Game Reviews: January/February 2013

Movies. Games. Books. TV shows. I love all of them and I wish I had more time to watch, play and read all the things I want to. I do notice though how I tend to go through “waves” of each of them: some weeks (like the weeks leading up to the Oscars) I’ll be mainly watching movies, while other weeks I’ll be mainly hooked on certain books and games. I’ve had this idea for a while now to do a visualization of all the stuff I’m addicted to, mashing up my movie data from Letterboxd, my gaming data from Raptr and my reading data from Goodreads. The only thing I’m missing is my TV show data, but I think that one tends to be quite consistent through most of the year.

When it comes to games the past two months, I think I mainly played in the first 2 weeks just after Christmas. I was pretty much playing Assassin’s Creed III and Darksiders II simultaneously, cause I had to share AC3 with Cristiano. The more I play though the more I notice how easier it becomes to switch to different controller controls: it just takes time!

Assassin’s Creed III

I’ve always enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed series. I loved the overarching scifi-y story with Desmond, the scrambling over rooftops and monuments with Altair and Ezio, and just that sense of history while you’re playing. And while most of that was in AC3, it was also the first game in the series that I’ve been disappointed by.

I wouldn’t say it’s a bad game. There are some annoying glitches, but overall it’s a fun game to play. I think the main reason I was disappointed by it is because of the protagonist Connor. He’s just so booooring and bland, there’s just no way to sympathise with him. Part of me wonders how much that’s got to do with the bad voice artist; would Connor have been more likeable in the hands voice of someone else? Or is it really a problem with the story? You never get a real story reason to do anything beyond the main missions. There’s this weird disconnect between the main and side missions, as if each side was written by someone else who had different ideas of who Connor was.

Despite that though I did spend hours wandering through the forests hunting animals and navigating the high seas completing missions. Both of those were a lof of fun and surprisingly relaxing. It’s weird though that it’s the new elements that made me like this game, while the old elements left me rather disappointed. Today’s news of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag sounds like it will be focusing more on the parts I did like and will hopefully be better than this one!

Darksiders 2

I can’t talk about Darksiders II without first mentioning how sad it is that Vigil Games is no more. I really liked the Darksiders games and would have loved to have seen a Darksiders III, especially cause that one would finally feature Fury, the whip wielding female Horseman of the Apocalypse. It’s such a shame, cause I think they had some great ideas and they were definitely games I enjoyed playing.

In Darksiders II you get to play as Death, our second Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Just like in the first Darksiders, the game is a nice balance of fighting battles, traversing areas and solving puzzles. As the story progresses, Death finds gadgets granting him special abilities like grappling and portal jumping. I loved discovering the new abilities and trying to use them to solve the different puzzles. Some of the puzzles can be quite tricky, and I quite like that most of them aren’t completely obvious at first glance. The fighting I struggled a bit more with, but once you get the hang of it, it can be quite fun.

Bioshock 2

I still haven’t finished Bioshock 2, but so far I’m sort of liking it. I mean I think I’m only about one third in, but from what I’ve played it seems very much the same as the first Bioshock. Weapons? Check. Magic Plasmas? Check. Tonics? Check. Research Camera? Check. There are some minor tweaks in equipping abilities and skills, but again most of it seem pretty much copy-paste from the previous game. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping for something a bit more than just a rehash of the first one.

I again love the look and feel of the game; it’s so cool exploring the different sections of Rapture and they’ve again managed to create some creepy yet gorgeous locations. I just wish there was something new, something innovative, something a bit different, than just the “same” game again.