Warning: Read This Before Playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

There are a few things I need to warn you guys about before you settle in to play this awesome game.

1) Prepare to learn a foreign language (or two).
Assassin’s Creed has a wonderful feature called Subtitles. Normally these are distracting letters that appear on the bottom of the screen during cut scenes. However in this game, they turn into a wonderful educational tool! Now you can learn how the correct phrases to say when stabbing people, as well as some key phrases to use when you converse with those whom you don’t agree with. While the majority of these are Italian, so far some French phrases have arrived as well! Who knew killing people could be so educational!

2) Italian is a universal language that everyone years to speak.
While it teaches you some great phrases, the biggest thing is that you’ll discover that deep down, you really ARE Italian. At first you’ll just be reciting lines that you hear from the game, but soon you’ll realize that even in your everyday speech patterns you’ll start emulating your buddy and mine, Ezio. Everything sounds better in a horribly mimicked Italian accent.

3) Your name just got six words longer.
Ezio Auditore da Firenze. It just rolls off the tongue. And jealousy will sit in. Why doesn’t MY name take three paragraphs to state? Soon you will be Joe Wilson de Wisconson con la Madison. It’s only natural.

4) Death follows you.
You’ll never quite figure out why, but people will just drop like flies around you. You’ll look at someone, wave your wrist, and a hail of arrows will appear and strike down your foes…even those you didn’t even know you had a problem with! And people on rooftops? Hell, they’ll start falling left and right. They shouldn’t be up there, looking at you and going “Hey get down from there!”. Serves them right.

5) Daggers. Daggers daggers daggers.
One day you’ll wake up and have them strapped to your wrists, ankles, knees, elbows, tongue, eyelids, ears, hell even places where you normally would want all forms of sharp objects to avoid.

6) Templars.
They are everywhere. Yes, even there. RUN.

-Zeke

aniRAGE Year In Review – Zeke’s Games of the Year

Zeke’s Games of the Year:

As part of the aniRAGE Year In Review, this will list my picks for Games of the Year. I have seperated them into 5 categories:

  • Major Releases, or games that came out this year that were sold at full retail price, and were full fledged games.
  • Downloadable Games, games that you downloaded off of X Box Live or Playstation Network, typically at a low price. In this category I also disqualified re-release games, and concentrated on purely original games.
  • Free Games, usually in the form of flash-games in a web browser.
  • Mobile Games, games found (typically) exclusively on phones and other mobile devices.
  • Downloadable Content, add-ons purchased to the game to expand it’s playability and unlock new features.

Major Releases: Red Dead Redemption.

This game came out with a LOT of fanfare, and a ton of hype. It was by a well-known and respected studio. It promised a lot, and in my opinion delivered on it to a T. Some people aren’t huge fans of open-world games like this, but even those that I talked to that played it found it very fun and entertaining. It’s musical score, it’s dialogue and characters, it’s story, and it’s game play were all superb. There were very few games that were released this year that met, and exceeded, the hype to their release. In that category, Red Dead Redemption shines.

Downloadable Games: Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game.

I don’t think I have had that much fun with a 10 dollar game in a long, long time. Usually I’ll grab one of these off the PSN, play through it once, and then forget about it. But I played through this game so many times, and dragged so many people in on it with me. It has a high replay value, and it’s multiplayer is great. The only gripe about the game is it’s lack of online multiplayer, but in the end, it’s much more fun to play in-person anyway.

Free Games: Robot Unicorn Attack.

How do you take Unicorns, Rainbows, Fairies, and the British band “Erause” and make it cool? Throw in robots, of course. This game is so simple, and so utterly outlandish that it’s addicting. It’s one of the few games that I’ll actually keep the sound on for, because strangely the song fits the game so well. In fact, when I play muted I find that my scores go down drastically. If you haven’t played this game yet, you’ve done yourself a massive disservice. Go do it. Now. It’s free.

Mobile Games: Angry Birds.

This one is almost a no-brainer. You have birds, who are angered, and pigs, who steal their eggs. And thus the birds fling themselves at high speeds towards the pigs. HOLY CRAP is it addicting. The fact that you have different stars that you can achieve, which ups it’s replay value, and the creators are constantly pushing out new levels and content, it’s just amazing. The game is available on just about any mobile device you pick up (if it runs Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android platform). If you haven’t had a chance to play this game, well hold on tight, because PC and Console versions are in the works.

Downloadable Content: Borderlands – The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

There have been many games that are rooted in comedy, but rarely in these the storylines are hackneyed and secondary. Few games series come to mind that make it’s humor a central aspect of the story, while still keeping it fresh and compelling. Sam and Max comes to mind. This game took the core of the Borderlands games, which is to run around and blow the crap out of ANYTHING that isn’t you, and kicked it up a notch. New guns (I guess eleventy billion wasn’t enough), new missions, new characters, and a big boost on the level cap made this add on a must-have for all players of the game. I haven’t had a chance to full take in the newest DLC, but honestly Borderlands has had the best DLC content of any game I have played. And this one just took it to a new level of awesome. If you have Borderlands, make sure to get this game. And if you don’t have Borderlands, go out and get it. And then get this DLC. You won’t regret it.

And there you have it! The best games of the year…at least in my humble opinion. I’m sure you have conflicting decisions, so post them in the comments section! And stay tuned, because the aniRAGE Year In Review is still going on!

-Zeke

Running late…

Sorry about not having posted those pics yet, folks! I’ve just about gotten them all ready to host, but work and personal obligations have had me a little preoccupied recently, Note, though, that I WILL have those pics hjosted here very shortly… Till then, just sit back… Watch a few vids or chat it up on the forums! And, know that I’ll have them up soon!

~Miroku

They’re Getting the aniRAGE Bump #3

Our friends over at GigaBoots are experiencing some well-deserved success, so what the hay, let’s add some more to it! They do some extremely high quality video reviews and Let’s Play! videos. So go and check them out! Tell them aniRAGE sent you to get 20% off any purchase!

-Zeke

(p.s. 20% off discount does not exist, as they don’t actually sell anything. Attempting to redeem this discount may result in a swift kick in the butt)

EarthBound. Quirky, fun, pop-culture laden, and seriously disturbing (well, at the end, anyways)

If you’re a gamer in the biggest sense (Yes, I’m looking at you) then you might have heard of an SNES RPG called EarthBound.  Heck, some of you might have even played EarthBound.  Or better yet, some of you actually OWNED an actual copy of EarthBound.

For those who don’t know what EarthBound is, gather around and let Mr. Kerby tell you about it.  (This is my longest post ever, btw)

EarthBound (also known as Mother 2) was relesed in the U.S. on August 27, 1994 (which would almost make it 15 years since it’s release), for the SNES, but to a very low commercial success.  However, that didn’t mean the game wasn’t good.  Created by Shigesato Itoi, EarthBound tells the story of a young boy named Ness, who lives in the town of Onett.  After a Meteorite crashes near his home, he is thrust into a story that will forever change his life.  Gifted with PSI powers, he embarks on a journey to stop the evil Giygas from destroying the entire earth.  On his way, he meets the lovely and similarly gifted Paula, the technical genius Jeff, and the eastern prince, Poo.

Sounds like a typical fantasy set in the past, doesn’t it?  Far from it.  It is actually set in 199x, in modern times, and completely changes the dynamic of the game henceforth.  Instead of swords and magic wands, you fight with baseball bats, frying pans, and yo-yos, fighting through cities, embarking on roadside adventures, and much more.  And what game has you battling New Age Hippies, super-powered ants, and giant, sentient piles of vomit (An actual boss in this game)?  EarthBound, that’s what.  The pop-culture references and humor add to the depth of the game, and the game’s locations often make you remember the trips you either went on, or always wanted to go on.  EarthBound pretty much made fun of the entire RPG genre, so to speak.  All this, and the goal is to thwart a humongous threat to the earth, to boot.

Ness’ task is to gather the eight melodies, with the help of his friends, and use them to defeat the evil Giygas.  One section takes you through a zombie and ghost-infested town, another takes you through a sandy wasteland.  But it even takes an even weird turn as you also go through an alternate universe, as well as your own mind.  You got to see ancient dinosaurs and what is made to be Stonehenge.

And the music was just as different as the gameplay was.  Its catchy, poppy tunes and Jazzy blues jingles kept you wanting more.  It felt real good to wail on a hippy while listening to beachy music that sounds like something the Beach Boys would have written.  The music matched the mood of every part of the story, and you would feel so empty without it.

But while the fun almost never seemed to stop, the game also had it’s dark side.  An extremely disturbing dark side to it…

*pulls out a flashlight and turns it on, pointing it at his chin upwards, cheesy ghost story style*

Giygas himself…

“Yes, he’s the villain.  Of course he’s going to be dark and scary right?  He’s the ultimate goal!  Beat him and evil is twharted!”

Yes, all that is absolutely true.  But what not many people realize is that the dark and scary part is quite possibly the ultimate understatement.

What Giygas does to you, not the player, but you, is what scares me.  The fight with Giygas (the longest fight in the game, I believe) is the scariest part of this game.  The fight rapes your mind with a sharp, yet dull stick, pulls it out through your nose, and non-chalantly flings it onto the hot pavement to stew in the sun.  I suppose you’re asking why?  Why is it that scary?  First off, you have to understand the backstory to this guy.

Giygas is the ultimate evil.  He doesn’t have form, and he has lost capacity for rational thought, whose own body and mind were destroyed by his own power.  This is revealed to you during the fight by your rival/ex-best friend, Pokey.  But this is revealed to you as you’ve traveled back in time, with your souls transferred into robots, cut off from the rest of time.  Your party has traveled back in time to destroy Giygas before he became even MORE powerful than he already is, and Pokey tells you he already lost.

What transpires during the fight is a scary scene.  you’re surrounded by nothing but giygas, who nothing more than a wisp of near nothingness, his mind lost to the evil.  Your party “Cannot grasp the true nature of his attack” throughout the whole ordeal, and the only true way to beat him is to pray.  That’s right, you pray that you could ever find a way to beat him.  And when you do, even his death is a scary thing.

It emotionally drains you, makes you wonder what’s wrong with Giygas, since the things Giygas says are totally wacky.  “It hurts… It hurts…” and “I’m h…a…p…p…y…” are scary in themselves, but there’s also the story behind that first line I just mentioned.  The creater, Itoi, as a child, accidentally witnessed a rape scene in a Japanese theater, which scarred him mentally to the point where he incorporated this experience into the final fight.

All in all, it’s a scary-ass fight that still has me scared each time I watch videos of it, or play it myself.

EarthBound is an excellent RPG that no gamer should go without playing, and if you’re brave enough, play to the end.

~Kirby