A tragic moment in video game history.
By Video_Game_King 13 Comments
Assassin's Creed
( I seriously didn't want it to come to this.) After shoving Revas down an elevator shaft, I decided I'd give my Wii some equal time. After all, it had been quite a while since I played the damn thing. But something was wrong; it would choke on whatever game I put within it, giving off death clicks whenever I tried playing anything. My last memories with it were a Radiant Dawn, making it to Micaiah's forbidden tongue before I received the death message. I tried everything within my reach, but alas, it ended on Saturday, when I sent the poor thing to its maker. Literally, I sent it to Nintendo for repairs. During all this, left with no Wii games, I played Professor Layton (but you couldn't have known that, right?) and Assassin's Creed.Set in the future and also the past, you play as a bartender playing as a medieval assassin on a quest to assassinate the various leaders of the known world. It sounds confusing in words, but that's only because of the sci-fi theme, or as I call it, the "why"-fi theme. Wait.....uh, anyway, I can imagine why Ubisoft chose the science fiction thing, but a lot of the reasons seem unnecessary; the story sets you up for a tutorial perfectly (and gives one, as well), most of the villains repeat the message that the sci-fi attempts to deliver (more on that later), they do nothing in terms of gameplay, and I don't see much of a reason for them to limit off certain areas of cities ((parenthesis)).
This is where the game excels: exploration. There are many ways to access whatever you want to reach, a lot to explore and collect, and doing all of this is incredibly easy. The controls take some getting used to, but when you finally do adjust, moving through the city feels completely natural and fun. There were times when I'd just ignore the missions by scaling view points and saving half the population, like the complete opposite of Batman in every way. Or maybe it was because the missions aren't that good; the informer missions are good, but the assassinations are all the same: first, you gather info by beating people up, stealing from them, or neither. Then, you activate the mission and sit through twelve minutes of the target being asshole. Then, finally, you kill him with your sword, something the game seems very stubborn about. I've tried it other ways, usually by pelting them with throwing knives (like an assassin SHOULD), but the knives have this weird property where they turn into bananas when the target is near death. So I always had to rush over to my target, beat him a bit with the sword, and sit through another twelve minutes of the same speech over and over again: "I was really helping people" and "we're not so different, you and I."
Then you go back to the mission guy, never to be paid for your assassination. What I'm saying with that is why isn't there currency in this game? It could have opened up so many doors left closed in this game: I could have bought different clothes to blend in better, bought better weapons/upgraded my current ones, pickpocket citizens for their meager cash, bribed guards for hints/amnesty, hell, maybe even paid those beggar women. Instead, I lured them to me with my natural sexiness, let them ramble on a bit, and then killed them in plain sight. The wrath of Templars did not come down upon me, as many have led me to believe; usually, I could just run around the nearest corner, nobody the wiser. But even if all those guards did chase after me (and they did), who the fuck cares, these made for some awesome moments! As I said before, it's fun to jump about on the rooftops ( hmmm...), throw knives at knights from above, hide in plain sight (even if getting there is oddly more difficult than the hiding itself), and, in my case, summon the aforementioned wrath, hop on a horse, and walk forward, just out of reach of all those guards.
Also weird: the bugs and technicalities. There aren't as many as I've heard, but they're there, and that counts. Colors will sometimes stick, characters will get stuck on the in-game objects, and early in the game, I encountered freezing near the end of every assassination, meaning I essentially had to play through them twice. They're not game-destroying glitches, but it can get annoying when a counter lands you on the other side of a memory block...and into Death's cold hands. The same hands that....that took my Wii from me!!! *starts bawling* WHY!? IT WAS IN ITS PRIME!!! *runs out of blog, crying*
The Queen said:
*sigh* Why do I have to clean up my husband's messes whenever he doesn't finish a blog? Why can't that guy who uses his username on Giant Bomb do this? I guess I'll have to do it anyway. Before he ran off crying, he was supposed to give this game the Devil Survivor Award for, and I this is what he wrote, "Batshit Insane, Ridiculous Plot Twists."
Review Synopsis
- There are some ancillary portions of the story, but overall, it's worth a look.
- From what I could glean, he really likes the open world aspects of the game.
- Huh, he didn't care for the scripted parts of Assassin's Creed that much. Weird, in all the years I've known him, he loved JRPGs and other such games.
He's still tearing through Kleenex boxes and buckets of ice cream. Here, just watch this while I console him:
Ninja Crusaders
( Well, I'm finally over the loss of my Wii.) No matter how much I cry and beg, my Wii/$85 check is still in the hands of Nintendo. I'll just have to find some way to fill the void (probably this) and pass the time during its absence. Hey, look what we have here: another mediocre NES game, but with a cool title: Ninja Crusaders! That idea alone would probably shut up even the most vehement of Assassin's Creed critics. Not because ninjas in Israel would be awesome to the power of holy fuck, but because they'd remember that this game is actually worse than Assassin's Creed, even when you discount the fact that it's an NES game. I might as well begin with the first thought that popped into my mind when I started playing: this is a helluva lot like Ninja Gaiden, isn't it? I probably should have known just by the presence of the word "Ninja" in the title, but dear God, this is a Ninja Gaiden rip-off in almost every way. I say "almost" because it forgot to copy a lot of the things that make Ninja Gaiden good, like a decent story or good graphics.
However, it also does a few things a bit better than Ninja Gaiden, like difficulty. The game's much easier than Ninja Gaiden, so you can take that as you see it. For me, the easiness is good, but the things that make it easy aren't. Things like weapons. Like Ninja Gaiden, you can collect different weapons to use at any time. However, instead of collecting secondary weapons, you just collect weapons, ranging from a stick to a sword to a grappling hook that's pretty much a longer stick to ninja stars. Also unlike Ninja Gaiden, all the weapons do the same damage, there's no limit on how much you can use them, and most if not all of the weapons behave in the same exact way, meaning you either stick with the shurikens for the entire game or prepare for an early death.
You know what, scratch that; prepare for the early death anyway. There's a crapload of enemies in this game, and they all regenerate when you leave the screen. Of course, they die with one or two shurikens to the face, but that's not the point. The point is that the enemies regenerate for no reason, making them harder than they need to be. Of course, as is the nature of bad games, this means the bosses are easier than a 10-dollar hooker. Just dodge their attacks by jumping (or ducking, a lot of people forget that), shove ninja stars so far up their ass that they start developing ulcers, and repeat ad nauseum. Not even the final boss is immune to this treatment; the only way you can tell he's the final boss is that he has two forms that are exactly the same in every way.
If they hadn't done this, you probably would have played through the same ten levels repeatedly in your search for a final boss of some type. Yes, I said ten levels. They aren't that long and the game is already really easy, so the game's going to be shorter than your sex with the aforementioned 10-dollar hooker. Yet unlike Assassin's Creed, there's really no reason to go back and play this game again; no extra characters, no secret levels, not even a different ending. So, in the spirit of this game, I'll repeat the ending to my Assassin's Creed portion of the blog and give this game the Sobbing Wii Award. *runs off "crying", leaving somebody else to fill the synopsis*
Review Synopsis
- 'Ey, Oi liyke this game's easines'. Gotta luv a 10-dolla hooka, roight?. - Bushwald Sexyface.
- I think the King forgot to mention that this is at least a playable game, which is much more than I can say for several others games I've/we've played. - Writey Guy, the guy behind the username. (That's all you're gonna get.)
- I don't see why he's complaining about the game's length; usually, he just plays these games so he can push his blogs out the door quicker. - The Queen.
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