@Soap: Make sure you visit the mountains with the Auditore cape on as well.  I found the combat achievements to be a little finicky.  It took me a while to get Sweeper, even though I was taking down like 8 guys in one motion.  I'm almost there.  I need to find 4 feathers.  I suspect they are in Florence, since the feathers in Florence tend to be in windows, while ...

@Stormhead said: " Its clear that Activision know full well that they have published a piece of crap.  They didn't send out any copies of the game for review, instead choosing to hold a so-called review event (see: "stage-managed propaganda"), and review websites & magazines are having to shelve out $120 just so they can review it.  "This.  Activison has swept this game under the rug as best they can.  ...

@JeffGoldblum said: " All of you are reading way too far into this.  Who fucking cares? "QFT.  I have never gotten any sense of real hostility among the crew.  I mean, there is always that dicking around that happens among friends.  I like Ryan.  I think he's funny.  I like Brad.  I think he's cool, but he isn't particularly good at video games.

It's all neurochemistry, man.  Dopamine is a mood elevator that is released through the reward center of the brain.  Getting an achievement/trophy releases dopamine.  Interesting enough, dopamine is also one of the chemical causes of addiction to hard drugs.

Let's say I would not accept sacrifices to the single-player for the benefit of the multiplayer.

You can actually just hold down the A button and walk into people.  It makes the process a whole lot faster, as Ezio both walks more quickly, and automatically helps himself to peoples' purses.

@w00master: Apologies accepted.  You're right, my diction in that particular sentence was not the best.  Perhaps "hardcore" or "traditional" or any combination of the two would be more acceptable than "true".

@w00master:  1) I NEVER said that a true FPS needs ironsights.  I swear to god, if one more person claims that I said that, I'm going to go on a murderous rampage of the likes this world has never seen.  Stop trying to put words into my mouth.  It's ridiculous.  I said ironsights are only one of the things that I prefer in my shooters that Left 4 Dead lacks.  ...

@StingingVelvet:  That is a fair and probably accurate assumption.  Ironsights is only one of the things I have been trained to look for in FPS.  It seems to me that L4D isn't meant to be a traditional FPS so much as say... like a First Person Dual Joystick Shooter or something else entirely.  While the dual joystick functionality isn't there, obviously, this game is about mowing down dudes.  Lots of ...

Great review, Ryan.  I especially agree with the points about character movement and facial animation.  I've had a few instances when Ezio would jump in a direction I didn't want him to (usually to his death).  It's really strange how the character models, overall, look nice and sharp, but the face still has that strange "stretch to talk" thing going on.  I will say that the game takes a while ...

Having played the 360 demo of L4D2 (but never touching the original do to my lack of a dedicated Live connection until a few months ago), I can firmly say that this game is not for me.  Especially with the unacceptably laggy servers that seem to reign supreme, and the lack of certain other things I look for in my FPS's. (*cough* Ironsights *cough*)