Leveling Down

Rounding out our main categories, today we will be looking at Best Action/Adventure, Music, Real-Time Strategy and XBLA games. Looking at the list of titles from this year, there were a surprising number of good action/adventure games out this year, and even though neither of us owns a PS3, you can’t talk about action/adventure in 2009 without mentioning Uncharted 2. I’m glad I didn’t have to nominate that game though, since that would probably have made for some tough decisions. Music games, on the other hand, seemed to take a step backwards, or maybe we are just getting sick of them. Meanwhile, Live Arcade continues to put out good titles worth taking a look at.

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In Assassin’s Creed, 2 is definitely better than 1

As espion4ge stated a week or so ago, we save the title “review” for games that we have completed. When I opened Assassin’s Creed 2 last week, never in a million years did I think I would be writing a review for this 20+ hour game less than a week later. Yet here we are – I somehow managed to sneak around my family and Thanksgiving schedule to pour in the 25 or so hours I needed to beat the game. Guess I’ve learned a thing or two about sneaking around as an assassin from this remarkable piece of edutainment. Hit the jump to share in that knowledge.

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Now that I’ve beaten the campaign in Modern Warfare 2, I’ve been spending the last several days of my solo gaming time playing Assassin’s Creed II. This was a game that I wasn’t actually planning to purchase, as I didn’t love the first one (which amusingly, wasn’t a game I had planned to purchase when it released either) but I took the leap anyway. What’s interesting is, this time around, Assassin’s Creed II looks to be a much better game than the first, and a shining example of a sequel where the team addressed a lot of the negative feedback from the original.
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The last two big holiday titles of the year were released yesterday, and delivered to my door courtesy of Amazon. Yet, after checking out my friends list during prime time last night, it wasn’t quite apparent that these big holiday titles had arrived. Scanning through the dozen or so people online on my list yielded just one guy at the bottom playing Left 4 Dead 2, with no Assassin’s Creed 2 in sight. About half of my friends online last night were playing Modern Warfare 2, which is a pretty respectable number as the night of Modern Warfare 2′s release, about 3/4 of my friends list were playing it. I was surprised to see that even Brutal Legend got more of a spotlight than either Left 4 Dead 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 last night among my friends. Maybe Left 4 Dead 2 won’t ruin the holidays for me after all and I’ll still have people to play it with when I get to it later.

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One of my friends asked me last night if I was going to trade in Halo 3: ODST now that I had the 1000 in it. He was saying it gets something like $35, which is pretty good considering we ended up getting it for around that (or even less) when it first came out. In the past, I used to trade in practically any game I got all the Achievements I wanted in and moved onto the next game in my queue.

Over just this past year alone, I’ve started winding down on my gaming tendencies (yes, it’s hard to believe but I’m less hardcore today than I was years ago), and actually started missing games I had gotten rid of. So I started rebuying games that I knew I would want to replay again at some point, just for fun. Looking at my 360 collection today, I’ve realized that more than half of the games I currently own I’ve sold and reacquired.

Nowadays, I’ve decided that no matter how good of a deal it is to trade in/sell a game that I enjoyed, I won’t get rid of it since the amount of work it takes to reaquire the game just doesn’t make up for the nice little “deal” I got when I sold it. What majorly sucks is that several of the games I end up wanting to reacquire turn into Platinum Hits titles, and I hate that design. Therefore, I’m forced to scour used game bins or find people online to buy from that can get me non-platinum hits versions that are not all scratched like crazy. I feel like I’m in some sort of game rebuying netherworld where I’m paying for my mistakes. I owned these games in mint condition and now I’m spending time trying to track these same games down that will no way be in as good condition as when I owned them. Why couldn’t I just have been happy with my original copies and not sell them in the first place?

Currently, I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to rebuy the following games:

Mass Effect – I actually want to replay through this before playing the sequel coming out early next year, but the tough part is of course finding a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Assassin’s Creed – Like Mass Effect, I do want to play this game again before the sequel releases next month but have to find a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Fable 2 – Platinum hits was announced to be released in January, so I still have time to reacquire this game and I know I will want to play through it again before Fable 3 releases.

The Orange Box – I actually have cravings from time to time to play Team Fortress 2, and while I own it on the PC, people on the PC are too hardcore (clans and whatnot) so I just want to play it casually with my 360 controller. Plus, I figure I will want to play Portal again from time to time.

Once I successfully repick up these titles, I’ll only have a few left to go. Good thing I didn’t sell Halo Wars since I do have cravings to play that game too. In any case, that’s my simple warning to you – if you feel like at some point you may want to replay a game (just because it was amazing, you’ll miss it, or a future sequel gets you to want to replay its predecessor, etc.), consider holding onto it. I want to spare you this ordeal that I’m going through today…

Barring the somewhat mixed reviews describing the game as being too expensive for what it is for some people ($60 for a 4-5 hour campaign, a Horde mode,and 3 new multiplayer maps), Halo 3 ODST most likely still had phenomenal day 1 sales. How do I know? Just look at my online friend list the night of Halo 3 ODST’s release!

I’ve been slowly making my way through the campaign so far, and I’m actually digging it more than previous Halo campaigns. I’ve yet to figure out why besides its accessibility, but I’m sure after more time with it I’ll know. Still, I admit that I am somewhat shocked to see the “foothold” it has on the 360 community. I’ve yet to play a game where I look on my friends list and everyone online is playing the same game. The only other game that has potential to dominate my friends list on release day like Halo 3 ODST is Modern Warfare 2 - but even then, Halo seems to be a more uniting game for 360 owners than Call of Duty.

A recent poll conducted by OTX indicates that only about half of the Halo 3 ODST purchasers plan on picking up Modern Warfare 2, although I’m surprised that almost half of them are interested in Assassin’s Creed 2, a sequel to a single player game I found a tad repetitive. I guess I’ll just have to see on November 10 what happens to my friends list that night, so don’t let me down Modern Warfare fans!

This friends thing really is some good viral advertising for 360 games as well. I’m glad I’m a part of the club that is playing this game on release day, and if I didn’t have it, I would feel totally left out seeing everyone playing it last night. Here’s to hoping for some good Firefights and online multiplayer in the immediate future…

Oh, and don’t forget to download the free Halo 3 ODST Premium Theme if you haven’t already!

Nothing like assassinating a high profile target in front of all of his guards!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed, a game that I initially was not interested in but decided to pick up anyway after finding it for $40 the week of Christmas. I finally completed all of the Achievements in the game last night, so it feels like a great burden has been lifted off my shoulders (collecting 420 flags is not the most fun thing to do). What did I think of this game? I guess the easiest way to describe the game is a loose “medieval Crackdown” – an open ended game where you can go around killing specific boss targets while at the same time killing whoever else you want along the way.

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