So for my first experience with the AC franchise, I think it's a great game. I like on how the Prince of Persia roots still show with the acrobatic gameplay, but it still has enough to stay on it's own with how the assassin's use their weapons, be it with stealth killing with Stilletto's, using a sword, or in fist fights.

For the sake of Brotherhood though, I do like on how you can recruit new Assassins and have them do missions, earning you more money, calling them for help like coming in on the field to help you fight, and if you have more Assassins, call on an arrow storm to take out the swarm of guards.

If there was anything I didn't like about it though is that the framerate can be a tad bit rough, but it's nothing too bad.

Now to beat MGS3 HD and play some more Tekken Tag 2, though I'll probably try and do some extra stuff in Brotherhood as well as try to get more full synchronizations (you can not get all of them in one try).

Sony's taking potshots at their competitiion in hype of their upcoming PS4 announcement. Most recently, they called out Nintendo saying "Oh look, another Mario game."

Why does this take me back to the 90's (though this sort of advertisement was in the 80's, but note I wasn't born then so that's why I mostly bring up the 90's)? Well...

Here's Sony's Crash Bandicoot ad and here's a cIassic from SEGA (though this dates back when Genesis came out before the SNES). Needless to say, Nintendo wasn't a slouch either.

So, to any of my Australian friends who haven't imported the game yet, MK9 finally gets it's ban lifted. You'll be getting the Komplete Edition too, so no downloading Skarlet, Kenshi, and Freddy Krueger. About time after the Wii U version of Ninja Gaiden III: Razor's Edge (which was published by Nintendo) got approved.

I still don't have the game yet, but I can tell Kitana's a bit anxious to kick Lei's (Tekken character) ass, despite ignoring Raiden's warning about his masterful Five Animal-Drunken styIe and his will to pull off deadly stunts that he'll more then likely live. :P /bad joke

So... what to finish this blog with? How about some game progress?

Metal Gear Solid 3- Met EVA and boy did things get awkward with the way she randomly unzipped her suit when she and Naked Snake just met. The cutscenes where you have the option to make Naked Snake look at her in a preverted way is kind of funny though. Now to escape young Revolver Ocelot's investigation.

Tekken Tag 2- Beat Arcade mode with Jun (had different teams with Zafina first, then Lei), and spent a lot of time in Ghost Mode (which is similar to Tekken 5's Arcade Mode in that you'll endlessly fight numerous customized characters with "usernames", and at the end of the match you'll pick your next one) with Julia and Lei. Got a few unlockables after participating in special fights, which are a few ending movies and customization options.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood- Did some extra objectives like helping Courteseans, which had me save a fellow Courtesean from getting beat up and humiliating the attacker, a flashback to Ezio's past on how he won over a woman in his younger days (which was kind of creepy in the start), and beat up a guy who poisoned a Courtesean (and boy did that get tricky when you had guards on both you and that girl's tail for it, going as far as killing you both). I also killed a Captain (level 5) by throwing a knife at him (hey, I got tired of him fleeing).

Well, that's it for me.

Remember when I talked about that Rayman Legends delay and how not only Nintendo fans got pissed, but an anonymous Ubisoft developer? Well, it gets better. Michel Ancel is joining everyone else in this controversy. Now that is a sign that Ubi's higher ups messed up... badly.

Well anyway, here's what I've been playing. Featuring a nature loving wrestler and Hong Kong's finest cop fighting two spies and an Italian assassin.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (360)- About time I started this. First thing I did was jump straight into arcade mode with my main man, Lei and just him only. I got success, but holy f*** is Jun hard to fight. What, did she take lessons from Shao Kahn while she was gone? If you haven't guessed by that title, my main tag team is Jaycee (aka Julia Chang) and Lei, though I have been playing with other fighters like Nina, Zafina (haven't played Tekken 6 yet, but I do like her thus far), Marshall Law and his son Forrest. Even spent some time in the fight lab and let me say this... Anna Williams in an Octopus swimsuit with fully animated tentacles? Really Namco? :|

Metal Gear Solid 3 HD: Snake Eater (360)- Okay, I think I've waited long enough after MGS2: Sons of Liberty, so I barely started this, still in the jungle after Naked Snake (*cue Nostalgia Critic's "YOU KNOW" rant from his second commercials episode*) made that landing. It's cool that I can play with a third person camera view, though option to play it in a cIassic MGS styIe is present as well. I'm having bad luck not getting caught though. On a separate note, I tried out the cIassic Metal Gear MSX emulation and, again barely into it. I'll get deeper sooner or later.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (360)- So yeah, for all the ranting I'm giving towards Ubisoft's higher ups, I am playing a Ubisoft game (sorry, but boycotting them won't do anything for me, besides, they have great developers). And it's the first time I play an Assassin's Creed game. I'm up to the point where Ezio has to sneak into a castle-like building after a chick (forgot her name already) got captured by the Borgeians. From what I've played so far, I'm still kind of glad the "Prince of Persia" like acrobatics still kind of show here (even though Ezio moves differently than ANY iteration of the Prince).

Well, that's it for me.

I think you all know how much bulls*** I found the Bayonetta 2 controversy, but it looks like another Wii U game just entered controversial territory: Rayman Legends.

What happens is this, the game got delayed, even though it was said to be pretty much DONE and ready to release (it was releasing this month). The cause of this delay? Announcing that they are porting it to PS3 and 360.

I admit, I was wrong on my defense in saying the game wasn't going to be ported based on how tied some of the gameplay aspects were to the gamepad and I have no problems with multiplat ports (as long as they are done well enough), but Ubisoft pretty much gave Wii U owners the shaft here.

Yes, the console is struggling with some sales so far, but several Wii U owners were actually ready for the game to be released and have something to play... and they pull this?

Not a part of the game's development team was happy about this delay:

"If you're pissed, imagine how we feel. Think on the situation, we've been making overtime with this game practically since May preparing E3, and then almost a demo per month (gamescom, Wii U presentation, shops, eShop, etc) and at the same time trying to actually finish the game."

"We had a first delay because it was obvious we couldn't finish on time but we gave it all to be there on February. What face do you think we had when the week we had to close the game we're being told it's not going to be released? I couldn't believe it."

"For practical matters, you'll have to wait for some months for the game to be released and will most likely serve for more content to be added and do it better. For us, this means we've spent 6 months barely seeing our wives, kids, and friends for nothing because, after all, such a haste wasn't needed. Believe it, it was a hell to swallow these news."

"Even then I'm firm in what I said back in the day, Rayman Legends is an excellent game and will still be, and the team that's making it doesn't deserve to have your back turned on them just because some men in ties one day took a wrong choice."

"This industry is really that shi**y."

*sarcastic clap* Bravo, Ubisoft! Bravo. :|

Well, FireSpirit, you were right about the game's story. It's quite a convoluted mess, not to mention the dialogue in the script is just... awkward as hell. That being said, I still find it to be a fun game and even did a few of the extra levels (as Snake, can't say I'm a huge fan of MG's Raiden), which were originally in the Substance version on the PC, PS2, and XBOX (original).

After I beat the game (I'm fighting the multiple RAY's), I'll probably WAIT until I get to MGS3: Snake Eater HD, so my brain can stop being full of f***...

On an ending note, am I the only one finding it rather questionable that fighting game centric website, Shoryuken is STILL covering the Smash Bros franchise? Hardly anyone at that site seems to be a fan of the franchise (actually gets a lot of flak) with a major reason being that it can't be decided on whether or not it belongs in the fighting game genre (though I think it belongs there, but that's just me) and as far as I know, other fighting game websites refuse to even mention that series.

Granted, they don't seem to be big fans of Mortal Kombat or anime/manga games, big example being Dragon Ball Z (as that series had TONS of fighting games), but it makes more sense when they cover those, and heck, a lot of them like at least ONE game in each series:

So through Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (360) and a comedic reminder from LEGO Lord of the Rings (360), I decided to start getting into the series. First game I've chosen... Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (although MGS3 is technically a prequel... oh jeez, it's Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix and Devil May Cry 3 all over again) due to it being an earlier game and choosing to elevate from there. I'm still on the ship, but I managed to tranquilize Olga.

It'll take some time for me to get used to as the only stealth game I'm used to is Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (which I played on the GameCube) as I played that first. Funny... Splinter Cell is well known on XBOX, but I play that on GameCube, while Metal Gear is mostly known on PlayStation systems (despite being on MSX and NES sometime before), I'm playing that on 360 (and want the remake of the first game on GameCube).

About the title: Takes place after the time traveling marine assisted the Star Fox team in their struggle in the Outworld-Lylat war, called by a dragon king who forced Earthrealm and Edenia's fiercest (OIA agents, a millenia aged princess that still looks in her twenties, an action-movie star, and renegade Shaolin) warriors against them... :P

So anyway, here's what I'm playing now for those interested:

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (PS2)- Kind of weird how I'm palying this on the PS2 after being so used to playing TimeSplitters 2 on the GameCube (which was fantastic), also add the fact that the development team did two famous N64 FPS' when they were at Rare:

But anyway, thus far in the single-player campaign (admittedly playing on easy, but that's the thing about Rare/Free Radical FPS, they know how to kick your ass in normal and harder difficulties, so I got to warm up), I got to "What Lies Beneath (1994)" and I think I already like it more than the second game due to the fact that it focuses more on Cortez himself, rather than his transformations. I'll admit, Jo-Beth Casey is annoying (I just dealt with Harley Quinn's nonsense in Batman: Arkham City, so don't push it), but working with Harry Tipper and Captain Ash (both of whom Cortez transformed into in TS2) was a riot.

Also did some rounds in Arcade League and I'm liking it as much as I did in the previous installment, but in an Assault mission, I can't figure out how to destroy the final core in this "Cyber-Chimp" base (yeah, despite the Mature ratings, it's still as whacked up as the last game).

Street Fighter X Mega Man version 2 (PC)- I know this game wasn't too highly regarded, but I like it and have downloaded the first version on launch day. It was flawed, but luckily the second version fixes a couple gripes I had with the first version. Like when the controls for the stage select screen we're slippery (while playing with an XBOX 360 controller, keyboards had no problems however), now have been tightened up, and added a password system (and yes, it works, tested it out after I beat Rolento and Chun Li). The game is still free on Capcom-Unity.

I might actually beat it this time.

---

So, that's what I've been playing (outside of extra stuff in LEGO Lord of the Rings for 360).

So folks, here's what games I recently beat.

I'll start with three games on the XBOX 360

Perfect Dark Zero- Before I beat the game, I said that I don't find this the piece of crap the fans call it, nor do I think it's the 9/10 GS makes it out to be. After I beat it, I standby those statements. There are a lot of fun moments (I liked the bot multiplayer a lot, and quite a few missions were pretty fun) but there were some things that got to me, like a tad bit over the top to the point of being glitchy physics (I saw a corpse fly around, and sometimes the bodies react to Joanna's punches or pistol whips a little too much, like she's related to Captain Falcon or something), confusing story, and some annoying voice acting (Joanna's voice NEARS the level of annoyance of Sakura Haruno from Naruto or Gohan in DBZ Kai).

LEGO Lord of the Rings- Beat the main storyline, as well as a bonus stage where you play a mini-Sauron wrecking a super-mini Middle Earth (in vain of LEGO City from LEGO Star Wars II on the GameCube) while I get a million studs in order to pass the stage. Replaying the game to get more unlockables and doing extra quests all around Middle Earth. Just like past LEGO adaptations, it's still a simplistic and fun game that loves to poke fun at it's source material, even with voices (all from the movies).

Batman: Arkham City- Beat it last night. Probably the best Batman game I have ever played, and this comes from someone who played that mediocre Game Boy game based on the first film in the Tim Burton era (when Michael Keaton was Batman), the awful Dark Tomorrow on GameCube (admittedly I liked that game at first, but a few more moments of play made me realize how horrible it was), and the decent LEGO Batman on the Wii. A great combat system, satisfying story (with an ending that's kind of telling when you consider the fact that this is the final time Mark Hamill voices the Joker), and a great environment. Granted, I haven't played Arkham Asylum yet, but damn. :shock:

Now on to the GameCube

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem- The first horror game I ever beat, despite being the second I've played in the same genre (Dead Space on PC was the first horror game I played, but I never beat it. Damn turret segment). In a lot of aspects, you can see why this is seen as an overlooked gem hardly anyone played as it is a great game that's quite sought after these days (the GameCube gained quite a bit of positive reception after the sixth gen ended, though during that same gen, it wasn't the case), but at the same time, it gets credit where it shouldn't. The first Nintendo published game to have an M rating? Done before!

That being said, like PDZ, this is another game where I don't think it deserves a 9/10, but Eternal Darkness deserves higher marks due to it's creepy atmosphere, the way the sanity effects troll you, and a moment where I shouted "What the f***!" in fear, but it's combat system is a little clunky and some of the visuals look like they were surpassed by early PS2 games (I compared it to Onimusha Warlords in past instances).

That's it for me, and to end this blog. Here's me playing Perfect Dark on N64 with a bot.

Normally, I don't mind VERY late releases of games on previous systems to new current systems. Examples below

From left to right:

Pokemon Black and White 2- Released in 2012 when 3DS released in late 2011

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SNES version)- Released in 1996, the year N64 was released (and by then, former Nintendo fans were jumping ship to PlayStation rather than the former in the fifth gen)

God of War II- Released in 2007 when the PS3 released in late 2006

However, unlike the SNES, DS and PS2 where those systems are generally liked the most, this next game, which is getting a late North American release is coming on the Wii. It is Pandoara's Tower by Ganbarion (releasing Spring 2013).

What's the point? As said above, the Wii was generally disliked (though I see this changing just like with the GameCube) compared to other systems that received games in similar timeframes. Nintendo even stated they had no further plans with the Wii (or that was at least Bill Trinen saying that), and when the other Operation Rainfall games (Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story) released, they at least had a more resonable time (despite being in 2012) to come out, which was before the Wii U's release.

Developers may as well just move on from Wii to Wii U because this won't fare well at all.