AC: Brotherhood GC Demo Sky Dives Into Some Hay

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was active somewhere in the shadows at Gamescom 2010, but Ubisoft saw fit to show us exactly what they had in store for attendees. Check out the video:

The Assassin's Guild meta game seems so awesome. I have a good feelings I'll be playing around with that after having recruited about 20 different assassin's. Let's just hope a Borgia guard doesn't come around and ax me while I'm sending a team off on a mission.
Honestly, it reminds me a lot of the ability you had in Final Fantasy Tactics to send squads from your clan out into the world. Can't wait!

Gamescom Walkthrough Reveals More About AC: Brotherhood

"Share The Road" Never Applied To Mario Kart Before

Fallout: New Vegas Casemod Is Decidedly Old School

The Most Badass SNES and Mega Drive II Ever

Make The Damn Movie Already!

Call of Pokemon

What Does X, Square, Triangle, Circle Mean Anyways?

Coming by way of 1UP via a translation of Famitsu magazine comes some pretty interesting details about the design of the Playstation 1 and it's controller, famous for not having letters represent buttons.  I love this kind of stuff.  Hearing stories from the creator of things still in use years later is always a good thing.  I'm not talking just about video games.  I love hearing straight from the author about anything.

It is a wholly interesting read, and you should really check it out over at 1UP.  Among assorted anecdotes about demo controllers almost being thrown in anger (what?) and how the Playstation console was a box with a circle in it comes the reasoning behind those symbols that make Xbox and Nintendo gamers scratch their heads:

Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent 'yes' or 'no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that's what I wanted.

While I understand the Japanese see circles to mean "yes" and Xs to mean "no," the western gamer will always want the button under their thumb to mean yes.  We're impatient, you see?

What's This I Found?

8-Bit Winner Layers The Awesome

Gun Loco Trailer Is... Crazy

Mario Through The Ages

Rock Band 3 Setlist Accidentally Revealed at Gamescom

The Intern's 8Bit Contest Reminder

Gamescom Dead Space 2 Trailer... Wow.

Portal 2 Footage From Gamescom

This Portal 2 footage from the floor at Gamescom is absolutely stunning.  First things first, I'm so happy to see that there are a lot more mechanics being added.  Portal may have been worth the full price of a game, but it was not a full experience.  I can't wait to see the puzzles.

More importantly?  I can't wait to see the narrative!  It's been a while since Episode 2 came out and honestly, I need some Valve story telling.

Lastly, I'm going to need a new computer if I have any hopes of running the PC (or Mac) version of this game.  I'd hate to swallow my pride and buy a console version of any Valve games, but I know I'm not going to let that get in the way of play Portal 2 when it comes out next year in February.

Drool Worthy 3DS Pictures

Do Want.

Nintendo Titles Get Dated At Gamescom

8-Bit Youtube Makes Everything Better

Steam On Mac Performance... Improved!

Rage Like You've Never Seen Before

How And How Not To Use Playstation Move

Gaming Out of Town

How does the 3DS work exactly?

Care to help GR review Monday Night Combat?

Black Ops Special Edition is Ridiculous

MW2 Glitches Even Affect Other Games

Gearbox Picks Up Duke Nukem Forever?

Kotaku is reporting that Duke Nukem Forever's development is not completely over and that Duke has avoided certain demise yet again by being picked up by Borderlands creators Gearbox Software.

Duke Nukem Forever has been in development hell... well, forever and Gearbox has apparently picked up the reigns with publishing responsibilities still in the hands of Take-Two Interactive.

You didn't think they'd let Duke go the way of the dodo did you?  Who knows how long it'll be until we see discs on shelves.

AC: Brotherhood Comes With a Toy

The Harlequin is exclusive to Gamestop.

This is easily one of the coolest limited editions I've seen.

My interest in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood started at about the lowest possible point.  I thought it was a senseless, needless cash-in on the success of last year's Assassin's Creed II.  While my experience with AC II was of high opinion, I didn't think they could pull it off twice in two years.

All other retailers will have The Doctor in stock.

What I've seen, including the multiplayer trailer for Brotherhood, has really helped to turn that predisposition around.  Honestly, I think I'm pretty excited for the game if everything is balanced well and the multiplayer modes actually give players objectives that fit.

Even more so is the temptation to run up the purchase price for the Limited Edition detailed by Gamestop here.  Preordering at Gamestop will also net you the Harlequin multiplayer skin.

That Jack-in-the-Box accessory looks really cool.  Maybe I'll be able to afford it with a combination of traded review titles and my new paying gig at GR.

AC: Brotherhood Limited Edition Detailed

Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Teased

Legends and Killers Now Available

Courtesy xbox360achievements.org, Red Dead Redemption's Legends and Killers pack is now available, and my completed achievement statistic is out the window.

Despite that upset, I've realized that these achievements are about as easy as they come.  I've already completed half of them (or more).  Now all I need to get a handle on is where the Microsoft points are going to come from.

I love Red Dead Redemption and this pack seems like it'll really revitalize my desire to get back into multiplayer.  Is anyone else planning on heading back out west?  Leave a comment with your GT if you're out there readers.  My Xbox Live gamertag is coolyfooly88.

Gamestop's 2 for 1 Deal

Someone's got a job at GR

I've been interning at Game Revolution since November of last year.  I've frequently referenced my work over there and linked to my reviews and daily manifesto posts.  It's been a lot of fun and I really enjoy the work, but it remained a labor of love.

Sure, I got games for free and, if I chose to, was able to sell them off for some funding, but I wasn't exactly paid for my writing.  As a result, PLAY READ WRITE saw a fair amount of my original content.  I was never really sure what I should post on the site.  What was worthy?  What wasn't?

My editor Duke e-mailed me the other day and now my work at Game Revolution has turned into a paying gig!  I won't say what I'm getting paid (it isn't much), but it's still nice to hear my writing is worth paying for from someone who would know.

I'll be posting 2 or 3 items a daily to the Daily Manifesto blog on GR's homepage.  You can read my writing there directly, or you can keep it tuned to PLAY READ WRITE.  I'm going to start posting links directly to the Manifesto posts I write, right here on my blog.  Feel free to click on through, or just comment right here on PRW.

Don't worry, original content will still be posted to PLAY READ WRITE, as well as reviews I'm not doing on assignment, or items of interest and thought that make more sense here.

Gamestop has a 2 For 1 Deal Right Now...

And I wrote something up on Game Revolution about it.  Click the link here: http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/gamestops-2-for-1-deal-1453

I gotta say, this is a small post for a reason.  Tomorrow will see several updates, one significant in terms of my writing career.  Stay tuned.

Sakurai says "Once you go 3D, you don't go back"

"Yes this is indeed my first 3D game but I have a feeling that it's going to be hard to go back [to 2D].

"For example when you watch Avatar in 3D you take notice of the 3D element initially but then as the movie goes on you forget about the 3D novelty as your eyes get used to it and simply enjoy it for what it is.

"That's the nature of the way we get used to things as they become familiar. The problem is that when you go back to 2D after 3D it feel sflat. So in terms of game development I would think that going back to 2D after working on a 3D project may be very difficult for me."

While I know there are plenty of people out there who weren't as thrilled with Brawl as they thought they were going to be, I doubt that Sakurai is to blame.  Honestly, when you play a game as much as some people played Melee, it'll be hard to follow it up, no matter who you are.

If there isn't a Super Smash Bros. game on the 3DS within the first two years, something has got to be wrong over there in Nintendo's ivory tower.

Red Dead Redemption's Legends and Killers Pack Lands August 10th

I make my love of Red Dead Redemption no secret.  I am not reluctant to spend more time in single player or multiplayer.  Frankly, I think its the best game so far this year, the only possible contender being Mass Effect 2.

What good news that more is on the way!  The first of four planned DLC packs, Legends and Killers, has been detailed and readied for release on August 10th.

What does that mean?  For $10 in your console's brand of funny money, you'll get nine new multiplayer map locations, a new weapon (the tomahawk), and eight characters from that other Red Dead game, Red Dead Revolver.

Not too shabby compared to some other DLC pricing schemes, right?  As much as I question whether or not I really need to pick up this DLC, its been confirmed that new achievements will be thrown in as well.  That pretty much has me sold.  God knows I'll do what I need to do to maintain my completed achievement statistic.