Retrospective: Assassin's Creed 2

It's no secret around these parts that I loved Assassin's Creed 2 (I even included it on my personal best games of 2009 list). Although I first played through it dali-dali style on the Xbox 360 (budgetary constraints prevented me from buying the PS3 version back in November) I followed through on my promise to play through it at a leisurely pace on my PS3 (for the Trophies and to get the "full experience"). And my opinion remains unchanged - AC2 is an absolutely fantastic game, well worth the second-hand price you'd likely pay for it today.

But how did this occur? How did a game that is so similar in spirit to it's predecessor (which was a TERRIBLE game, and one I consider to be the 2nd crappiest title in my entire library, just behind Viking: Battle for Asgard) become so beloved in my eyes? I'll try to explain.


1. Infinitely better level design, and a much more interesting environment to play around in.


Assassin's Creed 1 was handicapped by its stringent focus on recreating the architecture of ancient Jerusalem - the buildings felt very astringent and the design left little room for you to play around in. The "mood" of the city was also very somber, and the monochrome colors chosen for the world in general made it feel very dead. AC2's version of Italy is full of color and life - the beautiful water in Venice that makes you want to take a dip yourself, the variety of people just walking around on the street, the expansive outdoor environments that impress without the horrible frame rate drops. Italy's architecture also lends itself to better platforming: the little chimneys, ropes and steel trellisses dotting the rooftops allow for a much better flow to Ezio's movements as he's running around the city killing fools.

2. AC2 has a far superior storyline.

AC1 had an interesting concept, but that's all it was -- A CONCEPT. Yes, there were two worlds in which you "existed" as a player, but Desmond's real world adventures were so devoid of gameplay or even interesting dialogue that you just sort of forced yourself to slog through it. In Acre, meanwhile, Altair just crossed these randomly assigned guys off his "People to Kill" checklist without it really meaning anything -- you don't know these people, and you have no other motivation to see them go, so in the end you didn't care.


In AC2, the people Ezio knocks off are part of an overarching storyline in which you are emotionally invested - this makes it feel a lot less robotic and forced than the first game. The adventures in the real world were also a lot more interestingly written, with much more complex characterization than the first game. I found myself wanting to find out what happened in both worlds, which is a substantial achievement seeing as I've played so many action-adventure games that I can smell a hack plot from a mile away.

Lastly, another facet of AC2 that I think greatly improves the experience is the far superior lightness of tone. AC1 was overly serious and one-note, and the crappiness of the writing only reinforced this. AC2 strikes a much better balance between suspense/intrigue (Abstergo conflict in the real world, political maneuverings in the Italian, Animus world) and comedy (Ezio is a much more lighthearted and likeable character than Altair, and the way he plays off everybody else puts the occasional grin on your face).

And... hey, it's-a me, Mario! :-)

3. Much greater variety of things to do.

Assassin's Creed 2 is an obsessive-compulsive gamer's dream. There's simply so much more stuff to find and accomplish - feathers to grab, Subject 16 puzzles/videos to watch/solve, Monteriggioni buildings to upgrade, weapon and armor sets to collect, tombs to explore, treasure chests to find -- the list goes on and on. It also cannot be understated how much the simple addition of currency added to the game - not only did it allow you to pay for other methods to achieve your goals (walking through town using courtesans for cover/protection, or paying a group of bandits to cause a perfectly-timed distraction) it also gave you a reward for everything you do: accomplishing sidequests no longer felt arbitrary because you were always rewarded for your efforts with a little spending money to waste on whatever you wanted.


In addition, quests of the same type now felt much more unique and less repetitive - Assassination and Delivery missions in particular gave you a very wide swath of objectives and methods in which to accomplish them. Story missions also offered plenty of variety - instead of always sneaking around looking for your shot at the glowing yellow target, Ubisoft gives you frontal assaults, carriage-driving missions, city raids, the whole nine yards. When you DO get down to actually killing people, AC2 continues to pile on the improvements - there are a million ways to off a guy in this game.

Guns hidden in your sleeve?
Aerial stabs in the face?
Throwing knives?
Pushing the poor sap off a roof?
Hired mercenaries?
Frontal assaults?
Poison?
Dragging dudes into a stack of hay then ventilating 'em?
Using the good old Nathan Drake "There's a guy above you!" method?

"THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU, THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU!"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The list goes on.

It also helped a lot that the sidequests were now completely optional. The first game handled sidequests in a very ham-handed manner: not only were they boring, offering little difference from instance to instance, the game forced you to play them in order to advance the story missions. AC2 shares no such conceit - you could totally ignore the side missions if you chose, at the expense of having a lot less money to work with.

While Assassin's Creed 2 didn't fix ALL of the first game's problems (the control is still a little finicky at times, and minor FPS problems continue to rear their ugly head) it's still absolutely remarkable how Ubisoft Montreal managed to fix so many of the original game's issues in so short a time. Absolutely outstanding work!

I never thought I'd ever say this about an Assassin's Creed game, but... sequel please!

Desmond taking on Japan would have been a much better idea for AC3.
Don't you think?

(Update: It turns out AC3 is already in development. Unfortunately it seems that they decided to continue Ezio's adventure for some strange reason - it makes sense from a story perspective, but not from a gameplay one (Italy was getting a bit long in the tooth by the end of the game)... ah, well, in Ubisoft we trust.

Case File: The Mystique of the PS3 Exclusive

I find that I read the following dialogue (or a paraphrasing of the same) way too often on the PinoyPS boards:

Noob: Hi, you l33t haxxor motherfuckers! I'm new to this PS3 thing, what games should I get?

Lovable PPS member: Oh, that's easy, pal. Just get all the PS3 exclusives, except for (insert exceptionally bad title here, usually Lair/Haze or something else to that effect)

HAZE! Being used to scare small children into behaving since 2008.
"Sige ka, kung ayaw mong tumahimik... ibibili kita ng HAZE!!!!"
"Wag po, wag po!"

I have nothing against this view - some of the people who dispense this advice are my friends/trading partners, after all, and are people whose opinions I highly respect - but is this really a 100% solid buying recommendation to make? Simply snap up the PS3 exclusives (EXCEPT LAIR AND HAZE!) and you're good to go?

Let's take a look at six of the usual suspects (taking into consideration how much you can get them for nowadays), and some non-exclusive alternatives you can get for the same price or less.

(Please note that a lot of these games are actually quite GOOD -- some of them I even included in my 2009 top ten. What I'm trying to show here is that there may be superior alternatives for the same amount of money.)

Killzone 2

At what price, graphics? Killzone 2 is an absolute visual monster, eating most PS3 games alive (with a few notable exceptions, like the pushing-dangerously-close-to-photographic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves), but gameplay-wise I can't honestly say that this is better that either of the Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty games. True, it's still a GREAT game, and this might be a good choice for a new PS3 owner who wants to show off some current-gen power (especially if they have an HDTV) but in terms of how it plays it's no contest - the aiming mechanic is less user-friendly and the multiplayer isn't anywhere near as good. It doesn't help that the best part of Modern Warfare is easily the multiplayer component (which is something you can't get on a modded Xbox 360 due to the XBL permabans for modding) - if you haven't played either, you have to keep things like these in mind when making a decision.

Heavenly Sword

This hasn't aged well, at all.

Ninja Theory's somewhat controversial exclusive PS3 actioner has long had the PS3 audience pretty much divided. Some people love it because of its delightful art direction and intense, Lord of the Rings-level epicness. Some people hate it because of its incredibly brief length and God of War-cloned hack-and-slash gameplay. I'm personally on the side of the people who hate it, but I can understand where the people who love it are coming from. Here's the beef, though: mostly due to the fact that not too many people actually BOUGHT it (partly because of its notorious shortness, and partly because the PS3 install base was so small back then) there arent too many copies in circulation... which of course means that HS' resale value has held up remarkably well over time. The question is, are you buying the game for collection purposes or for pure enjoyment? If you fall into the latter category, you could arguably just add a couple hundred bucks and get a brand new copy of Dante's Inferno.

InFamous

I wish this was as exciting as it looks.

HEY! Don't give me that raised eyebrow!

Yeah, I know that I've been hard on inFamous in the past. I still have a great deal of respect for Sucker Punch, and I'm (pretty) confident that they'll fix things up in inFamous 2 (which has reportedly been in development for quite some time). Going back to the first game, though, I know I wasn't alone in my indictment of the title - while the story was pretty entertaining and the wide-open, no-loading city remains a remarkable technical achievement, more than a few people took issue with the constant repetition of the side missions you had to do in between major jobs. For a "new" PS3 gamer who's just beginning to build their library, it could be argued that fellow open-world genre titles Red Faction: Guerilla or Saints Row 2 probably give more variety and gameplay bang for the buck, with the added benefit of costing even less than a 2H copy of inFamous.

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift

There's no question that Pacific Rift is a great, great game - fun in multiplayer AND single player, with more replay value than you can shake a stick at. However, it's misleading to say that this is a game you can recommend to just anybody, as the title by its very nature is a niche product - the overwhelming majority of people who play racing games prefer track/road racers like Forza and Need For Speed, and the market for "extreme" racing, with the high jumps and environmental hazards is comparatively small. Unless you're already a fan of said subgenre, a much better "general" recommendation for a first time PS3 user is EA's exemplary Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box. A ridiculous amount of stuff to do, plenty of variety, and the best sense of speed ever demonstrated in a racing game, all at a bargain price (you can get a non-Ultimate Box version of Burnout Paradise for almost nothing, as it's positively ancient).

Folklore

Looks trippy? It is, and pleasingly so.
It's also a terrible, terrible game.

I don't think I've ever seen a game go from "eagerly anticipated" to "get out of my sight" so fast in my life. As some of you may know, I traded away my first copy of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for a copy of this game (I was new to the PPSX trading scene at the time), and the tears of blood I cried after the fact will remain in my memory forever. While there are definitely positive aspects to Folklore (the concept is solid, collecting monsters can be somewhat fun, and the graphic style is nice in a trippy, I'm-so-high-right-now kind of way), the laundry list of negatives is overwhelming: the story is all over the map and very difficult to understand, the translation was obviously rushed, the camera AND the control are clunky, and the role-playing elements are so light/non-existent that it's embarassing to even call it an RPG (despite the classification on the back of the box clearly saying "RPG"). To a new guy looking for some level-up action, I would honestly recommend any other PS3 RPG over this (even the bad/mediocre ones, like Cross Edge and Eternal Sonata) because all of them have substantially greater RPG elements than this substantially flawed PS3 exclusive.

Now THAT'S a PS3 exclusive.

All that said, it IS true that a pretty good amount of PS3 exclusives are truly worth giving unqualified recommendations (Metal Gear Solid 4, both Uncharted games, LittleBigPlanet, and to people who can understand SRPG's, Valkyria Chronicles) so there's still a fair amount of merit to picking up exclusives. I'm just saying that new members of our current-gen Sony community shouldn't just blindly whip out their wallets when the term comes around...

Unless of course, you have a jacked, non-RROD 360 that you can use to play said non-Sony locked titles for cheap. (ahem)

If so, go right ahead and snap up those exclusives! Only on PlayStation, indeed!

Game Archaeologist: Bioware Edition

I've been on a heavy PC kick lately for some inexplicable reason, and after the gaming wonders of this past holiday season there's a Bioware-shaped hole in my heart where Dragon Age Origins used to be. I've therefore decided to go on an expedition into the dark, mysterious caverns of Shoppesville Plus this weekend to try and find copies of the last two Bioware games that for one reason or another, I never got the chance to play - Neverwinter Nights 2 and Jade Empire: Special Edition.


I actually had a copy of NWN2 back in the day, being a huge, HUGE fan of the first game, however my video card at the time wasn't quite up to snuff (I had an inno3D GeForce 6 series, and was getting a slideshow-level framerate of 6) and, defeated, I eventually gave it away to somebody who could make better use of it. When my PC finally got upgraded to something a little more decent, I had moved on to better things (like my at-the-time shiny new PS3!) and poor NWN2 was left to rot in the sad pit of obscurity. In fact, you could say that my frustration at not being able to play NWN2 despite having it in my hands contributed greatly to my stepping away from PC gaming - I was THAT pissed off.



Jade Empire on the other hand I was all set to play on my friend's modded Xbox back in the day. How could I resist? The game's basically a combination of two things I love dearly - Bioware RPG's and motherfucking Kung Fu! Sadly, said friend had to move out into the far-flung reaches of the South (far flung = bandang Batangas na) so I lost my access to his Jade Empire Playing Machi-- er, I mean, his Xbox 1. So once again, I was SOL.

Still though, I wonder where this strange need to play PC games again is coming from? Hindi naman ako nagretoke ng PC recently.

Is my gut telling me that it's time to upgrade my PC again in preparation for Diablo III? *dun dun dunnnn*


Holy shit! Looks like it's time to donate part of my salary to Papa Nvidia. My mouse finger is getting twitchy.

The PS3, hacked at last!

I'd like to shake that man's hand. That couldn't have been easy, at ALL.

Nerding it up for a bit, getting read/write access to the PS3's memory is a huge deal. That's still a pretty long way from actually playing haxxored games on the console, but this paves the way for lots of cool emulation and other fancy crap that can be done on the beloved black monolith, much like the wealth of options the PSP has.

And besides, when you think about it, what would the point of hacking a PS3 for playing pirated games be? It apparently takes a "hardware"solution to implement the crack, so you need to open it up to get it to work (see pic above) instead of just installing sliced firmware ala PSP. In addition you'd likely have to run games off a terabyte-class external hard drive because the file sizes are so fucking big (BD storage space), and the chance of getting permabanned from PSN is most likely going to be 100%.

Sound like too much of a hassle to you, too? If you want to play pirated games so badly, it makes far more sense to just get a fucking modded X360 and be done with it. Yeah, it may implode within a year, but hopefully you'll have gotten your money's worth in hooky games by then.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Or Valentine's day, or both.

I hope all of you have a good one, whatever holiday you're celebrating today.

I'll have the new posts up in an hour or so. Escapes From Reality is back, y'all! :-D

Temporary Hiatus: EFR returns on 02-15-2010

Hi everybody!

To the regular readers of this little blog (5 thousand unique hits and counting! Thank you all very much, BTW) I haven't closed shop yet, but I'm busy completing my grad school thesis and I can't really devote as much time as I'd like to updating EFR. I'm therefore putting it on hiatus for a bit so I can focus on getting this goddarn final paper done (and play some games of course!).

I'll have a whole bunch of new stuff to read by mid-February 2010 (maybe a review of Darksiders and Dante's Inferno, if I have it by then), but for now chillax muna ko dito.

John out! :-)

Ten for 2010: First Quarter Storm

Yayaman na naman tong mga to sakin. Bwiset.

The first quarter of 2010 keeps looking worse and worse for my wallet. :-( Putang ina talaga, daming gastos, buti nalang quarterly bonus na sa March. I mean, just look at that forecast, man. Just think, when I walk into Datablitz at various points during the first quarter, these (presumably) fantastic titles will be right there on the shelf, staring me in the face, just begging me to buy them. How the heck am I going to resist? Instead of being broke for just one quarter a year, it looks like we're all going to be broke for two this time around.

Who decided to move all this shit into Q1, anyway? Fucking publishers, y'all pussies! Cowering in fear of Modern Warfare 2, this is all your fault.

Here's what I've got lined up. It's not pretty, people. Witness the instruments of my impending financial ruin!


SCALDING HOT!
Will buy the very moment they become available.
No, seriously, I'll be camped outside the fucking door.

Yakuza 3

Pictured: Si Brando Braganza, hari ng romansa.

In English? FOR REAL?!?! Two words buddy, FUCK YEAH!

After a sustained (and quite painful) absence, everybody's favorite gold-hearted gangster Kazuma Kiryu has come back to us - gulpihan na! This is easily my most anticipated PS3 exclusive of Q1, and one of my favorite Sega series of all time. For those of you who havent played a Yakuza series game yet, feel free to get an education by playing either of the two PS2 installments - it's basically the evolution of Yu Suzuki's Shenmue series, but with 200% more brutality and criminal cool. What other game series allows you do to quirky stuff like participate in home run derbies and mack on GRO's, while still allowing you to cave some poor thug's face in with a bicycle? Simply priceless.

Dante's Inferno

In Visceral Games we trust.

That incredible demo a couple of weeks back sold me on this. The fact that the PS3 version has a lot of extra freebies packed in on the disc is just added incentive - Blu-Ray FTW! It's amazing how they managed to find a control scheme that allows you to smoothly combine a lot of abilities into a single string (I find that the L1 toggle for special moves is a lot more natural-feeling than the GoW digital pad switch). I trust Visceral Games will come up with a title that meets our lofty expectations.

Then those hard working bastards can get around to finishing Dead Space 2! :-D

Right?

Oh please please please finish that within 2010.

Final Fantasy XIII

Jesus, who cares if the gameplay isn't all that special? I dare you to tell me that this image isn't 100% made of awesome.

Yes, I know, FFXIII has been savaged by the Japanese fans who bought it (as opposed to the Japanese press, which apparently loved it - malaki ata budget ng Square Enix sa usapang bayaran), and most tellingly, the game's sales have dropped like a rock after a stellar first week. Not good signs at all. It's possible however that the reason that so many fans gave negative feedback is the very distinct possibility that they bought a PS3 just to play this game - when it didn't live up to their lofty expectations, they found that they just burned $360 (instead of just $60) just to play what turned out to be a merely mediocre/decent game. Thus, the explicable fanboy rage.

But hey, like I give a fuck, right? Even if it ends up sucking, so what? Bahala na, when you've been waiting for something this long, quality concerns give way to morbid curiosity, and the Squeenix sheep like myself will pick it up regardless. Besides, I absolutely can't resist writing a review of a game this controversial, and I don't want to be the only one among my gaming friends who doesn't know how the story turned out. And then we'll all have the authority to complain in unison - nagbayad tayo eh. ;-)

Bioshock 2

Ah, back in Rapture at last. Love is always sweeter the second time around.

I was late in coming to Ken Levine's monster's ball the first time around - I ignored Bioshock when it first came out on X360, because at the time I was totally OD'd on FPS games. I eventually played it when it came out on PS3, and nagsisi ako - few games did a better job of creating atmosphere and immersing you in its world, and if not for the game forcing you to play through twice or more to get the Platinum, I would have gladly done so. I know that the first game's story was perfectly self contained, and that creating a sequel that unneccesarily extends the fiction sounds to some people like a Very Bad Idea(tm). I don't really mind, though, I'm sure they'll come up with something that's at least decent to good, plot holes be damned. Plus, in an ingenious twist, the multiplayer seems to be based on the the civil war that took place before the events of the first game (during the collapse of Andrew Ryan's Rapture).

A multiplayer suite that expands on the story of the single player game? Fuckin' A, this is going to kick so much ass!

Just Plain Ol' Hot
Will buy as soon as I can, when I come into some extra cash.

God of War III

Even when you only show his eyes, that wacky Kratos guy always looks way too uptight. Valiums, buddy, Valiums.

This would normally be on the first list, and I absolutely loved the demo, but after ODing on the Kratos-filled-violence-fest that was God of War Collection (God of War II FTW!) I'm all God-Of-Warred out for the time being. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely still buying this, no questions asked. Just not on launch day.

Well, that was a short writeup, wasn't it? Perhaps that's the way the Ghost of Sparta would have wanted it - direct and to the point.

White Knight Chronicles: International Edition

Yes, I realize that this game's graphics look like shit. I don't care, it's by Level 5, baby!

Another game that would normally be on the top list, I want to see how White Knight Chronicles does critically before I make the purchase (although kung tinopak ako I may still just buy it outright). The graphics look pretty crap, yes, but that's mostly because this game is actually really old (it took its sweet time coming over from Japan). What I'm worried about is actually the gameplay - Level-5 almost always makes fantastic games (Dark Cloud, Professor Layton, Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Quest VIII, nuff said) but I've never been a big fan of games like Monster Hunter or Phantasy Star Online... I love collecting loot as much as the next nerd but something about their online implementation just turns me off.

Ah well, I have faith that they'll come through. They're Level-5, buddy - I hear Jesus works there. :-)

Bayonetta

Will an abysmal port ruin this sexytary's chance at success?

Loading issues (if they're not fixed in time) push this firmly into the second tier, despite the rock solid gameplay. Plus I've finished like a quarter of it on Xbox, so I have validation that the game itself is really great, but if the Sony technical team assigned to iron out the various issues fails, this has to be assigned a lower buying priority. Especially the framerate issues! Dammit, if there's one technical issue I really detest, it's a bad fps count, dahil nakakahilo laruin ng matagal yung mga larong ganyan. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if this was a consistent issue across all versions of the game, but the 360 version really is far superior, at least from my experience playing the import versions.

It says a lot about Bayonetta's overall quality, though, that I'm still willing to buy this despite the possibility that Sony fails to fix the port.


Comfortably Warm
Might buy, depending on reviews and user feedback.

Gran Turismo 5

You know your graphics are amazing when even a boring picture of sand looks this good.

There should be an asterisk next to this selection - we're of course assuming that GT5 actually comes out in English within Q1 2010. If it does though, you may be asking: Why the hell did I put it in the third list? I mean, it's only GRAN TURISMO MOTHERFUCKING 5!

I don't know if it's just me, but I've enjoyed GT less and less with each successive installment. I almost broke up with my then-girlfriend way back in high school because I played Gran Turismo 2 so much. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec I also played the crap out of, but the limited car selection hurt it a bit in terms of play length. Gran Turismo 4 I didn't enjoy very much - yes, the car selection was outstanding , but it was a wee bit too unforgiving for me - I'm not a hardcore driving game fan (aside from this, I basically just play arcadey stuff like Ridge Racer, Midnight Club and Burnout) and sometimes it felt more like work than play.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was fun, yes, but the recent demo (the time trial with the Nissan test car) gave me pause. The loading was absolutely terrible (especially considering all of the game data was already on my hard drive), and the handling was as unforgivingly realistic as I remember. To Kaz Yamauchi - please make sure this kicks ass... bring me back to the GT fold!

Heavy Rain

Yeah, the story looks really interesting, and this is still on the do want list, but I can also get a good story by buying a book. And that doesn't cost motherfucking 2 1/2 kyaw.

I liked Indigo Prophecy, yes, but if this turns out to be too short I'll probably pass on buying and just borrow. I'm beginning to get pissed off at this game's producer - David Cage seems to be of the idea that his game has transcended being just that - a game - and is supposed to be a artsy-fartsy "cinematic experience". This is all well and good when it comes to Metal Gear (and *ahem* FFXIII, I guess) because there's still some gameplay left under the hood. If Cage errs too far on the side of cinematic and makes like a five hour game full of quick time events, I have a feeling that most people will choose to loan a copy from richer pals.

Darksiders

Damn, that's a really big fucking sword!
Take that, you evil door lock!

Preview feedback on this has been quite positive from a lot of sources - it still hasn't gotten a full review from a trustworthy source yet though, so dropping money on this sight unseen isn't a sure thing yet by any means. The only existing purely positive review is from Play Magazine's Dave Halverson - although I love Play as a gaming publication, and I respect Halverson as being an authentic hardcore gamer, I often find that you have to take Dave's reviews with a grain of salt. After all, this is the guy who absolutely loved Golden Axe: Beast Rider, RTX Red Rock, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness & Devil May Cry 2 (and came out with early reviews of all four). I'm not sure if he's on the take from the publishers or just has incredibly weird taste in games, but I'll need a positive review from a more stable source like GameSpot or 1UP to convince me to pick this up brand new.

Edit: Gamespot said it was great! I'm picking this up. :-D Cha-ching!