Reviews

God of War: Chains of Olympus is chronologically the second game in the God of War series and a prequel to the first game. Released on PSP in 2008, Chains of Olympus is a solid entry into the God of War franchise. The game contains the usual familiar hack-and-slash and other gameplay mechanics. Combos, quick time events, special weapons and abilities and the usual platforming and puzzles all play their usual roles in Chains of Olympus. I would argue that this is done more effectively than it was in God of War: Ascension. The story is good, but could be better. The game focuses on Kratos, after the events of God of War Ascension, still serving the gods of Olympus. When he witnesses the sun plummet from the sky and the world plunged into darkness, Kratos embarks on a quest to discover the meaning behind this event and the forces involved. Chains of Olympus takes the character to familiar and new places in the series, but the story is very quick and the game moves the pace along briskly. There are some reveals and some characters that are abruptly thrown into the final act of the game, but the story stays focused on Kratos and his own motivations for pursuing the truth behind the events in this game. The game does feel kind of tedious in how it goes about explaining some story elements that we have seen before in other God of War games. Nothing frustrates me more than when a creator/director/ writer feels the need to explain how a character did this or ended up in this scenario or why this happens. The voice acting is good, but the original music for the game is just bland and bad. The reused music from the other games in the series is good as usual. For a PSP game, that was remastered in 2011, this game is still good. I enjoy it, but it’s not a game that continues to bring me back to replay.

Rating- 4/5

Red Dead Revolver is a throwback to a simpler time. I was always intimidated by this game when I watched my step-brothers play it. Created in 2004, Revolver is as much an ode to the original arcade shooter as it is an ode to spaghetti westerns. Red Dead Revolver is a challenging game with some very absurd but understandable gameplay mechanics that are both challenging and frustrating all at once. This isn’t a game like the recent Red Dead Redemptions or any recent Rockstar game. If you sit behind cover in this game, you will die. The game treats gunplay like actual combat. It’s about accuracy, combos and staying mobile which is kind of stupid and jarring at first, but that’s what the game is going for. The designs for characters and levels reflect the absurd over the top nature of the game and adds to the interesting visual style. Even cutscenes are grainy and look as though they were shot on old film. The story is a hodgepodge of set pieces and tried and true spaghetti western story beats and clichés. The violence is over the top and absurd to the point of hilarity much like spaghetti Westerns.The soundtrack is also a Quentin Tarantino-like assortment of spaghetti western music composed largely by Ennio Morricone. The difficulty of the game rises dramatically with many missions infuriating me and leading me to take long breaks from the game. Red Dead Revolver is a fun game that if you accept it for what it is (a homage to both spaghetti westerns and arcade shooters) is an enjoyable game that probably works best when playing in a living room or with friends. Also, I played this game on PS4 and I don’t know if Rockstar actually remastered this or what, but given its age the graphics aren’t that bad at all.

Rating: 4.5/5

Assassin’s Creed is the first entry in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise. It is not the first game chronologically (this would be Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) but it is the best game to play to introduce someone to the franchise. Like many of the games, Assassin’s Creed contains two storylines one set in the modern day (in or around 2012) and the other one set in the past. The game centers on Desmond Miles, a seemingly uneventful character who has had a very interesting past regarding his family. Desmond and his family were part of the Assassin Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to preserving freedom in the world. Desmond is captured by the reclusive Abstergo Industries and is tasked with using a machine called the Animus to relive his genetic memories of his ancestors to accomplish their own nefarious goals. The corporation is focused on one of Desmond’s ancestors named Altair Ibn-La’Ahad, an assassin active in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade (1191). Altair is tasked by his order with unraveling a conspiracy involving key figures on both the Crusaders and Saracen sides of the war (Templars). The Templar order seek to use the Crusades to conquer the Holy Land and then liberate it from the tools that they deem are holding its people back (religion, politics, etc). The story is interesting but the segments of the story regarding the targets are kind of choppy. It’s a rinse and repeat cycle of pickpocket, interrogate, eavesdrop or help an informant all to gather information and then the only interesting part occurs in which you use the information to assassinate the target. Not much occurs in the “modern day” setting, really besides seeing how the past has and continues to impact the present day. The game is viewed as a stealth game, but the stealth elements aren’t as emphasized as they later will be in other installments (and later de-emphasized). The sword play is a mixed bag for me. I like that the sword play isn’t flashy and smooth. It’s very clunky and simple, which is how people would have fought with these kind of weapons during this time period. But at the same time, that clunkiness results in some very bad fighting mechanics. The graphics are kind of dating, but they still hold up good. The setting is very interesting and the series has defiantly stated that they will continue to feature and set their games in time periods like this where video games do no often get set in. The city designs are cool, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre are so distinct and memorable in their own ways. The side missions are very bland and typical. Either collect items, save citizens or synchronize viewpoints……nothing much to offer. The writing in the game is fantastic. Corey May does a wonderful job handling a story that can get very muddled and confusing but at the same time he treats the material with a very impressive amount of respect for a video game. Overall, this game is very good. Probably the best way to begin a series. Keep it simple and confined but also leave the door open for more content to come.
Rating: 4.5/ 5

Metro Last Light is a weird one for me. On paper it should be one of my favourite games ever but it has a few annoyances that make it slightly miss the mark. I absolutely love the setting of the underground metro, the grim world and the rival factions all fighting for control. What lets me down here is the mutants, lore wise they are great but I just felt like fighting them was always a chore. I get it's supposed to be a survival game and hard but it just didn't feel fun at all. There also wasn't much variety in them. I actually think I would've preferred the game if it was less focused on Dark Ones and Mutants and spent most of it's time building the factions in the metro systems.

The gameplay in this is definitely noticeably better than its predecessor, which was pretty bad, whilst not being amazing it does the job. Difficulty spikes can sometimes be frustrating and seem to appear out of nowhere. Sometimes I would auto save at a checkpoint having no health kits and be a few shots from death which meant dying repeatedly got stale fast.  My final gripe is that the main character still doesn't speak, like what the hell. When someone asks you a question and you just stand there not saying anything it really pulls you out of the immersion. 

These aside, the game is great; it's creepy, atmospheric and looks great. Definitely worth a play for people who enjoy survival horrors or just a great narrative experience just be warned it's a bit clunky.

Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered Bundle- 4/5 I was very excited to hear that Ubisoft would be remastering and releasing Assassin’s Creed III. Assassin’s Creed III is one of my favorite entries in the franchise and was a great breath of fresh air after three games centered on the same character (Ezio). It was time for the franchise to move on, and it seemed that Ubisoft recognized that. The setting was fantastic and was the first time that a game such as this was set in the American Revolution. The only time that I am aware of the American Revolution being featured in a video game is usually in strategy games. But this was a very immersive and fun experience and one of my favorites in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. A remaster of the PS Vita game, Assassin’s Creed Liberation is also featured in this remaster. It isn’t that impressive to me, it still feels clunky and is obviously a port over and some of the things don’t work so well on console, but it was still a fun game as well.

Assassin’s Creed Liberation- 3 ½ / 5
Assassin’s Creed Liberation is set between 1765-1777 and follows Aveline de Grandpre,an African-French assassin and the franchise’s first female protagonist. The game centers around her uncovering a Templar conspiracy and attempting to halt their attempts to control New Orleans during the end of the French and Indian War. The game was released in 2012 and takes place alongside the events in Assassin’s Creed III. The game is restored fairly well, but it seems like some of the things in the game could not be restored to cutting edge current graphics and visuals. The story is very bare bones, sadly, and is the only thing that really gets me through the game. There really isn’t a replay factor in the game and there isn’t much to do outside of the story. The gameplay and mechanics are a little quirky and don’t translate well to console, like many things. There are no side missions, really, and the open world does feel rather empty. It’s still a fun game, but it feels rather abrupt and devoid of a lot of the fun and beauty that the main entries of the franchise possess.

Assassin’s Creed III- 5/5
Released in 2012, Assassin’s Creed III serves as the finale of the first trilogy of games (though technically it is the culmination of 4 or maybe 5 other games that had been released in the franchise). The game centers on Desmond Miles as he races to stop the impending global devastation that was foretold by the First Civilization. To do this, he must relive the memories of his colonial ancestors and discover clues to the whereabouts of a means to protect the Earth and humanity from this global catastrophe. The Assassin’s Creed series seems to always push forward. The franchise had yet to go back in history further than its predecessors. The Colonial America setting was such a breath of fresh air from the European or Middle Eastern setting that dominated the series. The story is one of my favorites of the series both in terms of the genetic memories and the modern day (2012) storyline, though I will admit the modern day story does slip up here and there. The historic characters are given a very objective appraisal and some of the issue that colonial America neglected to approach (slavery) are made abundantly clear in the game. The open world is fantastic and beautiful to explore and the side missions and freedom to hunt or upgrade your homestead (similar to Monteriggioni or Rome in AC II and Brotherhood) The remaster, to me, is fine. I don’t see anything wrong with it and Ubisoft did a very good job with updating the visuals without overhauling the entire game. Looking back, the Season Pass I bought for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was worth it.

For the worse or the best, I didn't play the original LM so I don't have that background, that being said, I struggled a lot with this game, not because it's hard but because it can be so annoying in several ways, first of all, I think it reuses a lot of its mechanics way too often, like you have to get to point A to point B see that you need or have been stolen an item which is now in point A, finish the level, then start a new level and repeat, sure you have several "mansions" but as this repeats a lot, by the third mansion you are kind of annoyed. It also doesn't' help that every mansion has this mission to track down a dog that stole something important, so you have to re-do the level from start to finish again.

Another thing that bothered me a lot were the puzzles, some of them are really clever but a lot of them are very clumsy made, also I don't know if some of them have bugs or else but I was often trapped in them because sometimes they didn't register the correct solution so I ended doing wrong things. As for the boss fights, the first one was nice but after that, every single one of them has a really irritating element to it, like using a target mechanic that is broken or luck dependant and (surprise) being repetitive, the major offenders of those things were the snow boss and the last boss, god damn.

As for the good things, the game looks beautiful and the atmosphere is great, and as I said before, there are really clever puzzles and some fun things too, but in the end, the negative aspects felt way too heavy and manage to outshine the good ones a lot. I think its episode nature (being a portable game) hurts it a lot, if it was you wandering around the mansions Resident Evil style I think the experience wouldn't be or feel so scripted and repetitive.