Reviews by Someone

Creepy atmosphere, fantastic combat, and clever storytelling make Alan Wake's quest thrilling from beginning to end.
The Good

Fresh storytelling fleshes out the supernatural events in interesting ways
Satisfying combat mechanic makes disposing of evil creatures a blast
Subtle lighting effects and a moody soundtrack create a disturbing atmosphere
Optional collectibles are well worth risking your life to grab.

The Bad

Lacks surprising, memorable gameplay moments.

Until last night, you had never fired a gun before, but priorities tend to change when you're being hunted by unholy creatures of the night. In Alan Wake, darkness is your most fearsome enemy. The shadows are home to monsters who shun the light, growing more powerful as they slink through the jet-black unknown. You hear a noise behind you and spin around to examine your surroundings, pointing your flashlight from tree to tree, scanning the ground while you ready your trigger finger for the imminent attack. The world of Alan Wake is one of fear and tension--a place where it's perfectly acceptable to be afraid of the dark, because if you're not, you'll be enveloped by the evil forces that dwell just beyond your field of vision. The foreboding atmosphere that permeates every inch of this wilderness never lets you forget the dangers that await the unprepared, but the feeling of dread that defines the early portions dissipates as you get deeper into this moody adventure. Alan Wake doesn't offer enough surprises to keep you unhinged, but the storytelling is so enthralling and the combat is so frantic that you'll be sucked in until the thrilling conclusion.

A vivid imagination can be a dangerous thing. Alan Wake has been suffering from writer's block ever since he released his most recent best-selling novel two years ago, but he soon realizes there are much worse things than being unable to put pen to paper. A story he's written but has no memory of has come to life, flooding a quiet mountain village with demonic creatures that torment his every waking hour. The dark forces that populate this night-time adventure should be familiar to anyone acquainted with the horror genre, but the unique storytelling gives this game an identity all its own. The acerbic protagonist relays his thoughts on the outlandish events happening all around him through incisive yet oddly poetic prose that breathes believability into these supernatural events. Alan Wake's brash nature makes him unlikable at times, but his unwavering focus to save his wife at all costs makes it easy to empathize with him.

The most interesting aspect of the storytelling comes in the form of optional collectibles you find as you wind your way through dimly lit forests. Pages from your unpublished manuscript lie just off the beaten path, and it's in your best interest to snatch these up even though you have to venture deep into the deadly forests to do so. These passages frequently foreshadow events, giving you a snippet of something terrifying waiting for you around the bend. Other times, they fill in details tangential to your own quest, giving you a peek at what other people in the town are up to. These pages flesh out the story in fascinating ways, but there are even more elements tucked away if your eyes are sharp. Abandoned TVs and radio sets can be switched on to trigger brief expositions that give you another look at what is going on just beneath the surface. The television show is particularly intriguing. Modeled after The Twilight Zone, these creepy scenes contains all the twists and moral lessons the classic series is known for.

The excellent combat builds on the fantastic storytelling, ensuring there is never a dull moment during this roughly 12-hour adventure. Alan Wake has a handy way of dealing with dark-fueled creatures: shine a flashlight on them. You carry said light source in your left hand, and you use this to weaken enemies who dare to challenge you. By pointing it at them for a few seconds, you destroy the darkness inside of them, making them vulnerable to your firearms. This mechanic is not only original, but also leads to thrilling situations. When you're surrounded by a gang of growling beasts, you have to choose one individual at a time to spray with your life-sucking light, and balancing your aim to keep all attackers at bay is exciting. If baddies get too close to you, you can duck out of the way at the last second, triggering a slow-motion dodge that lets you quickly retaliate before they have a chance to attack a second time. Because there is so much ammunition sprinkled about and your health regenerates after every battle, you'll rarely succumb to their aggressive advances, but each encounter is still exhilarating.

Exploration is as important as combat when trying to make your way through these haunted woods. Going off the beaten path is the only way you can find the missing manuscripts and television sets, and there are hidden weapon caches that aid you in fending off this unrelenting horde. Aside from your standard pistol, you can nab a hunting rifle and a shotgun, which make short work of poltergeists at close range, as well as a few explosive weapons that quickly dispose of anything that fears the light. Toss a flashbang grenade into a cluster of foes and watch them melt away into nothing. There are also little touches that add to the tension. Rapidly tapping X reloads your ammunition more quickly, and your frantic button taps mirror Alan Wake's movements as you both try desperately to stay alive. At times, you'll find generators that, when activated, energize nearby lights for you to take shelter in. But starting these up requires a few precise button taps that can be mighty stressful when an axe-wielding ghost is breathing down your neck.

The prologue starts things out with a heart-racing encounter. Seemingly alone in the woods after a brutal car crash, you make your way slowly through the foggy forest to the lighthouse oasis on the other side. Of course, a peaceful walk in the woods soon takes a deadly turn, and you find yourself sprinting for your life toward a cabin, barricading yourself inside moments ahead of the imminent danger. This electrifying scene sets up the tension that hovers above you at all times, but sadly there are few instances during the rest of your quest that match this confrontation. Alan Wake's moon-lit wanderings become predictable just a couple of hours into the game. There are a few different takes on the core action, such as escort missions and a novel twist on the classic turret sequence, but not many genuinely surprising or completely unexpected events. Because the storytelling is strong and the combat is rousing, the game never becomes stale. But the lack of memorable moments weakens the impact of the chilly atmosphere, and you're rarely startled despite the supernatural events happening all around you.

Thankfully, the eerie forest you spend most of your time in is so well realized that you'll hardly notice you're doing the same thing for much of the game. A cloud of fog blankets the forest, adding an extra shroud on top of the suffocating darkness. The thin beam of light produced by your flashlight offers a glimpse at what's hiding behind the pitch-black cover, but it cannot produce enough light to ever make you feel safe. Enemies circle around you like wild raptors, luring you into thinking they're coming from your front side, and then when you least expect it, you'll find an axe implanted in your back by a demon who snuck up behind you. Foreboding music increases this desolate feeling. The subtle score that underlines your quest for survival keeps your nerves on edge and your neck hair raised. The slight awkwardness to Alan Wake's movement is easy to ignore once you become entrenched in this gripping adventure. The mood is so beautifully represented and consistent throughout the game that you'll be hard pressed to tear yourself away.

Above all else, Alan Wake’s gripping storytelling really sells the protagonist as a famous author. Every moment of this story is fraught with tension. Wake's narration is filled with as many questions as answers because he has no explanation for the strange events occurring all around him. And the missing pieces from the manuscript, radio program, and television show are doled out in such deliberate chunks that they slowly string you along until the full secret is revealed at the end. The clever storytelling ties in with the dreary atmosphere, building on the fear established from the very beginning with subtle use of lighting and a moody musical score. Unfortunately, the path you march down rarely offers any surprises, which makes your actions take on a by-rote feeling after a while. But the combat is so satisfying that it's largely able to overshadow this misstep. Alan Wake is a riveting adventure that will keep you glued to the screen until the very end.

The original Test Drive Unlimited was a massive, open, online racing game that let you cruise around the magnificent island of O'ahu and challenge other players at a whim through its seamless online integration. The goal of the game was to earn money to purchase the most luxurious (and expensive) cars in the world, and the sequel's premise pretty much follows the same idea. However, this time, the game has a new narrative and you start off on the gorgeous Mediterranean island of Ibiza. We sat in on an hour-long demo of Test Drive Unlimited 2 with senior producer Nour Polloni, who went over several new features as we drooled over the sweet cars that will likely only exist for us in a virtual world.

Polloni began the presentation by highlighting some of the key features of Test Drive Unlimited 2. You can now progress through the game through four different means: competition, social, discovery or collection. The social aspect of the game seems to be a huge focus this time around. Like other massive online games, you can now form a club (similar to a guild or clan), as well as work with others to earn money and build up your reputation. By being active in a club and making friends, you'll increase your social level, which will also go toward raising your global progression. Taking on challenges or creating them will increase your competition level. Now, you'll also be rewarded for wandering off the beaten path, as well as exploring every nook and cranny of the 380-square-km. island. Like a treasure hunt, if you come across car wrecks, you can salvage them and build your own car that won't be available to a dealer anywhere. It looks like regardless of what you decide to do with your time, you'll earn some kind of reward and be continuously working toward your raising your level.

To enhance your experience of admiring or shopping for a car, you can wander around garages, lobbies, and dealerships with your customizable avatar. Instead of navigating through menus, you can now sit and chat with friends in a car at the dealership as you debate the vehicle's features or pick the colors from the car manufacturer's catalog. The shimmer of metallic paint was noticeable as we walked around a bright blue Audi TT RS and were told that the definition in the modeling had been increased. For example, you can see all the minute details, from more refined lines down to the texture of the leather and the stitching within the car. For now, we're only able to reveal the cars that will be in the game, including: Gumpert Apollo Sport, Dodge Viper SRT10, Dodge Charger SRT8, Aston Martin DBS, Ford Mustang GT, Koenigsegg CCXR Edition, and the Audi TT RS Roadster. There were several other high-end cars that we got a chance to look at, but the developers are saving that information for another time.

Based on community feedback, the developers added a day-night cycle so that you can cruise around at night or sit back in your convertible and watch the sunrise from the coast. The cycle takes two-and-a-half hours, so that if you play at the same time every day, you'll be experiencing a different time of day in the game. The developers drove the TT out along the deserted but sandy beach while the waves lapped calmly along the shore and just sat back to admire the golden glow of the sky as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Now, if only all of this were real. Snapping us back to reality, we zoomed out to view the island from a satellite view and saw that the surrounding sea has been reworked. You can now see the coral reefs and sea depth, as well as the varied landscape that exists on Ibiza. The weather can also change, so it's one thing to be cruising with the top down on a sunny day; it'll be a little more difficult having to navigate through a thunderstorm. Now that vehicle damage has been added, it'll cost money to fix the cosmetic wounds, so tearing across the fields in your Gumpert Apollo may not be such a good idea.

There is 930 km. of road, and 310 km. of it are off-road trails that are indicated by yellow lines when you zoom out of your map, which could take you about 20 hours if you wanted to drive over all of it. We were told that there will be 4x4 cars to handle this kind of terrain, so if you want to go wild with the drifting and skidding, you'll earn money for showing off your skills--just try not to hit anything. Minor damage will show in the form of scratches and can reach a point where the body parts loosen up. All of this is just for looks however, so it won't affect your driving (just your wallet). Dirt will get on your car if you spend a lot of time in the backcountry, but you can always wait for the weather to change to get a free car wash.

Launching an instant challenge is faster now, and there are dozens of multiplayer challenges that we saw on the map, but we weren't given any details about them. You can still create your own challenge with the editor, choose the type of race that you want, mark off your start/finish line, and then drive the challenge to give it a reference time to beat. Your challenge is posted to the gambling hall where other players can pay the fee you set and try to earn your reward. Other online players will drop in or drop out of your game, and you can filter the kinds of drivers you want to see. For example, you can choose just to have your friends or Aston Martin owners. Your avatar isn't the only thing that represents your personality online. To show how tacky you can really be, you can swing by the sticker and car paint shop to customize your vehicle by slapping on as many decals or layers of paint as you like.

To give players a sense of community, you can create or join a racing club where everyone will band together to try to build the reputation of that club and earn money (or donate) for upgrades. The president is responsible for managing the club, but responsibilities can be assigned to other members. You can challenge other clubs, as well as take on internal challenges between members. While you wait on the street for your competitors to show up, you can walk around and chat with your opponents in the virtual lobby instead of waiting on a menu screen. There are three upgrades to a club, which will give you and up to 32 members access to exclusive cars (like the Gumbert), as well as swanky club houses. Only one member can drive the club-exclusive car at any given time, so if you see one on the road, you'll know that the member is part of a club that has earned one of its upgrades. You can only be a part of one club at a time, so pick wisely.

The whole point of the game is to go from rags to riches, and in order to be able to collect all 208 cars, you need to have the space the house them. There are 100 different homes you can possess and many have breathtaking vistas or even a yacht. You can customize the furniture and tiling in your home, as well as invite friends over at any given moment. To see the stats and achievements of other players, each individual has a MyLife profile where you can take a photo of you avatar, as well as filter the achievements you want shown on your profile.

One of the last things we were shown was one of the game's cooperative modes. You can have a friend jump in a car with you and give you directions to his or her house. Your friend can bring up icons to direct you or be your GPS through voice chat. This allows the other player to just take the passenger seat and cruise around with you. We ended our demo by heading over to another player's yacht--the most expensive house you can buy--where we promptly changed into our bathing suits and jumped into the Jacuzzi. Details were vague, but we were told there were advantages to owning such a place and that it would offer "activities."

There was a lot that was shown in the course of an hour, as well as plenty of other features that have yet to be revealed, and we'd like to play the game for ourselves to see how everything handles. The game looks great so far and was running fairly smoothly for the most part. Another important aspect of the game has to do with the airport; as you progress through the game, you'll eventually gain access to the Ibiza airport. From there, you can then take a plane (and your car) to O'ahu and drive around that island all over again. The graphics have been redone and another 600 km. of asphalt, as well as off-road trails, have been added. There will also be new missions and side missions, so those who spent a lot of time with the first game should have enough reason to head back. Polloni stressed that Eden Games is paying close attention to the community feedback and there are already plans to have downloadable content. Motorcycles won't be available on day one, but they are something the developers intend to include.

The next time we'll see Test Drive Unlimited 2 will be at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, so be sure to stay tuned for more information as soon as it becomes available. The game is scheduled to be released this fall on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

The gorgeous city of Constantinople takes center stage in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, another great historical adventure.
The Good

New movement options keep the platforming joyful
Brotherhood recruitment has been nicely fleshed out
Gorgeous, vibrant world with a lot to do
Fantastic soundtrack
Emotionally fulfilling ending.

The Bad

Tower defense isn't fun
Desmond sections aren't fun
Disappointing main story.

Even the greatest heroes can't live forever. And so it goes for Ezio Auditore di Firenze, who finally steps aside to make room for new champions in Assassin's Creed: Revelations. This is another quality entry in a quality series, and it unleashes you in a visually stunning re-creation of 16th-century Constantinople. Additions to the movement mechanics make exploring the city a joyous exercise in high-flying parkour, with you as Ezio leaping across rooftops and flinging yourself up exterior walls like a Renaissance superhero. Like many sequels, Revelations giveth, and Revelations taketh away, so you lose certain elements (horses) in favor of a slew of new ones (bomb crafting). Lots and lots of new ones. Assassin's Creed: Revelations is sometimes a lumpy Frankenstein's monster of a game, half-formed appendages stitched into place regardless of whether they belong there or not. Thankfully, when Revelations remembers to be an Assassin's Creed game, it soars into the Turkish skies, reminding fans why they fell in love with this freewheeling series.

Expectedly, Revelations isn't all Ezio's story. It's also Desmond's. You remember Desmond, the bartender-cum-assassin whose mind is probed to discover truths that could potentially prevent the earth's destruction. Desmond looks different than you might remember: faces have been redesigned, features elongated, making your old comrades-in-conspiracy feel a bit unfamiliar, as if they have had plastic surgery since you saw them last. In any case, Desmond's mind is a prisoner within the Animus, the machine that allows his associates to tap into his ancestral memories. This computerized sanctuary is presented as an island, where shimmering doors leading to who-knows-where punctuate a virtual seaside. Here, Desmond and the enigmatic Subject Sixteen explore the bartender's memories and regrets in long conversations that illuminate Desmond's former life.

In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond was becoming a full-fledged assassin, and you guided him through dank caves and across rooftops as a sort of Ezio-lite. The character arc matched the gameplay arc: Desmond was gaining confidence, and this was reflected in his ever-improving abilities. Revelations tries a more thoughtful approach but falls short. Subject 16 starts as a mystery and remains one, making for an unsatisfactory replacement for the team with which Desmond has typically interacted. Meanwhile, Desmond passes through those shining portals and into his own memories. These memory levels are made of gray columns and tiled floors that glisten and undulate like digital rivers. You move through them in first-person view while Desmond talks himself through the pain of his past. This synthetic cyberspace makes for an effective backdrop, but the accompanying gameplay is anything but fun. You create blocks and ramps out of thin air to pass through these levels, but moving across them feels flat, and jumping is inexact. The flatness turns to frustration as you encounter gusts that move the blocks you create, and deal with energy fields that cause them to dissipate. These levels are one of Revelations' many attempts to force elements into a game that doesn't benefit from them.

The good news is that you spend the bulk of your time as Ezio, though he isn't the only historical presence taking center stage. Altair from the original game returns as a playable character, and Revelations makes good use of the parallels between the heroes' lives, and scenes near the conclusion resonate with great emotion. Yes, there is a "holy cow!" moment near the end, as expected for an Assassin's Creed game, and the final shot will have fans--once again--wondering what comes next. But it's the calm before the storm that ties two lives together and thus impresses most; there's a moment when you realize you will miss these assassins of centuries past. As for Ezio's story, well, the man is older and tired, and the story reflects this weariness. It introduces new characters, the best of whom is Sofia, an Italian bookseller who welcomes Ezio's formidable charms. But the main plot, involving political unrest among the sultan and his family members, is merely serviceable, lacking the personal touch that made Assassin's Creed II's narrative so enthralling.

Nevertheless, Revelations is as absorbing as its predecessors, because it's so much fun to move through Constantinople and other key areas. This is due in part to the world's sheer beauty. Deep golds and reds make a stroll through the grand bazaar a feast for the eyes, and famous landmarks like Hagia Sophia cut striking silhouettes against the night sky. Row a boat across a strait, and you marvel at the authentic wake that ripples behind. On the PC, the smallest details are as impressive as the grand, sweeping vistas. The scars criss-crossing Ezio's weathered face; the finely crafted designs threaded across Yusuf's gauntlets; and the deep-green ivy climbing the worn face of a domed mosque: these elements are uniformly impressive. At high resolutions, certain technical imperfections stand out more than they did on consoles, such as some object clipping and animation glitches. (Some asynchronous sound effects can also prove distracting.) But overall, Assassin's Creed: Revelations' presentation is dazzling.

The other reason exploration is so joyous is that the simple act of moving from place to place is so satisfying. Animations remain generally great. Ezio doesn't grab some unseen outcropping as he scales towers: he reaches for actual ledges and outcroppings, which makes his impossible acrobatics feel authentic. Climbing a tower reaching into the heavens, admiring the view, and then making a leap of faith into a hay bale hundreds of feet below is a delight, as it always has been. But Revelations expands the parkour aspect of the game by giving you use of a handheld hook. With this hook, Ezio can scale upward more quickly and glide down ziplines--and even assassinate rooftop guards as he skims past.

The hook also allows you to reach out and grab walls as you fall--walls that would be out of reach in previous Assassin's Creed games. You can also buy parachutes and activate them in midair, which feels free and easy, like wafting downward on a cool breeze. Revelations makes it more fun than ever to stay on the move. In fact, some of its best moments focus on fluid parkour, such as an atmospheric trek through a dank cave and an exhilarating escape from a flaming boat. The best set pieces are those that focus on movement. How unfortunate that other such events are less successful--and that the game leans on the lesser ones so early on. Avoiding rocks as you are dragged behind a careening carriage isn't fun, nor is bashing other carriages as you drive one. Another carriage-focused mission is more entertaining and has you activating a parachute and flying behind the vehicle as a sort of Renaissance-era parasailer. It's nice to have the variety in between long stretches of fighting guards and wandering among crowds, but earlier games simply did such diversions better.

Not that Revelations doesn't try to mix up the pace; far from it. Like in Brotherhood, you can recruit assassins and send them off on contracts to such cities as Barcelona and Athens. This menu-based minigame works much as it did before, but there are two key improvements that make recruitment much more interesting now. Firstly, the contracts have been given context in the form of a strategic minigame. Completing contracts increases assassin influence and diminishes Templar presence. Your goal is to earn and retain control of those cities, which lends meaning to what used to be abstract busywork without real consequence. Secondly, once an assassin reaches a high enough level, you can assign him or her as a leader of a faction den. Doing so opens up new missions in which you accompany recruits as they tail targets and attempt assassinations. Your newest brothers typically fail their missions on the first attempt but rise above such adversity later on. Before, you knew Ezio was a mentor because you were told he was. Now, you actually feel like you're making a difference.

It's natural that developer Ubisoft Montreal would want to expand the previous game's mechanics, which felt like they belonged because they were pertinent to the story, and to Ezio's leadership role. On the other hand, it's hard to know what to make of the brand-new addition of tower defense to the mix. The Templars take over for Brotherhood's Borgias, controlling key areas and forcing you to kill their commander so that you can light a signal fire and purchase nearby shops. But the Templars can regain control if you don't take the time to assassinate key figures or bribe heralds. (This new twist on the notoriety concept doesn't require you to rip wanted posters off walls.) To preserve control, you participate in a tower defense battle in which you place assassins on the rooftops above a single, short alley and destroy the waves of soldiers that stampede in.

You do all this from a single vantage point, earning morale (the minigame's currency) as Templars fall, and using it to place blockades and assassins. Not only does the whole thing seem out of place, but it isn't enjoyable on its own terms. It's nice that you can shoot marauders from above as your fellow assassins take aim with bows or leap onto their targets from rooftops. But your limited view is confining, and the gameplay is too simple to lead to a rewarding victory. To make things even less fun, the camera occasionally zooms in for a close-up of a falling enemy or brother. This cinematic touch was probably meant to add excitement to this unexciting process, but it's just aggravating. All it does is disrupt the flow.

As an infomercial host might say: "But wait--there's more!" Now you can craft bombs out of ingredients that you find in chests and earn for completing contracts. It's a simple process; you just go to a crafting station, select the right ingredients, and voila: bombs. The bombs might spew poison into the air or simply explode as a good bomb should. They're nice toys to have but unnecessary because combat isn't so difficult that you're forced to pull them out of your trick bag. That doesn't mean that combat hasn't seen some changes, and to be fair, it is more challenging than before. Much of that new challenge comes from gunners squirreled away in tiny shelters, where they are out of your blade's reach. Getting shot strips away a good deal of health and knocks you back, though you should always have plenty of health packs if you regularly loot bodies. Nonetheless, it's annoying to be shot by a pair of unseen snipers, especially if you're already engaged. At least you have your own ranged weapons (gun, crossbow, knives, bombs) and can destroy gunners once you find them.

So you get more use out of your gun than before, but battles still focus on swordplay. There's still a nice ebb and flow to the action, which is made more brutal by new, frequent kill animations. You take up arms as both Ezio and Altair, and while Altair doesn't have that many moves at his disposal, his sections are much more linear. You won't do much free-form climbing as the Crusades-era hero; rather, these missions are focused much more on narrative. It's a nostaligic joy to return to Musyaf and see how it has changed in the years since Altair's original adventures. Besides, the change in scenery is welcome. Previous games let you gallop around on horseback outside of city walls. Constantinople doesn't offer much in the way of wide-open spaces, and in fact, there are no horses to ride there. But Ezio does make a detour late in the game, though the change in scenery is accompanied by a decline in free-form parkour.

Brotherhood introduced an unusual multiplayer component to the series, and it returns in Revelations. There are new characters with new special abilities, maps, modes, and other changes, but the core mechanics remain the same. In many cases, you are assigned a target and must identify him as he slinks through the crowds, trying to remain unseen. The map gives you only a rough idea of the target's location, so you need to keep your senses keen. Of course, you also need to refrain from giving yourself away to your assigned assassin, slinking through crowds and standing near identical crowd members. Some new modes take a different tack. In Deathmatch, the proximity radar is gone, as are the clones that make it easier to stay hidden. That mode is entertaining but simple, and it doesn't result in the kind of tension boasted in other modes. The new Artifact Assault mode produces tension, albeit of a different kind. This capture-the-flag variant gives you more chances to sprint at top speeds as you deliver the enemy's flag to your home base, hoping to escape a hotfooted pursuer.

PC owners should rejoice that Ubisoft has adjusted their digital rights management requirements: players needn't remain online while they play the single-player adventure. But what's most important is the game itself. Assassin's Creed: Revelations' enhanced acrobatics make the simple act of moving from one place to the next an enormous delight. The improved recruitment mechanics communicate that there are, in fact, high stakes in this underground war between Templars and assassins. Not everything that's new represents an improvement, however. First-person puzzling and tower defense are bewildering, unenjoyable additions to a game that didn't need them. On the bright side, the game usually sticks to what it does best. And what Revelations does best is to set you free in a magnificent city, where you skyrocket across the rooftops, letting the gorgeous sights and evocative music transport you to another life and another century.

Its beautiful vision of 15th-century Rome is just one of many reasons to get lost in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
The Good

Exquisite, detailed reproduction of Rome
Great voice acting makes you care about the eclectic ensemble cast
Lairs are a pleasure to explore
Online investing makes economy even more meaningful
Long adventure stuffed with lots of varied missions and exploration.

The Bad

Forgettable story
Assassin recruitment is contrived and ultimately meaningless
Some audiovisual glitches and other troubles.

There are a number of key differences between Assassin's Creed II and its follow-up, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but if there's one that some PC enthusiasts will appreciate the most, it's that Ubisoft's stringent copy-protection scheme has been jettisoned. This is cause for celebration in itself, though it's the captivating beauty and joyous exploration that make Brotherhood another standout in this ever-evolving franchise. The Assassin's Creed games have gone to great lengths to depict their environments and circumstances with painstaking historical authenticity, and Brotherhood is no exception. Its stunning re-creation of Rome will have you occasionally gasping at its beauty--the sun so bright, you can almost feel it warming your skin. A disappointing story, some audiovisual glitches, and a few other missteps might occasionally yank you from your reverie. But if you worried that a direct sequel released so soon after Assassin's Creed II would feel rushed or incomplete, then rest your mind: Brotherhood is a big, high-quality sequel deserving of both your time and money.

Brotherhood doesn't quite have the same emotional impact as its fantastic predecessor, however. Once again, you don the robes of master assassin Ezio Auditore. After a battle at the family's villa in Monteriggioni, Ezio's nemesis, Cesare Borgia, steals the all-important artifact known as the Apple of Eden. With the help of Caterina and other old friends, Ezio heads to Rome to retrieve the Apple and rid the city of Borgia influence. There's a bit of drama when an associate is accused of betrayal, but for the most part, Brotherhood's plot is the most straightforward in the series, and because Ezio exhibits little personal growth, there's a hint of staleness to his escapades. You don't play just as Ezio, however: you once again take on the role of Desmond, the modern-day bartender-turned-lab-rat who relives Ezio's memories inside a machine called an animus. He has a greater role to play in Brotherhood than in the previous two games combined, and his endgame actions lead to an astounding finale that rivals Assassin's Creed II's for pure shock value.

The plot may not be intricate, but a cast of excellent characters makes it easy to stay invested. One of them is Salai, Leonardo da Vinci's assistant and a mischievous rascal who enjoys flirting with Ezio as much as he does playing dice. You meet him in a set of missions called The Da Vinci Disappearance, which were released as premium downloadable content for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. Salai's impish grin and cascading curls make him an excellent addition; however, most of Brotherhood's leading players are returning ones. You once again spend time with Caterina Sforza, Nicolo Machiavelli, and Ezio's sister Claudia, though the game's most memorable presence is that of a new character: Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare's sister--and lover. Lucrezia's sharp tongue is matched by her severe, almost vampiric appearance, and she isn't afraid to test the boundaries of human decency in the pursuit of power. Wonderful voice acting brings all of these characters to life. When Claudia stands up to her overbearing brother, you hear the strength in her voice and appreciate how much she has grown. Salai's overt lustfulness might make you squirm, but a charming voice-over gives him too much clever twinkle for you to ever lose patience.

While Brotherhood's story falls short of series standards, its sense of place and time is as impeccable as fans could possibly hope for. You spend the majority of the time in Rome, and while you may miss exploring multiple cities, the city is nevertheless huge and gorgeous, brimming with so much visual variety and exquisite detail that Brotherhood feels as consequential as its forebears. You might roam into a cathedral to discover a palatial view punctuated by red tapestries and golden candelabras. Citizens wandering the streets munch on apples, carry lanterns in the evening, and flirt with each other behind pillars. The music enhances the atmosphere with operatic soprano warbles and French horn melodies. The production values are unfortunately undercut by occasional bugs. Combat might go eerily silent, or the music might not kick in when you scan the city from atop a perch. Button prompts may not appear when they're supposed to, and on some machines, menu text may not display. The way citizens might suddenly pop into view can be distracting--as can occasional frame rate hitches during cutscenes. There is also a series of missions framed as flashbacks in which Ezio is to appear in different clothing. However, if you don the special armor set included with this version, he might not be shown in the proper clothes in these missions. These are minor but noticeable blemishes in a game that otherwise looks and sounds superb.

Within this grand world is a ton of stuff to do. The staples of the series--rooftop platforming, blending with crowds, silent assassinations, rhythmic swordplay--have all returned, and most have been enhanced or adjusted in some way. It's as joyous as ever to bound across roofs and climb to the tops of towers. Lifts that rapidly fling you to a rooftop are a great new addition and provide a second of high-speed thrills, though the movement mechanics are generally the same as before--it's the architecture and level design that have been altered for the better. As in Assassin's Creed II, you may search for glyphs hidden on walls and on rooftops, and they are perceptible only when you activate eagle vision. Finding one allows you to solve a puzzle, which in turn unlocks a small hint of a larger mystery. While most of these glyphs took only a modicum of effort to find before, many are now hidden on sizable landmarks with tons of nooks and crannies to explore. Expect to put in more effort if you hope to uncover more of the conspiracy that drives the series. Luckily, it isn't wasted effort: ledges and outcroppings are carefully and intelligently placed, which makes it a pleasure to climb these structures, whether you opt for a keyboard and mouse, or prefer to plug in a controller.

Many towers you climb don't allow you to simply ascend with little care; they require more conscientious navigation. In fact, numerous towers not only require climbing, but must be burned to the ground as well. The Borgias have spread their influence around Rome, and to undermine their rule, you destroy their edifices. Before you can do that, you must assassinate a commander in the vicinity. Often, your target will flee if you directly engage the guards that surround him, so you will want to approach carefully. In many cases, this gives you a chance to put a new weapon, the crossbow, to good use. Not only is it handy for picking off one of these key figures, but it's also useful should a number of enemies charge you on horseback. In any case, once you have offed the key officer, you may climb to the top of the nearby tower and torch it. Afterward, you automatically take a leap of faith into a hay bale or wagon of leaves conveniently placed beneath, while melodramatic organ chords signal the importance of your endeavor.

Eliminating Borgia influence is important because you then gain access to local vendors, though this access isn't immediate. The economy, an interesting but messy feature in last year's installment, has been fleshed out in smart ways. As before, you must spend money to make money, but Brotherhood's catalog contains a lot of big-ticket items. If you want access to blacksmiths, doctors, tailors, and so on, you first must purchase and renovate their shops. Not only does renovating an empty storefront give you access to supplies, but it also begins to generate income. As you bring in money, you eventually purchase landmarks, which cost a tidy sum. In addition, the PC version includes an online investment feature. By holding the space bar on the map screen, you can see where other players are investing their money. Investing in a popular business increases the amount of cash you earn from it, and you earn specialty items when you reach certain investment milestones. You also find such items (prayer beads, diamonds, jars of leeches) when looting corpses and treasure chests, and when tackling escaping pickpockets. These items can be offered to designated vendors in return for high-quality weapons, tougher armor, and the like.

There's little talk of Templars in Brotherhood's campaign, though there are some Templar hideouts to explore. There is also a new group of enemies to contend with: the followers of Romulus. Most of your contact with these beastly, fur-clad zealots is in their lairs, which take the place of Assassin's Creed II's tombs. Lairs are improvements over the tombs, however, in part because time limits are no longer so central to completing them. There is also a lot more design variety to them. In one, fires erupt beneath you, and you must leap from pillar to pillar to avoid falling into the flames. In another, you leap across great heights and use your crossbow in creative ways to cause an enormous chandelier to crash into a column. One fascinating lair is an expansive abandoned residence, which is a nice visual change of pace from the darker, more structured tomb architecture.

Many of the standard missions should be familiar to series fans: tail your target by slinking from one group of citizens to the next (it's nice that they engage in conversation with each other when you do this now, rather than remain silent); fend off a series of attackers; or navigate to specific locations so you may eavesdrop on important conversations. But even within these assignments, there is a great deal of diversity. In one case, you must infiltrate a Passion play and determine the appropriate target before he can poison your contact. In another, you slink among a group of drunken revelers. The missions surrounding da Vinci's inventions are perhaps the most memorable, however. They recall the flying machine mission and carriage escapes in Assassin's Creed II, but this time, you get even more impressive toys to play with and more thrilling scripted sequences. Some tasks don't quite rise to the same level. Assassin's Creed's loose movement mechanics are wonderfully suited to its free-form climbing and so-called social stealth, but are less ideal for tasks that require precision. This can lead to frustration in missions that automatically fail if you are spotted or that require you to give chase and tackle your target. Fortunately, these are infrequent exceptions; on the whole, Brotherhood's mission structure is inspired.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's most noteworthy new feature isn't introduced until you're several hours in. In a callback to the original Assassin's Creed, distressed citizens might be under attack by Borgia's loyal soldiers. Rescuing one makes him or her loyal to your cause. From here, you control this underling's fate, sending him on various missions around the region, and even calling for his assistance in battle. These missions are handled via menus when you visit a pigeon coop. You select a contract and choose a recruit or recruits to assign, and they hopefully succeed. By completing missions, the recruits level up, and you can then improve their armor or weaponry. Eventually, they become full-fledged assassins and even celebrate their newfound status in a ceremony. Provided you haven't sent the whole cache of recruits on missions, you can call upon a few in battle, at which point they either rain down arrows from an unseen vantage point, leap out of haystacks, or charge in on horseback and engage their targets.

This aspect of Brotherhood is another way of giving you something to do in a game already full of content. At the very least, it's fun to call upon your brothers and sisters and watch them do their dirty work on your behalf. Ultimately, however, this aspect feels unnecessary and contrived. This is due in part to the combat's lack of challenge. Swordplay has been tweaked for the better, but a move that lets you string together one-slash kills keeps it from ever being so challenging that you need to call on your fellow assassins to gain a strategic advantage. More importantly, there's never any payoff for spending time improving your subordinates. The very existence of an ever-growing group of murder machines hints at an overall purpose--a grand final battle or some sort of reward for putting together the most powerful brotherhood possible. But no such reward exists, which makes the entire process feel like busywork. Granted, it's entertaining busywork, and it implies that Ezio is the full leader of a growing order. However, the feature lacks direction; it's as if you spent hours leveling up in a role-playing game, only for it to end without a climactic standoff.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood also introduces an unusual multiplayer component that doesn't deliver constant thrills, but is a satisfying alternative to the multitude of shooters on the market. There are several match types, which include the Assassinate and Escort modes released to consoles in the Da Vinci Disappearance pack. Most of Brotherhood's modes are variations on the same theme: you hunt an assigned target (alone, or in a team) while simultaneously trying to avoid the player assigned to assassinate you. This isn't as easy as it sounds. You get a general indication of your target's location, and you know what your target looks like. But then again, many of the non-player characters look exactly the same; if you're smart, you'll move slowly and stay close to your look-alikes to throw your hunter off your trail while keeping your eyes open for the telltale signs of another player. To further complicate matters, you can level up and earn special powers, such as temporarily disguising yourself, or using eagle vision to spot your victim.

Experiencing Ezio's rise from streetwise youth to devious assassin was one of Assassin's Creed II's finest pleasures. In Brotherhood, he gets plenty of chances to flash his disarming smirk, but his character arc isn't nearly as fascinating as it might have been. Nevertheless, this excellent period adventure has a magical allure that draws you in with its sheer beauty. Additionally, few games make it such a pleasure to simply move from place to place, whether you are galloping on horseback, soaring through the sky from rooftop to rooftop, or diving into a bale of hay from hundreds of feet above. Like Ezio himself, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood doesn't exhibit the growth you might have expected, but its charms are almost impossible to resist.

Ezio's Roman holiday is a joyous and gorgeous addition to a quality series.
The Good

Huge, beautiful city stuffed with amazing details
Lairs and other platforming sequences are fantastic
Long, with lots of fun and varied activities
Economy is more meaningful than before
All sorts of improvements, big and small.

The Bad

Main story is disappointing
Assassin recruitment is contrived and ultimately meaningless
Glitches.

The ladies of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood have both bark and bite. If you played Assassin's Creed II, then you already know Caterina Sforza, the comely Italian countess with a soft spot for sly, rugged assassins. She's not the only female character with an important role to play in Brotherhood, however. Claudia Auditore is no longer just a submissive bookkeeper, but rather a strong young woman who eventually learns to handle a blade. And then there's Cesare Borgia's cunning sister Lucrezia, whose sharp tongue is matched by her severe, almost vampiric appearance. These willful women are ensemble players in the continuing drama of Ezio Auditore, the self-assured star of Assassin's Creed II. His story continues in Brotherhood, which begins directly after the events that closed its predecessor. This follow-up tale doesn't have the same impact of the story that spawned it, but Ezio's world is a wonder to inhabit, filled with amazing architectural detail and bursting with tons of enjoyable content.

Ezio is not the only leading man in this ongoing tale. He's an ancestor of Desmond Miles, the near-future bartender who has remained a series constant. You play Desmond in several terrific sequences, the final of which concludes with a moment so staggering it rivals Assassin's Creed II's ending for pure shock value. It's unfortunate that Ezio's part of the story isn't as memorable as Desmond's, or indeed, as memorable as his previous journey. The setup is simple: After a battle at the family's villa in Monteriggioni, Ezio's nemesis, Cesare Borgia, steals the all-important artifact known as the Apple of Eden. With the help of Caterina and other old friends, Ezio heads to Rome to retrieve the Apple and rid the city of Borgia influence. There's a bit of drama when an associate is accused of betrayal, but for the most part, Brotherhood's straightforward plot doesn't have much emotional impact, and because Ezio exhibits little personal growth, there's the slightest hint of staleness to his escapades.

That doesn't mean there aren't special story moments to savor, however. One set of side missions is a series of heartfelt flashbacks that put you in the shoes of a younger Ezio, and they let him show off that old charm that he rarely exudes in Brotherhood. Other indelible moments come by way of your glimpses of Lucrezia Borgia, who has a complicated relationship with Cesare. She knows what she wants, and she isn't afraid to test the boundaries of human decency in the pursuit of power. Lucrezia aside, few of the important players are new, but they're all voiced by a great cast that gives further gravitas to a story and world that are presented without the slightest hint of irony. Furthermore, certain story elements are given poignancy by way of their presentation. For instance, spying on a scheming Cesare and Lucrezia through a palace window makes their dialogue seem even more devious.

While Brotherhood's story falls just short of series standards, its sense of place and time is as impeccable as fans could possibly hope for. You spend the majority of the time in Rome, and while you may miss exploring multiple cities, the city is nevertheless huge and gorgeous, brimming with so much visual variety and exquisite detail that Brotherhood feels as consequential as its forebears. You might roam into a cathedral to discover a palatial view punctuated by red tapestries and golden candelabras. Citizens wandering the streets munch on apples, carry lanterns in the evening, and flirt with each other behind pillars. It is all rendered with amazing detail and lit beautifully, undercut only occasionally by visual blemishes that will be familiar to fans of the series. There is some texture fade-in, and you'll glimpse citizens popping in here and there. More notable for PlayStation 3 owners is the obvious screen tearing and less consistent frame rate. Regardless of your chosen platform, the soundtrack enhances the atmosphere with operatic soprano warbles and French horn melodies. Large portions of the soundtrack are lifted from last year's game, which is mildly disappointing; how nice would it have been to hear a new theme when synchronizing the map from atop a high perch? Regardless, the music is a graceful complement to the splendid visuals.

Within this grand world is a ton of stuff to do. The staples of the series--rooftop platforming, blending with crowds, silent assassinations, rhythmic swordplay--have all returned, and most have been enhanced or adjusted in some way. It's as joyous as ever to bound across roofs and climb to the tops of towers. Lifts that rapidly fling you to a rooftop are a great new addition and provide a second of high-speed thrills, though the movement mechanics are generally the same as before--it's the architecture and level design that have been altered for the better. As in Assassin's Creed II, you may search for glyphs hidden on walls and on rooftops, and they are perceptible only when you activate eagle vision. Finding one allows you to solve a puzzle, which in turn unlocks a small hint of a larger mystery. While most of these glyphs took only a modicum of effort to find before, they are now often hidden on sizable landmarks with tons of nooks and crannies to explore. Expect to put in more effort if you hope to uncover more of the conspiracy that drives the series. Luckily, it isn't wasted effort: ledges and outcroppings are carefully and intelligently placed, which makes it a pleasure to climb these structures.

Many towers you climb don't allow you to simply ascend with little care; they require more conscientious navigation. In fact, numerous towers not only require climbing, but must be burned to the ground as well. The Borgias have spread their influence around Rome, and to undermine their rule, you destroy their edifices. Before you can do that, you must assassinate a commander in the vicinity. Often, your target will flee if you directly engage the guards that surround him, so you will want to approach carefully. In many cases, this gives you a chance to put a new weapon, the crossbow, to good use. Not only is it handy for picking off one of these key figures, but it's also useful should a number of enemies charge you on horseback. In any case, once you have offed the key officer, you may climb to the top of the nearby tower and torch it. Afterward, you automatically take a leap of faith into a hay bale or wagon of leaves conveniently placed beneath, while melodramatic organ chords signal the importance of your endeavor.

Eliminating Borgia influence is important because you then gain access to local vendors, though this access isn't immediate. The economy, an interesting but messy feature in last year's installment, has been fleshed out in smart ways. As before, you must spend money to make money, but Brotherhood's catalog contains a lot of big-ticket items. If you want access to blacksmiths, doctors, tailors, and so on, you first must purchase and renovate their shops. Not only does renovating an empty storefront give you access to supplies, but it also begins to generate income. As you bring in money, you eventually purchase landmarks, which cost a tidy sum. In many cases this is only so you can add to your periodic bank deposits, though there are gameplay benefits as well. For example, you might be able to climb to a particular synchronization perch only after you renovate a portion of the aqueducts. Shop quests are another nice economic tweak. When you loot corpses, tackle escaping pickpockets, and empty scattered treasure chests, you may discover special items, such as prayer beads and jars of leeches. These items can be offered to designated vendors in return for high-quality weapons, tougher armor, and the like.

There's little talk of Templars in Brotherhood's campaign, but there is a new group of enemies to contend with: the followers of Romulus. Most of your contact with these beastly, fur-clad zealots is in their lairs, which take the place of Assassin's Creed II's tombs. Lairs are improvements over the tombs, however, in part because time limits are no longer so central to completing them. There is also a lot more design variety to them. In one, fires erupt beneath you, and you must leap from pillar to pillar to avoid falling into the flames. In another, you leap across great heights and use your crossbow in creative ways to cause an enormous chandelier to crash into a column. One fascinating lair is an expansive abandoned residence, which is a nice visual change of pace from the darker, more structured tomb architecture.

Many of the standard missions should be familiar to series fans: tail your target by slinking from one group of citizens to the next (it's nice that they engage in conversation with each other when you do this now, rather than remain silent); fend off a series of attackers; or navigate to specific locations so you may eavesdrop on important conversations. But even within these assignments, there is a great deal of diversity. In one case, you must infiltrate a Passion play and determine the appropriate target before he can poison your contact. In another, you must kidnap and imprison a key figure who puts up quite a fuss in the process. The missions surrounding da Vinci's inventions are perhaps the most memorable, however. They recall the flying machine mission and carriage escapes in Assassin's Creed II, but this time, you get even more impressive toys to play with and more thrilling scripted sequences. Some tasks don't quite rise to the same level. Assassin's Creed's loose movement mechanics are wonderfully suited to its free-form climbing and so-called social stealth, but are less ideal for traditional sneaking and hiding. This can lead to frustration in missions that automatically fail if you are spotted. Fortunately, these are infrequent exceptions; on the whole, Brotherhood's mission structure is inspired.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's most noteworthy new feature isn't introduced until you're several hours in. In a callback to the original Assassin's Creed, distressed citizens might be under attack by Borgia's loyal soldiers. Rescuing one makes him or her loyal to your cause. From here, you control this underling's fate, sending him on various missions around the region, and even calling for his assistance in battle. These missions are handled via menus when you visit a pigeon coop. You select a contract and choose a recruit or recruits to assign, and they hopefully succeed. By completing missions, the recruits level up, and you can then improve their armor or weaponry. Eventually, they become full-fledged assassins and even celebrate their newfound status in a ceremony. Provided you haven't sent the whole cache of recruits on missions, you can call upon a few in battle, at which point they either rain down arrows from an unseen vantage point, leap out of haystacks, or charge in on horseback and engage their targets.

This aspect of Brotherhood is another way of giving you something to do in a game already full of content. At the very least, it's fun to call upon your brothers and sisters and watch them do their dirty work on your behalf. Ultimately, however, this aspect feels unnecessary and contrived. This is due in part to the combat's lack of challenge. Swordplay has been tweaked for the better, but a move that lets you string together one-slash kills keeps it from ever being so challenging that you need to call on your fellow assassins to gain a strategic advantage. More importantly, there's never any payoff for spending time improving your subordinates. The very existence of an ever-growing group of murder machines hints at an overall purpose--a grand final battle or some sort of reward for putting together the most powerful brotherhood possible. But no such reward exists, which makes the entire process feel like busywork. Granted, it's entertaining busywork, and it implies that Ezio is the full leader of a growing order. However, the feature lacks direction; it's as if you spent hours leveling up in a role-playing game, only for it to end without a climactic standoff.

You may never have thought that Assassin's Creed begged for a multiplayer component, but Brotherhood introduces one nevertheless. There are several modes, but they are all variations on the same theme: you hunt an assigned target (alone, or in a team) while simultaneously trying to avoid the player assigned to assassinate you. This isn't as easy as it sounds. You get a general indication of your target's location, and you know what your target looks like. But then again, many of the non-player characters look exactly the same; if you're smart, you'll move slowly and stay close to your look-alikes to throw your hunter off your trail while keeping your eyes open for the telltale signs of another player. To further complicate matters, you can level up and earn special powers, such as temporarily disguising yourself, or using eagle vision to spot your victim. Matches aren't packed with action, but they can be incredibly intense. You might discover your target and give chase across rooftops, only to lose the assassination contract when he escapes. Or you might leap onto your target and plunge your blade into his throat, only to give yourself away to your own pursuer. The measured tempo won't be appealing to those who thrive on ceaseless thrills, but Brotherhood's tense tug-of-war pacing makes it an appealing alternative that rewards you for careful and clever assassinations.

You may run into a few glitches here and there, such as those moments when you walk forward, only for Ezio to bend forward as if he's on a ledge, even though you are on continuously flat terrain. In addition, we fell through the world geometry and into the waters far beneath on several occasions, which required a restart. But these are uncommon occasions in a refined and sophisticated adventure. Almost every aspect of the series has seen enhancements in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, from travel (you can whistle for a horse and ride it almost anywhere) to value (you can now replay any completed memory). There is joy in leaping across the Roman rooftops, taking in the grand sights in front of you and realizing that it is all your own playground. Stealing a combatant's spear from him and impaling him on it is a brutal pleasure. And the little touches--the way Claudia meets Ezio's stare with one of her own, or the fluid animations that characterize your agile maneuvers--are constant reminders of what makes these games so enchanting. This may not be Assassin's Creed III, but like Ezio's smirk, Brotherhood is too irresistible to ignore.

The PC version of last year's beautiful action adventure is lots of fun, but you'll have to overcome its online-only copy protection and high price point.
The Good

Huge, beautifully realized world to explore
Ezio is a terrific new character
Tombs put a spotlight on the excellent and enjoyable platforming
A good variety of weapons, missions, and stealth techniques
Incredible production values.

The Bad

Frequently broken copy protection scheme requires constant Internet access
High price point
Some additions are a little contrived.

Assassin's Creed II is a gorgeous and impressive piece of work, unfortunately undercut by a few notable issues that intrude on the fun. Developer Ubisoft Montreal has addressed many of the original's flaws by filling its follow-up with fresh and enjoyable mission types while still retaining the joy of movement and atmospheric wonder that characterized the original. The game's vision of Renaissance Italy is astounding, delivering a world that you will love exploring and a sense of wonder that few games can so joyously deliver. The cohesive story and a terrific new character will draw you in, and traditional platforming sequences and other new additions pile on the fun.

Assassin's Creed II's most unusual attribute, however, is displayed in big letters on the front of the box: "A permanent Internet connection is required to play the game." This requirement wouldn't be so peculiar if it were an online-only multiplayer game, but Assassin's Creed II is a single-player, story-driven adventure. Whenever you play the game, you must sign into an online portal; if you aren't connected to the Internet, you cannot start the game, and if you lose your connection, the game will pause. Even your saved games are stored online, which is a boon if you plan on playing on multiple computers, but seems like an otherwise unreasonable mandate. This is a bold approach to digital rights management--and one that could unnecessarily hinder your enjoyment. If a storm knocks out your Internet connection, you're out of luck; if you want to play games on your laptop during an upcoming airplane journey, cross Assassin's Creed II off the list of possibilities. And even if you maintain a solid connection, you might run into a few problems. Twice we had the game shut down while it was saving, and we ran into short but noticeable delays multiple times while the game attempted to load our profile and download our progress. Other times, our attempted login timed out, or the launcher incorrectly informed us that we had used the wrong username or password. These issues hindered our playtime for hours, and sporadically affected European players for days.

Regardless of your view of this unusual copy protection scheme and the inconveniences it might visit upon you, Assassin's Creed II is still a hugely entertaining and occasionally transcendent experience. Like the first game, it occurs across two timelines: a modern-day chronology starring bartender Desmond Miles, and another featuring one of Desmond's ancestors. When you start the game, you'll catch up with Desmond right where the original left him, though as fans of the original can guess, the Abstergo labs are no longer a safe haven. You'll spend a bit of time with Desmond during the course of the game, though the shoes you most frequently fill are those of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the charmingly impetuous son of a 15th-century Italian banker. Ezio is an instantly likable firebrand, as passionate about family and honor as he is about wine and women. When you first meet him, Ezio is living a carefree life and has not yet donned his assassin's robe, nor is he familiar with the creed. However, Ezio's devil-may-care freedom is soon cut short by murder and betrayal instigated by the assassins' greatest threat: the Templars.

Assassin's Creed's Altair was an interesting character, but only for the stealthy order he represented, not because you ever got to know the man under the white hood. Ezio is far more appealing, for he's not just quick with a secret blade, but he's a fully realized protagonist. He isn't at the mercy of the plot, but rather, the narrative evolves from his need to uncover the truth behind his sorrows. It's the personal nature of the narrative that makes Assassin's Creed II's story more compelling than its predecessor's. The few modern-day segments featuring Desmond pack a lot more punch this time around as well, and the conspiracies driving that story arc become a lot clearer and, as a result, more provocative. The two missions that occur just before the finale, and which were released as downloadable add-ons for the console versions, hinder some of the story's dramatic momentum. However, the ending itself is shocking and memorable, a nice improvement over the original's flaccid conclusion.

Ezio isn't Assassin's Creed II's only headliner. The Italy he inhabits is a character in and of itself, filled with visual and sonic details that infuse the world with life and elegance. The cities you explore--Florence, Venice, and more--are larger and more detailed than the environs of the first game. Citizens go about their daily lives, and they look authentic doing so. Merchants sweep the street in front of their shops; small groups stroll along, making conversation with each other; and courtesans smirk and cajole as you pass by. These folks aren't cookie-cutter character models. They are dressed differently enough from each other and are animated so expressively that it's as if the population would go about its business with or without your presence. More impressive are the cityscapes themselves as they unfold in front of you, inviting you to take in their splendor. This is an incredibly good-looking game: the lighting is sumptuous, the draw distance is vast, and textures are crisp. If you don't have a widescreen monitor, however, take note that the game is letterboxed--that is, black bars will appear at the top and bottom of your display.

Assassin's Creed II's sense of place and time isn't due just to its visuals, however. Its high-quality sound design is equally responsible, delivering a busy-sounding Florence while still allowing the little quips of citizens commenting on your acrobatics to shine through. There's a good variety of such dialogue now, so you won't tire of repeated lines, and because the citizen rescues of the original Assassin's Creed have been excised, you won't hear the monotonous whines of complaining peasants. There are a few scattered audio glitches, particularly during the Bonfire of the Vanities mission toward the end of the game. However, these are small flaws given the overall excellence of the audio presentation. Two aspects of the sound design are particularly noteworthy: the music and the voice acting. The game's splendid orchestral score is subtle and soothing when it needs to be, never intruding on the exploration and never manipulating your emotions with inappropriate musical melodrama. As for the voice acting, it is uniformly excellent. Not only is Ezio voiced with charm and energy, but the surrounding cast is mostly superb--though one particular line delivered by Ezio's uncle Mario might make you cringe.

The greatest beauty of Assassin's Creed II's exquisitely detailed environments is that you can run and jump across the rooftops with ease and climb the tallest towers to get a bird's-eye view of the game's glorious vistas. You control Ezio much as you did Altair, though movement feels a bit tighter and even more fluid than before. The game strikes an excellent middle ground between responding to player input and automating actions like leaping from one surface to the next, so it's simple to leap about the city smoothly without worrying that you're going to plummet to your death on the next hop. You'll still encounter a few awkward moments here and there: simply walking off a ledge onto a rooftop a few feet below can still be bit clumsy, for example. But these moments are few, and in fact, you'll pull off some awesome-looking moves without even trying. If you want to get the most out of your impossible leaps and dives, you'll want to plug in an Xbox 360 controller, which offers a somewhat more fluid experience. However, the keyboard and mouse scheme is a fine alternative, so if you don't have a gamepad lying around, don't worry: You'll have no trouble soaring across the roofs or slinking about hidden tombs.

Tombs are more intricate levels in which you must retrieve an important artifact (and if you collect all of them, you are in for a special treat). Some of them are platforming puzzles of the best kind, in which you must figure out how to get from your starting point to the destination, in the manner of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Ezio can't run on walls like the Persian prince, but he's incredibly agile nonetheless, and swinging and hopping about rafters and chandeliers within the tombs is great fun. A few tombs throw some additional challenges at you, such as a time limit in which to reach your goal. The best tombs, however, are those in which you pursue an enemy but run into obstacles that force you to give chase using an alternate route. The chases are excellent, and they require quick reactions, but not so quick as to be unreasonable. Flawlessly keeping up with your target without breaking your momentum is one of Assassin's Creed II's greatest thrills, and as long as you are paying close attention, you can pull it off on the first attempt.

Of course, Ezio is more than just a talented gymnast without a fear of heights. He's not afraid to shed blood when the time is right, and he's got a number of ways to exact revenge. The dual hidden blades are his best deadly toy in this regard. You can still stealthily pull off a low-profile assassination (sneak up behind a guard and stab him in the neck) or conduct a high-profile kill (pounce on your target and plunge your blade into him in a single, dramatic move). But the best addition to hidden blade kills are double assassinations: Walk between two unsuspecting guards, sink a blade into each of them, watch them crumple to the ground, and keep walking as if you were none the wiser. If you get really enamored with the dual blades, you can hang from a ledge and wait for an enemy to walk above you, stab him, and toss him to the ground below. It's particularly satisfying to do so above the Venetian canals, because the body will splash into the water and then float to the top. Or if you'd rather conduct your bloody business from above rather than below, you can wait for your target to walk below and then assassinate him in one spectacular move.

If you want to take the direct approach instead, you've got more to unsheathe than a basic sword. One of your brand-new combat moves is the ability to disarm an opponent and take his weapon. For a treat, try taking a giant axe from one of the heavily armored guards and planting it in his head, or skewering another with a stolen spear. If you like, however, you can stick with what you've got and simply pick up your fallen foe's weapon off the ground once the skirmish is done. As before, you can toss throwing knives at pesky archers, but Assassin's Creed II also gifts you with a special ranged powerhouse late in the game. Or perhaps you like to play with your victim before it's time to recite the requiem. If so, stab him with your poison blade and watch him stumble about as he tries to gain his bearings before you slice his throat. If that weren't enough, you can purchase improved weapons and armor pieces from blacksmiths scattered around the cities. By the time you are finished, Ezio may be decked out in some impressive-looking gear--and sporting some highly effective weaponry. The essentials of combat remain the same throughout, however: When battle is initiated, you lock onto targets, dance about each other looking for an opening, and time counter moves to pull off a bloody and satisfying kill. Combat isn't difficult, but the addition of larger-scale battles makes it more exciting in this outing. Nevertheless, it's disappointing that enemies still dutifully wait their turn to attack.

Blacksmiths aren't the only vendors willing to take your cash. Assassin's Creed II sports an entire economy. You earn florins by completing missions, looting treasure chests, pickpocketing strangers, or stealing from dead bodies and covered Venetian gondolas. Your main source of income, however, will likely be your uncle's villa, which serves as your base of operations and is a tourist destination. The adage "You have to spend money to make money" is true. You can spend florins on villa upgrades, such as purchasing a brothel or a church, and in turn, the villa will earn more florins from tourists, and you can take the profits from a chest inside the living quarters. You can then use your florins to dye your garb, purchase treasure maps to point out the locations of all those glowing chests, or buy a new pouch to hold more throwing knives. Most importantly, you'll want to visit a doctor, who not only will inform you that a weekly bleeding is part of a healthy lifestyle (yuck), but will keep you stocked in health packs. That's right: Your health does not replenish on its own any longer, so you'll need to make occasional visits to the doctor to replenish your inventory.

If you'd rather just avoid physical damage altogether, you can still keep a low profile, and there are many improvements in this regard as well. You've still got a few old tricks to rely on: benches to sit on and haystacks to hide in, for example. But contrivances of the original (remember Assassin's Creed's scholars, and walking at a snail's pace in prayer?) have been replaced by more natural and sensible mechanics. If you want to blend with the crowds, you can walk into a group of citizens and be automatically hidden. It's fun to move smoothly from one roving group to another and avoid the watchful eye of nearby guards, though there are sadly few occasions when doing so is essential. Or you can slink past guards by hiring a group of courtesans to distract them with their feminine wiles, or by hiring a group of thieves to engage them. You can even throw smoke bombs and use the resulting cover to sneak past. You can still fight your way through most situations, but there's something uniquely satisfying about taking the stealthy approach.

Yet even if you don't often need to be sneaky if you don't wish to be, you'll still need to stay out of the public eye if you can by keeping your notoriety levels low. Notoriety works much as it does in the Hitman games: The more bad deeds you're caught doing, the higher your notoriety levels rise, and the more likely it is that guards will recognize you. If you want to roam the city without worrying about being chased by every group of guards you pass, you can reduce or eliminate your level of notoriety by bribing town criers or by assassinating key guards. The easiest way to reduce your notoriety, however, is to remove the "Wanted" posters that appear whenever your notoriety meter begins to fill. This is one of Assassin's Creed II's more artificial elements, simply because "Wanted" posters appear in places that no guard would ever see. Nevertheless, "Wanted" posters give you another reason to clamber to the rooftops, which is never a bad thing.

The story missions tying all of this exploration and combat together are vastly improved over those of the original, often stringing multiple objectives together and usually making good use of Ezio's skills. Eavesdropping missions are gone completely, and beat-'em-up tasks are mostly optional. Instead, you will be rescuing prisoners, tailing important targets from the rooftops, assassinating wrongdoers, and plenty more. Some of the best missions act as set pieces and often involve Ezio's ever-positive friend, the resourceful Leonardo da Vinci, who will not only upgrade your synchronization (health) bar, but provide you with a few amusing gadgets, like your poison blade and smoke bombs. In one exciting scene featuring your talented comrade, you drive a horse-drawn carriage at a breakneck pace. In another, you take to the skies in one of da Vinci's flying contraptions, using the heat rising from the city's chimneys to stay aloft while kicking archers out of the way. If you thought Assassin's Creed lacked variety, you'll find plenty in the sequel.

Optional tasks are compelling as well. You can still climb to the tops of towers and make a leap of faith into a bale of hay or autumn leaves beneath, and doing so is just as unrealistic and awesome as it ever was. The flags of the original have been replaced by feathers, which tie in to story events early in the game. New missions include assassination assignments retrieved from messenger pigeons and timed rooftop races, which are always enjoyable in a game that makes the simple act of moving from one location to the next such a pleasure. You also run the risk of being pickpocketed, in which case you can chase after the perpetrator and tackle him, taking not just your stolen funds, but the florins of other victims as well. Another intriguing addition is the hidden glyphs you locate on certain buildings by activating your eagle vision. These glyphs tie the story's dual timelines together in an intriguing way and initiate puzzle sequences that in turn unlock short video snippets. The puzzles aren't that great, but the snippets are so weirdly fascinating that you'll want to collect all of them so that you can watch them in sequence. There are enough historical and religious conspiracy tidbits in here to keep you interested, and they're just outrageous enough to delight Dan Brown devotees.

Assassin's Creed II is a fun and beautiful game that gives you the freedom to explore while still offering a focused adventure steeped in atmosphere. It's also an expensive one, retailing at $60, a full $10 more than most PC games sell for at launch. The two additional missions offered as downloads to console owners don't seem reason enough to justify the extra cost--not for a single-player game that has value only if you can connect to the Internet, and only if Ubisoft's servers are working. Yet if these factors don't affect you (and that's a big "if"), you'll probably fall in love with Ezio's escapades. Assassin's Creed II is a picturesque and jubilant romp that will keep you glued to your monitor, marveling at the details that make its historical world such a delight to inhabit.

Assassin's Creed is a beautiful, exciting experience that will stay with you long after you finish it.
The Good

Huge, gorgeous world that feels wholly alive
It's fun to run across city rooftops
Joyous mix of stealth, action, and platforming
Stunning sound design features fantastic voice acting and a beautiful musical score
Tons of small details will constantly amaze you.

The Bad

Confusing ending
Remarkably high system requirements and some small glitches
New mission types aren't as good as the others.

Assassin's Creed features one of the most unique gameworlds ever created: beautiful, memorable, and alive. Every crack and crevasse is filled with gorgeous, subtle details, from astounding visual flourishes to overheard cries for help. But it's more than just a world--it's a fun and exciting action game with a ton of stuff to do and places to explore, rounded out with a complex story that will slowly grab you the more you play. The PC version has a few more issues than its console counterparts, and the keyboard-and-mouse controls strip away some of the smooth magic of exploration. Nevertheless, if you don't mind plugging in a gamepad and have a system that exceeds the system requirements, you'll find the same free-form travels and atmospheric game world that console owners enjoyed last year.

Not enough can be said about the living, breathing universe that you'll inhabit in Assassin's Creed. As assassin extraordinaire Altair, you'll explore three major cities of the Holy Land in the 12th century: Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre. Each city is beautifully rendered from top to bottom and features meticulously crafted towers that reach for the sky, bustling market squares, and quiet corners where citizens converse and drunks lie in wait to accost you. As you wander the streets (and rooftops), you'll push your way through crowds of women carrying jars on their heads, hear orators shout political and religious wisdom, and watch town guards harass innocent victims. Altair has a profound effect on this world, but the cities are entities all their own, with their own flows and personalities.

The visual design has a lot to do with how believably organic everything feels. The cities are absolutely huge, and though you don't get full exploration privileges in the first few chapters, they eventually open up to let you travel seamlessly from one side to another. Everything is beautifully lit with just the right amount of bloom effect, and almost everything casts a shadow, from tall pillars to Altair's cloak. In fact, sometimes the shadows get to be a bit much and may make you think for a moment that there is artifacting on your screen, when in fact it's a character's head casting a shadow on his or her own neck. Every object, from scaffolds to pottery, is textured so finely that you'll feel as if you could reach out and touch it. Animations are almost as equally well done. Altair scales walls, leaps majestically from towers, and engages in swashbuckling swordfights that would make Errol Flynn proud. And he does it all with fluid ease, generally moving from one pose to another without a hitch. Minor characters move with less aplomb, but that's easy to forgive, considering that the cities are populated with thousands and thousands of individuals.

On a high-powered PC, these elements look even more stunning than they did on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the splendor comes with a price: The minimum requirements to play Assassin's Creed are surprisingly high, particularly where the CPU is concerned (a dual-core processor is mandatory). On one test PC that runs Crysis at a respectable frame rate on medium settings, Assassin's Creed slowed to a crawl at lower settings. A high-end test machine ran the game with much better results, though with some occasional slowdown.

What you hear is even more impressive than what you see. At the top of a temple, you hear little but the rush of wind, the twittering of birds, and the barking of a far-off dog. In the most populated areas, your ears will fill with the din of street vendors, the pleas of beggars, and the occasional humming. It's never too much, though, and the game does a good job of making sure you hear what you need to hear (for example, the cries of citizens who need your help) without filling your ears with pointless noise. The voice acting of the supporting cast is similarly remarkable. Conversations are completely believable and delivered with the perfect amount of solemn dignity. Oddly, the weakest link is Altair himself. Actor Philip Shahbaz does an all right job, but he isn't up to par with the first-rate acting of his fellow troupe. Rounding it all out is a beautiful orchestral score that is most notable for its subtlety. Many of the game's most impressive moments are accompanied by lovely musical themes that add even more threads to the game's rich living tapestry. We did run into some audio glitches on two of our three test systems, however, in which sound effects would occasionally stutter and hitch. The game's readme file included a potential workaround for this issue, though in our case, it didn't solve it.

The story that binds it all together rises to the occasion. Actually, there are two related stories in play. The unfolding drama of Crusades-era Palestine is a mere memory, forcibly pulled from a modern-day bartender named Desmond by a resolute researcher using a machine called an animus. The memories aren't Desmond's own--they are Altair's, stored safely in the hapless subject's genetic code. We follow Altair as he assassinates nine public figures at the command of his master, and as the common thread that ties these men comes into focus, so does the true identity of Desmond's captors. There are no cutscenes in the traditional sense; every bit of story exposition and dialogue flows smoothly from the gameplay and takes place entirely within the game engine. The ending is confusing and blatantly leaves open the possibility of a sequel, but this is a small blemish on an otherwise stirring tale. Altair's world is not one of absolutes. His assassination targets aren't always evil, and Altair isn't always likable. As he is fond of reminding us, "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

Of course, such an authentic world would be meaningless without a lot of fun things to do in it. Thankfully, Assassin's Creed is endlessly entertaining in that it features a fine mix of stealthy exploration, tight platforming, and exciting combat. To discover the whereabouts of your assassination targets, you must first follow up on possible leads. There are several different mission types in this regard. In some cases, you sit on a bench and listen in on secret conversations. At other times, you will closely follow someone carrying an important letter that you'll pickpocket. Alternately, you can beat the information out of your target. There are also some tasks specific to this version of the game. Oddly, some of these new missions feel more contrived than the others, such as timed sprints and escort tasks in which guards execute scripted attacks as you move to your destination. Since the game's greatest strengths lie in its unscripted events, these additional tasks feel less organic than the others. On the other hand, missions that let you silently assassinate rooftop archers and fling guards into market stands are more interesting and fit better into the game's sandbox world.

There are also some optional missions, such as rescuing innocent townspeople from the clutches of guards. The reward for doing so is a group of vigilantes who will hang out in the area afterward and hinder any foes chasing you. It's also a good way to try out Assassin's Creed's combat, which is surprisingly satisfying, considering the game's focus on sneaking around. You can pounce on enemies using your hidden blade (an incredibly rewarding one-stab kill), or use throwing daggers to take enemies down from a distance. However, your sword is your melee mainstay, and though the hack-and-slash combat may seem simple at first, it gets more challenging once you unlock the various countermoves. Often, you'll have a dozen or more attackers to fend off at once, but though these fights can be a little tricky, you'll never feel as if you're in over your head. In fact, the few circumstances in which you are forced into combat--such as a late-game boss fight against a seemingly endless crowd of attackers and their leering leader--are challenging and require some pitch-perfect timing to counter every strike and lunge.

Nevertheless, brute force is rarely the best way to handle a situation. You want to slink unnoticed through the crowds, but you can draw attention to yourself in a number of ways--whether it's galloping past a guard station on a horse, knocking pottery off of someone's head, or getting so frustrated by the various beggars that you fling them away from you. (And trust us--these are the most aggressive panhandlers you'll ever meet.) If you antagonize the guards, they'll give chase. Yes, you can stick around and fight, and though it's never the easiest option, breaking stealth does not damn you to death like it does in other sneaking games. But why not lure them to a rooftop? Once up there, you can grab them and fling them to the street below. Or if there are too many of them, you can jump across the rooftops gracefully until you find a hiding place, such as a nice bale of hay or a curtained garden. Once you're hidden, they'll give up the chase and you'll be free to roam about again.

You can also seek refuge in small groups of scholars who serve as mobile hiding places. It's a bit contrived to walk into a stationary cluster of scholars and have them suddenly start moving simply because you're there, but it gets the job done. Actually, if there's any drawback to the usually excellent gameplay, it's how synthetic certain elements feel. Vigilantes are always in the same spot, missions reset if you don't get them right the first time, and those same guards will harass that citizen an hour after you pass by. It's easy to forgive these quirks, though, given the easygoing flow of the world surrounding these pockets of gameplay.

Climbing up buildings and jumping around the rooftops is fun and breezy, though keyboard jockeys should be warned that the mouse and keyboard don't deliver the best way to experience the game's fluidity. With a controller, the face buttons are mapped to correspond with Altair's head, hands, and legs; with a keyboard and mouse, the wonder of that arrangement is lost. It's also a bit tougher to time counterattacks using the mouse buttons, though players without controllers needn't worry too much: It's still a relatively comfortable setup. Of course, you can attach a controller, and we were able to use two different gamepads, including an Xbox 360 controller, with success.

Regardless of your preferred scheme, you can leap across alleys and scale walls with ease, and though it's possible to launch yourself from a wall or hurtle through a vendor's booth by accident, these moments aren't very common. You'd think that a city specifically designed to let you climb structures and caper about the roofs would look overly artificial, yet there's never a moment when you will think to yourself, "Wow, that looks like a place where I'm supposed to jump." The architecture looks completely natural, which makes Altair's abilities all the more exciting to pull off. The environments don't look as if they were created for him to climb around on; he just uses the hand he's been dealt, as any good assassin should.

In Assassin's Creed, the greatest joy comes from the smallest details, and for every nerve-racking battle, there's a quiet moment that cuts to the game's heart and soul. Climbing towers to uncover portions of the map is a simple mechanic but forever satisfying, thanks to the beautiful vistas and soft musical themes that accompany the view. Even the beggars that pester you are amusing and fun, though their constant shoving can be annoying when you're trying to pickpocket a pedestrian or eliminate a target without a fuss. It all makes your missions that much more compelling, and you'll be inclined to explore every nook and cranny and take on every optional task just for the fun of it. There's a ton of stuff to do, and even when you've exhausted your official tasks, you can search for the collectible flags and crosses strewn around the cities and countryside. You could probably plow through the main quest in 20 hours or less, but completists might spend many more finishing every quest and gathering every flag.

The PC version of Assassin's Creed isn't the superior one, but this is a case where translation to the PC resulted in some minor hiccups rather than obvious gaffes. If you don't have the opportunity to play it on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you should pick up a copy and immerse yourself in its memorable world. It's the kind of game you want to show your friends even if they're not into games, and if you have a high-powered computer, it's one that should be in your collection.

Action game fans ought to be able to settle in and blast their ways through Total Overdose's relatively brief campaign with reasonable levels of enjoyment. Just be prepared for one extremely cheesy ride.
The Good

Lots and lots and lots and lots of shooting people in the face
Completely insane special moves
Delightfully rough-and-tumble soundtrack.

The Bad

Brain-dead storyline
Mostly repetitive missions are made less so only by how easy and brief the whole game is
Mostly unattractive graphics--lots of glitches and bugs
Not enough available ammo for weapons
The words .

Rarely has a game reveled in its own crapulence the way that Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico does. Taking the concept of a stylish, violent third-person shooter to the height of hyperactive instability, Total Overdose is an all-out celebration of all things gun. Bullets fly with reckless abandon, bodies pile up to an almost alarming degree, and all the while you're pulling off the kinds of acrobatic maneuvers that would make Keanu Reeves say, "Woah." Of course, it's also all been done before. From playing Total Overdose, you get the feeling that the developers at Deadline Games had an awful lot of affection for the Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne games and that they may have watched one too many Robert Rodriguez movies late at night. That's because the main character plays just like Max Payne, the world around him operates just like the one in Grand Theft Auto, and the storyline plays out like a script Rodriguez might have written early in his career, before he knew what he was doing. Because it's made up of so many familiar parts, action game fans ought to be able to settle in and blast their ways through Total Overdose's relatively brief campaign with reasonable levels of enjoyment. Just be prepared for one extremely cheesy ride, and to sift through a few serious flaws as well.

The story of Total Overdose is cut from the kind of heavy-on-the-gunplay, light-on-the-drama cloth made famous in 1980s-era action films. Ramiro Cruz is an ex-convict and all-around screwup. His twin brother works for the DEA. Ramiro's twin is injured while working undercover, right as he's about to get in with some rather powerful drug lords down in Mexico. In a twist that plays like a vaquero movie version of the Anthony Hopkins/Chris Rock vehicle Bad Company, Ramiro is brought in to replace his brother so he can get in with the shady dealers. About a billion bullets, bodies, and busts later, you're dealing with crooked DEA agents, big-time drug deals, and a revenge plot about who really killed Ramiro's former-DEA-agent father. None of this means a thing, mind you. The plot here is merely a vehicle for you to get out and start shooting things. What little storyline exists here is largely turned irrelevant by the incredibly cheesy voice acting and writing, so there's no real opportunity to care about any of these people. But that suits the game just fine, since you'll be too busy killing everybody to bother caring about them.

What makes Total Overdose more than just another dull shoot-'em-up is the ludicrousness of its action. There isn't a kilo of realism to be found anywhere in this game...a fact flaunted at every opportunity by the insane acrobatic moves Ramiro can pull off for seemingly no reason other than because they're fun. Like Max Payne, Ramiro can shoot-dodge in bullet time while pumping tons of rounds into bad guys within a split second's time, all the while bouncing off walls and spinning around like a man possessed. These moves all play into a points rating that judges the different maneuvers you pull off and earns you points you'll need to complete missions. It's a neat system, but it's hindered by the most obnoxious aspect of the game, which (oddly enough) is the naming system for said moves. Moves are named the cheesiest things possible, like "Gringo loco!" and the oft-repeated "Spicy move!" In fact, you'll hear the words "spicy move" so often throughout the game that after a while a small piece of you will die inside every time it's uttered.

Thankfully, the basic shooting is reasonably satisfying. You're given plenty of different weapons with varying degrees of effectiveness. Fully automatic guns pump more rounds, but they also lack accuracy. Pistols are accurate, but they lack punch. Assault rifles tend to offer the best of both worlds. Rocket and grenade launchers? Well, you can imagine the level of destruction they inflict. If there's any complaint to be made here, it's that you often get the short shrift on ammo. There are upgrades you can earn throughout to give each gun type more available ammo. But even then, in a game this silly--where it's all about highly unrealistic action--you'd think the developer might have been a touch more generous with the ammunition. As it is, it's far too easy to run out of ammo for all guns very quickly, forcing you to constantly run around to pick up weapons off fallen enemies, which can be a risky affair in the middle of a firefight.

Ramiro can also earn a number of wacky special moves that border on comedic. Simply press a button and one of several select moves will occur, ranging from a kooky jumping spin move with dual Uzis blazing, to the appearance of an angry Mexican wrestler who will aid you by attacking any nearby enemies. Don't question it, because you'll absolutely despise this game if you try to put much thought into it. If you're willing to roll with the crazy Mexican wrestlers, the exploding piñatas, and the move called "El Mariachi," which straight-up gives you the Antonio Banderas-style "guns in the guitar cases" from the titular Robert Rodriguez film (though they should have called it "Desperado," since that's the actual film the move is from), Total Overdose can be a hysterical romp (though often unintentionally so).

Don't expect Total Overdose to be an especially challenging piece of work though, because it fails miserably in this regard. The enemy artificial intelligence borders on damaged. Bad guys will sometimes run around in circles, shooting at nothing in particular, or they'll get stuck in parts of the scenery. The only time they're at all hard is when there are just too many of them, and even then you can enact the game's "rewind" feature to just reverse time back a few seconds to avoid whatever bullet killed you a moment ago. Ramiro's special moves can also be abused to almost depressing levels. All it takes is one bout of El Mariachi to blow away just about any boss, without taking any damage yourself. Not that you need to cheat like this, since most bosses can be beaten just as easily with some nifty shoot dodging, but even still, exploits like this are prevalent throughout the game.

Total Overdose's Grand Theft Auto inspirations come from the vision of Mexico that the developer has created for you to play around in. The city you work in is largely open-ended, with plenty of pedestrians, ancillary traffic, buildings, and multiple locales, which unfortunately can't be jumped to without some load times. Additionally, these locations are also often difficult to find, since the in-game map is absolute garbage. As you wander around, you can look around for hidden bonuses and items, or you can just shoot the hell out of anyone who crosses your path. Unlike in GTA, though, there are really no consequences for your actions. Some cops might show up, but that's as far as it escalates, which effectively turns the process into a pretty dull affair. You get your missions by driving to icons located on the aforementioned terrible map, though it's at least good enough to denote the difference between a story mission and a side mission.

Side missions are mostly secondary and optional, though there are a few instances where you'll be required to do one or two side missions before the next story mission is available. Most of these are pretty simple "kill everyone in sight," checkpoint race, or "blow up a few burrito carts filled with cocaine" types of things, but they're fun enough for what they need to be. The story missions are longer and much more involved, often with multiple sections and plenty of heavy combat against drug runners, border patrol officers, and just about anyone else who might cross your path. The game is absolutely rife with save points, though, so you'll almost never find yourself having to repeat a lengthy section of the game. However, in the rare instance that you do, it's super-annoying.

There are also plenty of vehicles in the game, and they easily represent the least fun you'll have with any aspect of the gameplay. The cars handle in a very squirrelly manner, like the General Lee on a greased hockey rink or something. Fortunately, apart from the occasional checkpoint race, it's rare that you'll have to drive for more than a short distance. Often, cars are simply an optional means to an end, rather than a required piece of equipment for a mission. That's good, because if you had to drive for long bouts with these absolutely atrocious driving physics, you'd break the disc in half before you got anywhere near the end of the game.

Total Overdose certainly has style, but this isn't a particularly good-looking game. The character models are drab and blocky, and they don't animate as smoothly as they ought to. The rare exceptions are the style moves, but even they can be occasionally weird-looking. The cities are better-looking, and there are plenty of colorful set pieces decorating the background. However, the things going on in the background are frequently ugly. People dive out of the way of cars that aren't anywhere near them, cars will sometimes drive onto pieces of the scenery and get stuck there, and all manner of other little crazy glitches will go on--especially if you're involved in gunplay. The three versions of the game are all comparable, with only the PlayStation 2's lackluster frame rate setting it a notch or two lower than the rest. The PC game also does have a tendency to chug a bit, but it's marginal at most.

The game's sound manages to be both better and worse all at once. The voice acting, as mentioned before, is awful, though perhaps intentionally so. All the dialogue is terribly cheesy, and the actors ham it up to the nth degree. The credits list a number of Latino actors as playing the parts here, but most of them overdo the accents and slang so ludicrously that it all sounds forced and poorly stereotyped. However, the soundtrack is, in a word, tough. Featuring a smattering of songs from Latino rap group Delinquent Habits and Mexico City rap-metal group Molotov, the music complements the hard-edged tone of the game perfectly. What's more, a number of action sequences kick in with random bits of traditional flamenco guitars and upbeat mariachi tunes. Surprisingly, the jauntiness of these tracks sets a delightfully comedic contrast to the shooting, and it just plain works. The sound effects for the weapons, explosions, and whatnot are all effective enough, so you won't get any shortage of thunderous booms and bullet-riddled screams throughout the experience.

Total Overdose is one of those games that presents a conundrum. Most people shouldn't buy it, as it's far too short, too patently ridiculous, and too weak outside of its combat to be worth the money. Conversely, the game's utterly ludicrous nature makes for a fairly entertaining ride at times, and the shooting can be quite fun. Shooter fans on the hunt for something brainless and easy, but with lots of stylish gunplay, should certainly rent Total Overdose just to see how bananas the whole thing is. Those with slightly more-discerning tastes ought to just leave well enough alone and look elsewhere for their needs.

While NightFire is hurt by its relatively short length, the game's single-player mode is well constructed, and its multiplayer mode is good too.

The games based on the world's most famous superspy, James Bond, have taken a strange turn over the last several years: They've all been run-and-gun first-person shooters. That may seem obvious, and yet the character himself certainly doesn't walk around movie screens with a weapon for 90 minutes, shooting anything that gets in his way. While most of the games haven't done a particularly good job of making you feel like a secret agent with tons of options at your fingertips, these Bond shooters have always been at least competent, with the wildly popular and then-revolutionary GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 being the lone standout. The latest Bond game, James Bond 007: NightFire, inches itself away a bit from the run-of-the-mill action script, injecting a more interesting storyline and more classically cool James Bond moves into the mix. While any new Bond game seems doomed to live in the shadow of GoldenEye 007, this one at least tries something different.

But not all that different. NightFire's single-player campaign is a story-driven first-person shooter. You'll see prerendered video clips before and after most missions, which provide context for the in-game events, and you'll hear radio messages from your allies as your objectives change mid-mission. The game starts out in classic James Bond fashion, with an action sequence that isn't terribly related to the main game--here it happens to serve as a flashy tutorial. The actual plot focuses on a multination corporation known as Phoenix, which is supposed to have been contracted to dismantle nuclear missiles and clean up nuclear power plants around the world. But, like most video game corporations, Phoenix's intentions are evil to the core, and the company's leader intends to overtake an orbital missile defense platform and use it to essentially destroy the world. Of course, that's where James Bond comes in. His objective is to defeat Phoenix and save the world from destruction. Along the way, 007 will use a good collection of weapons and spy gadgets to achieve his goals. You'll also do some driving, turret-based shooting, and underwater craft piloting. The story is well told and contains enough twists, turns, and polygonal "Bond Girls" to provide a similar level of suave intrigue to what you'd expect to find in one of the films.

The level design in the single-player section of the game is solid. You'll occasionally find more than one way to tackle a problem--the difference is usually between simply running in with your guns blazing or trying to find a stealthier way to achieve your goal. The objectives are good and give you a lot of chances to execute cool Bond-like maneuvers. You'll use a decrypter to crack door keycodes, upload a virus into Phoenix's computer system, and use your watch laser to melt hinges off doors, grates, and safes. In one case, you'll have to avoid detection by a building full of guards, invisible alarm sensors, and video cameras. You'll have tranquilizer darts to neutralize pesky guards, and your sunglasses can be set to night vision or infrared mode, which will let you see the alarm sensors. The stealth elements are well implemented to change up the game's pace, and other diversions are also well done. The driving sections of the game aren't terribly complex, but they're fun and move quickly. One section of the game has you piloting your Aston Martin underwater: In classic James Bond fashion, the car transforms into a submarine configuration and lets you jet along underwater, taking out enemy subs and so on. NightFire has three different difficulty settings, but the major difference between them is that the enemies become more accurate with their shots as the difficulty level increases--which is usually enough to tack on a lot of extra challenge. The easiest setting provides helpful tips during play, making it well suited for new players.

While the story portion of NightFire may be good, it's definitely on the short side. Even on the highest difficulty setting, experienced first-person shooter players should be able to make their way through the game's 12 missions in a couple of days. Like Agent Under Fire, the game attempts to infuse the single-player campaign with replay value by tying the game's unlockable multiplayer items to your single-player performance. Reaching score goals earns you various medals for each mission, and different medals unlock different things, such as new multiplayer modes, gadget upgrades, and different player characters. This system will surely annoy people that are mostly interested in the game's split-screen multiplayer, as some of the medals can be devilishly difficult to earn.

Thankfully, the game has a decent collection of multiplayer options available right out of the box, but you'll surely want to strive to unlock everything or find codes to open up everything the game has to offer. All told, the game has 12 multiplayer modes. The standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and king-of-the-hill modes are here, as well as other modes, like demolition, where one team defends an object and the other attempts to destroy it. The team modes are nice, but the game's multiplayer levels don't really seem suited to handle some of the game's team modes. Maps with clearly defined base areas and slightly more balanced design make for better capture-the-flag maps, but only a couple of the game's maps do this well. The game lets you play with up to six computer-controlled players, and these bots can be configured using several different behavioral modifiers. The bots do OK on some maps, but they seem to get lost here and there depending on the settings, mode, and map used. One of the game's maps, ravine, relies heavily on moving cable cars that link two bases. The bot AI apparently wasn't up to the challenge of navigating this level, so bots are completely unavailable on this map.

Any multiplayer first-person shooter is only going to be as good as its map design and weapon set. There certainly could have been a few more multiplayer maps in the game, but what's present is done reasonably well. The weapon set is your standard post-GoldenEye set of toys, including the normal bouquet of pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, and shotguns, as well as guided missiles, timed explosives, a briefcase machine gun, and the like.

Graphically, 007: NightFire looks very good. Probably the most striking element of the game is James Bond himself. The character models throughout the game are very well done, but the lead character looks and moves just like Pierce Brosnan. Apparently some sort of supersecret face-scanning technology was employed to bring the actor to life in the game, and all of the game's facial work is wonderfully done. The characters' faces are very expressive and animate well both when speaking and when reacting to the other characters' spoken lines. Beyond the models, most of the game has a nice style to it, and the environments--even the final showdown against Phoenix's leader--all look believable.

As is par for the course when it comes to third-party games these days, James Bond 007: NightFire has been ported around to all three major console platforms. The Xbox predictably takes the lead with slightly sharper graphics and faster loading times, but the PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions of the game still look great and play just as well.

The game's concept seems to be focused on delivering an experience on par with that of a James Bond movie, and NightFire's sound definitely does its part here, as well. While NightFire's Bond isn't voiced by his silver-screen counterpart, the Pierce Brosnan sound-alike does an admirable job. The rest of the game's voice work is excellent, conveying just as much feeling as the elaborate facial animation does. The music is suitably Bond-like, and the game's sound effects are equally fitting.

While NightFire is hurt by its relatively short length, the game's single-player mode is well constructed, and its multiplayer mode is good too. If you're a fan of multiplayer first-person shooters, NightFire has a nice selection of options, though a multiplayer-focused game like TimeSplitters 2 does a better job in this department. Those purely looking for a first-person shooter won't find that NightFire is the best choice around, but as a Bond game, NightFire successfully re-creates the style, presentation, and action of its source material.

The PC version of NightFire makes an excellent case for leaving James Bond on console systems.

It's been a really long time since we've seen a James Bond game on a computer. EA originally intended to release The World Is Not Enough on the PC, but those plans were canceled and the game was released only on console platforms. The world's most famous secret agent has made himself at home on console systems, and perhaps he should have stayed there. NightFire is a solid entry on consoles, but the PC version's straightforward nature and bungled multiplayer options make the game a passable experience at best when compared with other first-person shooters for the PC.

NightFire's single-player campaign is a story-driven first-person shooter. You'll see prerendered video clips that provide context for the in-game events before and after most missions, and you'll hear radio messages from your allies as your objectives change mid-mission. The actual plot focuses on a global organization known as Phoenix International, which has been contracted to dismantle nuclear missiles and clean up nuclear power plants around the world. But, like most video game corporations, Phoenix is evil to the core, and the company's leader intends to overtake an orbital missile defense platform and use it to essentially destroy the world. Of course, that's where James Bond comes in. His objective is to defeat Phoenix and save the world from destruction. Along the way, 007 will use a good collection of weapons and spy gadgets to achieve his goals. While the game feels a little disjointed when compared with the more cohesive console versions, the story is well told and contains enough twists, turns, and polygonal "Bond girls" to provide a level of suave intrigue that's similar to what you'd expect to find in one of the films.

The console versions of the game include a few levels that take you out of the first-person shooter experience, instead putting you behind the wheel of one of Bond's souped-up cars or in a helicopter as a sniper. The PC version unfortunately doesn't have any of this. More first-person shooting levels have been added in an attempt to make up for the omission, but the console versions' driving levels do a great job of providing a change of pace, and without them, the game seems considerably less exciting and original.

The level design in the single-player section of the game is solid enough. You'll occasionally find more than one way to tackle a problem--the difference is usually between simply running in with your guns blazing or trying to find a stealthier way to achieve your goal. The objectives are good and give you occasional chances to execute cool Bond-like maneuvers. In one case, you'll have to avoid detection in a building full of guards, invisible alarm sensors, and video cameras. You'll have tranquilizer darts to neutralize pesky guards, and your sunglasses can be set to night-vision or infrared mode, which will let you see the alarm sensors. The stealth elements are well implemented and offer a slight change of pace. NightFire has three different difficulty settings, but the major difference between them is that the enemies become more accurate with their shots as the difficulty level increases--which is usually enough to tack on some extra challenge. While the story portion of NightFire may be fairly well executed, it's definitely on the short side. Even on the highest difficulty setting, experienced first-person shooter players should be able to make their way through the game with few problems.

The single-player portion may be decent, but NightFire's multiplayer mode is pretty horrendous. The main problems are ones that can and should be patched out at some point. Other players with silenced weapons make absolutely no noise when firing at you--not even the "thup thup thup" noise of a silenced submachine gun is audible. Add to that the fact that there's very little onscreen feedback to indicate that you are actually being shot, and you're left with a completely frustrating multiplayer experience. The game has only a handful of fairly drab multiplayer maps, and it doesn't have many multiplayer modes, either. While the console versions had a variety of different team-based modes, here you're left with deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. You can fill empty slots with bots, but the bot AI isn't very good.

Graphically, 007: NightFire is passable. Probably the most striking element of the game is James Bond himself. The character models throughout the game are done nicely, and the lead character looks and moves just like Pierce Brosnan. Unfortunately, you only really get a chance to see the fruits of this "cyber-scanning" labor in the game's blurry prerendered cutscenes. The characters' faces are pretty expressive and animate well both when speaking and when reacting to the other characters' spoken lines. Beyond the models, most of the game has a nice style to it, and the environments all look believable enough.

While NightFire's Bond isn't voiced by his silver-screen counterpart, the Pierce Brosnan sound-alike does an admirable job. The rest of the game's voice work is excellent, conveying just as much feeling as the elaborate facial animation does. The music is suitably Bond-like, and the game's sound effects are equally fitting. Marring the audio presentation is the in-mission speech, which was seemingly recorded at a low bit rate, giving everyone the sound of low-quality streaming audio.

While NightFire is hurt by its relatively short length, the game's single-player mode is pretty well constructed. However, the multiplayer component is more or less broken. The PC version of NightFire makes an excellent case for leaving James Bond on console systems, as it really doesn't compete with what the PC has to offer. Unreal Tournament 2003 and No One Lives Forever 2 are infinitely better choices for multiplayer and single-player shooters, respectively.