No Lives Left

WARNING: SPOILERS ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!! If you don't know what Assassin's Creed is, you probably shouldn't be reading this blog. But I'll try to give a short summary just in case people are rusty. In the Assassin's Creed series, you play as Desmond Miles, a no-good, do-nothing bartender who ran away from his crazy, hippy parents. Turns out his parents were part of the league of assassins and have been fighting the "good fight" against the nasty Templars who (obviously) want to dominate the world. He gets kidnapped by Abstergo, a company formed to do the Templars' bidding. They put him in this crazy, Matrix style machine called the Animus. The Animus lets the user play out memories of their ancestors. Turns out Desmond isn't the only one who was kidnapped, but a whole slew of people were kidnapped and put in these things. Abstergo's main purpose is to find the "Apples of Eden" that give the user the power to control minds and bod...

I haven't played Borderlands 2 for very long. Maybe it was just for a few hours or so. But I did experience  enough of Borderlands 2 to tell you, yes it's a good game. Not exceptional, not great, just good. The game is more of the same Borderlands 1, which is great if that's what you're after. But it somehow didn't grip me as much as I thought it would. The story is still secondary to the loot. You won't really care about the characters more than you'll care about what they'll give you in return for your services. And there is so much loot on the battlefield that sometimes it's hard to concentrate on your enemy. Especially if you're playing with friends. Guns (the main focus of the game) are first come, first serve in Borderlands 2. So if you're late to the treasure chest party, too bad. You'll have to beg your friends to give you that amazing, stupendous, and radically cool weapon. This race for loot puts the game in a strange paralys...

I'm not much of a traveler. I'm used to staying in my Southern California bubble. I never really moved around much except for some early childhood trips to India and Pakistan (where my family is from). I even went to school in Southern California and if I did travel, it was mostly to San Francisco to visit my over-worked sister. So naturally, after graduating and getting a real job, I decided to allocate some funding to travel and see the United States. Hopefully after visiting most of the major cities (and getting a pay raise at some point), I can tour Europe, Asia, and all the other continents below the Equator. But for now, I'll tell you a little about what I did in Seattle. Don't worry, some of it was video game related. View from the top of the Space Needle facing Puget Sound Seattle is surprisingly a very busy town despite its size. Maybe it was because of the labor day weekend, but there was a surprisingly good amount of people touring the city. But fro...

Ramadan is almost over, but it's not done just yet Good Evening All! Looks like Ramadan is in almost over, so a belated Ramadan Kareem to all my fellow Ramadaneers out there! I had this article written for the whole month, but just never got to posting it. So if anything seems out of place, sorry for that! I'm still early in on this blog, so I guess it would be a good idea to display my faith. It's the biggest part of my life and it does control what I do on a day to day basis. It also sort of dictates the type of games I play, though not by much. Anyways... For those who don't know, the month of Ramadan is the holiest month in the Islamic calender. We believe that our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was first given the first parts of the Qu'ran during this month. With that, it's also been prescribed by Allah (or God) that we fast during this month. It's also recommended to do more good in anyway you see fit. This could result in being more charitable, ...

Work. *Sigh*      Looks like my plans of keeping a weekly post has gone out the window. So I started working this past week and getting ready for this job the week before, so I really haven’t had time to post at all. But I guess since most of the chaos has simmered down. I can talk about video games and comics and the what-not. Yeah, super awesome        The Dark Knight Rises is coming out in a couple days. I thought I’d shift over to comics for a bit (though I am pretty much a noob when it comes to collecting). Batman is probably my most beloved franchises of all time. I would like to believe that I know most of Batman’s lore. It’s not true because I haven't read much of the Golden Age and Silver Age arcs, but still, I can dream. I mean, my first post on this blog was about Batman video games; Games I used to love as a kid and play to death despite how bad they were. Even the movies-my god, the movies. I remember how much I loved Batman Fo...

        Choice. Consequence. A pair that can never be separated. When you make a choice there is a consequence that comes with it whether immediate or delayed. Your life is nothing more than a stack of consequences that led you to how you feel, think, act, and live. It’s strange but it’s true. Sooner or later the effects of your actions will catch up with you.      Though games tried to emulate this, nothing really hit the spot and was so involved like the Mass Effect series. Choices you make in this game affect not only what happens in the game you’re playing but also the sequels in this series (hence the metaphorical meaning of the title "Mass Effect"). I think it's neat and very well done. Certain characters remember your actions even though you may not have and act accordingly in the next game. I haven’t played a game that has had such an effect on your entire experience. I would experience deep regret when I realized I forgot to do so...

     When I was a kid, I used treasure the summer. There was no school, time to relax, and all the time in the world to play video games. And what else to jump start a little kid’s heart than the announcement of the fall library of video games at E3? The private, secret, VIP, developer-only trade show was the mysterious wonder I used to look forward to ever summer. I used to read Nintendo Powers and glean information from any other website/magazine I could get my grubby little hands on. I got obsessed with it; I wanted to go so badly. When it became a public event for a small time-frame, I just wished I could drive there. I don’t remember the rules but I remember it being super crowded and eventually, the restricted access again to anyone who worked in the industry. Man...What I wouldn't give to be at E3 back in 2004 At this point, all I wanted to do was get an internship at Nintendo or Sony or Capcom. Then after realizing that was a failure, I kept trying ...

            The one thing I liked about the Wii is that it never made any promises about its graphical capabilities. It knew that all it had was a last gen system using an innovative system of controllers. And it went with that. They tried so desperately to re-invent gaming they soon lost sight of some of the hardcore crowd who wanted Mario and Zelda and Metroid (in high definition, obviously). Of course Nintendo delivered but only had a superb outing with the Mario series (Galaxy 1 and 2, and the New Super Mario Brothers). Zelda suffered some criticism with Twilight Princess and many thought Skyward Swords came into the ball game way too late however good it may have been. Metroid Prime 3 was amazing and probably one of the better titles on the Wii but most fans still have a bitter taste left in their mouths from seeing the horrors of Metroid: Other M. Other first party games did come into the mix like Kirby and Donkey Kong. But third party was...