Recent reviews by λdamski

Assassin’s Creed III
Assassin’s Creed III is the fifth installment in a third-person stealth franchise that uses historical drama to tell its narrative. The story follows directly after the last game, where Desmond has woken up from his coma and is using the memories of a different ancestor. This time we explore the history of 18th-century Colonial America at the beginning of the American Revolution. You take control of an Indigenous American who, for brevity’s sake, we’ll refer to as Connor.

It’s immediately evident that this game is much more ambitious than its predecessors. Using a brand-new engine with a much larger world and an expanded range of game mechanics. However, they have prioritized flashy combat over the stealth mechanics featured in earlier titles.

The choice of setting AC3 in Colonial America, not only limits the architectural features to admire but also compromises the parkour aspect. The camera is positioned closer to Connor, creating a sense of confinement and he feels less responsive and more sluggish to control, particularly when compared to previous installments.

Despite these complaints, there is a glimmer of hope in the form of AC3's innovative addition of naval combat. While deviating from the traditional Assassin's Creed gameplay, this feature is a welcomed addition largely absent from video games at the time, save for top-down strategy games. You face formidable ships and battalions whilst contending with stormy weather and large waves. It’s both thrilling and claustrophobic, whilst you learn to anticipate the delay in maneuvering your large vessel.

Sadly, I have very little to say regarding the narrative, other than a clever bait-and-switch that I’m not going to spoil, there wasn’t much intrigue to be had. As someone not as familiar with the finer details of early American history, I’m not qualified on the accuracy of the depicted events. It mostly felt like a slideshow of all the significant events, with Connor serving as the sole driving force behind each part of the American Revolution.
However, I must commend the portrayal of certain historical figures, such as Benjamin Franklin, who, from my understanding was a chauvinistic and generally unpleasant guy.

DLC:
Tyranny of King Washington is a brief non-canon narrative that is included in this edition of AC3. For what it’s worth it’s a bit more experimental incorporating more fantastical abilities in the form of animal spirit guides. The Eagle ability made rooftop traversal a much more pleasant experience, something the aforementioned core game didn’t manage to do.
While not an essential component, it is a worthwhile addition.

Assassin’s Creed Liberation Remastered
Originally released on the handheld console Playstation Vita, the gameplay resembles AC:2 albeit with some minor adjustments. Set in 18th-century French Louisiana, the game follows the story of Aveline, the first black female protagonist in the franchise.

The narrative delves into the transatlantic slave trade and the player is required to experiment with Aveline’s relation to class and gender.
Aveline can alter her appearance to suit specific social circumstances, which can either limit or enhance her combat capabilities.

For instance, her dress may impede her movement but enable her to blend in with the upper-class society she belongs to. Alternatively, she can don a slave or assassin disguise, which provides her with greater mobility but also restricts her movements in certain areas. Despite its small scale, the game manages to tell a more captivating story than the one it was bundled with.

Conclusion:
AC3 is my least favorite game in the series thus far. This is unfortunate as the opportunity to explore the American Revolution from the perspective of an Indigenous person presents a wealth of potential for an engaging and thought-provoking experience. Despite efforts to improve upon previous titles, AC3, unfortunately, retains the series' most unfavorable aspects, which not only detract from the enjoyment of this game but also negatively impacted AAA game design for years to come.

Anyways just watch the SMOSH song parody of the game instead.

“The Terrible Old Man” is a short Point & Click adaptation of the H.P Lovecraft story by the same name.

It takes place in a fictional American town during the prohibition era, where 3 immigrant thieves plan to rob an old man.

The game follows its source-material quite leniently. This works both in its favor but also to its own detriment.

The original short is by today's standards, not very noteworthy or interesting. It was in many ways cliché and predictable and so the game takes those elements with it.

Visually however, there’s a certain charm to the unshapely and quite ugly characters. The animation is strange and off-putting and it all cements the atmosphere of what could otherwise be a great horror game in the vein of Lovecraft's work.

It’s Free and for what it’s worth “The Terrible Old Man” does what it set out to do. I however wish it did a bit more.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is the conclusion to the Ezio trilogy within the third-person stealth franchise Assassin’s Creed. The series focuses on period dramas with historical figures and conspiracies.

The narrative is set during the early 16th century of the Ottoman empire, mainly Masyaf and Constantinople. While there’s a lot of brown colored areas, there are also many places that break from it with nice lush gardens, pools of water and big markets with vibrant colors of mats and robes.

We play as an old and cynical Ezio on his last journey, this time we retrace the steps of the first protagonist Altaïr. While AC:B Ezio had grown and become more wise, this older Ezio has grown further and become tired and disillusioned with his assassin-lifestyle. I loved this aspect of his character and I think it adds a lot of nuance to him.

The same cannot be said for Altaïr, who was retconned to get more backstory but it actively ruins his previously established character.
His design change also leaves me confused. In the original he looked like a young Syrian man, but has now been remodeled to look like a white european man for some reason.

Due to the need for a conspiracy between the Templars and Assassins as well as Ezio’s personal story, the timeline is a bit off. However many of the political strifes and relations between historical figures are actually quite accurate and I was pleasantly surprised at how they told the story. Some notable figures that appear are: Şahkulu, Suleiman I, and Manuel Palaiologos, to name a few.

Many have complained that there was never any clear main villain. I’d argue that is actually more true to history than the previous titles as political tension and past conflicts are the real antagonists, not one faction or person.

Most of the mechanics from previous titles reappear with little to no change. What’s more interesting is the newly introduced “hookblade”. This hookblade adds a much needed fluidity and ease to traversal that was always a stumblingblock in previous titles. I felt like I could finally do some parkour and platforming without it being a constantly interrupted hassle.
Not only that but you can now craft and customize bombs that give a new layer of experimentation to how you deal with enemies.

Something else they did that I felt actually added some tension to the gameplay, was that some of your previously captured territory could come under attack. This would prompt you to engage in a strategic tower defense mode, wherein you need to place out assassin troops to take out oncoming foes in waves.

Of course old and tired mechanics like investments and finding collectables are back, but I’m glad they at least tried to do something new with this title that made it distinctly different from the previous titles.

I was pleasantly surprised to have found an Assassin’s Creed game that I enjoyed for the most of its runtime. That being said AC:R is still filled with many of the bad design choices of previous titles. I just hope that more games in the series follow in this direction rather than the likes of 2 or Brotherhood.

Far Cry, released in 2004, is an ambitious first-person shooter in the now renowned franchise owned by Ubisoft.
In an era of corridor shooters like Doom 3 and later Half-Life 2, Far Cry differentiates itself by using a massive outdoor tropical environment instead.
The game has a notable graphical fidelity for a game of 2004, the first instance of the “CryEngine” that would in turn become famous through the Crysis series of games.

The story lacks substance and shows a certain disregard for narrative focus in games. Which is an aspect aforementioned games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were moving away from.
But where the story is lacking in complexity, Far Cry makes up for in its gameplay and unforgiving difficulty. You die after only a few shots and so there’s a huge reliance on finding tactical paths leading to vantage points or ambushes, getting in a few critical shots on the enemy before they see you.

Sadly as much as it wants to be innovative and forward thinking, the game doesn’t always play into its strengths. A lot of segments include the very same corridors that Far Cry was trying to move away from in the genre. The game is clearly not designed to work well with these closed spaces and so it becomes tedious and unfun, it genuinely would have been a better game had they never put these corridor segments in the game to begin with.

After a certain encounter the game's enemies change quite drastically and there’s open conflict between factions quite reminiscent of how later games tackled man vs nature in gameplay, letting both fight it out before approaching the enemy, and in instances it can be unpredictable in a tension-filled way.

Far Cry is a game trying to move away from the design tropes that restrained its genre, but was also severely stuck in those same tropes it was trying to move away from. It remains a unique experience that showed ambition towards what could become a truly great game had it not halted itself.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is the third installment in a third-person stealth franchise that uses historical drama to tell its narrative. The gameplay consists of sneaking, platforming and combat within an open-world setting. It’s in many ways identical to AC2, including its many problems. The economy is still present and easily exploited, this time with fewer paintings but more notable architectural marks to be bought.

The story follows directly after the previous game AC2. Ezio is forced to flee to Rome, and the game makes use of a more small-scale plot within the borders of the city. Graphically it looks almost identical as well and the nicely vibrant colors-scheme remains.

Most of the notable characters are reoccurring people from AC2, and the one who’s new to this era and most notable is probably Cesare Borgia.
In his time he was accused of the murder of close adversaries and having an incestous relationship with his sister. In the game this is treated as fact. While ruthless, many of these accusations were mainly spread by his enemies, like the Sforza. A rival family who was most likely just as heinous as the Borgia.

Ezio seems to have grown in his leading capabilities, with this comes the introduction of recruiting and upgrading your own assassins to the order. You can deploy them with you in combat or send them on missions to gain various rewards.

Brotherhood’s quest structure consists of Main Quests that further the story, as well as Side Quests, Contract Missions and item collecting. Like most of the games in the series the reward for collecting said items is seldomly worth the trouble.
I’ve often heard that Brotherhood is somehow a shorter game with less filler than its predecessor. I have to question this however, as there were always a ton of repetitive and spread out tasks that were constantly filling up the map. The game took me far longer to complete and it felt like a lot of this “content” could have been cut out and it would have made the pacing of the game much better.

The Deluxe Edition includes a DLC storyline involving Leonardo DaVinci’s disappearance. It’s an engaging and short plot with a change in scenery and includes a wide arrange of vehicle gameplay. You get to meet Salaì, one of DaVinci’s disciples and alleged lovers. I recollect Ezio implying he knows of this affair and that he approves of it, something that makes Leonardo fluster a bit. It was a nice addition for sure and it felt like it contributed to the chemistry between the two.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is often portrayed as one of the best in the series, and if this is true I’m afraid of what’s to come. This game reeks of what plagues this franchise to begin with. Tedious trailing missions, pacing issues, boring combat, useless collectibles, copypasted side activities and an overall lackluster narrative.
Despite all of this, there’s fun to be had in short bursts. It’s like the game is edging the player and promising it will get good soon, only to abruptly end your enjoyment a few seconds later.

Assassin’s Creed II is the sequel to a third-person stealth franchise that focuses on historical recreation and conspiracies. The game involves a lot of platforming, combat, sneaking and open-world “exploration”. The narrative is set in Italy during the 15th century and is graphically much more vibrant, a stark contrast to the gray and brown color-scheme of the first game. You meet notable historical people such as Machiavelli and Leonardo Davinci, as well as political factions like the Medici family and the Spanish Borgias.

The protagonist Ezio Auditore is a far more interesting and charismatic character in comparison to the blank and lifeless Altaïr who gets retconned to have more of a personality within the narrative. That being said, I find that Ezio leans heavily into the malepower fantasy trope. He’s a strong man that single handedly takes on armies of guards and makes all the ladies swoon. The more interesting aspect of his character is how he develops as a person and his relationships with other characters. Sadly the execution of that development falls flat with a story that feels all over place and in many ways gets interrupted by obnoxious side content as well as a bunch of story missions that felt like filler to drag out the length of the game.

The gameplay has improved a lot since last time around. The combat is more fluid, if a bit clunky still, but it's satisfying and there’s a bit more experimentation with weaponry. The parkour is more responsive and becomes really smooth and natural at times, however this often gets interrupted because of the world's house and obstacle layout. There’s also a newly introduced economic aspect to the game. You can spend money on renovating your villa and shops, buy paintings and collect weaponry. All these things contribute to your income, a type of gamification of capitalism (but without the exploitation of labour).This added feature can be easily exploited if you spend money on renovations and paintings early on, breaking the games economy.

There are some rewards for collecting and completing every single thing in the game, however none of it is really that rewarding. Most things can only be completed fully near the end of the game when the rewards are sorely needed. The infamous feather collecting gives you a practically useless cape, so unless you find sentimental value in completing games fully… just skip it.

I bought the Deluxe Edition which includes two DLC chapters that add more content to the game but destroy the pacing of the game a lot. The first one is the “Battle of Forli” which expands a bit on the narrative but is very boring gameplay wise. The other DLC is “Bonfire of the Vanities” and is more focused on challenges than the story, but both are pretty bad and feel like straight up filler to a game that already includes an immense amount of filler content.

Yet again I’ll have to conclude by saying that Assassin’s Creed II contributes to the lineage of games in a franchise that would define the abhorrent game design of the AAA video game industry. The series has fun content in there but instead of making a consistently good game with a short runtime, they’d rather make a game that stretches for time with a few good moments sprinkled in there.

Assassin’s Creed is a third-person storydriven game with elements of platforming, combat and stealth. The graphics are alright for their time even if it was made in the era where games were grey and brown to denote a more serious and edgy tone. I am pleased to see a protagonist of Syrian descent as Altaïr comes from the city of Masyaf. And the people populating the world are of multicultural backgrounds, reflecting the various cultures and beliefs of the time.

The story contains many interesting elements, historical places, factions and figures. What halts the game substantially is the subplot of the Animus and Desmond. Frequently you get taken out of the experience to get exposition, and then be put back into the real meat of the game. The dissonance, while probably intentional, adds very little and in fact takes away from the experience.
The aforementioned factions and historical figures have potential to be more interesting and since they’re based on real people adds a lot of value to the overall story, but it again gets halted by the grand conspiracies that the series focuses on. Sometimes these conspiracies can even lead to historical inaccuracies that could even harm a viewer's understanding of the historical context behind this time period.

As for the gameplay the combat, while smooth, lacks variety and many times becomes a simple chore. The platforming and parkour is fun although the controls can sometimes be frustratingly unresponsive, something later games would improve.
As for the structure of AC1 you mainly complete Main Quests to further the story as well as optional side activities such as sidequests, flag collecting and killing stationed Templars. There are cases where 2-3 Side Quests need to be completed before you can proceed with the Main Quest. I’d recommend you only complete the bare minimum. The idea was that these quests would aid with strategic advice on how to tackle the Main Quest with for example optimal routes and locations that you could look at in the memory block. Sadly these are sorely needed and the most optimal solution is almost always clear as day and can be completed without the prior knowledge put forth by these activities. Instead they become timewasters rather than timesavers and there is no real reward or recognition for completing the game 100%. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a bit of fun to be had, but they were mere breadcrumbs in comparison to the major problems with the game.

What AC1 does best is it’s scenery and attention to detail with its environments. I’ll never be able to visit the beautiful city of Damascus since it is now almost completely destroyed. The entire series of Assassin’s Creed really shines when it comes to these places of historical importance, giving people an opportunity to explore historical places that have existed or still do exist. The games are good at helping people engage and become interested in real world history and geography.

In conclusion, the first Assassin’s Creed has come to represent the many aspects that has become commonplace in the plagued AAA video game industry.

Conarium is a game released in 2017, loosely based on the works of H.P Lovecraft. Notable works being “At the Mountains of Madness” (A personal favorite) and “The Nameless City”. It’s a nice change of fresh air to see a Lovecraft game that doesn’t recycle “A Shadow Over Innsmouth” for the 50th time.

You travers the game in a first person-exploration type fashion, with a few puzzles and a lot of hidden artifacts and texts that help contextualize the story. There’s a minimal amount of threats in the game but it maintains an eerie and mysterious atmosphere.

Visually Conarium is very beautiful and has a lot of nice looking environments. Although the actual monster design is a bit stale and non-threatening. There’s also a lot of sci-fi tech that looks really out of place for the story. It looks cool, but I feel it would work better for a different game (Although I might change my mind with a convincing enough argument, it's still an interesting contrast).

While I deeply enjoyed playing through this game with its nice scenery and the atmosphere of a lovecraft mystery, I honestly think the game just wasn’t that scary or unsettling. It’s rather safe and comfortable for the most part. And this could be a good or bad thing depending on what type of game you’re looking for.

If you're looking for a game that has a lot of the aesthetics of the Cthulhu Mythos but refrains from disempowering the player. I’d say Conarium is for you.
But if you wanted something that puts you in the same uncomfortable and petrified shoes as the main character in a Lovecraft story, I’d still say the Innsmouth section of "Dark Corners of The Earth" remains the best option.

For me I would have enjoyed it more if they made the game follow through the entire story of “At the Mountains of Madness” instead of simply scratching its surface.

Maybe the real soda, was the one we drank along the way...

Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness was originally released for the PC and Playstation in 2000/2001.
Based on H.P Lovecraft's short story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”.
Both being set in the 1920s Providence, Rhode Island. There’s numerous characters that appear in their respective stories including a character who becomes obsessed with their distant ancestor and the occult. There’s mention of Yog-Sothoth and contains alchemical experimentation as well as the resurrection of dead people. In many ways the game is true to its source material. That is, until you reach the later stages of the game with a really abrupt and inconsistent storybeat and it’s noticeable that there’s a lot of content and ideas cut from the game. The ending feels rushed and unsatisfactory.

It’s a “Point & Click” with less of an emphasis on item puzzles and focuses more on the investigative aspects. It’s a bit clunky and involves some of the worst pixel hunting elements I’ve experienced in some time, a lot of time is spent in pitchblack corridors trying to find doors and unlit torches.
Aesthetically the game uses a lot of pre-rendered backgrounds and has a sizable amount of long cutscenes. The character animation has a notable lack or overabundance of overlap. Sometimes the characters only move one part of their body in slow and uncanny ways, and other times they’ll move every single limb in their body making them look like some weird marionette doll. While a lot of the dialogue and voice acting (cheesy as it may be) captures the uncanny and eerie feeling so integral to the Lovecraftian experience. But it often gets overshadowed by the horrible sound mixing. Often the dialogue is drowned out by the great background ambience.

The most notable flaw with the game is the fact that the steam version is impossible to finish due to a bug that both skips a long cutscene but also crashes the game. There is however a community-fix like most old games, that will save you a lot of trouble.

I would only bother with this game if you consider yourself a fanatic of Lovecraft media and really wanna try all of the games. There’s some value in this game, but If you want a better version just read the short story the game is based on “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”.