Holding Pattern

Between work and moving I haven’t really had time to play games, let alone write about them.  Things have settled down a little and I hope to have a post up next week.  Now that I’m free to play video games again I’ve been sinking a few hours into Assassin’s Creed.

 I bought the game a long time ago and have held onto it waiting for a period where I could sink myself into its world.  I wonder if that’s behavior common among other video game enthusiasts.  I place these bigger games up on a pedestal saying to myself that I couldn’t possibly start playing them right now – I need to wait until I have time to fully invest the hours necessary to enjoy them.  Which is completely silly as that time never really comes.  Instead I end up playing quick indie games or spend those few opportunities on games I’ve played to death.

 I need to learn to just start them and realize that if I get hooked, I will find the time to play.  A few of those games that fall into that category are Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Empire Total War, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dawn of War II, and Portal.  I think I’m going to have a great time playing all of those games, I just need to start them.

Assassin’s Creed is a lot of fun so far.  The combat is great and the cities are beautifully rendered.  The assassination missions, the focus of the game, are well done.  The story isn’t quite what I expected – I don’t mean that in a bad way – it’s just that the game trailers didn’t exactly prepare me for how it starts.  The game feels a little incomplete though.  The citizens in the cities really should have had many more lines of dialogue.  Spending a lot of time running around the streets you end up hearing the same things repeatedly.  The missions so far are a bit repetitive as well.  I’m only about four hours in so perhaps things will improve later.  Right now I’m just having fun taking on large groups of guards and seeing how many I can bring down.