I played World of Warcraft a couple of years ago when my Nephew and family decided to check it out. I didn’t mind it, but was just starting to get into EQ2 when we moved and so it was a bit frustrating in that regard. Within a month or two we moved back to EQ2 and have stayed there since.
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| Title | Assassin’s Creed |
| Developer | Ubisoft |
| Type | Third person Sneaker |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3: Windows sometime in 2008 |
| Kelly Score ™ | 92 / 100 |
I believe it is appropriate to note that I am not a historian before I say anything about Assassin’s Creed. Furthermore, I am not a religious person- I’m an agnostic. These two things together mean that my opinions regarding the religious or historical content of the game Assassin’s Creed should be taken with a grain of salt.
Assassin’s Creed is an open-ended third person sneaker with a strong role playing element. It is single player only, with no multiplayer or online elements other than XBox Live achievements. The main character- the guy you play- is oddly sort of a secondary character within the game itself. You are Desmond Miles, a young guy who finds himself kidnapped and held within a lab at a shadowy pharmaceutical company’s offices. The majority of the game is played through Desmond’s “genetic memories” using a machine called the Animus. You spend your time playing through your recovered memories of an ancestor named Altair: an assassin, Hashshashin, or Fedayeen during the period of the Third Crusade.
The plot involves completing a series of assassinations, partly to restore Altair’s status within his guild, and more importantly to disrupt the plans of the invading Templars. A secondary plot involves discovering why Desmond has been kidnapped and forced to live through his ancestral memories. Something is going on in modern times, something sinister and based on ancient rivalries and power struggles. The story is presented through a series of slightly interactive cut scenes (you can change your point of view and move slightly) with first rate voice acting.
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| Title | Crysis |
| Developer | Crytek |
| Type | First Person Shooter |
| Platform(s) | Windows XP/Vista |
| Kelly Score ™ | 95 |
I bought Halo 3 on my XBox 360 shortly after it came out. I didn’t expect much from it- and that’s what I got. The Halo franchise is good, but has never really “wow”ed me.
At its root, I’d say the problem is partly a matter of the story as presented in the game coming across as “weak”, and partly the visual perspective the game plays from. I understand the back story behind the games is very detailed and rich…but the game doesn’t convey that well to me. As for the perspective: they seem to consistently do something with Halo that combines to irritate me (“an endless stream of passages, all alike…”) and give me motion sickness. First person plus acres of similar looking views equals nausea for me. Add these considerations to the fact that I made a mistake and played 9/10ths of the game on “easy” before discovering that you have to play on “normal” to get any achievements…the thought of playing the game through again made me put the DVD away.
Along comes Crysis. This game is as “different” as Far Cry was a few years ago, and that’s not too surprising I guess as both games were developed by Crytek. Note that Far Cry 2 was *not* developed by Crytek, so who knows what that will be like.
Moving back to the topic…Crysis has the bog-standard first person shooter plot. A super-soldier is part of a squad tasked with investigating some strange happenings on an island near China. The cause turns out to be some sort of alien invasion- much gunfire ensues. What makes Crysis “better” than the standard fare has more to do with how the story is presented, how the player is allowed to interact with the world, and how natural the whole process feels.
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Crysis: a First Person Shooter as it should be doneRead More »
I don’t play World of Warcraft any more- it was fun, but lacked depth. But apparently William Shatner plays WoW, or at least he claims to in a new World of Warcraft television commercial.
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Note: the original Zero Punctuation videos for this post were lost; I’ve replaced them with a few I found funny in 2024
I stumbled across this series of comic video game reviews earlier this week, but didn’t actually watch any of them. You see, I had heard that this particular reviewer had given a negative review to BioShock, and my unsubstantiated reaction was that the reviewer must be a total moron.
…I bought Halo 3 the other day: count me as number 5,000,001. I’ve been enjoying it: the story is intriguing. I’d say the third installment of Halo is, thus far at least, better than its predecessors.
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I like the Halo series: it’s a decent first person shooter game with a better than average story. I played the original Halo on the PC and Halo 2 on the XBox. I haven’t bought Halo 3 for the XBox 360, but I probably will someday soon. I’d probably rate both of the first two Halos at somewhere between 7 and 8 out of 10. Good solid games, nothing earth-shattering, but fun.
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I finished BioShock last night. I won’t spoil the game by revealing its secrets, but the ending was…a let down.
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| Title | BioShock |
| Developer | 2K Boston / 2K Australia |
| Type | First Person Action RPG |
| Platform(s) | XBox 360, Windows |
| Kelly Score ™ | 95 / 100 |
It was a great relief on a lot of levels to play BioShock after my rant about checkpoint saves the other day. In addition to being an XBox 360 game (also available on the PC) with unlimited saves, it is probably one of the best computer games I’ve played in a long while.
BioShock has it all: a fantastic and original story, brilliantly realized game mechanics, and stunning use of visuals and audio. The story is set during the post WWII era: your passenger plane plane crashes and you, the only apparent survivor, discover the entrance to a secret oasis…or what might have once been one. Rapture, an entire underwater city founded by a wealthy man with a passing resemblance to Howard Hughes, was founded on principles of moral and scientific freedom. Unfortunately, it seems as if something has gone terribly wrong…
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From time to time I feel compelled to preface a posting here by a reminder of what sort of person I am. I’ve been playing computer and console games for over a quarter of a century, heavily biased towards the computer “role playing” game, fantasy, and first person shooter genres. I’m more prone to like something like Deus Ex or Oblivion than Doom 3, although I enjoy both types of games. And Mario Kart or Katamari Damacy are right out.
In a nutshell, I like games with a strong narrative: something that could make a decent fantasy or science fiction book. Although I enjoy some twitch/combat games, that isn’t my forte. “Childlike” games with bubblegum graphics and mostly mindless plots do not amuse me very much.
Now I’ve set the stage for my rant, the basic thesis of which is: Checkpoint saves and their cousins, single copy saves, are evil. They suck. They drain all of the joy out of otherwise good games.
This requires a bit of explaining if you aren’t a computer gamer…
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