Busy Busy

 I'm still recovering from the holidays and have just been terribly busy, real life over everything else. I have been an incredible book worm of late and I played through Suikoden III again off and on while recovering from a pretty awful cold. So more nerdy things from me soon, just resting and doing the whole wife and mother thing. :)

Happiness Is A Game Of Thrones RPG Video Game

For those of you who follow George R.R. Martin's blog, I'm sure you're excited as I am about this news. For those of you who don't, but are fans of the books and the show, this is amazing news indeed. Cyanide Studios and Atlus Entertainment are working on a Game Of Thrones RPG video game coming out next year, possibly in March 2012. That's right, Game Of Thrones as a video game. It looks like they have reached an agreement with HBO allowing them to use elements from the television show in their game as well.

I admit, I was skeptical and thrilled at the same time. With such an intricate story of this magnitude, a video game could be either really good or really bad. After watching a trailer on the website however, I find myself impressed, hopeful, and wanting to see more game trailers as the game develops. It looks fantastic and it seems that Cyanide Studios and Atlus Entertainment want to make this game as great as possible.

You can check out the trailer and other information at the official video game website here: http://gameofthrones-thegame.com/#/pages/frozenWall/subPage1
The French fans at La Garde de Nuit were invited to a hour and a half long  presentation of the game and shared their insights and video here: http://www.lagardedenuit.com/blog/
This website has the most in depth information on the video game which you can take a look at here: http://www.westeros.org/ASoWS/News/Entry/New_Details_on_Atlus_USAs_Game_of_Thrones_RPG/
And of course you can check out George R.R. Martin's blog here: http://grrm.livejournal.com/256473.html

I for one, am quite interested in this and looking forward to more news about this game as it develops, especially seeing how fantastic everything looks so far.

Happy Holidays to everyone! 

Assassin's Creed Revelations, The Best One Yet

Assassin's Creed Revelations ties up the story of Ezio Auditore, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad, and  Desmond Miles. The story in Revelations not only includes Ezio's quest to uncover the secrets of his order, but a romantic interest, and a complex political situation as well. You also get flashbacks of Altair's life and some brief optional excursions in Desmond's mind in the Animus, making for an intricate story.
 Somehow, it all fits together perfectly. Ezio's story seems to be the catalyst because his quest to find out more information about Altair ties itself to the social and political unrest in Constantinople.  The romance between Sophia and Ezio is subtle and it is impressive how convincing they are and you find yourself believing that these two are falling in love with all the chaos around them. Overall, the story telling in Revelations is remarkable and the cinematic scenes are done right with fully developed characters in strongly written scenes.

A New City To Explore.....

   On a basic level, Revelations plays the same as the Assassin Creed games that came before. You're still accepting various missions that have you stalking, meeting, or killing targets. Some of the quests in Revelations do add to parts of the story, but more than a handful are time wasters or poorly constructed. However, the most exciting moments are Ezio exploring Constantinople and his discovery of clues about Altair's library. It's here where the "dungeon" sequences come into play. Similar to the Lairs of Romulus and the Assassin's Tombs, these excavations can take you on some fantastic adventures and these are some of the great highlights of the game.

Adventuring Is A Dangerous Business

  Even better are the chapters that feature Altair himself. Each major portion of the game includes a segment with the original assassin and players relive specific moments from his life from young to very old. Some of these missions feel slightly similar to some of Ezio's, but others are completely different. The variety keeps things from getting dull as well as the fact that they're very story driven. Some of Altair's memories even carry a certain weight and understanding of what Ezio is doing. As the game progresses, you begin to see similarities and differences between the two men, which makes the story an even more emotional and thought provoking experience.

 When it comes to gameplay, it's clear Ubisoft made a number of additions in terms of controls, weaponry, and the menu layout. The most noticeable change was a button layout change. Players can now directly access a secondary weapon (throwing knives, bombs,) in addition to a primary weapon (hidden blade, sword). This gives players more options, allowing for quick reactions during stealth missions as well as challenging combat scenes. Bombs become an extension of your combat options, offering three different categories. Choices of bombs range from standard smoke bombs to a bomb that shoots out coins luring dozens of peasants.

Climbing higher and higher....

The hook blade was also introduced, a feature playing on Ezio's hidden blade, that is perfect for zip lines and climbing to heights that seem almost unreachable. It becomes a universal tool in Revelations, for exploring the city and other locations as well as proving useful in close combat and assassination missions.

Hook blade, don't leave home without it.

 The only two parts of the game I found issue with were Den Defense and some of the game play as Desmond Miles. First of all, Den Defense really didn't add a lot to the experience of Revelations. In fact, it detracted from it. The menu is very clunky. Ezio stands on a rooftop near his headquarters as enemy troops march down the street attempting to damage the building so they can take it over. Players must install through a point and click cursor menu various barricades and a variety of assassins along the rooftops to fend off the attack. Controlling the deployment is really clunky and this mode does not mesh well with the game. Assassin's Creed's strength and focus is direct combat, not real time strategy. Frequently, I found myself fighting against overwhelming odds, which made the whole thing an irritating mess. If they bring Den Defense back, they definitely need to make a few changes and modifications to it.

 Now we come to Desmond. Desmond's sequences are completely optional in Revelations, most likely Ubisoft anticipating a divided reaction to the departure in game design. Desmond is in a coma, attempting to reclaim his mind within the Animus architecture and must navigate through Tron like worlds in first person perspective. He moves through these oddities by using two shapes of blocks he can create and place in the world. While I did like getting to hear some of Desmond's memories and his back story, I did not like the first person perspective. It's jarring at first, and it takes a lot of getting used to. I also suffer incredibly bad vertigo in first person game settings which is why I rarely play first person games. I found that while it was a bit unsettling at first, I did get used to Desmond's first person view sequences because thankfully, the camera did not bob up and down at weird angles. I could only play in brief bits however, because after a few minutes I found myself feeling quite nauseated. I truly wish his sequences had not been done in first person, but the scenes are well thought out and the puzzles actually play well. I also found myself a bit frustrated towards the end when once again, I got more questions than answers. I came to understand that they left it this way on purpose to make room for the forthcoming Assassin's Creed game in 2012, so I'll just have to wait.

 Multiplayer is augmented again in Revelations with various new modes, a variety of customization options, and a better interface along with a story mode that allows players to learn more about the Templars as they progress in the Abstergo facility. There are several modes that create unique gameplay with different match types. All of these build towards an ultimate goal which certainly rewards those who are used to focusing on a core storyline.

 Overall, Assassin's Creed Revelations gives a brilliant presentation of an intricate story line filled with gorgeous graphics, great voice acting, subtle yet powerful music, and great core gameplay. For me, this was the best Assassin's Creed yet and I know I will be playing through it again. If you've been following the stories of Altair and Ezio this far, you definitely need to see their last adventure. It's worth it. 

Dead Island Good, But Not Perfect

 I really wanted to love Dead Island. After seeing many fantastic pictures and reading up about the game months before it came out, I was excited. Friends and family know I am very much a zombie fan. Ever since that Halloween night when I was 12, and watched Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, I have genuinely enjoyed all forms of zombie multimedia. Some of it has been great, some of it filled with schlock, and some of it just plain fun. So I was excited about Dead Island and had high hopes for it. Some of my expectations were met, but others not so much. This included the discovery that the game is in the first person view (I have issues with vertigo and first person view games), but I found that I could play the game for short periods of time because the camera did not bounce around the way it does for so many other first person games I've experienced. There are good things about this game, but there are bad things as well.

Welcome To Paradise!

 You start the game with the setting of what appears to be a tropical island paradise, Banoi. However, if you look closer, you'll notice the blood on the walls, in the sand, and in the swimming pools. Look even closer, and you'll see the zombies munching on corpses. Dead Island while appearing to be a first person shooter, is more than that. Sure there is shooting in it, but there are also a myriad of other weapons such as oars, cars, and molotov cocktails. Dead Island is more of a schlock filled action role playing game that plays heavily on grisly melee combat. The resort is not the only place you explore. You can go even further inland into city and jungle settings, while doing favors for survivors on the island. The maps are excellent and there is even a handy shortcut function, where you can click on the map and go back to a previous location without having to run through a zombie horde.  There are also plenty of weapons that you can improvise, making them quite deadly to the zombie menace. The four player online co-op is pretty good and gives you a chance to survive a zombie horde fight for the more difficult quests.

Just a girl and her axe, waiting for some zombies.

The majority of your time on Banoi is spent exploring and foraging for items for weapons and supplies. In co-op mode, this can work very well with a couple of people fighting off the zombies, while the others get things like fuel for the vehicles. You can also have fun with the leveling grind, running zombies over with various automobiles and watch the points tally up. You can easily put twenty hours into this game with all the questing, exploring, and zombie slaying and it is fun trying all the different melee choices out. My personal favorite was driving a big truck and running zombies over.

Hungry Tourists.

Now we get to the bad. While there are only a few minor flaws with the game, it definitely made a difference in the game play and the story. Now I'm not saying for a fun schlock zombie game I need a gripping emotional story, but the story must be good. Dead Island gives you a very threadbare story and the characters backgrounds are rather weakly written. This is a reflection on the writers. They could have written the characters better and fleshed out the story more, but they chose to do it this way although I am not sure why. The voice acting is also not great, with monotone emotionless voices. Do the characters even care that they could get eaten by zombies? I get the impression that they don't with that flat tone in their voice acting. Clunky controls and awkward combat can make you frustrated. It can be off putting when you're fighting off a wave of zombies and trying to make the camera turn the way you want it to so you can at least see what you're fighting. The game would also benefit from a better block and dodge option during combat.  The quality of the visuals isn't even. The environmental graphics on the resort are great and the jungle environments as well, but the character and npc animation is poor and as you progress towards the end of the game it comes across as the bare minimum at best. 

 The last issue I have with Dead Island is the lack of regard for the solo player. There isn't an offline co-op option so you can play with friends you have over. It's as if they didn't even consider the possibility that people would want to play offline with friends and only have the online option. While I appreciate their reliable system for online play, I still would have liked the option to play offline with others if I chose. 

 Overall, Dead Island is a good game, but not a perfect one. It had a lot of potential, but the execution of those ideas was severely lacking. You're better off just waiting for it to go on sale really cheap or just rent it.

Catherine Puzzle Lover's Paradise Or Hell

 First of all, let me say that while I know a lot of you love Atlus games as much as I do, Catherine is not a typical video game. In fact, it is a sliding block puzzle game with a great story woven in. If you're not big on puzzle games, Catherine may not be the video game for you. However, if you genuinely enjoy challenging puzzles and are a puzzle game addict like myself, Catherine definitely gives you your money's worth.

 Catherine is much more than a puzzle game however. The story is definitely what brings everything together. It addresses adult situations, things that people go through or suffer such as, fear of commitment, infidelity, and about how some people are childish and won't take responsibility for their actions. It's a unique title and simply an adult video game because it involves adult situations and the issues we have as we get older.
 The story centers around Vincent Brooks who has a girlfriend by the name of Katherine. They're both in their early thirties and Katherine's biological clock is ticking which she hints at to him by telling him her mother has asked where the relationship is going. Vincent isn't sure he's ready for that level of commitment yet and says as much to his buddies he hangs out with at the local bar.
 One night while hanging out at the bar mulling over a sliding block nightmare he had the night before, he runs into a beautiful blonde bombshell by the name of Catherine. Apparently after blacking out, he wakes up after another nightmare to find that she has spent the night. Of course, Vincent freaks out completely. Now, Vincent has to make a choice between lust and love, have good times with Catherine or finally make a commitment to Katherine.
 Vincent's nightmares continue and even worse, people actually seem to be dying in them.Healthy men in their twenties and thirties are found dead in their beds and there seems to be no reason for it. A rumor goes around that it is a woman cursing all these men for being unfaithful. Is the rumor true? Vincent has to find out, climbing for his life one nightmare at a time.

Vincent Brooks In His Nightmare

 Vincent's nightmares are the heart and soul of the puzzle sections. Every night, he wakes up surrounded by sheep, with horns growing out of his head and a voice taunting him to come up. There are items along the way that help you with the puzzles, but many obstacles as well involving sheep that are trying to climb also as the world crumbles behind them. You have a reason to climb, survival and the inner demons Vincent is struggling with. If you don't climb, you die. One example of this is, there's a giant monster version of Vincent's girlfriend Katherine, trying to grab him and smash the heck out of him. If Vincent's not quick enough to climb all those blocks to the top, he will surely die. 

 Every night, there's a different puzzle with each nightmare and depending on how quickly you get to the top and how many points you get, you can win gold, silver, or bronze trophies. The complexity of the puzzles is very interesting and the story is well written and captures your attention perfectly. It sounds silly, but you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you have figured out a rather difficult puzzle. 

Solve The Puzzle Or Die Trying

 This brings up the next point. Some of the puzzles in Catherine will make you want to punch every living thing in your path. The difficulty level is excruciatingly high on a variety of them. There's no shame in playing a game on the Easy level. I know I will try a game on Easy first, to get a feel for the controls, to see how well the game plays, and to have a chance to genuinely enjoy the story that is being told. Then I will play again working on all the achievements and trophies, and improving my game scores. This is what I did with Catherine and some of those puzzles made me want to punch whoever designed it right in the face. A challenge is all well and good and definitely in a puzzle game, but when the game is on the Easy setting and it's still making you weep bitter tears of defeat, that is a big problem.  Don't believe me? Apparently the difficulty level was such a destroyer of worlds, that the Japanese gamers complained about it. Frankly, that said quite a lot to me about how high Atlus raised the bar on these puzzles. The complaints were so many, that Atlus promised to put a patch in that would make the game much less difficult  on Easy. I do understand their reasoning that they wanted the game to be challenging, so that players could reap huge rewards when they solved a puzzle, but the Easy setting in a game should be just that, easy and not throw people into the deep end with a sink or swim attitude. That's what the Hard and Nightmare settings are for. 

 However, there is hope! There is a secret trick to get to a Very Easy mode. It's a secret that Atlus put in to make the game a cake walk for players. When you access the main menu of the game, highlight Golden Playhouse and hold the back or select button for a few seconds. The screen will flash with a prompt telling you Very Easy mode has been activated. From there, the puzzles are much easier, and you can actually enjoy the story without those resentful feelings and frustration. It is a nice touch, and I give kudos to Atlus for caring enough about fans of their games to put it in there, because they do want people to enjoy the game. 

 Overalll, the game is great. The story is well thought out and acted out well with a great voice cast. There are also interesting characters that Vincent meets in the bar and can talk to, even help them with their issues. There is also a fun mini game in Catherine, called Rapunzel that is a sliding block puzzle game also that gives you pretty good rewards when you beat all the levels, along with opportunities to unlock music from various Atlus games and the Catherine game to play on the jukebox in the bar. 

 I have always loved the artwork in Atlus video games and Catherine is no exception. Right down to the animated short cut scenes, everything is colorful, seamless, and you really appreciate how everything ties together. The music, the voice cast, and the game play all mesh into a fantastic video game. Catherine is definitely a game worth having in any gaming enthusiast's collection and absolutely worth playing more than once. 

Too Little Too Late GameStop

 Ever since the incident with the STORE manager of the GameStop near us we have refused to buy anything from them ever again. Basically, the manager talked down to my husband as if he was an idiot about them being out of stock when we were considering buying a PS3 and as my husband started to ask a different question, said manager interrupted him quite rudely with, "And no we DO NOT hold them for anyone." He proved not only was he a complete and utter tool, but also that he had no business doing anything remotely customer service related. He also needed a lesson in Manners 101. We left and bought the PS3 elsewhere for a much cheaper price than theirs.
 Now, GameStop has confirmed my belief that we are absolutely right to never purchase anything from them again with the latest fiasco involving the Deus Ex: Human Revolution coupons that offer a code to play the game for free online using the gaming service OnLive. GameStop was removing the coupons. That's right, they were opening the games and REMOVING the coupons and selling them as "brand new" to us the customers. Why did they do this? Because of an email from the field operations manager of GameStop telling their employees to remove the coupons and discard them with the reasoning that Square Enix had put their competitor's coupon in the game and that as a retailer, they do not wish to promote their competitor's  business.
 Here's where I get a bit angry at corporate businesses like GameStop. While I understand that they were unhappy with Square Enix for putting a competitor's coupon into the game's packaging without their knowledge, opening a multi media package to take out its contents and then trying to pull one over on their customers by selling it as "new" is not only THEFT and FRAUD, it's also morally wrong. It makes them foolish and greedy. They screwed over a bunch of their customers because they don't want to lose money.
 The other side of that coin is it's called a class action lawsuit that is just burning to happen. While Square Enix has given a diplomatic response stating that they respect the rights of GameStop to have final say over the contents of their product, I'm sure they're just biding their time. Square Enix is the publisher of this game and as the publisher they have every right to put whatever coupon, promotional item, or gift they want to in their packaging and not have to worry about their product being tampered with and not getting to the consumers in the original condition it was packaged in. Frankly, because of the conceited and reckless decision of the GameStop corporate big wigs, Square Enix is within their rights to sue the holy hell out of them. See, GameStop has to fulfill their obligation too, one that doesn't involve tampering with the merchandise that is sent to them from the various video game publishers. Now that they have done this incredibly irresponsible thing, how many publishers do you think are going to work with them? They have essentially hung themselves with this action. It also proves a point that corporations like GameStop need to have a leash put on them so they do not do things like this that are akin to a two year old having a screaming tantrum, throwing their toys all over the place.
 GameStop can't afford to have this kind of bad publicity with businesses like Amazon, Valve, and Steam around. Why should we the consumers, purchase anything from a corporation that obviously cares NOTHING about its customers and only sees us as  piggy banks? The three companies that I mentioned offer video games, every video game that I know I personally have ever wanted  to play and I don't need to waste my time or money with a pathetic toothless dinosaur like GameStop.
 GameStop has since then offered an apology which you can read here on the Gamasutra website: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36818/GameStop_Offers_Apology_Gifts_For_Human_Revolution_OnLive_Voucher_Removal.php
 I am amused that they think anyone in their right minds would give them more money after this. It was only AFTER they made world news with this nonsense that they offered an apology. Oh yes, they're sorry alright. They're sorry they got caught. This apology is too little too late GameStop and their days are numbered. All they have shown us is that they're nothing but soulless money sucking vampires who are willing to screw over others just to get ahead and that includes their customers. That is why GameStop deserves all the loss of business. Actions have consequences and GameStop's antics are no exception.

Brief Hiatus

 I know it's been a bit since my last entry and for that I apologize. I am on a bit of a hiatus while I'm getting real life things sorted out, mainly recovering from a very long summer and getting back into the swing of back to school and the holiday rush. Don't worry, there will be more posts soon. I have quite a lot to say about various books, films, and video games. =)