After talking to Jason for a bit a few things about Mass Effect came to light that I thought I mention as an addendum to my previous post.

While we both agree that the core storyline experience was great, we also agree that some of the side missions were a bit weak. There were definitely some good ones, but a lot ended up being more shallow than I’d hoped for. Additionally they all mostly followed the same structure of “learn about something, go to that planet, shoot a few guys, you’re done.” More could have been in this area to make things a bit more well rounded. Though I did think some of the Citadel side quests were more interesting and I completed most of those.

Another thing that would have added to the game would be more interesting loot progression. There’s really no unique items in the game. As Jason said, everything is just “gun 1″, “gun 2″, “armor 4″, etc. This takes away from some of the vested interest in your character.

Overall still a great game though. I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

Last night I beat Mass Effect. At the end I barely realized that I had put nearly 40 hours into the game. This is a big deal for me, since I usually am bad about beating games. (It’s true unfortunately, though I am getting much better about it.) I can say that, overall, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had playing a console RPG.

Sure there were a few technical faults (really bad texture pop-in, load times, basically things that wouldn’t have been there if they’d cached the game to the HD) but in general Mass Effect was a very polished gameplay experience that drew me in. The “moral choices” didn’t really go that deep, but the voice acting and conversations were done so well that it still managed to add a lot to the story line and experience.

I’m going to definitely do another play through in the near future. Next character will be a hardcore jerk, I think.

One thing I really liked though was that the game didn’t end with a cliff hanger. It actually completed the story line so you felt some sense of finality. But they left enough open that there will be a sequel (or two). I’ll be ready and waiting for it.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat is actually the first Call of Duty game that I’ve really played, let alone bought. While the others were supposedly quite good (the second one in particular I guess) I never really was into the whole WW2 thing very much. Battlefield 1942 was about as much as I got into WW2 FPS games to be honest. The latest COD game however, is set in the present day (or slight future, something like that) and that suits me just fine.

Single player is pretty cinematic and entertaining. I haven’t gotten very far in it though, because the vast majority of my time has been spent playing multiplayer. This is where the game really shines in my opinion. It has a quasi-RPG-esque system where you level up (gain rank) by accruing experience through game matches. Most of the XP will come just from killing enemies, but you can also gain big bonuses by completing challenges for various weapons (kill x people, get x headshots) or other activities (blow up x cars, sprint x miles, etc.). There’s a ton of these that you progressively unlock as you level up. As you gain levels and complete challenges you’ll also unlock additional weapons and gear. It’s a nice system that always gives you a goal to work towards, which keeps the player engaged and really interested in doing well not just for the sake of it.

Technically the game is very impressive. There are a couple minor multiplayer issues that need to be resolved (minor bugs) and the net code has some prediction that makes you scratch your head occasionally, but all in all it’s really solid. For my money, this game has the kind of polish and attention to detail that makes it a contender for game of the year.

But then again I did just get Mass Effect. That’s another post entirely though.

One thing I didn’t mention in my last post was that I nearly wasn’t able to play AC on release day because my 360 decided that Saturday night (during a party I was having at my house) would be a good time to start failing. It wasn’t anything as simple as the red ring of death though.

You could boot up the system and play something normally for a while, but eventually the screen would flip to “blue mode” where everything had a horrible blue tint to it. I tried out my PS2 and, alarmingly, the screen had a weird tint to it. That turned out to be just coincidence though; one of Steve’s friends had jarred the PS2 and the component cable came a bit loose. So, “luckily” it did end up being the 360: a failing video card to be exact. There was also a coincidentally timed DVD drive issue that put a slight scuff mark on my copy of Halo 3, but that one can be chalked up to human error…

I was rather bummed about my console’s slow death, especially so close to the release of AC (and Mass Effect). It seemed for sure that I’d be waiting for a box to come from Microsoft and would be lucky to play some of these games this time in December. But then I remembered that I had a Best Buy product replacement plan! Then I also remembered hearing about many stories of people having awful luck actually using their replacement plan. I did some looking at the PRP and it mentioned all kinds of things about obtaining a voucher and other scary things.

Not hoping for much I called my local Best Buy and asked them if I’d be able to come in and swap out my broken 360 there, without going through all the hassle of getting a voucher for my PRP. Somewhat surprisingly, they said yes. They just had to check that they had a Xbox 360 Premier in stock, which they did.

So I bundled everything up and hurried over there to get it taken care of. I was still expecting some kind of trouble while trying to swap it out; better to be cautious than over excited, right?

Thankfully (and somewhat amazingly) I didn’t really have to worry. I went right up to the customer service counter and said “My 360 is not working, I want to use my PRP to swap out for a new one.” The lady asked what was wrong with it, I filled her in and just like that she called for a floor associate to go grab a new one for me. Once everything was in order I had them swap hard drives with me so that I could keep all the stuff I downloaded (I have a lot of arcade games and saves on there that I really didn’t want to lose) and I was on my way. Pretty straight forward, I’d have to say. I was so pleased with the experience in fact that I bought another 2-year replacement plan on my new 360 (this being technically my third one, the first one I bought was DOA, so I went and exchanged it that same day).

And you know, despite the hassle it turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. The new 360 is the newest revision and has the HDMI port on it as well as the new board/processor that supposedly runs cooler. And on top of that the new box they gave me came bundled with Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance; two games that I didn’t have and kind of wanted (but not enough to pay for). That alone paid for my second replacement plan.

I can’t say I’m pleased that the 360 has such a failure rate - replacement plans definitely add to the total cost of ownership - but it beats owning a PS3 and not having any good games to play.

I picked up Assassin’s Creed today after work and after playing it for a few hours I can say that it’s a remarkable technical achievement that has a lot to offer but does have some flaws that stop it from being as good as it could have been. Still, I’m not disappointed with the fact that I purchased it. Some word on the internet is that it’s “the most over-hyped piece of trash ever” and that “it fails to deliver in every way possible.” Well, neither of these are really true in my opinion. Yes, it was a very hyped game, and yes, it does fail to deliver in a couple areas that it probably should. But is it not entertaining? Hardly.

First, the bad points.

The primary problem is that the game lacks variety. This can either be a huge deal to you, or something that’s a bit of a bummer but not the end of the world. I’m in the latter camp. You could argue that most games are actually the act of performing repetitive tasks over and over again. The differences come in the presentation of how you execute those tasks. In AC they are lacking some of that presentation difference, as well as staying a bit too lockstep with their mission formula to accomplish the major goals. Some more variety in the types of challenges would be nice, but the lack of variety I mostly have a problem with is that the way you accomplish these goals is somewhat limited. There’s still some choice involved, but the outcome is essentially the same each time, leading to a game experience that is more linear than I expected it to be. As someone who can’t get enough of free-roaming games this is the biggest problem with AC.

A secondary issue (for me) is that the combat is a bit weak. This stems mostly from the fact that a design decision was made that the combat system should be focused on a more realistic style. While that’s all well and good it doesn’t necessarily translate to a great game experience in my opinion. It’s not too bad, it just (again) lacks some variety. If they’d made it so that the enemy AI would attack at you a bit quicker (and more than one at a time) and give the player some additional moves to avoid/counter attacks, thus increasing the challenge put on the player, it would be a far better experience. Still, I’ve found that by not leaning on the “defensive stance” system like a crutch and maneuvering my character a bit more quickly around the attackers it produces a slightly more cinematic and exciting fight sequence.

Now the good.

The environments are really something amazing. Graphically speaking this game is masterwork. From a character perspective it’s even more impressive, in terms of both art and technical achievement. The animations themselves are extremely fluid, and their new system for animation blending and fast transition is pulled off wonderfully. The result is some of the most eye pleasing animations I’ve ever seen in a game.

And that’s good because with the great free running system you’ll be looking at a lot of different animations. It also makes it (mostly) a breeze to get around the game; something that’s very welcome since one of my personal favorite aspects is the exploration aspect. Some people have complained that the collection tasks are boring, but I don’t mind them, and think they’re a good way to hunt around and explore the city. It’s things like that which let me use my imagination a bit, and that definitely adds value in my book.

The story, while a bit hokey, is also turning out to be pretty interesting. It’s one of those things where I just suspend my disbelief (like when you’re watching an action movie) and it’s not too hard to swallow. The execution (outside of the previously mentioned gameplay flaws) is more than acceptable, and while I’ve heard the game leaves off with a cliffhanger I can only hope this means that there will be a worthy sequel that addresses some of the problems I and other reviewers have mentioned.

Overall this is a solid game that - depending on how hyped up you were for it and what you were expecting - could either be a satisfying adventure/platformer/free-roaming hybrid or could be somewhat disappointing. If you’re really on the fence about it, rent it first. There’s no excuse not to rent, and if you’re someone who enjoys games like this I don’t think you can go too wrong buying it either.