Glimpses

Look where you jump! Straight off the bat, Brotherhood has the worst parkour mechanics of the first 3 entries in the franchise. Considering that this was the first thing I had to say about it sums up my experience of this game. It was frustrating, to be kind. The character seemed to have a mind of its own, he just wouldn’t listen to me. On numerous occasions he jumped in an entirely different direction than intended and messed up my efforts of running away from the guards or reaching a difficult spot. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is just an expansion of the previous game. Playing it, one realizes why it wasn’t just named Assassin’s Creed III. There are some new additions this time around, and much of the action takes place in Rome now. Everything else is the same as the last part. Come out and play The story is picked up right where it was left in AC II, and carries forward the conflict between the Templars and the Assassins, and the role Ezio played in Rome. The enemy that he left al...

  Driver San Francisco is a superhero game on wheels.  That’s the most apt description I can think of. At first glance it looks like a normal driving game in which you chase criminals and bust them with your car, but after the prologue the game turns into something else, something bigger. Mild spoilers follow, but it’s something the game itself reveals quite early on, and it would be quite pointless talking about Driver: San Francisco without revealing this harmless piece of information. It would be like talking about Spider Man without mentioning his web slinging abilities. Got what I was saying about this being a superhero game? In Driver: San Francisco we play a cop named John Tanner who possesses extraordinary driving skills and has played an instrumental role in the capture of Charles Jericho, a dangerous gangster. Jericho is able to break out of prison, however, and Tanner takes this personally. He makes a desperate attempt to catch Jericho again but fails, and meets w...

  Down with Pagan! [Originally written on 10th June 2020] There are 5 games in the Far Cry series as of 10 th June 2020. Obviously the latest is the best looking, and from what I hear, the first two have good stories and bring a variety to the table; the next 3 are way too similar in terms of gameplay. So   why did I specifically choose the fourth instalment? Because it’s set in a fictional country called Kyrat which is supposed to be situated to the north-east of India, and shares much of its culture with north-east India and the countries around the region – Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal; to name a few. I believed that it was set in India, but Kyrat is equally good.   Up until now, barring a handful of levels in Hitman 2, and maybe a bunch of other games, India has not been a dominant setting in any video game. When I got wind of Far Cry 4 and its supposedly Indian setting, I jumped at the chance to give it a play. Even after knowing that it’s not India and Kyrat that t...

[Originally written on 2nd Oct 2019]   Having just walked and fought in the land of knights, templars, kings, assassins, crusaders, thieves, thugs, and horses, my own reality doesn’t feel so real anymore. That is how rich the environment of Assassin’s Creed is. It feels so very real, even though it’s set thousands of years ago. The visuals are appealing, and much attention has been paid to every detail. Each small element is in its rightful place, so when the protagonist, Altair, climbs walls, he holds on to stuff that is actually there, instead of clinging to an invisible crack in the wall, thus making his climb more believable. Another thing is the ambiance. It felt like I was really walking in an actual city. The citizens had so much variety and they behaved in such a manner that I couldn’t help reacting the same way as I would when encountering them in real life. The beggars, for instance, keep following you, running after you, and that actually frustrated me. Then there ar...