I thought I should say something about E3 considering the amount of incredible titles shown this year and announced for later on. To start off I'm want to mention who I thought won for all three press conferences and that would be Sony for a number of strong reasons. I'm sure everyone else watched the shows and enjoyed them so there's no need to state them. It was good to see the event back at it's original home in all it's glory, it was without a doubt one of the best. This is what I thought was the best in show and it is...

Assassin's Creed II (Ubisoft Montreal)


There were a number of sequels this year, but none stood out quite like this. Assassin's Creed II continues the story of Desmond Miles, a descendent of a line of assassins who has been captured by the Abstergo company in order to acquire information on the pieces of eden which will lead them in realizing the modern day dream of the templars. This time around you will continue within the Animus as a nobleman-turned-assassin named Ezio Auditore di Firenze. This is as a result of his entire family being murdered. It will take place during the Renaissance within Italy in the year 1486. A few locations have been confirmed already and they are Florence, Venice, Tuscany and Rome, all will be free to explore throughout the game. The maps have been said to be much larger than the first game and will contain less free space meaning everything will be filled with detail. It is rumoured that you will actually meet Leonardo DaVinci who helps you during your quest, you will get to experience his inventions in this such as the flying machine pictured above and advances done to the hidden blade through his discoveries.



There have been many great improvements to the gameplay elements for this installment not to mention the graphical difference is impressive, The main emphasis they worked on was to make being an assassin the main focal point. You can now assassinate almost anyone you feel is necessary to get the task done and from almost any point. The combat is much improved, being able to disarm enemies, use their weapons for short periods of time and kill them with it. The addition of smoke bombs aid in escapes. You can now swim in this one to suit the environment and give the art of escapism a more realistic feel.

There is more of a variety when it comes to missions so nothing is straight-forward anymore, infact there are missions that incorporate more than one task and ability to be completed. The dive has been kept, but there are seekers who tend to notice these among other more intelligent enemies that will make thinking on your feet key to successfulling escaping. With all the additions this is one I look forward to start playing, there's going to be a lot of surprises come this fall and as of right now it's my most anticipated title of the year. If you haven't yet seen the cinematic trailer I'd suggest you check it out. Let me know what you think about Assassin's Creed II and your favourite features for it.

It's been a while since I last used this feature on Gamespot and I have to say in a way I missed it. It just seemed that with each month I started posting less and less to the point I just stopped. I mainly talked about new games and some things that were going on, but lately things have been a bit dull so there wasn't a lot that I considered to be blog-worthy. I've decided to take on a new format of writing these that will be more interesting and straight to the point to ensure the time reading is of things of some importance.

I haven't a lot of free time in the last month and this is really the first chance I've actually had to start writing an actual blog. That sounds like things have been hectic and there's some things to read about and there is. Most of my time has been going to work, which is good and all but free time is really starting to become more important with each day worked. I've set a new record not playing anything on the 360 unintentionally, I think it's at 17 days now. I plan on breaking that streak today and playing Mass Effect and the new update for Left 4 Dead. The new survival mode plus the new maps should be more than enough. It's too bad there's a gaming drought now, but It's almost understandable since E3 is literally just around the corner. I'm excited for that and I have a lot of expectations for a lot of titles, but I'll save that for another time.

I'm not sure if there's any or a lot of fight fans here, but here in Canada MMA is a big deal. Everything from the UFC, WEC, Strikeforce and the Bellator championships. I try to watch as much as it as I can just because I find it to be incredibly entertaining. It's been about three years since I actually got into the sport and to see it elevate to where it's at today is quite amazing. In April, I was in attendence at the Bell Centre for UFC 97 to see the Silva vs Leites match which did not live up to the hype. The rest of the fights were entertaining though. I went to Montreal for the entire weekend since the fights were on a Saturday and took in all the sites, restaurants and the culture of Quebec. I've been there before but this experience topped the time before. I just hope MMA gets sanctioned in Toronto so I won't have to take a four hour train again just to get there.

Since the last time I posted here I've acquired a lot of new games and even a new console. I'll start off with that first and then just list the games. My bro pre-ordered the Limited Edition Xbox 360 Elite for Resident Evil 5 in March. It's actually the first console owned that wasn't an original release and it came with a few good extras. An RE5 Premium theme, Street Fighter II HD Remix for the arcade, Black headset, Crimson controller to match and finally an HDMI cable. There's a difference and it makes the Elite worth buying if you want the full HD experience. Now to the games that I picked up the last few months; Street Fighter IV, Mass Effect, Resident Evil 5, Too Human, Facebreaker and Street Fighter Anniversary for the PS2.

Last few things. I got a new emblem for helping Gamespot achieve it's first place status in the 2009 Webby Awards for Best game-related site but I'm sure everyone else that uses this site as much as I do has it as well which is good. If you haven't noticed yet my avatar and banner are new and are from FFVII Advent Children Complete and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. If anyone is watching the playoffs the Penguins advanced to the Eastern finals. Two more game seven's left and the next one is tonight, should be good. It's good to be back.

This is the game I'm currently playing and I have to admit it's better than what I had first thought. The first Call of Duty game I played was a Treyarch title for the Playstation 2 and even though that was a good game after I played Call of Duty 2 developed by Infinity Ward, my perspective completely changed since it was superior in every way. Clearly the graphical difference, but the way it played felt more intense and more memorable. They captured the struggles of key soldiers and let you play through the perespective of their battles. It set the bar high for WWII shooters and overall shaped the way future games would look to for reference.



Call of Duty: World at War is an impressive game. It captures that atmosphere that made the franchise such a success in the first place. With such a ground-breaking game released last year known as Modern Warfare this game does a lot of things right to contend and compete with it. Everyone has their preferences on which is better and it's been debated for a long time to the point of no end. They're both superb in their own rights since they are held in two very different time periods and both play very well. I just started playing the campaign today and so far so good. I started out on Veteran and I'm about 1/4 done. I was told it get's extremely frustrating later on, it's no problem I've always enjoyed challenges.

The fact that this is based on the engine built by Infinity Ward took away any doubt I originally had about this game. The guns are properly weighted in the single player and balanced and with enough appeal to try out as many as possible. There's actually a lot of new things and ways to kill your enemy that make this alot more gritty and true to the history books. The M2 Flamethrower is incredible, being able to gain an advantage over the enemy is always a plus. There's an emphasis on cover and I like how your allies can push you off cover instead of going through you. Spriniting is very effective going from cover point to cover point shooting every enemy in sight. The adrenaline in this is as good as last year. I plan on finishing this on Veteran by next week and play the online as much as I can within that time. I almost overlooked this but I'm glad I got around to playing it.

I have to say it's been quite some time since my last post, it's now a month into the new year and it's been great so far. I've managed to find some time to play some of the games I purchased from before as well as the newest one I added to my collection just last week.

Well I picked up Skate 2 on day one with very high expectations due to the first game. If anyone hasn't played the first one I higly advise that you check it out. To me that game just redefined the genre and perfected the realism that us skaters have always wanted in a game. It had a lot of replayability even after the main story with the online and all the good skate spots in the open city. Playing a game of skate or a few spot battles always kept the game feeling new.



It's been just over a year and Skate 2 is now released. It incorportates everything from the previous installment and adds a lot of new innovative features and game types to the mix to give the players that exact same feeling from when they picked up skate for the first time. I'm impressed by the amount of detail that's in Skate 2. It has more of a realistic look to it whereas the first game had more of an art styIe to it. A number of new tricks to learn to add variety to the game as well the ability to walk around to find spots that were once impossible to reach.

Some of the features that appealed to me after a while were creating your own spots to share with your friends, the freeskate activities and the revamped online game types. I've already managed to make it into the leaderboards as one of the top thousand skaters for ranked jam sessions. You can now invite your friends to your party from the single player and start challenges in a matter of seconds. It's a very enjoyable game for casual and more experienced players alike. There's so much new content in this that I'll be playing this just as much or even more than the first one. If I had to choose between this and skate it has to be a tie.