Tag Archive: hope


Far Cry 5 developer chat

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
July 10, 2017

Last week I had a chance to see the beginnings of Far Cry 5. Set in the fictional Hope County, Montana, players will be dropped into the middle of this rural slice of Americana that is under the hypnotic control of a cult leader named Joseph. This enigmatic figure believes he hears voices telling him that a reaping is coming, and that souls aren’t going to harvest themselves. If you’re not with him, you are most definitely against him—which Joseph is fine with, because he also believes that he and his people must prepare to be tested.

Of course, taking over a town isn’t the easiest of endeavors, and Joseph’s closest kin serve as the lieutenants that help keep everyone in line. Jacob, the eldest brother, is an ex-military specialist who has become disenchanted with the government and the world. John, the youngest brother, is a smooth-talking lawyer who knows how to keep the government from coming down too hard on his dear brother Joseph, and how to snatch up more property to bring under the cult’s control. Finally, half-sister Faith knows how to keep Joseph’s followers in line, a pacifying pacifist that keeps the cult’s rage from boiling over until Joseph is ready to let them loose on the world.

The odds are stacked against you, as they always are in Far Cry. However, you’ll have allies in your war to reclaim the hearts and minds of Hope. Barkeep and lifelong resident Mary May remembers what the town was like before Joseph, and she places sole blame on him for her family falling apart; her personal vendetta against the cult leader will make her a fiery addition to your team. God and guns preacher Jerome is infuriated that life has come to this, and that so much of his flock has been led astray; he hesitantly will resort to force in order to save the souls of his lost people. And finally, there’s Nick Rye, a crop duster who comes from a long line of airplane pilots. His father and grandfather both fought in wars, and Nick reckons it’s time to fight in one of his own.

Far Cry 5 will give you a bevy of tools to use as well. Everything from flamethrowers to pitchforks, guns and dogs for hire, and almost anything else you can think might be willing to risk getting hit with a few bullets for the sake of a few bucks. And, as always, how you go about tackling situations will be up to you. To get a lot more insight into the inspirations behind what seems on the surface like a radical departure for the series, I sat down and talked with Far Cry 5’s executive producer and creative director, Dan Hay.

EGM: I think the easiest and most obvious question is, why Montana? Although it might appear foreign to a city slicker like myself, I imagine it’s not very foreign to a large portion of the game playing public.

Dan Hay: There are two things that I’ll say about that. It would’ve been easy for us to pick a location somewhere around the world and given people something that would be classically referred to as “exotic”. But I think we had those conversations and we said to ourselves that sometimes it’s the thing in your own backyard that is the weirdest, that is the strangest, and when you scratch it there’s a lot of stuff underneath. That’s the first part.

The second thing is that the cult is something that’s really unique for us. I think people are going to realize that we picked the place because this is a place where it’s believable that some people want to be left alone and they don’t want to be bothered and that if you were going to build a cult, you could probably put it in there. So, we met with cult experts and they talked to us about it.

Whenever I watch a show or movie, part of me wants to watch because they’re offering me an experience that I will likely never have in my life and they allow me for two hours, or however long the show is, to dip my toe in the economy of the world that they’re building. And so when I think about some of the stuff that I watch on TV, I’m never going to be a gangster. Probably. But I get to visit that for a time.

And so I don’t think that a lot of people are going to be most likely in a cult and I think that it’s pretty cool for them to be able to go “Wait a minute, let’s look at this. Let’s meet the Father. Let’s understand what his family is doing. Let’s hear some of the things they are espousing, some of the things they’re saying. Let’s look at the people in Far Cry’s Montana”—and it is Far Cry’s Montana because we built Hope County and it doesn’t exist in the real world—”and see how they are going against the cult and pushing back.” And so it creates a unique experience that I don’t think anyone was expecting and it’s ours.

EGM: When you mention a cult, I think a lot of us jump to the idea of folks in white robes and ponchos drinking Kool-Aid. How are you going to get people past this idea in the game?

DH: I think you keep it simple. Absolutely, when you think of cult you think of a cliché sort of answer to that. I think when you see our characters they aren’t that. We kept it simple. There’s a guy who believes he’s heard this voice and he believes that a collapse is imminent. He believes it. And he’s managed to bring together followers who trust him in that. And when he talks about it, he doesn’t talk about it in ridiculously crazy terms. He says, “Look, there’s going to be a collapse. It’s going to happen. And we need to protect ourselves.” And then what he’s going to say is something to the effect of “You’re not going to believe me. There’s nothing that I can say that will bring you around to this idea. So, I’m just going to take you, and when it happens, you’re going to say thank you.” That’s an idea people can understand. And when an actor with gravitas gives it, when it’s given with great writing, you understand what these people stand for. You understand what’s happening. And you understand why the regular people in this world, the citizens, don’t want to have anything to do with this guy.

EGM: You mentioned an actor with gravitas. Can you give us any hints as to the cast that is playing your principal roles?

DH: I can’t say whom we cast. Casting on Far Cry is really tricky because it’s alchemy. I’ve implied it’s a process before, but the more I do it the less process it is. You get a great writer. Great writers, right? And the other thing that we’re doing is changing some things a little bit, trying to make like a writers’ room where people are pitching ideas and kicking stuff around and riffing off of each other. Then, we go out and cast the net wide and look for people who are going to be able to hold your gaze, people who can make your skin crawl, people who can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. And then, also, letting those people run a little with the material. Because it’s not perfect, we’re not going to nail it 100% perfect the first time. And then making sure it feels believable and that what comes out of their mouths, especially when you’re working with a first-person camera, they have some room to play.

I think that’s how we found some of our characters in Far Cry 3, 4, and Primal. And we know people want that from us. We know that people are looking at this and knowing if the characters are important and whom you’re going up against and who you are. I think that on this one, it’s super-interesting to see that we’re now dealing with a family and you get to meet each one of those people. They’re a chorus and they each have their own jobs. They each have their own micro-agenda. And I think people are going to dig it.

EGM: What can you tell us about the gameplay this time around? Are we going to be putting Bessie the cow out to pasture in order to craft supplies? What can we expect different in terms of gameplay?

DH: Well, you’re trapped behind enemy lines being in the cult territory and you got to use the resources that are available to you. If you’re played the Far Cry games, then you’re going to like what you’re getting and we’re going to give you more opportunity. We found a unique recipe when we built outposts where you got up to an outpost and you could attack it from 360-degrees. And you can see the anecdote factory opportunities and the question was why couldn’t we just do that with the whole game. Why couldn’t we drop you in the middle of the game, give you a little information, and then let you go in any direction and author the experience your way? That’s what we’re building here.

EGM: So are there no more outposts at all?

DH: I won’t go into specifics like that. What I can tell you is that—assuming you enjoyed the gameplay in Far Cry 3, 4, and Primal—when you see that we’re putting in guns for hire that can come with you, and the new inputs we’re putting into the anecdote factory for when you go up to a location that’s owned by the cult and you attack it, you’ll still have that 360-degree approach and that opportunity. But now you have new tools. Maybe you want to fly in and strafe it. Maybe you want to do a bombing run. Maybe you want to call Nick and have him come in and blow it up. Maybe you want to take your dog and send it in and have it tag everything. Those are the things we’re bringing to the game.

EGM: From what I’ve seen, this feels like it channels the temperature of the US as a whole right now. Like we’re all in a pressure cooker. How much of the game came about before a lot of recent events started to take place and how much did the game maybe be influenced by real world drama?

DH: It’s a chicken or the egg kind of question, right? I get asked, “do we have a specific agenda in this story?” No. We don’t. We’re not saying this is good and this is bad. What we’re saying is that the temperature right now is kind of in the red. The temperature is that people are running hot. They’re nervous and there’s a global consciousness of tension. It’s a pang I had as a kid [during the Cold War] and it’s familiar and I don’t know the answer to your question of what came first. It’s wholly believable that some of the things that had been going on in the world three years ago when we started to kick this idea around somehow influenced us. We can’t say that didn’t happen. But the world has changed so much in three years. Just the fact that we talk about things in the game and the characters in our world are affected by a lot of the things that are happening in the real world in terms of when they talk about stuff, they’re going to be aware and they’re going to be alive. And so yeah, I don’t know if its serendipity or what it is, but we landed on a sweet spot.

EGM: We talked a little bit before about the exotic, and Far Cry tends to always walk right up to the line in terms of believability. Far Cry 5 feels like it is walking more parallel to a familiar, current state of our world. How do you think fans of the franchise will react?

DH: Everybody that we show the game to is like, “Wow. I want to play that.” There’s no question that when you build a world, what you try and do is you try and make it so that that player can go in any direction and you allow them to go and do their thing. Far Cry is known as an experience where you go out and you can just blow stuff up and go crazy and have a great time. Or you can go in and have an earnest moment in the story and have something. All we wanted to do here is make it so this story felt grounded and felt real and be something you would understand and know right away and I think we did it. I think we have the framework for that. I think the older you get, you start to see cycles of things and so there’s going to be people experiencing this for the first time. And it’s going to be new and fresh and they can go out into the world and they can blow stuff up or they can have an experience with the story and it feels very present. And I think it’s going to be great.

Far Cry 5 will release on February 27, 2018, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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République review

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
April 20, 2016

RepubliqueHeader

Big Brother’s still watching

When République’s Kickstarter launched back in 2012, I was instantly intrigued. Admittedly, a premise touting a dystopian future and corrupt government that you have to fight back against through stealth and sabotage is an easy way to perk my ears up. Then it was revealed to be episodic in nature, with the first episode coming December of 2013. As interested as I was, I knew I’d want to binge-play all the episodes in quick succession, so I decided I’d wait for them all to be released.

So I waited. And waited. And then I forgot about République. This was because for a while there it looked like the end might never come with huge gaps between episodes. Finally, though, here I am, sitting down to write a review I thought would’ve come much, much sooner. And with the long-awaited arrival of the fifth and final episode on mobile and PC came a PS4 edition collecting the entire adventure together for easier consumption, which is exactly how I wanted to experience it to begin with.

In the PS4 version of République, players take on a unique dual-role. Half the time you’ll assume control of Hope, a beaten-down young girl who has already been “recalibrated” several times, yet still her spark for rebellion keeps emerging. For the other half you’ll be a nameless friend from the outside who must help Hope finally escape by hacking the video cameras and electronics in the totalitarian République, turning the Orwellian dictatorship’s paranoia-inducing surveillance tactics against itself. Along the way, you’ll learn about the République’s faceless Overseer, escape his head of security—a masochistic man named Derringer—and his “Prizrak” soldiers, and peel back the layers of conspiracy to learn the truth.

République’s greatest strength comes in its storytelling. Although the beginning of the series may drag a bit as it establishes the universe you’ll be exploring, the pace soon hits its stride, giving you a perfect mix of drama, suspense, action, and just enough breadcrumbs to make you keep wanting to fall down the rabbit hole. Of course, the more you put into exploring République’s small, interconnected Metroidvania-like world—one that opens up some as your security clearance increases—the more you’ll learn about everything that led to the creation of the République in the near-future of 2020, and about the rigid structure you’re tasked with rebelling against.

A major element that gets République’s backstory across is the beautiful design of the world, which firmly plants one foot in modern reality and another in this possible future. Some areas feature the cold, gray technology you’d expect from a futuristic civilization, with supercomputers, biolabs, and advanced surveillance tech dotting the many hallways. Meanwhile, rainy graveyards, an intricate library with books approved by the state, and a museum that pays homage to revolutionary leaders—including a wing dedicated to the Overseer—show how society reached this point in only a few years.

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There’s also an interesting mesh of technology seen in the collectibles, highlighting the backwards, fascist thinking of the game’s antagonists. Rarely do collectibles add so much to a game’s ability to immerse you in a world (oftentimes it’s the exact opposite). Even though you are surrounded by all this future tech, it’s the discovery of cassette tape messages from fellow rebels, saving books marked for burning like Orwell’s Animal Farm, Nabokov’s Lolita, or Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, or indie-darling video games like Bastion, Flow, and This War of Mine on floppy discs that help paint a picture of subjugation and isolation critical to the atmosphere the game tries to convey.

The characters themselves also go a long way to selling the plot. Hope’s plain white jumpsuit and pink control collar immediately scream oppression, whereas the Overseer dons a pristine white military uniform seen favored by modern dictators, trying to convey a sense of pureness and cleanliness despite his tyrannical ways. It also must be mentioned that tremendous voice acting across the board only heightens the tension of every confrontation between all the major characters.

The only negative about the story comes from the fact that if you want to replay any episode on the PS4 version of the game, you have to start an entirely new game. You can’t just jump into an episode at any time to go back and hunt for collectibles or change the couple of branching decisions the story gives you. At that point, why even bother rolling credits after each episode? Just cut that out and make it one long game.

As great as République looks and sounds, and as much as I may love the story, there’s still the matter of gameplay. République, at its core, is a stealth game. Memorizing guard patterns, sneaking around, and using the environment to your advantage to hide in plain sight is the only way Hope will survive the night and escape. The PS4 version of République is the third different control scheme the game has been given, though.

On mobile, where the game started out, tapping the touch screen was used to move Hope around and change cameras. The PC/Mac version was then given point-and-click controls to simulate the touch-screen experience. The PS4 version needed an entirely new system, however, to be playable. It works in some regards, though in others there has clearly been something lost in translation, detracting from the stealth required to make it through the game unscathed.

Whereas before you would simply use the cameras to see where Hope is going and then tap to start her moving, the PS4 version has you bouncing back and forth between Hope and the cameras, controlling only one at a time. The benefit of this is the duality I mentioned earlier, helping you feel like a separate character in the universe and not some omnipotent force controlling an avatar. When Hope is caught by the Prizrak, your options as the camera are also limited, and that feeling of helplessness—if Hope isn’t carrying a one-use item that lets her escape, like pepper-spray, Tasers, or sleeping gas bombs, that is—grounds you even more in the idea of being a friend on the outside.

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Having more direct control over Hope in this version of the game, though, leads to some frustrating moments. Since Hope only moves when controlling her and you can’t set her off a path like a Lemming, if you get too far away from a particular camera, the viewpoint may automatically shift to a closer one at a different angle. But in my playthrough there were moments where one camera would be farther away, but offer a better angle when sneaking up on a guard. When the camera suddenly shifted, so did my controls, and I’d bump into the guard or instantly start walking in the opposite direction I’d intended.

Speaking of guards, the Prizrak may be the dumbest enemies I’ve seen in a long time. Prizrak mooks have about as much peripheral vision as a VR headset, meaning if you aren’t directly in front of a Prizrak’s eyes, they won’t notice you. While their patterns are complex enough that you can’t predict them all the time, there’s a larger margin for error than you see in many other stealth games and often Hope can be standing right next to one without them noticing her.

You can also weirdly freeze time when controlling cameras, painting the world in a film-negative tone. While this allows you to scout areas up ahead, better plan paths around guard patrols, and hack computers without worrying about said patrols, it’s an immersion-shattering element. The last thing we need is another game with some sort of “radar sense” or “detective mode,” and I think keeping everything in real-time would’ve much better served the narrative the rest of the game supports.

Not every aspect of the gameplay is a mess, though. The few puzzles that players will have to help Hope overcome are fun and inventive. And some hacking mini-games, like twisting the state-run newspaper into incriminating high-ranking Prizrak, or deleting criminal records to free people from the Overseer’s grasp, offer enough variety to keep you on your toes and make things a little more interesting.

République’s attempt at creating an Orwellian-nightmare is largely successful, giving us a deep conspiracy-laden plot driven by compelling characters, stellar world design, and good writing. It only really falls flat in some gameplay aspects, but it works well enough on the whole that if the story digs its hooks into you, you’ll be able to look past the shortcomings and hopefully guide Hope through to the end.

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Developer: Camouflaj, Logan Games • Publisher: GungHo Online Entertainment • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 03.22.16
8.0
République’s transition from mobile to console is a mostly smooth one, but does feature some control hiccups along the way. The star of the show is the modern Orwellian tale crafted here, though, allowing you to look past a fair amount of technical issues.
The Good Classic conspiracy-driven Orwellian tale will suck you in and leave you wanting more.
The Bad Camera controls are difficult to get used to and often switch angles at the worst times.
The Ugly You’re being watched now for reading this review.
République is available on PS4, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by GungHo Online Entertainment for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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EGM Review: Assassin’s Creed Rogue

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
December 4, 2014

Switching sides

If you told me back in August, when Assassin’s Creed Rogue was first announced, that it would be the superior Assassin’s Creed game coming out this year—even though it’s a last-gen exclusive—I’d have said you went and lost your mind. But, here we are, several months later, and after having played both games to completion, I can attest that this is indeed the case, with Rogue serving as a perfect conclusion to the series’ time spent exploring Europe’s North American colonies in the 18th century.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue takes place between Assassin’s Creed III and IV, set against the backdrop of the Seven Years’ War (known as the French and Indian War here in the U.S.) during the 1750s and tells the story of Shay Cormac, a bright trainee of the Assassin Order whose first solo mission ends in horrific disaster. Furious at the Assassin Mentor, Achilles (yes, the same one who, in his later years, would train Connor Kenway in Assassin’s Creed III), Shay tries to undermine the Order’s future plans. Gunned down by his former associates when he’s caught in the act of stealing key precursor-race documents, Shay is left for dead in a snow bank just off Achilles’ Homestead in Massachusetts, where he’s found by a group of Templars and nursed back to health. Thus his conversion begins: From great Assassin prospect to one of the most effective Templars who ever lived.

I was originally afraid that Rogue would feel boring and would be nothing more than a complete copy-and-paste job with elements from the two games with which it links narratively. Instead, Rogue feels like coming back to an old friend. Familiar but changed in the time since last I saw it, full of new tales, but keeping the same mannerisms that makes it uniquely Assassin’s Creed.

For example, the game’s one proper city, New York, is completely different from what we remember in Assassin’s Creed III, since Rogue is set before the Great Fire of 1776. Buildings that were smoldering husks during Connor’s adventure are now mansions and monuments perfect for climbing. You can also undertake plenty of new side missions here, as well as in the outposts scattered about the brand-new Hudson River Valley region.

One instance of these side missions comes in the form of gangs led by Assassins that plague different areas. By removing the threat of these ruffians, you can increase the wealth of the area they formerly inhabited. Shay then gets a cut of that new wealth via the game’s economy, similar to the system seen in Assassin’s Creed II and Unity. As he helps the colonists prosper, he prospers as well, getting a steady flow of income to his bank account. He can also increase an area’s wealth by using materials collected during ship battles to rebuild important buildings that have seen better days.

Rogue also features Assassination Interceptions. Before, you’d go to a pigeon coop and get a side assassination mission. Now, you’re trying to catch pigeons to prevent assassinations, throwing a wrench into the Assassins’ plans. These defense missions provide a fresh twist on an old formula, since you have a time limit to hunt down would-be killers in a crowd and take them out before the target falls to a hidden blade or a pistol shot.

Also, the waterways that you sail on are new here. While the aforementioned Hudson River Valley and North Atlantic regions provide a topography that looks similar to what you saw in Black Flag, it brings its own set of challenges, such as clearing out French colonies in order to claim them for the glory of the British Empire or discovering a variety of collectibles like war journals and Native American totems.

Besides new outposts and colonies to explore, just the act of sailing itself is fraught with new dangers. Due to the freezing waters, icebergs are a constant threat—but they’re also a lot of fun to destroy as your crew gives a rousing “Huzzah!” with each one that breaks apart. You’ll also often find and recover building materials that were frozen inside the ice, giving you some additional economic motivation in bringing about their destruction. What’s more, sinking icebergs can cause huge waves in the surrounding waters, and by timing your shots right, you can sink nearby enemy gunboats and toss about other small ships to turn the tide of a battle more in your favor by adding that extra element of chaos.

Naval battles also see an upgrade. Not only does Shay have different weapons than Black Flag’s Edward had at his disposal (like flaming oil barrels that do massive damage if you can get an enemy ship to sail into them), but enemy ships are also more willing to go on the offensive now. Several times, it looked like I was going to have my enemy ready for boarding—but they rammed my ship and tried to board me instead. The results were the same, though, with me killing a dozen or so of their crew and stealing their cargo, and privateering as Shay felt a lot more invigorating than pirating with Edward.

Combat hasn’t just changed at sea, though. Shay has some special new weapons that come as a result of crossing paths with some of history’s most influential figures, like Ben Franklin, who bestows upon you a grenade launcher. I know—it sounds ridiculous that a grenade launcher would exist in the 1750s, but documents prove that Franklin had been working on a grenade back then. If you should happen to pilfer the prototype, and combine it with another new weapon in your Air Rifle, then history would be none the wiser. Admittedly, the grenade launcher is a bit overpowered and quickly able to whittle down crowds of enemy forces with just a few well-placed shots, but it’s also a lot of fun—I ended up using it more as an ace in the hole than something I’d frequently carry into battle.

Beyond the pleasant gameplay tweaks, Shay’s story is easily one of the most enjoyable we’ve seen from the series. With the large gap in history between Assassin’s Creed III and IV, Rogue avoids being backed into the corner that most interquels have to deal with, where the game has to start and end—no matter what—at a certain point in order to keep continuity in place. It also neatly ties up a few loose ends, especially in regards to a huge chunk of Haytham Kenway’s story.

Shay also proves himself as one of the strongest characters in Assassin’s Creed lore, and he almost instantly became a personal favorite for me. His constant struggles with his conscience—he’s often racked with guilt for leaving his former friends—shows a doubtful, remorseful side we rarely see from any series protagonist. The strong supporting cast of both Assassins and Templars only makes Shay a more well-rounded character, since he interacts with each in different ways—whether it’s the Templar George Munro, to whom Shay feels he owes his life (and he kind of does) or the contempt he shows the stuck-up French-Canadian Assassin Louis-Joseph Gaultier. In fact, I enjoyed Shay’s tale so much, and it offered such an intriguing glimpse into the other side of the Assassin-Templar war, that I was more than happy to pledge allegiance to the Templars when all was said and done.

It wasn’t just Shay’s point of view that told the Templar side of the story, however. The real-world sequences return in Rogue, once again having you play the role of an Abstergo Entertainment employee in Montreal. When you first access Shay’s story, it unleashes a virus that slams the building into lockdown. Only by bringing the computers back online, little by little, can you access more of Shay’s tale, and as you hack your way through a brand-new series of inventive and fun puzzles, you’ll learn more about the history of the Templars and what they think of the Assassins.

Even with these gameplay tweaks and the enjoyability of Shay’s story, it needs to be said that Rogue is a far from a perfect experience. In terms of narrative, Shay’s story is the shortest adventure in Assassin’s Creed, lasting only six Sequences. This puts a huge crimp on pacing—by the end of the game, Shay’s just chasing down all his former associates, one mission right after another, with little to no buildup. His dialogue’s also hit-or-miss: At some points, he’ll provide memorable, poignant lines, but in other spots, he’ll deliver cheesy catchphrases over and over again like a 1980s B-movie action star (I swear, if he said, “I make my own luck” one more time…).

Also, some glitches forced me to restart several main story and side missions. Often, assassination targets would spawn in (or behind) a wall, so I couldn’t reach them. I’d have to kill myself to desynchronize and then pick the mission back up from a checkpoint. Doing this once or twice always did the trick, but it was just the idea that I had to start entire sections of a mission over because the game became unplayable at points. Long load times and the occasional bit of lag also had me in constant fear that the game would crash at any moment. Unlike Unity, which did crash half a dozen times while I played it and also required several mission restarts, Rogue never completely locked up, at least.

Rogue also lacks a lot of the replayability we’ve seen in more recent Assassin’s Creed titles. There’s no multiplayer to speak of, competitive or cooperative, so once you collect all the items and complete all the side missions, there’s really not much else to do. As unpopular as it proved to be (I personally liked it, but I admit to being in a minority), at least the competitive multiplayer of previous last-gen entries offered something to bring you back for more.

Despite the rushed nature of the narrative and the semi-frequent technical glitches, I still found Rogue to be a far more pleasurable experience than I anticipated. It does just enough to put its own stamp on the franchise while also giving us critical story details in order to tie up loose ends between Assassin’s Creed III and IV. It acts as the perfect swan song for the franchise on the last generation of consoles, putting a neat-and-tidy bow on the Colonial Era Trilogy.

Developer: Ubisoft Sofia • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 11.11.14
8.5
The perfect Assassin’s Creed swan song on last-gen, Rogue offers perhaps the best protagonist the series has ever seen—even if the gameplay will be too familiar for the liking of some.
The Good Shay’s adventure is a perfect conclusion to Assassin’s Creed’s time in Colonial America.
The Bad Crams a lot of story into a short time, which hurts narrative pacing terribly.
The Ugly The shaggy, porno-esque goatee Shay sports before turning Templar.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue is available on Xbox 360 and PS3 and is coming to PC in 2015. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360. A retail copy was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review.
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Generation Hope #6 Review

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April 20, 2011

Originally Published: April 20, 2011, on Comicvine.com

While continuing to have her group of Five Lights trained and tested by Doctor Nemesis, Wolverine, and others on Utopia, a new light has been detected by Cerebra in Germany and it is up to Hope and her lights to bring the situation under control.

The Good

The adventures and action derived from discovering new mutants is exciting as each situation is so different from the last one. Now, with a psychic on their hands, Hope and the Lights (they sound like a cheesy 80s band) must put their limited training and teamwork to the test like never before.

Include a whole new team dynamic as Kitty Pryde has taken over as the team liaison for Rogue and not only does Hope have one less ally, she has one less person to rely on incase things awry as Kitty is still stuck in her bubble boy outfit since she can’t unphase yet.

The Bad

The new mutant is an unborn baby. WHAT?! I understand that things are different now and Hope proved this by having her powers manifest as an infant, but for an unborn baby to have the kind of psychic potential it is showing at this stage is unbelievable (even for X-Men standards). And if Hope does bring it under control, will it be left in a weird mental or physical state like Teon’s feral mentality or Kenji’s odd-shape shifting form? Although interesting to consider, with all the threats the X-Men face on a daily basis, having a baby taken to Utopia is the last thing needed right now and could provide for a very weird dynamic in future issues.

The Verdict

Although a weird situation, it is just weird enough to have piqued my curiosity and not turned me off. An unborn psychic mutant is definitely the off the wall kind of adventure we should probably get used to with Generation Hope. This is another well-written comic by Kieron Gillen as you clearly see the dynamic personalities of all the individual members of the team whenever they speak, and it has now been mixed up even more with the straight-laced Kitty Pryde as liaison. This is a comic I look forward to every month and can’t wait for the next issue just to see how Hope will work her way out of every crazy situation thrown into the path of her and her lights.

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Generation Hope: The Groundwork for a New Phoenix Saga?

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March 29, 2011

Originally Published: March 28, 2011, on Comicvine.com

It is one of the X-Men’s most persistent threats, mostly because it is a godlike entity that cannot be destroyed. The Phoenix Force has possessed nearly two-dozen characters over the X-Men’s history across several different universes. And it seems to have returned, at least in part, once again. This time in the form of the Mutant Messiah, Hope Summers.

It’s not a question of if the Phoenix Force will make its presence felt via Hope, but when as it has picked several moments to rear its head already. It had its big coming out party against Bastion in order to destroy that threat and save what was left of Utopia. And since then it has been seen deep in the green eyes of Hope as her temper flared some in a meeting with Cyclops in Generation Hope #5. But this is a creature that has the power to both create and destroy, so what exactly is the Phoenix’s agenda this time around and how will it once again affect the destiny of the X-Men?

The first question you really have to ponder is just how powerful the force that inhabits Hope is because this is not the entirety of the Phoenix force. Part of the Phoenix previously possessed the Stepford Cuckoos and in order to overcome it in the Phoenix Warsong mini-series, each Cuckoo turned their hearts to diamond in order to trap the essence. So is Hope harboring the remaining power, or like the Cuckoos, is this just a small fraction of it? And if it is just a small fraction, where is the rest? Could these “lights”, these new mutants the X-Men are now discovering, actually be harbingers of other remnants of the Phoenix force and why Hope feels so close to them? Is that why the “lights” powers’ are so chaotic at first and only Hope can bring their powers under control when she makes contact with them?

Let us assume though for a second that Hope is the embodiment of the remainder of the Phoenix Force. Is Hope simply the form the Phoenix Force chose to take in trying to reform itself? Could this be the reason why she looks SO much like Jean Grey, the form that the Phoenix is most accustomed to and why she flares up more often when Cyclops is around?

The Phoenix could also have just decided to possess a baby this time around and could be molding Hope as she ages into what she thinks she should look like, which would be Jean Grey. Maybe this was some cosmic sized attempt at understanding life by the Phoenix and so in order to do so was hoping to live a full human life. Unfortunately for her, she spent many of her formative years time-hopping with Cable. If that was the Phoenix’s plan, I guess that was a bust.

The most likely scenario for all this though is probably nothing as deep and this will all simply culminate as the fix to M-Day caused by the Scarlet Witch. The question that arises from this is how is it going to be implemented because it makes perfect sense for the Phoenix to be the reason why the mutant race would rise from the ashes. And only a primal force like the Phoenix could overcome the Scarlet Witch’s chaos magic.

Is every issue of Generation Hope going to be her locating new “lights” and bringing them under control? Saving the mutant race one soul at a time? That could work for a little while, but would become boring and tiresome at some point. I can’t see continuing like this for more than a couple dozen issues before we see some major event where either Hope will unleash her full potential and heal a great many “lights” all at once or sacrifice herself and in that noble act serve as the catalyst that once again jump starts the X-gene and saves the mutant race from extinction. And if Hope doesn’t make a noble sacrifice, but learns to control the Phoenix Force, could this be another way for some more recently deceased X-Men to return to the comic pages? No matter what happens, I’m going to be reading any comic that features Hope because she is clearly going to be the catalyst for some major changes happening in the ranks of the X-Men down the line.

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