sunnuntai 4. maaliskuuta 2012

Assassin's Creed 3

Recently light was shedded on the upcoming Assassin's Creed threequel, and by light I mean a fucking lighthouse with an array of spotlights behind it.
  

 
AC3 is set to take place in colonialist America from around 1775 onwards, expected to end at around 1781 parallel to the war of independence. Our protagonist,Connor, is a native Mahican; mother is a Mahican father is American. The geography of the game is bound to take place in New York and Boston, right where AC Revelations ended. Connor is confirmed to be in cahoots with George Wahsington and Benjamin Franklin, who most likely will replace Leonardo da Vinci. The upcoming saga will continue Desmonds story but Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze are now as seems forgotten.

My two cents on the event are mostly negative.
Sure the premise of AC3 is cool and all, and a new protagonist is a very needed fresh wind in the ''Valley of Ezio''. But choosing frontier America over all the other historic settings, especially in the end of the 18th century, seems like a fanservice for the Americana audience. To be upmost anyone who has read history outside of the states knows that the history of America, especially at the frontier era, is very over detailed and only spans for 200 years or so. Not to mention the questionability of the motives of the leaders of this era makes this very thin ice to thread on. Also Connors ethnic and supposed moral neutrality is just plain political correctness, I gladly await how ubisoft use this in the story of AC3 and whether they actually tapped into anything worth while there.
In the end of AC revelations  it became clear that individuals with high concentration of ''first-born'' dna are in dire need. Also a female assassin, Dilara, made frequent screentime visits, most noteably in the cut-scene of the ''first armageddon'' suggesting she and her bloodline had high concentration of first born dna. Theories were made etc. but it was pretty clear the next AC game would circulate on her, the most common theory was that she was Mary Wollstonecraft at the french revolution. Going against this theorem of fans is common but in this case people where in many cases falbbergasted by the reveal of Connor.

Now all this mockery may sound harsh especially coming from an European, but mockery is not my intent. I feel like frontier America has already been done, espcially on the case of Red Dead Redemption. To me AC has always been exploring something that no games (except AC games) had before. Frontier America or dare I call it The Wild West is a cliche and I don't think it will do any favors for the AC series.

These are my two cents. Tell me yours, I'm very interested on the opinions of others on this issue.

keskiviikko 24. elokuuta 2011

Assembly '11

Assemly is the biggest LAN party held in my homeland of Finland. From the fourth to the seventh of august gamers got together in Hartwall Arena and did what people do when it comes to LAN parties.My highlights were:

The Jimm's booth:
I didn't buy anything but they had some great events like touchpad CSS and so on. And IMO they were prepared for window shoppers.

ES:
This shit kept me going when the small hours came upon us. I would pretty much have one with me all the time. The second rejuvinator was cigarettes. We honestly had a fag break every 30 mins.

Outskirts of Hartwall Arena:
We wandered outside Hartwall Arena and hilarity ensued as the ordanance people saw us. We split up and remained unharmed: yet it felt surreal and sort of awesome

Gaming in general:
It was liberating knowing that the couple days to come you could game as much as your heart desired. Nothing would stop you. And nothing did

My shitty PC:This hunk'o'shit accompanied me along Assembly. It only had an upgraded graphics card in it and the struggle with it was in the end quite rewarding. Next time ill hopefully have a better piece.






The Mainfloor: The hub, the center and the heart of Assembly. Everything from concerts to game finales took places here. Everytime you walked down to the mainfloor you would stand in awe astounded at the amount of everything that was going on.

Totalbiscuit: He was literally everywhere in Assembly. By the end of the four days he had commentated for 50+ hours, and it showed, nevertheless he still put up with the fans thus i got an awesome pic.


The ASUS ROG SC II event. Assembly made me a huge believer in e-sports. It was a crying shame that the preliminaries were stuffed into a small absess room. The same room was so packed when Stephano and Dimaga had their Z v Z that I could not finnish it. Luckily though the finale was held on the main stage.
After the first one hour game we were geared up for four more of those. After 2.5 hours Dimaga won 3-2 against Mana. Truly the highlight of the event






torstai 17. maaliskuuta 2011

A melting pot and plethora of everything


PS plus membership might be finally paying itself off. PSN plus members get a sweet little cloud to use. Every Gold member gets around 150 mb or so. What’s funny is that first I thought this was useless and the very next day I could have used this service real bad. Also PSN plusses will be getting early or just plain normal access to Infamous 2 beta. This factor might be the only reason I will buy PSN plus if I’ll buy it. I’m very hopeful that PSN plus will start to add more to its repertoire and make the pending decision a certain one 

I’m a bit ashamed to be Finnish today. Rovio’s head honcho Peter Vesterbacka stated his opinion on console games and their apparent downfall of ridiculous proportions. Boldly he states that console games and consoles themselves are dying out. I think that a small gaming company that really hasn’t done anything new in the gaming world and struck a major mother lode by releasing a re-hashed game that everyone who has played a little bit of flash games is already familiar with. I can name a dozen better games that are now online playable and are free. So please when you think of Finnish games think of Alan Wake, Max Payne and Stardust HD  


 
Homefront came out a couple days ago. And to be franc I’m not in the mood to pay and play another short game and/or a marketing shitfest. Five hours just doesn’t cut it no matter how good the multiplayer might be. What I am interested more so is the book. Looking at the reviews and general opinions the story and atmosphere and milieu and so on and so on is the best thing in the game and that is what makes it remarkable. It’s a brilliant move from them to put their eggs in a couple baskets;but being the cynicist that I am I think it’s rather the supreme marketing strategy that they had. Not everyone releases a billion balloons over Sanfran. But I’m excited to finally bring gaming into the English class without showing my ridiculous reviews and blogs and ending the teacher up in a state of uncontrollable hilarity.
PAX. Do I need to say more?
At least on the booth babe basis Duke Nukem Forever had it covered better than anyone else did. People have played it and apparently it suffers from clunky control syndrome. I’m a big fan of tight controls but what people said was also that the ridiculous humor and plain outrageousness of duke nukem will make up for a little case of stiff joysticks. Being as cynical as I am I will not believe this game will be out until I see it on the shelf and even then I will be in a state utter disbelief and flabbergasm.
The only game I’m sure to buy of the PAX coverage is Portal 2. What I find astonishing is that when you buy Portal 2 for the PS3 you will get it for the PC and MAC for free. Whether you have to have one steam account to activate this feature is yet to be announced. Otherwise I see a bright future of PC and PS3 gamers sharing the game and Xbox slowly being the left out kid in the school yard.
One other game that wasn’t as prominent that I am surely going to buy is Infamous 2. A new demo was playable showing the new cattle prod fights and cover that you can later fling at your enemies. Now that is pretty awesome.
One big title talked about was Bastion. Not really much has been mentioned except a scratch made engine and live commented play or something along these lines. Bastion was a big hit with the gaming biz insiders and is regarded a new Braid only better.
The shadowy figure of PAX this time was Rage; all thought IDtech shined bright and many titles still decided to stick with the unreal engine and IDtech in general not many big titles were shown off and only a little was mentioned of them.