In the beginning, the player is greeted with a flashback/narrative sequence, meant to fill players new to the franchise in on the events of the original Assassin’s Creed. However, the first improvement shows itself before the game even begins, simply with the menu screen. The first game was simple and straightforward enough: “Press X to begin.” However, this often left me wondering what would happen if I wanted to start a new game. Would it overwrite my existing game? Did I need to start it under a different profile? Was I even allowed to? It’s very comforting to see three save slots when starting a new game in Assassin’s Creed 2, though I do have to ask, “Why only three?”

The flashback goes into a good deal of detail about the previous game, something I wish games like Gears of War 2 did, but we can probably assume this is because the mixed press surrounding the original Assassin’s Creed prevented many from playing it. I might even go so far as to say that this recap could suffice for anyone who didn’t play the original, as the plot was a little difficult to follow or – at times – find.

Fly Ezio, fly. Fear not the water like your ancestors did!

After being filled in, the player is shown a wall with cryptic writing on it. As with the first game, there are plenty of easter eggs to be found here, most notable of which is a reference to Quetzacotl, which leads me to believe the next game will be set in the Mayan empire. However, there are plenty of straws to grasp at, with theories ranging from WWII to present day.

A bloody birth, quick escape, lots of swearing, and comically tragic fight sequence later, we are finally brought to what we’ve been waiting for: The Animus 2.0 (the device which allows Desmond to relive the memories of his ancestors). There have been a significant number of upgrades to the system, and more than just a little bit of mischievous tinkering from the mysterious “Subject 16,” who has a secret to reveal to Desmond through a series of (surprisingly fun) encryption puzzles.

Upon entering the Animus, we finally get to see Assassin’s Creed 2 in all its glory, and with all its flaws (which are admittedly few).

The Good:

• Holy crap, there’s an actual plot, complete with character development! In a story that borrows slightly from Romeo and Juliet, we see (and play) the story of Ezio, as he goes from womanizing troubled teen to a man driven by vengeance, to assassin. The story, while not exactly heart breaking, is quite compelling.
• While being chased by the guards, climbing rooftops and leaping from flagpole to flagpole, I reached the river which runs directly through the town. Remembering my experience in the original Assassin’s Creed, I began to get nervous – Altair, while a badass assassin, was unable to swim. Not only that, but it seemed just touching water meant instant death. On a whim, and with nowhere else to go, I jumped. To my enjoyment, Ezio began moving his arms in a motion not completely dissimilar to a breaststroke. Not only that, but diving under the water can be used to break line-of-sight with the guards.
• More options as an assassin: you can now throw money as a distraction, buy poisons, and throw smoke bombs. You can fight with a sword, a dagger, and not one but TWO hidden blades (Double face stab? Yes, please). You have more mission types, though some of them do feel like slightly re-skinned versions of the old ones.
• The world is more massive and beautiful than the first. Day/night cycles and highly detailed textures bring the massive cities to life.
• The combat has seen some improvements. While all your favorite moves are still there, you now also have the ability to disarm and use your opponents’ weapons. Yes, an assassin is trained in the use of all weapon types.

The Bad:

• As mentioned above, more mission types doesn’t exactly mean more mission types. However, there are more than in the first game, so it’s an improvement.
• Free running is still a little less than smooth. After playing a game like Mirror’s Edge, Ezio just feels clumsy.
• The accents are pretty bad. Every character sounds like a reject from the Super Mario Bros. voice casting calls.
• This game suffers from a common malady of the modern console game: DLC hell. Already, there are 3 different DLC packs available (2 dependent on where you bought the game from and a third unlockable through Ubisoft’s latest experiment, Uplay), making it difficult to get the full game right off the bat. There may be more DLC planned down the road, which may not be a bad thing, assuming the core game has a decent amount of content.

The Neutral:

• There is a lot of history in this game. At times, it almost feels like a walking tour of Renaissance Italy, with all of the contextual database entries that pop up as you pass landmarks. This really helps to flesh out the world, and make you at least feel somewhat educated as you stab peoples’ faces.

I haven’t completed this game yet, and hope not to for a while. Without multiplayer and no DLC yet, I’m hoping to draw this one out as long as possible. However, based on these early experiences, my suggestion is to go out and buy Assassin’s Creed 2 ASAP. It definitely addresses all of the issues the first game had, and managed to throw in a few extra things to boot. If I can get 20 hours of gameplay out of this one without needing to drop more cash on DLC, I’ll be a happy camper. Something tells me I’ll be getting way more than that, though.

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Assassin’s Creed 2 released Tuesday, November 17 for PC, XBox 360 and Playstation 3

A slightly different format, we’re still learning this whole podcasting thing!

This week we cover Dexter and Paranormal Activity. And get a little too drunk for our britches.

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This week we cover Roman Polanski, Fallout 3, The Kung-Fu Kid, and Robert Rodriguez’s Predators.

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I didn’t write this article sooner because, quite frankly, the thought of doing so was too frightening. In fact, the thought of giving too much of my thought to Paranormal Activity is still cause for hesitation. Not because it was a bad movie – quite the opposite, in fact. The documentary-style film sets out to do one thing – scare the living daylights out of you – and does it extraordinarily well.

This is the movie that’s expected to be this year’s great success story. Shot with a budget of just $11,000, Paranormal Activity is not your typical suspense/horror film. There is no blood. There is no gore at all. You won’t find spinning beds or even girls coming out of televisions. What you will find, however, is a quality film.

Another name for this movie could have been 2 Actors, One Camera (ed- ok, I did it. I made the “2 Girls, One Cup” reference. So sue me. Every writer here has skirted the topic, playfully interjecting it into their articles only to remove it out of fear of “going too far.” Begone, foul apprehension!), because that’s exactly what you get. No more, no less. The most you see of the world outside of this haunted couple’s house is the driveway, revealed in the first 5 minutes, and the backyard about halfway through the movie. From the time you first meet Micah, be prepared for claustrophobia to set in.

And that’s really what this film is about: the growing tension between a couple feeling trapped in their own home manifested in the form of a demon. From Micah’s inability to take the plight of his girlfriend seriously to his insistence on making contact with the demon that is haunting her, his fate (one any man in at least a semi-serious relationship can relate to on some level) is spelled out for him from the beginning of the film.

But I digress. You’re not here to read about the story within the story. You’re here (most likely) to find out if this movie is really worth all the hype. And I’m here to tell you, most definitely, yes.

Horror-suspense films traditionally follow a pretty similar formula. Build the tension, then break the tension with a joke, then – while the audience is still laughing – scare the bejesus out of them. The “false start.” Paranormal Activity simultaneously has nothing but false starts and has no false starts. I know, that makes no sense.

The story is told from the perspective of Micah’s new, more-than-is-needed camera (who quickly becomes a character in its own right). You have your daytime footage, where the story between Micah and Katie unfolds. You will quickly come to call these scenes your “happy place.” As long as Micah is in control of the camera, you feel safe.

But once Micah puts that damn thing on a tripod, you’re looking for the exit. The story that plays out at night (get used to the view in the above image, because it makes up roughly 45% of the movie, and the scariest collective hour of your life to date), while the cast is sleeping, exists purely within the mind of the viewer. Did you hear that whisper? That door did not just close. Is that a shadow in the doorway? Oh shit, there are footprints. Bodies should not move like that! Why the hell is she just staring at him? If she looks at the camera right now, I will piss my pants. I’m just going to look at the clock in the bottom right corner because I don’t want to see what comes up the stairs. These are just some of the things you say to yourself during the night time shots. Some of the things overheard in the packed theatre I saw it in were “Oh no you don’t, Tamika (the woman in front of me’s name for Micah), don’t open that damn door!” “Oh, hell no. HELL NO!” and “Why did I do this to myself?” I overheard one person say on the way out, “I think I’m going to be sick.” And remember: there is absolutely not one drop of gore in this movie.

This film is worth every cent of the price of admission. Even more if you see it in a packed theater, just for the audience reactions alone. This is how suspense should be. And it should act as a source of inspiration and case study to every student film maker out there; an example of what can be done with next to no money when you put storytelling first. It will leave you spooked. It will make you afraid to go down the stairs. And, if you’re like me, it will make you afraid to cross your girlfriend.

Currently in beta, 1 vs 100 allows players to compete against one another in a game of trivia for prizes ranging from Microsoft Points to Home Theatre systems. Topics include film, comics, physics, chemistry, drink recipes, current events and many many more. The game can be a bit confusing to first timers, so here’s what I learned after playing this unique approach to online trivia gaming:

• 1 vs 100 can be played in one of two ways: Live or “Extended Play”
• When playing the Extended Play, the game acts much like a party trivia game. There are no prizes, but this method of play is still very important: Your stats (percentage of questions answered correctly and time to answer) are calculated and can help you get into either the mob (the 100) or become the one in a live game. More on that below.
• When playing the live game, you will be in one of three roles:
  • The Crowd. This is the most common way of playing. You will play against up to 3 other players, and will not be eligible for prizes, though it is still incredibly fun. “The One” can use one of his help lines (similar to Who Wants to be a Millionaire’s “Lifelines”) to call on the crowd’s help. Primarily, the “Trust the Crowd” help line, where he automatically chooses the same answer the crowd picked most.
  • The Mob. As part of the mob, you have a chance to win prizes. In a typical game, there will be two prizes: An arcade game and Microsoft points. The number of Microsoft points up for grabs depends on how many members of the mob are left: 0 for 100 mob members, then it ranges from 100 for 90 members, to 10,000 when no members of the mob remain. If a member of the mob gets an answer wrong, he is immediately removed from the game, and the jackpot goes up. If “The One” gets an answer wrong, the points he was vying for get divided among the remaining mob members, as well as the arcade prize. In addition, the top three members of the mob, regardless of who wins, will receive that week’s arcade title.
  • The One. If you are lucky enough to become The One for an episode (each hour long episode will typically consist of 5-6 rounds, each with a different player as “The One”), you stand a chance to win the jackpot. For every 10 members of the mob you knockout, you have a choice: The money or The Mob. If you choose the money, you take your MS points and the next player comes up as the one. If you choose the mob, the game continues.
• Stats reset every week, so each week you have a chance to become part of the mob for the next live show. The schedule for the live show can be accessed via your dashboard.

The game/show is incredibly addictive, and I believe represents a huge leap forward in the way gameshows are played. In this respect, I give Microsoft huge props for what they’re doing with the 360 platform, blurring the lines between television and video games. The live show has an actual host (not pre-recorded), and comes complete with commercials (which are actually quite welcome, giving the players a chance to relax). There are also numerous opportunities to win prizes just for getting involved (emailing in, calling in, etc.).

So hop in and see if you have what it takes to be the one. Just don’t make the same mistake I made, and remain sober during play. Otherwise, you may be one of the thousands tonight who said “West Nile” was the online diamond retailer, isntead of “Blue Nile”. D’oh.

Admittedly, I’ve only seen about 20 minutes of the show, and as of yet, I’m thinking I was correct to assume so. But I’m open to find out if the show is worth checking out. Is it just another scifi “original” series (ie ripoff?) from the station who hasn’t produced quality original content since SG-1? After peeling away the bad acting, cheesy writing, and shaky camera work, is there a nugget of good story underneath? Let me know in the comments below!

Watch it there or view it (along with some clues/questions) after the break.

Release Schedule:

• Episode 1: July 23rd, 2009
• Episode 2: August 4th, 2009
• Episode 3: September 8th, 2009
• Episode 4: October 15th, 2009
• Episode 5: November 16th, 2009

Some things to look out for:

• How did the uniform get out into the public?
• The “Flying Saucer” they show after the janitor story seems to say “LOST” on it.
• Allusions to DI owning Area 51
• Two recruitment locations are named: Portland, OR (old news) and Area 51 (new news)
• Interview with the parents of Olivia Goodspeed, a teacher we met in Season 5 on the Island.
• Strange test question: “Who is your constant?” – I would like to see how applicants answered this question!

That’s it for now. Notice something we missed? Let us know in the comments!

What can we hope to learn from this? Will it feature our intrepid survivors? Will it bring us any resolution? Darlton have already confirmed that the DHARMA plot is already wrapped up within the show, so this may be our last chance to get answers.

Continue reading to watch video.

UPDATE: Release schedule:

• Episode 1: July 23rd, 2009
• Episode 2: August 4th, 2009
• Episode 3: September 8th, 2009
• Episode 4: October 15th, 2009
• Episode 5: November 16th, 2009