The Average Gamer

Eurogamer Expo 2010 – Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood And Gran Turismo 5

As I mentioned in my Eurogamer Expo 2010 post, I got to play quite a few games during the Expo. I will be posting about them this week, 2 games at a time, starting today with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Gran Turismo 5.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

This was immense fun to play. AssassinsCreedBrotherhood_AirKillIt did take me a little time to get acclimatised to playing it on a PlayStation 3 joypad as I’d spent 30+ hours playing Assassin’s Creed II (as well as Assassin’s Creed) on the Xbox 360, so I was a little used to those controls! If you love Assassin’s Creed then you will love Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It takes the basic Assassin’s Creed gameplay (i.e. run about and stab people) and adds a multiplayer component with great aplomb. Whereas in previous games, the other NPC characters were mostly docile and great for blending in with, now everyone is a potential killer. This is because, whilst you are assigned a target to kill, someone else gets you as their target. So everyone gets to play both the assassin and the target at the same time. This makes for some interesting, and complex gameplay, as you have to balance being stealthy and tracking your target with your own self protection (which when you resort to running around makes you a bleedingly obvious target!).

Ubisoft are currently running an Assassin’s Creed: Bortherhood multiplayer beta on the PlayStation 3 at the moment which I’m part of. So what are you waiting for?

Gran Turismo 5

Another game that generated a lot of interest at the Expo was Gran Turismo 5. We’ve all been treated to the incredible trailers that Polyphony Digital have released over the years for GT5, but now it was time to play. Well, first impressions weren’t great. I was distinctly under whelmed by it, as driving slowly provided the time to examine the graphics in greater detail. Sure the cars look amazingly beautiful as do the cites that they drive around, but then the cracks appear. Take the foliage for example, in particular the trees. They still look as rubbish as ever. 2 textures placed on top of each other at 90 degree angles, does not make a realistic tree. That may have looked ok in the context of GT2 or 3 on the PlayStation 2 but in GT5 on a PlayStation 3 it all looks out of place. Tikipod was very unimpressed by this. The game also feels sterile toGranTurismo5_Tokyoo. Everything looks too perfect. I didn’t really feel part of the game as it didn’t draw me in as I expected. Where is the gritty realism Polyphony Digital?

Later on in the day, I played GT5 again but this time in 3D. Wow! It was awesome. I take back what I said previously. I chose to drive a rally car around one of the dirt stages which also shows off the day/night lighting effects. Driving down the road as the sun set and the stars appeared in 3D was breathtaking. I was impressed. A lot. Control of the car was nicely balanced, allowing me to power slide around the many tight corners. It was fun. GT5 is clearly a large and complex game that is going to take some serious game time to fully enjoy, so I’m still optimistic despite my first impressions. Oh, yeah, and it also features the Top Gear test track plus Stig!!! Fortunately, we don’t have long to wait as it’s released on the 5th Nov 2010 (13/10 – Sony have just postponed the release date. It’s still going to be released in 2010 apparently.)

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about Dead Space 2 and Motorstorm: Apocalypse 3D.