Thief 3: Deadly Shadows Review

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(More customer reviews)First thoughts on Thief III, which I played for about 3 hours last night.
Fun, but not quite as fun (so far) as the first two. On my system, it's a little laggy, but that's probably because my video card is about middle/low end, as far as their specs go (NVidia 5500 FX) and I don't have the money to upgrade to the top of the line vid cards they want.Graphics are not as fabulous as I've heard, but again, I've got a middle of the road vid card, and I can live with it.
I dove right in without reading the manual, so of course, the re-mapped weapons keys came as an unpleasant surprise.I had gotten so used to hitting '4' to get my water arrows in the first two games, but that's '8' now.They also swapped the blackjack and sword (dagger) keys, so I kept pulling out the dagger instead of the blackjack.And honestly, I don't miss the sword, but then I never used it in the first two except to cut down wall-hangings.I never kill guards, and only the occasional spiders.But, these key mappings can be easily changed, so I'm not complaining too much.
Pros/Interesting positive changes:
The training mission rocks for getting you up to speed quickly.It explains all the buttons, and many of the changes between this and the first two games in terms of actions and dynamics.
The dynamic lighting is nice.You can now extinguish candles and other lights (but, strangely, not torches) by walking up to them and 'using' them.
I haven't tried out the third-person mode yet."First-person" is not what people traditionally think of as first-person in games - it's just like the camera is mounted on Garrett's forehead.I like it, as it lends a little bit more realism to things - you can look down and see his feet, turn and see his arms.It takes a little getting used to, but I like it.
Garrett seems to comment a lot more in this game too.If you pick up an item and try to put it down in a spot where it won't fit, he'll say "uh-uh".He'll make little quips about locations like he did in the first two, but it seems like there's more of those.
Lock-picking is a lot more involved and a lot of fun so far.
There are pieces of loot that are special - they're worth more than regular loot, and are often figured into the objectives.Loot glint is actually helpful, although I can understand the complaints that it makes things too easy.But at the same time, they made loot and non-loot look a lot more alike in this game, and they still managed to hide some loot in out of the way places where you can't see the glint from normal eye-level.
The City mode is a lot of fun.I already ransacked Garrett's landlord's apartment.Just a word of advice - don't blackjack someone in the middle of the street in front of three witnesses. (*whistle*I hit the wrong button, so sue me.I was trying to pick his pocket)
With a few notable exceptions (see below), the physics are a lot more realistic. Almost everything Garrett touches can be moved - he can knock over chairs, knock swords out of sword racks, push large tables and crates, knock cups and plates onto the floor.On normal difficulty, the guards will come if they hear the noise, but they don't seem to notice things being out of place.I imagine on the higher difficulties, they'll start investigating.
Everyone complains about there not being any swimming and the substitutions of climbing gloves for rope arrows.I haven't missed either so far.The loading zones are mildly annoying, but not too bad - they kind of sub-divide missions into smaller chunks.I really didn't mind them too much.
Nitpicks/Little funny issues:
The bright blue "use" highlight is annoying.I can deal, but it's still annoying.
I miss the briefing movies.There are cutscenes, but when you enter a mission, Garrett just reads the text while it's on the screen.No pretty movies.
The physics of the unconscious/dead bodies is really funny.I blackjacked a guy and he bent over backwards in a position that probably should have left him paralyzed.It's now possible for Garrett to trip over the bodies and make noise.No longer possible to "stack" bodies in quite the same amusing way as the original, although that's probably for the best. (No more setting it up like the servants were messing around....)
I managed to make a guard kill himself - I blackjacked him while he was carrying a torch, and he fell on the torch and died.
There's not really an option to quietly set things down either, which is somewhat annoying.(Maybe there is, but I just couldn't find it?)I picked up a cup up from a table without realizing it wasn't loot (still getting used to the loot glint vs. the bright blue "use" highlight.), and when I hit the button for drop - he literally dropped it, it rolled off the table, clanged onto the floor, and attracted a nearby guard.
Overall: Fun, so far.I still prefer the first two, but then I'm only one mission into this one.It felt like Thief, though, which was the most important thing to me.More later!

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Product Description:
Welcome to the Ultimate Stealth Experience!Product InformationYou are Garrett a Master Thief rarely seen but never caught. Movingsilently through the shadows you are able to sneak past any guard pick anylock break into the most ingeniously secured residences. Stealing fromthe wealthy is all in a night's work.In this intense thriller of murderous conspiracy you must use your stealthtactics to uncover a sinister secret that lies within the city walls. Willyour skills be enough to save the dying city can you survive betrayalassassins and war in the labyrinth of city streets?Product FeaturesTension-fuelled stealth as enemies see and hear track evidence searchfor intruders give chase and fight to the end.A variety of gameplay - Break and Enter Steal Combat Ambush andAssassinate.A huge arsenal of Thieves' Tools at your disposal: Mechanical Eye FlashBombs Fire Arrows Wall Climbing Gloves to name but a few.Fully supported 1st and 3rd person perspective - it's your choice!Darkness is your weapon; conceal your presence sneak silently past guardsand strike from the shadows.Windows RequirementsWindows 2000 XP Vista1.5GHz processor256 MB of RAM3 GB Hard Disk spaceSupported graphics chipsets: ATi – Radeon 8500 Radeon 9 Series (90009200 9600 9800); nVidia – GeForce 3Ti Series GeForce 4Ti SeriesGeForce FX Series GeForce 6 Series. Graphics card must support Pixel Shader1.1. Unsupported graphics chipsets: nVidia – GeForce 4MX (460 440 420)GeForce 4 GO Quadro FX GO nForce 2 nForce 3DirectX 9.0b compatibleSound Card (minimum); EAX Advanced HDsupported – requires Sound Blaster Audigy range of Sound CardsDVD-ROM drive

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Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines Review

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(More customer reviews)Bloodlines for the PSP manages to bring some of the experiences of ACII to the portable while also bringing some of ACI's hangups.

This game was created as a bridge from part I to part II with Altair now the head of the Assassins and his quest to hunt down the remaining Templars. Along with this bridge comes with the ability to transfer some of the unlockables found on the PSP to the PS3.

SOme of the pluses are like the PS3 version, you get a variety of missions to run thru as you complete your quest. Also, the climbing and combat controls handle similar to the PS3.

Some of the minuses are sometimes the AI can be overly aggressive and overly sensitive as you walk around and you can find yourself in a fight with 5 or 6 gaurds almost for no reason. Also, the colors look a bit more washed out and it makes it hard to see sometimes where to climb, on the flipside of that, for the processing power of the PSP, the game does look impressive. Lastly in quests where there is a time limit, some become almost impossible to finish with the controls and orienting yourself to your goal which seems so far away.

The voice acting is a mixed bag whereas after having a modern day accent on the first game, Altair has a middle eastern one here. Also it really helps that you have played the first one to understand that this is a simulation as the PSP version has so far made no mention of Desmond or his modern day issues as of yet.

On a scale of 1to 5 I give it 3 stars

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Product Description:
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines on PSP is the first Assassin's Creed game on the PSP. It follows the story of Altair right after the events of Assassin's Creed as Altair tracks down the last Templars who fled the Holy Land and retreated to the Island of Cyprus.


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Assassins Creed II Review

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(More customer reviews)Assassins Creed 2 - Circa 2009

GOOD:
- A good story mixes elements of historical fiction and a Sci-Fi epic.
- Really impressive graphics and first-rate animations, that looks just as good as games like Uncharted 2 on PS3 and Gears of War 2 on 360.
- The game world is even bigger then the last one (it really rivals games like Fallout 3) also IF taking a horse across the land still takes too long some times don't worry there are warp points now as well.
- In the first Assassin's Creed there was about 5 different mission types (chase someone, pickpocket someone, save someone from getting beat up, spy on targets, and then stealth kill, ect) in Assassin's Creed 2 there is like 15 different mission types now from all out battles, trailing a targets, beating up unfaithful husbands and lots of different types of stealth killing also all the old types in Assassins Creed 1 are here as well.
- You have a better opportunity to be a more cunning assassin now due to newer weapons, techniques, and skills.
- You can now swim, no more letting water be your foe heck you can even drive gondolas if you wanted.
- like the first title this one has great sound track too that mixes music of the era during the clam points of the game and more modern type of music during the chase points of the game.BAD:
- Some small problems from the first are still there - although they are a lot more minor now like some times roof top running (parkour) can be a tad sloppy in a tense situations and you'll get killed (small camera problems). (I didn't really see this in my play through but some people have told me it happens so I am letting you know here)
- Losing that cool sword: you have the ability to disarm enemies and kill them with their own weapons now (this never gets old) - BUT - you also drop you own original sword in the process making you having to dig among the bodies to find it again and hope it's not lost. ::UPDATE:: I put this wrong it seems, you never lose your weapons when doing a disarm attack (it yes it never gets old); you only seem to lose your weapon when a stronger enemy (usually a knight in a suit of armor) knocks it outta your hand, and this is still a bit rare. Then you would have to find your weapon though or pick up a new one later.
- Too much Money? When you first start the game money is a bit hard to come by and weapons/armor are pretty expensive, while this can be a bit frustrating at first it builds gameplay and gives you goals outside of the missions to work towards. Now after you play for few hours and missions give you better pay and you fully upgrade your villa/town (this will automatically give you tons of free money; sorta like owning property in Fable 2 or GTA: Vice City) money becomes a non issue. Then getting paid at the end of missions seems pointless as well as doing Templar Secret location missions, which while fun, the entire point is to find a treasure room for yet more now pointless money. Anyways a few hours into the game and the in-game economy is broken to the point were you feel they should have done like Assassins Creed 1 and never had in-game money and just give you all your weapons/items based on mission progress.IF IT FITS YOUR TASTE:
- A Stealth/action game set during the late 15th century and early 16th Italian Renaissance. You play as a man who becomes an Assassin in order to carry out revenge of his family.
- You spend more time in the Animus and less time as Desmond over all.
- The control is broken down mainly into two areas of gameplay there is a passive action and an aggressive action to almost everything you can do in the game. For example you can lightly tap people to move out of your way while walking down crowed the street (hold the B button to do this) or shove people as you run down that same street (hold the R button and the B button to do this). This duality applies to all your actions and it becomes necessary because during the game you must be able to move freely between these two states (passive and aggressive) to run and then hide from people the out to get you as well as to sneak up on and kill your victims.
- You can now hire help like as body guards to protect with you might or street-walkers to use their bodies to distract armed guards.
- Lot of what you will be doing is climbing and jumping from buildings this plays similar to the Prince of Persia games also made by ubisoft (the sands of time series). Although in this game the controls are more streamlined and user friendly as you can climb way more effectively as well as more realistically (even more then the first game).
- In the first game most of the gameplay is not so much assassinating people but gathering Intel on your targets. This game retains some of that but expands on the concept so much you'll never think you're doing busy work (like the first) and you have a lot more big kill targets as well.
- Combat has been refined by adding things like hammers, clubs, smoke bombs, and the hidden (now dual) assassin blades of course, plus you can steal enemies' weapons and use it against them too. The combat has a bit more over all intelligent flow from the first game, although it builds on that idea.
- Mix up you clothing colors by buy buying dyes for you outfit (in colors like red, green, and black) as well as unlocking new capes for your character. Also buy things like health potions, poisons, new weapons, new armor, and even treasure maps and famous paintings for your villa.
- You even get a villa (which is basically works like a small personal town) which you can upgrade by renting out space to local store owners and then getting goods (the main house seems to be the only place you can swap weapons and armor apparently).

GAME ITS MOST ASSOCATED TOO:
- Assassins Creed (360/PS3/PC)
- Grand Theft Auto 4 (360/PS3)
- HitMan: Blood Money (360)
- Prince of Persia (Xbox/PS2)
- Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- Ezio the star of Assassins Creed 2 is related to Alta?r of the first game and Desmond is related to both of them
- Assassin's Creed: Lineage, a small set of mini movies (with real actors and CG effects) telling the story leading up to Assassins Creed 2 about Ezio's father (who was also an Assassin). These movies are made by Ubisoft and are found on the internet for free - so go see them.
- Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (starting Alta?r of the first game) is a PSP game with Connectivity with the PS3 version of this game that can unlock six exclusive and unique weapons in Assassins Creed 2.
- The game skips chapters 12 and 13 - These chapters come in as two downloads for this game. One called The Battle of Forl

Puzzle Quest 2 Review

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(More customer reviews)Preface:I played Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on PSP from start to finish, and I loved it.I couldn't put it down.I was hooked.I saw little colored gems matching up when I shut my eyes.I consider it one of the best games available.I also played PQ: Galactrix on Nintendo DS from start to finish.It was a painful experience that I don't wish to speak of any further.

Quick Impression of PQ2

Loved:The game sticks to the match 3/4/5 with hybrid RPG elements style of Puzzle Quest 1.It's not like Galactrix.New classes with emphasis on different play styles.Fun minigames that don't interfere with progression.Deeper character customization.No loading times.Silky smooth autosave that doesn't interrupt the flow of the game.Spot-on touch screen controls.Just as addictive as PQ1, if not more so!

Hated:No d-pad or button support.Would like to take a break from using the stylus sometimes.Boring music, not as catchy as PQ1.Subpar audio quality.Sparse but unnecessary voice acting.Difficult to focus on what is happening on top screen while matching gems on the bottom.Would have preferred this game to be released on PSP (if you played PQ1 on PSP, you know what I'm talking about).So addictive, I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome again.

Bottom line:A must-have for any puzzle/RPG fan, and well worth the price of admission for those who are doubting the price point.You'll get dozens if not hundreds of hours of playtime with great replay value, all in a portable format that goes with you anywhere.Just don't get so addicted that you stop showing up for work.

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Product Description:
Puzzle Quest 2 marks the return of the world's leading puzzle adventure series and its trademark blend of match 3 gem-based gameplay and fantasy role playing. Rewarding and accessible for all levels of gamer, it is the ultimate delivery system for the mental escape that puzzle gamers seek.

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