Trailer Time: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag “Defy” Trailer (2013)

Fresh look at the fourth (really sixth) Assassin’s Creed game: Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag with a new Gamescom trailer.  As a longtime fan of the series, I was mostly disappointed by Assassin’s Creed III.  It was such a cool idea, setting it in the American Revolution, but the amount of hand-holding and needless trekking between interesting plot points got exhaustingly boring after hours of waiting for pace to quicken.  Assassin’s Creed IV keeps the familial thread running by moving backward in time for the first time; two generations before the Revolution to Connor‘s grandfather, Edward Kennaway – notorious pirate and roguish gentleman.  The naval aspect was one of ACIII‘s strongest additions, and I’m interested to see how that will mesh in a much more prominent way as Kennaway plunders the Caribbean.  This new trailer focuses on the high seas action.   Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag hits stores on October 29th for this generation’s consoles and for Xbox One and Playstation 4 at a later date.

 

Trailer Time: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Pirate’s Life on the High Seas

As a longtime fan of the series, I was mostly disappointed by Assassin’s Creed III.  It was such a cool idea, setting it in the American Revolution, but the amount of hand-holding and needless trekking between interesting plot points got exhaustingly boring after hours of waiting for pace to quicken.  Assassin’s Creed IV keeps the familial thread running by moving backward in time for the first time; two generations before the Revolution to Connor’s grandfather, Edward Kennaway – notorious pirate and roguish gentleman.  The naval aspect was one of ACIII’s strongest additions, and I’m interested to see how that will mesh in a much more prominent way as Kennaway plunders the Caribbean.  This new trailer focuses on the high seas action.   Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag hits stores on October 29th for this generation’s consoles and for Xbox One and Playstation 4 at a later date.

Top 5: 1Q 2013 XBOX 360 Games

The video game industry is curious in that its business model, despite gaming growing in popularity and crossing demographic lines, is to hoard their best games for most of the year.  Then come October through the second week of December, gamers are bombarded with AAA titles every week, causing many of us to work or speak to others to support our gaming habit.  It’s a tragedy no one addresses.  It’s our silent fiscal pain.  You’d think something other than Madden (insert year here) could be released between March and October.  It peeves us.  We are greatly peeved.

This year, pleasantly, has produced some really nice games in the first quarter and two solid Game-of-the-Year caliber outings in Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite.  Crystal Dynamics outdid themselves in making Lara Croft into a REALISTIC (take that how you will) icon deserving of her reputation with unbelievably responsive mechanics and addictive exploration.  Bioshock Infinite is still the best entertainment experience of 2013 period.  I’ve put more thought and more time in pondering the nuances of that game than I think any I’ve ever played.  It looks grim across the release calendar desert until the fall, but I still need to go back and make myself finish Assassin’s Creed III, Borderlands II, Dishonored and The Witcher II.  So I think I’ll be busy enough….plus I may have to play Bioshock again…
1. Bioshock Infinite
2. Tomb Raider
3. Gears of War: Judgment
4. Pinball FX – Star Wars Tables
5. Crysis 3

Killing Time – April 11, 2013

 Spring is spranging all over the place, which would mean more to me if I weren’t inside consuming media.  These reviews aren’t going to write themselves, people.  Milestones for the site this week: 400th post and we should have our 3,000th hit sometime in the next day or so.  I’m grateful for the feedback and if anyone has ideas or things they’d like to see, shoot me a tweet or leave a comment.  So, though you may be outside actually interacting with “nature”, how else have you been time stabbing lately?

Books: Legion by Brandon Sanderson
                 The Last Pharaoh by Bradley Hope
                 Fatal Voyage: The Sinking of the Costa Concordia by John Hooper
                 The Plagiarist by Hugh Howley

Blu Ray: The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey (extras)
                     Skyfall (extras)

TV/HULU:  Scandal Season Two
                            Community Season Four
                            The Daily Show with John Stewart
                            The Colbert Report
                            Parks & Recreation Season Five
                            The Killing Season Two
                            
Music:  The song “Carry On” by fun. has my permission to leave my head as expediently as possible.

Video Game: Borderlands 2 (Level 12 Gunzerker
                                Assassin’s Creed III (this game is really dragging)
                                Gears of War: Judgment
                            * XBOX Live, gamertag: sleeplessdave; feel free to friend me!

Comics:   The Avengers Vol. 5 by Brian Michael Bendis
                      Absolute All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison

Killing Time – March 28, 2013

The ongoing war with KT archnemesis, Lista de Email, continues!  The score stands 7 – nil, LDE.  When will you bow to my superior spam blocking techniques?  I do realize, yes, that I’m taunting a bot and that by making its programmers mad, I may have in some way provoked the 64 spam messages that accumulated in the filter overnight.  But that’s logical thinking which has no place here!  We deal in dreams and I want an archfoe.  The spam back-up may also be due to the increased site traffic.  We passed 50 followers, 1800 views and 70 countries with hits this week which is just tremendously humbling and exciting.  I’ve been getting more comments on posts and that is really awesome.  I’d love more dialogue with the readers so please always feel free to comment in a non-trollish manner.  I hope all have a wonderful Easter weekend and thank you again for reading KT.

Books: Bioshock: Rapture by John Shirley
Shift Omnibus by Hugh Howley

Blu Ray: Warrior (Extras)
Game of Thrones Season Two (Extras)
Intouchables (Redbox)

TV/HULU:  The Amazing Race Season Twenty-Two
Community Season Four
Family Guy Season Eleven
The Colbert Report

Music:  For some reason passing my understanding, I listened to the score to A Beautiful Mind all week long.

Video Game: Bioshock 2: Minverva’s Den DLC (finished)
The Walking Dead Episode 5 (finished)
Tomb Raider Legend
Assassin’s Creed III (frustratingly stuck in Concord)
Darksiders II
Far Cry 3
* XBOX Live, gamertag: sleeplessdave; feel free to friend me!

Comics:   Fables: Werewolves in the Heartland by Bill Willingham
The Winter Soldier Vol. 4: Widow Hunt by Ed Brubaker
Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction (READ THIS)
GI JOE IDW Collection Vol. 1 by Larry Hama & Chuck Dixon