What have we been playing?

Matt warms to Steam on Mac OS, causes mayem on Starcraft 2, touches cloth with Amnesia: Dark Descent and enjoys Scramble With Friends on iOS.

Daren says hello and goodbye to InFamous 2, pleasures himself with the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo and does different with Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.

In the news

Twisted Metal delayed and censored in Europe, Mass Effect 3 demo details, Resident Evil 6 demo packed with Dragon’s Dogma, The Witcher 2 console release date, Skyrim Creation kit and Gran Turismo 5 receiving an update.

Soundtrack of our gaming lives

In this episode, Monkeysdad selects ‘The Front Hall’ from Resident Evil 2.

In addition you get the usual suspects; Retail Roundup, New Releases, DLC and the Sexy Quiz.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes & leave us a sexy review. Download direct or listen here.

As always we really appreciate feedback so tell us what you thought of the show or expand on the discussion points raised by leaving a comment.

What have we been playing?

Matt completes Saints Row: The Third, and joins Daren in sharing their thoughts on The Darkness II Demo.

Daren discovers his new toilet iOS game, Temple Run, talks up the sensual iPad game Fingle and reviews the JAMBOX speaker by Jawbone.

In the news

No confirmed Diablo 3 release date but the console version is mostly confirmed, Resident Evil 6 and Mario Party 9 announced, Max Payne and X-Com shooter delays, Fallout: New Vegas ultimate edition details, Alienware PC / console love-child, Age of Booty coming to mobile and Mass Effect 3 to launch with Origin requirement.

Soundtrack of our gaming lives

In this episode,Daren selects the self-titled track from the upcoming Syndicate.

In addition you get the usual suspects; Retail Roundup, New Releases, DLC and the Sexy Quiz.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes & leave us a sexy review. Download direct or listen here.

As always we really appreciate feedback so tell us what you thought of the show or expand on the discussion points raised by leaving a comment.

What have we been playing?

Matt continues with Saints Row: The Third, joins the community for Gears of War 3 & Full House Poker and discusses his experience with Bastion DLC.

Daren talks Flashpoints among other things with Star Wars the Old Republic, grabs Broken Sword 2: Remastered on iOS and returns to Osmos.

In the news

Possible Diablo 3 release date, rumours of new Microsoft and Sony hardware at E3, Xbox Live account phishing, XBL Indie games given greater file size capacity, X-COM making a strategic comeback, House of the Dead 3 & 4 HD’s incoming, Star Trek Online free to play date confirmed, Microsoft Flight launches as free to play, Lego Batman 2 announced and the best SWTOR glitch ever.

Soundtrack of our gaming lives

In this episode, Matt selects the opening cinematic from Final Fantasy VIII.

In addition you get the usual suspects; Retail Roundup, New Releases, DLC and the Sexy Quiz.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes & leave us a sexy review. Download direct or listen here.

As always we really appreciate feedback so tell us what you thought of the show or expand on the discussion points raised by leaving a comment.

What have we been playing?

Matt dices with Joe Danger, continues with Saints Row: The Third and reunites himself with Bayonetta.

Daren completes the Gears of War 3 campaign, shares early impressions of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and plays Monopoly on iOS.

In the news

Aion going free to play in February, Command and Conquer browser game coming, APB free to play drawing large crowds. Devil May Cry HD collection release date, Kingdom Hearts 3DS announced, Lego embracing Lord of the Rings franchise and Need for Speed World releasing a $100 car.

Soundtrack of our gaming lives

In this episode, Monkeysdad selects Buggie Running Beeps from Rez.

In addition you get the usual suspects; Retail Roundup, New Releases, DLC and the Sexy Quiz.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes & leave us a sexy review. Download direct or listen here.

As always we really appreciate feedback so tell us what you thought of the show or expand on the discussion points raised by leaving a comment.

This month Greg Giddens and Neale Jarrett suffer through Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

We hated it and the community clearly did as well. The AI was inconsistent, the cover ineffective, the gunplay crap and story uninspired. The tragic thing was the untapped potential behind the characters.

Direct Download

Our main theme tune is from OverClocked Remix , Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance: I Need Scissors! 61! remix by Prince of Darkness (Tony Dickinson).

Our winner this month for their comment is MaGe1974. Congratulations to him and you can all enjoy his radio play comment below as well as in the opening few minutes of the podcast where we act it out. Honourable mention also goes to Silent Otto for suffering through and completing Kane & Lynch:
—
Sit down, Mr Kane. I’d just like to ask you some questions.

Am I being charged here?

Well, maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Up to you to fill us in best you can. If you can justify what went on perhaps

you’ll walk out of here a free man.

OK…let’s get started then, just means the sooner I get out of here.

So Mr Kane (flips through game manual), says here the first time we hear about you is in 2007? Apparently there’s another fracas involving you in 2010 but, for today, let’s concentrate on 2007.

Fine by me…

Got yourself in a mite of trouble didn’t you, Mr Kane?

A little, made for a promising story being busted out of custody though…

Can you fill us in on what happened exactly?

Well…difficult to give you all the detail… things were a little hazy, people were speaking without moving their lips, everything seemed to flicker…

Says here you opened fire on the police department?

Hell yes, they were firing on me! Didn’t hit that many though…

Were you concussed?
Yeah, I might have been. Don’t know how else my aim could have been so clumsy. Arm just felt like someone had nailed a long, stiff piece of wood to it – really unresponsive. Felt sluggish, really difficult to set my aim…

Managed to shoot and injure some officers?

Think so, don’t what chickenshit gear I was packing though. It said machine gun but I must have put half a dozen bullets into some of the uniforms and they still didn’t go down even though the recoil was massive. It also sounded like I was using a BB gun rather than serious hardware.

Doesn’t sound very realistic, Mr Kane.

Well, like you said, I must have been concussed or something.

OK, let’s move onto the bank heist…

I was trying to save my family!

Calm down, Mr Kane, we’re just filling in the blanks here. Again, there’s clear evidence here that you used firearms on law enforcement.

I had no choice! Although everyone was telling me to be careful there was no real stealth option. I was pretty much forced to off every officer in the area just to go forward. That time, trying to get into the vault, I even had to retrace my steps back out of the bank and shoot a uniform left standing outside before my colleague would open the bloody door!

Again, I have to say the whole thing doesn’t sound very realistic, Mr Kane.

You’re telling me, and I haven’t mentioned the van we escaped in yet, must have had the worst suspension in history the way everything seemed to jump up and down during my little chats with Lynch.

Ah yes, Mr Lynch, your associate. Helpful?

He was clearly insane as his actions in the bank showed but he behaved as well as any of my team when given an instruction.

Not very well then.

You’ve got the file, read it for yourself.

You showed remarkable resilience throughout your little adventure, Mr Kane.
There are reasons for that – I got shot a hell of a lot and my friends had a shitload of adrenaline shots to get me back on my feet.

Why not use cover?

Yeah, good question. Walls around here must be funny or something but half the time I went for cover I just ended up running into them and, when I did find some environment that wanted to cover me, I still ended up getting hit by
bullets. You police using ammunition that goes around corners now?!

Sounds like you were up against it then?

I wish – like I said, the walls were pretty evasive. S’ok though because your officers were pretty dumb anyway. I saw them dry humping walls that weren’t there and take cover behind features that were only knee high. Huh, huh. They
looked pretty stupid.

We can’t all be born with such high levels of intelligence as yourself, Mr Kane. I notice that a few of your friends apparently stood rather obligingly in the open to get shot at as well.

I can’t vouch for them, perhaps they had a death wish or something. Sure made it easy just to send them ahead as bait, especially as your guys seemed to spawn from nowhere when those mugs crossed a certain point.

(Silence)

So, after our discussion and all the things that went wrong, are you sticking with your story, Mr Kane? Your whole adventure sounds like a very old fashioned experience, not the kind that this generation sees at all.

Yeah, I guess I am. My story is an interesting one, just presented in an incredibly frustrating and rough round the edges way – I’m no storyteller. The people pulling my strings in the background must have had other things on their mind, I’ve heard something about an agent 47?…

Oh, come now, Mr Kane, they say that Agent 47 is nothing but a myth…but who knows? Let’s hope rumour of a second sequel for you is more unlikely…

(Game manual is slapped shut)

Time’s up, Mr Kane. Nice try but we’re charging you anyway.

Broken promises, eh, copper?

After your two outings, you should know all about those, Mr Kane.

Welcome to Spoiler Alert, a new monthly podcast where Greg Giddens and two guests talk about a recently released game in-between pointing fun at each other.

This month is all about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

In this special, extra long show the trio, Greg Giddens, Neale Jarrett (Baron Von Pleb) and Steve Peacock share their experience with this epic RPG. Two and a half hours of anecdotes, awesome music, peculiar facts and stories of adventure will entertain you, make you laugh and compel you to dive straight back in to this brilliant game.

Of course it’s called Spoiler Alert for a reason, so expect stories about certain quests, and occurrences which you may not have experienced yourself. But the nature of Skyrim, with its open-world and dynamic content, means spoilers are kept to a minimum and we make a point of not discussing any end game content.

So enjoy the podcast and continue to share your own adventures in the forums and the posts below.

Direct Download

Be sure to share you thoughts with us on the front page post’s comments section and get involved via Twitter @midlifegamernet using the #MidlifeLTTP and via the forums.

Late to the Party: Bayonetta

Broadcast date: 19th January 2012

Game of the Month Podcast – Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Broadcast date: 17th December 2011

Game of the Month Podcast – Batman: Arkham Asylum

Broadcast date: 17th November 2011

Game of the Month Audio DLC: Assassin’s Creed

Broadcast date: 15th October 2011

Game of the Month Audio DLC: Mirrors Edge

Broadcast date: 14th September 2011

Game of the Month Audio DLC: Overlord

Broadcast date: 15th August 2011

Game of the Month Audio DLC: WET

Broadcast date: 10th July 2011

Game of the Month Audio DLC: The Darkness

Broadcast date: 30th May 2011

This month Greg Giddens and Neale Jarrett became Batman in Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum.

We, of course, loved it and the majority of the community did as well. The stealth, narrative, gadgets, but mostly the combat was of such high quality not even the Killer Croc boss battle could put us off.

Direct Download

Our main theme tune is from OverClocked Remix , Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance: I Need Scissors! 61! remix by Prince of Darkness (Tony Dickinson).

Our winner this month for their comment is Silent Otto. Congratulations to him and you can all enjoy his diary-esque comments below:

—

Well gamestation this morning: ‘Have you got Batman Arkham Asylum’ yes mate £14.99.  So I ask about the GOTY edition, and he say’s no. So I’m off to game, and find BAA for 17.99, so I ask him can you do this for 14.99 as it is round the corner, no it went up £3 this morning, they should be selling it there for 17.99 as well.

I go back to gamestation, and take the 14.99 copy, and he says yes I’ve just been phoned by the manager of game and asked why its not been hiked in price yet.  So good luck at getting it for under £8.

I had it on PC, so I bought a wired 360 controller as I will be away a lot this month and will be unable to give the PS3 the love it deserves.  I’ll let you know how it goes, first playthrough will be PS3.

—

Well I’ve just started and put in an hour on normal level.  What can I say, I’m playing it on the PS3 and the graphics are awesome, though there is some clipping and occasionally the old girl is struggling to keep up.  there was a bit of stutter in the opening video but it didn’t mar the experience.  I have read a lot of reviews on this game, and they all concentrate on how good it is – you know I really should buy games based on recommendations.

Next – well after Assassins creed it was familiar territory, bit of climbing, hiding jumping on people but hey what a difference 2 years make.  I just performed my first 3 silent kills, and I like detective vision so much it is pretty much my default view.  Collectables? How many?? Ive found riddler trophies, interview types, spirit of Arkham glyphs and every 2 minutes I am getting character bio unlocked – or something else unlocked. I’ve got the brady guide, but I am first going to complete it on normal then go back and do all the collectables. Just finding little cubby holes and vents all the time nothing is straighforward, I could easily spend 2 – 3 hours going everywhere on this level alone.

The game is dark and the riddler is more in keeping with the latest Heath Ledger than the Jack Nicholas version, he really is a psychopath and unsettling – evryone hates clowns (except GoddTodd – you know its wrong). Harlequin is hot, but then again that may be just me.  I’ve just died because i decided to go for a beat 3 blokes up in a courtyard, and 2 had machine guns – not wise.  But it was great taking the first one out with a gliding kick, and Ive got to stop playing because I’ve an early start tomorrow. I got my arse kicked by some fellow who then went and died and I am expecting to see more of his type later in the game.  then guess what – only a bloody suit upgrade!!! I think someone has gone throught the game checklist and said :

Collectables – tick

Beat em up – tick

Platform -tick

Detective bits – tick

Stealth – tick

Narrative – tick

It does seem to have covered all the bases. Its gone to the menu screen and I can see i have 3 % completed the game – jeez how big is it. I haven’t even touched downloadable content yet!!! I’m away tomorrow and in Bristol on wednesday night if anyone fancies a pint, so I’ll have to have a bit of a hiatus after tomorrow and switch to my PC version.

So far it has been 15 quid well spent, and it isn’t too repetitive.

—

Well I was dubious.  We broke the £8 rule and the choice of Batman seemed to be little more than a populist choice timed to coincide with Arkham Cities release on Friday.  I had read the review and never really followed it up.   I now am eating my words.

I just had my arse handed to me by Kane and just had to let you know how its going.  The game reminds me of Metroid Prime, with the way that as I explore I find more and more areas that are locked, and I know I will be able to go back when I have better powers.  Combat is a bit of a mash fest, but that isnt getting the combo metre high enough.  The challenges give you a chance to improve your battle tactics.

The riddler challenges are a nice touch, but sometimes the detective mode does not seem to want to lock on.  i am looking at the radio, I am zooming at the radio, I am kicking the radio – its the fucking radio.  Eventually it unlocks, but I dont know why.  I have upgraded my armour and have a silent takedown ability, sitting on the gargoyle waiting for the bad guys to walk underneath me.  The stealth bits, and I dont like stealth games in genral hit the right balance, the bad guys aren’t stupid but they’re not in the MGS league either.  It would have been nice to be able to hide bodies, I had a bit where I took a guy down and I wanted to hide the body, before anybody else could find it but there wasnt an option.

I like the new batman films, and this game catches the atmosphere perfectly.  The Spiderman games have normally been the best superhero games, but this one knocks them out of the park.  The voice acting is phenomenal (this somebody say it was Mark Hamil), the chatter on the radio and the TV  station with messages from the Joker.  Its like playing a movie at times.  The game has skipped to a 2D platformer at one stage, and along with beat em up, I only wonder do I get to drive the batmobile, and why dont I have those plugs you put up your nose to stop gas attack  (a la 60s TV show).

So thank you guys, its going great, the only down side is that Arkham City is now looking like a Day 1 – and I rarely bye games new.

Awesome.

—

Well I’m 36% in now, and I’ve got the radio decoder and grappling hook which is making finding the riddlers trophies easier (oh and the maps he leaves behind- ddduuurrr). Its still got me and I’ve hardly touched the challenges yet.

Swooping down on thugs and taking them out – yeah I’m BATMAN!!

The unlockables are coming too fast and you can see the care that has gone into this licence, every single character bio has a full history, and the secrets of Arkham Asylum are telling a dark story.  The interview tapes are well put together and fill holes in the story – was this actually written by the guys who write the comics?? It sticks so much to the lore, and feels so right I think it must be.The old favourites are popping up, but there are also cameo appearances from some of the less well known characters.The freedom is great, but I am just wishing for some kind of explosive batarang for the out of reach areas – no doubt I’ll get that later.  theres an ublockable there, i can see it but the glass is five foot above my hand and I can’t blow it up.  the storlyline is really mature and the bad guys suitably evil.  I’ve now got loonies who run at me and bite my head off who are a bit of a pain, and the shock stick guys are worse than the gun guys – at least you can counter and disarm guys. I’ve also had a few suitably unnerving visits by scarecrow and even though i had hims as a bit of a joke – he is really unnerving the way he messes with yur mind. I am learning that there is a style to it, and it is easier than mashing if you use the right combos.

Atmosphere is fantastic, and there are a few change my pants moments.  The more you learn about the place, the more you find new cubby holes, what about going under the floor and emerging out of a duct as a bad guy walks above you – or just swoop down and kick them.  What if I string up a thug and drop him on his mate when he comes to investigate him.  the ordinary baddies are getting tougher now, so I think it must scale the difficulty as you progress.  I am playing it on PS3 so I have the rumble as I decode a radio signal, but there are still some I cannot hack – mainly because the control points are not accessible.

I am clearing up the trophies as I go, so I’ll clear the trophies on normal and then go again on hard. then it might be challenge time, but I really need to work on those combos.

—

Hi,

Good to see others stopping me from hogging the thread!! I am 58% complete now, met killer croc (easy) and those bloody scarecrow levels.  There was a great level with 7 armed thugs patrolling an area and I couldnt use my normal tactics – that was a tester, took a couple of hours to get passed that (maybe because I have no patience and I’m bobbins at games).  I now have a supergrapple and the riddlers trophies are falling thick and fast, I’m kicking mself for trying so hard earleir on to get trophies that if I had waited would have been easy.  I have also noticed that not only are the hoods getting more numerous they are also tougher – more shockers, more crazed lunes who you need to stun before damaging - and one armed thug with a gun will kill you if your not careful.  I got complacent and took 5 out of the 7 killed on the aformentioned level, I thought I can take 2 hand to hand, wrong – one dead bat!!  You need to respect even the basic hoods.

I have dabbled on one of the challenges and didnt get a grade, so I can see the replayability – maybe post some scores on here and have a club competition??  This has really whet my appetite for Gotham City, but I will now have a break from my PS3 (and posting in this for a week) because of work.

I didnt sllep the night before last, and last night was a 4am finish.  I was in bed at 4am thinking about how to get the next trophies and how I could defeat some of the baddies without a batarang.  When a game gets you like this, it speaks volume!! Both of the game, and your OCD!!

—

Well I’m back, but HD tv is on blink, doh!

Can I endure a composite input, does it do the game justice? Will I get another 14 days to complete it? Bearing in mind it was announced mid October? Is there any point writing a review when I look at the quality of the other guys?.

stay tuned as batman takes on the HD fiend.

We all agreed that Assassin’s Creed is still a terrific game, with timeless visual and mechanic qualities that out weight the flaws.

 Direct Download

Many thanks to OverClocked Remix for the intro tune, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance: I Need Scissors! 61! remix by Prince of Darkness (Tony Dickinson).

Oh at the end we’ve included some outtakes for you, although you should be warned, Neale’s sporting injury related story right at the end is kind of disgusting.

Our winner this month for their comment is SiStevens. Congratulations to him and you can all enjoy his wonderful and mammoth sized winning comment below:

—

Before we begin our Gaming, I would like to say a few words. And here they are:

Ok so before we begin we need a little pre-gotm to give you a little back story to where I was at last month.

The long story short last month’s game of the month was a huge miss for me because I was in the middle of the biggest gaming funk of my life.  I could always find something I wanted to play more.  Well I say play, I mean hate on more. Jeez, I could nitpick on games so much that I hated everything

How to train your dragon – repetitive

Fecking Tiny Tower – Dear God save me now – finished, ok this raises an interesting question, I have just spent  10 minutes trying to think of the word to signify that you have completed a game centre game, platinumed…..taken, cheevo’d……taken, I’m going to suggest pipped, as in the seed of an….aaaahhh see what I did there – #ItsStillAllDarensFault

Fifa 11 – Controls are just wrong, different, no likey

Fight Night Champion – 1^st amateur fight just annoyed me to hell as I couldn’t last the 4 rounds and I wanted to just knock the guy out

Farmville – It’s never so bad that you resort to this

F1 2010 – Round and round we go and round and round we go and round and round we go, change tyres, round and round we go, round and round we go

And then the good lady came forth with words of help and wisdom – “Why are you playing all the games that begin with F, is your gaming sponsored by Sesame Street at the moment”

You also need to know that if I am playing games at night I tend to play without volume so I can hear the little one and I have no headphones (Oh Yes, I am an online gamers’ dream partner ain’t I).

So then I made a decision, I would lock all my games away apart from Fifa 11, Fight Night Champion, and only play that and whatever the rental company sends me, I mean we have some immense games to look forward to and I have put everything on Low priority apart from these new releases so I should have tremendous gaming to look forward to right? Wrong.  Please see http://bit.ly/pgconP for details.

This was 2 days before the GOTM was announced and NOW I have to finish Ice Age 3 before I can get my hands on the game of the month.  This could be a bad one this time.

Week 1 – Subtitles? We ain’t got no subtitles. We don’t need no subtitles! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ subtitles!”

Well completing Ice age 3 wasn’t as painful as I imagined and most importantly I finished it so I could unlock ma booty chest and get Assassins Creed out.

So the set up is as it always is.  The good lady is watching some inane American TV show with a catchy theme on her laptop and I have no sound on my ps3.  So first things first let’s turn on the subtitles.

First lesson you learn with Assassin’s Creed is that after 5 minutes of perusing various menus it becomes obvious that subtitles were not an option.

So I began soundless and began my tutorial with all instructions clearly on my screen, this isn’t bad I thought – I don’t need subtitles.  This thought although waning at times continued until my character was nerfed and I lost all abilities.  Damn it, I must have done something wrong or missed something, I’ll restart again tomorrow.

In-between the last paragraph and this, the good lady went out and bought me a Bluetooth headset so I could listen to my game I was playing.  So I paired it up with the PS3 and got it all working and was ready to play the game again and then I discovered that a Bluetooth headset will only let you partake in in-game chat via the headset and the game sound has to come out the TV.

So I play again without sound, blah de blah blah get nerfed, think I have done something wrong rage quit etc etc

This is where we can enter quote of the month entry 2.  “Honey, if I plugged in my laptop headset into my laptop to listen to my programme could you not just turn the TV up”, yes, yes I would but when did you get a headset? “Oh I bought one at the same as your Bluetooth headset”

So now I have sound I realise I missed nothing and did nothing wrong I got nerfed purely because the story dictates that you have to be.  I have replayed the tutorial and first section of this game three times for no reason but it also doesn’t explain that weird arse distortion when I’m not in the animas.

And thus begins the theme for week 2.

Week 2 – Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?

Ok this game does look nice, in fact the good lady asked when I booted up the game this week and was just letting the title video play she actually asked “what are you watching, I thought you were going to play a game” and my god I think I have lost about 3 hours in the last 2 weeks climbing up towers and watching the “Michael Bay” style pan but that was before I knew that I actually had to do that to progress the game.

So I have been given my first assassination mission and I have been a good little assassin and completed all of the set tasks to get all of the quality information required to send the target into an everlasting sleep.  I watch my target from afar, gradually getting closer and then I’m in and I get the kill, time to make my escape.  Now this is where it went a little pear shaped for me.  It’s as if by completing the kill both my PS3 and I went for a few drinks because both the controls and the AI just seemed to go to pot.

Buttons stopped being as responsive as they were before the kill resulting in me running around the block of houses 5 times whilst trying to perform a number of jumps, grabs and swings to make my escape. It is at this point where the funniest moment of playing this game happened.  My game turned into the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd show.  Before you start thinking, seriously Si you HAVE been drinking let me explain.

In order to make my escape I knew I had to break the line of vision between me and the guards, so I spot a nice escape point.  In this case a high wall with beams leading to a building that I can scale, so I run at and jump onto the wall.  In a moment of too much button pushing I jump off of said wall before I have a chance to position myself to grab the beam so, for the benefit of those who are not keeping up the scenario is as follows

ME

————————-       ————————————

G    G

G  G  G

So forgetting the line of sight thing I decide to run through the gap in the wall so I can repeat and jump onto the wall to grab the beam whilst one of the guards is climbing the wall

This led to this scenario

G           G

————————-       ————————————

G

Me          G  G

The guards on the same side of the wall as me carried on climbing the wall and following my line of travel even though I was just stood next to them therefore hence the Elmer Fudd moment

Me – “heeeeeeeeey what’s up doc”

Guard – “We chasing that wascally assassin”

Me – “Where did he go?”

Guard – “He leaped over this wall but we got him caught now”

Me – “Is there any way he could get out? A hole in the wall perhaps?”

Guard – “Heeeey what are you twying to say, oopps sowwy gotta go it’s my twurn to jump over the wall”

Ok time to head back to the batcave, I mean the assassin’s guild hole in the roof.

Right before I go any further, there are how many towers in this game that activate the Michael Bay mode? Are you trying to tell me that not a single guard or their bosses had the idea to go up the INSIDE of one of them and have a look down?  If they did why did they not see either this opening in the roof of a building or for that matter the symbol of the Assassin people emblazoned on the roof next to it?

Anyway, onto my 2nd mission, what new tricks do I need to do for this mission? Oh the same tricks? Again? Aahhhh different people to target. Ok do I need to do all ten of them again? No cool, I shall meet you halfway and do 5 then.

Right before anyone has a go at me and says look you’re not playing the full game if you are only doing 5 tasks in order to progress I say this.

If you mug a sweet old granny on the street but only take half her money you are still mugging that sweet old granny therefore I am still playing and completing the game.

And that’s all I have played so far in week 2 mainly because of a teething daughter and it has opened up 2 questions that I must answer sometime in week 3.

1 – If the game is seriously this repetitive, how did it get a sequel when less repetitive games have not been able to get one yet (Mirror’s Edge I’m looking at you)?

2 – What is with that damn distortion when I am not in the Animas?

Week 3 – Now I get it. Now I understand. You want it to happen… but it’s not going to happen

Firstly let’s get my act of stupidity out the way, the distortion out of the Animas is meant to relay the fact that you are watching through a CCTV. Kind of makes sense now that I have realised it.

And how did this game get a sequel?  Because it was planned that way.  As the credits roll I feel like I have been cheated in a way and all I have done is completed the tutorial for Assassin’s Creed 2 but ***SPOILER ALERT*** (you never know there MIGHT be someone else who has never played this) the incorporation of certain “blood” aspects after the credits have rolled did and will appeal to conspiracy theorists like myself.

I seem to remember Assassin’s Creed being a much coveted Triple A title.  After completing it I feel that parts of it are but there is too much that hasn’t stood the test of time to rate this as an average game.

As I said the graphics are unbelievable even now 4 years later and the accuracy of the animations for the Parkour element is pretty cool.  I loved the story too, more so after the blood reveal at the end and putting pieces together in my own head.

But, and this is a big but, and I cannot lie, this game is repetitive. If you imagine doing the training mission for Assassin’s Creed 2, resetting your machine and doing it again and again until you have done this 9 times, you will pretty much have the Assassin’s Creed experience.

It feels like Ubisoft spent so much time making it look pretty and fluid that they ran out of time to develop the missions and just threw something together and set phasers to repeat in order to stretch out the campaign gaming time. The fact that I picked this up for 7 quid helps ease this a little but if I had bought this day 1, man I would have been annoyed.

You haven’t slept for a long time now. Have you made a decision?

Overall, the graphics, storyline along with the MLG communities reaction to this game being suggested as GOTM will push me on to play at least Assassin’s Creed 2 if not Brotherhood and Revelations. But the repetitiveness brings the overall score down to a 5.5/10

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What have we been playing?

Matt goes controller free with Fruit Ninja Kinect and UFC Personal Trainer. He also gives his thoughts on Toy Soldiers: Cold War and has a dilemma with Rock Band 3.

Daren talks family iOS gaming with Hasbro’s Game of Life, picks Gamebook Adventures back up and gives an update on his love affair with Railworks 2.

This week’s news topics

Sony announce a PS3 price drop, confirmed European release of their 3D gaming TV, Microsoft inadvertantly give out free Xbox points thanks to a glitch, a new budget PSP SKU is announced, an official explanation why cross game chat will never come to PS3, the InFamous 2 franchise goes download only, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword gets a UK release date, we discuss thennew stripped down Wii coming to shelves, updates to the Xbox 360 finish, EA hinting at new franchise resurrection, Star Wars: The Old Republic release is limited, Gears of War 3 to support 3D, Trenched released in Europe under a new name and Notch challenges Bethesda to a Quake 3 battle.

Soundtrack of our gaming lives

This week: Listener Beefkr10z selects music from Jet Set Radio Future.

In addition you get the usual suspects; Retail Roundup, New Releases & DLC.

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