Hot_Anarcocoa
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I had to use google translate to play this one since I don't speak French but I still enjoyed it's message. It's very derivative of You Are Jeff Bezos, which the creator cites as an inspiration. For those who might not know, and I didn't before playing, Bernard Arnault is currently the 3rd richest person in the world, and the only person of the top 10 richest people to not be an American. The game focuses on his wealth and on the COVID crisis, as the game was released in April of 2020. I liked this game for many of the same reasons I loved You Are Jeff Bezos. It's great at giving you a perspective on the immorality of billionaires, and showing how much good could be done with the money they hoard. It's also a unique perspective from the typical America-centric approach most games take, although still obviously relatable as we all live under the nation of capitalism. The COVID focus is also immediately relatable at the time of release, as so many people are dying when this money could be used for humanitarian aid.
2009
The most fun I've ever had with a Battlefield game. It leans into its video gamey-ness and players can take tons of hits, and it's got the whole numbers flying off of characters thing going on. My experience in other Battlefield games has pretty much been to take a few steps and then get killed in one or two hits by someone I never even saw, so needless to say I much preferred this style. Favorite thing was definitely hopping in a plane and waiting to take empty control points and getting into dogfights. Also the cartoonishness of everything is very fun to look at. I've decided that the fact that it's got no story and is so cartoony will let me break my usual 2 star barrier that I have with most military shooters. This one was I fun time when I played it.
1997
I haven't played any of the other games in the series, but there's something about this one that looks much more arcadey. Loved playing this when I was younger, and looking at the colorful graphics still makes me nostalgic. Would love to go back and play this again.
This review contains spoilers
The following is a collection of my reactions to this game that I posted on Facebook in 2013:
Ok everyone needs to know about the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. This is a Japanese game based on The Book of Enoch...where Enoch gets in a tron style motorcycle battle across a future metropolis and ends with a Michael Bay/ Arnold Schwarzenegger style explosion which he walks away from without looking, like a cool guy.
Now Enoch is fighting a transformer
Armaros is a pop star and Enoch is fighting his backup dancers...I love you Japan.
Yeah they have the Nephilim in there, if you've ever seen Princess Mononoke they look like giant Kodamas in the game, they're so cute until they start eating one another.
The fighting is honestly the most tedious part of the game, it's too simple and repetitive for me. I like it for the in between moments of just walking around the world that has a great unique art style in every level, and for the Japanese weirdness of course.
Ok everyone needs to know about the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. This is a Japanese game based on The Book of Enoch...where Enoch gets in a tron style motorcycle battle across a future metropolis and ends with a Michael Bay/ Arnold Schwarzenegger style explosion which he walks away from without looking, like a cool guy.
Now Enoch is fighting a transformer
Armaros is a pop star and Enoch is fighting his backup dancers...I love you Japan.
Yeah they have the Nephilim in there, if you've ever seen Princess Mononoke they look like giant Kodamas in the game, they're so cute until they start eating one another.
The fighting is honestly the most tedious part of the game, it's too simple and repetitive for me. I like it for the in between moments of just walking around the world that has a great unique art style in every level, and for the Japanese weirdness of course.
1999
BRING BACK THE FUN COSTUMES NINTENDO!
1985
This is potentially an unfair review but I gotta give this one half a star because I played it at a friend's house for a bit and neither of us could ever figure out the controls. Then again, it comes from an era where that wasn't entirely uncommon, so perhaps it is a fair review.
Review based solely on childhood memory: I remember liking this one as a fairly competent rts, and it's got some neat level design going on, with you commanding toys around a house. Not gonna go down as one of the greats or anything, but not too terrible either.
2011
When Bastion was first released on Xbox Live Arcade, it was the first indie game that made me go "huh, this is a small little $15 dollar game, and it's one of my favorite games of all time." Now here I am, and the majority of my favorite games are all indies. This is a top down hack n' slash with a gorgeous art style, where the world forms around you as you journey on. This game has a really clever solution to the "how to account for minor player actions narratively" problem, and that's with the incredibly voiced narrator character who will comment on something as small as your decision to linger in an area to break boxes, and make that feel like an important part of your narrative. This is up there among the greatest video game soundtracks I've ever heard, and a few of the songs are really well incorporated into the themes and overall story of the game. Speaking of story, this is a well told story about prejudice, and learning to live with and learn from your mistakes. It's not the most complicated story in the world, but there's an emotional weight to it that I really liked.
1991
As a kid I thought you were supposed to hit the yeti and I always aimed for it lol
Fairly sure I also played this one as an unlockable in Rogue Squadron III along with the original Star Wars Arcade and the two experiences kind of blended together for me. Makes sense as this was an upgrade kit for the original game, and I enjoyed it similarly. Minus half a point for not having something as memorable as blowing up the Death Star in the original.
2019
Cool AI system that you take turns making a story with. Games have come a long way since Façade. I might come back to it later now that I know how to do pins and world info, it kind of lost track of the plot with my first story and without those tools, I was just desperately trying to course correct.
2021
Some mediocre writing for the dialogue but aside from that, this game is brimming with creativity in its level design and art direction. Great pacing keeps the settings fresh throughout, with each new area giving the players a new set of asymmetrical abilities to play around with. Definitely recommend this one if you've got a co-op buddy you like to play with.
1983
I played this as an unlockable game in Rogue Squadron III and loved it. I can only imagine this blew people's minds back when it came out and the whole arcade setup looks awesome. Fun on rails shooter with pretty vector graphics and a sense of speed that holds up pretty well today, and must have been amazing when it was released.
One of those games I played as a kid that would probably be very underwhelming to go back to but I have a lot of nostalgia for. Funny rat wears silly costumes.
2009
This review contains spoilers
This is likely the most beloved entry in the series, at least of the classic, pre-Origins style. For good reason too, it took the already solid foundation of what the first game had laid out before it, and built on it to create what was at the time a truly great experience. The plot, setting, and characters, are all much more interesting this time around. Ezio's quest to avenge his family and take up the mantle of the assassins feels much more personal than Altair's journey, and he is also just a generally more likeable character. Opposed to Altair's more silent video gamey badass nature, Ezio feels younger, livelier, will spout off quips, and just has much more of a personality to work with.
Even the much-maligned modern day story with Desmond is more interesting in this game. No longer confined to a single room, you'll have sections where you'll have to fight and parkour around as Desmond, as he flees from Abstergo and his experiences in the animus begin to blend into his real life. I also enjoyed the optional puzzle conspiracy segments, which added a certain element of creepiness to the game. I can still remember solving the Joan of Arc puzzle and the game flashing "They burned her alive." All of the modern day stuff and the conspiracy stuff culminates in the ending, in which you discover the a precursor race which people in the modern day know as the Roman gods. It is all very video gamey and kind of campy, but it was an enjoyable story when I played it back in 2009. One last bit of indulgence in this game's ending, which is one of the silliest things a game has ever done, but as an ex-Catholic, having a fist fight with The Pope was very cathartic.
While I liked the first game's setting of the third crusade, renaissance Italy is just bustling with life and art. Venice in particular I loved, with its canals and beautiful architecture, which Ubisoft has once again paid meticulous attention to recreating a model of these cities faithful to both the location and time period. I especially enjoyed the Carnevale section of the game, which briefly adds even more color to Venice, as everyone is dressed up for a masquerade around town.
Gameplay-wise, you can just do a lot of things in this one that improve the quality of life so much. No longer do you have to wait for an enemy to single themselves out, so you can perform an assassination from a very specific position behind them. You can now perform ledge assassinations, air assassinations, and double assassinations. Your arsenal of weapons has also increased, as it will continue doing as the series goes on. You've also got the ability to toss around money, so having to flee the beggars of the first game is no longer an issue. Also, as is tradition with video game sequels, you can swim in this one! And you can row a little boat downs the canals of Venice, it's all very nice.
The formula that the first Assassin's Creed game set up, and this one perfected, would later on be done to death with annual releases, as well as other games like Far Cry taking inspiration from the open world design of Assassin's Creed. The fatigue around the Ubisoft Open World Game™ is extremely understandable, but I think it's also important to recognize just how fresh these games were at the time of their release. For reference, games like Skyward Sword and Mass Effect still had hub towns with a couple dozen scattered NPC's maybe. The realistic crowd sizes in these games, and the way they reacted to your behavior, was revolutionary. The ability to free climb on almost anything in the environment was also a staggering achievement when games like Uncharted were still highly contextual. When stealth games as a genre consisted of things like Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid basically forcing you to stealth, which many times boiled down to memorizing guard paths; Assassin's Creed gave you the option of action or stealth, and a wider variety of ways to approach your situations. Truly a groundbreaking series, which only makes the way it was treated that much more disappointing.
Even the much-maligned modern day story with Desmond is more interesting in this game. No longer confined to a single room, you'll have sections where you'll have to fight and parkour around as Desmond, as he flees from Abstergo and his experiences in the animus begin to blend into his real life. I also enjoyed the optional puzzle conspiracy segments, which added a certain element of creepiness to the game. I can still remember solving the Joan of Arc puzzle and the game flashing "They burned her alive." All of the modern day stuff and the conspiracy stuff culminates in the ending, in which you discover the a precursor race which people in the modern day know as the Roman gods. It is all very video gamey and kind of campy, but it was an enjoyable story when I played it back in 2009. One last bit of indulgence in this game's ending, which is one of the silliest things a game has ever done, but as an ex-Catholic, having a fist fight with The Pope was very cathartic.
While I liked the first game's setting of the third crusade, renaissance Italy is just bustling with life and art. Venice in particular I loved, with its canals and beautiful architecture, which Ubisoft has once again paid meticulous attention to recreating a model of these cities faithful to both the location and time period. I especially enjoyed the Carnevale section of the game, which briefly adds even more color to Venice, as everyone is dressed up for a masquerade around town.
Gameplay-wise, you can just do a lot of things in this one that improve the quality of life so much. No longer do you have to wait for an enemy to single themselves out, so you can perform an assassination from a very specific position behind them. You can now perform ledge assassinations, air assassinations, and double assassinations. Your arsenal of weapons has also increased, as it will continue doing as the series goes on. You've also got the ability to toss around money, so having to flee the beggars of the first game is no longer an issue. Also, as is tradition with video game sequels, you can swim in this one! And you can row a little boat downs the canals of Venice, it's all very nice.
The formula that the first Assassin's Creed game set up, and this one perfected, would later on be done to death with annual releases, as well as other games like Far Cry taking inspiration from the open world design of Assassin's Creed. The fatigue around the Ubisoft Open World Game™ is extremely understandable, but I think it's also important to recognize just how fresh these games were at the time of their release. For reference, games like Skyward Sword and Mass Effect still had hub towns with a couple dozen scattered NPC's maybe. The realistic crowd sizes in these games, and the way they reacted to your behavior, was revolutionary. The ability to free climb on almost anything in the environment was also a staggering achievement when games like Uncharted were still highly contextual. When stealth games as a genre consisted of things like Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid basically forcing you to stealth, which many times boiled down to memorizing guard paths; Assassin's Creed gave you the option of action or stealth, and a wider variety of ways to approach your situations. Truly a groundbreaking series, which only makes the way it was treated that much more disappointing.