Sequelitis.

So ive recently finished portal 2, which was excellent. Ive got batman arkham city down and ready to load, and im halfway through asscree2.

It occurs to me that these days a sequel isnt a bad thing. In the movie world, these things are being put together as contracted three parters.
Games development seems to be headed the same path - though not in all cases, and studios get shuffled, spliced and transferred along the way so the end result may vary.

Portal2 was delicious in every aspect. The gameplay was solid and a great extension of the existing elements. The same could be said of the whole production, in fact. The story development, scripting, voice acting, all of it brilliant. Although writing that I feel that a good 75% of the awesome shown here is indeed based on wheatley and glados. The same game without those elements would still be rock solid, and still held as a new way of things about what fps action can achieve, but those personalities are so strong and well written that they actually make the shape of who you are. They manage to add dimension to the voiceless protagonist. No very often done, and rarely so well.

Onto assassins creed 2.
I know I didnt actually write up many of my criticisms and none of my suggestions to AC, but if I had they would have been all taken into account.
Radial city development so not to get a whole sector unlocked that you would never use again. Win.
Non linear character development. Win. Even if its linear skill progression and obviously tiered equipment I can still choose and work towards purchasing those things.
Collectables that influence gameplay and are not just achievement based. Double win. For me, while I love the cheeves its frustrating when there is no in game tie in. Even as simple as as it is here - collect things to make it easier to collect things. And collections you would likely work through anyway as your character improves.
I also like the instant dispatching of basically any foe who is unaware or unprepared in the middle of a fight.
I also like the hire-able groups. There actually feels like an attempt this time to allow different styles of play.
And this is all gameplay stuff. I quite like Ezio. He is brash and pigheaded, but he is renaissance italian, so... yeah.
I sill find desmond boring, but he has been pushed out of the way as quickly as the assassins creed baby simulation experience.

I am much more engaged in two, very much so and im actually now interested in how it will all play out, instead of just whether it will be any good.

Assassin's Creed

So i recently played assassin's creed.
the first one, not ass flag. i thought the new pirates creed looked pretty interesting and since the series always seemed interesting i thought perhaps id best actually dip my toes in and have a go.

What I Expected:
i expected a level of freedom of movement unlike any other.
i expected an engaging story
i expected a high quality production
i expected decent combat with a focus on stealth and precision assassination setups.

The First Fifteen Minutes;
In the plus column -
So, the story is a litle different than i expected, i didn't guess it had scenes in the now and certain sci fi elements to play with.
It's an attractive game, the old garbox can run it ok with some settings adjustments.
The gameplay is reasonably intuitive, i was able to get a pretty solid grasp on what i was doing quickly enough.

and in the negatives -
it takes a long time to get to the actual game. between the initial exposition and the tutorial to start playing.
i really didnt like altair.

no seriously. he was a jerk. not only that but the portrayal of his voice acting wrecked it for me. i didnt get a cocky, brash, egotistical killing machine at the top of his game, taken down a peg and then completing a journey of self discovery alongside a mission of worldly importance.
i played a boring jerk who was boring and a jerk and then apparently stopped being a jerk. but still sounded like one.
go figure.

all in all i did enjoy the games though, i found the mash of fiction to history engaging and the sci fi elements were interesting in their own rights.
i think personally id have developed the maps differently, in terms of the area divisions and the way the completed side quests effected future play. i also would like a bit more RPG into the character development, instead of linear unlocks, but really that's just to my personal tastes.
im interested to see how the series progresses and whether the things i'd have tweaked are things the designers and developers have also spotted.

that said, i will play the rest in good time and i look forward to where the story is headed.

i borrowed the game off a mate, so i didn't have a fee associated. its generally 5 bucks on sale these days and i think that's money well spent.
i played it on the garbox and it ran well enough with decent details, so i could appreciate what was going on, though the areas had a lot of flat palette texturing, not a lot of vibrancy. that said i do understand the period of history this was set in.
i myself would have also appreciated a bit more leniency with the save system, it was annoying to have to budget my play time to times i knew the kids were asleep or otherwise occupied.

yeap.