Video Game Review: Assassins Creed: Rogue (2014)

Been a while since I waxed lyrical about a "current" video game (yes, yes I know, the game came out in November 2014, but for me, that's "current") and being as I managed to pick up a second hand copy of this game el cheapo, I thought it was a groovy idea to give it a go.

So yeah, the 7th entry of the Assassins Creed saga (well, on the 360 anyway, not counting the next gen stuff) takes place BEFORE the events of Assassins Creed 3, AFTER some of the events of Assassins Creed 4 and BEFORE some of the events of Assassins Creed 4 and even manages to cram in some events in "present day"....(brain...confuzzled....emergency..shutdown...in...progress...arrgh!).

*ahem*, anyway, the main story takes place during the years 1752 to 1760, roughly covering the period in and around the Seven Years War , a war in which the major powers of Europe decided to have a little argument over which parts of Northern America belonged to who (nobody really won this war, a series of treaties were signed, gentleman's agreements were put into place, and a lot of the outcome of the war was binned a short time later )

SOoooooooo, as per the usual premise of these games, you, as the protagonist in the present day, use the Animus device to "relive" the memories of the past through the eyes of someone who lived in it, via accessing genetic memory, which, since AC4, is now no longer limited to your own personal genetic history.

As the same un-named employee of Abstergo Entertainment (A wholly owned subsidiary of Abstergo Industries) that you played in AC4, you are tasked with reliving the memories of Shay Patrick Cormac, an American born man of Irish descent who lived and took part in the events of the Seven Years war. You are tasked with doing this as the Abstergo Entertainment building appears to have come under attack by a computer virus, released when Cormacs memories were accessed, and as such, they need to be reconstructed in order to find the cause of the cyber attack...apparently.

Shay begins his life as a junior member of the Assassins order, under the tutelage of Achilles Davenport, however pretty soon, Shays rebellious streak and strong sense of moral righteousness lead him to becoming disillusioned with the Assassins cause, particularly so when a mission he is given ends with thousands of innocent people getting killed due to poor planning and a poor understanding of the forces that are being dealt with.

Its at this point the game really begins, as Shay sets out to right wrongs in his own way, which ends up having him fall in on the side of the Freemasons..sorry, the Illuminati...sorry, the Templars, and become an important figure in the North American cell of that organisation.


Yeah so, once again, AC:Rogue is a "journey of discovery" type game, same as all the others, offering a nice alternate history slant on recorded events, I like this, its one of the reasons that I keep playing the AC games and regard them highly.
As has become the norm for the AC games now, Shay must spend a lot of time gathering resources in order to renovate run down areas of his home town of New York, and these resources are gathered by taking to the high seas with his tricked out ship, The Morrigan, and "liberating" them from hostile powers, such as the French, the Dutch and the odd Assassin controlled ship.

Play takes place over a large map, covering the areas in and around the Northern Atlantic, including some parts of the Canadian coastline and the Arctic. Being as this area is generally very cold and icy, your ship is eventually fitted with an icebreaker prow and swimming in the freezing waters is generally discouraged, however theres plenty to do while your sailing around, as icebergs can be rammed to collect goodies, enemy ships can be attacked and boarded for loot, and unmapped areas can be explored for further loot and goodies, then of course there are the various hunting and fishing challenges you can partake in for bonuses and crafting items.

And here's where I get to my first complaint..... the storyline of AC:Rogue is fairly short, and the developers have placed a much, much greater emphasis on the "side" activities.
Yep, there are now 200 animus fragments to collect, as well as 50 Templar/Treasure maps, viking swords, native artifacts, cave paintings, "prosperity" markers and blueprints which are required to fully upgrade both your ship and your personal equipment, oh, also, there are a selection of sea shanties for you to collect for your crew to sing.
Then of course there's "legendary" sea battles to take part in, fortresses to capture, warehouses to loot, assassin hunting missions and other various puzzles and object gathering tasks that you need to do in order to fully complete the game.

Yeeeaaaahhhhh......

My second complaint is that the game seems to be somewhat glitchy from time to time, thus far, I have found the following:-

1. Sometimes when you have sailed somewhere, if you get killed, you and your ship respawn in the middle of the land area where you died. While initially, this is a little funny as your ship majestically sails over land, it soon becomes annoying when you want to get back on the water and continue whatever it was you were doing, but the game now sees "water" as a barrier and "land" as the sea, resulting in your ship sinking as it tries to "sail" back to water and then respawns on land, rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. In order to escape this, I found that getting off the ship and then swimming or taking a lake crossing to another town causes a save point to trigger, which then deposits your ship in that areas dock and allows play to continue unhindered. This is a pain in the posterior and shouldn't happen..Grr!
2. For some unknown reason, if you are using a wireless controller with the vibrate function turned on, every time an alert is triggered your Xbox instructs your controller to turn off. At first everyone who has reported this problem assumed it was something to do with the controllers battery being low, but no, its not, its down to some really weird foible of the programming which equates the "vibrate" command with "power off controller"... The problem is easily remedied by turning off the vibrate function, but unless you know this, it leads to being killed a lot as you get swarmed by a load of assholes while you furiously hit the "Big X" to switch your controller back on, only for it to turn off again as soon as one of said assholes hits you....Grrrrr!
3. As with all of the AC games, from time to time, Shay sometimes cannot climb or step over things when you really need him to, such as when chasing sea shanties or chasing after someone...its fucking annoying then when you have to hang around and go back once the thing has reset...Grr!, also, sometimes instead of jumping/climbing over a wall, you'll squat down on it Spiderman style and stick there until you release the sticks/buttons. This usually happens at the worst possible times...double Grrr!

The games combat system has also been changed slightly, with more emphasis placed on "counter" attacking enemies using your sword and racking up long strings of "combo kills", in a similar manner to the "Arkham" batman games, and also the tactical use of Shays new grenade launcher weapon. Less emphasis is now placed on the "sneaky sneaky" aspect that was the main aim of the Altair/Ezio era AC games.


So, do I like AC: Rogue?, well, yes and no.

YES because its still a good enough game, despite its various shortcomings, short campaign missions and over reliance on "collectables".

NO because of the glitches, and the feeling that the game is just a reskinned version of AC4.

If you've never played an AC game before, Rogue is not a good starting place, as you have to be somewhat familiar with the AC games as a whole to understand what you're supposed to be doing and why.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (Contains Spoilers)

So, Michael Bay said he wasn't going to do anymore Transformers related stuff after DOTM got fairly negative reviews...but the sweet, sweet money he was offered tempted him back....*face/palm*

"Transformers: Age of Extinction" (aka, Transformers: AoE, Transformers 4, Trans4mers etc) marks the fourth (duh!) outing for the "Bayformers" live action TF movies, which surprised many people as the ending of DOTM pretty much wrapped up the storyline for the Bayformers, you know, what with nearly everyone getting killed off and all that.

The Plot

Set 5 years after the climactic battle which saw Chicago levelled as the Decepticons tried to teleport Cybertron into Earths orbit and then enslave mankind and stuff, coupled with the sudden, but inevitable, betrayal by Sentinel Prime, it seems that humans and Transformers don't get along any more. Although the surviving Autobots are said to have been granted asylum on Earth, and approximately a dozen Decepticons are known to be at large, a secret-ish division of the CIA known as "Cemetery Wind" spends all its time  hunting down and capturing both Autobots and Decepticons (Ratchet and Leadfoot are shown to be both hunted down and killed).
As it turns out though, Cemetery Wind is pretty much just a front for making its commander, Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) a rich man, as he then passes the bodies of the "captured" Transformers on to a megacorporation known as KSI industries where its pompous CEO, Joshua Joyce (played by Stanley Tucci doing a really, really good impression of the late Steve Jobs) then experiments on them in order to develop and manufacture human built "Transforming robots" in order to sell them to the military etc.
HOWEVER!, things go a bit awry when as it turns out, Cemetery Wind and KSI are both in league with an unaligned Transformer named Lockdown, who is on Earth to collect a bounty placed on Optimus Primes head by his "creators" (who, in the opening scenes are shown to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs by cyberforming parts of Earth in order to mine "Transformium" to build more transformer robots for themselves).

So, Optimus Prime, along with Bumblebee and newcomers Hound, Drift and Crosshairs, as well as their new human chums Cade and Tessa Yeager and Shane (Tessas boyfriend) battle against both the cemetery wind, KSI and Lockdown in order to stop stuff from happening that will probably lead to the extinction of all life on earth and so on.
Oh yeah, KSI has unintentionally rebuilt Megatron (Now called Galvatron, but he isn't a purple repaint) as one of their robot drone weapons and he eventually frees himself from human influence and takes over the army of vehicon drones and causes some trouble.
Oh also, some Dinobots make an appearance towards the end of the film to boost the Autobots numbers.

Ooooooooooooh kaaayyyyyyyyyy.
Ah, yeah, erm........
At nearly 3 hours long AoE, when viewed as just another sci-fi action film isn't too bad, it fulfills all that is required of it in order to be considered a standard Hollywood Blockbuster, and uses the following cliches:-

• MOAR EXPLOSUNZ!!! - Standard trope from any Michael Bay movie, it would be pointless to comment any further on this.
• All Chinese people know kung fu! - yes, there is one "main" character who is Chinese, plus a couple of throwaway Chinese characters that feature during the bit set in Hong Kong, all of them somehow know kung fu...you know, because they're Chinese. Also included is a bit of casual racism as the character played by Li Bingbing is told by Stanley Tuccis character that he cannot understand what she is saying.
• "This is important!/No its not!/That is irrelevant!" - Some characters are introduced and seem to be on their way to being a big player in the storyline...then they either vanish for no reason or are killed. Additionally, some plot avenues open at the beginning, then get ignored/forgotten at the end.
• Carry on regardless! - The Witwickys, N.E.S.T and Agent Simmons, all big characters in the previous three films are gone, and not even mentioned...at all, as though they never existed.
• Maguffin-tastic - "Transformium"...dafuq?
• Object of attraction/Jailbait - Right from the very start, male audience members are directed to find Tessa Yeager attractive, being as she spends nearly the entire film wearing skimpy clothing items and being a damsel in distress. however, despite her make up being applied so that it draws attention to her dialated pupils, flushed skin and red lips (all visual cues for female sexual arousal) we are informed that she is only 17, and thus a minor (according to American standards) so therefore can be looked at but not touched, something which is played upon during the course of the film in an attempt at creating "humourous" dialogue. the other two female leads, played by Sophia Myles and Li Bingbing don't really receive enough screen time to be considered "main" cast members, instead mainly acting as "plot filler-inners".

So, did I like it?

Er, ooh, Id say "like" is far too strong a word. On the whole, the film is yet another example of a throwaway sci-fi action flick that includes characters of which I am familiar with, which was designed and intended to shift merchandise in the form of childrens toys.
The plot is ridiculously weak, and the film watches like a series of action and car chase scenes edited together with some "talky bits" that shovel fairly basic character development at you in big, difficult to digest chunks.
As a lifelong fan of Transformers, it is quite uncomfortable to sit and watch in places, namely the bits where the "new" Transformers are shown transforming simply be disintegrating themselves and then reforming into robot/vehicle mode, and also bits where the Autobots openly discuss killing people because they are a bit pissed off with how they have been treated (although given the storyline, they do have a right to be pissed off).
The ending of the film is as formulaic as they come, with a big battle happening, lots of explosions and death followed by a "happy" although ambiguous ending, thus setting up the plot for "Transformers 5 - We aren't Quintessons, Honest!"

Final score - 5/10 - Impressive SFX but ruined by a crap storyline and the desire to shift merch.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) - CONTAINS SPOILERS

So, nearly 5 years (well, 8 years if you count the fact that he came up with the idea some time in 2006) after it was announced, its finally here....and, unlike Ashens film "Quest for the GameChild", you have to pay to watch it...so therefore it must be good eh?, eh?, eh?....

Costing $325,000 (approx £201,576), which was entirely accumulated via crowd sourcing means, including Kickstarter etc, the film represents James Rolfe's ambition to make a full length movie about the subjects he cares most about, namely films and video games.

The plot is very simple, the Nerd (James Rolfe ) is beginning to get sick of people asking him to review the Atari 2600 game E.T , widely condemned as the worst video game of all time (although throughout the film the game is referred to as "EEE TEE", in order to avoid having to pay Steven Speilberg a lot of money) , however one day, a video games company, "Cockburn Industries" decides to make a sequel to the game, imaginatively titling it "EEE TEE 2". However, in a twist to normal video game marketing practice, they decide from the get go to make the game even worse than the original, as their marketing manager, Mandi (Sarah Glendening ) has noticed that the influence of the Angry Video Game Nerds video review series on "YouPooed" has led to gamers actively seeking out and playing games that are crap in order to rage at them.

The Nerd and his never seen before friend Cooper (Jeremy Suarez ) accept a deal from Cockburn Industries to travel to New Mexico to dig up the supposed site of where Atari buried 2 million unsold copies of the original game in order to firstly prove that it never happened, and then for the Nerd to review EEE TEE 2 and say its crap, which will therefore guarantee millions of sales worldwide. Cockburn Industries sends along Mandi, who is posing as a gamer girl/nerd to act as producer for the documentary and to ensure nothing goes awry, however, things are not all as they seem, cue lots of bizarre occurrences and wacky subplots.



So, was this film worth waiting nearly 5 years for?...in a word...

No

Its good that Rolfe got to realise his dream of making a full length movie, him being interested in film making since an early age and all that, however the film has numerous problems that someone who claims to love film as much as Rolfe really should have spotted and nipped in the bud during planning and production...

1. The film is advertised as a "Comedy/Farcical" film.
O.K, I can go with that, the AVGN review videos are the same, however, this film falls into the trap of many an attempt at farce....it takes itself too seriously.... No this isn't me being a cunt and not "getting it", there is a difference between playing a role "tongue in cheek" and playing the role as a "straight man". Rolfe spectacularly fails on both counts, as during many scenes where obviously ridiculous stuff is happening, Rolfe over plays his character to the point at which the Nerd becomes an overly cynical and unlikeable character. In this respect, he is out acted in his own film by literally everybody else in the damn thing. You cant even argue that the excessive cynicism and strait-lacedness is in keeping with the character, because it isn't, and trying to cover up the flaws with lots of swearing doesn't work in a feature length movie the same way it does in a 15 minute Youtube video, because it gets tired and stale after the first few attempts.

2. The film cant seem to decide whether its going for the "B-Movie" look, or the "Hollywood blockbuster" look.
The film is brilliantly shot, with extremely high quality camera work, lighting and locations, well worthy of anything that a major studio would put out. The films special effects go for the "cheapo" look, with dead obvious scale miniatures and cheap looking effects used for comic effect, as well as heavy use of green screen to show locations where the producers couldn't afford or just didnt want to go to. This is good, however, the two styles of film making clash horribly with each other, and don't mesh very well. Granted, this film is a low budget production, and they had to work within their means, but by going all out for slick filming and then having crap and cheap looking special effects filmed in the same way doesn't add to the films charm, it makes it look decidedly amateurish. Again, this isn't a case of me "not getting it" this is a case of me being able to spot the difference between a well shot movie and a movie that has been cobbled together with poor planning. Again, this bizarre meshing of filming styles makes the film farcical for all the wrong reasons, to the point at which some scenes are just painful to watch.

3. The whole point of the film is its downfall.
Right from the very beginning when it was announced that this film would be made, it was hinted that the plot of the film would centre around the Nerd finally reviewing the game he had been most requested to review, but as yet, had not, supposedly because he didn't want to review it.
After sitting through the length of the film, the Nerd finally gets round to reviewing the original "EEE TEE" as the films credits roll, however, the "review" is nothing like the Nerds traditional review style, instead, he adopts a more mainstream "good points/bad points" style of review, and then launches into a faux inspirational monologue about how whether a game shouldn't be judged on whether it is good or bad, but on how it makes the user feel while playing it. I can agree with him to a point, however, I find it disappointing and somewhat laughable that Rolfe would decide to go against everything he has built up with the AVGN character and produce a mediocre review in someone elses style without adding any of the touches he has spent over 10 years incorporating into an established persona. Much less, you have to sit through nearly one hour and fifty seven minutes of fairly unentertaining storyline to get there.
As much as people hate him, I have to say that the "IrateGamers" Review of the game is much funnier, and to the point, and was produced on a significantly less high a budget than AVGN: The movie, simply because it doesn't take itself as uber seriously. I know it is a bit of an unfair comparison, but when it takes AVGN nearly 2 hours and $325,000 to do something someone who is blatantly copying off him managed to do in 10 minutes, you're doing it wrong.

4. Tampering with an established successful formula is usually a bad idea.
AVGN became famous because of his short skits in which he gives a foul mouthed review of crappy games before launching into over the top scenes of violence or ranting...this film contains very little of this, and, introduces new characters for no apparent reason. The character of "Cooper" exists seemingly to firstly provide a token black protagonist character to the piece, but also ask questions in order to fill in or move the plot on. For no apparent reason, the other two people most associated with being secondary characters in the AVGN shorts, namely musician Kyle Justin and illustrator Mike Matei, receive less than 10 seconds of screen time in a cameo role in the mid to late film.
Of course, the "road trip" is used as a plot device in order to place the Nerd and his two new friends into an unfamiliar locale in order to take the Nerd out of his basement, because a 2 hour long film in which the Nerd sits in front of a camera and talks about crap games would get boring, however, the convoluted and cliched plot used to get them from A to Z really doesn't make this film a spectacular must see.




So, to sum up, this film is a very disappointing watch, but its good that James Rolfe finally managed to make his dream of making a feature length movie a reality, and every penny of the money that was donated towards making it has been well spent, but, that doesn't mean that the end product is a good one. In many ways the film ends up being a parody of its premise by hyping itself up but then delivering an average result.
I cant say this is a film that I would watch again and again for laughs, and it is certainly not worth the value of renting it for viewing via Vimeo, If anything, it, like "Quest for the GameChild", is more of a curiosity than a serious attempt at breaking into the film industry.

Anime Review:- Yu Gi Oh! Arc-V

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V (Pronounced "Arc-Five", the V is intended to be the roman numeral) is the fifth series and fourth spin off of the ongoing Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise.
At the time of writing (July 2014), there have only been 13 episodes aired in Japan and it has yet to be dubbed into English.
Debuting on the Japanese TV Tokyo network on April 6th 2014, the series follows the adventures of Yuya Sakaki.
Yuya is a second year student at the "You Show" Duel school, who wants to follow in his fathers footsteps by becoming an "Entertainment Duellist", a form of professional duelling in which thanks to the invention of the "Solid mass" holographic system (basically a machine which creates solid light holograms), allows duellists to put on a show for spectators by physically interacting with the creatures they summon in a realistic 3D environment.
Yuya is a fairly optimistic lad, a lesson imparted on him by his father, however he is also sad as his father vanished for no apparent reason on the eve of one of his most important duels 3 years before the start of the series, so all Yuya has left to remember him by are his memories of spending time with him, and a mystical pendant, and the pendant is where Yuya derives his special powers.

During a duel in the first episode of the series, Yuya discovers that his pendant can unlock a hitherto unknown game mechanic for Duel monsters, namely, the pendulum summon. During the duel with the man whom his father was supposed to duel 3 years previously, Yuya is being beaten quite badly, however he takes solace from his fathers advice to "smile through adversity", and the pendants power transforms the effect monster cards in his hand into a new type of card, the Pendulum monster, which allows him to rapidly summon several powerful creatures in a single turn, winning him the duel. At first he is accused of cheating, however the Duel management system which is running the duel recognises the new game mechanic as legitimate, and pretty soon Yuya becomes something of a celebrity, however, even though he enjoys his new found fame somewhat, it also draws the attention of the "Leo Duel School", a rival duelling academy that is owned and run by the insidious Akaba family.

Although only 13 episodes have aired thus far, I've quite enjoyed the series, as it manages to blend the action of the original series with the fun factor of GX, and unlike 5Ds it doesn't take itself too seriously. Im looking forward to watching the remainder of the series as there have been the starts of what could be some interesting storylines.