Hidden Blade o' Fun

I'm a couple missions into Assassin's Creed, and am enjoying it quite a bit. The visuals are quite nice... the cities looks great... and the developers know it, and make sure you know it by making a grand camera swoop every time you perch yourself on a lookout point.

Animations are some of the best I've seen (although most faces are seen more at a distance, so that may be compensating for some work), and the sound is mixed quite well.

The only major annoyance I've come across so far: the camera cuts to a preset angle for a few seconds after you complete a minor task, such as win a battle or save a citizen. Normally, this is acceptable... until you assassinate a "boss" and every guard in the city is now after you. You defeat one batch of them and then the camera goes into this congratulations mode and you run straight into the sword of a goon you didn't even know was there.

But otherwise, there's a lot of fun to be had. Pouncing towards a stunned victim for an extreme diving stab to the neck. Freaking out citizens with my penchant for wall-climbing ("Could someone explain why he's doing that?" "Is that necessary?" "What is wrong with that man?" are some of the phrases I've heard tossed about.). Running from rooftop to rooftop like a princess ballerina.

I'm not really big on stealth games, but this is definitely more action than stealth. You can often forgo stealth completely for a lot of the missions. They didn't give you a sword for nothing.

My favorite incident so far... after dispatching four or five grunts who were harassing a civilian, more guards come by... usually one at a time... see the pile of bodies, and demand to know who did this. I kept walking up behind them and casually adding them to the body count. It was up to 12 before I decided to go ahead and move on. Ah, good times.

Oh, yeah, this game probably isn't for the kiddies.

I'm also playing another violent bloodfest: Jericho. This one so far has been pretty standard, despite all the magic stuff, and the demons, blah blah blah.

I'm still pretty early on in it... just now finally beginning to be able to take control of more than just one character. If you play this game, do yourself a favor and don't bother reading the instructions. The instructions do tell you what powers each character has and how to use them... which is great if you forget. But the game very slowly walks you through all your abilities... including how to you the left stick to walk around... and, oh golly, the right trigger is your primary weapons fire!

Like I said, it's been pretty standard so far. But it took me a while to complete the first stage, because there is one part where you have to hold off wave after wave of enemies... most of which explode when they die, so they'll often take you out with them. And your buddies don't know not to shoot them when you're standing too close. I had to redo that part about five times. And then I couldn't find the exit to that room, despite it being an open area about the size of a studio apartment.

And isn't there some law or such that should have prevented this game from being called Jericho, because of that short-lived TV show that just ended? I guess technically it's titled "Clive Barker's Jericho" but wouldn't that be like me naming a game "Meager's Young and the Restless?" I'm sure some people would fall for it.


I'll be playing these single-player games for a couple more days, before diving headlong into Mass Effect. And I'm going to try to round up my friends for a multiplayer extravaganza this week... Rock Band, Guitar Hero 3, Raving Rabbids 2, Scene It, Mario & Sonic Olympics. Eyes will be bloody at the end of that night. Oh yes.