I am very much a gamer.
Why? Because it’s hands-on
entertainment! I feel like I’m really a
part of the story. Yes – I get wrapped
up in the stories of video games. There
is no problem in that. Any gamer out
there will tell their own story. They
love the graphics, or the action, or the plot, or the characters. For me it’s a mix of all of these things.
Now when it comes to shooting or war games like Modern
Warfare or other Call of Duty games, I’m more of a sniper kind of girl. I like to hide out and take head shots from a
safe distance. That’s where I’m
lethal. Games that involve running out
into the thick of things sometimes gets me in trouble. I wasn’t a fan of cover in the beginning
(thanks to playing Mass Effect on insanity I learned to love cover) and I was
the type of person who just wanted to be in the middle of the action. I would run right into the middle and try and
get a good look at everything while killing people up close and personal, but I
would die too quickly to do too much damage.
I just figured you can always respawn.
Well, after a while I learned how to work out a middle ground, but I’m
still not a huge fans of shooter games like CoD and MW. I either have to be far off sniping, or up
close and stabbing. Basically, I’m a fan
of stealth moves.
For this reason I love games that let me utilize stealth
abilities. I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum and
had a lot of fun with that game when it was first released. Batman has a lot of stealth abilities that he
uses as he hunts down the criminals loose in the asylum. Thinking out the strategy is half the
fun! I guess you could say I’m a
cerebral player. Soon I’ll get Batman: Arkham
City and let you all know how that stands up to the first modern Batman
installment.
My November Game of the Month has to be Assassin’s Creed:
Revelations. I’ve been with the AC
franchise from the very beginning. The
stealth abilities along with a compelling story make this game series a double
threat. Revelations sees the return of
Ezio Auditore de Firenze but he has aged a bit and is now in
Constantinople. Weapons have evolved and
probably the best new feature is the hook blade. It helps Ezio climb faster, make longer
jumps, and, best of all, he can now zip-line through the city! Death from above takes a whole new
meaning. Well, actually it means the
same thing, but it looks super cool!!
 |
| Showing off Ezio's new zip-line capabilities with the hook blade. |
Another new addition to Ezio’s bag of tricks is the
bombs. You can craft multiple kinds of
bombs that perform many different actions.
There are three bomb categories or pouches as they are labeled in game:
Lethal, Tactical, and Diversion. Lethal
bombs are designed to take down your opponents for good, as the name
suggests. My personal favorite is a
poison bomb called the Datura bomb.
Datura is the name of the lethal powder explosive that goes into the bomb
and actually kills your targets. The
best part of using this bomb is that it serves two functions: the first being
that it kills the guards you are initially targeting, and the second is that it
draws any guards nearby out into the open to investigate their fallen
comrades. Tactical bombs are used to
gain an advantage over your opponent.
These can be smokescreen bombs that make your opponents blind and send
them into coughing fits while you use Ezio’s incredible eagle vision to see his
targets through the smog. Or you could
use a Caltrop bomb, which essentially paralyzes your targets which makes taking
them down much easier. The diversion
bombs help distract the guards or crowds of people – whether with a loud noise
or a bunch of coins – which can give you an opportunity to sneak past while
they go to investigate. You should
really try out this new feature and have fun mixing and matching all different
elements to create the perfect bomb for any situation.
For me the one thing I was missing from this game was the
Italian. As someone who studied Italian
I had fun with AC2 and AC: Brotherhood since the games were set in Italy. A lot of the people on the street would speak
Italian and even when Ezio spoke to someone in a cut scene you would have
random pieces of Italian speech thrown into the mix. This game had very little Italian with Ezio
and a woman named Sofia being the only Italians you really interact with in Constantinople. This, of course, is a personal problem and
nothing that would deter me or should deter anyone else from playing/enjoying
the game. I LOVE THIS GAME. And, without revealing too much, the Desmond
story really takes a big turn with a lot of new information into his character
personally.
If I had one problem with the game it would be in the new
face of Desmond. I understand graphics
are updating on a daily basis, but Desmond literally looks like a completely
new person in this game. His skin is
much darker than before, and the structure of his face even looked different. I don’t know how to explain his new look, but
it seems as though he went through some massive reconstructive surgery between
Brotherhood and Revelations. Again, this
is not enough to deter me nor should it deter anyone else from playing the game,
just an observation.
The game continues the storyline that was set up in the
first three games as far as Desmond is concerned. His story has progressed normally through the
series but this game brings a surprise to the table. SPOILER
ALERT There is no real world Desmond action in this game. Desmond is stuck inside the animus – inside
his mind – because he has fallen into a coma in the real world. Subject 16, or Clay Kaczmarek, is also inside
the animus safe zone, also known as the Black
Room. He helps Desmond as much as he
can so the same thing that happened to him won’t happen to Desmond. You also hear voice-overs of the people in
the real world talking around Desmond’s unconscious body. In fact, one of the biggest lingering
questions from Brotherhood to Revelations is answered in one of the first
voice-overs: Whether or not Lucy survived.
I won’t spoil that outcome for those of you still reading this.
To wrap things up I would just like to add that this game
was a welcome continuation in the Assassin’s Creed line. I was happy with the playable storyline as
well as the multiplayer online portion, a trait started with Brotherhood. The game was a quick finish but it is nice to
be able to go back through and replay portions from wherever you would like. Your money travels through time with you,
which is especially helpful if you forgot to buy the books at the bookstore in
Cappadocia and wish to complete the Sage achievement. Warning:
Those books are VERY expensive. I
suggest sending your assassins out on a bunch of missions to earn some money
before you waste time going back to that memory. While in Cappadocia you cannot contact your
assassins. Try and save up 350,000
before you head back (that is Sequence 7: Underworld just for your reference).
When all said and done I give this game an A because it's that Awesome. I hope this encourages you to go get a game system and enjoy
some hands-on procrastination!
This game is available on Xbox360, PS3, and PC.
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