Strange thing, this. When I was thinking about Tropico 4 for my review, the game I couldn’t help comparing it to was Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, because both of them go deep into to the heart of such important issues of liberty and freedom, exploring the deep questions with a scholarly eye. Or not. They’re actually both sequels that have been criticised for being too similar to their predecessors. In my view, however, ACB gets away with it, whereas Tropico 4 does not.
So this update should have appeared on Friday, but that was a tricky day: my last day at university, packing up, leaving town, saying goodbye, driving for three-and-a-half hours home before coming to terms with the fact that three great years had come to an end makes for my best excuse yet, right?
Back to Rome, in what I promise will be my last Assassin’s Creed-related post for a while. After last week’s look at the Colosseum, Pantheon, Campidoglio and the markets of Trajan, today it’s time to go north of the Tiber to check out the Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s before heading east toward the Spanish steps. Read the rest of this entry »
Good too see you again, ‘excuses’ category. What with the uni year drawing to a close this week, I’m afraid a few evenings with friends take precedence over full blog posts. The rest of the tour of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood‘s version of Rome will hopefully now take place on Friday, if I can unpack my desktop quickly enough after returning home. Here’s a few bonus screenshots and photos that I didn’t use in Monday’s post.
So Rome in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood isn’t precisely the same as the real-life version, but, as I can attest from my holiday there last week, it is surprisingly close. The big landmarks are there, all trussed up in their 16th century finery, and what’s more they’re in the right place. The developers might not be too interested in developing an authentic historical experience with the AC games, but they do put a great deal of effort into creating some fabulous landscapes and backing them up with some interesting knowledge in the game’s database.
Remember my post-exam games dilemma? Well in the end I went for a cheap copy of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, partly because it was a bargain (£11.90, not bad) but also because I’m off on holiday next week to Roma itself.
If somebody made a game based on the title of this post then both I and my wallet will be humbly in their debt. (You know what? I’d be satisfied with Prince of Protocol on its own. It sounds like some sort of C3PO-based action flick. Ideas, ideas…)
You see, the light at the end of the exam-filled tunnel is fast approaching: in less than 24 hours, I’ll be finished with university and to celebrate the occasion, a gaming binge is called for. Or at least it was, until a bizarre feeling began to crawl up my spine as I loitered around Amazon last night: I quite fancy getting out a bit more. The years of 24-hour digital knees-ups at the onset of the holidays seen to have slipped away. 12 hours is far more doable. Read the rest of this entry »
The Joy of the Digital 