A-Z Challenge

Elebits turned out a little better than I thought. this next game is probably either gonna be Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy.



Best Possible Game: Final Fantasy VII made me a fan of the series and I really want to check out the most recent entry. I've heard great things about this one, even though it doesn't have the usual turn-based combat.

S: F-Zero GX is the best F-Zero game and I love me some F-Zero. Fire Emblem Sacred Stones looks like a really good Fire Emblem game and it be nice to check out one of the GBA games.

A: I've heard less good things about Shadows of Valentia, but overall reviews seem positive. I'd rather check out an older game than one that came out after Awakening, but I'll still enjoy this one. F-Zero on SNES is fun but tough. Three Hopes has always been this interesting spin-off to Three Houses that I know nothing about and I've always been curious about it.

B: Fallout is always a good time, even if these two aren't exactly fan-favorites. I've heard some very mixed reviews on Final Fantasy XIII, but I want to see how it is myself.

C:

D: I'm not really a fan of the early Fallouts and this is a collection with two of them and a spin-off. the individual games in Final Fantasy Anthology are good, but combined this would take over 70 hours and that's a lot. I don't think I need to explain the placement of Frogger: Ancient Shadows.

F: Tis I, the biggest Fates hater. I don't like any of the games in this trilogy and this is the worst one.

Worst Possible Game: I question why I bought this everyday. Forty hours of farming does not sound like fun.

Let's see how long our JRPG will be



YES! This will take a minute, but I'm so happy I rolled this!

Today on Finnedorb…

A-Z Challenge



Elebits (Wii): 7:24

The game takes place in a story that a kid is being told so he’ll shut the fuck up and go to sleep. Elebits are these small… things that produce electricity. Kai is a child suffering from neglect because his parents are too focused on studying the Elebits. Suddenly, a disaster happens and the Elebits start acting weird. The parents rush to the lab, and Kai steals his dad’s capture gun so he can capture Elebits… for some reason. I mean in the first level it seems like he’s doing it to turn on the TV, but after that I think he just wants to commit an Elebit genocide.

The game’s an FPS where you capture Elebits by shooting them. They will run and hide, but you can interact and throw objects in the environment to find them. When you capture an Elebit, you gain watts and the more watts you have, the more electronics can be activated. When an electronic is activated some special Elebits pop out. Collect enough of those and you can lift heavier objects. There’s also several power-ups, but the only useful ones are the homing missile, the vacuum, and the shield.

Throughout the levels, Kai moves through the different rooms of his house, the street outside, and the amusement park. Occasionally there will be bosses, but they’re all easy because this game was made for 6-year-olds. The game also introduces more lose conditions. Initially the only way you fail a level is by failing to collect enough watts before the level timer is up. Then they introduce a limit to how many objects can break in the level. This condition is awful because Elebits can break objects by ramming into them and that’s almost entirely out of your control. You’ll also inevitably break objects because of the janky physics system. The second worst lose condition is the volume one. If you make enough noise to go above a certain amount of decibels enough times, it’s over. This one’s much less common so it’s not as bad, but it feels even more out of your control. One time I lost because I moved a chair slightly and apparently that was loud enough to shatter glass and blow-up ear drums. The final lose condition is just running out of health. They introduce turrets, tanks, and Elebits that attack you. This one is pretty manageable except for mission 27. There are a million turrets on that level and it becomes a bullet-hell; unless you act fast and throw them off a cliff.

Eventually, Kai’s parents realize he’s not at home and rush to find him. Kai is happy that his parents actually give a shit about him, but he pushes on to stop this mess. He comes across the Ghost Elebit, an Elebit that absorbs others to get stronger. The first phase is the easiest boss in the game, just throw plants at him. Then in the second-phase, a gundam comes out of the ground and he possesses it. Why there was a gundam under the amusement park I do not know. We have to fight him by unscrewing him piece by piece. I initially had a lot of trouble with this part because the motion controls weren’t working, but eventually I found a winning strategy. Just grab the screw, turn the wii-remote slightly like a doorknob, and then unselect it. Keep doing this and he’ll go down easy. The ghost Elebit becomes smaller and friendlier, and Kai and his family live happily ever after. Also the final cutscene implies Kai’s parents were the ones telling the story to Kai, but the ghost Elebit also shows up so that implies this story actually happened and they're using that as a bedtime story. I too fell asleep to the story of that time I shot an animal.

Also this is in the game



Konami included a Silent Hill 3 easter egg and I’m sure a 5-year-old cried because of it. I wonder where this fits in the Silent Hill timeline.

Elebits is an okay FPS for kids, but it never gets better than that. 7/10

I don't own very many games that start with E so this'll be quick.



Best Possible Game: I'm in the mood for a Rouge-like, I want to Enter the Gungeon.

S: This game looks like a lot of fun and it's really short so I'd be happy to roll this.

A: This look like a sort of a Return of the Obra Dinn-like game and the concept sounds pretty interesting. "Alter the past to save the future". This would be a fun one to try out.

B: Exit is a short and sweet puzzle game which sounds like a good time to me.

C: Elebits looks fine and I'm a little burned out on on 4X games. That's mostly from playing Civilization a lot recently, so if this is different enough it'll probably be fine.

D: I just played and didn't enjoy Dark Souls II. While I'm sure Elden Ring is better, I don't want to play another Souls-like right now. Everlasting summer is just a shitty visual novel.

F: It's a crappy shovelware game

Worst Possible Game: It's a 5/10 that's 22 hours long.

Time to roll



Definitely rerolling



Welp, sometimes you roll for an Enter the Gungeon and you get an Elebits.

Today on Finnedorb...

A-Z Challenge

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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (Xbox Series X)

I don't like Dark Souls II. I think the combat is worse than even Demon's Souls and I didn't particularly care for what I played of the story. I retired this after getting stuck on an area for a while and just deciding I didn't want to commit 35 hours to a game I don't enjoy playing. That's not to say I don't like a good souls-like. Even though I retired Demon's Souls, I still played for 13 hours and had fun. Maybe Dark Souls II gets better after a few hours, but I didn't stick around to find out.

I just won my first game of CIV VII and I'm a little torn on whether I like it or not. The UI is horrible and absolutely should not have been released in the state it's in. I did enjoy the gameplay for the most part, but not more than I enjoy Civ Vi. The settlement cap is a big part of it, not having the freedom to build a colossal empire really sucks. Still, I'll probably dump 100s of hours into it.

Also I can now always say that I was the first person to submit a time for this game on the site.

I'm making a collection of games that take place in Arizona either fully or partially. DM me with ideas.

Collection

I think I'm off to a decent start. 8 games is a lot and I got some of the harder categories down.

9. A collection of games: Assassin's Creed: Ezio Trilogy
10-2. A game named after the main character: Banjo-Kazooie
15-1. A game you previously retired or shelved: Assassin's Creed
18. A game with a real or fictional religion: Call of Juarez (Christianity)
19-1. A “threequel” (third part of the series): Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
25-1. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years): Assassin's Creed: Revelations
39. A game where the characters speak a language you don't understand (can be real or fictional): Banjo-Tooie
47. A game that won or was a finalist for a Steam Award, Bonus - A replay that you finish quicker than your first playthrough: Balatro

Collection

❌1. A new game (released within the past year)
❌2. An old game (released 10+ years ago)
❌3. A really old game (released 20+ years ago
❌4. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago)
❌5. A time sink (50+ hours)
❌6. A quickie (less than an hour)
❌7. A remake or remaster of a game
❌8. A game with 6+ endings
✅9. A collection of games: Assassin's Creed: Ezio Trilogy
❌10-1. A game that’s title starts with a number: 1971 Project Helios
✅10-2. A game named after the main character: Banjo-Kazooie
❌10-3. A game that starts with the letter Q or Z: Quake II
❌11. A game from a genre you don’t normally play
❌12-1. A game adapted from another medium
❌12-2. A game adapted into another medium
❌13-1. A game with a short title (4 letters or less)
❌13-2. A game with a long title (8+ words or a word with 13+ letters)
❌14-1. A game with over 1k completions
❌14-2. A game with under 100 completions: Cooking Mama: World Kitchen
❌14-3. A game with no recorded completion times: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Game of the Year Pack
✅15-1. A game you previously retired or shelved: Assassin's Creed
❌15-2. A replay
❌16. A game that’s been a Game of the Month
❌17. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer
✅18. A game with a real or fictional religion: Call of Juarez (Christianity)
✅19-1. A “threequel” (third part of the series): Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
❌19-2. A spin-off
❌20. A cornerstone of gaming culture
❌21. A game where you play as an anti-hero or villain
❌22. A game heavily featuring zombies: Zombie Army
❌23. A game that hasn't aged well
❌24. An indie game
✅25-1. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years): Assassin's Creed: Revelations
❌25-2. A game that takes place at the same time as another game in the series
❌26. A sequel that's more famous than the original
❌27. A game that has no business being in its series: Resident Evil 6
❌28. A game from a franchise that rarely gets new games
❌29. A game with an interesting hook
❌30-1. A game with a great plot twist
❌30-2. A game with a bad plot twist
❌31-1. The definitive edition of a game (or GOTY edition, Ultimate Edition, Deluxe edition, etc.)
❌31-2. The base game version of a game with several DLCs or Editions
❌32-1. A platform exclusive
❌32-2. A game available on 7+ platforms
❌33. A game you beat to 100% completion: Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition
❌34. A game that started a long-running franchise (7+ games)
❌35. A recent (within the last 5 years) game in a long-running franchise (7+ games)
❌36. A game that's smaller than 100MB
❌37. A game that won any category in the SPIKE Video Game awards or the Game Awards hosted by Geoff Keighley
❌38. A game that made it out of Development Hell (5+ years)
✅39. A game where the characters speak a language you don't understand (can be real or fictional): Banjo-Tooie
❌40. A game with a memorable soundtrack
❌41. A game on someone else's Game Challenge 2025 list
❌42. A game with a female protagonist
❌43. A Game inspired by Mythology or Folklore
❌44. A Game inspired/based on real world historical events
❌45. A game developed by a single person
❌46. A fanmade/bootleg/rom hack game
✅47. A game that won or was a finalist for a Steam Award: Balatro
❌48. A game with a silent protagonist
❌49-1. A game that features time travel
❌49-2. A game that features space travel
❌50. A Game that prominently features food/cooking

Bonus Challenges:

❌A replay on a harder difficulty than your first playthrough
❌A replay where you get a different ending from your first playthrough
✅A replay that you finish quicker than your first playthrough: Balatro
❌A replay in new game+

I beat 8 games this month which is an insane start to the year. It would've been 9, but I didn't get around to beating Crimson Skies until today.

1/2 Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360): 11:39 7/10
1/4 Balatro (PC-Steam) (Replay): 1:50 9/10 - BEST (if I counted replays)
1/8 Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Xbox 360): 12:23 6/10
1/9 Call of Juarez (PC-Steam): 7:30 7/10 - BEST
1/11 Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Xbox 360): 9:06 7/10
1/11 Assassin's Creed: Ezio Trilogy (Xbox 360): 33:31 7/10
1/17 Banjo-Kazooie (Xbox One): 13:26 6/10
1/24 Banjo-Tooie (Xbox One): 16:38 6/10 - WORST

Call of Juarez is hugely overshadowed by one of its sequels, Gunslinger, but it's still a pretty good game. Sure, some mechanics have aged badly like using motion controls for duels, the whip, and the durability system, but it's still a fun time. I think this game's got huge potential to be a great movie, but nobody's heard of it so that'll probably never happen. Reverend Ray was such a cool character. He starts off as a really intimidating villain, but then he has a character arc after the consequences of his thirst for revenge become clear. If you like Gunslinger or cowboys, definitely check this game out.

I wasn't really a big fan of Banjo-Kazooie to begin with, and this sequel is pretty much that but bigger and worse. The game actually starts out pretty good until the dinosaur world fucks everything up. The writing is also just a lot weaker in this game, most of the jokes are 4th-wall breaks which gets boring after a while.

A-Z Challenge

I had a really shit week and I just don't have the energy to write a full review for Crimson Skies.

The main points if I did make a full review:

* Oopsie this is a sequel and I didn't realize until just now
* This is some of the best dogfighting I've seen in a video game
* Fuck yeah, Arizona's in this
* These missions get repetitive pretty fast
* Fuck those cheating British fucks at the ruins
* Planes were not meant to fly inside of ancient ruins and collision damages you way too much
* Final boss sucks
7/10

I just kind of want to get the roll over with so I'm just gonna leave the tierlist here and get on with it

Edit: Hi it's me from a few hours later. I'm feeling better now so I'll give my reasons for each tier like usual.



Best Possible Game: Dead Space was my Best Possible Game last year and I beat it last summer. Now it's my best possible game again (thanks to the remake) because Dead Space is really good.

S: Devil May Cry and Dante's Inferno are both games I've wanted to get to for a while. I ended up playing three hack n' slashes in December and I get it now. Darkest Dungeon looks really interesting and this would finally give me an excuse to play it. My best friend's been begging me to play Disco Elysium and based on everything he's told me, it goes up here.

A: I've heard some great things about Dave the Diver and I managed to snag the Godzilla DLC before it was delisted so I'll definitely be playing through that. I played Demon's Souls last year and I really liked it despite eventually retiring it. Dark Souls is the spiritual sequel to that and it's called one of the greatest games of all time. Dying Light looks like a lot of fun, and it was actually made by the Call of Juarez developers so I'm curious to see if there's any references. Death Stranding's a pretty controversial game, but I love Kojima's batshit storytelling and I think I could get a lot out of this.

B: I never really gave the original Dead Rising a chance, so this would be a chance to actually give it a shot while clearing a game from my backlog. I played a bit of Doom 3, but never really got into it. I'm willing to give it another chance, especially since Doom: The Dark Ages is coming out and I plan on playing that day 1. Days Gone is a game I don't know much about other than you either love it or hate it, and I'm hoping I'll be in the love it category. Dredge looks pretty interesting and I'm always up for a fishing game. Dark Souls II is often called worse than the original, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. I probably won't play Dark Souls 1 if I roll this just because of how insanely long these games are.

C: Those sure are games

D: Destroy All Humans 2 and Dillion's Rolling Western 2 are here since I'd have to play the originals first and I don't really want to do that. Despotism 3K is short, but it's also really unbalanced and your entire run can be destroyed out of nowhere. Danganronpa is a pretty long visual novel that I've already been spoiled on so what's the point of playing. Darkvoid is Darkvoid.

F: Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon has a pretty bad review score and I'd have to play the other two. Danganronpa 2 requires me to play the first game and I don't want to do that.

Worst Possible Game: Danganronpa 3 would require me to play over 100 hours of Danganronpa. No thanks, I'll pass.



I don't like that armadillo



I should have stuck with the armadillo.

I know I usually play previous games to get all the lore and everything, but these games are 40 hours a piece so I'll just skip Dark Souls 1.

Edit: I'm going to buy Scholar of the First Sin so I can play this on my Series X. I'll also play through the three DLCs alongside the main game since they are included.

For the GotM: Portal

For the 10th year anniversary: Bloodborne

Bloodborne was already nominated by R2D21999

For the regular game I'm nominating Astro Bot

For the 2015 special I'm nominating Batman: Arkham Knight

A-Z Challenge



Best Possible Game: I'm in the mood for Cyberpunk right now. I could really use an open-world FPS after playing two 3D platformers I didn't like.

S: Command & Conquer Generals looks fun and like a great place to start with in the Command & Conquer series. Crimson Skies looks like a lot of fun and I could absolutely go for a 7 hour game after playing Banjo-Tooie for 16 hours. Control looks pretty fun and I enjoyed Alan Wake so I'm interested to see how Remedy did with this one.

A: I played Call of Juarez earlier this month after playing Gunslinger twice last year. It's fair to say I'm a big fan of this series. Celeste and Cave Story both look short and fun. Chibi-Robo is a great game I've never beaten. Crysis looks great and I could definitely go for an FPS right about now.

B: I played Castlevania: Lament of Innocence last year and thought it was good, but could use some polish. If Lords of Shadow is that, it'll be a fun time. Crazy Taxi is Crazy taxi, it's short and has a great gameplay loop. Crime Boss Rockay City is a game I've had my eye on, but didn't want to buy something on the Epic Store. Now it's finally on Steam and I got most of the DLC with it for free. Cruelty Squad is an acid trip of a game I've been meaning to get to. Cuphead's a game I got halfway through and then dropped so it'd be nice to finally finish it. Crazy taxi 2 is more Crazy Taxi. I usually have fun with Call of Duty, and while this is a pre-Modern Warfare CoD, I'll probably still like it.

C: More games I don't have any opinions on.

D: 3/5 of these are games I'd have to play other games for and I just don't want to do that. City of Brass just looks bad and Car Mechanic Simulator probably won't be great, especially compared to the real deal.

F: I don't want to play a platformer. I've had enough of them for a while. Cook Serve Delicious 3 just looks like a 40 hour mobile game

Worst Possible Game: Crash technically is more of a 2.5D platformer, but that's close enough to a 3D platformer for me not to want to play it. Ad on the fact that this is a collection and I would hate rolling this.

Don't Own Previous Games: I don't usually talk about this category since it's self-explanatory, but I just want to add on that the only real way I'd get the other games is through the collection on Steam, but that'd mean adding six games to my backlog so if I roll either of these games I'd have to actively grow my backlog.

I really, REALLY hope I roll Cyberpunk, it's exactly the type of game I want to play right now.



I'm gonna reroll



You know what, I'll take it. It looks fun and it's short.

Today on Finnedorb…

A-Z Challenge

(B post 2 of 2)



Banjo-Tooie (Xbox One): 16:38

It’s been two years since Grunty’s defeat at the hands of Banjo and Kazooie. The hag is still alive, trapped in a hole by a massive rock. Her underling Klungo has tried to free her, but to no avail. Suddenly Grunty’s two sisters that she definitely had the whole time arrive with a giant drill and free her. We cut over to Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo, and Bottles playing poker. The witches’ drill is felt by the gang and Mumbo investigates, watching Grunty emerge from the hole as a skeleton. Mambo rushes back to warn everyone, but the witches follow him. Banjo and Kazooie rush out of the house, but Bottles thinks the gang are trying to trick him. A giant fireball is launched at the house, and Bottles fucking dies. Grunty and her sisters head to Cauldron Keep so they can figure out a way to get Grunty’s body back. Banjo and Kazooie begin the chase to take out Grunty and hopefully find a way to revive Bottles. After a quick tutorial on Spiral Mountain, we head to Jinjo Village. All the Jinjos have been captured by Grunty, and King Jingaling has tasked us to find them in exchange for jiggies. He also opens a door to master JiggyWiggy, lord of the jiggies. He opens a door for us to the first world, and he tasks us with getting three more jiggies to unlock the next. Right after he opens the door, we cut to Grunty and her sisters. The bitch sisters force her to stop rhyming every line and I nearly retired the game right there. They shoot King Jingaling with a laser that zaps out his life force and leaves him a zombie. Grunty orders her sisters to blast the whole island with the laser, but it’s going to take a while for the gun to charge up. With all the set-up done, it’s time for world 1.

World 1 - Mayahem Temple

This is a pretty standard first world that introduces us to a lot of things we’ll be seeing in each world. We can find a small hatch with Bottles’s brother inside. This is Jamjars, he’s a drill sergeant type and he’ll teach us advanced moves once we’ve reached a certain amount of music notes. The amount was never a problem for me, in fact he was usually behind by around 100 notes. Unlike the first game, Jamjars won’t tell you how many moves are in each world and that led to me missing a lot of vital moves like the Breegull Blaster and Bill Drill. Something weird happened with the Breegull Blaster where I might have actually learned it since I remember doing the Targitzan Temple jiggies, but it seems like Banjo forgot it because I had to go learn it a while later. Luckily there is a list of each move in each world in the how to play section of the pause menu so I went with that around world 5. Mambo Jumbo makes his return, this time he’s playable. In exchange for one glowbo you can play as him and activate Mumbo pads. There’s also Humba Wumba who takes over Mumbo’s old job and transforms you in each level. In this first level you become something called a stony. You can talk to other stonies and play stony kickball. The first secret entrance to another world is also found here, although I didn’t find it until I was grinding up jiggies to get to world 7. The worlds in this game are a lot bigger than Banjo-Kazooie so there’s warp pads that let you teleport around the world. These were very helpful and decreased the travel time of each world drastically. You only need 3 more jiggies to get to the next world, so we’re not here for long.

World 2 - Glitter Gulch Mine

This is probably my favorite world. It’s a giant mine with a prospector theme. The transformation in this world is a detonator that lets you blow up rocks and barrels of TNT. We also meet the anti-christ in this level, Canary Mary. She seems nice now, but just wait until the last level of the game. We also find the first cross-world Jiggy here. We have to go back to Mayahem temple and free a rodent so she can go back to her partner, Bullion Bill. This involves the Bill Drill which I missed my first time in this world so Bullion Bill was partnerless for a long time. We also see the split pads for the first time, but we don’t learn how to use them until the next world. This world is also the introduction to Old King Cole and his train. When I was a kid first playing this game, I never got past the first world so when King Jingaling made a reference to this character, I thought he was referencing Nat King Cole, the singer. I was very surprised to find out this was a real character. When we beat him, we get access to the train which allows us to move certain objects and characters between worlds. Glitter Gulch Mine is pretty fun and I went back to get all the jiggies while grinding to get to Cauldron Keep.

World 3 - Witchyworld

Witchyworld is Grunty’s own amusement park. In fact, she’s actually here but for some reason we don’t fight her and she gives us jiggies for completing mini-games. She might be attempting to nuke an island, but she’s a fair park owner. The park is split into several sections including Crazy Castle, Space Zone, Area 51, and the inferno area. I had no idea how to get into Area 51 until way later in the game when I realised grenade eggs can break certain objects. This world is full of mini-games, but none of them are all that great. The transformation in this world is a van, and it’s probably my favorite transformation in the whole game. The van is invincible and you can run over every enemy, it’s great. We learn how to use split-up pads in this world. They allow you to, as the name implies, split-up Banjo and Kazooie. It doesn’t do much now, but eventually we’ll learn a lot of moves for both characters that allows them to solve a lot of puzzles. It is a little annoying that you have to bump the characters into each other to regroup, but it’s fine for now. I’m sure this’ll never be a problem. This is once again a world I returned to so I could get enough Jiggies for Cauldron Keep.

World 4 - Jolly Roger’s Lagoon

This is the pirate world of the game. The surface is a small town with a bar, a pawnshop, and a jet ski store. Below the surface is a lot of underwater areas like Atlantis and Davy Jones’ Locker. Sort of a fun fact about this area is that it features a character from the game that would eventually become Banjo-Kazooie. This was back during the SNES days when the plan was to make a pirate game, sort of in a similar style to Donkey Kong Country. Then the N64 became a thing and that game was scrapped and turned into Banjo-Kazooie. The character’s a drunken, seasick pirate captain who’s wasting away in the bar. He even mentions that his thunder was stolen by a bear who looks like Banjo. This world has its own currency called dablloons. There’s not a whole lot of them, and you need 20 to buy a jiggy at the pawnshop. The transformation in this world is a sub and it’s pretty awkward to control. I came back to get a few more jiggies for Cauldron Keep, but I ended it with 8/10 of them.

World 5 - Terrydactyland

This is by far the worst world in the game, and it’s the beginning of a severe nose dive of quality. This is the dinosaur level, and it’s fucking massive. I constantly got lost weaving through similar looking cave entrances and weird platforming sections. This world has the worst jiggies in the game, I genuinely only got one from this world my first time through. I got fed up with getting lost and went back to the previous worlds to get the rest of the jiggies I needed. The game has a bit of a problem with repetitiveness, but it’s at its worst here. There are two transformations in this world, a baby t-rex and a giant t-rex. In order to become the giant t-rex, you need to: go to Mumbo, walk over to Wumba’s tent as Mumbo, activate the Mumbo tile to make Wumba’s wigwam massive, walk back to Mumbo’s skull, become Banjo and Kazooie again, walk over to the tent, and finally jump in the Wumba pool. The process repeats if you need to become a baby t-rex while the wigwam is big. This is the first of three levels I just straight up quit. I came back and got one other jiggy meaning I got 2/10 jiggies in this world.

World 6 - Grunty Industries

When you first arrive in this world. The front entrance of the building is blocked off. You have to open the train station and ride in with the train first. After that, the gimmick of the level is that there’s five levels to the building. You have to slowly unlock ways to traverse the stage. You also need to collect batteries to power-up certain areas. Honestly, this stage just wasn’t very fun. I’m not a big fan of the industrial aesthetic and the floors are more annoying than anything. I managed to get a few jiggies, but I ended up quitting after a while and once again went back to previous worlds.

World 7 - Hailfire Peaks

At this point, I was just kind of sick of playing this game. I didn’t want to qut this close to the end though so I did something I’m not proud of: I pulled up the IGN guide and followed it to the letter. I had used a guide before in this game, but only when I genuinely had no idea what to do next. I very rarely follow a guide step by step like this. The area is split into two sections, one on fire and one that’s frozen. It’s like Punk Hazard from One Piece. This is the lava world Gobi said he was going to in the first game after we ground-pounded his hump enough. Sure enough, he is in this world after we free him from a cell in Witchyworld. We also run into Boggy the polar bear again. This world also features two Rare characters not from Banjo-Kazooie. The first is The Fantastic Mr. Pants who just makes a small cameo on Boggy’s TV. I was actually really surprised to see him since I thought his first appearance was his game on the GBA. Turns out, he was originally the mascot for Rare’s website and he even made an appearance in Jet Force Gemini. The other character is Sabreman from Sabreman and the Saber Wulf games. He’s frozen in ice and Banjo has to warm him up and carry him back to his tent. I was able to do 8/10 jiggies in this world since two of them require actions in previous worlds that I didn’t do.

World 8 - Cloud Cuckooland

Cloud Cuckooland is a world in the sky. I didn’t spend long here. I ran into Canary Mary and tried to do her race for 15 minutes before giving up and leaving to grab jiggies from the first four worlds. Canary Mary’s race here is infamous for being damn near impossible, especially on the Xbox since it has less lag. She’s just too damn fast and I didn’t have a power drill nearby to cheese it. The spoon method didn’t work so I just quit.

World 9 - Cauldron keep

This is it, it’s time to put Grunty down once and for all. First we have to fight Klungo, and he goes down pretty easily. I haven’t talked about it, but this is the third time we’ve beaten him. He’s finally had enough and quits, deciding to go make video games. After that it’s time to play the Tower of Tragedy Trivia Challenge. It’s a pretty standard trivia challenge, the person with the least points gets crushed with a one ton weight. We’re up against Grunty’s sisters. The trivia is pretty easy and this section was a little disappointing. I like the format, but I think it needs a little Furnace Fun bullshit. Grunty kills both of her sisters, and runs away. We revive King Jingaling and Bottles with Grunty’s life force gun and the credits roll. Like the last game, the Grunty fight comes after the credits and is locked behind a bunch of jiggies, and, like the last game, I didn’t bother with it. The credits rolled, Banjo said it was the end of the game, I’m calling it here.

This game started off better than the first game, and then we got to the dinosaur world and things just got so much worse. I didn’t really touch on it, but a lot of the jokes in this game are just breaking the 4th-wall. While the first game did that occasionally, it’s every other line here. It just gets a little repetitive and I wished they spiced things up a bit. Speaking of repetitive, going back and forth between Banjo, Mambo, and Wumba got really annoying. I think they should have given Mumbo his old roll back and cut Wumba. These worlds are also massive and I’d get lost a lot. A map would’ve really helped here. I’m glad they had the foresight to give us warp pads, but it still takes forever to do anything in this game. There’s a reason this game is around six hours longer than the last. There was also a lot less Grunty in this game, and I have to knock off points for that. It feels like Rare had a lot of ambition for this game, but the execution left a lot to be desired. 6/10

Today on Finnedorb…

A-Z Challenge

(B post 1 of 2)



Banjo-Kazooie (Xbox One): 13:26

This is widely considered to be one of the greatest 3D platformers ever made. I don’t think people who say that have played this game in a while. There’s not a whole lot to go into with the story. Banjo’s sister Tootie is captured by the wicked witch Gruntilda so she can steal her beauty and become the most beautiful in the land. Now it’s up to Banjo and Kazooie to go through the trials of Grunty’s lair to rescue her.

World 1: Mumbo's Mountain

Mumbo’s Mountain is a pretty basic introduction to the game. There’s not a whole lot of enemies and very little platforming. The Mumbo of Mumbo’s Mountain is Mumbo Jumbo. If you pay him a certain number of tokens, he’ll transform you into different things in a few worlds. In this one he turns you into a termite so you can climb the inside of a tree to get a Jiggy. There’s really not a whole lot to say about this level, I got most of the Jiggies my first time through with little trouble.

World 2: Treasure Trove Cove

This world’s a lot better than the last, it’s pirate-themed. There are a lot of neat puzzles here like following a trail of X’s on the ground, breaking into a shipwreck to grab some gold, and figuring out how to kill a giant crab. I actually did the crab one way later with the wonderwing power-up that makes you invincible because I couldn’t figure out how to kill him without it. I got 7/10 Jiggies my first time through and I eventually got the eighth way later when I needed some more.

World 3: Clanker’s Cavern

So I just straight up did not know what I was supposed to do on this level the first time I tried it. I grabbed a handful of Jiggies, and then I was completely stuck. There’s a giant robot shark called Clanker in the middle of the map and he keeps talking about hating how dirty the water is. I couldn’t figure out how to help him and I just skipped to the next world. Eventually I came back and just looked it up. It turns out there’s a massive chain attached to Clanker I just didn’t see. You need to swim through a key three times to unchain Clanker. He’ll rise up out of the water and you can explore inside of him to get the rest of the Jiggies. This ended up being 1 of only 3 worlds I got all 10 Jiggies on.

World 4: Bubblegloop Swamp

The gimmick of this stage is that all the swamp water is filled with piranhas and you’ll take damage if you touch it. There’s some waders around the area, but they only work for a limited amount of time. Mambo turns you into a crocodile in this stage and it’s probably the best transformation in the game. It allows you to walk around the swamp without waders and there's a couple Jiggies to unlock with it. There’s a few mini-games in this stage, one involves eating more things than another croc. The other’s just a simple memory game where you ground-pound some singing turtles. I got 8/10 of the Jiggies my first time through, and I eventually came back to get the other 2.

World 5: Freezeezy Peak

This is the snow/christmas level of the game. There’s these annoying snowmen that throw snowballs at you, and they can only be killed by charging into them while flying. The issue with this is that the move you need to use is incredibly hard to aim and just leads to you taking damage from crashing into walls. The transformation in this stage is a walrus which allows you to traverse some freezing water and race sleds with a polar bear. This is a decent world, but the snowmen are a pain in the ass, and they respawn everytime you die or exit the level.

World 6: Gobi’s Valley

This is the desert level. Most of the Jiggies here are hidden in pyramids. Gobi’s a camel we free from chains and the torture. We ground pound his hump so he spits out water on a dying tree and we do it again to get a piece of a honeycomb. He leaves to try and escape us, but we’ll be seeing him again later. There’s not a whole lot to say about this world, it’s pretty short compared to the others. I got 9/10 Jiggies on this one.

World 7: Mad Monster Mansion

There’s a bunch of ghosts on this level that are a massive pain in the ass unless you kill them with wonderwig. Besides that, this level is okay. There’s several areas on the map, but the main two are the mansion and the church. I didn’t really explore the mansion besides the first floor where you have to sneak up on a ghost and grab the Jiggy he’s guarding. There are a bunch of pots around the church graveyard, and you need to shoot eggs into them so they sprout flowers. I have no idea how the hell anyone is supposed to figure that out naturally. I looked it up because I needed some more Jiggies for the next world-. The transformation in this world is a fucking pumpkin. His ability is being small, allowing you to access some more areas. I got 8/10 Jiggies in this world before moving on.

World 8: Rusty Bucket Bay

This is without a doubt the worst world in the game. The level design is ugly, it’s difficult to get around due to toll bridges that are only accessible on one side, and the puzzles aren’t particularly fun. I spent the least amount of time on this level, but I still got half the Jiggies.

World 9: Click Clock Woods

Before I get into the level, I just want to talk about what a pain in the ass this level is to access. The entrance to the level is pretty deep into Grunty’s lair, so it’s a long walk if you game over. You also have to go through a tunnel with a bunch of plants that damage you if you touch them. Before you can even enter the level though, you have to ground pound a button that give you the ability to fill in its portrait. Then you have to walk all the way back to near the beginning of the lair where the portrait is which also takes a shit ton of Jiggies. I had almost all of them , but I still had to go back and find 4 more. Finally when you fill it in, you must walk all the way over to the entrance to begin the level.

This level is a lot different than the others. It’s divided into 4 sections for each season. The map itself is mostly just a giant tree you have to climb. Throughout the seasons you have to feed a baby eagle caterpillars so it’ll grow and give you a Jiggy. This level is one of my least favorites in the game. It has a neat concept, but the tree is a massive pain in the ass to climb. The main reason is just because they decided to include fall damage in this platformer. I have no idea why rare thought this was a good idea, fall damage sucks and was the cause of most of my deaths. Then of course when you run out of lives you have to walk all the way back to the level from the beginning of Grunty’s lair. Collecting caterpillars can also be a little annoying, particularly collecting 10 in the fall. We also see Gobi again in this level. You have to plant an egg in a field so it’ll grow into a flower. Then, over the course of summer and fall you ground pound Gobi’s hump who’s just chilling near the flower so he spits out water. This camel needs to stop hanging out near plants, we’re just gonna keep ground pounding him if he does. I went ahead and collected 10 Jiggies on this since the guide I looked at said the next portrait needed 25. I only had those 10 though, so I was really dreading having to go back and find 15 more. Let’s forget about that for now, it’s time for Grunty’s Furnace Fun!

Grunty’s Furnace Fun

This is a last-ditch attempt to kill Banjo and Kazooie from Grunty. It’s a massive board game filled with trivia about the game, Grunty’s personal life, the locations, and the characters. There’s also some time trials where you need to play through a mini-game or boss from a previous world in a limited amount of time. If you fail a question or a challenge, you lose 1hp. I didn’t mention it, but throughout the game you can talk to Grunty’s older sister, Brentilda. She’ll tell you all of Grunty’s secrets like what toothpaste she uses, her favorite magazine, who her only boyfriend was, things like that. I’d been writing these down so I was prepared for this. What I was not prepared for were a handful of borderline impossible questions. One of them asks how many tiles are on the board. That is not something you could possibly know so you’re forced to guess. Same with another question that asks how many gates you went through during the sled race in Freezeezy Peak. I get the odds are meant to be stacked against you, but this is ridiculous.The concept of the whole thing is cool, but it just goes on for too long and the questions can be annoying. There’s also a handful of instant death tiles that kill you if you get a question wrong no matter how much health you have so those were a lot of fun to play around. It took like an hour, but I finally managed to pass the board game. Banjo was able to get Tootie back for winning,a nd Grunty runs off while the credits roll. This is the normal ending of the game, the good/canon ending involves you killing Grunty once and for all… here’s the thing though. I wasn’t really enjoying this game all that much and, like I said earlier, I would need to grind for 15 more Jiggies to fill out the portrait for the final battle. Add on the fact that I’ve heard the final boss sucks, and I opted to just end things here. I still did beat the game, the credits rolled, I just didn’t go the extra mile to kill Grunty.

I really don’t see what people love about this game, it just feels like a pretty basic collectathon with a horrible camera and fall damage. I did like the characters and the dialogue, Grunty roasting you every few minutes was pretty funny, but it doesn’t make up for pretty mediocre gameplay. 6/10

There’s a pretty decent chance I’m going to retire Banjo-Tooie. I’ll give it a fair shot and I will try to beat it, but I can definitely see myself retiring it if I don’t enjoy it. If I do stick with it though, the review should be out next week.

Today on Finnedorb…

(A post 4 of 4)



Assassin’s Creed Revelations (Xbox 360): 9:06

This is it, we’re at the final game in the trilogy. After this I can finally move on from Assassin’s Creed. I’m definitely getting a little sick of this series at this point and this is probably my least favorite so far (Ignore the fact I rated this higher than Brotherhood, I don’t agree with that now).

The game jumps forward to 1511. Ezio’s an old man now and he’s trying to discover the secrets Altaïr has been hiding in Masyaf Castle. The area is swarming with templars now and they’re after the same thing. Ezio is captured but escapes and finds the door to Altaïr’s library. We’re told by a nearby miner that the door requires five keys to open. The templars managed to find one in Constantinople that was unearthed due to an earthquake. Ezio travels straight to Constantinople to find the rest where he’s greeted by Yusuf, the leader of the Ottoman chapter of the Assassins. He gives us some information about the city, mainly that the templars in the area are trying to restore Byzantine rule so the city guards are after them. He also gives us the hook blade, a new invention that allows an assassin to climb much higher. Ezio wastes no time going after the keys, checking the old trading post of Niccolò Polo, Marco’s father. It’s now a book store owned by an Italian lady named Sofia Sartor. Ezio gets along great with her since they’re two of the only Italians in the city. Ezio uses his eagle vision and spots a hidden entrance that leads to a cave containing the key, a book, and a map. Sofia recognizes that the map leads to several rare books, and she agrees to help Ezio find them. In the meantime, Ezio helps Yusuf save the prince of the Ottomans, Suliman.Suliman thanks us and asks us to spy on a meeting between him; his uncle, Ahmet; and the head of the Janissary, Tarik Barletti. Tarik apologizes for the fuck up that almost got Suliman kills, and after Suliman leaves, Ahmet accuses him of plotting the whole thing. Tarik denies this and calls Ahmet weak. The game tells us about this point in Ottoman history. There’s a war going on between the sultan, Bayezid II, and his son, Selim I over control of the throne. Bayezid wants to give his other son, Şehzade Ahmet, the throne even though nobody likes him. Suliman is caught in the middle of all this since he’s Selim’s son. Now, even if you don’t know Ottoman history, the most famous sultan in the empire’s history is easily Suliman the Magnificent, and it’s obvious the Suliman in the game is the same man. From that you can probably piece together that Selim wins the war as it’s unlikely Ahmet wouldn’t produce his own successor. From this you can probably take another guess that Ahmet is going to be this game’s villain since Selim is out doing a war. That’s at least what I guessed and I ended up being completely right. This is kind of a downside of using celebrities in the games. At least in the previous two games, the villains aren’t twist-villains and Al Mualim is obvious even without knowing he’s a real guy. Suliman hires Ezio to investigate Tarik, and we find out he’s doing business with Constatine XI’s nephew, Manuel Palaiologos. He’s one the last members of the Palaiologos family after Mehmed II hunted most of them down. In real life he returned to Constantinople in the 1470’s and was allowed to stay by Mehmed II’s order. He might’ve ended up actually serving in the Ottoman navy. He seemed pretty happy in real life, but in this game he wants to take his place on the throne. Tarik sold him a bunch of guns so Manuel could lead an army. In classic Ezio fashion, he does not immediately assassinate them both, and runs away to report to Suliman. Suliman orders Ezio to kill Tarik so we do. With his final breaths he reveals that he had no intention of helping Manuel, he merely wanted to take down the templars from the inside. Tarik hands Ezio the info he gathered, and Ezio apologizes for the assassination. It’s time to go to the templar hideout and get the last key. I haven’t mentioned it much, but Ezio’s been gathering keys in-between the Suliman missions. He’s been falling in love with Sofia during this time, but he hasn’t revealed who he is out of a fear that it would endanger her life.Ezio and Sofia have one last date before he must depart for a while. He leaves her in the care of Yusuf and sails off. The templars are hiding in a large cave in Cappadocia. This segment is pretty short, we meet with tarif’s informants, blow up a bunch of gunpowder, and kill Manuel. Then it’s revealed that Ahmet was the main villain all along. Who could’ve guessed, one of the few historical people is the villain. He reveals that he knows about Sofia, so we race back to Constantinople to save her. Ezio enters Sofia’s store and finds the bodies of several templars and Yusuf. He gathers the assassins to rescue her. Ezio’s forced to trade all the keys in exchange for her life, but Ahmet doesn’t let her go. We end up saving her from a templar who’s trying to hang her. After that it’s a mad dash to catch up to him on a carriage. We take out several carriages and tackle Ahmet off a cliff. We both survive the fall, and then suddenly Selimshows up. He won the war and throws Ahmed off of a different cliff. Selim says he’ll let us live because his son is vouching for us, and we remark that Suliman has a magnificent mind.



We fast forward a bit to Ezio and Sofia in Masyaf castle. Ezio inserts the keys and enters the library. There he finds the body of Altaïr and a new piece of Eden. But Ezio is tired. He’s been going on assassin adventures for nearly 50 years at this point. He leaves the piece of Eden where it is, and starts speaking to Desmond (I’ll get to him later). He explains that he has no idea how or even if Desmond is listening, but it’s up to him now to make all the bloodshed worth it. Ezio takes off his hidden blades, and leaves.

So that’s Ezio’s part of the story, but the full story is split between three people. I just went over Ezio, Desmond is in the Animus, and we get to see more of Altaïr’s life.

We play as Altaïr whenever we get a new key. The first memory just shows Altaïr defending the castle from templars a little while before the first game starts. As soon as Altaïr opens his mouth I have a major problem with these scenes. Altaïr has a new voice actor who is significantly worse than his original actor. I get it was weird that Altaïr had a modern American accent in the first game, but you could’ve just had his actor do an accent. The new guy’s voice doesn’t fit Altaïr at all, he just sounds like a nerd. It takes me out of every scene, this just doesn’t feel like Altaïr at all. Continuing on, the second memory takes place a few hours after the first game ends and features Altaïr being betrayed by Abbas Sofian… what, you don’t remember the classic Assassin’s Creed character Abbas Sofian? You don’t remember his iconic 5 lines of dialogue he says to Altaïr while he’s on his way to Masyaf castle just after the opening? Well he’s a major threat now. He steals the Apple from Altaïr and accidentally kills everyone in the area. For some reason he’s still allowed in the brotherhood after this. Memory 3 follows Altaïr and Maria 20-ish years later. They’re here to confront Abbas after he executed their oldest son (and also Malik who’s killed offscreen). It becomes clear that Abbas did it just to enrage Altaïr so he would use the Apple for revenge. Altaïr falls for it and tries to kill a guy with the Apple, but Maria stops him. Unfortunately, she is stabbed in the back and Altaïr is forced to escape with his other son who’s also here. The fourth memory takes place a while later. Altaïr is an old man and he’s returned to Masyaf. Everyone is pretty sick of Abbas at this point due to the fact that he breaks every single part of the creed daily. With Altaïr’s leadership, the assassin’s take the brotherhood back. Abbas claims that Altaïr has been driven insane with an obsession for the apple. Altaïr agrees that he’s spent a long time with the apple, and it’s shown him some new technologies. He then shoots Abbas with a gun in the 13th century, taking back the brotherhood once and for all. The fifth memory shows Altaïr escorting Niccolò Polo and Marco Polo out of Masyaf during a Mongol invasion. He gives Niccolò the keys and tells him to hide them well. The final memory happens while Ezio’s in the library. Altaïr says goodbye to his son for the final time, and locks himself inside the library, sitting on a chair, and dies. I honestly feel like these scenes were kind of unnecessary, but they make sense in terms of what Desmond’s up to.

Desmond’s being kept alive by the animus after the apple fucked him up pretty bad. Subject 16 from Assassin’s Creed II is also here and he tells us we need to finish Ezio and Altaïr’s memories before we can get out of here. Otherwise, our brain will be scrambled and destroyed. This game easily has the worst modern-day segments, there’s less gameplay than even the first game, and we barely cut back to him. The final scene in Ezio’s story has Desmond see a final message from those who came before. This time it’s Jupiter who relays to us where the temple is (remember that plot point?). He finally wakes up from the animus to see Shaun, Rebecca, and his father who’s still alive (the first game hinted that Desmond’s parents might’ve been killed by Templars). That’s about it, there’s nothing else. I was a little confused when I reached this point since the shit twist didn’t happen. After looking it up, it turns out the twist with Lucy isn’t even a part of the main game, it’s just a part of the Lost Archives DLC. Apparently it is brought up in Assassin’s Creed III through some optional dialogues. It’s still a crappy twist, revealing that Lucy was a templar this whole time. If I ever do a review of Assassin’s Creed III, I’ll bitch about it more there.

This game has pretty much the exact same gameplay as Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, it’s just shorter with less content. There’s two new additions, bombs and tower defense… I never interacted with either of them outside of the tutorial because I didn’t really care.

This game really didn’t need to exist and it adds very little to the franchise. I think it gives Altaïr and Ezio a good sendoff, but we really didn’t need a full game for this. 6/10 (at least it is for me now, I gave it a 7/10 when I originally beat it).

I got through Banjo-Kazooie yesterday so expect a review of that tomorrow. I’m taking a short break before playing Banjo-Tooie , but I should be done before the end of the month.

I just finished Assassin's Creed: Revelations which means I'm done with the trilogy. I got up super early to finish it since I'm gonna be really busy today so the review won't be out for a while. I do have time to see what game I'll be playing next though, so here's the tierlist:



Best Possible Game: I have wanted to play Bugsnax ever since it came out, and I finally found a physical copy last year. I will absolutely be playing this even if I don't end up doing it for the challenge.

S: Like I said last tierlist, I'm much more comfortable playing 30-40 hour long games and Bloodborne falls into that category. I have heard nothing but great things about it so I would love to check it out. Bioshock 2 is the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time and I've somehow barely played it before.

A: The Batman Arkham games I've played so far have been really fun, and while I know this one is pretty polarizing, I still want to check it out. Bioshock the Collection would just be an excuse to play Bioshock again and check out Infinite's DLCs.

B: I know absolutely nothing about Beholder or Binary Domain, I just think they look cool. I played Bit Dungeon II a few years ago and I remember liking it so I wouldn't mind playing this one. Battlefield is really fun, and even though I think this game's campaign is more like a COD campaign, I still want to check it out.

C: Not much to say here that I haven't said before, but I'd play through Banjo-Kazooie on Rare Replay if I roll Banjo-Tooie.

D: Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts is pretty famously bad. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S just isn't that fun. I have never liked Borderlands, but I got all the games with my 360. By all accounts I should like Bayonetta, but I could never get into the gameplay. I'm sure the sequel is better, but I'm not itching to find out.

F: Back 4 Blood sucks, but it's the type of game I'll pull through instead of retiring. Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel are both weird since I don't think I need to play through 2 to understand its prequel, but I also don't think the devs had the Pre-Sequel in mind when they made 2 so i wouldn't have to play through it. Either way I'd have to play Borderlands 1 which is something I don't want to do.

Worst Possible Game: I would have to play through the three previous games and Tales from the Borderlands (a game I don't own) to even get to this one, the one people consider the worst in the series.

With that finished, let's see what our second game is:



I don't know why the image is so small but I'm too tired to care right now. I don't want to risk rolling a Borderlands game so Banjo-Tooie it is. I'm probably gonna playthrough this on Rare Replay instead of original hardware. As I said earlier, I will do Banjo-Kazooie as well.

Mine's an Interrobang, an obscure punctuation mark that combines an exclamation point and a question mark. I just think it looks cool and I don't remember why I chose it beyond that.

Today on Finnedorb…

(A part 3 of 4)



Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Xbox 360): 12:23

The story so far: I didn’t do an Assassin’s Creed II review because my save got deleted, but here’s what you need to know. Desmond and Lucy escape from Abstergo and hide out with some assassins. Rebecca’s the tech nerd and Shaun’s the asshole. Desmond plugs back into the animus, and the game begins. We play as Ezio Auditore de Firenze, a man living in Renaissance Florence with his parents, brothers, and sister. While doing some errands, Ezio’s brothers and Father are arrested for charges of treason. They are executed the next day, and Ezio begins a long quest for vengeance. He runs into his uncle Mario while escaping Florence with his family, and that’s when he finds out his dad was an assassin. He trains at Mario’s villa for two years, and Ezio starts killing targets. The main villain of the game is a templar named Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI. Mario tells us about our ancestor, Alair, who wrote a bunch of codexes that reveal a map when put together. Eventually the codexes reveal there’s a vault under a cathedral in the Vatican that can only be accessed with two pieces of Eden, the apple and the staff. Only the prophet can get into the vault, and Rodrigo believes himself to be him. After 10+ years we’ve taken out everyone related to our father's death, and now we have the resources to destroy Rodrigo. We actually get our ass kicked, but Rodrigo is stopped when he realizes he can’t open the vault. We challenge the pope to a fist fight, he agrees, and we beat him mercilessly. Ezio spares his life as he has killed so many already (I hate this trope), and he enters the vault as it turns out he was the prophet all along. There’s a hologram inside of a woman calling herself Minerva, like the Roman Goddess. She shushes Ezio, and then tells Desmond about the upcoming end of the world that only he can stop by going to some temples.Desmond is shocked, and Ezio doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. Ezio unplugs from the Animus and wakes up just in time to see that Abstergo has tracked them down. Ezio punches a bunch of people, and Vidic runs away. Throughout Ezio’s journey he meets and befriends several people. Leonardo da Vinci is Ezio’s oldest friend who’s very smart and invents stuff. La Volpe is a thief who has eyes and ears everywhere. Bartolomeo is a mercenary who loves battle and is for some reason a member of the Brotherhood. Finally there’s Niccolò Machiavelli, the famous author behind The Prince, the concept of Machiavellism, and a new leader in Civilization VII. He hasn’t done any of that yet though, and he’s currently the leader of the assassins. Also I don’t know if this will be important later, but Desmond has a dream where Altair impregnates the girl templar from the first game, now named Maria. Assassin’s Creed II improves on the first game in every way to the point where this feels like the third or fourth game in the series instead of the second. The game is really good and I’m still mad that my save got deleted.

Now back to your regularly scheduled review

We pick up immediately after the first game with Desmond and gang on the run. The only safe place the crew can access is Villa Auditore, so we go there and hang out in Mario’s basement. We plug back into the animus to hopefully figure out where these temples are. Ezio leaves the Vatican and gathers up everyone at the Villa. He relays the message Manerva spoke, and nobody seems all that concerned. They are concerned however when he reveals that he did not kill Rodrigo Borgia. Machiavelli says the Borgia will come after them. You’ll never guess what happens next. Ezio fucks for hours on end… and then the Borgia attack. A cannonball destroys all of Ezio’s equipment so he’s forced to go out with a basic sword and no armor. All the citizens escape, but the game’s main villain, Cesare Borgia, shoots Mario and takes the apple. Ezio is wounded, but escapes with his mother and sister. He rides to Rome to meet with Machievelli, but passes out on the way. A random stranger (who it turns out was Machievelli) carries us the rest of the way and gets us medical treatment. We wake up and see the state Rome is in. The city is in ruins, and the Borgia have seized control of the shops, banks, and many other buildings. We finally meet up with Machievelli, and discuss what to do next. The obvious end goal is to kill Cesare and Rodrigo, but we’re light on resources, funds, and allies. We do a quest and renovate buildings for the Thieves’ guild (run by Volpe), the Mercenaries (commanded by Bartolomeo), and the Courtesans (run by Ezio’s sister Caludia). Ezio gives them all assignments and they report back to him with information. We figure out where Caterina Sforza (the character Ezio had sex with earlier who I forgot to mention when talking about Assassin’s Creed II) is being held and go to break her out. Machiavelli wants us to kill Rodrigoi and Cesare while we’re there, but Rodriogo isn’t and Cesare leaves almost immediately. We’re introduced to Cesare’s incestious sister, Lucrezia Borgia, and we steal her key to break Caterina out. Caterina gets treated, and then exits the plot. Ezio suggests it’s time to recruit more assassins so he does. This is a major new gameplay mechanic that allows you to call on assassins who will aid you in combat. I almost never used it. After that we go after Cesare’s banker who’s hosting a lavish party. I only bring this up since we learn that Cesare wants to conquer and unite all of Italy and Rodrigo doesn’t like this. It’s almost time to kill the Borgia’s, but first we do some busy work for the factions. I didn’t mention it, but Volpe thinks Machievelli is a spy. He isn’t obviously, and we prove it during his quest. We also kill a french guy who takes Bartolomeo’s wife hostage. All the assassins convene, and Claudia is officially sworn in as a member. Machievelli also transfers his title to Ezio now making him Il Mentore (the same rank Al Mualim held during the first game). Ezio infiltrates the castle and witnesses Rodrigo poison Cesare with an apple, and then Cesare does the same to him. This is a neat reference to how Rodrigo died in real life. The two dined with each other, but they both got a fatal illness. Cesare barely survived, but Rodrigo died pretty quickly. Cesare beats his sister and she tells him where the apple is. We confront her and she tells us to go to the Vatican. We beat Cesare there and use the apple to dismantle his forces. We continue to do this for three more missions for some reason.Cesare is arrested by the new pope, Julius II, and Ezio’s work is seemingly done (fun fact, there was a pope in-between Rodrigo and Julius, Pius III, but he died within 3 weeks). Then 3 years later, Ezio gets a little curious and checks on Cesare with the apple. Turns out, he was busted out of prison by the Castilles and is fighting in a war right now. Ezio drops everything he’s doing and runs into the middle of a battlefield. Cesare runs away, but eventually Ezio corners him. Cesare pleads for his life, and Ezio leaves it up to fate, dropping him off the side of the castle wall. We cut to a scene an undetermined amount of time later where Ezio seals the Apple below the Colosseum. With no other leads to turn to, Desmond and gang search for the Apple. After some platforming and a password-locked door, the Apple is in front of Desmond. He grabs it, and loses control of his body. What ensues is the catalyst for the worst plot-twist in the series. Desmond is forced to walk forward, draw his hidden blade, and stab Lucy. Credits. I already know about the twist they reveal in the next game. I initially thought that this happens because Frozen came out and Kirsten Bell became too famous, but no, that doesn’t happen till three years later. The upcoming twist was a genuine attempt at making the story more interesting, while really just ruining one of the only good characters in the modern-day storyline. More on that in the Revelations review.

As for the gameplay, it’s just Assassin’s Creed II again, but honestly, it just feels worse. The combat’s been changed to have a new execution-combo system which is actually pretty fun, but only when the lock-on feels like working. If I had a nickel for everytime the lock-on decided to target a guy nowhere near me, I could buy Valve. It’s frustrating because I do like the combat, but this seriously makes the experience so much worse than any other game in the series (so far). The climbing also just feels a little more restrictive. In the first two games it felt like you could climb anywhere, but it feels restrictive in this game. Not in a major way, but it’s noticeable when it happens. The earliest example I can think of is during the brief section in the Villa. You can’t climb over the outer walls like you could in the first. Sure, I have no reason to do it, but I don’t like having less freedom. Let me jump to my death goddammit! Speaking of jumping to my death, I think they changed the fall-damage. I think it’s percent based now instead of just flat damage. I noticed I was taking a lot more damage from falling than I was early in the game. It’s a little annoying, but this is the game I took the least damage in from combat so it’s not that big of a deal. What is a big deal is the side-content. It sucks in this game. The last game actually made me want to go out of the way to do things. I wanted to know what truth Subject 16 found, I wanted Altair's armor, I wanted to solve the codex mystery (I think you have to do this for the story anyway, but I never reached that part and was just collecting the pages for fun). In this game? Well there’s a million shops to renovate that don’t add a whole lot, you can burn the Borgia towers to begin renovating said shops, there’s Romulus’s treasure which is probably the best side-content in the game (I still didn’t do it), you can take on contracts, you can destroy Leonardo’s war machines (oh yeah I forgot to mention, Cesare forced Leonardo to make war machines), there’s a lot of boring faction quests, 10 feathers (I have no idea what they do), flags, and some missions you can send your assassins to do so they can level them up. There’s probably more, but none of it is interesting. The only one I did was burning the Borgia towers, but I only did that to renovate some fast travel tunnels. This game is bloated with filler, I would be bored out of my mind 100% completing this. I’m pretty sure this is a problem that only gets worse from here and that’s a damn shame.

The gameplay is worse than the second game and the story is a little boring with fairly low stakes. This game is probably objectively better than Assassin’s Creed 1, but I had a lot more fun playing that first game. 6/10

Revelations is easily the shortest of the trilogy and based on the patterns I’ve seen so far, I think it’s only around 8-9 hours. I can beat this in 3 days, but I might not be able to post the review for a bit due to life.

Here's my suggestion for a similar challenge for next year's list:
* A game that starts with V and doesn't feature vampires or a game that starts with Z and doesn't feature zombies

I'm too late for this year, but here are some more suggestions for next year:
* A game controlled by motion controls, eye-tracking, or a specialized peripheral (such as a guitar, racing wheel and pedals, balance board, microphone, Kinect, etc)
* A game based on a real-world analog (board game, card game, instructional simulator, etc, as long as it had a real-world version first)
* A game where you control multiple characters, simultaneously or alternating
* A game with hand-drawn graphics, stop-motion, or FMVs
* A game with a narrator
* A co-op game or game where you played a co-op mode
* A game on a platform, website, or subscription service that you've never used before

Nice suggestions! I'll keep these in mind for next year if I'm still hosting.

(A part 2 of 4)

I got 12 hours into Assassin's Creed II and the stupid piece of shit deleted my save. I can't find a way to recover it and I don't want to restart so I'm retiring it. I'm so pissed, I was almost done with a lot of the side content like the truth, the Altair armor, and the codex. But nope! I killed Carlos and then an error popped up saying "the user has been removed from the storage device" or some shit like that. I guess I'll watch the rest of the cutscenes before starting Brotherhood but I'm just really fucking pissed right now.

31-2. The base game version of a game with several DLCs or Editions

Would Shovel Knight count? It's got 3 expansions + the treasure trove release is technically an edition.

I don't think that counts. Unless I'm mistaken, the expansions were added as free updates rather than being separate things you have to purchase or download so I don't think they fit the definition of DLC.

Today on Finnedorb...

(A part 1 of 4)



Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360): 11:39

I did not think I would beat this game so soon. I finished all my responsibilities for the day early and when I got to where I wanted to be today in the game, I paused and said "what the hell, I could play for another hour". 1 hour turned into 4, and here we are now.

We start the game as Desmond Miles, a former assassin who's been captured by Abstergo Industries. He's being held in a small lab so that the doctor, Warren Vidic, and his assistant, Lucy Stillman (who definitely will not be the subject of a shitty plot-twist because her voice actress becomes to famous). Vidic explains that our genetics are secretly an archive for our ancestors' memories. He's built a machine called the Animus that can access the archive. He and Abstergo want to access the memories of Desmond's ancestor Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a master assassin during the 3rd Crusade, in order to find... something, he hasn't told us yet. Unfortunately for him, the Animus can't jump straight to the memory he needs, so we have to go back a few weeks and work our way from there. Desmond is told to cooperate or die, so we get plugged into the Animus and jump into the past. We open on Altaïr killing a random old man in a cave. A fellow assassin, Malik, scolds us for killing an innocent while his younger brother, Kadar (don't get too attached), says it was a nice kill. They are looking for a treasure within the heart of the cave. It becomes clear the main enemies of the assassins, the Templars, are after the treasure too. The leader of the Templars, Robert de Sablé (who was a real guy as I'm now discovering), is leading the search. Altaïr decides to try and kill two birds with one stone and take him out, despite objections from Malik. Altaïr confronts Robert, and gets his ass whooped. He's thrown into the next room, and is prevented from helping his fellow assassins by some rubble. He leaves and returns to the leader of the assassins, Al Mualim (who is also a real guy, yes I'm going to point this out every time). He explains his failure and Al Mualim is very disappointed. Luckily, Malik managed to get out of there with the treasure at the cost of his brother and one of his arms. The Templar's followed him, but we manage to fend them off. Altaïr is stripped of his rank and his weapons for his failure, and for not following the Assassin's Creed™. He is given a list of 9 names, and he must cross them off one-by-one for redemption.

This is where the real game begins as we start the loop of traveling to a city, looking for clues, getting permission from the local assassin bureau, killing the target, and gaining some info from the target's last words. This is spliced between modern day segments, but instead of flip-flopping, I'll just go over all that at the end. Our first target is an arms-dealer in Damascus named Tamir. I did a bit of exploring before heading to the bureau and I found all the info I needed to end him. Still had to get permission though, the guy running the place is pretty nice, but he won't shut up about how the other assassins shit-talk us. He gives a feather we'll wipe with Tamir's blood so we can get credit for the kill, and we're off. Tamir kills a guy in front of everyone, and we kill him in a swordfight. He hints toward a bigger picture plot, and then dies. We return to Al Mualim, we get a new weapon, and he waves off the big picture plot as a dying man justifying his life. Next is Garnier de Nablus (real person) in Acre... but I took a wrong turn on the way so actually next up is Talal in Jerusalem. Malik runs the bureau in Jerusalem and he still hasn't forgiven us for the incident in the cave. He begrudgingly does his job, and gives us permission to kill our target. Through the clues, we piece together that he is a slaver hiding out in a warehouse. He ambushes us, but we take out all the guards and assassinate him as he's running out of the warehouse. He hints towards a bigger plot, and dies. Malik scolds us for not killing him quietly, but the job is done. We return to Al Mualim, we get a new weapon, and he waves off the big picture plot... I'm noticing a pattern. Yeah for the first four assassinations, Al Mualim doesn't really say anything of value, just dismissing everything and telling us to not ask questions (gee that's suspicious I wonder if he's the villain). Since we're saving the modern day parts for later, I'm just gonna skip ahead to the 5th assassination where we learn something new (I mean it's something obvious, but Altaïr hadn't pieced it together). Our 5th target is William V (real person), the man who's currently in charge of Acre while King Richard is off fighting Saladin (both obviously real people). They don't like each other very much, and he's plotting to kill Richard and put his son on the throne. We get permission to stop his plot, and fight him while he's talking to his men... all his men. I fought 25+ soldiers during this part and I even got an achievement for it. When we talk to William, he reveals that he had no intention of putting his son on the throne. His actual role in all this was to prepare Acre for something called "the new world" by training them in combat and collecting food to ration while he held Acre for his master. We return to Al Mualim, and Altaïr has had enough. He demands his master tell him what's really going on. Al Mualim gives in and informs him that all 9 of the men are Templars who want to conquer the holy land using the treasure we were after in the beginning. Which... no shit. I honestly thought this was why we were hunting them down in the first place. I'm shocked Altaïr didn't piece this together after the third guy hinted at a bigger plot. Our next target is the guy in charge of Jerusalem while Saladin is gone, Majd Addin (not real, but based on Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad). We meet with Malik and he's still a little hostile, but he's not as mad as before. Apparently Majd is planning on executing a couple of people (just for shits n' giggles), and one of them is an assassin. Malik's men will handle the rescue, but we need to take out the tyrant before he finishes the execution. We very publicly kill him, and instead of hinting at a bigger plot, he just exclaims that he really likes killing civilians. We return to Al Mualim (I'm getting tired of saying that), and he shows off the treasure. We already know about it from the modern day parts, but this is the first time Altaïr is learning about it. It's something called "The Piece of Eden". It's responsible for Adam and Eve's sin, parting the red sea, something with snakes, the Trojan War, and turning water into wine. It's true ability is that it allows the wielder to capture the minds of those who look into it. He tells us this right after asking us to look at it (gee that's suspicious I wonder if he's the villain). He sends us off to kill number 7 and 8 before we can finally tackle Robert. One's a scholar that wants to burn every book and the other's just a paranoid captain, neither are all that plot essential so I'm skipping them. It's finally time to kill Robert! We ride to Jerusalem and meet up with Malik once again. Altaïr finally apologizes for his actions in the cave. However, Malik does not forgive him, for Altaïr is no longer the man who fucked up in the cave. We do the usual thing of collecting information, and we wait for Robert to be alone at a funeral. But something goes wrong and Altair is surrounded by Templars. We successfully kick ass, and when we go to kill Robert we realize that it's not Robert, it's a woman (I don't think she's named in this game but I think she returns in Revelations). She reveals Robert is off to convince Richard and Saladin to play nice with each other and destroy the assassins. We've killed men on both sides so they both have motivation to annihilate the assassins. For some reason, we let her live, and rush back to Malik. We tell him to gather his men and go over all the info we've gathered in case we missed something, and then we run off to King Richard's camp. We cut our way through many soldiers on both sides until we reach the King and his men. We tell him that Robert is a traitor who plans on taking over the Holy Land himself, but he's not sure he believes us. He ultimately decides to leave it to god, and let's us duke it out with Robert in a fight to the death. We win because we're very good at fighting. Before he takes his last breath, Robert reveals that Al Mualim was secretly a Templar the whole time, and he made us kill the 9 because they were the only others who knew about the piece. We ride back to the castle to confront him, but it becomes immediately clear that he's used the piece to mind control everyone in the village and the brotherhood. Malik shows up with his group and they agree to help us out by distracting everyone while we fight Mualim. We find him in the courtyard, and he freezes us in place to give his evil monologue about illusions and peace. He reveals that he tried to control us when he first showed off the piece, but it had no effect for reasons I'm sure will be revealed later (whatever it is, it sure didn't pass on to Desmond). For some reason he unfreezes us, and we fight. This boss is pretty bad to be honest, he just teleports. stands in place, gets hit, and teleports again until we've smacked him around enough. We tell him we're going to destroy the piece, and he laughs in our face. We walk over to it, and it displays a map showing the locations of all the other piece, and Altaïr is unable to make himself destroy it. Malik catches up to us, and that's the end of Altaïr's story (for now).

The Modern Day story picks up throughout the game. Each day starts with Desmond and Vidic having a conversation, Desmond goes into the machine, Desmond wakes up, Vidic leaves the room, and Lucy talks to us. Vidic and the company are looking for the Pieces of Eden so they can rule the world and as it's revealed near the end, he and his bosses are Templars. A few assassins try to break us out, but they're killed pretty quickly. We learn that the assassins have pretty much been wiped out throughout the year so backup's not coming. It becomes pretty obvious that Lucy is a spy trying to get us out of here, but not a whole lot comes from that in this game. We briefly find out that Desmond's parents may or may not be dead from the Templars taking out assassins, but we don't know. Eventually, when the Altaïr story ends, the Templars get their hands on the map the piece displayed and they send men all over the world to collect them. Desmond is kept alive thanks to Lucy who convinces Vidic's boss that he could still be useful. She and Vidic leave the room and Desomnd gains Altaïr's eagle vision (it's like instinct from Hitman, but it's never brought up in the story). He sees symbols all over the room, and the game ends when he sees a cryptic message in his room.

Yeah the modern-day storyline really didn't need to exist. I don't know if it leads to something good later, but it's barely stapled on in this one. I like Altaïr's story, but it definitely does get a little repetitive. Some of these targets could have been more interesting and it was painfully obvious that Mualim was evil after the first target. I did like Altaïr's arc and him making up with Malik, that was great to see. I didn't talk about it much, but the gameplay is also fun. It's definitely a little simple and there's a lot of room to grow, but for what it is, it's fun. I found myself starting fights with guards just for fun. I did have an issue with the climbing though, it felt really janky at times. There were so many times when Altaïr just refused to work with me and wouldn't climb where I wanted him to. It got a little annoying, but it honestly wasn't that big of a deal.

I can absolutely see how this game spawned a franchise and I'm hoping Assassin's Creed II is even better than this. 7/10

I'm pretty sure the time on Assassin's Creed II's page is wrong due to having thousands of submissions and if I had to guess I'd say it's closer to 13-15 hours instead of 19. I can probably get it done in 3-5 days, but we'll see.

I have a couple questions. The first one is regarding "10-2. A game named after the main character". Does the name of the game exclusively have to be the name of the main character or can the name of the game merely contain the name of the main character?

The second one is for "31-2. The base game version of a game with several DLCs or Editions". Does this mean you would have to play the game without playing the DLC?

The third one is for "35. A recent (within the last 5 years) game in a long-running franchise (7+ games)". Does this only include mainline games or only spin-offs?

The fourth one is for "39. A game where the characters speak a language you don't understand (can be real or fictional)". Does this only apply to games where the language is displayed as text or also games where the language spoken is one you don't understand but the text displayed is?

1. It just needs to contain the main character's name
2. Yes
3. It says franchise so spin-offs count
4. This only applies to language spoken, not games with text you don't understand. Something like Animal Crossing is a good example and Yakuza would also work if you don't know Japanese but have subtitles on.

Question: Does "25-1. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years)" include if the time skip is in the game itself rather than between 1 game to another? I would assume yes but I feel like I should ask anyway.

I wrote it as between games, but a lot of people have asked so at this point I'm saying either works.