I just punched God into the sun with my hair. This game (Bayonetta) is nuts. Also, awesome. Also, completed.
Lots of other new games added to the list (and crossed off!) since last I deigned to show my face ’round these parts… Perhaps I shall discuss them!
Holiday haul netted me Batman: Arkham Asylum, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Separately, I also picked up Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, and Demon’s Souls: Where’s My Freakin’ Subtitle?
So far, all but Demon’s Souls have also been crossed off the list, as well as Valkyria Chronicles, which had been stubbornly holding on since last winter. It was actually one of those situations where the game was good enough that I didn’t really want it to end so as I came to the close, I kinda set it down and went on to other games. Same sorta thing happened to me with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Final Fantasy XII.
Speaking of fantasies final, I picked up Dissidia: Final Fantasy over the summer when it came out (it’s not on the list since it’s not really a plot-driven game, although I have defeated Chaos a few times with various heroes), and it sent me on a total FF kick. Unfortunately, it didn’t really do what I needed it to. Rather than spurring me on to complete Final Fantasy IV on the DS (which it did drive me back to playing for a short while, although I had to start my game over for lack of remembering WTF I was doing), or driving me to finish Final Fantasy X-2 (which I did fire up again, only to be truly disgusted with the voice acting, music, “plot,” setting, theme, and just overall tone of the game… although godDAMN does it have a fun battle system)… No, instead of sending me down a productive path (in the sense of knocking some stuff off this list), it kindled a nostalgia for Final Fantasy IX, XI, and XII. Now, IX was an incredible game, and is locked in a death struggle with XII to be my second favorite of all time (Final Fantasy VI is perched safely atop that particular mountain… fired it up via Anthology while I was on this FF bender, too, but that’s neither here nor there), but I’ve already completed it, well before this project had even begun. XII suffers the same problem… I’ve already finished it (as seen in The List… XII didn’t get completed until this project was underway), so while playing it again would certainly be fun, I’d feel a little bad (just a little… I’ve obviously not got too big of qualms about ignoring this thing for months on end ;)
Final Fantasy XI, though… Okay… I picked it up back in The Day when it came out. And it was awesome. Like, totally awesome, as in I’m not sure I remembered a time (at the time) when I’d found a game quite as awesome. Loved the graphics, loved the art design, loved the setting, LOVED the job system… it was just fantastic all around. Too fantastic. I ended up spending all my free time playing it. I’m sure there’s some World of Warcraft addict reading this right now, nodding his/her head and thinking “I feel ya.” And aside from the fact that I was losing all outside contact to the game, I was hitting a point where the actual playing wasn’t really fun anymore… I usually prefer to be able to solo in MMOs (yeah, yeah, missing the point, etc, but if I’m paying a subscription fee, I shouldn’t have to waste hours waiting for someone else to validate my playtime by stooping to joining a party with me, but that’s going off on a tangent), but FFXI absolutely demands grouping at a pretty early point in its character progression. I finally decided that between the lack of life outside the game and the annoyance of dealing with grouping in the game that it was time to quit, so I did. Skip ahead a few years now to last fall, and I’m going through that massive Final Fantasy bender, and thoughts of XI take root in my head… They grow and grow and just won’t go away until finally I couldn’t take it any longer, I grabbed the 14-day free trial (new email address, credit card, and address since I last played means they’ve got no idea I’d already been a subscriber before), soloed for 2 weeks (the game’s become much more solo-friendly in my absence), and then had to fight the urge to actually subscribe once it was over. I succeeded, though, although the release of the Final Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection at EXACTLY the same time was really not helpful (nor was Steam’s discounting it during the holidays). Anyway, this is all just to take up space say that I kinda dodged a bullet there, as if I HAD fallen back to XI, I kinda doubt I’d be posting here at all, even as late as this.
I probably will end up going back and playing some XII again at some point in the near future, though. The impending release of Final Fantasy XIII is making me think back to the last entry and just how good it was. Probably won’t be able to resist that for long.
Alright, so let’s get back on topic here. Batman: Arkham Asylum. Great game. We need more games like this, in the 3rd-person Metroidvania milieu. Everything that everyone has said about it truly being a Batman simulator is exactly right. Not really sure I can add anything more to the discussion of this game than what’s already been said, so on to…
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Another great game, and although it’s taken some hits for not really bringing enough new to the series, I would argue that a series that’s been honed as finely as R&C has doesn’t really NEED too much new brought to the party with each iteration. The Clank puzzles were pretty fun and there was just the right amount of them. I could see an entire game built around the mechanic getting annoying very quickly (sorry, Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom… your demo was fun and your aesthetic is right up my alley, but I can’t help but think you’re gonna run out of good times pretty early on), but A Crack in Time moved away from them just as I was starting to tire of it.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Gorgeous. Just a stunningly beautiful game. Only wish it were on the 360 or the PS3, as it took absolutely NO advantage of the Wii hardware, and would look about a hojillion times better in HD than it already does in SD (which is truly saying something as it’s already jaw-dropping as it is). Gameplay’s pretty fun, too… feels very vaguely like Metroidvania-lite, and you all know my penchant for Metroidvanias. Played this one through all three endings with both characters… just couldn’t get enough. It also gave me a taste to go back and try again on Odin Sphere, being by the same developer and having a similar graphic style what with the hand-painted 2D look and all. I dug Odin Sphere back out of my closet after finishing Muramasa, but I haven’t yet fired it up, so we’ll see how that goes…
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. I’m not always the best at puzzle games. Timers tend to annoy me rather than instill a sense of urgency and thus fun. I DO like RPGs, though. So when Infinite Interactive released Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords a couple years back, I snatched it up and found it awesome. (I also grabbed Puzzle Quest: Galactrix upon its release, which was decidedly less awesome, but still had its moments, but I digress). Clash of Heroes falls firmly in the puzzle/RPG genre that Infinite Interactive started… It’s a ton of fun, with a puzzle mechanic I haven’t come across before. Not really a whole lot more I can think to say about it… Could’ve used a bit more single-player, I suppose, but whatever… I’m not really complaining.
Demon’s Souls. Ah, Demon’s Souls, the big gamer bogeyman of 2009. Everyone tried to scare each other with tales of its difficulty and how harsh is the penalty for dying in it, etc., etc. Well, everyone’s right. It’s really tough, and when you die, it gets tougher. But it’s also a LOT of fun, and if you’re careful and methodical, the difficulty is more than manageable. Now, keep in mind, I haven’t finished it yet, and in fact, I’m not even super far into it, but I have taken out three bosses or so, and really only had trouble with one of them. Big recommendation on this one.
Bayonetta. And so we end where we began. Bayonetta is a weird game. Like, super weird. As my wife put it, it looks like it was designed by either 13-year-old boys, or drag queens. Possibly both. But hell, the weirdness is the point. Well, that and the awesome combat (even if it did take me until the second-to-last chapter to figure out how to change my weapons).
One Hundred Percent Completion 
What, no Dragon Age? Mass Effect 2? Borderlands? Bioshock 2? I just finished ME 2 last night and haven’t yet decided what’s next. I probably should finally finish Batman, I guess, but I also want to pick up Assassins Creed 2 and Bioshock 2.
Also, so bored with Final Fantasy. X put me off of it forever.
Well, keeping to just console games for the blog here. Got myself stuck (interest-wise, rather than gameplay-wise) in Orgrimmar in Dragon Age… stupid boring dwarves :( Borderlands I’ve also got on PC (despite the crap UI). Bioshock 2 I’ll probably get on Xbox eventually since I want to avoid the SecuROM BS as much as possible, and from what I can tell, even the Steam version has it, which is some of the stupidest crap I’ve ever heard of. Mass Effect 2 I want on PC, but I went and bought the original on Xbox like a sucka, so I won’t be able to transfer my saved game over… still working on a solution to that one, so I’ve held off it in the meantime.
And as for Final Fantasy… X sucked, no question about it. I mean, it was no VIII (now THAT was a real turd), but it was an annoying setting with annoying characters, bad voice acting… the battle system was okay (and I recall liking it in what I got through of LotR: The Third Age, even though that was also kind of a let-down of a game), but that was about it. X-2, like I mentioned, was a truly embarassing game — painfully so — but had probably one of the best battle systems in the series… to this day I still wish that XI had been done as a single-player game set in Vana’Diel (XI‘s world) using X-2‘s battle system, but oh well…
Point being, XII was freakin’ FANTASTIC and you should play it immediately… It dropped the whole teen-angst thing from VIII and X, it dropped the whole new age-y mother earth crap from VII, it feels like Star Wars (the originals, not the prequels) at times, it’s got the best character in a Final Fantasy since, hell, I dunno when there was last a character as cool as Balthier. It’s a big involved political sorta storyline, rather than the “OMG, WE GOTSTA SAVE THE WORLD, YOU GUYS!” sorta thing that the series normally goes in for. Monsters are out on the map, rather than being random encounters with a separate battle screen, the gambit system is pretty slick, although if you wanna micromanage, you can do so (you’ll probably complain about the gambits, though, since you’ve gotta buy/find different ones rather than just having access to ’em all like in Dragon Age). Anyway, it’s $20 on Amazon… you’d be silly not to give it a shot just because X left a sour taste in your mouth… Did you miss out on IX because VIII sucked donkey balls?
You and your Xbox hate. Bleh. I can almost understand Dragon Age on PC, since it lets you play with a more Baldur’s Gate-style viewpoint compared to the consoles’ KOTOR-style over-the-shoulder view, but the rest? Meh. Also, Batman is better on 360 despite the PS3 having the Joker as a playable character.
ME2 was pretty awesome, and by importing a character I got a “free” achievement without having to play through twice (“long service” award — with import, all achievements are available with a single play through as long as you’re willing to put up with the BS that is Insanity difficulty — I’m not).
Final Fantasy-wise, I liked VIII (yeah, sue me — it was much better than the retardation of VII). I played IX, though I never got around to beating either of them. I picked up X when I got my PS2 and promptly decided FF was for tards. (WTF was with Meg Ryan as the lead character?) I enjoyed Tactics Advance, though A2 wasn’t as good. Otherwise, I’m done with FF. Also, even if I cared to try XII, I’m never going to play it. My PS2 is retired (no idea where it even is at the moment) and my PS3 doesn’t do PS2 BC (yeah, I know, I bought one of the retarded models — I’m still hoping Sony will get off their ass and do software emulation like Xbox did, but I know it’ll never happen).
FF up through VI was good. VIII was decent and IX was a failed attempt at regaining the glory of VI. However since VII the series has just become a weeaboo wankfest. Maybe I’m just over JRPGs. I much prefer the Bioware and Bethesda stuff.
Batman is best on PC. Don’t get me wrong, got nothing against consoles (got all 3 current gen), but high res graphics, PhysX, and GFWL achievements equals win. Hell, play it again on pc and get double the achievement points. Kinda funny that the only game on my gamerscore to have the full 1000 points is actually a pc game.
Oh yeah, and speaking of metroidvanias, you *MUST* play Shadow Complex (XBLA). Ignore the fact that it’s based on Mormon Scott Card’s right-wing fellating Empire books (sad — I liked his earlier works like the Ender books, before he went all retarded). The gameplay is pure metroidvania with a minor twist on gun control (aim “into” the screen to hit enemies on the z-axis). In true metroidvania style, you can run through the game in a matter of hours, or much longer if you want to track down every missile upgrade for the 100% achievement. But if you claim to love metroidvanias (and I know you do), you can’t *NOT* play this game.
Blarg! Dunno how this comment slipped past me, but I didn’t see it until now… Anyway, please to be checking my Gamercard… I’m all up on that Shadow Complex. Didn’t pick it up when it came out in the summer, but that’s because I was in the midst of my second RRoD (for which I was out of warranty and didn’t feel like spending $100 to get it fixed). As soon as I picked up my replacement machine (grabbed a new Arcade to hopefully get the revised hardware that should be less RRoD-prone, but I’m going off on a tangent again…) first thing I did was to grab SC, and you’re right, it’s pretty freakin’ sweet. Only problem I found is that it got me REALLY itching for more of its ilk, which is still a criminally under-represented genre. Just read up on Metroid: Other M on Joystiq, as they just did a hands-on preview… can’t wait to get my hands on it, now…
It wasn’t on your list here, so I figured your current Xbox hate prevented you from playing it :)
Nope, nothing of the sort… I haven’t ever explicitly stated it on here, but I’m kinda keeping an unspoken guideline of no download-only titles on the List… not entirely certain why, but it just didn’t seem like they should go on here (thus Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty isn’t up here either).
And as for the Xbox hate, it’s nothin’ it hasn’t brought upon itself! Went for a few months without it due to that previously-mentioned second RRoD, and didn’t really find myself missing it (except for that hankerin’ for Shadow Complex)… you admitted yourself that Dragon Age is better on PC. Aside from being a better way to control a game like that, the PC’s supposed to have better graphics (seems like everyone who’s been bitching about the poor visuals in that game is playing on the consoles). Mass Effect 2 is supposed to be better all around on PC, as well (although I assume it’d be a less drastic difference between the two than that of Dragon Age, at least on the PC version you won’t have a disc swap). Not really sure what other Xbox hate I’ve shown, but I’m sure it was warranted! ;)
The disc swap was pretty benign. They set it up that you only have to swap twice, and with install to hard drive it’s not like it really mattered all that much (yes, the discs still have to swap). Given Bioware’s formulaic approach to games, the swap was pretty natural. Every game of theirs since KOTOR goes something like: linear “introduction”, big thing happens, branch out to multiple parallel things, narrow back down to linear for the finale. ME2 swapped to disc 2 for the parallel branch, and back to disc 1 for the finale. You did not need to continually swap discs as you moved back and forth between planetary systems.
While I appreciate that DA was probably better on PC, I still very much enjoyed the game on Xbox and am completely happy with that decision. In fact I might need to play through it again, since I’m out of games at the moment.
Well, hell! That pretty much changes everything… I was thinking it was a Baldur’s Gate sorta thing where different locations were on different discs and I’d have to be getting up and swapping discs every 15 minutes. Now I probably will get it on Xbox so I don’t have to try to find a cheap copy of ME1 on the PC and play through it again to get a saved game I’m satisfied with. Gonna need that playing time with Final Fantasy XIII and Infinite Space right around the corner…
And if you’re outta games, check out Bayonetta… it’s freakin’ crazy, but a ton of fun. Or track down your PS2 and grab a copy of FFXII. After bringing it up in the comments earlier, I had to throw it back in myself… such an awesome game.
I thought the interbutts had come up with a solution to the ME2 import by having repositories of ME1 saved games where you can choose things like love interests and other spoilery bits? I think they may have set it up such that some quests are on one disc or the other, and some are on both. Just playing through the game as a paragon, going through every mission, it naturally led me to only the two disc swaps I mentioned previously. It’s probably possible to play in such a non-linear fashion that you end up having to swap a couple more times, but it’s definitely not Baldur’s Gate-y.
Not going back for FFXII. I’m done with FF :). I’ve been considering Bayonetta, but it just seems … odd. It seems like Ninja Gaiden with breasts, which is cool and all but I sucked terribly at the 3D Ninja Gaidens and don’t really feel like punishing myself. Instead, I’m going to pick up either Assassin’s Creed 2 or Bioshock 2. Not sure which yet, and I’ll get both eventually, but I’m trying to limit myself to one game at a time (music games excepted, since I picked up DJ Hero a couple weeks ago :).
BTW, comment threading is b0rked.
Yes. Yes it is.
Yeah, I’d read the same thing about some sort of saved-game ark floating around the tubertron distributing alternate realities to all and sundry… but when I looked, I couldn’t find. Also, you don’t get to customize the appearance and name of your Shepard that way. Not that I even remember what mine was called or looked like but I certainly don’t wanna play someone else’s. That’s gross. (On a side note, stupid Bioware games forcing surnames onto my characters these days! How am I supposed to play Turd Ferguson in their RPGs if they insist on making me a Shepard or a Cousland?!)
With Bayonetta, think of it more as Devil May Cry with breasts… not that I’ve played enough of DMC (or Ninja Gaiden, for that matter) to say with certainty, but it’s really not all that difficult. There are definitely parts that knocked me around a bit, and I really got kinda crappy ratings overall (after each chapter you’re awarded a statue that ranges from Stone (crap) up to Platinum… I’d say I probably got 5/6 Stone), but as far as getting through the game, you won’t have any trouble. They’ve even got it set up with checkpoints during boss fights (which can be pretty lengthy at times) so if you get hosed you don’t have to start all the way from the beginning. I assume you’ve already done so, but if not, check out the demo… if you dig the combat (and can deal with the pretty-much-entirely-godawful music), then go for it… difficulty shouldn’t be a deterrent with this one.
http://www.masseffectsaves.com/
Get on it. ME2 is gonna be hard pressed to not be goty. Beat it 3 times so far. Disc swapping is for tools, thats why I got it on pc.
Dragon Age on pc is worth it just for the high rez mod, let alone all the other mods i run. Still haven’t beat it though. Too much COD and Battlefield BC beta.
FF 12 was cool, but I got bored halfway through and never finished, mostly cause it looked like ass even though it was uprezzed on my ps3. I have almost zero interest in ff13, especially with the reviews saying its super linear and no world map at all.
I bought so many games during steam’s holiday sales and weekend deals that I’m glad I don’t have a list like yours to make me realize how many games I have yet to get to.
One last thing. No love for AvP? Great f’n game.
So is there any way to hack into the save files to change character names or anything? I know it’s a small thing, but playing with someone else’s named character just feels weird. Gotta be honest, I don’t even remember what I named my guy (or what he looks like, or even the majority of what he did…) but I still wanna play in the world I built, y’know? I can’t even imagine Dragon Age on the consoles… no top-down view at all? Trying to play a game like this solely from the in-close view just sounds wretched. Not to mention the lack of being able to pause and issue commands to all allies at once. Bleh.
You, too, need to get back on FFXII, as it is awesome. Dunno what you’re jibba-jabba’in’ about it looking like ass, though. I was just thinking to myself while playing it the other day that it looks damn fine for a PS2 game. Obviously it’s not gonna hold a candle to most current-gen games, but allowing it some leeway for being on the PS2, I’d say that only God of War II might give it a run for its money, and even that would be pretty close (although, to be fair, I haven’t finished GoWII yet, so I haven’t seen everything it’s got in its bag of tricks).
As far as FFXIII goes, I was totally ready to write it off when they announced it and when pics started coming out, since it’s the sorta futuristic setting that I didn’t like from VIII, it’s got no music at all from Nobuo Uematsu (not even a song or two like he contributed to X–XII), it’s Tetsuya Nomura character design which I tend to detest… It’s like they put together a committee to discuss what exactly it is about Final Fantasy that I, specifically don’t like, then built the game around all that. But then I started reading about it and looking at it lately, and now I’m way more excited than I probably should be. The setting can work if used right… XII, for example, was kinda futuristic what with the fleets of airships battling (everything from fighter-style single-pilot airships up to capital ships… awesome!), but the adventuring and whatnot still felt very fantasy, so it was alright. The music I’m kinda worried about, but as long as they don’t royally screw the pooch, I can deal with not-Uematsu quality (at least they didn’t get the turds who did X-2 for it). And as far as the character design goes, there’s only one character that looks like a complete douchebag (Snow), which is a huge step forward for Nomura. Add to all that a battle system that apparently is heavily influenced by X-2 (which I mentioned in an earlier comment here was a stupidly fun battle system and I’ve been wishing since it came out that it was attached to a less embarassing game), and I’m on board.
I was trying to keep away from AvP to avoid sullying my memories of the original from back in The Day… Probably should pick up the demo, I suppose, but then I’m sure it’ll grab me (like a facehugger!) and then I’ll be doomed to spending another $50 that might be better spent elsewhere.
There’s a tutorial to rename your shepard on masseffectsaves.com, but I wouldn’t bother. It has absolutely no affect on the game except when you are switching career save games. Just have to do some hex editing if you want to though. Seriously though, ME2 is outstanding, and well worth playing no matter where you get it.
For a ps2 game ff12 is decent, but all the jagged edges just turned me off it. I got halfway through but have no desire to go back. There are few jrpgs or even japanese games in general that I have any urge to play anymore. I’ll take a Bioware or Bethesda rpg over a jrpg anytime. I don’t want to play as a teenager or some weird, spiky haired shemale anymore. Also, whats the point of an inventory system if your characters appearance doesnt change when you get Phat Loot? Until some Japanese game comes along and really innovates, I’m done (‘cept for Nintendo’s quality first party shiz).
AvP was great, but really benefits from dx11. No point getting it til you upgrade. Then you can pick it up cheap.
Yeah, I know the name doesn’t affect anything, since with western RPGs like this everybody just happens to not EVER say the name of your character (or only calls you by your last name in the ones where that gets assigned to you), but it makes me feel better. Guess maybe I’ll go with PC after all (cheaper that way, after all). Whatever, either way I’m probably holding off for a bit with FFXIII coming out next week, even if you guys aren’t diggin’ it, I’m excited for it :)
Oh, and as far as Japanese games that don’t star fetuses with improbable hair, check out Demon’s Souls. Armor and weapons change on your character model in accordance with teh phat l00tz0rz. it’s got a western fantasy aesthetic to it, rather than the crazy flashy anime eastern style. Not necessarily as open-ended as an Oblivion or a Dragon Age, but after a short bit at the beginning, you get to proceed through any of five (I think) worlds as you choose. Each world is one gigantic continuous level, but there are checkpoints after each boss so that when you’re in the Nexus (central hub area) you can skip straight to a checkpoint rather than slogging through all the monsters in the level again and again. Completely real-time battle, VERY much skill-based rather than stat-based. Word on the webbernet is that, given an appropriate amount of skill at the game, you can beat it at level 1, although I must admit, the thought of even trying that makes me want to throw up a little bit. It’s kind of an odd mix of western and eastern styles, but a lot of fun. I’m sure you’ve read all about how difficult and punishing it is and whatnot, but that’s BS so far, I’ve found. There are absolutely tough parts, but mostly that’s been boss fights, as being careful (and paying attention to the notes other players leave) will usually get you through the levels pretty safely. Think of it like a real-time roguelike with nice graphics… that’s pretty much what sold me on it (and to be honest, really makes me want an actual roguelike version of it).
Meh. I gave in and bought AC2 today. That should tide me over for a while.
Blah. Skipped the first one, don’t really care about the second one. Probably should, since AC2‘s supposed to be pretty good, but I’d have to play through the (by all accounts) boring-ass AC1 to get the story first. Similar problem to what I’m having with the PS2-era Prince of Persias. The first one was great, but the second one kinda sucks, so while the third one’s supposed to be pretty good again, I’m hung up on Warrior Within because I feel compelled to get the full story.
Anyway, AC2… IF I pick it up, I’ll show it the Xbox love, what with Ubisoft’s horrible DRM experiment happening with it on PC.
PC vs. Xbox: I don’t have a gaming PC anymore, so I don’t play on PC. The PC I have hooked to my TV could possibly work, though I’d need a better video card than a GTX220. Also, it’s my media/tv PC, so I don’t want to play games on it. Not really comfortable to use a kb/mouse from the couch, though I guess many PC games support the 360 controller these days.
ME2: Awesome, but saw no need to play it more than once. All of the achievements are accessible with a single play-through as long as you have an imported character (and you don’t mind playing on Insanity), so with a little diligence you don’t need more than one run. I got all but six of the achievements (no insanity, none of the biotic/tech-specific stuff, and one or two others), mostly because I didn’t really care.
DA:O: Mods are nice and all, but I never use them on my first play through, and I don’t usually do a second play through. Thus I played Oblivion on Xbox and had just as much fun without mods, just as I played DA:O, ME1&2, etc.
AvP: I’ve heard really bad reviews, and I’d be buying it on 360 anyway so I wouldn’t benefit from DX11. I have found memories of AvP2000 (which was really launched in 1999), despite the fact that I sucked horribly at it and never got past the first marine level. I might pick this up when it gets cheap, though by then multiplayer will be dead and defeat half the point in buying it.
Still need to pick up COD:MW2, though considering I didn’t actually finish MW1 until last september or so, I don’t really feel a pressing need for it. AC2 and then Bioshock 2 should hold me over until the Halo Reach beta launches.
Stupid commenting.
Assassin’s Creed: The 1st one was pretty good. The missions did get a little repetitive (kill three guys in order to get access to the last guy to kill to finish the mission), but it wasn’t all that long of a game if you didn’t bother hunting down templars, flags, etc. I highly recommend picking it up just for the gameplay. The parkour-inspired climbing was really well-down (compared to something like Mirror’s Edge). I’m not really far enough in AC2 yet to make an opinion, but the control is still top-notch.
Prince of Persia: Like you, I gave up on the original new trilogy with Warrior Within. I enjoyed the running and climbing and exploring much more than the fighting, so the focus on fighting in #2 just ruined it for me. However the first game in the new new trilogy (creatively titled “Prince of Persia”) was really good. It focused much more on the exploring aspect again, with fights seeming more like rock-paper-scissors rather than the old style of fighting. The sequel should be out this year (Ubi is alternating AC and PoP, so AC1 in 07, PoP in 08, AC2 in 09, PoP2 in 10, etc).