Fizzled.

Around this time last year, I had divided my playing time into three major releases: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii, Batman: Arkham City on the PlayStation 3, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations on Xbox 360.

I had no particular reason to be excited for last year’s Assassin’s Creed game. I felt I had my fill of Renaissance-era Italy and Ezio Auditore at the end of Brotherhood, released the year before that. In fact, Revelations was the first game in the series I hadn’t gone out of my way to purchase the day of release, and mixed reviews helped decide it would be worth it at a lower price, which it reached that Black Friday. The game is rather forgettable, with Ezio taking his silent killing talents to Turkey, a frankly awful Portal-lite game that slightly characterizes series surrogate Desmond Miles, the mysterious Subject 16, and, perhaps the game’s only highlight, gives a dignified conclusion to Altaïr, the first game’s hero.

Still, I had a particularly slow 2012, so it already feels so long ago I was watching a trailer introducing, finally, the true sequel and billed next step forward in this interesting, engaging franchise. It is set during the American Revolution, a period of history I never tire of reading about, and we’re going to meet Miles’ next ancestor to don the uniform, a Native American who goes by Connor (or Ratonhnhaké:ton, his birth name). It was developed with a new engine, and had supposedly been in development for three years. We would get Assassin’s Creed 3.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. After reading tweets of mixed impressions, Assassin’s Creed 3 would be another game I would happily wait on a lower price. Black Friday delivered, as usual, and secured a copy. I also managed to get my hands on its PlayStation Vita spin-off title Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, set in the south during the French and Indian War. The game comes bundled with the limited edition white Vita, which I’d been coveting for some time.

I’ve only spent a week with both games, and I have come to the decision to take a break from this series for maybe six months to a year, or if I have a strong desire to return. I don’t know how this series became so lazy. I’ve read people criticize Ubisoft for launching the yearly installment plan Activision infamously carries out with their blockbuster Call of Duty games. Assassin’s Creed 3 plays like a game that absolutely could have used another year in development, to fix a number of gameplay and technical problems and perhaps going against the grain and deciding a day one patch wouldn’t cut it. The game has seen one, maybe two patches since release. Its slow beginning serves no true purpose other than to show the player basic commands, and to provide a twist that means nothing emotionally since we don’t know Connor enough yet to appreciate it. Previous games absolutely had more variety in its design than having you simply follow people and maybe kill one or two of them. Its historical cameos are just those, without real contribution to the story, in a way that makes Connor the Forrest Gump of videogames.

I’ve come across one glitch that forced me to reset the game, and a number of smaller ones that kill the momentum of mission success. Traverse in this series prided itself on the heroes’ ability to utilize parkour and maneuver through structures and architecture. The downside of this is the occasional hiccup of someone grabbing the wrong ledge when you mean to go another direction, which can make enemy evasion somewhat problematic. The issue seems to double in Assassin’s Creed 3 already because it’s not a particularly complete game. I will applaud two things this game does: 1) has pretty fun naval missions, so much so that they’re more fun than the offerings of the main story 2) get me to be interested in Desmond again as he, his partners from previous games, and his father look to secure more… Apple of Eden information… seemingly in Manhattan. I have been completely lost in that portion of the overall plot, particularly since some of the story is told through separate downloadable content I have no interest in paying for.

Even when it isn’t working against me, the game is not fun to play outside the aforementioned naval combat missions. Each mission comes with secondary objectives for “full synchronization,” whatever that entails outside a trophy/achievement and maybe a new item, but the only way they’re challenging is because the game doesn’t want you to accomplish them, with controls working against you (sticking to large structures for cover is incredibly counterintuitive; you’d think the developers would assign a ‘crouch’ or ‘stick to walls’ command like many stealth action games do…), and enemy AI that will either ignore you in the open or suspect you no matter what you do.

I’m also sick and tired of cutscenes disguised as gameplay. Follow this person, listen to this conversation, etc. Why does anyone think this is a good idea? The UI in the pause menu is atrocious. Why does the weapon/tool wheel need its own screen when the real-time selection in previous games worked just fine? It’s here where I’m entering into nitpicking territory, but a game like Assassin’s Creed 3, at least for the moment, represents a number of things I dislike in modern game design.

I mentioned owning Liberation, but I believe my frustrations with AC3 are skewing my enjoyment of the handheld game, although I believe the game moves at an incredible snail-like pace. That’s not helpful, since the Vita device has a relatively short battery life per session. I’m not sure if I’m ready to say anything about it, but I’m saying farewell for now.

And for the record, I’m playing the PlayStation 3 copy of Assassin’s Creed 3. I have no idea how that compares to its other platforms, but it needed more time in the oven.

E3 2012: Am I already too old for this?

Last week, the big game studios showed up for the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, better simply known as E3, to give us a taste of what’s to come in the next few months to a year. I didn’t go, because I am not press or a developer. I can only write as someone whose relationship with these companies extends to me handing them money for their product. Spike TV and its associated web site Game Trailers were nice enough to broadcast all sorts of game demos as well as the major press conferences themselves.

I honestly wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this piece. Even after the official first day of E3, I had talked about the conferences to death on Twitter and message boards. With the exception of Ubisoft, who showed some great-looking content, none of the conferences did anything that ‘surprised’ me or grabbed my attention. After Halo 4 footage that does its best Metroid: Prime impersonation, Microsoft began to sell the idea of the Xbox as an entertainment brand, beyond playing a game and paying for extra content. Watch television shows and movies on Netflix and Hulu Plus. Catch up on Game of Thrones and Veep on HBO Go (which requires paying for a cable subscription, HBO, and then an Xbox Live Gold membership). Their big moment came when they introduced Internet Explorer and their Smart Glass app, which serves as a sort of PDA for entertainment. Get cast biographies for the movie or show you’re watching. Turn your tablet (iPad) into an interactive map for an adventure game. While this may sound convenient or fun, the way it was demonstrated indicated that Smart Glass seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m not sure I need an interactive Westeros map while I’m already trying to remember names on Game of Thrones. I’m already using GameFAQs to get help with games, and also I’m not using my tablet with my entertainment as frequently as Microsoft wants me to.

The real stars of the show were South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone who took the stage to quickly talk about the upcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, but delivered the conference’s only major highlight with this quote:

“How many times have you been watching an episode of South Park and thought, ‘I’d like to be able to watch this on my television, while hooked into my mobile device, which is controlled by my tablet device, which is hooked into my oven,’ all while sitting in the refrigerator?”

Somewhere in the conference was an Usher performance and a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 demo where people shot things and were shot at. It was everything I was already expecting from Microsoft after their terrible conference last year and it delivered for all the wrong reasons.

Last year, Ubisoft delivered upon the world Mr. Caffeine, a manic gentleman who informed us of upcoming “Tom Ca-lancy” games and used Wayne’s World references to do it. Survivors of the conference refuse to talk about it to this day. This year, Aisha Tyler took the stage for Ubisoft, and I’m not sure if ever a huge upgrade took place than having her host, because she was great and very enthusiastic. Her only crime honestly was having to share the stage with a Tobuscus, a YouTube ‘personality’ who went by Toby where silly, scripted back and forth banter ensued, and then we saw games.

Ubisoft had probably the most solid line-up with Far Cry 3, whose demo was one of the strangest, drug-fueled demos I had ever seen. Rayman Legends, which is exclusive to Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U system, is looking like a solid follow-up to the fantastic Rayman Origins, which I talked about earlier this year. I’m hoping Rayman Legends will feature as great a soundtrack as its predecessor. Ubisoft also showed new footage of Assassin’s Creed III, which I have ordered from Amazon despite its October release date. Perhaps the biggest and most talked-about surprise is the new game coming titled Watch_Dogs. The demo showed a man walking around a huge virtual recreation of Chicago and proceeding to gather information about its residents with a device that allows hacking of mobile devices and also jamming communication signals and even manipulate traffic lights as he sees fit. The demo concluded with this man in a shoot-out with his antagonists, which honestly presents a slight concern over how much taking cover and shooting I will actually do in Watch_Dogs. Regardless of this, although I’ve never visited Chicago, the world was stunning and was also impressed by the number of NPCs walking around the town without a hint of frame rate dropping. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

The evening of “Day Zero” closed out with Sony’s press conference which, aside from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls, and footage of the Vita game Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, did very little to catch my interest. We got a demo for God of War: Ascension, the next title in the seven-year PlayStation series, where Kratos kills more things in the same way he has for the last seven years. I’m sure the fans have already eaten it up, especially when Kratos killed an elephant minotaur by cutting it in half. One thing I was looking forward to was Sony’s plans for the Vita. It’s almost common knowledge at this point that the PlayStation Vita isn’t off to a particularly strong start across the globe, with its predecessor the PlayStation Portable outselling it in Japan. I’ve seen more doom and gloom comments than positive ones despite the device being four months into its launch in the United States. Sony unveiled… a Call of Duty logo and an Assassin’s Creed spinoff game. In fairness, I do think the Assassin’s Creed title has plenty of potential to get major use of the device’s hardware, but E3 is the center stage to show people what you’re up to and what to look forward to and to get the folks excited for it (a point I will reiterate with Nintendo). Instead, we got Wonderbook. Wonderbook, from what I understand, is an augmented reality software that utilizes the PlayStation Eye Toy device where you have interactive experiences with storybooks. It might sound fun for the kids, but it didn’t look “explain this product for 15 to 20 minutes” fun. While I think SCEA President Jack Tretton did a decent job onstage and successfully got the crowd excited for God of War and The Last of Us. Quantic Dream showed footage of their newest game, Beyond: Two Souls, which stars actress Ellen Page. I’m not sure what kind of game it will be. Will it be another “interactive experience” (i.e. quick-timer event) game like 2010′s Heavy Rain?

A few nice details here and there about games, mostly lackluster, and then there’s Nintendo, which I will talk about tomorrow because there’s a lot to address.

‘Rayman Origins’ tests skills you haven’t used in years

In my run of Rayman Origins I discovered you don’t necessarily need a relationship with Ubisoft’s platform franchise in order to enjoy the newest entry. Although the plot involves Rayman and his friends stopping an army of creatures sent to take over their land, I almost forgot the story partway through and still had a great time. By the way, why are they stopping these creatures? Because Rayman and his friends SNORE IN THEIR SLEEP and it annoyed the granny of the Land of the Livid Dead.

Rayman Origins embodies the spirit of the platform games of yesteryear, like Adventure Island or Donkey Kong Country (and even R-Type). Its bright, colorful, and sharp high-resolution 2D visuals lure you in, welcoming you to what initially seems like a happy romp through some levels, until the difficulty kicks in. Rayman Origins then becomes sixty something levels of pushing your ‘old school’ limits.

Why not commemorate the occasion?

You will jump, punch, kick, swim, climb your way to victory, and along the way you can collect a number of Lums (glowing golden bee-like… things), which help to free the Electoons (magenta-like… Wonka candy creatures…) that help open up new paths to new worlds and treasure. Each new path has a wondrous design with its own elemental theme: sky, earth, water, ice, fire, along with some fun, almost random choices thrown into the mix: there is one level comprised of cooked foods, another with pieces of fruit as the backdrop. A lot of the game’s challenge comes from its requirement of timing and planning. In the beginning, the timing and planning is typically for catching a hidden group of Lums or grabbing a gold medal. The later stages practically require practice, possible memorization, which in turn requires trial and error. Luckily the game gives you an infinite amount of chances to get it right, and even takes pity on you if you have failed repeatedly.

On top of the challenge, Rayman Origins offers a lot to keep coming back: cooperative modes, secret treasures to collect, characters to unlock, and even a time attack mode. It is an amazing package of classic platforming, gorgeous graphics, and also boasting a soundtrack comprised of bluegrass medleys and Afrobeat pieces that set the friendly atmosphere, which would be almost relaxing if not for the whole ‘trying to not die’ thing.

Splinter Cell: Arkham Asylum

Two nights ago, I finished the single-player mode of Splinter Cell: Conviction. The game can be breezed through in ten to twelve hours.

I quite enjoyed the game as an action game. I’ve long accepted that Ubisoft decided the franchise needed to go into a new direction for this generation of gaming, and Conviction doesn’t so much take a leap forward, not even a step forward, but sticks its foot in the water to feel the temperature. The game feels experimental, which means Ubisoft should take what people liked and didn’t like about the story of Sam Fisher and how he went about his mission and make it something better for the next time.

The outstanding aspects of Conviction lie in the enemy AI, though I’m writing this based only on having played through the game in Realistic mode. The bad guys are still jumpy, but under the new circumstances, they have every reason to be. They won’t notice a light being shut off, but the sound of lightbulbs shattering will prompt a reaction and in more extreme cases, a sweep of the area. If you give them any reason to be suspicious, they will never just happily go back to their patrol route. They know something is up, and know to “stay frosty.”

I was also impressed by the pacing of the story, although there was one sequence that flashes back to the Gulf War that I was not too fond of, and judging from numerous forum posts everywhere, I’m alone in that feeling. In that sequence, there is no reason to employ stealth, and that part of Conviction tiptoes between Splinter Cell and something along the lines of Gears of War. As a storytelling decision, it’s fine, but because there is almost no way of getting through it without killing dozens of Iraqi soldiers along the way. The game flows very well, and cements Conviction, the single-player anyway, as a good action game.

Why isn’t it great? Well, because the story doesn’t even try to emulate Tom Clancy’s style, for one thing. I understand the man exists by name only nowadays, but I always enjoyed that while the storytelling reached some improbable, unlikely levels, Conviction takes a tired scenario seen in any American political thriller film with a dash of daytime soap for extra flavor and unabashedly runs with it. The game takes one of my favorite characters and makes them unlikable, nearly. At least fans can rest easy knowing Sam Fisher is still Sam Fisher.

One other hiccup the game suffers from is how ambitious the first half of the game is, but seems desperate to get to the conclusion of the story, so areas of exploration and alternate routes become corridors with “chemical lights” that just so happen will not be affected with the portable EMP gadget or putting a bullet in the bulb. The game pushes you to fight by the second half, when it seems fair to assume people are playing this to avoid the fights. We all knew this was where the series was going, but based on the first half of Conviction, it’s entirely possible to put out a stealth game that is not sluggish and where using a gun is Plan B.

This is a game where both sides warring over the direction of this game have good points. I would have liked to play a current-generation version of Chaos Theory. I would have loved to see Ubisoft Montreal take a fantastic game from the last generation and improve on it so that it would play strongly on an Xbox 360. There’s also the idea that the formula is dated, which is the viewpoint of the game “journalists,” something the fanatics scratch their heads at. It would seem like people wanted another Chaos Theory, but I don’t think that’s the case. The purists wanted Chaos Theory 2, exactly as I explained it, a fresher, tweaked take on that game, which, in my opinion, is a pretty reasonable thing to do. However, given the success of Ubisoft’s other intellectual property Assassin’s Creed, why not borrow from that cash cow and essentially make Splinter’s Creed?

The game itself plays fine. There is indeed stealth to be found here, but it’s not Splinter Cell stealth, which, whether you like it or not, is appropriate this time around. It’s not even Metal Gear stealth, but more of a complex take on Batman: Arkham Asylum’s stealth areas. You aren’t penalized, you just anger or scare the bad guys with more bodies lying around. My only issue is how simplified a lot of actions are. I missed the hacking and lockpick minigames, and here tasks like that are done with one push of the A button. I had to let the Mark & Execution feature grow on me. Finding a poor sap to smack in a hand-to-hand takedown to fill the meter is probably the only challenging thing about Conviction. The black-and-white filter that everyone either hated or didn’t mind stops being noticeable after the first mission. In fact, I would sneak around hoping and waiting for the screen to go grayscale, so I can plan my next move in peace.

I’ve yet to play the other modes, which seem to be a better reason for owning the game than the next chapter in Sam Fisher’s life. In the three or four years and all the nonsense the development had gone through, I was honestly hoping for something more substantial.

Grade: B- (Applies to the single-player mode only.)

Splinter Cell: Conviction “The Sam Fisher you knew is dead.”

That line above may very well be the sales pitch Ubisoft has for the long-awaited Splinter Cell: Conviction. Under development since 2006 or 2007, Conviction saw a lot of changes for Sam Fisher and company. Ubisoft Montreal, the game’s development studio, sought to rebuild the franchise from the ground up. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is deemed to be the masterpiece of the series, but apparently players were getting exhausted from the hiding in darkness, lugging an unconscious or dead body to a good hiding spot, and, you know, not firing your pistol and sneaking around, you know, the entire point of the series.

In 2002, Sam Fisher debuted as a kind of countermeasure to Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. The two could simply not co-exist in fans’ eyes. People embraced this new stealth, where light and shadow played a huge role as opposed to hiding in a cardboard box. Splinter Cell had the Tom Clancy name, so we could at least have expected a hard tale of international tension and information warfare, as opposed to all the melodrama from the then recent Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In addition to all of this, Splinter Cell was an Xbox and I believe PC exclusive. The Xbox had a stealth franchise to call its own and spawned three sequels before it was all reinvented. In irony, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots also saw something of a makeover, implying the use of stealth, but ultimately making a straightforward action game in the process.

I’ve put in about four or five hours into Conviction, and turned it off because one part is currently frustrating the heck out of me. I jumped straight into Realistic after I came to know the demo like the back of my hand. The game is a massive improvement on the demo in a few ways. One way is how, finally, I have to deal with smart AI. They’re still dumb in a few places, and still jumpy as jumpy can get, but they know how to work as a team and sweep an area for Sam. I also underestimated their field of vision. In other games, enemies either had a limited field of vision that was on par with Mr. Magoo, or if they thought they saw something they would investigate, find nothing, shrug, and go back to their regular duties. Not here. If they think they see Sam, they saw Sam. Everyone goes nuts and have their rifles ready.

I feel like the aiming and gun control has been fixed from the previous Splinter Cell games, and the aiming works great when picking off bad guys from a hiding spot, but when the down-and-dirty moments arrive where I have to take these guys down in a Wild West style fight, not so much. There’s one segment that tries to be part Gears of War and part Army of Two and it teeters on the edge of being annoying and broken. It also puts the story itself to a halt, not that it matters, because as of where I am the story is so disappointing.

I’d prefer not to be spoiler-heavy, but the story feels more Michael Bay, Modern Warfare 2 than Tom Clancy’s most ridiculous day. Even the Bourne films, whose presence is felt a number of times, has a more entertaining story to unfold. I’ll probably be wrong about it by the end because of what I’m expecting to be an M. Night Shyamalan twist.

The one thing I miss is saving whenever I want to. The game is supposedly rather short in length, but when you want to do things a certain way and have to restart, you have to restart at the game’s checkpoint and some of them are horrible. In one checkpoint, I kept having to talk to a woman before hitting the detonator and blowing things up because I kept getting Fisher killed in the ensuing battle. The same goes for having to constantly get rid of the same team of guards that comes looking for Fisher before dealing with an idiotic laser grid system, some lasers which have no practical placement except “Place here in case Sam Fisher goes rogue and has to infiltrate our base and hops our flower pots instead of just walking around.”

I’ve yet to try the other, supposedly more fun modes. That’s probably a weekend job.

Still Alive, like the ‘Portal’ song

I haven’t written in more than a week, now, and that’s mostly because I’ve been all over the place both personally and in playing whatever. A few days ago, I’ve reached the third disc of Final Fantasy XIII, which puts me at the 25-hour mark about now. I finally have the full effect of the story, and it seems most of the storytelling attention was placed on Sazh. He seems to be the one to have the most to lose as a father, and that’s as far as I’ll go there. I’m sure most of the RPG geeks have blown through the game by now, but they probably aren’t playing 20 more games like I am.

The only reason I haven’t really posted anything new is that although I’m playing a handful of games, there isn’t much to say at the moment. In Pokemon: Soul Silver, I’m come to a halt in Goldenrod City. I’m not playing Voltorb Flip, but from what some of the town’s citizens are telling me, I’m going to need a Pokemon that specializes in fighting to take on the town’s gym leader Whitney. I’m trying my damnedest to capture one in the Pokewalker, since walking around in the game looking for one has been an act of futility at the moment.

There was one game I’ve been meaning to do a write-up on, and that’s The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. What a great title. You’d think it was based on a Victorian-era novel, or more recent, a J.K. Rowling novel. I’ll cover the game as I play more of it, but it’s Braid in the silent movie era without all the drama. Based on the “plot” alone I prefer it to Braid. The one objective in Winterbottom is to steal pies. That’s all.

Now we come to the main event. Although I haven’t written anything in the last week, that’s going to change this week when I receive my copy of Splinter Cell: Conviction in the mail and play it to death. Next week will be dedicated to every last mode.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Demo

I played through the Splinter Cell: Conviction demo at least three times on its highest difficulty setting. I keep having to remind myself that this is a demonstration of a product still in development, an appetizer if you will.

Initially, I had written a post on my Twitter page about my disappointment with the demo. What once was a game where the challenge lied in getting the objective done without a single alert, like you were a ghost, has become The Fisher Identity. I thought if Splinter Cell: Conviction featured Matt Damon instead of Sam Fisher and had “Bourne” in the title, I’d probably be more interested in the final product. Because it is none of this, I instead wagged my finger at it. Hooray for double standards!

We have to embrace change sooner or later. Change for Ubisoft Montreal meant taking a game that was slowly paced and, for the most part, a calm experience and changing it to something with a faster tempo. The music is not the mysterious and ambient soundtrack of Amon Tobin. It’s on the level of Harry Gregson-Williams or more along the lines of John Powell. After a cheesy intro about what a superspy Fisher is, the game opens with him beating the life out of a man in a public restroom. Then you learn the controls, and you see what’s the same and what’s different.

Conviction is a different game because the circumstances in its universe are different. Fisher is no longer under orders from a higher authority, and because part or all of the story involves solving the murder of his daughter, we see a Fisher with nothing to lose after the JBA mission from Double Agent. It doesn’t seem like you’ll be penalized for putting a bullet in the bald skulls of every henchman in sight. In fact, a new “mark and execution” system practically encourages it. If you take a guard down with your bare hands, you earn the points needed to execute this move, where you place tags on three enemies, hit a button, and Fisher automatically pops them clean. I’ll say one thing: manually firing a weapon has drastically improved from its predecessors, it would seem.

Your famous trifocal goggles are only equipped with a sonar detector. It will send a sonic wave that highlights the presence of enemies in a distance. From there, your actions are your own.

It seems like Conviction will be a fast-paced action game that will still encourage the sneaking around, which seems a bit downplayed in this episode. If you’re successfully tucked away in the shadows, the screen will have a grayscale filter initiated. I’m hoping this is an option, because I find it incredibly distracting. If the game is going to tell me I’m good in the shadows, why not just bring the light meter back?

I’ve let this demo settle in for a day now, and I wish the series had gone a more substantial direction after four years in development hell. I also believe it was the long wait and the public troubles the development has endured is why the negative reaction is stronger than it might otherwise be. I’m not displeased that this is the route the franchise is going, but I’d also like to enjoy Conviction the same way I enjoyed Chaos Theory, and I hope that’s possible. If anything, I’m hoping for a cooperative demo, but with the game’s release about three weeks away, that’s doubtful. That mode might be what still puts a copy in my hand on April 13th.