Assassins Creed 2
The original Assassins Creed was a real missed opportunity. The whole free running jumpy go everywhere system was very new then and the attention to detail in the sprawling ancient cities was fabulous. However it felt like they had spent so much time on that part of the engine they had had to throw the rest of it together on a lunch break. Unispired combat, grindy gameplay with the same four missions over and over and no real stealth mechanic at all.
There was fun to be had but it felt like it could have been so much more. So along comes the sequel this time set in renaissance italy and it has the same set up of assassins vs templars. Our new "hero" is Ezio who is part of one of italy's banking families. Seeing his father and brothers killed he sweers revenge and we follow his life from care free rouge to world worn assassin.
The game has the same free running setup but while it was pretty new and exciting when the first game came out the same mechanic is now in pretty much everything. It also suffers from the same flaws as the original (which are general plaforming issues) the tendancy of Ezio to leap off a cliff to his death rather than jump to the platform in front of him. They also decided to make the "let go" button the same as the grab ledge button something that is very annoying later on when you get a move that jumps up a bit to grab a far away ledge and often results in you plumeting to your death yet again.
Graphically it's as impressive as its predecessor with the various cities in the game rendered in quite high levels of detail the views from the games high points are quite astounding. It continues the whole synchronise mechanic of the first game where you have to go to a high point and look about to unhaze the map and allow you to see missions, though I think this is now only side missions.
The flow of the game is a bit more consistent you follow ezios life and you gain skills naturally as he progresses rahter than the starting god like with all your skills then getting them taken away and slowly dolled back out again. There is also less of the future time asstergo animus stuff which broke the flow of the first game. There is still some there but it's much more muted and you leave the animus maybe twice in the whole game.
Rather than the system in the first game where you had to do X number of side missions before you could attempt your actual mission this game makes the side missions basically optional and the story missions flow one to the other. The side missions have been redone so there is a touch more variety to them but they still tend to be a bit unimaginative, there is race, fist fight, assassinations. They are pretty much what you would expect from the name. There is still a fair amount of fun to them but still it show a lack of imagination that that is all they accomplish.
The fighting system has had a few tweaks but it will mostly still boil down to learning the counter kill move and waiting for the group of enemies to attack one by one and the counter them. Some enemies you have to employ different tactics like the dodge move or the disarm move but they are few and far between.
You have more assination tools at your disposal this time the classic blade is your starting weapon which becomes the double blade allowing you to dispatch two guys at once which is pretty fun either leaping from a roof or sneaking up behind to stab people in the face. You also eventually get Poison which is one of my favourite methods. You stab someone with it and they slowly go mental flailing about and then dying. It's great because it doesn't immediately alert the guards so if you can apply it without getting caught you can just melt away into the crowd before anyone knows anything has happened. The old faithful throwing knives are back and in much greater supply than the last time as well as the pistol which you only get towards the end and is essentially just a much more powerful throwing knife. You get a couple of distraction tricks like the ability to toss money which will attract people and possibly guards and can be used to disrupt persuers by putting a load of people in their way. Smoke bombs are also available later in the game for ninja like kills. The toys are all fun but you rarely have to used anything more than the blades it's a matter of personal preference most of the time
You get access to a sword, a dagger, your fists, and the hidden blades as weapons in a fight and you can get better versions or temporarily pick up an enemies weapon. Which leads me to another major addition to the game is the economy system you now get money from all the missions and can use it to buy things like new weapons or better armour or health potions or ... paintings. You can also steal it from people or loot bodies both of which can attract the attention of the guard or find it in chests littered about the world. You also get access to a sort of home base which you can spend money to upgrade adding various facilities like shops or brothels which add to the value of the place and give you an income in taxes. This essentially makes the collecting money pointless as you end up with more than you can spend. Still it adds a bit more to the game to do. The new weapons you buy have different stats but to be honest I didn't really notice any difference in action.
The collection elements are still there you can collect feathers, assassin emblems, hidden glyphs, and codex pages. The each give you things codex pages add various assassin upgrades like the poison and the second blade and you basically have to get all of them to finish the game. The hidden glyphs are odd symbols hidden on buildings inserted by another time traveller which give you parts of "the truth" a short video explaining the origins or some such you find them then do a short logic puzzle to get a small out of sequence part of the video once you have them all you can watch the whole thing. it's all a bit grindy.
The other improvement is the social stealth element and the notoriety system before you could just do the blend thing or sit on a bench and people would walk right by you. The bench thing is still there but they have refined the blend stuff so it feels a lot more believable. You can now insinuate yourself into a crowd or pay for a faction to protect you (the three factions available are thieves, mercs, and courtesan which all have their own special skills) once in the group you are invisible from the guards. Most of the time you don't need to do this unless you are in a forbidden area or your notoriety is high.
As you do "Bad" things your notoriety goes up when it reaches a certain point the guard are on the look out for you. So if you get near to them and they see you they get a little meter above their head that goes up from yellow to red when it goes full red they attack you. If you blend into the crowd then they don't see you and their awareness will deplete to zero. This makes for reasonably fun bits of dodging from one group of people to next joining moving flows of people and flowing them to get to your desitination. It feels a lot more convincing than the walk like a monk or stand in the monk groups thing of the previous game. You can reduce noteriety by tearing down posters of you or killing specific witnesses or bribing heralds. It's pretty easy to deplete it to nothing and even to keep it low as you continue to murder your way across italy tearing down the odd poster which inexplicably seem to be stuck to walls high up where noone would likely see them anyway. The enemies now feature some smarter troops who will actually search places like stacks of hay or the roof top gardens or the new wells you can hide in which makes it feel more real. It also means the new sneaky assassination moves that allow you to grab someone from the hiding places kill them and hide the body much more fun.
The hired groups are interesting the courtesans they mostly work like a mobile crowd that goes where you want it but to differing degrees as you encounter guards the courtesans slowly peel off your group of four to distract the guards eventually leaving you with no cover. You can also order them to distract a group of guards on purpose which is useful for sections when your way is blocked by guards and you are not allowed to be detected. Theives can follow you across rooftops and mercs are better fighters all of them can be directed to distract specific groups like the courtesans. Its a lot better mechanic than the previous games band of theives waiting in a district or roving monks.
The main story missions are varied often someone must die but not always there are a few follow missions which are unbelievably poorly implemented 90% of them you can stand right behind the guy you are tailing and he will never turn round or even notice you at all. There are straight assassination missions and a few rescue missions where you have to free someone. Sometimes missions are against a clock or with the requirement not to raise the alarm. Mostly they are pretty good with the odd set piece like driving a horse drawn carrige while beign set upon by bandits or using a flying machine to infiltrate a place or even disguising yourself and entering an enemy strong hold. Some missions require stealth some all out assault and it is an improvement over the original that there is some variety.
The story is of revenge and betrayal a classic sort of thing ezio kills the men who killed his family and then the men who ordered the death and then the men who paid for it and then the men that made their clothes and so on and so on. Each assassination chains up leading to another group that needs offing. Eventually you reach the climax of the story and it is a bit of a mind fuck and somewhat anticlimatic. I had hoped the grander story of the whole future past templars and assassins thing would be more interesting and without spoiling anything it feels like generic conspiracy 101 with a touch of von daniken and dash of 2012. Whoever wrote it has been ripping stuff from other peoples conspiracies and sewing it together. How well they achieve this I guess is a question for the future games.
So the game it's an improvement on the first game but still lacking in some areas. The combat is still more or less the same, a few tweaks to make it a touch more interesting but still basically a game of wait for the enemies to move mash the counter button repeat till all are dead. The new additions to the stealth the blending into the crowds is good, I still wish it had a thief like system so you could actually be stealthy outside that for a game about assassins it's lack of actual stealth play is odd though the new blending system seems like a step in the right direction. On some missions where you have to go via the rooftops you are basically standing behind things hoping the guy turns around so you can knife him wishing for a proper crouch and cover system. The story is generally fairly good with the Ezio tale of revenge and the parallel tale of the future assassins trying to work out what the hell is going on, it falls off a bit towards the ending tho and it felt to me a little unresolved I would have liked a better conclusion to he Ezio tale it felt a bit abandoned.
So it's an improvment over the original but it still has a few rough edges. While the original could get away with its lackluster missions and repetive play purely on its looks and innovative free running go anywhere mechanic the sequel now has a lot more competition and other games have done the free running thing bigger and better (ie prototype and it's run up a skyscraper trick). Still it's a fun game a notch higher up than the original but still feeling like it could have been better with some more work. Still maybe they'll crack it with assassins creed 3.
Borderlands a brief word on it
I finished this last night and was very underwhelmed by the conclusion the story was never that strong to begin with so I was hoping the climax would at least deliver some sort of epic toy to compensate. It didn't and the final boss fight was very easy. I also think I've wasted a lot of time on the energy weapons. When they first turned up I though they were going to be very important in the late game and while they are fun they are nowhere near as powerful as the normal weapons. They also are really really rare I found three in my game play out of the hundreds of weapons found picked up occasionally kept but mostly sold for cash on my trip across the wastes. Once you finish it unlocks playthrough 2 allowing you to play it again only this time harder. I'm not sure if you keep your skills or reset it is on the character I had already so maybe I start from my current level 36 and work my way up further with bigger and badder weapons. I might give it a go or maybe try one of the other characters.
Anyway I felt let down by the ending it didn't really deliver anything and it was piss easy to boot.
Ratchet and Clank A Crack in time
This one slipped a bit under the carpet too many games came out at once and this one coincided with Dragon Age so I didn't have time to play it. Now I had some time I picked it up, I quite like the ratchet and clank games. Pretty almost pixar type graphics and some crazy over amped guns with some platforming inbetween and some fun characters.
This game picks up after the end of the previous one (maybe after the downloadable episode I forget) Ratchet's friend Clank has been kidnapped by the mysterious zoni and you are off to find him. Along the way you discover a plot to destroy the universe by Dr Nefarious using the power of the great clock that keeps time running.
Its all great comedic fun story in the suitably over the top style that the series is known for.
Gameplay is of a few types ship based where you fly your spaceship from sector to sector landing on planetoids which means super mario galaxy style running round a sphere sections of platforming or 2d plane space combat. You can also land on a planets or space stations where the action is your more typical 3d platformer. You get access to an aresenal of weaponary with old favourite and new innovations. The blaster and fusion grenades are both in but as a twist they are now part of three "Constructo" weapons which are basically modular allowing you to alter their functionality by finding parts in the world. For instance the blaster has the option of being a beam and then having rapid fire or charge add ons. The fusion grenade has things like timed, sticky, or contact detonation. The new weapons are suitably wacky like the sonic erupter a frog like creature that belches at enemies knocking them down. As with previous games you level up the weapons as you use them each level making them more and more powerful till they reach their maximum level usually adding new features and bonuses. You can also replay the game once they are all unlocked to level the weapons up from the maximum to even greater heights.
Gameplay is split between ratchet and clank with rachet searching for clues as to clanks wearabouts and clank trying to repair the great clock that Dr Nefarious has damaged. Each has their own abilities with clank getting the cronoscepter that allows you to slow time and er bash things to fix them ... how that works I don't know it must be of the savage newerth school of repair and maintenance. Clank also gets a sort of temperol record option where by in specific rooms you can record multiple versions of yourself to solve a puzzle and exit the room these sections are a lot of fun and get quite involved towards the end requiring a lot of thought and rerecording elements to adjust as you manage to unlock the various layers of the puzzle.
As you go through the game you get access to new platforming tools that allow you to access other bits of the levels to get hidden stuff like gold bolts zoni (who upgrade your ship) and plans for the ultimate weapon the ryno V. Each of the toys adds different elements to the gameplay like the hoverboots and the omni soaker.
It's all classic platforming with the good and the bad of that. Repeated deaths from slightly missing the jump are naturally a big factor but the game saves often enough that it isn't too much of an annoyance.
The game looks great the story is fun and the characters amusing gameplay is good with some nice additions like the time puzzles and the general gun play carnage of loads of enemies and awesome levels of fire power and large boss fights. It doesn't differ a lot from previous games in the series just a little refinement here and there. Still if you like the previous games then this is worth picking up it's more of the same with some little new features to keep it fresh.