I had quite some fun time playing games on Ludobox this past month. The list of flash games is endless, and they keep coming in. New subcategories are made, making it even easier for you gaming addicted people out there to find the game that suits your taste and opinion of a fun time with small games.
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A while ago, I read an article about girls in the gaming world, how they are being treated and how they behave. Sure, she made good points, and I agreed with many things she wrote – I’ll give her that. However, parts of the article made me think that the author of it must hate being a female human being. She absolutely moaned big time about girls in the gaming world. She generalized to such a degree that it was hurtful to read.
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The Battle of Forli is the first of the DLC packs for Assassin’s Creed 2. Be aware that it contains only six memories so it is quite brief, but it was still quite decent for content that costs just 320 Microsoft points. The memories fill in sequence 12, which was omitted from the main game due to ‘timing issues’.
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How to participate;
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Recently I was contacted by Ludobox and they asked me if I wanted to do a few articles about their website and flash games. The website is simple and easy to navigate. You can even play the games without having to sign up – but you won’t be able to post highscores in the games that supports this feature.
If you sign up, not only will you be able to compete against other Ludobox members, you will be able to comment on the games, review them if you will. There’s plenty of games to choose from – the numbers are reaching close to whopping 2500 free flash games and counting.
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24 jan 2010 – Xzibitionist description totally re-written
The most efficient way to gain the multiplayer achievements in this game is a blended mix – first of all, it requires a lot of preperation and patience from everyone.
You can be 4 or 6 players to do this, an even number, because you’ll be boosting in teams. It will take some time to get all achievements for all players, depending if one or more players in the boosting have been playing online already.
Find 3 other friends, make sure everybody really are in for the boosting, and do what people are agreeing to – perhaps the one that take the intiative should decide and be the headschef while boosting.
Everybody is friend requesting eachother on Live. If you played together before, prefere everyone as well, that is influating the matchmaking quite a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 21% [?]
PSN recently added a new feature to the avatars life, called HOME.
For a small fee (4.99$) you can buy the new addition to HOME. It’s called London Pub, and it even contains a dart game you can play with your friends! It’s a personal space, therefore not accessible from HOME square. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 15% [?]
I have taken an all-day coding/working the website day. The result ended up in a few small changes and some addings to the site to improve the experiencing of the visit, and hopefully make more people to come back more regularly too! 
- improved the look of the front page
- changed the related post links so it now shows thumbnails too
- screenshots/related pictures (for future articles)
- and last, but not least, subscribing to comments on posts
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Popularity: 17% [?]
Pretty much, take a watered down version of Left 4 Dead and mash it together with an aerial view version of Need For Speed and you have Zombie Driver. The entire purpose of Zombie Driver is to drive around, pick up survivors and deliver them to the safe house. You’ll face a variety of zombies, like regular zombies, dog zombies and Fat Zombies (which have a striking resemblance to Boomers from L4D). You’ll also have the chance to drive around and pick-up extra cash to use to upgrade your cars between stages.
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Popularity: 17% [?]
If you’ve played the first Assassin’s Creed game, forget what you know about it. The repetitiveness is gone and has been replaced with an in-depth story with varying fun missions. The assassinations have also been improved upon with players finding they’ll have to be even more sneaky to find a way in.
Assassin’s Creed 2 is based upon revenge. It is what causes Ezio to become an assassin. His family was betrayed, a tragedy occured because of it and Ezio is set to seek revenge on all that were a part of it. The game takes place from 1476 – 1499 so as players work through the story, they’ll find it’s a long list of names.
As a player of Assassin’s Creed, I found I fell right back in with the controls in no time at all. However, there’s no need to worry about having not played the original as the game presents you with a tutorial as part of the storyline in the very beginning. Ezio is very nice to control with all of his movements feeling quite fluid and natural. The combat system has been improved upon since the original with disarms now part of Ezio’s fighting repertoire. I find this to be the most lethal out of all of the combat moves as you can steal the guard’s weapon and use it on them. This is extremely useful when dealing with more stronger enemies like Brutes.
Ezio has more gadgets to use such as smoke bombs and a poisoned blade, which are useful for causing distractions and speaking of which, the various factions – thieves, courtesans and mercenaries – are also quite useful for this purpose and Ezio can also enlist help from them at any time – for a certain price of course. There are more stealth assassinations to play with since Ezio can now assassinate enemies from the environment. As a result, hay stacks and ledges are no longer safe for guards to stand next to!
There is a new notoriety system in the game whereby doing things considered an offense to the law will add to the meter. When completely filled, Ezio will be wanted by the guards and if they see him, they will give chase. Fortunately doing certain actions like removing posters, bribing heralds and killing witnesses will drop your notorious level and Ezio can go back to being anonymous. This is certainly more favourable than in the original game where galloping past guards on a horse was enough to make them attack. When running from chasing guards, once they lose sight of Ezio, a radius will appear on the map showing where the guards are most likely going search so don’t waste time trying to hide in hay or sit on a bench. The guards are more intelligent this time round.
There’s no multiplayer in Assassin’s Creed 2, but the game doesn’t need it. In my opinion they would have damaged the game by putting it in just for the sake of it.
The entire game was pure fun for me. Ezio’s character adds to the game’s fun level as he’s naturally charismatic as opposed to Altair’s moody and arrogant persona. I definitely enjoyed the addition of a second hidden blade. I found several times I would just walk up to a pair of guards, kill them and walk away quite casually. Diving into the Venice waters as an escape method was also highly enjoyable. I’ve even discovered a bit of a Grand Theft Auto moment in the game where you can hijack a gondola. You don’t even have to go to the bother of removing the operator as just jumping onto the gondola will be enough to knock off the user so you can claim it as yours.
I also definitely enjoyed having the factions since sometimes in the original it was a bit annoying when constantly having to get into a fight with guards to get to a certain area. I know the scholars were there but they walked too slow and were only designed to go to certain areas. The factions walk at Ezio’s speed and go anywhere with him. So now it’s just a case of hiring a faction, distracting the guards and sneaking right past them. It just makes the game more about being an assassin, which is always fun.
Graphics: The scenes are incredible and Ubisoft really did a fabulous job at recreating Renaissance Italy. With the day and night element introduced in Assassin’s Creed 2, it really adds to the breathtaking environments. The main characters themselves are designed well, but the standard NPCs are still left looking a bit plain.
Music: The score is just simply amazing. Composed by Jesper Kyd, the music seriously adds to the atmosphere of the game by playing the right songs at the right moment. By walking around Venice, one can hear a tranquil, choir-like angelic theme whereas getting caught up in a fight sequence will treat players to an upbeat, chilling tempo. Last time I checked, all 35 tracks were uploaded onto YouTube so happy hunting!
Ubisoft introduced their Uplay service for Assassin’s Creed 2 that allows the player to earn credits through playing the game and then spend them on items. One item I believe is up for grabs is the Altair outfit. One doesn’t necessarily have to spend the credits on a certain game; they can be kept for another game.
The achievements/trophies are all fairly standard and it’s quite easy to get the full lot of them as I got the 1000 achievement score in 10 days – and I was taking my time. The achievements/trophies include story related ones, performing certain actions, doing some side missions, upgrading and finding collectibles. There is one missable achievement/trophy called Fly Swatter which is to kick a guard while using the flying machine. This can only be done during a certain mission and there’s no opportunity to do it again except by doing a second playthrough. So crash the flying machine before the end of the sequence to restart if missed.
Collectibles I know are the big taboo thing about Assassin’s Creed after the flags and templars but they really have improved on them and made them useful.
In terms of collectibles they have:
- Subject 16’s videos. There are 20 puzzles to do in which the player is rewarded with a small video clip that obviously shows something important. No spoilers.
- 30 Codexes. They’re a small scroll that get added onto a wall in the villa which when using eagle vision, something else is revealed. This is essential to do to unlock the final mission. The codexes are found in buildings in the cities with four guards at the door. I often just used one of the factions to distract the guards and walked in and took it. I found I just did these as I was running through the area and they’re all marked on the map. Some are also gotten through missions.
- 6 Assassin Tombs. These are physical puzzles in which the player has to figure out how to progress from one room to another. There can be guards along the way. Collecting these rewards the player with Altair’s armour which will also colour Ezio’s clothes black.
- 100 Feathers. These would be the standard collectible. They’re not that bad and again they’re not necessary to do, but the player gets the Auditore cape as a reward. This puts Ezio on permanent notoriety so a fun thing to do if looking for a challenge. The DNA area in the pause menu will inform players about what areas are complete and how many feathers have been collected. They are quite easy to spot when in eagle vision.
- 66 Viewpoints. Not essential to do but it’s handy so the player can see the map.
I found several times the game would freeze on me. I think I pinpointed it down to the use of the fast transport system when travelling to Tuscany or Romagna. I had no problem going to Florence, Venice or Monteriggioni, which are really the main areas of the game. I also found maybe one or two instances where guards would be stuck in a rooftop.
Definitely five hearts for me. I loved Assassin’s Creed despite its flaws but to have a game that completely excels its predecessor is just something amazing. Ubisoft really did listen to the fans and they went back to the drawing board, kept what was good (the handling of the game), got rid of the bad (repetition/flags/templars), added in some extra stuff and came up with a masterpiece.
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