Trailers of the Week: week 1 2014 (Jan 1-5) Also, laying down the... eh... "rules".... yaoi edition

Yeah... I tend to throw myself into strange ventures such as this one. So, I decided to just rate the game trailers that come out, as many as I can, and totally arbitrarily. I'm NOT a movie/trailer critic. But it's kinda fun, so, I'll just go for it. Here are my arbitrary points that I grade:

1: The graphics. What is a game without graphics? Lines of code, that's what. BOOOOORING! Unless you're into that stuff. I kinda am. Did I just call myself boring? *shame*.

2: Music. Again, what is a game without music? Flat graphics. Music is important.

3: Pacing. Now, I don't mean narative pacing, I mean the pacing of the music and what is happening on screen together. Do they "hit the note" or don't they? And how well? Stuff like that.

4: Narrative. With or without VO, you should get some idea of what it's all about. You should "get it" even if not a single word is spoken.

5: Captivation. Is the trailer intresting? Fun to watch?`Boring? Does it make you more or less interested in the game? That sort of things.

6: Interest. This and Captivation kinda goes hand in hand, but I'm trying to consider my intrerest in the game pre-seeing the trailer.

7: Other. This is ust an arbitrary line (and some points) to dole out if there was something else noteworthy in the trailers. Character designs, points for nostalgia, special VO-actor... whatever I find interesting.

Be forewarned, my grading-span tend to run in the 7-10 gambit, rather than 1-10. Which means these are going to be rather high, for now. Hopefully, the more i work with this, the better I become at using all the points. And yes, I am 4 weeks behind. Actually, I'm 13 YEARS behind, But we'll see if i get to those lost years. I will try.

So, without further ado... Let's start at the bottom, shall we? (And remember, I'm rating the TRAILERS, not the GAMES)

Worst Trailer of the Week: Mincraft PS3 Launch Trailer (YouTube link.)

Here's why:

Minecraft PS3 Launch Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	4	Retro graphics only actually work in nostalgic games…
Music	7	Kinda liked the music. It was 8-bit-y
Pacing	5	Slow, but short enough not to bore me to pieces.
Narrative	1	If I had NEVER heard about Minecraft before, I wouldn’t have gotten it at all….
Captivation	3	It was pretty… 8-bit-pretty… ehum…
Interest of game	0	I will NEVER play this game. EVER.
Other	7	Just for being so damn popular. And I don’t get it…
Average	3,8

The yaoi perspective: There is none. This is Minecraft. Everyting is 8-bit, and about building stuff. No yaoi here. Nowhere. The yaoi fangirl is sad =( 

Next up. the 3 best trailers of the week, starting with:

3d Best Trailer of the Week: Dr. Luigi (YouTube link)

Here's why:

Dr. Luigi Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	6	Wii graphics.
Music	6	Ear-worm-y, peppy, nostalgic but meh.
Pacing	5	Eh…. Don’t know
Narrative	5	Tetris copies don’t really rely on narration
Captivation	6	It is, a little, on the nostalgic level
Interest of game	7	I could play this
Other	10	NOSTALGIA!!!!
Average	6,4

The yaoi perspective: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY CHILDHOOD ICONS! Damn yaoi.....

2nd Best Trailer of the Week: Elsword – Ara Haan Sakra Devanam Trailer (gs link)

Here's why:

Elsword – Ara Haan Sakura Devanam Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	6	Ok. Bit grainy and shaky.
Music	7	Dig, not epic
Pacing	10	Oh, heck, it was perfect. Hit every note.
Narrative	7	Ok
Captivation	7	Yeah. Made it.
Interest of game	7	Manga + RPG + MMO = Nice
Other
Total mean	7,3

The yaoi perspective: A little too cutesy for me to gain any sort of yaoi material. Sorry...

And the Best Trailer of Week 1 2014 is.....: Deep down - Prologue Trailer (YouTube link)

Here's why:

Deep Down Prologue Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	7	Ingame graphics (?)
Music	6	Nice, not much more (Reminded me of N.U.)
Pacing	8	Hit the right notes, s.t.s, not perfect
Narrative	8	Extra points for having a narrator who spoke “to me”
Captivation	8	Yes, I didn’t get bored, so…
Interest of game	7	Had some interest before, didn’t lesser with this.
Other	9	Dungeon Crawler =)
Total mean	7,5

The yaoi perspective: I now to little about this game, as of yet, but knowing my dungeon crawlers, there will probably be a couple of bishounen and biseinen here to warrant some fanfiction. There always is....

Some Honorary mentions: Check out Europa Universalis - Conquest of paradise trailer for this weeks best music, Mecha Naruto trailer for best graphics and Atelier Escha & Logy for this weeks white-haired pretty boy =). And don't forget to give me a holler/some critique/whatever in the message box, so I know you've been here!

Will be back in a couple of days, playing catch-up with the trailers for week 2. And maybe for January 2000....

Logix

Assassin's Creed III is aws.... ehum.... well....

Ok, first of all: I haven't played it all, yet. I've only played about 15 hours. So I'm not 1000% sure, but here are my first impressions:

So, starting out, I was exited, but only kinda. Revolutionary war, not really my thing. I have a hard time caring about it, maybe because I'm not american. I do care about the people that it affected, be they English  French or native american, but the war as such wasn't all that interesting, at least not when I read about it in school. That being said, I can confirm that my expectations for this game were.... not low, per se, but not high either.

Ok, so enter Desmond Miles, the descendant of the Assassins who apparently is the only one who can do this. Exactly what "this" is, I don't really know. Wield the piece of Eden? Go into the Animus to "visit" with the ancestors? Why can't his father William Miles do that? Give Desmond a break? I don't know. Maybe it's Desmond's mothers line. So why can't she do it? Can you only visit someone of your own gender? That has to be it....

Desmond and his little crew of helpers..... and his father.... set up shop in a temple of some sort when Desmond..... yeah.... collapses again.... (sung that song last time around). Their solution to his collapse? Plug him into the Animus! Brilliant, then he can be collapsed and save the world at the same time. This time around he wakes up again, though, and is able to communicate with Rebecca, Shaun and Bill. Even gets out of the animus some times.

The temple seems to be harboring old roman gods. Juno to be exact. She starts sending Desmond, and Shaun, e-mails. Creepy. Desmond & Co also go out for a little adventure during the hours I've played, up until and halfway through sequence 6. Climbing skyscrapers in NYC on the outside? Much scarier than climbing the towers in Florence.....

Well, that's Desmond. What about Connor, the real assassin of the game? Let's head back to the Animus and and the 18th century! And there he is, Connor! I mean... Haytham.... Haytam Kenway! Who the HELL is Haytam Kenway???? What did I miss? Ok, I guess I'll just... listen to..... *voice actor-fangirl mode activated!* That guy that Haytham is talking to... or rather the other way around ... sounds so familiar ..... OMG! It's Gideon Emery! *squeals like a 12-year-old girl.* Moving on.... *deep breath*. So, on to a ship we go and leave tho old world behind for a New World! And I still don't know who this guy I'm playing with is. After some thinking I decide that it must be Connors father of mentor or something, taking the Creed to the new world.

After having spent about 3 hours with Haytham and his mates in Boston, trying out the new controls and menus and stuff (this is basically a tutorial), the games biggest WTF-moment happens. I don't expect them to top that. It's so wierd, even Desmond comments it with a WTF? And when the game itself does that, it's something done right.

Next push. Boston have been left behind for the great frontier and the home of the woman Haytham met and helped. And got help from. And.... laid......  Kaniethí:io (the woman) now have a boy! The boy Ratonhnhaké:ton runs around the forest and plays with his friends and.... wait..... I'm STILL waiting to meet Connor..... I don't care about this boy....... well, I do care a little, because I'm 90% sure this IS Connor. What I don't care about is his frolicking in the woods with his friends playing hide-and-seek. It's not fun, it's not cute, it's tedious and boring. Fast-forwarding a few years and we get a lesson in hunting. Ok, nice, probably something we could do on the frontier. Still... no assassins.....But here we get an up in pacing. It doesn't take all that long until Ratonhnhaké:ton gets whisked away from the frontier and to Davenport and Achilles Davenport, who is house-sitting for the Assassins. Ratonhnhaké:ton actually gets in the door more by his own stubbornness than anything else. It is now, almost 6 hours into the game, that he adopts the name Connor.

After this, not much happens. I do some exploring, repeat a couple of missions to try and figure out what the heck i'm doing. .. Spend a few minutes on a ship, which at first is nice, but swiftly gets confusing and repetitive  I send out a convoy for trading (this games equivalent to the last few games opening shops, I guess), but that is a bust, the convoy is attacked and i don't get what i should do about it. Should I do anything? Is the convoy lost forever? I don't get it, it's still there, in the trading menu, but all it says is "attacked", and nothing more. If it is lost, shouldn't it disappear after a while? Like when the next sequence starts? It doesn't, and I sit there staring at it in the interface, getting more and more frustrated. Oh, well.... lets go and.... and..... That's another thing about this game. i'm not sure what to do sometimes  And that's a problem. Should I move on in the story? Should I do some exploring? Where do I buy new shots for my pistol, arrows for my bow, snares, poison darts, can i buy medicine to help me survive encounters with Templars?  Are the Redcoats templars? Or are they just.... Redcoats? Where am I supposed to be going? Why am I supposed to go there? And why can I climb and travel the canopy? Ok, sure I get that, but why can I only do so for a few meters? then I'm forced back to the ground and to find another tree where I can start on the next leg through the frontier to my goal.

After about 15 hours of gameplay, I have come to a handful of conclusions. 1: I love Gideon Emery's voice. (Please, please, please, never stop with the voice acting, Gideon.) 2: The main game is unintuitive and tedious. 3: The parts where you are Desmond, out of the animus and in the present, feels more urgent and things seems to be moving, unlike the very slow pace of what I've played of the main game. In the other games it felt like the other way around, or, at it's best, both parts felt just as important and urgent as the other. 4: Connor. He seems... boring... and, what is almost worse: bored. Maybe this is a design flaw, maybe it's the voice acting, but this guy doesn't seem to care. The kid and teenage Connor was a little more engaging, but.....

Connor did not inspire this Yaoi fan girl to any fan fiction, which is BAD. So far, Assassin's Creed has inspired fan fiction about Altair + 1(own invention), Ezio + 1(own invention), Desmond + Shaun (actually not until Revelations, for some reason), I'm wondering who Bills secret male lover is, Haytham Kenway inspired me, but Connor..... Hell, Achilles Davenport is more interesting, as a man and as a yaoi ispiration. Hah, even the crazy butcher is more interesting.

I will not give up on this game, but for now, that's only because I want to know what's going on with Desmond and the secret temple and all that. Hopefully Connor and his story will pick up, and get more interesting  We'll see, maybe I can revise this once I've finished the game. Until then.....