Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Before I actually played Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, I had my doubts about it. It has only been a year since the terrific Assassin’s Creed II, so how could Ubisoft have put together a whole new experience for this franchise that’s built on intricate plots and historical environments? Plus, all the marketing hinted that Brotherhood was mainly a multiplayer game with a tacked on story that could have just been DLC for Assassin’s Creed II. Well, it turns that that while Brotherhood feels more like an expansion pack than Assassin’s Creed III, it is also a totally worthwhile experience that fans of the franchise should pick up immediately.

The story mode is substantial, picking up Desmond and Ezio’s stories where they left off. Desmond and the motley crew of assassins set up shop in a familiar Italian environment as they plunge deeper into Desmond’s mind, looking for the Apple of Eden that Ezio has hidden. So we learn that after the end of Assassin’s Creed II, Ezio is forced to return to Rome to take down the Borgia family once and for all. All your favorite characters from the previous game return as Ezio builds up a resistance in the hopes of freeing the city.

This leads to my favorite new game mechanic: recruits. Ezio can’t do it all alone, so this time around you can help rebellious citizens learn the ways of the assassin. After you save an individual you can call upon them to help you in battle or send them off on contracts all over Europe. They gain experience and you can level them up and customize their appearance too. But the best part is when you call them out to assassinate targets. You just lock on to a target and whistle and one of your people will pop out of nowhere and end that dude. It’s really fun to watch and a great addition.

The town upgrading mechanic has made the transition to Rome, tasking you with reopening shops and restoring landmarks to increase your income. It feels a lot like Fable II, you just run around finding places you can buy and investing in them. There are blacksmiths, art dealers, tailors, banks and even sewer entrances (which serve as fast travel hubs) for you to dump your money into. The shops have quests now too, although they simply ask you to bring them items to unlock new equipment.

Fighting groups of enemies has been improved as well. Ubisoft has given you the ability to combo kills, basically when you counter an enemy you can leap to the next one for an instant kill. This makes Ezio look like a complete badass and addresses the most common complaint in the franchise: lengthy battles. However, the platforming controls still aren’t perfect and I found myself jumping off target a bit too frequently.

Multiplayer is the biggest new addition, and it’s pretty cool. Instead of trying to insert the traditional multiplayer modes, Ubisoft made having multiple assassins work. When you spawn, you’re given a target to assassinate and all you have to do is kill that bitch to increase your score. Of course, you’re someone else’s target too, so at any moment someone could pop out of the crowd and put a knife in your belly. It’s pretty cool and more fun than I would have expected, since I figured multiplayer Assassin’s Creed straight up wouldn’t work.

The multiplayer is substantial enough that you could play it for a while. The singleplayer story is compelling on its own, but the sheer number of sidequests crammed into Rome make it amazing. This isn’t an amazing step forward from Assassin’s Creed II, but it is a lot of fun. Trust me, take this leap of faith.

Girl Talk – All Day

I can’t say I knew who Girl Talk was before last week, but when I heard this new All Day album was being given away for free on the Internet, well, let’s just say you’d have to be a real asshole to turn that down. So I checked it out, and you know what? It’s pretty good.

The premise here is that Girl Talk takes a bunch of music (mostly new-ish, some classics) and mixes it together into one glorious 71-minute song (or 12 lesser song segments, if you prefer, which I do, in theory). It’s clearly meant to be listened to in one go, since if I wasn’t looking I never would have known where one track ended and the next began.

None of the music here, is original, except for all of it. What I mean is that every song is comprised of nothing but samples from popular music, but the results are more powerful than the original musicians could have ever possibly imagined. All Day is joyous and fun, and it is frequently a delight when you hear a familiar loop used in a dynamic new way. It’s cool beans.

It’s all a kind of nonsensical fun. If you like, you know, music, might as well give All Day a shot. After all, it’s free.

Favorite Tracks: “All Day”

Call of Duty: Black Ops

It’s been a rough year for the Call of Duty franchise. Certainly not financially, as last year’s Modern Warfare 2 made a ridiculous amount of money and Blops here seems to be on its way to surpass it. No, Call of Duty had a hard time because series developer Infinity Ward basically imploded after some nasty firings. Treyarch, the guys responsible for “off year” Call of Duty games, is now stuck being the series’ veteran developer, with what remains of Infinity Ward being left an odd mystery. Is Blops a step in the right direction, or does it just continue the fall from grace?

Set during the Cold War, you mainly play as Alex Mason, an Australian-American soldier who played a crucial role in some of the most important conflicts of that era. How crucial? The first mission of the game has you (seemingly) succeed in killing Fidel Castro. Mason has been captured and is interrogated in a dark TV-filled room by an ominous Saw voice about these mysterious numbers. Mason reflects on the last few years of his life, taking us back to Russia, Vietnam and some other places that I probably shouldn’t mention here.

The story allows for some fun set pieces, although the writing is pretty macho and predictable; certainly the biggest twists in the plot are fun to play out, but you will see them coming. Some moments are accented by chunky guitars and there’s even some rap in this business. The Vietnam stuff actually tries to seriously use “Fortunate Son,” which is pretty played out if you ask me. It’s that kind of game. Mason is played by Sam Worthington and is not actually supposed to sound Australian, Worthington just can’t help it. Poor fella, being all rich and famous. Ed Harris plays a CIA bad ass, frequently called the “ice cube,” despite the fact that another character is actually played by Ice Cube. Gary Oldman returns as Reznov, a character from the last Treyarch game, Call of Duty: World at War, I guess he’s their Captain Price.

Gone is Spec Ops, the amazing co-op mode that was easily the best part of Modern Warfare 2. Instead, Treyarch went back to zombies, putting out a survival mode that is just a pain in the ass. Sure, there’s some campy fun in the concept, especially the second map you unlock when you beat the campaign that features JFK, Castro, Nixon and Secretary McNamara defending the White House from Nazi zombies. But the mode did not do it for me, especially after multiple playthroughs.

The classic Call of Duty multiplayer sweet is present, of course. Treyarch changed leveling, now you earn CoD points which you can spend to upgrade what you want, really streamlining the experience so you can play how you want relatively quickly. You can also gamble those points in wager matches, where if you don’t place in the top three you’ll lose whatever you wagered. It’s all perfectly fine, if this is your thing, then by all means, enjoy.

Black Ops is a good game with an enjoyable single player and the same multiplayer that made Call of Duty 4 a hit. That’s fine, for now. But if the Call of Duty series doesn’t do something new and exciting next year, Infinity Ward’s year, then the franchise is in trouble. It’s already getting kind of stale.

Unstoppable

“We’ve had airplane, bus, truck, even boat disaster movies, but have you ever seen a train as the centerpiece of the action before?” Tony Scott asked. “Yes, we have,” the studio executive replied, “in fact, your last movie was set on a train.” Scott paused for a moment, “Yeah, but, this time I’ve got Denzel Washington.” “You always get Denzel.” “What if instead of John Travolta I put Captain Star Trek in it?” “OK, we’re in.” And so Unstoppable was born.

Based on a real-life, less exciting tale of an out-of-control train, Unstoppable forces an old pro (Washington) and a rookie (Pine) to try to stop an unmanned freight train that’s loaded with gas and toxic chemicals and headed for civilization way too fast. Who’s fault is this? Ethan Suplee, who foolishly tried to jump out of the train and outrun it to the track switch. Who’s sticking up for our heroes? Rosario Dawson, as a dispatcher who tries to help the guys and talk some sense into the corporate fat cats who think they know best. Will they be able to stop the train in time? See the movie.

What works is Washington and Pine’s chemistry, with Denzel’s calm knowledge balancing out Pine’s hotheadedness. It’s pretty neat that Denzel seems so cool here, since almost the entire movie he is sitting down. When they dive into each other’s backstories they get a little less fun, but I guess they had no choice. The issues with Pine’s relationship with his wife aren’t handled all that well and probably didn’t need to be in the movie at all. But whatever. They be bros and we root for ’em.

The train itself is presented beautifully. It always seems big, menacing, dangerous. I swear it even roars when they show it speeding by the Pennsylvania countryside. Tony Scott does a great job of emphasizing just how dangerous this train is, and as we watch multiple attempts to stop it fail it doesn’t seem as ridiculous as the trailers made me think it would be. The whole movie is very kinetic, always rushing forward towards its conclusion.

So if you’d like to see another disaster movie, by all means check out Unstoppable. It’s fun to watch. Just don’t expect groundbreaking, genre-changing paradigm shifts or generation-defining performances. This is just dudes on a train.