Assassin's Creed Revelations

Altair & Ezio Auditore

Although this title has been out for little while, I was given this as a present for Christmas, which I extremely appreciated. So, where do I start (without ruining it for people, who haven’t played the others) well, we join our friends Ezio Auditore De Firenze and Altair. Ezio has grown since the last game “Brotherhood” he is now in his early 50’s, and a wiley old character, with some neat tricks and some new inventions (which I will get on to later on). Altair’s parts in the game, (or so far as I have seen) are bits in the game to help you link information to the current storyline and helps it to flow better.

******SPOILER ******
(HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT BELOW TO SEE THE SPOILER)

In the world outside of the animus Desmond, (our present time character) has been put in to a safe place inside the animus because, he is struggling to piece his memory together, because he has done too much damage to his mind inside of the animus, so his mind has been placed inside a piece of software called “the black room” which is where he meets “Subject 16”. “Subject 16” shows him how to piece his mind back together, thus the game starting.

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So now we no the main premise of the story, what has changed about the gameplay, graphics, soundtrack and lip-sync.

Well the gameplay itself hasn’t changed very much, Ezio is slightly slower than usual due to his oldness, however it they have designed a new weapon/way of getting round, its called the hook blade, and it is extremely useful. It allows the player to zip line around the city of Constantinople which is said to increase your speed around the city by up to 30%, which is quite an interesting statistic, I haven’t personal used it to much however, it is quite satisfying to zip line over the top of someone and then assassinate then from above, very quick, very easy. Another huge addition to the game is the craft of making bombs; there are over 150 variations of bombs you can make, ranging from The Stink Bomb (Using Skunk Oil) or a bomb that explodes like our modern day grenade with coins inside it. Its very usual in certain situations like assassinations, throw a smoke bomb into a crowd choking everyone, quickly pop into the cloud, use your eagle sense, bish bash bosh (kill your target) and get out, no one will know what has happened until they find the dead body on the floor.

As you can see massive change in graphics!

Graphics: well there are parts of the game that have been improved and parts where they haven’t, however “why fix what isn’t already broken” very much, there are little tweaks to the surroundings, and some good improvements on characters faces, you can definitely tell the difference between Desmond’s current face and “Brotherhood” face. The lip-sync has been improved excellently, still not at the level of L.A Noire but it’s a brilliant improvement.

The soundtrack throughout the game (what I have played so far) is absolutely excellent, thankfully I was given the special edition for Christmas, so I got an extra disk with the soundtrack on it, I put it straight on to my iPod, and must say that its definitely up there in some of the best soundtracks for games. If you like fast paced orchestral music amongst slow paced calm music then it’s the soundtrack for you. (Music written by Jesper Kyd).

The one thing that I has improved the game endlessly, is without doubt the multiplayer, I have spent the most time on this part of the game, simply because it is so addictive, yet so simple, the perfect combination for an online multiplayer game. Modes include: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Assassinate, Capture the Artifact and many more. My favourite is without doubt Deathmatch which puts you up against other templar’s and you have to identify your target while being chased by another templar, it’s very good and a complete adrenaline rush. You have an extensive amount of ways to customise your character’s look and choose what type of perks you have for a kill streak and death streak and perks that you can use during the game, which changes the dynamic of the game very well. (very “Call of Duty-esque).

So far of what I have played, the game has been excellent, and I would definitely tell anyone that was thinking about getting the game, to get it. It’s a brilliant addition to the already massive Assassin’s Creed universe.

Hopefully you will enjoy the game as much as I am at the moment.

Enjoy!

Fast Five (Fast and Furious 5)

So as everyone knows about this series, there is no need for an introduction (sorry if you haven’t seen this series, I would like to take this time to say that you are a minority of people, who haven’t seen this, and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!)

Fast Five Poster

Anyway, now I have said my piece, this instalment is the best of the lot of them, bringing back all the characters past present and future (and your probably wondering why I just made that statement of past, present and future, well guess what? You will find out if you watch it, what I mean.)

This one stars, Vin Diesel, PaulWalker, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, so as you can probably imagine it’s quite the cast, and this is a serious blockbuster. Forget the street racing scene, this is going to be the new branch of the “Fast & Furious” franchise. This is all about the heist and the driving of fast, exotic and old school cars alike.

So the premise of this film is that the team are on the run from the FBI after a heist goes seriously wrong to get one more payment, 3 cops are killed and they are blamed for it, even though its Rio De Janeiro’s very own mafia man who was part of it. What the team don’t realise is that they have something of the kingpins that he wants back. And so the ball game starts. In between all of the action is showing Hobb’s (the Rock) team preparing to try and catch Dominic & Co.

The storyline is excellent, with twist and turns through out, for fans of the series, like Mission Impossible, you will not be disappointed what so ever.  The action is as the title explains, Fast and Furious; there are many more fighting scenes, with some hard hitting sound effects to allow the audience to really feel the effort put into each punch, although predictable fight scenes, the choreography is pretty good.

The soundtrack is excellent, with the same beats as the original, some heavy bass from Rap and R’n’B. It gives off a good vibe for the audience as it makes you feel as if you are being chased too, this gets their heart pumping and their adrenaline running around their bodies.

Overall it’s an excellent addition to the series, and it has definitely added a new dynamic to the already excellent series. Definitely worth buying and without doubt the best in the series. I urge everyone to see it, if you’re interested in Babes, cars, Vin Diesel.

By the way, if anyone is interested about the chronological order of the films then here it is:

Fast & Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

Fast & Furious 4

Fast Five

Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift

This should stop the confusion surrounding some of the characters and storylines.

Enjoy!

Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens Poster

This is exactly what the film is about funnily enough…….. (Note the sarcasm in my writing). With a solid cast it was set up to be something of a bit of a blockbuster, and that is exactly what it is. With some ridiculous effects and some good performances, this is something of a dark horse for blockbuster of the year. (Realising the fact that transformers: dark side of the moon) wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.

Starring Daniel Craig (James Bond), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), and the beautiful Olivia Wild (House), it is basically about Jake (Daniel Craig), wakes up in the middle of the desert not knowing his name or where he is from, and so the story starts. He eventually has to team up with his arch enemy to overcome the alien invasion, but what is interesting about this story is the relationship between Ella (Olivia Wilde) and Jake (Daniel Craig) as not everything is as it seems, which makes a good twist in the story.

The whole movie cant help feeling like a B-movie, but a good B movie at that, I and my  fiancée both really enjoyed the film surprisingly, considering I wasn’t expecting much from it, and I had heard very mixed reviews about it. But I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I would recommend the film. Probably not worth a buy but definitely worth a rent.

The soundtrack is pretty good, typical spaghetti western  music.

Overall an enjoyable experience , and definitely worth a watch.

Enjoy!

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

Mylo Xyloto Album Cover

So this is the long awaited album from Coldplay after what I thought wasn’t a very good album in Viva La Vida, there was only one song that I enjoyed in that album. Luckily this album is much much better than the last and is a huge improvement.

It has some killer songs, and really uplifting vibe about itself, with songs like:

“Paradise”

“Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”

“Princess of China”

All of these songs are excellent, you may have noticed that these songs are or have been released as singles, but these songs really are the best on this album, sometimes you will find some songs that are really good but haven’t been released as singles on an album, unfortunately it is not the case with this album, however you wont feel short-changed as these 3 songs really set a high standard for the other songs on the album.

Like I said earlier the album is uplifting and is shown very well through the theme of love. Chris Martin and CO have done a really good job of getting a new record out that is really good and could have possibly broken the mould of having a really annoying voice (I have never supported people saying that he has an annoying voice).

Overall a really good album which I would be recommend to people who are fans of Coldplay and also new fans of Coldplay. Very good and worth shelling out the money for.

Horrible Bosses

Horrible Bosses

I wanted to see this film in the cinema, and completely forgot about it until it appeared out on DVD about 4 – 5 weeks, I was very quick to snap it up and see what it was like. With a good cast like Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston and the brilliant Kevin Spacey, I thought this was going to be a brilliant film. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good film but it’s not brilliant.

The story goes that 3 men all have “Horrible Bosses” but when one of them takes another ones joke too seriously it ends up with the 3 of them planning to kill their “Horrible Bosses”.

The 3 Horrible Bosses are portrayed very well by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell. Kevin Spacey plays the egotistical, know-it-all boss who only promotes himself in the organisation. Jennifer Anniston plays the sexy boss who wants to wind her colleague up, and she tries to persuade him to sleep with her even though he is engaged, this story comes with some hilarious consequences and finally Colin Farrell plays a boss who is hell bent in just laundering money out of his deceased father’s company to pay for his drug and prostitution habits.

The 3 colleagues are played by Jason Bateman (Kevin Spacey’s employee), Charlie Day (Jennifer Anniston’s employee) and Jason Sudeikis (Colin Farrell’s employee), all 3 of the actors play the parts of the disgruntled and harassed employees very well, and I can imagine that some of the situations unfortunately, are realistic. (Fortunate if you were Charlie Day’s character).

Throughout the film you feel like something is missing but you quite put your finger on it? It is a good film but I don’t think there are enough funny moments through out the film to keep you thoroughly entertained. Rather than being one great big great film, its broken up into small moments, and they do just enough, but never excel your expectations, which brings me to whether or not I thought it was funny.

I will leave that verdict up to you; I would recommend it purely based on it being quite realistic in some of the situations you can be put in the work place.

Overall, good film but only worth a rent.