Comic-Con 2010

Comic-Con 2010 just finished a few days ago and it was a pretty interesting year. It was the first Comic-Con where someone was stabbed. STABBED?! Yep, that's right. Stabbed. Apparently some convention attendees got into an argument about sitting too close together while waiting on a panel featuring Seth Rogen. I think this is the first person I have ever seen wearing handcuffs and a Harry Potter shirt. Haha.

Ok. Enough about crazy fans. Not only does Comic-Con have comics, costumes, and fans, but it also has movies, shows, and now stabbings. And the best one...GAMES! One of the game showcased at this year's Comic-Con that I have been curious about is the new Assassin's Creed game.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the next game in the Assassin's Creed series. The second one came out last year so why does this have a November release date? This game is being produced by a very large company. One of my professors, who was in the industry before teaching, told my class that there are 1,500 people working on this new Assassin's Creed game. 1,500 PEOPLE! That's a lot more than most game developers have. I'm not too interested about the single player part of this game. It takes place in the same Renaissance time period in Rome and follows the same main character.

The aspect of the game I'm looking forward to is the multiplayer. The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is similar to the real-life game Assassin in which many people play and you try to hunt down your target while, at the same time, you are being hunted by someone else. The last man standing wins. In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, everyone will play an assassin and can choose their appearance. Then everyone is given a target that is displayed on the screen. Each player tries to get rid of their target without attracting too much attention. If you give away your position while killing your targeted player, they player who is hunting you will have no trouble finding and killing you. It sounds like it's gonna be an awesome addition to the series.

I am still addicted to Alien Swarm. If you want more info, I explained about it in my previous post. If you haven't tried it yet, do yourself a favor and go try it! It's free so you have nothing to lose!

Thanks for reading. I probably won't have any new posts for the rest of this week because I will be out of town, but I will post new stuff soon. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to ways I can improve my blog. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to answer it.

Alien Swarm

About a week ago, Valve released Alien Swarm for free through their Steam client for PC and I've been strangely addicted to it since I downloaded it. Alien Swarm is a tactical, co-op shooter with an overhead view.

Normally, I don't play too many tactical shooters, but this one is fast-paced so I don't fall asleep while team members are planning everything out. It is also easy to get into the action and plenty of variety becomes available early on. The missions are pretty short with each one lasting about 10 minutes on average. In fact, the whole game is pretty short and can be played through in an hour or so with a good group, but the game is free so there shouldn't be any complaining. Even though it is a short experience, there is a lot of replay value with 4 different difficulties, 4 different character classes, and a ton of weapons and items to unlock.

In the game, you will begin to see more items and weapons become available as you play. Your Steam account saves your progress in the game as you level up. When you level up, more stuff is unlocked and you can use it. This becomes useful because there are items that are improvements upon standard equipment (i.e. the medic can unlock an item that heals group members faster). The difficulties are similar to those of Left4Dead2 if you are familiar with another great game from Valve. Normal difficulty will provide a nice challenge for new players and the higher difficulties will do the same for more experienced players who have unlocked more equipment.

My favorite part of Alien Swarm is the co-op aspect. I love games that involve working with other players to accomplish an objective, and this game does it very well. The co-op aspect of this game also helps to shorten the learning curve because other experienced players can tell you what weapons to use and when to use them. I highly recommend trying this game. It is a great product from Valve. And why not try it? Since the game is completely free, you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to ways I can improve my blog. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to answer it.