Blog Archives
Building (Critical) Consensus: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (PS3 / 360)
I’ll make an admission before we go on. I was so bored with the story in AC: Revelations that I stopped playing part way through. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think I made it more than a couple of hours in AC3 either. I went about as completionist as I had this side of Mass Effect or the PS1 & PS2 Final Fantasy games in the first three AC games but couldn’t will myself to even finish the two most recent.
A lot of critics hail AC4 as a return to form for the franchise with a focus on an increase in the general fun in the series thanks to piracy and the pirate-themed story. Mind you, there were quite a few reviewers lamenting that little had changed mechanically in this game when compared to the previous games in the franchise. If you’ve played previous AC games and loved them, you’ll probably love this one too. For those who fell, out of love… Do you like pirates?
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Assassin’s Creed 4 Expected to Sell Less than AC3
If you’re an Ubisoft investor (or just a massive Ubi fan), the bad news just keeps coming. On the same conference call in which Ubisoft announced the delays of both Watch Dogs and The Crew, Ubisoft also announced that they were expecting sales for their flagship game Assassin’s Creed IV to be less than Assassin’s Creed III.
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Watch Dogs Delayed to Spring 2014
One of the most hotly anticipated games of the fall and what was expected to be the starting point of a new anchor franchise for Ubisoft has been pushed back by a few months.
Yesterday, Ubisoft made the surprise announcement that Watch Dogs would be delayed until the spring of 2014 to ensure that the game met their quality standards.
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Building (Critical) Consensus: Rayman Legends
When you think of side-scrolling platformer games, the conversation tends to begin and end with Mario. However, Ubisoft has quietly turned the Rayman franchise into the standard-bearer for the genre while Nintendo stagnates with Mario (and their other first-party franchises).
The latest entry in the franchise, Rayman Legends, has racked up massive critical acclaim. While Rayman Origins was considered a very good game, most critics find Legends to be an improvement over Rayman Origins. Perhaps more exciting is that the game has new ideas which is pretty impressive considering that the genre is one of the oldest in gaming.
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Building (Critical) Consensus: Splinter Cell: Blacklist
I’ve never really been a fan of stealth games. Apart from Mark of the Ninja, I’ve never played a stealth game or a stealth level in a game that left me so angry at the game and its mechanics that I usually found myself rage quitting rather than gritting it out for a 20th time.
The Splinter Cell franchise has one that has traditionally been based on stealth gameplay so you can probably understand why I haven’t picked up any games in the franchise. The reviews are very positive for Blacklist but not the aggregated scores aren’t the best in the franchise’s history. Unless you’re Joystiq who calls it the best game in Splinter Cell history.
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Ubisoft is Only Interested in Starting Franchises
Remember when I was excited about Ubisoft trying the nearly unheard of thing for games industry of launching new IPs at the 2013 edition of E3. However, that excitement might be a little short-lived.
In a recent interview with A List Daily, Ubisoft’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Tony Key, says that the developer and publisher is only interested in launching new IPs if they think that they can turn them into franchises and release sequels.
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E3 2013: Ubisoft Does What They Do Best – New IPs
Last but certainly not least on our roundup of Monday’s E3 press events is Ubisoft. While Ubisoft isn’t the biggest publisher on the block, to their credit, they are very willing to take risks with new IPs and new gameplay ideas. It may hurt them in the grand scheme of sales but it does earn them a lot of credit.
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Retailers Say South Park: The Stick of Truth Releases in August
The bankruptcy of THQ put a delay on a number of games and made us question the fate of numerous games in their portfolio. Now, it looks as though the hotly anticipated South Park RPG, South Park: The Stick of Truth, appears to be hitting store shelves very soon.
According to retailers Future Shop and Best Buy, South Park: The Stick of Truth is due for release on August 27th. This hasn’t been confirmed by Ubisoft yet but that’s not surprising because Ubisoft has been very quiet about all former THQ products since buying THQ assets and IP during the bankruptcy auction.
South Park: The Stick of Truth was originally due for release in early March 2013. It might be six months late because of THQ’s issues but hopefully it allowed Obsidian some extra time (and money) to polish the game.
Source: PlayStation LifeStyle
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Building (Critical) Consensus: Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Yesterday was the release of the standalone Far Cry 3 based game, Blood Dragon. The game really has nothing to do with Far Cry 3 apart from being made with the same engine and by the same development team. While FC3 was a survival-ish shooter set on a tropical island, Blood Dragon is a 1980s vision of a post-apocalyptic future. Apart from sharing a few things like the name and developer, you wouldn’t associate the two.
However, like Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon is a critically acclaimed hit that is a loving homage to / parody of 80s sci-fi.
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Trials Evolution Gold Edition (PC) Review: The Engine Has a Misfire
Do you remember Miniclip? When I was in high school many a joke class (like intro to business, civics and career studies) was spent playing flash games that wouldn’t crash the old, cheap computers. The original mainstay was miniclip.com, which, I’m slightly surprised to say, still exists today.
That’s where I first played the Red Lynx’s Trials series (it was called Trial Bike back then). I had seen proper Trials on TV on an old show called Motorsport Mundial so I knew what Trials was about and was instantly hooked on the flash game. Naturally, I’d have to pick up Red Lynx’s first PC Trials game since it left flash.
The problem is that while Trials Evolution, the most recent Trials (né Trial Bike) game, is a critically acclaimed game on the Xbox 360, Red Lynx should have kept their PC games on flash.
et geekera 