It's been a while since PS4 and Xbone announcement, since that we have faced one the most customer unfriendly marketing in history of consoles. First off... Sony. They approached us with promises of new era, new quality new way to play. Of course we expected technological step forward and large improvements over some annoying issues we facing playing all different types of games: stupid AI, limited-open world in RPGs, and finally graphics glitches/poor textures/character animations.

Soon enough we found out not much will change in those matters. Graphics will be a little better, AI not that smarter, and open world will not be that open. What's the problem than? Is it hardware fault? Or is it just designers being lazy? Why we it is so hard do design games with so fantastic, moody and beautiful SP campaigns like in Half-Life, Bioshock, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda... Or why so few MP games are so fantastic as Team Fortress? Is it a hardware problem that game developers are unable to attach good story to games they producing? Why so few games are telling a good story like Dead Space or Shadow of Colossus? One thing is certain: new hardware will not change the way developers are thinking. And unfortunately they mostly think like Infinity Ward: "Just name it CoD and it will sell".

So Sony just blown out of proportion what it is that they are brining to the consumers table with a new hardware. Marketing in it's pure form. But what Microsoft did made doubt they actually care at all about their customers. We will probably never find out why they made such drastic policy change: was it they strategy or just stupidity? But this is really not an issue. What bothers me is what they have showed despite such low, actually embarrassingly low, level of professionalism during their conference. MS basically said that they just not want us to think that Sony is ahead... Well they showed hardware that can barely do what it spoused to do and that they actually have little to say about gaming on this platform. This is sad... Launch titles like Forza? oh dear Lord they really mean business! In addition Xbone ships with mandatory Kinect. What made me laugh is MS statements like that: "Xone was in development for over 10 years"... So they was designing XOne before 360 came around?

After that and news about how slow comparing to PS4 Xbone is I expected that this will be a total catastrophe... It turns out it isn't. This will remain a great mystery to me: how come that product slower, less customer-friendly can sell equally as one with much better characteristics but a little less aggressive on marketing? Should marketing be a fifth estate? What is it that you will not buy if not for commercials?

New consoles will not bring new quality. It will bring a little better quality of what we already have. If developers will not start to respect gamers no new hardware will help designing better games. It's sad how AC:3, CoD:BO, BF3 became such well-selling games when at the same time those games made painfully little effort to make gaming experience better. AC: buggy, to much bout collecting things, worst ending in history... BF3: SP is a total cr*p, MP maps are bugy, MP is mostly about getting enemies team choked in their base ("brilliant" maps design)... CoD:BO: been there done that (about 20 times before), easy and short SP, MP is for no-lives. Where are games where I can ply with my buddies on split screen? Why only CoD series have split screen modes? Truth that most games are not worth of our money, thou we still are playing them...

Last time I've checked reviews was made to guide gamers, to allow consumers to choose right product (in this case it is a game). But what I came to realize is that reviews are very rarely made by group of people. Usually it's one guy from a team of reviewers who is playing the game for few minutes and right after he is making a review. Such reviews are usually not only bad in term of content bud also in terms of score. Why making a review then? For what? What good is a review of a game, car, TV, that you barely used? Can such review contain the most important details about the subject or does it only contain what reviewer just happened to write without having even minute to think of what he have wrote?

            First, very strong example of such shallow review was the one for CoD: BO. Game scored 9.0 and I couldnt finish it. It was so painfully linear, therefore easy, therefore dull, that after like 10th slow-motion cutscene I just dropped SP and I went to MP. Well There again I was frustrated as this MP is made for no-lives that do nothing else that play online to hunt people like me. This, for me is a determinant for MP: whether or not normal people can play it. For example in MP like in Battlefield Bad Company, or Killzone I managed to finish more than few time on the top of a list. In CoD as well as in Halo I couldnt. Why? Im no PRO, thats for sure, but I do like games that require bit more than knowledge of every single bug on the map and snipers reflexes I do like tactics, bit of sneaking, goals different than just kill them all etc. But this game was all about how good you know respawn points, therefore how good you know the map... 
            So what was so 9.0 about this game? Story? Gameplay mechanics? Graphics? MP? I found all of those on rather average level. Nothing worth 9.0. So why such high score? Who played it and for how long that he/she gave it score that good?

             Than I have played 9.5 game: Red Dead Redemption. What was so great about this game? I still cant find out. I did try twice. But this game simply disappointed me badly. Story is so dull that its hard to explain. Gameplay is so painfully monotonous that after 15h I started to think (seriously) that I got the wrong game, since this one scored 9.5... But the only thing I do is shoot guys in a head with no need to take cover (I have died only about 3 times. I was killed Twice by a bear). There is only one type of enemies! ONE! What the hell? There is no story whatsoever (well there is this guy you have to kill but every time you get close he is escaping.). So What is so Great? Well Main character seems like a real person,, visuals are great, and music from time to time makes you feel really connected to the world. But then there are those endless totally unimportant conversation during your way to the destination... This game is 6.5 at its best

            Next game thats score is almost totally inadequate is unfortunately another CoD MW3. The only good thing about this game is story that reminds me of Die Hard movies. Nothing special but good to watch. This game scored 8.5. Not only gameplay is almost identical to previous game (most missions are exctly the same), graphics also. And what happened to difficulty? Six years old could go for Veteran playthrough on a first attempt. This was the easiest FPS I have played to date. The only and I do mean ONLY good thing about CoD (in general) is Co-Op mods. This is where this game shines, and allow real fun. Lots of mods, lots of guns, plenty of fun. But this is a little too little for 8.5 so I gave it 6.5 but I should give it 7 but its disappointed me pretty badly.    

            There could be few more examples But Why am I writing about it? Couse last review of Last of Us made me wonder whether or not GS is subjective or simple do not give a damn? Pointing out AI problems is really (I mean like really, really) stupid way to lower a score. Also talking about how game breaks its own rules in terms of enemies behavior? Didnt you played CoD games or RDR? What kind of allegations are those? Couldnt you find something that is really not a problem in other games? Review and its score are disgrace. I would be very grateful to GS for making more complex, detailed reviews, that are not made basing on few minutes but few hours and not wrote by one, but by few reviewers. 

For a while now, we all are hearing about microtransactions, online passes, blocking used games... And why is it? Does what we have seen for a last year or two in gaming industry was a great step forward? Did we observed a huge or at least a little increase of quality among new titles, so that developers decided to reward themselves? Sure, there are developers who never disappoint (those are mostly developers tide to a specific system) but in general most games are rather average. So why we are asked to pay more and more for titles that do not represent quality we expect? What is driving sells for titles such as Crysis 3, Assassins Creed 3, Dead Space 3, Ghost Recon: Future Solder, Call Of Duty, etc? Those game ether require online pass, or are released as broken, half finished next installments that have very little to do with original title (except for a title itself). Games that few weeks after release are packed with DLCs that are also as dull as original title So Im asking again why are we asked to pay more and more for those titles?

One guy once said "economics have very little to do with free market and almost everything to do with ideology. So if communism would be somewhere on the Sahara desert, there would be deficiency of sand.". Biggest developers are shouting together that development process is so expensive, not profitable and its hard to get creative with such old hardware Well Im drawing, from time to time. And I must say I would never think to grumble that pencil and sheet of paper are such an old hardware so Im unable to think of new drawing. Because that will rather mean that theres nothing for me to draw, no idea, no need, than to put it all on pencil as it not making it easier for me. EA, Ubisoft, BioWare All they do is telling us how fantastic they are, how gamers are no appreciate their work. Business is booming EA and Ubisoft is growing faster than population of India  and they still whining about how hard it is to pleased gamers.  Sorry but Im not buying that.

So here Im standing, watching how games so not worth of pre ordering, are being pre ordered, and for few months are the best selling games How is that possible?

And now Microsoft came up with an always online idea with high probability that used games will be blocked on X720 Even Sony was smart enough not to say anything direct about used games. Anyhow, They are not even thinking about dropping prices. No. Games are going to be more expensive. Not only that. Now we are almost certain we will not be able to resell our property What sort of dumb idea is this? Games are not getting any better but they are getting more expensive, shorter, less innovative, and of course less story-based and much more action-based whatever that means.

It brings me to my next thought: what happened with all scriptwriters? Did they all died? Why there are no more games with story like Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, Dead Space, Heavy Rain, System Shock, Uncharted, Portal, Half Live, Shadow of the Colossus, Deus Ex, Zelda, Resident Evil Come on! Games now a days have almost no story. No emotions, no real characters Arkham City is not enough, but it is one of not many games that are focusing on story Think of it.

At the very beginning I'd like to say I'm Polish (living in Poland, speaking polish language...), so for all of You who love to point out grammar mistakes, please read no more.

Recently because every gaming news and most shows on GS and IGN are all about Assassins Creed, I wish to spend a little time to analyze what's with it. Why is it that AC is requiring so much of Gamespot and IGN attention? And is it even worth it?

AC was definitely new quality in gaming industry: vast areas, great background story, interesting gameplay, phenomenal graphics. However as a series AC is not doing so well. Why?

Let me start by saying that for me Assassins Creed is not a real series. Why? Well, if there is a series, then, by definition, every next game should improve over the predecessor. There are many, many fields on which game can be (or in this case should be) improved: Story, storytelling, gameplay mechanics, controls, graphics etc. In discussed series the only improvements are visible in ACII, where many issues from the first game was fixed. Issues like painfully repetitive missions, and controls problems.

Ubisoft decides to make every next game A HUGE GAME, game where areas are so big that its taking quite some time to explore it, which opened a doors to a room with a lot of bugs, and new controls issues (specifically annoying during pursuits, and time trials). It is however quite normal when developer is trying new things, but what is unacceptable is that AC:B and AC:R are having almost the same technical issues that ACII. Is it really so hard to make good, responsive controls? Rockstar can do it, Sucker Punch also is pretty good at it, Rocksteady is actually an example of how to do sequel, and Naughty Dog So why Ubisoft cannot do it, and still be among those who are called great?

AC series the most important issue is main character who have actually nothing to do with a real character at all. Ezio is Well Empty. He is like one of those guys on small town disco You know, those with shiny shoes, long hair and no brain. Yeah those kind of guys. Guys of very simple taste, no sense of humor and of pretty dull personality. Thats who Ezio is for me. Guy who I get to know from inside out after few hours of ACII and Ubisoft made another 2 games about him Well this might stick for games like Killzone 3 where story is just enough to get you through singleplayer, but here? How it is possible that they made up this great story about secret societies, Templars Wars, and the same time completely overlooked such a small detail as personality of guy who introduces us to this world.

Last thing is out of date graphics (specially characters models). When in ACII it was acceptable as world was so big and all, but in AC:B (here is the only thing that AC:R was better over previous games) In my opinion Ubisoft lost this golden spot where game is not to small but detailed enough. AC are huge games but when it comes to details there not so big. I rather play a smaller, but prettier games (like InFamous 2).

AC:B introduced us to quite new multiplayer. Unfortunately it was fun for only sometime. Pretty quickly you was able to distinguish players from AI. The idea (again the big picture) was good but execution was very poor. Bugs, controls issues, very, very uneven perks (after 40th level you are practically indestructible). The worst for me was controls.

In general AC tends to overdo some things and the same time leaving other behind.

So here comes the final question: Why AC series is so popular? Is it the background story? Is it the main character? Or is it the gameplay values? For sure one of the reason AC is so popular is not innovation (well accept for multiplayer), ac 3 last entries in series was actually one and the same game. So what is it? Whats makes AC so successful? Tell me what you think?