Medieval Grand Theft Auto

The 13th century, CE (common era), and the Holy Land is in a state of turmoil. You, the assassin, is sent out to end that turmoil by assassinating those who wish to continue the conflict. In the beginning, you are stripped of your rank for insubordination and failure to comply with the three tenets of the "Assassin's Creed." Slowly, after killing each target you are ordered to terminate, you regain your rank until you have unlocked all the moves, weapons, and armor necessary to tackle the hardest "bosses" in the game. Explore three different cities: Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre while also exploring "The Kingdom," which is the surrounding area. I found the Kingdom to be rather tedious while the three major cities were intensely interesting and there were always objectives to complete.

Also, after playing on the Xbox 360, I found the graphics on the computer to be superior! The gameplay never really got boring although some people I talked to found repeating the same routine over and over got boring, and finding all the hidden "flags" and scaling view points became tedious over time.

My favorite part of the game was actually out of the "Animus," the 3D viewer that allows the main character to view what his ancestor did (you play in both the present and the past). The area out of the Animus really added to the plot and kept me begging for moments out of the Animus where I could learn more about the overall storyline. The storyline where you play as an assassin is great too; however.

The Verdict
8.5 out of 10
Pros: Excellent graphics. A quality storyline that will keep you guessing who your enemies are and what their motives are. Innovative gameplay and design. Highly realistic cities and crowd reactions. Great learning curve where the difficulty is ramped up at ideal increments.
Cons: Can be repetetive to some (main reason why this wasn't a perfect 10). I didn't notice anything new in the PC's "Director's Cut" edition. The cliffhanger ending pissed me off (did I say that too loud =P )
Overall: Worth playing and the $49.99 that comes with that. You will never get tired of high profile assassinations. Ever.

Impressed With an Old Favorite

DoW: Dark Crusade was released in 2006 (and RTS games have changed much since them due to Supreme Commander) and although somewhat old, I found it to be a pretty good game. I was impressed mainly with the improvements in the computer AI from the other Dawn of War games. Previous Dawn of War games were easy on the hardest mode, and extremely easy on the easiest mode. The new AI proved moderately challenging in easy mode and rather difficult in hard mode. Also, the AI will challenge my base defenses, whereas the older ones would run up to my guns, get shot at, and then turn tail and run. Overall I was most impressed with the improvements made to Dawn of War and I can't wait to play the Dawn of War: Soulstorm (the latest installment released this year) soon.

The Weekly Headshot Podcast Episode 4

In this amazing episode of the Weekly Headshot Podcast I took the liberty of inviting four of my friends: the regulars, Matt and Eric, and newbies Hamel and Sean. The five of us then took part in an argumentative discussion over Macs and PCs. Needless to say it was an interesting hour or two. I chopped it up into something digestible and promptly uploaded it to my feed. So be sure to check it out.

Fedora 9....with KDE 4? YES!

The eighth installation of the Fedora Linux distribution, "Sulphur," will feature KDE 4. For those unfamiliar with KDE, or even linux, KDE is the K Desktop Environment which essentially runs all the processes necessary to have a coherent GUI in your operating system. Although not currently the frontrunner in the race for the best desktop environment for Linux, KDE 4 is certainly a step in the right direction. KDE 4 has a luscious aesthetic appearance; however, it does leave a lot to be desired.



Konqueror, for example, is an innovative idea that lacks the performance necessary for it to top Firefox. Konqueror combines browsing directories on one computer with surfing the web. The web surfing is much too slow when loading vast amount of images; however, and I will always fall back on Firefox for the "heavy lifting." Also, I still like Open Office over KOffice, and I liked the simplistic appeal of Gnome over KDE. In the end; however, it really is all personal preference.

Fedora 9, Sulphur will feature KDE 4 and have quaintly dubbed the new desktop interface and environment "Oxygen." The Beta version has already been released and you can expect a stable release in 25 days (May 13th). Check it out, it may even convert you from Windows/Ubuntu/Slackware/Debian/.

Weekly Headshot Podcast Episode 3

In this amazing episode, we talked about Sins of a Solar Empire and debated PSP vs. Apple's iPod. It was a fun time, but next week will be better! We're doing a Mac vs. PC smackdown where I've personally invited 4 guests (the regulars, Matt and Eric, included) to rant and rave about macs and PCs. So be sure to check out the podcast's web page here.

And you can also subscribe to the Weekly Headshot Podcast on iTunes! Merely search "Weekly Headshot" and start downloading the awesomeness (or use mediamonkey!).

Down with iTunes: MediaMonkey

If you aren't tied down by an iPod or other Apple media player that can only be synced via iTunes (and very few other third party apps), then you must try MediaMonkey. I was unsatisfied with earlier versions of MediaMonkey because it failed to play iTunes formats (so I never really could switch), but now all iTunes media formats are supported. Merely download, install, give MediaMonkey the directory to all your iTunes music or other music folders, and start enjoying your favorite tunes! MediaMonkey includes full support for subscribing to and downloading podcasts (so you can still enjoy the Weekly Headshot Podcast!). Also, MediaMonkey is free, and less of a memory hog than iTunes. Give MediaMonkey a try, its worth the 30 seconds it takes to download and install.

Firefox 3 Beta Rules

Firefox 3 Beta 5 was recently released and I am quite pleased with the results. It runs faster than what I was previously running (Firefox 2) and it has yet to crash on me. Needless to say I am stoked for the official non-beta release of Firefox 3, but for now, take solace in this screenshot of Firefox 3 Beta 5 owning the Acid 2 test.

Anticipation

Assassin's Creed is being release next Tuesday on April 8th, and I am getting excited. This is because (if you haven't already heard the podcast listen to the second episode we discuss Assassin's creed) I pre-ordered it in January. Then the release date was pushed back from February to March, and then March to April. So now it is finally going to be released for the PC (even though those with a 360 have probably already beaten the game twice by now). I can't wait, and be sure to read my follow-up review after a sufficient amount of playing!