Christmas, New Years and Gaming

Happy New Year! I know this is a bit late and I've neglected the blog, but I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years. I got several games over the holiday season, some are great. Some...not so great. I'll go over a few of them here.

Assassin's Creed III
PlayStation 3 (also on Xbox 360, PC and Wii U)
Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft


If there's any game to indicate that the current gen has outstayed it's welcome, it's Assassin's Creed III. It's obvious that this game was designed for the next gen of consoles and PC, and the PlayStation 3 simply cannot cope.  Running at an almost constant sub-30 FPS, it's almost impossible to have a smooth enjoyable experience that was present in previous installments. Graphics wise, it's pretty bad too. Hard shadows, lack of any anti-aliasing and a pathetic draw distance make this look like a launch title PS3 game, not one at the end of the system's life span.

Moving onto the gameplay, it's hard to believe that this is a sequel to Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011). For some bizarre reason, the controls have been completely redesigned. This is the fifth title in the series, and to change the controls at this point is just awkward. You can no longer go around swinging your sword as you please, and as such killing civilians can only be done with your pistol. I know quite a few people who took great joy from slicing holes in innocent civilians and they're quite upset that this freedom has now been taken from them and they're railroaded onto the main story.  Countering is no longer a 'instant win', and instead you repel their attack and open them up from an attack from yourself. This is one of the few improvements of Assassin's Creed III.

Assassin's Creed III is a very disappointing title and a terrible way to end what was a very interesting series. 4/10.

PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale
PlayStation 3 (also on PlayStation Vita)
SuperBot Entertainment
Sony Computer Entertainment


Also called Sony Smash Bros, this is a mascot based fighting game where you take control of a number of PlayStation All Stars and beat the crap out of the other all stars.

To get a knock out, you must build up AP by beating up the enemies. If you can chain a combo, you get more AP. Once you get a certain amount of AP, you can use your All Star move. This will KO the opposing player. This is the only way to KO someone. This makes the matches drag on forever, as skilled players will easily dodge the other skilled player's All Star move. You can see what Sony were trying to do - copy Smash Bros, but make it different. But, I wish they had just gone all the way and made a clone of Smash Bros. At least that would have been fun to play. Depending on the all star move to KO someone just makes the game boring.

There isn't much to say about the game, other than it could have been so much more, but was screwed over by terrible design decisions. Also, why are there two Coles? They could have included a different character in the roster instead of having two versions of Cole MacGrath.  5/10.

Halo 4
Xbox 360
343 Industries
Microsoft Game Studios


I thought we 'finished the fight' back in Halo 3, but here we are again with Halo 4. Master Chief jumps back into combat again, although it seems the time in stasis has made him more chatty. I'm not complaining, Master Chief in the original Halo trilogy was pretty dull and only spoke during cutscenes. Just in the beginning mission of Halo 4, Master Chief speaks more than he did during the entire trilogy. I'm happy that the story of Halo 4 is more involved than the other games, having Cortana talk to Chief during the gameplay.

But the gameplay is the problem. There's nothing new to draw me in. I loved all of the previous Halo games, as something grabbed you right from the start. Here it's just more of the same. Nothing seems to have changed from Halo Reach, with the exception of the graphics, which look amazing. I still can't believe that the Xbox 360 can handle this.

Moving onto the multiplayer, it's annoying that most of the features are locked if you don't have Xbox Live, but that's not the game's fault and is most likely Microsoft insistence. From what I played of the multiplayer, you can tell that it's taken a huge inspiration from Call of Duty. You unlock weapons by playing more of the game, and allowing you to customize your loadout. Another thing is killstreaks. Get three kills in a row, and you can call down some assistance. Call of Duty anyone? 5/10.

Virtue's Last Reward
Nintendo 3DS (also on PlayStation Vita)

Spike ChunSoft
Rising Star Games

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was one of the best games for the original DS. Combining solving ingenious puzzles with a fascinating narrative kept me hooked for hours attempting to get all the endings, and finally the last puzzle. I'm not going to spoil it, but if you haven't played it and you have a DS - get 999!

Virtue's Last Reward is the sequel to 999 and it manages to improve upon almost everything. You play as Sigma, and you've been kidnapped by someone called Zero and forced to play the Nonary Game with eight other people. Your goal is to open the door with a nine on. To do this, you must get nine points. How do you get nine points? You play the Ambidex Game.

You go around solving very hard puzzles with two other people which tax your brain to it's limit, all the time being presented with clever dialogue before returning to the Ambidex room. You are then presented with a choice - Ally or Betray. You can ally with the people you worked with before or betray them. If you both choose to ally with each other, you both get +2 points. If you choose to betray and the other person chooses to ally, you get +3 points, and they get -2 points.  If you both betray, nothing happens.

You start off at 3 points, if your points reach zero, you die. I've got a confession, I was pushed to choose betray and betrayed a young girl as she chose to ally with me. She's only got 1 point now and is close to death. I felt terrible as I reduced her to tears. I can't wait to find out what this means in the future. 

In short, this is probably the best game on the 3DS and well worth a try if you have a 3DS.  You'll be drawn back constantly for it's interesting story and finding out who exactly Zero is and to try and solve these incredibly clever puzzles. 10/10.