablo due to my crap PC but I’ve always been curious.

Destiny – *Sigh* This did not belong here either, and especially not as the final announcement. We knew this was coming a couple of days ago when Bungie said so. I am really looking forward to this game, so much so that I’ve already had the preorder set in my cart, but I thought about the PS4 and realized that I didn’t want to commit not knowing whether or not I’ll be buying a second copy down the road for it.

That was the notable announcements for me. I’m not disappointed that they didn’t show the console. It’s pretty much certain that it will either be black or white, have the PS4 logo in blue, and will play games. I am disappointed that they didn’t name the price… probably waiting for Microsoft to drop the info for 720 (or whatever) first, but I’m a couple of weeks away from my tax return and was hoping to set aside the money if it’s under $500. If it’s over that, I’m getting a new TV and working on my media room slowly until the price drops a little.

If there’s something I didn’t address that you would like to know my opinion on leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Alright… here’s what really happened. I jumped on Black Ops 2 because I really needed a multiplayer fix. I figured I’d do horribly because I hadn’t played in awhile and the exact opposite happened. My team may not always win but I certainly do. I don’t think I’ve had less than an even K/D ratio in the past week. I finally found the best combination of weapons for me. I go with 2 primaries, 2 perks, and no tactical or lethal items because I rarely do anything useful with them. I will get back to Space Marine soon but it’s very hard to give up when you’re going 28/3 or 15/1.

You understand… right?

Also, I’ve been trying to use the in-game streaming option on Black Ops but apparently my connection is crap and it will never work. I do hope to get a new PC sometime soon so I can have video updates to go along with this blog. I also learned over the past couple of weeks that my Samsung Galaxy S2 phone is more capable of rendering videos than my computer… that’s a problem.

Game 5 is in progress. I am unfortunately taking a break this weekend while my wife finishes up some school work. She’s working on her masters in psychology, and maintaining her 4.0 is more important than my 50+ games to complete. Although I very much want to support her in her hard work, it would normally bother me slightly that I’m making no progress at the moment, but truthfully it sucks that I’m playing this game anyway. It’s quite good, however, I’ve already beaten 99% of it. If it wasn’t for my computer slowing down in its old age I would’ve completed this through OnLive months ago. It’s also helping me to fully realize that I’m more of a Gears of War fan than I thought. The gameplay is very similar and it’s a great substitute while I’m not on Xbox but Gears is a much better game.

I’m not going to go into a full review now, I’m going to finish the game as I should then post my thoughts on the whole thing. For now, I’m going to keep screwing around on Minecraft in survival mode… for me this means lots of rage quitting.

What a relief! I have FINALLY completed Darksiders. Don’t take my phrasing of this as an indication that this was a torturous task. I enjoyed it very much but I did not expect to log 19 hours and 31 minutes on this. 16 hrs may have been possible if it was not for the few occasions where I got stuck. I had to take a break on these occasions and jump back into it with a clear mindset and as usual I blew right through it on the first try. I will never understand how that works, but I’m sure if I ask my wife (who’s working on a masters in psych) she’ll have an answer for me.

Impressions

Although I enjoyed my time with Darksiders I am happy to be done. The story was very compelling and kept me interested right through to the end. The characters and environment were done really well and I was not initially expecting this to include puzzles. I’ve grown to enjoy puzzle games quite a bit since Portal and the amount of different abilities needed to solve them kept things interesting.

My only real complaint would be that I felt the game should have been done a couple of hours before it was. Truthfully I may have just forgotten something that was said prior to my break which lead me to believe I was closer to the end than I was. Because of this, however, the last two hours dragged on quite a bit. The story was still very good but it seemed to be filled in with a lot of busy work and back tracking.

This game is definitely worth playing through, but not something I would buy. I will most likely check out Darksiders 2 sometime down the road but not until after this years challenge is complete.

The day before its release a very negative review was posted by Game Informer (I will not link due to major spoilers). Several people I follow on Twitter posted links to the review and reactions to the trailer. It seemed as though many people took these as a direct representation of the movie. I only read a paragraph of the review initially, and didn’t
watch the trailer until after the movie. My only knowledge of Noobz was by word of mouth. I think the
trailer could’ve been done to put a better spin on the movie than it did, and I am honestly not sure what
movie the GI reviewer watched, but it wasn’t Noobz.

I was going to rent it through one of the many services on the PS3, thought about buying it through
VUDU, but ultimately decided to pick up Noobz on DVD (which came with a VUDU code) at Wal-Mart
for $10 (I don’t buy anything without a 2nd copy anymore). I will spare you any spoilers and just say that
I really enjoyed the movie. This is saying quite a bit for me since after leaving the video rental industry
a few years ago I’ve become bored with movies. 95% of the time I fall asleep or just stop watching and
do some mundane task like washing dishes. Noobz has a few flaws, but there are limitations when doing
an indie production so it’s to be expected. I was annoyed by the amount of product placement initially,
but I realized I am pretty much a walking billboard for games and gaming equipment (some stuff I don’t
even own *coughGAEMScough*) at all times. Because of this realization I could see that the director/
producer/whoever is in charge was really just trying to show true gamer culture and how we support it.

If you’re considering watching, skip renting and go buy Noobz. Support indie films and get us out of the
sequel, prequel and remake rut that that the industry seems stuck in. (Except for Star Wars and LOTR,
those can stay.)

On a side note, I really think the review on Game Informer was done by someone who was jealous that they were not in the movie…. I wonder if someone was cut… seriously… wow.

If you’re following the blog you should know that my latest game in progress is Darksiders. I am nearly at the end and I mistakenly saved over a file where I had full health at a point pre-battle at half-health. I have tried at least a dozen times and failed at what I hope is the mid-point of the fight. I took a break over the weekend so I can make a fresh attempt and hopefully push through to finish out the game. Since I have logged about 14 hours total already I may have to put this one aside and move on if I am to continue with the challenge