Assassination never looked so good...

Spending the few extra bucks to grab the special edition of Assassin's Creed 2 was worth it: A 7 and change inch tall figure of Ezio, a small art book, a special "Behind the Scenes" , and all wrapped in a cute metal box with a close up on our hero's face. You can almost see the grin as he spots his next victim.

Assassin's Creed 2 takes place during the mid 1400's where you take hold of Ezio Auditoire de Firenze, a young, handsome man who seems to have been born to climb like his father, and his father before him. But I get ahead of myself here. The game starts with Desmond (You know, your poor modern day man who was kidnapped and put through hell in the first game?) and Lucy, breaking and fighting their way out of Abstergo, and Lucy is no slacker, taking on the guards with some serious ass kicking moves. You soon find out just exactly what Lucy has been up to and planning for apparently some time and quickly take control of Ezio who is thrown into a world of conspiracies and lies.

Between flowing battle moves and the ability to quickly break away and hide, only to strike from the shadows. AC2 clears up so many problems AC1 had, everything from being unable to swim (though now no one knows how to) to the flow of the game and free running. With so many ways to do battle, it's hard to get bored of it. First guard? Take him out with your hidden blade, alerting the others. Draw your sword and strike down another. See a weapon you like? Sheath your weapon and disarm him, yes, stealing his weapon only to use it against him in one swift strike.

Aside from dual assassination techniques and fun ways to take out unsuspecting guards and targets, the story will grab you within the first ten minutes as Ezio's world starts to swiftly change, from his family being accused of treason to him taking up the assassin's garb (Which is pretty hot this time around!) Ubisoft was nice enough to toss us a quick travel option to get between one side of the country to the other side so you don't spend ten minutes getting lost between missions though there are a few times where you must travel by horseback while going to a new city.

While exploring the world that is around you, there is a little side story that takes place inside the Animus where Ezio/Desmond is asked to find these apparently random and out of place symbols that are sprinkled throughout the different city. Before you can get the nitty gritty of what each symbol truly holds, you have to solve a handful of puzzles. The one thing that will captivate any player is the conspiracies that are brought forward but not fully into light, ranging from ancient Egypt to World War II. Each little piece leads to a much bigger picture, and that final picture is one of true awe.

Another new feature they've added was the ability to gain gold and buy supplies and new armor which gives a nice feel of realism to the game, though it does come to the point where you can't get hurt enough to spend all your gold, and you've bought every last heavy, blunt, sharp, and generally dangerous item in the land, so the only thing left is to parade around in every single color you can dye your armor (Which I really like.)

While AC2 worked out almost all the bugs that AC1 had, a few still remain. One problem I kept running into was directing my jumps while holding onto a ledge, specifically when I wanted to jump backwards. Turning the camera barely helped and it was even worse when the camera was stuck. This, sometimes, led to the horrific deaths of Ezio, though a few invoked a laugh or two due to the ragdoll game mechanics.

               

Overall, the game was well worth the wait and money, and the few flaws there are (mainly because my TV sucks) are easily overlooked.  With the sequels (#3 and Brotherhood) are also well anticipated, with Brotherhood coming out next month (November). Oh what fun is to  be had when assassins decide to play tag?

Rundown time:

Pros: Beautiful worlds, wonderful story line, colorful characters, combat is just tasty

Cons: The ground is still not your friend, controls seem to be nearly flawless but the flaws can cost you a life

Random thought: How do you say "Ouch" in Italian? Or how about "I don't know how to swim!"?

I call shotgun! (And I don't mean front seat passanger...)

Ah, the shotgun. Such a wonderful weapon that I abused the hell out of it in Resident Evil 5 for the Xbox 360 (It's for the PS3 too!) I used it so much, it's only second in use to the machine gun attached to the back of jeep. Now, before I continue, I am going to put up a public announcement/disclaimer:

I do NOT condone racism, hate crimes, and anything of similar nature; It makes me sick to know that there are people who hate other due to their race, gender, creed, sexuality, or anything else that makes us different from one another. If you believe that RE5 supports these kinds of actions, you, ma'am/sir/thing, are wrong and need to stop right here and now. No one complained about a blonde haired, blue eyed American shooting Spanish people, I'm sorry, zombies, in Resident Evil 4, did you? No. The whole controversy surrounding RE5 is nothing more than a chance to play the race card in an attempt to reap crops from dried, barren grounds.

Now with that out the way....

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Thanks to my brother, this beauty landed in my hands the day after it came out and even got all the little goodies that came with the collector's edition. (He knows I love little extras like art books, soundtracks, and "making of" videos) Took me less than 7 hours to beat it the first time and gods, I was a wuss: Creeping every step, spazzing when those damn dogs came around. Oh yeah, love it. Creepy factor through the roof makes this gamer happy.

RE5 is the latest of the RE series (Biohazard in Japan) and the last of this story line. In it, you play as Chris Redfield who is set to Africa to deal with a rash of B.O.W (Bio-Organic Weapon) reports and other nasties. There, he is quickly paired up with Sheva Alomar and together, they start their investigation in the small town they're in. Things heat up quickly when they find out that the town had been infected and the killing starts.

There is so much yum in this game to the point where the downpoints are nothing more than a cavity to the sweetness that is this game. Let's start with the graphic: The world is fleshed out with such detail that you sometimes catch yourself stopping and admiring what's around (Just don't do this while there's a horde of zombies after you). From the ripples in the water to the spit that flies from the zombies to the shack that you just blew up, it's all so well crafted that I recommend going through the game at a slower pace later on to actually see everything.

The voice acting is nearly flawless. Save for a few corny lines or a statement that illicit the words, "Thank you for that observation, Captain Obvious..." from me, Capcom did a great job picking the voice actors for RE5. (You can read more about who's who at the IMDb). Couple that with great model design and motion caption for both the body and face, the characters are vivid and have depth to them.

There are a few old friends who come back and say "Hi!" from previous RE games, including this beauty right here. That's right, that's the RE2 B.O.W codename "Licker" and he's coming back for seconds in RE5 but in a much more gruesome, loveable way. Not to mention the fat hispanic chainsaw dude from RE4 who went down with a few shows? Oh, he's got a cousin in here who just loves to eat lead and smile while you're pulling that trigger. Not to spoil anything big, but you ever see a scene in a movie or a game from another movie or game and you get the chills because your brain goes, "Holy hell! It's happening again!"? Oh yeah, you'll get that feeling at least once.

Also, along side with the monsters chasing you is the soundtrack. Ah, that spine tapping music, but get this! The music only starts when there are nasties around. Nice warning, huh? "Oh la la la, I'm skipping through the woods, on my way to Grandmother's -" *creepy music kicks in* "Um... I'm just going to skip a little bit faster..." The music doesn't stop until everything is dead in the nearby area which can rattle you just a bit because depending on how far that last baddie is from you in that area, the music will be really, really low.

The camera is that wonderful 3rd person, over the shoulder view from RE4, and depending on who you play, either Chris or Sheva, you get two kinds of perspective. Since Sheva is left-handed, if you're used to playing as Chris, your aim will probably suck as her and vise versa. (I personally learned this the hard way on Mercenaries Mode.)

The controls have different settings and depending on how you like to play, there should be a setting that you like. I, myself, used the default (Type A) which is identical to RE4's default controls while my friend plays with one of the settings where it allows you to strafe. This is best for him since he plays a lot of first person shooters (FPS) and it keeps that same feeling while he blows the head off of a zombie or two.

The one complaint most people have with RE5 is that it's not really a Survival-Horror game anymore. I blink a few times before I go and pull this little tidbit from Wiki:

Survival horror is a video game genre inspired by horror films in which the player's primary objective is to survive and/or escape a threat typical of horror fiction, usually zombies or supernatural beings of some sort. The genre makes liberal use of both Western and Japanese horror film elements. The term "survival horror" was first used for the original Japanese release of Resident Evil (1996), although several earlier games, namely Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark, pioneered most of the conventions commonly associated with this genre. The term has since been used to describe games of a similar nature, including some that were released before Resident Evil. Although the genre is largely defined by the conventions of horror fiction, survival horror games involve gameplay that emphasizes vulnerability and a lack of preparation.

Huh... Well, would you look at that. Now let's go down the list:

• Are we trying to survive and/or escape some kind of threat? Yup.
• Is that threat a zombie or supernatural being of some sort? Double yup.
• Are we vulnerable in this game, ie: No god mode? Triple yup.

So for those who say, "zomg re5 isnt like teh others lol", please go play Hello Kitty Adventure Island and leave us to play this wonderful piece of work in the dark... home alone... at 3 am... in the middle of the woods.

Overall, this game was well worth the wait and all the hype that followed it. Not only did it meet and exceed my expectations from an RE game, it beat what I expected from a game period. If you can, snag the Special Edition for the little extras. If not... Well, go get the game and play! What are you waiting for?

Let's do the run down:

Grade: A-
Pros: Nearly flawless everything: Voice acting, graphics, story, everything!
Cons: Um.... Zombies?
Overkill Much?: As of today, I have shot the rocket launcher 317 times. I have killed 362 enemies.