My time with the original Assassin’s Creed is numbered less than a single hour. Meaning that I only played it for a very short time on a friend’s Xbox 360. So most of the complaints of the first game were lost on me when I began the long journey of Ezio Auditore da Firenze in Assassin’s Creed II.

Throughout my adventure in Renaissance Italy as Ezio Auditore da Firenze, I found a game that was equal parts engaging story, interesting platforming, and frustrating combat. Overall, Assassin’s Creed II contains so much content that even the small issues with the title do not outshine the impressive game that Ubisoft released.

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Since the trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar was released, opinions have shot back and forth, mostly from extreme ends of the spectrum — either it looks like trash or it’s going to be the best movie ever made. One particular opinion that stuck with me was my friend’s when he said, “This looks so fake. It looks just like a video game.”

Which was interesting, because to many an outsider that’s all Avatar appears to be: a glorified video game. But that doesn’t mean it’ll suck. And not to contribute to the hype machine, but there’s a lot of potential riding with the release of this new sci-fi epic.

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It’s a video game. It’s a sociology experiment. It’s a publicity stunt. It’s financial suicide. It’s surrendering to the file-sharing criminal underground. It’s calling the torrent-pirate’s bluff by robbing them of their favorite justification.

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With the recent release of Tom Clancy’s EndWar, the voice command-centric real time strategy title from Ubisoft, the possibilities inherent in using your voice to play a game are once again brought to light. Using your voice to command battalions of troops is certainly a natural progression; the omnipotence granted to the player by most RTS games is only enhanced by having your units live and die by your order. However, I want to take a look at other genres and titles that could benefit from this kind of vocal integration. Some of these suggestions are serious, some are ridiculous, and some (if not all) almost certainly require technology that doesn’t exist yet.

But I digress.

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On December 2nd, gamers will have the opportunity once again to jump into the shoes of the Prince of Persia when Ubisoft releases the latest installment of the classic franchise.  In case you haven’t been keeping up, this Prince is not related to the Sands of Time trilogy; instead, this is yet another reinvention of the series, complete with a slick new cel-shaded look.  Furthermore, Ubisoft is taking the Prince back to his roots and returning the franchise’s focus to acrobatics, puzzle solving, and combat in the form of one-on-one encounters.  Considering the focus on acrobatics, it comes as no surprise that Ubisoft would give a DLC shout-out to its last wall-running, swan-diving title: Assassin’s Creed.

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There are certain genres that some people think don’t belong on consoles. One of those genres used to be first-person shooters, until Rare proved the naysayers wrong with GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64. Now, it’s the real-time strategy genre that’s struggling. Games like EA’s The Battle for Middle Earth and Command & Conquer 3 have given RTS games on a console a bad rap, and deservedly so. But Ubisoft thinks they can change the minds of gamers with Tom Clancy: EndWar.

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Shorah,
Who wants more rearrange-able runes and Sumerian names with apostrophes in them?

Pulled around between Ubisoft, Cyan Worlds, and Gametap, Myst Online: Uru Live has been given and deprived of life more than once over the past few years. The most recent development: Myst Online is coming back, currently going by the name “Myst Online: Restoration Experiment.” With their work force diminished, Cyan Worlds told the Myst explorers that “the roadmap does not involve any new content from Cyan at this time. The plan is to start to move the content creation - the ‘Art’ - to you.”

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Brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, as we know, dreamed up the mythos of Myst. But how much was only a dream? The adventurous duo loved trekking through the woods and along the coasts of the Pacific Northwest. Even the Cyan Worlds headquarters, located in Spokane, WA, sits between the forested foothills of two mountain ranges.

Last week, I somehow found myself trudging along a path of moss-splotched pieces of wood winding through the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, rimmed with sixty miles of undeveloped coastline. I remembered what I’d heard over the dinner table the day before, confirmed by the blogs of strangers: this place inspired Myst.

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