Review: Revelations Offers Few New Additions, But Plenty of Entertainment

By: David "DR. G" Galanter

I’ve never been a huge fan of yearly releases for video games. Sequels are feeling less and less like sequels nowadays and I miss seeing major changes/improvements in new franchise installments. Not every game needs a whole lot of development time and I do like a few yearly titles, but most of them lack the innovation of a 2-3 year development cycle. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is another title in an annual franchise. Most games with a yearly cycle are much simpler and don’t require loads of story or level development. This is an open world game with a brand new city, new missions, and an online component. Is it possible for a game to tackle so much in one year without it falling flat?

In every Assassin’s Creed, you play as Desmond Miles, a present day drifter who straps into a matrix machine called the Animus that allows him to relive the memories of his ancestors. The majority of every game is spent in the Animus, exploring cities from hundreds of years ago. After a slight hiccup at the end of the last game, Desmond seems to be stuck in the world of the animus and must continue the adventures of one of his ancestors, Ezio Auditore.

The game takes place in Constantinople during the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s. Ezio travels here after he learns of a powerful weapon that Altair (another ancestor of Desmond’s) hid somewhere in the city. The Templars (the baddies of every AC game) have arrived in Constantinople and are looking for the weapon as well. Ezio and his group of assassins are determined to find the weapon before the Templars do, fearing whoever finds it will win the war permanently. Besides the initial introduction, the story isn’t laid on too thick for the rest of the game.  There are plenty of quests and a handful of side missions that will keep you busy and entertained without worrying about the overall plot.

Out of all the Assassin’s Creeds, this is my favorite city. Getting around in the open world environments have always been about the free running mechanics for me. Other titles in the series required some horse riding to get around to more populated areas, but these were always the more boring parts of the game. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as jumping from rooftop to rooftop to get to your destination. The city is much denser this time around and features no barren cornfields that can only be crossed on horseback. This allows you to constantly use your skills as a city free runner with one more trick up your sleeve.

Revelations introduces a new mechanic called the hook blade. It slides out of your sleeve like the hidden blade and provides a few more options while traversing the city. You can use it to slide down zip lines, reach higher ledges, and screw with guards in combat. It’s a small addition, and probably could have been a later upgrade, but I was happy to get around the city faster than I ever could before using its abilities.

The biggest change in Revelations is the notoriety system. In past Assassin’s Creeds, killing guards made your notoriety meter rise and the authorities more likely to recognize you as you passed by them. Now, performing illegal tasks will still fill the meter, but never make the fuzz any more likely to chase you on sight. In fact, nothing happens until the meter is all the way full. At this point, one of your assassin’s dens can get attacked by Templars at any time and you’ll have to go help. The only way to prevent this is by paying Heralds or killing public officials (lowering the meter), or just making sure the meter never fills to the top. Unfortunately, It’s much easier to “perform illegal actions” in this game because every purchase around town fills the meter a bit (buying up large amounts of weaponry naturally makes the authorities suspicious). Worrying about the meter after every purchase can be frustrating, but at least you can neglect it until its 90% full.

The game does sport a few questionable sequences. There are levels that can be played as Desmond in first-person were you hop around in the animus dream world, full of walls that look like computer code and a few other random pieces of geometry. I would call these levels “not fun”. The first person controls were a mess and the levels themselves didn’t add anything interesting to the game’s story. It felt like they wanted to give you something to do if you wanted to take a break from controlling Ezio. Playing one of these levels once made me never want to take a break from Ezio again.

The game also has a few RTS sections that have you commanding troops to stop waves of enemies from getting through your defenses. These sequences are short and not as clunky as you might think in a game like this. I wasn’t eager to play these battles over and over, but they were interesting and kept me entertained. It didn’t hurt the game in my eyes, but probably wasn’t needed.

The online component in this game is clearly an afterthought, but does provide some entertainment for people who are looking to have a bit more fun after the campaign. There are a handful of maps and modes but the one that really stands out allows you to stalk one player while another is stalking you. It’s a simple concept that provides nerve racking matches where you’re constantly looking over your shoulder as you’re trying your best to hunt down your target. I didn’t get to play the multiplayer as long as I would have liked because of the game’s online code requirement that’s becoming so popular with publishers recently. This title, at least, had a three day trial, but the overall principle is the same. If you want to play online, buy it new, or don’t touch it at all.

Assassins Creed: Revelations isn’t very different from its predecessors, but is still fun and has a few extra goodies to merit its existence. I have no idea how Ubisoft was able to build this much in one year, but they did it. The credits show that it was clearly “all-hands-on-deck” to get it done. It seems like every Ubisoft developer under the sun touched this title. Regardless of a few questionable additions and a game that hasn’t evolved much in a few years, I still had a really good time with it. I wouldn’t call it a “must have” but I think it was as good a game can be without transcending into the world of great. Buy it if you’re already done with every Triple-A title that came out this year, but no matter what, rent it. It’s an enjoyable piece of entertainment. Purpose achieved.

Modern Rehash 3: This Time it's Impersonal!

The time is now. The war is in full swing and it’s time to choose your side. Battlefield or Call of Duty. Choose damn you! Oh. You might want to know a little something about Call of Duty first. Valid desire. Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 are very different games. It’s important to remember this. Someone might lean naturally towards one or the other because of their gameplay differences. Call of Duty has always been quick and fast (giggity) and Battlefield embodies a slower, more strategic theater of war. Of course, the style of game isn’t the only deciding factor. If the quality of one is leaps and bounds above the other, you might want to think about switching. Is Modern Warfare 3 good enough to make Battlefield players give it a shot? Find out now! OMG the suspense rager!

The single player campaign picks up right where the last Modern Warfare ended. If you haven’t played the last game, spoiler alert (and wtf man? Are you alive?).  Vladimir Makarov is still the bad guy and you’re forced to immediately deal with the knife wound Soap earned himself at the end of the last campaign. After tending to soaps wounds, you’re immediately thrown into the action. Russia is still at war with the U.S. (a popular choice for the modern war game) and New York is under attack. The beginning of the game reminds you of the climax of a lot of war games. A big city and lots of explosions. I can understand why they’d want to open this game in a big way, considering the success of MW2. Seeing this immediately got me thinking about what they might do to top this throughout the campaign.

Unfortunately, they don’t do much. The campaign has you hopping to every major city in the world to fight off Russian attacks without a whole lot of explanation. After a while, the game starts to feel like a collection of encounters rather than a game. Each city looks impressive, but your mission is always the same. Kill some Russians and enjoy some explosions. This is fun for the first hour or so, but it really starts to wear on you by the end of the game. There was no sense of pacing. There weren’t enough emotional peaks and valleys to keep it interesting. Whoever made this game seemed to think the more explosions, the better the game.

The first couple Modern Warfares took pride in having plenty of missions with a calmer tone. It really gave them that “it” factor that allowed them to transcend above “just a war game.” I expected I would be able to shoot a hundred guys in the middle of a major intersection, but I never expected I would get to control the cannons of an AC-130, or wear a ghillie suit and hunt for targets in a ghost town. These were all some of my favorite sequences from MW1 & 2, but moments like these are few and far between in this new installment. The game still has one or two memorable moments, but a hundred that fall flat. Most of them were complete copies of what you got in the previous games and didn’t create any emotions you haven’t felt before.

The developer of this game (Infinity Ward) went through a bit of drama a couple years ago with its publisher, Activision. A couple of the founding members of Infinity Ward (Jason West & Vince Zampella) were fired for mysterious reasons shortly after Modern Warfare 2 came out. Some of the details are still undisclosed, but the rumor is Jason and Vince held meetings with EA that breached their contract. The two developers were also suing Activision, claiming the publisher didn’t pay Infinity Ward the royalties they deserved for MW2. Since their firing, our unemployed entrepreneurs created a new company called Respawn Entertainment with the funding and support of EA. Since then, the majority of the people at Infinity Ward have left to join Jason & Vince at Respawn. It would be easy for me to blame the loss of campaign quality in MW3 on the lost talent, and That’s exactly what I’m going to do. In all seriousness, whoever made the campaigns so memorable in the last two Modern Warfares, clearly left.

Fortunately for Activision, a large population of shooter fans won’t even touch the campaign. The multiplayer is back with everything you expect, and nothing you don’t. The gameplay hasn’t been shaken up at all, and for some long-time fans, that’s a good thing. You can shoot the crap out of your friends across 10 modes (even more if you consider the alternates) on 16 maps. This may sound like a strong selling point when you consider Battlefield 3 only has 2 modes with around 10 maps. However, a lot of MW3’s maps are ripped right out of the campaign and aren’t nearly as big as battlefield’s.

PvP is still just an infantry affair with no vehicles, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Call of Duty has always taken pride in having really fast paced infantry combat. Shooting your friends in a hectic environment with no respawn times can be fun, but it’s the exact same fun you can still get with Modern Warfare 2. A few things have been added (kill streaks work a little differently and you can now attach two scopes on one weapon), but this does very little to create a new sense of enjoyment. It’ll feel like you’ve already been playing this multiplayer for the past two years. This conservative approach might please some who just want the same game with more unlocks, but frustrate others who waited this long for something different.

Spec Ops also returns with a new mode. You can play the mission mode which will allow you and a buddy to complete objectives together against the A.I. (identical to MW2). The new mode is called survival. This is essentially the Modern Warfare 3 version of a horde or zombie mode. You take on wave after wave of enemies earning cash to build turrets and other defenses. It’s pretty generic and seems to only exist because it’s the law if you are a shooter right now. Both modes are challenging and fun, but it suffers from the same déjà vu as the rest of the package. You’ll feel like you’ve already played it over and over again.

Modern Warfare 3 is a good game, not a great game. It’s missing the surprise and quality that made the previous titles must-haves. I’m giving it the same grade as I gave Battlefield 3, but for different reasons. Battlefield’s glitches held it back, MW3’s gameplay is its hang-up. Which one should you buy? It just depends on the type of fighter you are. Are you slow and strategic (Battlefield 3) or quick and ruthless (Modern Warfare 3)? I tend to be slow and strategic. Battlefield is my choice. I would have even given Battlefield a higher grade were it not for the technical problems (glitches and server outages). They both weren’t as good as I was hoping, but Battlefield won my purchase this year. If you’re still addicted and need your fix, go for MW3. If you don’t want to play the same game for 60 more dollars, give battlefield a try. If you haven’t played either… Good lord man.

Battlefield 3: Best Online War Experience, If You Can Play it

Author Note: This review will be covering the console version of the game. The PC version differs too much in graphics and gameplay to judge them equally. Things like map size and player are all effected.

One of the biggest rivalries in the video game industry has begun. Battlefield and Call of Duty have been fighting for modern war supremacy for years. Call of duty is consistently the winner, but the battlefield games have gained quite a bit of ground. This year, Battlefield 3 will square off directly With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Battlefield 3 has landed the first punch. The Swedish developer of the Battlefield series (DICE) hopes to win consumers over with grander battles and vehicle gameplay (absent in its Call of Duty counterpart). Call of Duty still has a lot of followers, but it will be the first game Infinity Ward has made since the massive firing/departures. DICE is hoping between that and their growing fan base, Battlefield will finally take the crown this holiday as the best-selling war game.

Battlefield’s single player campaign lets you drive tanks, ride in jets, and do some good old fashion shooting. The story starts out on an exciting subway highjack. After about five or ten minutes of gameplay, you are shot back in to the past in order to explain the events leading up to it. Two suits are interrogating a soldier from the front lines. Our soldier in custody recounts stories to answer questions that turn into the missions you play. The interrogation is happening to find out where a group of terrorists are hiding a nuke that will go off in New York City. Yeah. It’s pretty much as generic as it sounds. The narrative is bland and offers nothing interesting. There isn’t one character you’ll care about or any sequence that will really get your heart pumping. There are a few cool set pieces and scripted moments, but not nearly as much as you would see in any modern single player campaign.

In other words, the single player is very underwhelming. However, the majority of consumers buying this game probably won’t mind. Most Shooter fans probably won’t even realize there’s a single player option. Unfortunately, it does degrade the overall value of the product. If you look at any other quality shooter from the past ten years, every single one has a memorable story mode worth playing over and over again in different difficulties and in co-op. The Story even rips plot points and dialogue directly from the last Modern Warfare game, proving DICE relies on its competitors to figure out how to do single player. It’s a shame. Considering some of the crazy moments that happen during multiplayer, a good Battlefield campaign has so much potential. You just won’t see it this time around. For now, the Single player is essentially one huge training mission for multiplayer.

The meat of the game is built in the battles you’ll fight online. 24 players can duke it out in a single match (64 on the PC version). Everything found in war can be found here. Tanks. Jets. Guns. Defibrillator packs. Health Packs. Backpacks! Yeah. Shit gets crazy online. You can fight in a few different modes across nine maps. Every mode is recycled from other games in the series. The two main modes you’ll be selecting the most are Conquest and Rush. Rush is a classic attack-and-defend mode where one team defends two pieces of electronic equipment, while the other team tries to blow them up. Conquest is a mode that’s been around since the first Battlefield. Each team attempts to capture and hold areas on the map for victory (much like Territories in other shooters).

If you’re worried about getting tired of playing the same modes over and over again, don’t be. Every match has so many close calls and crazy “holy shit!” moments, boredom is not issue. Part of this is because of how much is at your disposal. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a ton of vehicles to explore and items to unlock. This allows every player to fight the war in any way they want. You could play entire matches without firing a bullet if you’d like. There’s a place for people who want to just repair vehicles, revive teammates, or supply ammo for squads. Best of all, the game will still reward you handsomely for all these non-combative alternatives. Every action earns you points. Every point Earns you rewards. This makes for an extremely addictive multiplayer that can be played for ages without getting stale. Also, if you have a 5.1 system, crank it up. This is what you bought it for.

Unfortunately the multiplayer experience isn’t all peaches. Server issues and glitches have been plaguing the game since launch. In the first few days, the Xbox 360 servers were down completely, reducing our copies of Battlefield 3 to a paperweight. Connection issues are still ruining the experience a week and a half after launch with frequent disconnects and a temperamental Quick Match option. Any high selling game might have a few issues during the first week, but this beyond anything else I’ve seen. It is such a shame that I’ve been stuck having a few horrible experiences simply trying to play the game, and it has nothing to do with the gameplay. DICE crafted one of the best multiplayer experiences this year, and simultaneously ruined it for everyone.

This was a tough game to score. I would feel awkward telling people it’s a must-have when the servers aren’t active all the time. When they are, it isn’t exactly what I would call “fully operational.” This is a game that would get an A in my book were it not for the troubles I had trying to play it. A month or two from now, after they come out with a patch or two, I’m sure they’ll sand away the issues and leave behind the gooey filled center of an amazing game. Unfortunately, none of us knows when that will happen. If you’re already done with Gears and desperate for a new shooter, go for it. If you can wait until Modern Warfare 3 launches, find out if any of the Battlefield issues have been fixed by then. If not, you might want to look into our Modern Warfare 3 review.

Decay: A Noose, A Killer, and A Doll

I start by loosening the noose around my neck and crawling off the toilet. What happened? Where am I? Who am I? Why is a doll following me and giving me clues? These are just a few questions you may have as Decay Part 1 starts. Many of you may not be aware of Xbox Live Indie Games. Indie games cost anywhere from one to five dollars, but most of them can be skipped. Rarely, an Indie game comes out that is good let alone great; Decay is one of the latter. The first part is only one dollar, making it very easy to jump in. The other parts are three dollars each, making the whole series only ten dollars.

Being a point-and-click adventure title, I was hesitant to play at first. Decay is on Xbox and not PC, so I was worried the controls wouldn’t feel right, like many point-and-click console games. My worries were quickly slaughtered! You escape a room only to find yourself in a hotel. With very little area to explore (just three rooms and a hallway) you may think it will be a quick adventure. However, just because you have been in a room doesn’t mean you are done with it. In the other parts of Decay you explore new areas and have more/harder puzzles; good luck with the piano puzzle in Part 2.

You do have an Inventory, where you store all the random stuff you find. In your Inventory you can combine, view, use, and even rotate your items. What good is a flashlight when you don’t have batteries? You found a picture of a family but did you see the code on the back? I found it helped if I had a notebook with me when I played and just wrote down the details of each room. In some rooms, there might be symbols and numbers but in another room you’ll find a note with just the symbols. Later, there is a wall safe and you must decode the note for the combination. Being able to write down the numeric translations from all the other rooms was a lifesaver.

The story unravels with so many twists; you won’t know what’s coming until it’s already there. In the fourth part of Decay, more things get added to the gameplay. They allow you to use the thumb stick to look around rather than having to switch from side to side. There are also more mini games to make sure you are paying attention and so many scares, I had to put down the controller a few times. With multiple endings, it’s hard not to go back and find out how else it could have happened.

This game gets a solid B+ from me. With its cleaver use of the controller in a point-and-click adventure and a story that makes you beg for more, I can’t imagine my collection without it. Every Indie game has a trial where you can play the game for five minutes before you buy it. Download the trial and see if you can find the answers to what’s going on before you Decay!

Back to the Future Review

I adore the Back to the Future movies. I spent my childhood obsessed with anything having to do with time travel (or anything else considered not “cool”). I loved how the story was built on the sci-fi but told as a character piece. The first movie is on a short list of my all-time favorite movies and the trilogy itself I still hold very near and dear to my heart. So, when Telltale announced they were making a Back to the Future game, naturally, I flipped a bitch. They made a lot of other adventure games I loved (Sam & Max, Monkey Island, etc.) and knew they would do one of my favorite stories justice.

The games start out in 1986, after all the events of the movies. Doc has been missing for a while and the city is going to sell off all of his stuff. Marty (voiced by AJ LoCascio, a creepy good M.J. Fox impersonator) is naturally uneasy with the idea. Before another moment passes, the DeLorean shows up out of nowhere with no driver. That’s when Marty decides that something is wrong and the adventure continues.

The game works like most Telltale titles. The story is spread over 5 3-hour episodes as a pseudo point-and-click adventure (you drag Marty around with the mouse rather than clicking), full of puzzle solving and dialogue trees. Unfortunately, this is where the game falls a little short. Puzzle solving is one of the great joys of an adventure title and Telltale has always provided challenging puzzles that are just the right level of frustrating and satisfying. BttF falls a little far from the tree presenting puzzle after puzzle that isn’t very challenging. Because of this, the gameplay is lacking a very important amount of satisfaction you would usually get with this genre.

This is why most of the satisfaction comes from the story. They used Bob Gale (Co-creator of the films) as a story consultant, and Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Doc Brown. Michael J. Fox is not involved with his lead part, but does have a small cameo in the 5^th episode. The story brings back almost every character from the movies and gives fans a million reasons to play each episode, complete with a little cliffhanger ending.

Considering just the gameplay, I would give this title a B. Considering just the story, I would give it an A. That is why I decided to split the difference in my final score. Even still, it fell slightly in the B range due to the gameplay. If you don’t like the movies or never really watched them, kill yourself, but after that, you might not want to bother with this game. If you are a super fan like me, Buy it. There is a lot of story and it is all much appreciated in the mind of a wannabe DeLorean time traveler.