Post Content
|
Here's a nice selection from that New York Times article on new video games:
HITMAN
Absolution
Released on Nov. 20
Rated M for Mature (intense violence, partial nudity and strong language)
It’s a vile, dangerous world in Hitman: Absolution. Nearly everyone is in need of a good killing, and Agent 47, the depilated murder machine at the center of the long-running Hitman franchise, is just the man for the job.
Absolution is consistent with the setup of past Hitman games: At the start of a level, 47 is given an assassination target, and he must make his way through semi-open areas by any of a number of possible routes. The reactive artificial intelligence keeps things enjoyably unpredictable, and the best levels feel like a buffet of sadistic improvisation.
The story is pure B-movie hogwash. It’s mostly enjoyable in a certain exploitive way, but it often feels as if the writers were trying too hard.
When it gets cooking, Hitman: Absolution evokes the feeling of a deadly, measured dance. It’s a tango between you and the computer, with each party alternately taking the lead through arenas that shift and upset expectations.
ASSASSIN’S CREED III
Released on Oct. 30
Rated M for Mature (blood, intense violence, sexual themes and strong language)
Assassin’s Creed III is really the fifth major Assassin’s Creed game. The new game involves a lot of climbing and killing across a sprawling landscape of bustling cities and gorgeous frontier. Add in a mix of awkwardly instituted horseback riding, homestead building, trading, trapping, hunting and, at the wheel of your own tall-masted warship, epic naval combat. There is much to do and witness in a ripped-from-the-history-books adventure that is refreshingly unwilling to ignore the unsavory aspects of America’s birth. A lengthy production cycle didn’t spare the game from a wealth of bugs that are only now being patched out.
The series’s low-key multiplayer games of competitive assassination return, but the star of this epic is something that might seem almost quaint: Assassin’s Creed III is easily the best tree-climbing simulator in history.
PERSONA 4 GOLDEN
Released on Nov. 20
Developed and published by Atlus
For PlayStation Vita
Rated M for Mature (violence, alcohol reference and partial nudity)
|