Assassin’s Creed – Los Havros

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood gameplay

Seen as I’ve been playing quite a lot of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood recently, I thought it would be the perfect game to show my latest addition to the blog: videos!

The following video has something for everyone: avid online gamers can watch my epic fails as I (admittedly) struggle through a couple of multiplayer games of ‘Wanted’, those wanting some action can watch as I lay waste to a large number of guards in the city of Rome, and my fan club can wince as my dulcet tones are compressed through a sub-standard microphone. Enjoy!

Edit 18/04/11: The video no longer exists thanks to Vimeo (boo, hiss), and so I’m now working on alternative videos for YouTube (yay).

I’ll post some in-depth details about the video on Sleight of Hand soon, but put briefly- I’m learning and yes, there’s a lot wrong with the video itself. It runs for about 40 mins which is way too long but I wanted to push the HD content, the running time, and the file size to the limit.

What do you think?

Update 30/03/11: For reference the post, ‘How I record gameplay from my PS3‘ is now up on Sleight of Hand.

The Da Vinci Disappearance

I previously covered Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood on the blog way back in December 2010. Towards the end of my review I said:

As for whether Brotherhood is significantly shorter than it’s predecessor, well, it’s definitely shorter, but not by much. I have completed the main story mode with a smattering of side missions in about 16 hours. 100% completion in AC II totalled a good 30 hours. To achieve the same in Brotherhood I’m estimating around 20 hours as a ballpark figure. So that gives you a game 2/3 the size as its predecessor.

‘When in Rome: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood single player‘

It turns out that I underestimated the sheer amount of content the developers packed in to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. In fact, I’ve notched up 37 hours of gameplay within the historic walls of Rome. And that’s still just the single player.

So, what does this have to do with The Da Vinci Disappearance? Well, we’re talking about DLC that adds more gameplay to a game already fit-to-burst with content. The DLC itself isn’t anything particularly remarkable. If you’ve played through a good chunk of Assassin’s Creed II and/or Brotherhood, then there’s nothing new to see here.

Continue reading The Da Vinci Disappearance

When in Rome: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood single player

When initial reviews started flooding in, all doubt was removed from my mind. This game was big. Previously I wasn’t so sure exactly where Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood fitted within the series as in all honesty after Assassin’s Creed II, I had come to expect the next instalment to be ‘Assassin’s Creed III’.

Well, all as you need to know is that Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is the next full featured instalment in the thrilling saga, with no half measures. Brotherhood continues Ezio’s story, rather than jumping to another ancestor and time period like you would expect with a number ‘III’.

This much is made clear with the story you’re immediately thrust into, taking place shortly after Assassin’s Creed II. I’m not really a big fan of giving away spoilers, so I won’t; your best bet for juicy plot details is probably Wikipedia. For the most part, the plot was totally engrossing but I can’t really say that I understand the rather rushed ending, and I await the real Assassin’s Creed III to fill me in on what on earth’s going on.

Continue reading When in Rome: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood single player

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood review

Joystiq reviews Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and likes it. A lot. Assassin’s Creed diehards like myself won’t need a review to pull the trigger on this purchase but it’s alright to take a sneaky peek, right? In the meantime, I’m just going to have to work out how I’m going to fit Brotherhood into my Black Ops schedule…

Some thoughts on Prince of Persia

I have waited till I completed the game in full before offering up some final thoughts on Prince of Persia, and I’m glad I did, as I can now visualise the game as a whole and in the right perspective. I think the easiest way to go about it, is to direct you to GameSpot’s review and take it from there.

I’ll agree with GameSpot in that Prince of Persia looks and sounds fantastic. In certain places, it really is spectacular- drawing you in to the universe depicted in the game. Yet my opinion differs when turning my attention to the level design. The mechanics of the level design are technically sound in that the environments are visually interesting and quite exhilarating to navigate through. Yet as I was progressing through Prince of Persia I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that yes, this was just a game, and it felt like one too. In many respects, it’s all down to the level design for me.

Continue reading Some thoughts on Prince of Persia

So many games, too little time

I suppose that this post has as much to do about money as it does about there being loads of games out there, but not having enough time to play them! Anyhow, I might as well recount from the beginning. I got my PS3 for Christmas 2007 and played on Assassin’s Creed. A lot. My brother and I then got some extra games as well to be playing through, such as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Orange Box, Resistance: Fall of Man and Colin McRae: DiRT. Quite enough to be getting through, don’t you think?

I think I had finished Assassin’s Creed (or there about) a few weeks after Christmas as I had to go back to Uni for exams in January. Between January and Easter 2008 I got hooked on Uncharted and played it as much as I could each weekend I was back home… every 4 weeks! I then finally completed it at Easter. Over Easter I got stuck into Resistance, DiRT, and the Orange Box. I’ve still yet to complete either DiRT or Resistance! Anyhow, I decided to attack the Orange Box over Easter and over the following months got a fair amount of it completed. I then came to the end of my journey with the last bit of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to finish and Portal. By mid-May The Orange Box was completed.

Don’t even mention Grand Theft Auto IV; I just haven’t had time to go on it or been particularly bothered with playing it. It’s not going anywhere, so I’ll get back to it at some point. Since being home for the Summer, Race Driver: GRID has been out and I love it. I have still got way over 3/4 of the game left to finish! Other times, I’ve fired up GRID and decided to play online for a good hour or two. Recently released is Metal Gear Solid 4, but there’s no way I can afford it, let alone have time to play it!

Assassin's Creed

I suppose this little story of my PS3 game playing journey might be a bit boring, but I’ve been trying to describe the plight of a gamer more often than not, not being able to play any games! As a student I don’t have that much money to start shelling out on £40 and £50 games, and my PS3 is left at home whilst I’m away at Uni. I can however appreciate people who have full time jobs as both this year and last year during the Summer, I have worked 40 hour weeks and you don’t necessarily feel like gaming after a particularly rough day.

Really, this post has become a kind of message to all those kids with a 40-strong PS3 (or Xbox 360, why not?) games collection who play every night and complete one game a week. Which is ridiculous. So my message is, erm get your homework done(?!) and gaming will have to take a back-seat in your life in future, so enjoy it while it lasts.

If anyone is wondering what on earth has being going on in this post, then you are not alone. I, myself am not really sure either. I’ve kind of gone off-tangent and started to rant a bit, but I’ve covered everything I’ve wanted to say, so I’ll leave it at that. Comments, as always are most welcome.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

: Image via Wikipedia

I’ve finally completed the story of Assassin’s Creed, even though I’ve had the game since Christmas. However, I can tell you that it is not easy trying to complete a game when you only return home about once a month, and have studies to attend to. I only completed Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune itself about a week ago.

Yet what I want to explore is the issue of using walkthroughs, and to what degree. In recent memory, I have only used walkthroughs very rarely. Generally I’ll only turn to a walkthrough to get past a bit in a game which has actually stopped me progressing any further. After I get past a tricky bit, I’ll then discard the walkthrough and continue to enjoy the game at my own pace, and deal with the challenges ahead myself. I’m sure that most people would agree with me in this respect.

However, a much more controversial use of the walkthrough in my opinion is finding all certain extras in order to complete the game “100%”. In Uncharted, there’s 60 treasures to find and I admit that I have used a walkthrough to find a few after completing the main game the first time round. The way I view Uncharted is that the levels are linear, and that entails being able to enjoy the story and gameplay once more, whilst being able to grab the extra treasures. If you’ve missed a treasure in Uncharted you’ll have to start that particular chapter again. However Assassin’s Creed is more of an open, free-roaming world in which you can go back to any city and look around for flags or Templars for as long as you want. I am therefore more reluctant to use a walkthrough in this case. I find a particular thrill in finding a Templar, hidden in a remote place and adding him to my tally.

That brings me to the case in point, as I see it: such items, be they flags, treasures, coins etc- are put there by the developers for the skilled or explorative gamer. Not for a lazy gamer to simply collect by reading a walkthrough, else why bother? I’m intrigued to hear any other voices or viewpoints on this matter.

The Empire Strikes Back

Back when the PS3 launched, I practically screamed at Sony’s stupidity. Why price the damn thing out of the reach of most consumers? It meant that people like me, Joe Consumer, could not get a piece of the next-gen gaming action… at least not on the PS3 anyway. One year later, look how things have changed. I’m going to be bold and just say it- Sony has proved us all wrong. Sure, they may have had early poor performance with sales, but Sony has adapted to the market and fought back.

So, how has the situation improved? Well, Sony have steadily been reducing the price of the PS3 to more acceptable levels, (unfortunately) going so far as to remove PS2 compatibility to get the PS3 to be profitable. However, this cloud might have a silver lining in the form of potential PS2 compatibility via software emulation at some point in the future.

Also many gamers have complained that there just has not been a great selection of games. Having got a PS3 last Christmas, I would have to disagree. I would even go so far as to say that Sony got ‘the must-have game’ fairly early on in the form of Resistance: Fall of Man. I’m sorry, but it’s just amazing. Something bizarre has been happening though; I’ve noticed in discussions on the internet that a lot of Xbox 360 gamers have claimed that they have great games such as The Orange Box, Burnout Paradise and Assassin’s Creed which demonstrates why the Xbox 360 is the best- completely forgetting that such games are also on the PS3.

The PS3 has released notable exclusives such as: MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank, Heavenly Sword, SingStar, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune etc. PS3 gamers also have a lot to look forward to with regards to exclusives: Gran Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Haze, Killzone 2, Resistance 2 etc etc etc! It’s time to crack open the champagne; 2008 and beyond is set to be an amazing time for PS3 owners.

Darth Vader and PS3

There’s been a notable flurry of welcoming PS3 news indicating that things are getting better. I’ll share a few that I’ve read about on PS3 Fanboy:

So it seems the PS3 is finally hitting its stride and may soon become the console of choice. From news reports and personal experience I know the PS3 is very popular in the UK, and also throughout Europe and Japan. The exception to the rule is in the USA. They sure love their Xbox 360.

Well, that just about wraps it up. I’ve said my piece, now it’s your turn. If you disagree with me- even better! Feel free to comment and I’ll reply as soon as I can.

More PS3 Gaming

More PS3 Gaming- In addition to being captivated by Locoroco Cocoreccho, Super Rub a Dub is a lot of fun as well. Again, excellent value for two small downloadable games. Anyhow, after having played heavy amounts of Assassin’s Creed since I got my PS3, my other new favourites are Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I like a bit of variety these days and try not to hammer one game to death (like Assassin’s Creed, I must admit). I’ll try to give some thoughts and opinions on these two epics at some point.

My Assassin’s Bane

After having a fair time to get acquainted with Assassin’s Creed and the various ins and outs of the game, I find myself particularly irritated with a teensy but (in my mind), crucial detail. If I draw the attention of a guard and speed off into the distance on my trusty steed, then calmly walk about miles away; a random guard where I now am will somehow know what that other guard did, and proceed to attack me. Are these guards psychic or something?!

Meh, it’s a minor detail I just thought I’d mention. I’d like to make clear though that it does not in any way alter my actual enjoyment of the game. It has to be one of the best action games I have played for quite some time. It is quite an achievement considering there are no guns- which makes a refreshing change.

Assassin's Creed