20 December 2010

The VGAs and a Continued Lack of Self-Respect

It’s the end of the year again! A time to look back, assign everything a category and pick out the best example of each one. Awards are fun for everyone for different reasons: some boast about their clairvoyant ability to know the winners before they are announced, some enjoy entering never-ending arguments with others as to why one ‘thing’ should get the award over another ‘thing’ and Z-list celebrities get an oversized pay check to appear at an event they have no interest in. Of course, the gaming industry needs its own major awards ceremony to solidify its place as a normal, mainstream pastime and at the moment, providing this service is the Spike Video Game Awards. Game of the Year, Character of the Year, Best Downloadble Content, Best Soundtrack, Best Performance by a Human Male and Best Individual Sports Game were some of the many hotly contested categories at the ceremony held on December 11th.

6 December 2010

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - Review

I believe that ‘mild trepidation’ would be the accurate phrase to summarise the general mentality towards Ubisoft’s latest entry into the popular Assassin’s Creed series. Hastily released only a year after Assassin’s Creed 2 with ostensibly little time to work on a new single player campaign and marketing focused on a new multiplayer mode emphasised our fears. Whilst there may not be the same leaps of innovation compared to the previous games; Brotherhood maintains the strong single-player model with enough tweaks to feel fresh. In addition, it incorporates an original and exhilarating multiplayer component, that in absolutely no way, feels tacked on.