Sunday, January 13, 2008


Overlord – Completed


It is hard for me to classify this game, I will go with “Third person RTS”. You start out in a third person view of your “overlord” and collect minions. The minions are at your will and command, they can be controlled manually by the right stick or sent off to attack using the right trigger. The minions you collect through out the game are of four different types: Brown (normal), Red (fire), Blue (water), and Green (Poison). Each ahs there own abilities including resistance to the elements there color reflects. Sadly all but blue will drown themselves if you take a wrong turn towards water and ton realize this. Early in the game the inform you that your minions will happily sacrifice themselves for you, but something tells me I should be able instruct them to not mass suicide into water.

A not so unique feature in this game is the ability to make moral choice. Now don’t get me wrong we will slaughter hordes of Halflings, Dwarfs, and unicorns. But you accidentally kill a single human peasant and suddenly you are corrupt! Not sure what the message they are attempting to convey is, but its clear anything but human should be slated for genocide.

While in the game a small portion is centered on recovering smelters that will allow you to make more powerful armor. Now to me this is a great idea to advance your abilities since up to this point all you got was more and more minions. After recovering the lesser of all smelters I went to make armor only to find out for it to be upgraded properly would require me to spend a few hours farming minions. This is a single player game that promotes farming, Blizzard send this people a cease and desist for there gold farming trainer!

Game to me was 6 out of 10. The game definitely had awkward ideas when it came to being programmed and the concepts of corruption. But graphics were not to shabby, yet story was fairly weak.

Saturday, January 05, 2008


Kameo – Completed

There was actually a learning curve when it came to this game. All of your actions are done with the shoulder buttons on the controller and to switch between elements were the normal buttons. I often found myself switching elements rather then executing an attack, it got annoying pretty quickly.

The game centers around a fairy type culture and the elemental creatures they control. When enabled you essentially turn into that elements creature and have full use of there power. As you go through the game you find exactly what you need to move on (imagine that). The kingdom you live in was invaded by a evil troll who killed your father and kidnapped your family. At this point it’s a basic plat former that takes you through stages in order to recover the elements and defeat the troll.

Game for me was 6 out of 10. It was fun and colorful, yet could be frustrating at time trying to figure out which element to use next and in what situations. That concept coupled with the odd controls did not leave me with the best impression.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008


Assassins Creed – Completed


When first gazing upon the white clad individual slowly pushing himself through a crowd, then breaks into a sprint jumps through the air landing squarely on his targets chest ejecting a blade from his palm. Well let’s just say it made me giggle. Not to be a huge spoiler since this happens in the first 5 minutes, but this game does not take place in the dark ages. It takes place in a machine that essential unlocks your family history from your DNA. To me this is a great concept in which many games in the future could use. My thought is it takes away the realism, because you are playing someone who is essential playing a game. Also sets the basis for knowing you’re in an unrealistic environment. Let’s see a judge not laugh when some kid goes crazy and blames it on assassins creed, it would just be silly (not to mention don’t bring a knife to a gun fight har har har).


This game has some really great features which I hope to briefly touch on most of them. First off is the combat system, you have many options such as ranged throwing knives, stealth kills with palm blade, sword attacks that include counter attacks. One thing I would like to point out is combo attacks really suck. The system for them seems so flawed compared to the ease of use in the rest of the game. It occurred to me that perhaps the attacks might be more difficult since they are a killing blow. But honestly every other attack including single button pushes for stealth and ranged kills are also killing blows. The idea is that when your sword clanks another’s you press the attack button again. This initiates a killing blow to your opponent and is easy enough to do in practice, but very frustrating in a real fight.


Now if you get frustrated with games that wont let you jump on a dumpster because its “just to high” aka the programmer cant set environment limits creatively. This game will be a blessing and a curse. You can run up walls and if there is the slightest edge you will be able to hang on. You can and will climb builds to be able to see the span of the city. It’s almost like playing a sandbox super hero game, leaping from roof tops and such (can someone please make a Tick mod?!!?). But then you go on and play other games and there seems to be a 2x4 in your way which disables your ability to move forward. Makes you think back to the good ol days of being all terrain in AC.


Game was 8 out of 10 for me. Graphics are awesome, achievements are a challenge but not overly tedious (at least the ones I got). But the game is repetitive, only have a few different scenarios which to play out (pickpocket, eves drop, kill someone, save a citizen).


brooklyn naval shipyard