I mess around with graphics here and there, typically for the fan site I run at http://www.2kfootballstrategy.com or the clan site I'm part of at http://www.triplethreatclan.com. I purchased Assassin's Creed 2 last Monday and have been utterly enthralled with the game ever since.

I put in about 40 hours gameplay into it last week, doing every side quest I come across, and refusing to finish the game until I get every single item and exhaust all side questions. I was looking at the backgrounds for the game, and I decided to take a shot at making one myself, something I have never done before. Below is my first effort, which I greatly enjoyed making even though the quality may not be top notch.

The words at the center spell out what else? The Assassin's Creed! "Nothing Is True" - "Everything Is Permitted".

Makes a pretty decent Twitter theme as well, check out my Twitter page! -- http://twitter.com/Valdarez

Let me know what you think of it, good or bad. Open to any suggestions on how to make it better.

Click the image below to see the large version.

If you read my previous blog, one of my chief complaints about Fable II was the length of the load times.  With the new XBox 360 experience on the way, one of the new features is the ability to install a game to the hard drive, which should help with the very problem that I encountered with Fable, namely load times.  Take a look at the load times as reported by Eurogamer in the image below.

(Fable II Load Time image from Eurogamer)

Now by looking at the load times, you might think they aren't all that bad.  What's 30 seconds of your life right?  Truth be told, these load times might be acceptable if the areas were more robust and they took more time to traverse.  In several cases, such as when you are in towns, there's almost enough to do to warrant the load time.  However, you typically have no reason to spend a large amount of time in any one area, and after your initial explore, are usually only in a given area for a very short duration, maybe a couple of minutes.  Thus you find yourself in a reptitious couple minutes of play time, load screen, couple minutes of play time, load screen, which due to the length of the load screens results in a lot of unnecessary waiting on the part of the player.

The fact that developers were unable to solve the load time issues for an open world is more than a little discouarging, especially since so many games before it have done so, or in the very least, minimize the amount of load screens to a suitable level.

The original Fable promised us the largest most complete RPG experience imaginable. Players would create a hero and watch him age over time. The choices they take and the battles they endured would carve the hero's features. Fable was an ultimate letdown resulting in only 6 to 8 hours of game play for a single play through. Would Fable II address the wrongs of the original Fable and provide a more complete experience?

In a single word. No.

Wait. Not just no, but HECK no.

Fable II fails in places that it's predecessor succeeded. For one, the game is entirely bug ridden. From animations that get stuck including falling bodies, disappearing dead enemies (left in a twitching loop), frozen magic spell animations, and a HOST of dialogue / storyline progression bugs. It makes you wonder how this game was even released to the public in it's current state, especially with the dialog problems which force players to save games, and then reload to 'fix', or rather 'get around' the bug.

And load times. They aren't short. They are long, and completely unacceptable for a game of this type on a current gen platform. Oblivion had a more rich landscape than Fable and it had wider and more diverse areas with fewer load screens. You can literally traverse areas in under a minute before a new load screen will pop up. Oh, and I did mention they take a while right?

Another let down is the fact that player aging is completely gone in this game for all intents and purposes. There are now 'story archs' that progress the story 10 to 15 years at a time which then age the player. Considering the first game had true player aging, the loss of it in the sequel is a more than a minor let down.

Gameplay is still good. It's the same solid game play (pretty easy) from the original Fable. Fighting, shooting, and magic are all done fairly well, with only the occasional context issue. Enemies seemed to get turned around a LOT allowing you to hit them from behind repeatedly, making for easy kills. The difficult setting on this game is definitely of Lego origins.

I'm still playing through Fable II, but I'm nearly done with the game, and all I can say is it's yet another huge let down. Not only did it fail to deliver on the original promise of it's predecessor, a wrong the developers claimed they were going to right, but the lack of features from the original and the sheer number of bugs makes Fable II just another Myth.

The Giant Bomb is a great idea, yet here I am, finding it extremely difficult to support the site.

I have a lot of respect for Brad and especially Jeff with regards to their historical work, and what they have done thus far with this site. Unfortunately, they have decided to allow adult oriented content including questionable images, foul language, and the glamorization of alcohol consumption to permeate their work.

On a site dedicated to games, who thousands upon thousands of impressionable kids visit for information, they push forward activities that are considered inappropriate in most adult situations and especially in the life of children.

What's worse, is there are videos of the gaming companies, partaking in the exact same activities. Gaming companies are not only promoting their games to the kids on this site, they are engaging in these activities on videos that are posted on the site. Due to the recklessness of these companies and the complete lack of responsibility they have shown to the welfare of the kids, I will never purchase one of their games.

Roughly 4 months ago, I had another XBox 360 controller go bad on me. On this one, the X button was sticking. In and of itself, a single controller failure wouldn't be that big of a deal, but this isn't the first time I have had a controller fail. If fact, in 2 years, that was the 3rd bad controller. Well, the problem doesn't end there, as of last night, I had my 4th controller fail.

4 controllers in 2 years. Lets put this in perspective with regards to the other consoles that I have owned over the years:

• Atari - still have original controllers
• Nintendo - still have original controllers
• Sega Genesis - still have original controllers
• Super Nintendo - still have original controllers
• PS1 - still have original controllers
• DreamCast - still have original controllers
• PS2 - still have original controllers
• XBox - still have original controllers
• Wii - still have original controllers
• PS3 - still have original controllers

See a pattern there? Perhaps I have been lucky, but I have never had to purchase a controller, ever. Literally ever.

• XBox 360 - purchased 4 replacement controllers

All 4 failed controllers have had the exact same problem. The buttons fail to popup properly after being pressed. On 3 of the controllers it was the 'A' button, and on one it was the 'Y' button.

4 XBox 360 Controllers = $160

That's right, $160 for nothing more than replacing faulty controllers.

Is there a warranty plan?

Well, yes, I'm sure there is one, but good luck at trying to figure it out. I searched the web and while I found a ton of information on the XBox 360 console, I couldn't find anything with regards to the controllers.

Are the XBox 360 controllers issues confined to me alone, or have you experienced problems as well? Please sound off and let me know!

That's all for now, I'm off to the store to purchase my 5th controller.