Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Assassin’s Creed 3
Welcome to the end of Assassin’s Creed Week here at Henchman-4-Hire! I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves. Maybe I’ll be able to think up some new theme weeks to come. I apologize for the lateness of this review. Assassin’s Creed 3 came out at the end of October, but I wanted to wait to get the PC version when it came out later because my computer has better graphics than my standard definition TV. And this is a game that demands the best graphics. I also had to beat the darn thing, and that took a good chunk of time. Day jobs tend to get in the way of wanting to play video games all day long. But here we are, Assassin’s Creed 3, probably my most anticipated game of this year – and it more than lived up to the hype and excitement! This is one hell of a game and a damn fine expansion on the series as a whole.
Boasting what has to be one of the single greatest game worlds and atmosphere in all of gaming, Assassin’s Creed 3 has an awesome main story, oodles of side projects and definitely improves on all of the best aspects of the series.
Game rating: 5/5: Great!
That’s not to say the game isn’t without flaws, and it has more than a few, mostly to do with the side missions and projects. The main storyline is great, with some surprising twists and some very well-done character development. Connor is a fun, though sometimes stiff, protagonist, and his enemies are some of the most well-defined in the entire series. I loved killing the Borgias in Rome as much as the next guy, but the Templars get some real character development in this game, some of it very entertaining. The best parts of the game are still the parts that define the Assassin’s Creed series: dizzying parkour and smooth, vibrant slaughter. Assassinations are still incredibly fulfilling (when I can get them right), and fighting feels just a bit more fun, with more animations and variety. And the ways in which the developers have upgraded the parkour to include trees and wilderness will astound you. So much fun!
And believe me, we’ll be talking about the naval missions. They’re a whole new great game in and of themselves.
The weakest link in Assassin’s Creed 3 are the Desmond Miles missions set in the present day. While some of the missions involve some truly spectacular visual achievements, Desmond has never felt so worthless. And he’s supposed to be saving the world, for cryin’ out loud! And sure enough, Desmond gets one clunker of an ending. So it’s a good thing Connor can shoulder the weight of the entire game.
Join me after the jump for the rest of the review!
Review: Assassin’s Creed Graphic Novels
Assassin’s Creed isn’t just for video games anymore. Like any good franchise, they’ve branched out into other mediums, including a series of graphic novels released in October from publisher Titan Books. They recently sent me some nice hardcover copies of their Assassin’s Creed graphic novels, translated from their original French into English. The art style is definitely very European (not that I’m an expert), and the story is the familiar Assassiny goodness that we know and love. I only wish the series had taken a few more liberties with their story and really explored the larger Assassin’s Creed universe.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise has a lot of room to expand beyond Desmond Miles and the ancestors you play in the video games. And while these graphic novels do a good job with some of their ideas beyond the usual, they don’t go far enough. If you’re an Assassin’s Creed completionist – or perhaps shopping for one for Christmas – you should enjoy this series. But otherwise, the comics are pretty light on material.
Comic rating: 4/5: Good.
Desmond, Aquilus and Accipiter
The three Assassin’s Creed graphic novels – titled Desmond, Aquilus and Accipiter – tell one long, connected story by following two parallel plots. One is Desmond’s story from the video games, about being kidnapped by Abstergo and then going on the run with Lucy and the Assassins. The other is an original trip into the Animus to visit Aquilus, an ancient Assassin from the Roman Empire. As with the video games, the most interesting material comes from the trips back in time, but writer Eric Corbeyran definitely give us plenty of Desmond action. The guy is much more active and brutal in this series than he is in the games, which is cool to read.
Of the three books, the first one is the weakest because it basically just retreads ground covered in the first game, only in a much more rushed manner. It squeezes in the story of Altair even though it’s completely unnecessary to the overall plot. The two other books delve into original material, including the life of Aquilus and a few adventures that Desmond and his friends have while on the run. The third book is the best of the three, introducing the concept of dueling Animus trips as we see someone else go into the Animus and visit his ancestors. I wish the entire series had been about this new character and his story, but perhaps Corbeyran needed to focus on Desmond and the established game material.
All three comics play hard and fast with the strange concepts of Assassin’s Creed, from the Animus itself to the various characters involved. There were a few times where new characters suddenly pop up and act like we’re supposed to have known them all along, so it was a little confusing. You definitely need an understanding of the games to keep up with the comic. Though considering how big a fan I am of Assassin’s Creed, it wasn’t a problem at all.
You can purchase all three graphic novels on Amazon.com: Desmond, Aquilus and Accipiter. You can also join me after the jump for more review!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/8/12
Not much out of DC Comics this week, but not to worry, Marvel has us more than covered with another seemingly weekly chapter of All-New X-Men and the brand new adjectiveless Avengers #1! Considering how popular Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four run has become, I was actually kind of excited to see what he could do with the Avengers. Sadly, that excitement turned into a whole lot of apathy once I actually read the title. Similar to my reaction to his very popular S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Maybe I just don’t get Hickman. He’s got some wild ideas, but I’ve never been overly impressed. We also get the debut of the new Thunderbolts series and the final issue of Amazing Spider-Man before the big #700. And I still don’t know what’s going to happen?
All-New X-Men rises to the occasion to become Comic Book of the Week, but there are some nice moments in the new Avengers. Including one great one with Bruce Banner.
Indeed, now comes the punch and pie
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #3, Amazing Spider-Man #699, Avengers #1, Hawkeye #5 and Thunderbolts #1.
Review: X-Factor #248
All of the character-focused issues are over as Peter David takes us full speed into the Hell on Earth War…and it’s rather disappointing. If this issue is any indication of the type of story we can expect for Hell on Earth War, it’s going to be a long, dull trip. The dialogue and jokes are flat and lifeless, the art is flat for an entirely different reason, and the story itself is a whole mess of uninteresting vagueness. There is very little organization when it comes to established demons and Hell in the Marvel Universe. So Peter David is free to just make up whatever craziness he wants, and he definitely does. Nothing that we’ve seen so far about this story points to any sort of cohesion, and this issue is filled with more general evil fluff. PAD also hasn’t explained what any of this has to do with X-Factor!
X-Factor #248
The issue is competently put together, but the new story just isn’t coming together in any way that I find interesting. PAD has apparently been working on this story for more than a decade, but if that’s the case, he clearly didn’t plan it out too well.
Comic rating: 2/5: Bad.
Despite X-Factor being one of my favorite comic books, I’ve always had a problem with how PAD tries to drop hints or clues about what is to come. He’s terrible at it. For almost the entire length of the series, he’s been dropping hints about the true nature of Multiple Man’s powers. But that’s all he does with it. Somebody somewhere will mention how his powers don’t make sense, and that’s it. There’s no sense of the mystery growing or getting closer to an answer. Likewise, he’s been doing the same thing with the Hell on Earth War. There’s no sense that this is actually building to something interesting. It’s just random characters making vague comments about something else going on behind the scenes. To make a really good tease, you’ve got to actually reveal something, and then sparse out those reveals over a period of time. There’s got to be a sense that this is going somewhere and will amount to something.
And that is absolutely not the case with this Hell on Earth War. I’m not even sure if all the cryptic hints we’ve been given over the past year or so even have to do with Hell on Earth! Is this what the elder Tryp has been babbling about in his various appearances? What about that brief scene with the Isolationist? I know the past few issues have featured characters claiming that “X-Factor would fall”, but what does that even mean in this context? They’re a loosely organized team of X-Men spin-offs who stick together because they feel like it. Having them “fall” isn’t really going to ruin much. And why X-Factor? What do they have to do with demons or Hell or anything like that? Why not the Avengers? Why not the X-Men? Why not the Defenders or the Darkholde Redeemers?
This issue fails because PAD spends a lot of time acting like all his teases and hints have been leading towards something awesome – which they haven’t – and the rest of the time with the characters making terrible banter and awkward, uncomfortable jokes. He also wastes that awesome Monet cover by having it be Pip in Monet’s body. Monet is a far more interesting and entertaining character than Pip, but PAD spends a good portion of this issue on Pip. The character is not nearly as interesting as he seems to think. And we’re worse off because of it.
Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/1/12
Two of Marvel’s new flagship titles – Uncanny Avengers and All-New X-Men – shipped their second issues this week, and one of them came out the clear winner. The other one needs to pick up the pace if it hopes to keep up and stay relevant. I wonder if the books are in any kind of direct competition. They seem to be telling the same story – how the world of superheroes reacts to the new anti-mutant hysteria – but they’re going about it in very different ways. Are some people buying one but not the other? Regardless, the one book people should be buying is the new Thor: God of Thunder! The second issue continues the awesomeness of the first, and rides a winged horse to a clear Comic Book of the Week!
That was not a euphemism
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #2, Aquaman #14, Batman: Incorporated #5, FF #1, Red Lanterns #14, Talon #2, Thor: God of Thunder #2, Uncanny Avengers #2.
