The Gamer's Notebook
Feast of ages
By Chris O'Neal 11/25/2009
Make room for brains and aristocrats on the table this Thanksgiving
Recommended:
Assassin’s Creed 2, $49.99, Xbox360/PS3/PC
Left 4 Dead 2, $49.99, Xbox360/PC
Dragonage: Origins, $49.99, Xbox360/PS3/PC
New Super Mario Bros., $49.99, Wii
There’s nothing like celebrating Thanksgiving, a day reserved for families to come together, by ransacking cities crawling with the undead, maiming former best friends and cousins with chainsaws, and performing merciless assassinations while the victim’s family watches, together. Thanksgiving is the perfect day to carve a turkey while carving your neighbor. Who needs stuffing when you can stuff the undead with a flaming ax? The Mayflower would have been cooler with zombies. Can you make a hand turkey with no thumbs? Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, both released this month, offer families just the right amount of gore and violence for that memorable post-meal bonding experience.
Valve, well known for its popular titles Half-Life and Portal, released Left 4 Dead 2 to much enthusiasm, having previewed it tirelessly at E3 months before. There were many flaws with the original Left 4 Dead: It launched with only two of the four maps available for multiplayer, melee was useless, and some players considered it more of a downloadable game than a title worthy of store release. Valve addressed these issues in the sequel.
Every scene is playable in all modes — survivor, scavenger and realism; each mode has its own goals, with varying levels of difficulty. Realism is just what it seems: In reality, a store clerk would more than likely not leave a shotgun and ammunition in the freezer next to the ice cream for you to find, and so you shouldn’t expect to see anything like it in this mode of the game, either.
Another complaint addressed in the sequel was the lack of variety. There were four different zombie classes before, and now there are more, ranging from the classic Smoker to the new and demented Jockey, which rides on your shoulders leading you into danger, kind of like a horse-riding demon who would rather lead the animal into the crowd than over the finish line. New locales include a parish in New Orleans, accompanied by a terrifying jazz ensemble to heighten the disappointment you feel when you’re on your back screaming for help.
For the more refined masochist, there is Assassin’s Creed 2 from Ubisoft. Spanning the platforms (except for the Wii), the follow-up to 2007’s semi-hit comes, similar to L4D2, with several improvements. The combat system in the original left much to be desired, but here, where a player can disarm an opponent and use his own weapon against him, immersion has never been easier. This is one of the few games for which it can be said that fighting unarmed is superior to doing so with a weapon. Not only is it pretty to watch, but the movements flow together better, without feeling as though you’re swinging for the sake of swinging.
Assassin’s Creed 2 takes place during the Renaissance in Italy. Prepare for brutal violence while gazing at the beautifully sculpted rivers and costumes. Even Leonardo DaVinci has a cameo as your assistant, providing flying machines and weapons when needed. Ubisoft’s team put a lot of effort into making the city look authentic, from the dark alleyways to the enchanting fireworks displays and masquerade balls through which you’ll do your sneaking and killing, possibly eating finger food along the way.
If it’s a choice between L4D2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, the latter wins. The story is more than enough to enthrall even the most jaded gamer, while the fighting system will leave you expecting this quality from other, similar titles. Both games are worthy of this month, the turkiest of months. When it’s time for pie, instead of watching football, why not watch 92-year-old grandpa shank a patrician in Assassin’s Creed 2? Or how about rescuing grandma from a Jockey in Left 4 Dead 2? It’s part of the magic of Thanksgiving, the most wonderful time of the year!
Chris O’Neal is a full-time English teacher from Camarillo living in Seoul, South Korea. In his free time, he likes to dream about having his X-Box 360 and fatty American food.
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