Game updates

Hoo boy it has been a long week.

Game after game after game, there has been too many game releases in the past week and a half. I wanted to do a blog review a day but it seems i'll also need to play at increased rate as well. But here is the run-down of things to come in the future. 


Reviews of (Not necessarily in this order)

  -Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

      -if you love this game in particular, you're gonna have a bad time

  -Brain Age: Concentration Training 3DS

        -Probably a short review, I mean it's a brain age title

  -Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

        -So far a pretty good sequel to one of my favorite titles

  -Need for speed Wii-U

        -Haven't even played it yet.

  -Zombi-U. 

        -Hated the shit out of this. This should be a good review

  -Paper Mario Sticker star 3DS

        -An insult to the paper mario series. Seriously.

Hope you look forward to these reviews within the month. First one will likely be Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Assassins Creed 3. PS3 ver.

Quantity over quality, more games less everything else. Whoever thought of that marketing plan deserves to be shot in both knees.

Before i start i have to say, brotherhood is the best game in the series, then 2 followed by 1. I absolutely adored brotherhood, it kept the great cast of characters and continued on Ezio's story, like a good sequel. The controls were tight an i felt compelled to complete every little thing, side quests to trophies.

Altair on Left, Ezio in Center, and Connor on Right. 

Then revelations came, this game boasted the return of Altair and the final arc of Ezio. At first that sounds kinda cool. Two assassins?! But it was short lived. Revelations reuses all the things from brotherhood, except for these short segments when you get to be Altair, on his very linear story. After completing this game i realized, this game is not meant for having fun, they're just tying up all the loose ends for 3. I call it a bridge game. You play it so you can understand the next game in the series, and boy do i wish i could take it back.

Oh how mislead i was

Assassins creed 3 is by far the most boring of all the games. I'm not saying the game is bad, but when you place it side by side with its predecessors, it doesn't come up to par.

The fighting mechanics change drastically from the previous games, you used to be able to counter everything that came your way and walk away without too much damage. In 3, countering might as well had not been included. I only used a single weapon the whole game, a hand axe. I'm not even sure if there were upgrades or different things to use. The game gave me an all round tool which is used in all situations, why am i going to bother with anything else. 

Fuck your rifles, I have an axe!

The game is huge. I mean huge, I get they were trying (emphasize trying) to make an open world, for the player to explore, but god damn it felt boring to cross the map. If you didn't want to fast travel, which if i remember correctly isn't addressed until later in the game, you have to trek across this huge map with practically nothing in it; there's collectibles, synchronizing spots to climb and, oh god why, quick time event animal hunting.

Each of those yellow lines are full on roads...

Quick time events in an assassin game. Quick time events are best used in horror games, because you're moving slowly, taking everything in and so forth. In this, you're a assassin! You're trained in combat, this character especially is well trained in the forest, he climbs like a monkey and leaps like a kangaroo! But the second an animal tries to attack him, we have to watch a cutscene of him attempting to kill the animal. Not only does this take away from the game, but it's so unrealistic... The guy can slaughter hundreds and walk away, but the second you put a bear in front of him, he doesn't know how to pull out his axe.

The collectibles in this game, i found, were boring. I didn't want to climb trees to find these things, and to make it more annoying, even if i had wanted to take a break from quests an collect i wouldn't be able to! Each time you beat a chapter, more collectibles unlock. Someones trying to extend the game time value... 

SPOILERS

The game starts out and you're sitting in a opera house, watching a play. Pretty different start. You play as a smug yet noble character Haytham Kenway. When movement begins you start to crawl your way to the top of the theatre to assassinate your target, and i have to say, was pretty fun climbing the inside of a theatre, though i don't know how no one saw me, but non-the-less.

Time passes and this character gets on a boat to New York. He gathers friends for his cause and eventually have a whole team. He even gets a lady friend, for a whole 3 scenes. When you get to the end of his arc, you find out that he was actually apart of the group plotting against the assassin order. That right there, is good writing, I had no idea about that plot twist, it was amazing!

Right here, Total badass. Not giving 2 shits on what you're doing. If you don't do what he says, it ain't his problem.

And then it went downhill from here. The first 2 or some odd hours playing as this character, playing the tutorials and learning everything. GUESS WHAT! YOU'RE DOING THEM AGAIN! Yup, the game changes from the character Haytham to his son Connor, and my god i hate this guy. He is a half native half british and he never met his father. At the beginning you play him as a boy, you learn to climb trees and catch animals. But then something so evil and so heinous happens, one of Haythams followers burns down the boys villiage.

Connor as a kid. I don't understand why they did that. Ezio didn't even start as a child. 

I'll admit it was a interesting way to go, buuuut, we had already seen this kind of thing happen with ezio... Remember? Ezio's family gets hanged and Poof instant orphan. 

Connor vows revenge and grows up to be a self righteous prick. No seriously, its kind of annoying they way it goes. Yes i understand these things happened and yes i understand character development, but it's like all he has on his mind is vengeance. Ezio it least was like "Heeyy laddieees wats uppp" or even "Leonardo... what does this thing do? it looks pretty coool, yeeaaaaa". All i got from Connor was, "My family is dead". Hell I even think Altair had more character than this loser, AND YOU NEVER SAW ALTAIRS FACE!

Ah Ezio, this is the reason you got 3 games to yourself.

Eventually Connor kills everyone in his Fathers group and his father, and thats kinda it. No real surprises. 

Even the epilogue was underwhelming, considering Connor had just helped win the war for America, you'd think that maybe he'd get least a pat on the shoulder. NOPE! The last scene all i saw was Forest Gump sitting on a bench with a feather flying across the screen. 

END SPOILERS

The games multiplayer, for me it least, was short lived. Same thing from revalations which was the same thing from brotherhood. Rehashing the same thing only with different avatars. 

The only good thing in this game, good being in compared to the rest of the game, was the boating. It was well done, turning was tricky at first but handle-able. The combat was viciously fun and i got to crush small boats by sailing over it. But again, it was good in comparison to the rest of the game...

Even Ubisoft knows they fucked up, assassins creed 4 was announced only 5 months after the release of the 3rd, and this time, the characters a pirate, who sails on a boat... the boating was good in comparison ubisoft... 

Ubisoft, Take a break guys, pumping out more games will just make us bored...

Overall the game was a waste of my time, right now the only reason i'm playing them and will still be playing them, is because i want to know what's going to happen to the story. I don't want to relearn everything every time. If you're new to the series just wait till their done making them, and if you're like me who jumped on the train too soon, well, we ain't gonna be able to get off anytime soon. 

ASSASSINS CREED 4 HERE I COME. 

Least there seems to be whale hunting...Sounds like fun

...I'm not getting my hopes up.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Wii-U

Hoo boy, this game is amazing.

Let me just start out by saying, I had no idea what monster hunter was. I Thought "Monster Hunter" was the show "Monster Rancher" that aired in the 90's. When i was told they were different, i was a little bummed out and wasn't too sure about getting this game.

They both have the name monster in the title, and both games involve hunting monsters. 

Except one has monsters that'll rip your face off. 

But i put that aside and still decided to get the game (really too bad though, i wanted to make a steam bun monster and a giant eyeball too), and boy was i exceptionally pleased with the game. 

The graphics are stellar and the controls, after getting used to, are very well done. Personally i used my Wii-U pro controller and didn't bother with the Wii-pad because i don't want to have to look down and up and down when fighting things like this

Those things there, pretty much like giants.

As i said the controls take getting used to, If you, like me, are not a veteran monster hunter, you may accidentally use an item when trying to swing you sword or giant club.

This game is not so much a stat game but a skill one, granted you need armors and weapons to have exceptional stats to tackle bigger and scarier things, but if you have no idea how to avoid attacks, it ain't gonna do much.

A common thing i heard of this game prior to playing was, "You hunt monsters to craft better armor to hunt bigger monsters", and when hearing that, it sounds tedious, but it is not so. It makes up for that in the vast online world. It is so easy to jump in, fight and jump out. There's a voice option to chat, and if you're like me, a easy text option with the wii-pad (too bad its a maximum 30 chars). People seem to be generally friendly (granted the games been out for 3 days now) and there are tons of lobbies to play on. 

There are about 10 different weapon types (i may be wrong, going off of memory) and each weapon type has tons of different weapons dealing different types of status effects and even brute strength.

Now each weapon has it's own learning curve, for myself, a hunter newbie, i use the dual swords. They're fast reliable and deal ok damage. The farther down the weapon weights you go, the more damage and slower you swing, and believe me, if you can't aim properly with a slow weapon, all that damage will miss, because there is no lock-on.

This is something that has both pros an cons. The lack of a lock on. While there is an auto camera ajust to large monsters, it does not keep the camera "Locked on", The lack of this forces the player to actually require skill and know when to swing the weapon. When confronting a large monster, the one thing you don't want to do is miss, simply because that gives the monster an opening to tear you a new one. 

But each game has it's flaws. When you start hunting bigger things, in a group or alone, you will die. Not like Dark souls die, but pretty close. Whether you're in a group or alone, if you or your teammates die, the bounty of the hunt goes down by 1/3 each time. So if you die 3 times, it's game over; not only that but if your teammates die 2 times and you died once, It's game over. You get nothing from the hunt, you lose any materials you used in the hunt and you're sent back to town feeling a little self pity.

Least this is a gesture in the game...Show your comrades how much you're in pain

 The other thing is when you want to craft new armor, you'll most likely want to go after the whole set, and sets take time. You'll normally have to hunt the monster countless times to get all of it's resources it drops, and sometimes the drop rate of a specific item is no more than 12%. The better the equips, the harder it is to get the items. 

The biggest letdown i've faced so far, is the online multiplayer with 3ds to    wii-u. The game boasts 3DS multiplayer and how you can play with people on the wii-U with the 3DS, but in game there are 3 types of play. Solo, Multiplayer and online. So the keyword being used is Multiplayer. Yes you can play with people who own the wii-u version with the 3ds, but they gotta be sitting next to you, which is kinda disappointing.

"Wii U players are able to enjoy the hunt with Nintendo 3DS players via a local wireless connection."-IGN

I understand they weren't hiding that fact, but it couldn't have hurt to implement online for both.

Overall, this is an astounding game. If you take the time to learn how to fight properly, and are ok with no hand holding in combat, then i reccommend this game. It is hard, fun monster fighting, pretty nice cut-scenes and the online is well put together. 



...Hopefully more nintendo titles will have online as similar as this...







Really wanted this to be monster rancher

One of the best shows of the 90's....

Super Mario Bros. Wii-U

Glad i rented it...

Some buddies and I decided to rent this game, and boy am i glad we did. I wanted to purchase this game cause there were no first party titles for wii-u yet, but this is a horrible game. If you're reading this and you're an old school gamer who remembers the days of NES or even SNES you'll remember that the jumping was crisp and straight forward. In the recent installments of the mario games, specifically the side scrollers, the jumping feels floaty, as if when mario jumps, gravity doesn't affect him.

The problem here is you can't entirely tell where you're going to end up once you jump, mostly because the friction when you land is like landing on a slippery surface. This may seem like a menial problem when hearing about it, but when you start the game, which revolves AROUND JUMPING, it gets a little tiresome.

Though in this game which was a nice addition were Yoshis. They even added the baby yoshis, which i felt was nice. They were stylized well and fun to ride. But the problem here is again with the jumping. In the older mario games yoshi was essential because he could jump longer and higher than mario, and in a game where you can jump on your friends heads to get another couple feet higher, why bother with yoshi.

Also the choice of characters didn't even change from the Wii version, it's still mario luigi and two toads. They could have added toadette for a change of character, or anything but two toads again.

I have a feeling when games jump from the limit of four players (if ever) we'll see an orange toad and a purple one. More players = more toads.

And this game, IS NOT A CO-OP. No matter how they sell it, when you play with friends you'll constantly be jumping on each others heads making it harder for everyone else on the screen to play. Mario side scrollers were best played when taking turns, Things get too jumbled on the screen and it gets annoying fast.

The touchpad feels like a gimmick, you get to place blocks on the screen, and occasionally get a weird star that lets you, get this, Actually do something to enemies. So essentially what the person with the pad does is sit and watch people play, and put blocks. There is nothing else. I was hoping that the touchpad could have been more of use, alas when we played, we left it on the counter and didn't bother.

Im glad we rented this game because if i had spent 60$ for this game and then realized what had happened I would be so dissapointed.

If you're still not sure, rent it first.

SPOILERS.

HA! Spoilers, that's a funny thing to put in a review about mario games. I am a nintendo fanboy. Been playing since i was a kid and owned all the nintedo consoles and almost all the handhelds, but man it's fun tearing this game apart.

Before i start i will point out i could not get past world (area) 2, Not because of difficulty, but it got boring and annoying.


The game starts out with the bowser kidnap. Shocking. I understand nintendo's trying to make him back into the "Bad guy" but look at him! I don't know how but all i see here is the misunderstood villain who wants friends. The only bowser i truely fear is Giga-Bowser, originating from Smash bros. Melee, and Damn he is scary.

See the Difference?

<--- Cuddly last boss

       Gonna shit my pants fighting -->

Back on track. So pretty much, bowser and all his kids (who even is their mother) kidnap peach inside her castle while having tea with mario luigi and 2 random toads, Why those two toads? Because they had to make it 4 player.

Mario and the gang get bitch slapped out of the castle and crash far away into a, again get this, a tree of power ups. Now I'm not a mario buff, but do powerups grow on trees? All the games, least the older ones, didn't bother showing where these power ups came from, and i was fine with that. In the Wii version some toads put giant blocks holding the "new power ups" into cannons and launched it. I felt that was really silly but it didn't feel as forced and shoved down my throat as it was in this game.



And simply after that, the gang is off. By gang i mean mario and luigi and two random toads who are not important enough to get names, only yellow and blue.


The levels are sub standard, the only reason we had failed so many times was because we had simply started killing each other.


There is little more i can say about this game. If you played the Wii version, you've played the wii-u version. The controls are the same, the bubble thing is annoying, and death really doesn't have a consequence.


It's a mario game, you beat a level, to go to the next level to beat that level, and honestly I've played the wii/ and mario 3ds (gold coin one) and if it follows that path, i know how the ending goes.


Final words: Poor Mario game, does not do the series justice.