Lady Liberty is my Neighbor

Lots of folks are posting about E3 on LJ today, so I'm really only going to add one thing.

Much as I like the 50s deconstructionist/noir feel of the XCOM trailer, I'm just not happy that what could have been an awesome real-time tactical shooter still seems to basically be an occasionally cooperative FPS where you can pick up an alien's weapon and shoot him with it.

'Cause that's never been done before.

With tactical shooter games like Ghost Recon already in existence, it's truly mystifying to me why they would bother to turn an IP like X-COM and turn it into something that, despite its new setting, really doesn't seem to be much different from many other FPSs on the market.




(I should probably turn this into a new Tor article).

Read the shocking report HERE.

When will the perpetrators of this insanity face justice?!

Finished a regular play-through on Normal, doing every side-quest available to me as a Paragon Vanguard/Nemesis.

( MILD SPOILER WARNING: Won't spoil specific plot elements but does reveal narrative structure and concepts )

As I finally clear out my backlog of recently-acquired games, I have finally come to a game that I have been eagerly awaiting for at least a year (and is the subject of my icon for this entry, courtesy of Penny-Arcade.com): Assassin's Creed.

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the same folks responsible for the revamped Prince of Persia games, Assassin's Creed is a sandbox-play, mission-designed third-person action game with a pretty fascinating meta-twist, which, 2-3 hours into the game, has yet to truly reveal its purpose.

...
I'm trying to stay spoiler free, here.

( Clearly, someone over there has a liking for Arabic bad-asses )

First up on the initial assessment list is Bioshock, a game which tries to answer the question of what you would get if you combined Ayn Rand with Captain Nemo and surrounded this new bizarre being with bored geneticists...no, really.

( Watch the billionaire's initials )