Assassin's Creed III review

For a game that has so much, and yet offers so little, it's a shame that Assassin's Creed 3 did what it did. Not only is this one of the most disappointing game in the series, it's a slap to the face of what made Assassin's Creed 2 so great.

In Assassin's Creed III, you play as Conner, a half British half Native American in the 1700s America. This was also known as the Revolutionary War. This takes place before, during, and after the war, but you wouldn't know that because the Revolutionary War is so downplayed, it feels like it was there just to justify the new engine the team at Ubisoft created. Despite a good 80 percent of the time you play as Conner, you really play as Desmond Miles as he continues reliving his ancestor's past. It takes place right after Revelations, but if you didn't play it the game does give you a decent background to the series events. What was once interesting about the story of Assassins vs. Templars has now one of prophecy and an end of the world catastrophe. By the end of the game I cared so little about Desmond and Conner, that the ending was nothing short of a confusing mess. Ubisoft just had to put that Mayan date into the story that it forced them into the wall and what ever happens next won't matter.  There was nothing in the end that makes you want to know what happens next. If it had only stick to the war between the Assassins and Templars, none of this would have happened.

In Conner's side of things, it's a little more interesting. It takes a good four to five hours for the story to really open up, but not before one of the best twist in gaming this year. I seriously did not see that coming. Conner's tale, like Ezio, is one of revenge. Unlike Ezio, however, Conner is so focus and so narrow minded that you really don't care what happens. Ezio used his quest for vengeance into action to help those who needed helping. Conner takes the mission, but complains about being pushed around. He's determined, but for all for selfish reasons. They tried to make it more personal for Conner, but at the end it really didn't matter. It was there just for drama. Not going to ruin it because it will give away that twist.

Since the announcement, the team had hyped up that you will be taking part of the Revolutionary War. While you do take part, most of the missions are so against of what Assassin's Creed is about they can take that part of history away and you would never knew what was going on. You do meet historical people like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, but they are there for so little, they might as well no be there at all. You fight in four major battles, but only one of them is worth playing. They said the new engine help made the battles feel epic, but in all honestly, they could have used the past engine and still get the same results. Thankfully, the engine wasn't only there to give that false sense of epic battles.

The new engine is pretty amazing as it allows for weather to change. You can tell when it's summer, and you can tell went it's winter. The snow will slow you down and causes you to run different to summer, but it seems that this is the only seasons that is in the game. Winter and Summer. There is storms in the game, but each crackle of lightning dips the frame rate drop. The frame rate only drops when there is too much activity on screen. It doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, you'll know. There is even a few minor bugs in the game. Keep in mind that this was after the patch was installed. Before you play the game, you have to install a patch to make the game playable. If you don't have internet access that often, you will play a completely broken game. You do have to install the game as well, this keeps the numerous loading screens relatively short. If you delete the game install, you have to also install the patch again. Another problem with the game is the camera. For the most part the camera is fine. It does what it should do when you are running. It's when you get into battles that you'll have the most problem. No matter where you are at, there will always be something blocking your view. This will make you miss a time block, or blocks off screen threats. The guards now carry guns. While it does take a while to load each shot, there will be times where you will be shot at off screen by a row of guards. This will take half your health away. They do, sometimes, point out the threat, but that window is so small that you might as well take it.

One of the most disappointing aspects of Assassin's Creed III is its weapons. The Assassin's hatchet is a fantastic weapon to fight with, but that was the only weapon worth having. You do get a gun and a bow, but you have to be within range to use them, that it makes them completely unless you are in a fight. While the fighting is as strong as ever, when preform a successful block, time slows down for a few seconds to counter-attack. This would be good in theory, but the slow down window is so long that you can think of what you should do next. This makes combat easier than in Assassin's Creed II. If you do happen to die, it was because you didn't see a guard attacking you. The kills are not as brutal as before, and you will start seeing them a lot. You can buy weapons, but the hatchet is good enough that you can play the entire game with it.

This game has a lot to offer in terms of what to do, but all of this is for naught. You can do side missions to help "free the people" but it's just there for padding. There is no Assassin's Tombs, no Subject 16 puzzles, and any good side quests. Unlike Assassin's Creed II, there is no upgrades of any kind. In Assassin's Creed II, you did side missions for money, and money bought upgrades. In Assassin's Creed III, you do side missions and get nothing. There is this crafting system, but it's underutilized and can be completely ignored. There is also hunting. Hunting is one of the most disappointing aspects when it comes to side missions. You track your prey, and you kill them. Doing so, like the side missions, gives you nothing. When you kill an animal, you can skin them. They are there just to help you sell items. So, hunting is useless. You don't get no special reward for killing your prey. Hunting is just running faster than the animal you want to kill.

The absolute worst aspect of Assassin's Creed III is its main missions. A basic Structure of a mission is follow this person, get something, give that to another person, and mission end. There are a few great missions like the Boston Tea Party, and the raid of a fort, but they are few and far between. There is a lot of hand holding when it comes to the missions. You also have eavesdrop, tailing, chasing, and sometimes all three at once. You are more likely to fail the mission because your target was lost than actually getting killed. It becomes frustrating when you have to play the same tedious mission for 20 minutes because the game fails to tell you that it's in a strict time limit. There was this one mission that breaks the rules of the game. They try to put in stealth in a "Stealth" game, but it is used in such a way that it becomes more troublesome than anything else. That freedom you had in Assassin's Creed II is gone.

Not everything is terrible though. The combat, despite that large slow window, is exciting. Getting a cinematic kill is satisfying. The world of the Assassin's Creed III isn't detailed, but it's large scope of the areas is phenomenal. The world is busting with life that you will forgive having five of the same NPCs gathering together talking. You can beat the game, and still not see everything that Boston has. The freerunning is simplified, and is now faster than ever. The most amazing aspects of Assassin's Creed is its Naval battles. You control a ship as you are out in the open waters battling the British Navy. It's exciting, fun, and unlike anything I've seen before. If there was one bad thing about the naval battles, is its that you have to see the ship your are firing taking your focus away from what is ahead. It is very possible to hit rocks or another ship. The ship is easy to control, and easy to battle with. If Ubisoft wanted to, they can do a new IP about Naval battles and use this control and engine, and it will be a blast to play.

Assassin's Creed III is a massive disappointment. You have the makings of a great game, but having using the worst missions in gaming as it's main focus is not what studios should do. Maybe if there was upgrades, better hunting, better side missions, and a better story I might have forgiving it's use of hand holding, but as it stands, I can't. Assassin's Creed III is basically a remake of the original Assassin's Creed, but with a different setting.

PlayStation All Stars beta impressions

When PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale was first announced I had said that I was hoping that it was more like Marvel vs Capcom, now that I have played some of the beta, I still retain that belief. This is a blatant rip off of the Super Smash Brothers games with very little that makes it unique from that Nintendo franchise. The beta, released for PS+ members and a public released next week, is well made, and from the few matches I played didn't see any hick ups. I just don't think that the game itself is very exciting. In Smash, it's a controlled chaos where you knew where you were at the whole time, in Battle you can't really see what you are doing. This is mostly caused by the camera being as far from the battle itself. It does get close when the players are together, but not as close as Smash. To make matters worse, when you and another person pick the same character your user name is not hovering above that character you had picked. This makes the fights more about finding yourself than actually fighting the other players.

It plays much like Smash, but in Smash you had combos you can do, but for Battle it has a three button layout and the difference between the characters are just to minimal to notice. I was planning on writing about each character in the demo; Kratos, Fat Princess, Sly Cooper, PaRapper the Rapper, Sweet Tooth, and Colonel Radec, but they don't really have anything different between the. Kratos will uses his blades as you would expect to, and Radec will use weapons as you expect to. The problem with using Sweet Tooth and Radec is that they use weapons like guns and rockets. They don't go that far, but I can see it being abused. There are power ups that relates to the map, like in the God of War map Kratos weapons from the games falls from the sky and anybody can pick it up. In one match, I played as PaRapper the Rapper and I picked up the Boots of Hermes and it does what it should. While the attacks wasn't fast, he was. It can get you to the other side of the map faster, but not much else. There are other weapons and boosts to pick up.

It's all not like Smash though. The more unique stuff is the highlight of the beta. The are two maps you can play from. Metropolis from Ratchet and Clank, and Hades from God of War. During the match the map would change. In Metropolis, it would change from Ratchet and Clank to the three Hydra stage from God of War. The music would start as Ratchet and it would seamlessly change to the God of War theme with out a misstep. It's pretty cool that they did that. While this is a beta, I just hope that the maps isn't fixed. I would love to see it change to Ratchet and Clank to Uncharted, or Uncharted to PaRapper the Rapper without a missing a beat to the music. Another thing is that the maps have death traps that relates to the map itself. Hades will attack you during the God of War map. It won't kill you out right, but it will make you in a daze.

In the long run, I can't see this being a big hit that Sony hopes to be. What made the Smash brothers such a huge success was the interaction with other players on one screen. This can be applied to Battle. It may be great fun with other players, but for online it will be severely lacking. It's got some good ideas, but it won't replace Smash Brothers in terms of gameplay and interactivity.

Dishonored review

There's a new game out there that takes the best of two worlds, and creates it into something great. Take the best part of Bioshock and the best part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and what you should get is Dishonored. Dishonored is a brand new IP, and if this turns into a series, I can expect great things from it. Dishonored takes you in the role of a bodyguard, Corvo Attano, who witness the brutal death of a High Priestess he was sworn to protect. With her body at his feet Corvo is blamed for the death and is set to prison. This is where the story of revenge begins. You get most of the training while you escape. You can sneak past everyone, or kill everyone on sight. The choice is entirely up to you. This is what this game excels at, choice. It may not look all that clear, but if you look around you will find what you need.
One of the smart things about Dishonored is the ability to check out the way you play the game. Each mission takes about an hour, or 90 minutes to complete. It's a meaty game with multiple ways to play, and it encourages you to try each one. Most of the time in Dishonored, you will be called to assassinate high ranking officers. These sections of the game are thrilling, exciting, and the most rewarding. Getting there can be just as tense. Thankfully, you have supernatural abilities at your disposal to use. You can see through walls, move quickly to one place to another, and even posses rats. Anything you need to do to eliminate your target is all there. The only thing keep you from doing that perfect playthrough is runes. Runes are there to help you upgrade your abilities and even giving you new ones. The more the runes are needed the better the upgrade. Unfortunately, you can't carry over your new found abilities once you finish the game. So the replayability is diminished. There is also bone charms, which gives you small boosts when you find them. One will make your sword swing faster, or one will make you climb faster. These and the Runes are easy to find, but a bit of a challenge to get to.


There are two main ways to play the game, lethal or nonlethal. Nonlethal is a lot of fun. Lethal, however, does come with a downside. When it comes to combat, the game isn't as exciting as the rest of the game. It just consisted of, how is attacking me and where are they at. You can use your abilities to make it easier on you, but it's just better off to try not to kill anyone. When I did kill anyone in the game, it was because I was seen and there was a small band of guards attacking me. I tried to go as nonlethal as possible. Careful planning is what you need if you plan to ghost the entire game.

The story is solid enough, until that third act rolls around. I love a good plot twist, but I don't like plot twist that is there just to make the game longer. If that third act never came, I would have greatly enjoyed the game more. It takes everything that made most of the game great and tosses it aside. There was no point whatsoever for what happens. The ending wasn't even satisfying.

One of the best things about Dishonored is the look of the game. It's not dark and full of brown it's got this distilled look that shows signs that this world was once beautiful. There's history in this world, and the dozens or so books and notes you will find will help you invest in this world. The voice cast is solid enough. It's got A list talent like Susan Sarandon, Brad Dourif, and Chloe Grace Moretz. While it's nothing amazing as you would expect, it's still great enough to believe in the characters. The loading 99 percent of the time isn't long, but there was a mission where the load time became too long, and I had to restart the mission over. Thankfully this was a one time event as the rest of the game played smoothly.

Despite the major gripes I have with the game, I still enjoyed most of it. The third act, no carry over, and combat is the worst part of the game, because the lack of carry over I can't see myself play this again. It's a great game to have for the weekend, but there is not much to go back to. If you do decide to play it again, at least you know that you can play using a different strategy.

the cost of fun

One of the worst things you can do is to become too big. As that old saying goes "The higher they rise, the harder they fall." This goes for pretty much everything. With game budgets going over the roof these past few years, I feel that the fall is coming. This will NOT be like the video game crash of '83, but it will be close. While video game sales have never been higher, so has the cost into making them.

When Dragon's Lair came out in 1983, it cost a total of 1.3 million to make. This included animation, programmers, coders, sound, the entire staff and the tools they need to create it. Because of the hand drawn animation style, it must have taken a little longer than normal to make it at the time.

One of the primary reasons for the Video Game Crash was because of over-saturation. There was consoles nearly everywhere and having multiple versions of the same game was a new thing at the time, consumers was just not that interested anymore. It didn't help when the games that was being made was a poor man's Pac-Man and Space Invaders. While E.T. would be the sole reason for the Crash, it wasn't the only one that caused it.

Then in 1985, A little card and toy company named Nintendo decided to create their own console. They had a big hit with the arcade with Donkey Kong in 1981. The cost into making Donkey Kong was around 100,000. When the new system came out, the Nintendo Entertainment System, it arrived with Super Mario Brothers. Because they wasn't doing arcades anymore, the cost to create it was probably less than Donkey Kong. This isn't including the advertisement the game had prior to launch.

Then the video game industry was risen again. Nintendo had a huge hit with there hands with Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and more. Then a new company called Sega joined in shortly after. Nintendo's response to the Sega Genesis was the Super Nintendo. All was good until Nintendo teamed up with Sony to create something new. When plans fell through, instead of Sony ditching everything, they released it instead as the PlayStation. The console war has heated up.

While the console wars themselves was heating up, so has the price of creating them. I couldn't find the budget for the 64bit era, but I can imagine it was around to 1 to 5 million mark. This included advertisements. While the price was that low, the developers was more than willing to create more new IPs. The risk of failing wasn't as high.

When Sega no longer made consoles, their last being the Dreamcast. Microsoft took Sega's place with the X-Box. The price of making a game would have most likely doubled. While that did happen, new IPs, and risk was still being used. Some of the most popular games of this generation was born here. Call of Duty, God of War, Pikman, and Halo. While Call of Duty was more of a PC game, it didn't stop Activision from releasing the series to the PlayStation 2, Gamecube, and the X-Box.

It is in this generation that are showing signs of danger. Not a massive decline like in '83, but a risk of being to big. One of the first massive big budget games was the original Gears of War for the X-Box 360 for 10 million. While this was a lot back then in 2006, it's not so much now. The average budget of a game is 18 to 28 million dollars per game. The rise of a the budget also raised the price of the game itself. Most games now are 60 bucks minus tax in the United States. The price of the game could be higher, depending on where you live.

It's not that often that a game breaks the 18 to 28 million mark, but it is becoming more and more likely. When Santa Monica completed God of War III in 2010, the cost was around 44 million. In 2008, Rockstar Games released there most expensive game to date, Grand Theft Auto IV. GTAIV cost 100 million to make with over 1000 staff working on it. It is considered as one of the most expensive game to make. Any other developer might have cracked under all that money. Taking the playful tones of the past GTA games, GTAIV became serious with its subject matter. Most companies now would never do that with all that cash on the line. The big advantage that Rockstar had was that the series will still immensely popular. At the time of its release, it shattered record sales.Then nearly all the games that was being released was Open World. While there was Open World games before that wasn't part of the Grand Theft Auto series, there was an explosion of it. We are still feeling the effects of it today. That was until the Modern Warfare series. It's just one massive loop until something else shows up.The rising cost of trying one up each other is beginning to show.While more IPs is being made, like The Last of Us, Watch Dogs, and Remember Me. The chance of succeeding is slowly becoming unlikely. While I do believe those games will be successful, they still have a modest AAA budget. Resident Evil 6 is Capcom's biggest game to date. It's basically 4 massive games in one. Besides the obvious action route, I believe the game is doomed to fail. Not the action or how the game could be good, but by the cost of creating it. To bring back even half of the cost of the game, it would need to be successful.

All is not lost. If there is one thing that has been on the rise lately, it's the indie games. They don't need millions upon millions of dollars just to create that next big blockbuster. While the work is long and difficult, the accomplishments is worth it. This year's PAX East and PAX Prime has shown of a large amounts of excellent indie titles. From Antichamber, Guacamelee, Mark of the Ninja, and many many more. One of the first massive hit for the indie game scene was Braid. Braid was released on the X-Box Live Arcade and the entire budget was 200,000 to create. Braid was a massive hit and it easily stands besides AAA titles as one of the best games of this generation.

While million dollar projects has a tag of 50 to 70 dollars, the more lower cost games scan sell to 15 to 20 bucks a game. This allows for easy access, more chance of a success, and that success can lead to more risks, more IPs and cheaper costs. The AAA game will always have a place. The indie games that will show them that just because you have the ability to spend millions upon millions of Dollars just to make one game, doesn't mean you have to.

The Joys of Easy

Despite what you may have heard, there is no real way to play a single player game. No matter what game you get, you should enjoy it the way you want it. If that means playing on easy, then so be it. I am not going to say "This is the only way to play that game" or "Play Better." You spend sixty to seventy bucks on a game. There is no right way to play, unless you are playing in multiplayer. The only right way to play multiplayer is fair. No hacks, no cheats, no abusing the system. Be fair to yourself and to others, so everyone can have a good time.



Sometimes, you just want to set back and enjoy the ride. This is where Easy comes in. When I play a game for the first time, I play it on normal. This way I can have the full experience. When I finish that game on Normal, I sometimes play the game on hard. Most of the time, however, I will play it on easy just to enjoy the mechanics and the story of the game. Easy is a good thing in a number of reasons. It helps non playing gamers enjoy the game without feeling overwhelmed, and you, as the player, can do more stuff that you couldn't do otherwise. I've been playing Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception quite a bit lately, and the difficulty I've been playing it on is on Easy. I actually find it more enjoyable to play it on easy than normal for a number of reasons. Despite the trouble of having one button do two different things, the circle button being the grapple and roll action, the hand to hand combat in Uncharted 3 is quite fun to mess with. It's not Batman: Arkham series deep mind you. However, it is fun to catch a weapon in midair and firing at someone the second you catch it, or pulling a pin off an enemy and kicking them away. In these fights, you are the most vulnerable, so going hand to hand in normal or higher isn't a wise choice to be making. If I saw one of those heavy guards, I would never try to fight it hand to hand, even if he was the last man standing. On easy, I can just run up there and try to beat him down. I may get hit by a stray bullet, but at least I KNOW I can take this one enemy out in the matter of a few hits. This makes the combat styles of hand to hand and gunplay become much more blurry.



Playing the Uncharted series on easy makes me enjoy the story that much more. Uncharted is one of the few games I don't play for the difficulty, despite beating Among Thieves on hard. Some game actually benefits from playing the easy mode. Most of the time, however, Normal mode is the best way to go. The Arkham games comes to mind. You want to keep that combo going, but you want to keep that health that normal has. You can play those games on easy, if you like. But the enemies go down a little to fast to really dig in to the fighting system that game has.


Granted, there are some draw backs into play a game on Easy. You won't have that true sense of accomplishment the game can have on you that you can get on hard, or even normal difficulty has. The other thing is that it is possible to beat the game a little too fast. This also contributes of how many times you have beaten the game. It's a small set back, but at the end of the day, FUN should be the main factor of a game. If you are playing a game on normal and you are not having any fun because of the difficulty, bring the game down a peg. Anything to make the game you spend your money on fun. Except multiplayer, remember: Be Fair.



Recently, there have been talks that there could be an easy mode patched in for Dark Souls. Dark Souls, to me, is a lot of fun. The main reason for this is because of the difficulty. I have no problem with this. To me, to keep that balance between easy and normal is to let you keep the souls when you die. The absolutely frustrating thing about Dark Souls is losing all of your souls. You can have hundreds of thousands of souls saved up only to be gone by dying by your stupid mistake. The thought of losing all those souls is much more frighting than facing a giant boss. If you die the first time you face a boss those souls are gone. If you die before you get a chance to pick them back up again, those souls are gone for good. This makes facing the bosses easier because that main threat is gone. You don't care about the souls anymore, just the boss that you must face alone. Oh, it's still hard, but that jolt of dying won't be as bad as losing that much souls.



It's perfectly find to want a challenge. If you played a game enough times that thrill might be gone. This is the time where you feel confident enough to try it on a harder difficulty. You can make a game as complicated as you like, if you add an easy mode, that should be accessible enough. If you want to try things that you can't do in normal mode or higher, easy is perfect for that too.

Lonesome Crowded West

Teeth Like God's Shoeshine - If you could compact your conscience and sell it, save it for another time, you know you might have to use it

Heart Cooks Brain - On my way to God don't know, My brain's the burger and my heart is the coal

Convenient Parking - Soon the chain reaction started on the parking lot

Lounge Act (Closing Time) - She was talking with a syllable lisp 

Jesus Christ was an only child - I know now what I knew then But I didn't know then what I know now

Doin' the Cockroach - I was in heaven, I was in hell, believe in neither, but fear them as well

Cowboy Dan - Every time you think you're walking you're just moving the ground, Every time you think you're talking you're just moving your mouth, Every time you're looking, you're just looking down.

Trailer Trash - God Damn I am such a jerk, I can't do anything

Out of Gas - Opinions was like kittens, I was giving them away

Long Distance Drunk - 8 AM and someone is calling you on the telephone, you want to be all by yourself and all alone.

Shit Luck - And my heart is Slowly dried up.

Trucker's Atlas - The buzz from the bird on my Dash, Road locomotive phone

Polar Opposites - And I know I should go but I'll probably stay, and that's all you can do about some things.

Bankrupt on selling - Well, I'll go to college and I'll learn some big words and I'll talk real loud, goddamn right I'll be heard

Styrofoam Boots/It's all right on ice - He said that god takes care of himself and you of you/ It an't day and it an't night

Saint's Row The Third playlist...

Deftones – "Diamond Eyes"
Kanye West – "Power" (don't like him, but i know that this song shows up in a mission)
Bach – "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 Allegro"
Dethklok – "The Cyborg Slayers"
Mastodon – "Divinations"
Faith No More – "Epic"
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – "Relax"
Joe Esposito – "You're the Best"
Mark Morrison – "Return Of The Mack"
Sublime – "What I Got"