Vicarious Assassin's Creed 3

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: Stab People; Sub-genre: Stab Animals, Stab Boats with Cannonballs
ESRB: M (gratuitous stabbing)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): unavailable
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Wiki page

Not every person plays every game. And neither does every professional critic. Nor should they. Some things just don't interest everyone, no matter how hard a player may try to get into a new game. But I'm not a professional! So this is a VICARIOUS review!

I've never been sure what this whole Assassin's Creed business is. Apparently everyone and their brother plays it. I played the first one and had a hell of a time being a crazy mad man, terrorizing some random city in Crusades land... or whereever. It kept telling me to, like, do missions but those were so boring! Wait around, pick pockets, walk slowly, talk to people, bleh! Then I played the second one. I lost my comedy power of "pretend to be innocent" but gained the ability to murder people with a broom. And now everyone was speaking Italian off and on. I guess Italian was like some kind of high school required course during the Italian Renaissance? I don't know. It made no sense. And then the second game had two expansions or something, but those had the same cost as a full game. Uh, bullshit?

Three and four? Nope. Fuck numbers!

Obviously I gave up on this game series a while ago, so I really can't bring myself to play this third one. Luckily, a good friend of mine bought a copy and I watched him play it for a little bit. Not enough to see every minute detail, like I generally want with my reviews, but I think I got the gist of it. In the first game, the player controlled a middle eastern dude. Cuz the middle east is all about ninjas and shit. In the second one, the player controlled some spaghetti-eating white guy. Again, cuz Italy is all about ninjas. Finally, in the third game, the player gets to go to the birth place of ninjas: America. Which only makes sense because everything should be about America somehow. I don't care if the story takes place in pre-historic China or a galaxy far, far away: America! 

American.

So the dude you play as is this half-white and half-injun fellow. If he wasn't at least partially white, the audience would be incapable of understanding him. God help us all if there was ever a game where the main character was non-white. Seriously though, I don't know why this bugs me. Why couldn't they just make a story about a full-blooded Indian dude? Whatever, I don't know what the story is anyway. And he doesn't ever scalp people or use mystical Indian powers, so it seems to lend nothing to the gameplay. He can't use brooms as a weapon or pretend to be innocent... this guy has nothing going on for him! But wait! He can pilot a big ass boat!

Look out! Injuns!

What does this have to do with assassinating people? Uhhhhh stuff! In Revelations, you could command people to go to war, too. Nothing says "stealth assassination" like blowing up boats with cannons and war! I will admit, this is a very interesting addition to the game. Mostly because swashbuckling on the high seas is always a welcome addition to anything. My friend playing the game seemed quite taken with it as well. Personally I wish they would have just spent their time developing a version of this game only without the franchise name and WITH a competent developer. But obviously they didn't want to make a game that completely revolved around naval warfare and spice trade and shit; this is just a "mini-game" to all the assassinating and intrigue. I still say they could at least give the player the ability to board the enemy ship to duel the captain.

Add appropriate music and ADVENTURE!

But apparently this guy isn't as much of a fighter. I remember Ezio, from the second game, being able to forego stealth most of the time in favor of an outright rumble. I have read reviews where players have different comments on the combat, but my friend found it frustrating and clunky. I advised him to pick up a broom to see if that helps, but Connor (the player character) can't pick up brooms! Conversely, beasts are no match for him. Grizzly Bears? Charging Elk? Piece of cake. Turns out this fellow has the strength of like five dudes. Must be his Injun powers shining through! Or maybe Bears aren't so tough after all.

Look at this pussy. I could take him, no sweat!

Conclusion:
Despite all the pro's and con's of this game the bottom line is that it looks BORING. Don't get me wrong, it's worth a chuckle here and there. But I still can't be assed to play through the damn thing.

Oh, were we not supposed to let the heavily-armed-clearly-not-a-British-soldier into the camp? Oops!

Here's 5 Memorable Decisions in Video Games!

The holidays are here. And what better way to let out the stress of dealing with your attention-starved, inconsiderate relatives than going on a murderous rampage in a fictional land of pixels? Well, beating the shit out of a punching bag probably works a lot better. But for the more passive-minded person, video games are great.

I often think of how much of an asshole I am in a video game compared to real life. It's great therapy! Not having to worry about people's feelings or politics... just do what you REALLY want to do! But any game will let you screw around and try to break the rules. Here's five moments I found that developers specifically coded into the game that stuck with me for how ridiculous they are.

5. Fable 3

"Whore House or Orphanage?"

The Fable series is an incredibly boring group of games where you mash X until all the bad guys are dead. Unless you spec'ed differently. Then you sighed heavily at the lack of depth the game warrants you. But one thing it delivered on was giving the player infinite ways to screw around: get married, kill your spouse, buy a store, vandalize your own store, get a job that's far more tedious than a real life job, etc. So after playing Fable 2 I was confused and ended up playing Fable 3 for no reason.

One thing I didn't count on being so much fun was the premise of becoming king. Little did I know, a king's duty is apparently to sit on his throne and make hilariously blatant bad decisions all day. And one of these decisions stuck with me:

A woman asks that money from the treasury be used to rebuild an orphanage.
A man asks that a whore house be built in that spot instead, which will BRING money into the treasury.

I slammed the button to choose the whore house before they were done talking! Money AND whores? Sorry kids, no one wants you anyway! I immediately had to scope out this new whore house and hired every single one of them, male and female, to give me a 14ish person orgy. Allllllllllright!

...and then I embezzled all the profit for myself, despite having bought everything in the game and had millions of dollars leftover. Ha!

4. Mass Effect 2 and 3

"No! Robots aren't people!"

In the universe of the Mass Effect series, there is a race of robots called the Geth. They are somewhat sentient (they have a collective mind) so there are frequent debates on whether they should be treated with the same respect as other, more sapient humanoids.

Over the course of two of the games, there are a couple decisions that come up. Without getting into spoilers, some of them are not favorable for the Geth (what with their constantly showing up as "things to shoot at" in the series, not many people in this universe seem to like them). Sometimes when I play a roleplaying game, I roleplay! My Shepard doesn't give a fuck about machines! Robots ain't PEOPLE like you and me! It ain't "genocide" to kill 'em all! I am space president, I say fuck 'em!

If only I could give Shepard a southern accent and a cowboy hat...

3. Deux Ex: Human Revolution

"Murder your Boss"

Throughout the whole game, the player is meant to question the whole meaning of life and the consequences of human augmentation. The player's boss, David Sarif, is the head of a company that is a major player in the cybernetics field so obviously he is rather FOR aug'ing. The player, Adam Jensen, is basically Robocop'ed and arguably might not see eye to eye with David on every issue.

At the end of the game (again, avoiding spoilers) David hits you with one last request as to how to conclude the final resolution. But that's not what's important to me. What's important to me is that David is finally standing in a level where the player is allowed to use his weapons. And, sure enough, Mr. Sarif is killable.

Wham! Just like the picture above (that's not Sarif there) I assassinated that chump. "I quit." I imagined whispering. And then I went and performed his request anyway because I am an odd individual. Good thing this quest didn't have a turn in! Whoops!

2. Dragon Age II

"Ol' Square Jaw"

Aveline Vallen is a fighter, quite literally. She wears heavy armor and takes hits in the front lines: a bad ass of sorts. So she doesn't look like some dainty chick in a plate bikini. I respect that. But Jerk Hawke, my player character, is a completely superficial asshole. And that jawline... that's, like, a man's jawline... man.

Unfortunately I can't really talk much about this without spoilers. But basically there are just dozens and dozens of opportunities to piss this chick off. It has nothing to do with her appearance, though, so I was just getting into the RP of Jerk Hawke doing so subconsciously. I blamed her for everything that happened and made wild jumps in logic to stick it to her.

At some point she said she had an opportunity to leave for some reason. Obviously she didn't feel welcome in my town. So what did I do? I called her a Goddamn lazy coward! Just gonna leave? I was right about you all along! And so she beat the shit out of me.

Good times.

1. Fallout 3

"Stop Screwing Around!"

In Fallout 3, you are forced to go through a sequence where you are born (uh, gross?) and then have to do a bunch of boring shit as a little kid before you actually get to roam the wastelands. You are introduced to your father, who you might immediately recognize is voiced by Liam Neeson. His manly tone is caring and wise so it works well. And then you get a BB gun.

Most people probably just wanted to get through the "starter zone" so they could play the real game. Those people would have used that gun and followed the objectives: shooting targets and a giant roach with it. Me? I turned around and shot Mr. Neeson right in the eye! "Stop screwing around!" Your father yells in an instantly angry tone.

I'm still laughing about it to this day! And it's one of my favorite video game quotes alongside "No! I can't move!" and "What is this? I hope this isn't Chris' blood!" so you'd likely hear me saying this out loud if you are around me long enough.

I have a tendency to think of Mr. Neeson being in that little recording room going through his lines. At some point, the VO Director would tell him, "Alright, Mr. Neeson. For this next line, this is for if the player decides to brutally attack their own father as a ten year old." And he'd just stare blankly for a moment before going along with it reluctantly, "Um... okay?"

Braid

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: Puzzle; Sub-genre: Artsy, Platformer
ESRB: Unrated? (call it "teen" for use of the word "bitch" a single time, I guess)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 6/2
Developer: Jonathan Blow
Wiki page

I hope I sound smart for enjoying such an arty game. Because I'm sure any belief in that concept will quickly dissolve with each passing word in this review. So, check this shit out, yo! You can rewind time and shit! Ohhhhhhhhh! But seriously, while the ability to rewind might be called the chief "gimmick" here, it's done so thoroughly and with several variations. And just about every level has a moment where you go, "Wait, what?" and gets you rewinding and going through your steps several times. This is the kind of game design that doesn't show itself in modern gaming too much: trusting the player to figure things out. While it IS a puzzle game, it does so with actual puzzles that fit the tone and pace of the game. Not just some bullshit non-puzzle like you'd see in a game like God of War where you just have to figure out what floor panels to step on, and CERTAINLY not like those awful point-and-click adventure games that make you click the whole screen until you stumble on the answer. And you know what else? I think anyone can figure out these puzzles. Not because they are easy, no. But they have just the right kind of challenge and the levels flow and direct the player very naturally. It always feels like a reward to solve a puzzle. Like you figured the damn thing out! Yes, you are so Goddamn smart!

Feeling out the variations is very fulfilling, like Rachmaniov's 43rd Opus

I listed the gameplay hours at a loss. The amount of time it takes to solve each puzzle is dependent on how fast the player can figure things out. As a small little indie game, it can possibly be done in a single long ass sitting by a crazy gamer like myself. Maybe a less versed gamer would take longer, I'm not sure. These ticklers grasp at the brain's ability to discern things quite naturally, but I did feel some things did speak to me. Like how jumping on a bad guy INCREASES your jump height. At any rate, it's completely unapologetic in that it will slam you with a level that would take five seconds to solve if you already knew how to do it, but might take an hour just scratching your head. I definitely had moments like that. Without giving anything away, one involved me discovering, "I can jump on that!?" It wasn't bullshit. I didn't see something that was right in front of me. Son of a bitch! Actually, the thing I got stuck on the most was the last level. Not the level itself, just getting to it. I didn't realize the ladder in the middle of the world selection screen went into the attic. Had to stop by Gamefaq's for that. D'ohhhhhhhhh...

Fuck this!

So the story... um, not my cup of tea, unfortunately. Which sucks because it's more sophisticated than pretty much any video game out there. It's told all out of order and with this weird surreality around it. But when I saw the scene above, I instantly gave up on it. You give me all this high brow artsy, confusing bullshit and then you just jam an obvious pop culture reference in my eye? Ugh! Pop culture references are low brow! And comedic, generally. This is completely... ugh! I know it's an indie game, and we all have to remember how much "better" games used to be, but whatever man! Fuck this! I glazed over everything, but that's partly due to my eagerness to get back to time travel platforming wackiness. I will say that the ending is decidedly intriguing. You don't see story endings like this at all in video games, and not very often in any other story. Man, there should have been a high brow reference, if any at all. Like, "Did you know that in his time J.C. Bach was more popular than his father, J.S. Bach? How odd, the whims of fame!" And... uh, that would have been like an arrogant joke about how popular this game ended up being. Yeah, something.

I'm smart! Classical music!

Oh, music, right. The music in this game is very fancy and soothing, yet contemplative and involved. Not your typical blather you'd find in a video game that just plays short little cues to scripted events in the game. It's no Castlevania 3, which is what I wish I'd find from these Indie developers who get so stuck on the days of old and hate the modern era, so I don't listen to it on its own. But within the game, it flows into the foreground while sinking into your subconscious and riding with you on your adventure.

This guy's gimmick is that he uses a whip while moving left to right. Tell me how games are all the same NOW, please.

Conclusion:
Really anyone can enjoy this game. Especially when I see the success of Portal going around, it should translate here. Just so long as you aren't scared off by artsy-ness of it. But it's already made a million billion dollars, so don't worry your dainty fingers too much with it. Go play your Call of Battlefields or whatever kids play these days! Nyah!

Is it this one?

5 Stupider Things That are Just as Stupid as the Last 5

First of all, "unnecessary sequels" isn't on this list. Nor will it ever be! So... take that! When I wrote about the five things last time, I knew I couldn't have possibly covered all the bases. Almost immediately more things were coming to mind.

I'll not waste any more time. Video game industry? Here's some free advice!

5. The Ol' Sand in the Eyes

Even a gadget master like Batman has no clue what these are.

Offenders: World of Warcraft, Avengers Alliance

No matter how bullet-proof a hero is, the eyes seem to be exactly as vulnerable as a regular person's. This ... sort of makes sense. Eyes are squishy and irritable, so it's hard to imagine them being as strong as steel. But then so is skin. If your skin was made of steel, how would you move?

How come bad guys don't ALL just rely on weapons made for hurting eyes like a ninja's black egg (a weapon comprised of things like crushed glass and pepper)? And does this mean the brain is also soft? Can you shoot a super hero in the eyes and fell them permanently? If not, just straight up stab their eyes out. They can't stop your crime spree then!

What other incredibly common weaknesses do super powered beings have? Can you kick them in the junk (or boob) to incapacitate them with pain? Can you get them to sit on a whoopie cushion and make them blush and scream, "I didn't fart! It was this cushion!" and damage their self esteem? Villains apparently need to stop coming up with grandiose schemes and just start using basic pranks!

4.  "Saving the world, huh? That's great... PAY LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, YA BUM!"

This guy cracks me up. Is he aware he's a vendor in a video game? I think he is.

Offenders: Every RPG ever

I know people are selfish. And in the darkest of times, that is exactly when profiteers will know to strike. But even in real life there are selfless people who will donate to a good cause like, "Letting the lone hero have a couple free arrows so he can save the whole world."

For cryin' out loud, man. When I hit a vendor just before the big final battle and he still wants my cash, I can't help but sigh out loud, "Really!?" Does the hero not want to shop elsewhere? I know it may be the only vendor in-game for the player, but in the reality INSIDE the game there has to be OTHER vendors, right? And there's no "end justifies the means" angle? Can't just jack the shit and let the dumb SOB die in the apocalypse?

As far as game design goes, I don't always understand the need for money to exist in a game. If you've already staggered the time when upgrades come around, why pay for them? To me, having to save up works better when I see what I want and work towards it. When I save up cash on the off chance some random asshole will show up at the eleventh hour with an expensive super weapon... well, I know I'm clearly playing a video game.

3. Helicopters!

Get down! Zoooo pchow! Dooooosh! Pochhhhh! Oh my God, you're lucky to be alive!

Offenders: Every Military Shooter Ever

If video games have taught me anything, it's to never be in a helicopter for any reason. They're, like, made of explosive barrels or something. Fortunately surviving a helicopter crash is extremely easy so long as you're the primary protagonist. Yet when they attack me they all of a sudden take like ten rockets to take out. What? Bullshit, man!

I'm hoping one day someone makes a game where the opening scene involves being in a helicopter crash and then it just says "Game Over." Waka waka! Reality!

2. Mass Murderer with a Heart

Kill or be killed... and then come back and kill more. That's the Wild West.

Offenders: Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, many many sandbox games without a "morality" feature.

Some games are like Fallout 3: some mystical force in the universe watches your every move and lets everyone know you're a bad person through "karma." Some games give you similar amounts of freedom, but with very little fucks given about your addiction to arbitrary crimes of murder, theft, and vandalism. Sure, you'll get a fine and sent to jail. But your character is still the same and can keep going about the main story like nothing's changed.

Red Dead is a prime example because it lets you experience the freedom of the American Wild West (or at least the glorified version of it we've all come to love). Yet at the same time, John Marston, the main character, always seems concerned about what's right. He'll show respect for someone who may be a "good man" and try to do good by his fellow man. But once he's in free roam mode? All of a sudden he's a one man version of Genghis Khan's army!

I can't really say this needs fixing, though. I love goofing off and going crazy. If games want to have the story actually be affected by my mad rampages, that'll just be a nice bonus.

1. Jesus Syndrome

Offenders: Mass Effect 2, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Fable 2

The story of Jesus has at least once been referred to as "the greatest story ever told." Apparently, the video industry has agreed and included the whole dying and coming back thing in everything! Sure movies have the occasional Spock or Ben Kenobi making returns but it seems to be way more prevalent in video games. Or I just need to watch more movies. Maybe. I don't think I'm wrong.

But it's infrequent that this happens as a reason for a Robocop type character. And that's the best reason to die and come back! As a Goddamn cyborg! In ME2 it's just a plot convenience to give a reason for Shepard to work for terrorists, in KoA it serves to show that fate is unraveling (or something), and in Fable 2 it's done to show the main character is unkillable. While these are all well and good, they don't account for one thing: this makes the rules of the game universe really fucking weird!

Like, people can die and come back? Why is there conflict in the world? Or the character is invincible? It sure doesn't seem that way when certain games have a game over screen. This is an automatic, "Why didn't they just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris" to me!

I ask you out there this: when this happens in a story, don't you immediately think things like, "Oookay. That happened" and start questioning the logic of everything? It has that tinge that clicks in a person's mind that interrupts the flow every time! And it doesn't make the character seem cooler or more interesting. It just becomes an awkward hurdle that comes and goes for "no reason." Blah!