Hello again. As has become typical of me recently, I have not posted in a few days now. But this time I have a lot to talk about, and so I’m just going to come right out with it.
First off, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
As I mentioned in my previous post my girlfriend surprised with a spontaneous visit last week, showing up in the middle of my Magic:The Gathering tournament to say hello and give me a Signature Edition of the game. I’ve started playing it and I wanted to make a few general remarks (because I’m too lazy/don’t have time for a full review.) First off, those who know me are aware of two, that I love the story of Assassin’s Creed, and two, that I don’t like overly cinematic games. Unfortunately, one of the first things I noticed about Revelations is that it is actually more cinematic than Brotherhood. I think it is fair to say that for each mission, or “memory,” it is not odd to have a cut-scene cinematic every 6-7 minutes (I timed it.) The worst part of many of these cinematic scenes is that the vast majority are less than 30 seconds long. This means that these cinematics are often not even worth skipping and most of the time they interrupt the flow of gameplay. Sometimes, like in the third Masyaf Key Mission, the short cinematics really do help. These cinematics are very brief and remove player input for only a moment. This keeps the player from feeling overwhelmed by the generous amount of action packed into certain missions while still maintaining a flow. Overall, to avoid spending too much time rambling on this topic, I feel that the game’s cinematic narrative is very hit and miss. The short cinematics often interrupt gameplay and leave the player impatient — being especially true for people like me who redo the same mission repeatedly in order to accomplish all objectives.
On another note, Ubisoft changed some buttons around in Revelations. The use of Y (Xbox 360) in Assassin’s Creed, from the original all the way through Brotherhood, has always been for head actions such as speaking, Eagle Eye, and viewpoint synchronization. In Revelations this has now been mapped to the left stick (click). Why? I have no idea, and it is really irritating to have to get used to the new buttons, especially when there is no obvious reason for the change.
One final rant:
All the negatives aside, the game still continues a great story, has lots to do, and is still fun to play. I’ll beat the single player game first, then I will probably spend a few weeks playing multiplayer.
Anyway, I purchased my Humble Indy Bundle #4 last night. I also got the Humble Indy Bundle #3 for free as well. I ended up only paying about $6 for the games I got — although I really wanted to pay more (didn’t want to overdraft my checking account) — a great deal. I’ve only played about half of the games I’ve gotten so far and I have just a few notes on these games:
- VERY Fun
- Pretty Challenging
- Slightly Buggy
- Extremely Cool
Special thanks to all the independent game developers that bring great things to us gamers.
Anyway, headed to bed, more Assassin’s Creed, Cogs, and Super Meat Boy tomorrow
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