A dark summer night in 1499. Ezio Auditore di Firenze has just learned of strange things happening in the world. Wondering what all these strange ramblings of this woman calling herself Minerva mean, he sits down in his condo in Firenze. He calls in his best friend Leonardo da Vinci to help him unravel some more mysteries that he has come across, such as the strange signs Ezio has found and the different locations on the map of the world he unveiled in the codex pages.

Time warp to 20 years later. 1519. Ezio is now married to a lovely woman (by the name of Lisa Gherardini) and the proud father of 2 (Elena and younger brother Ciro). In his library hangs a portrait of his wife, painted by Leonardo. A lot has changed in those twenty years. Boatloads of de Medicis came and died. The son of good friend Lorenzo de Medici was even elected pope in 1513. A papal reign characterized by parties and extravagent displays of eating and drinking. Cardinals have tried killing poor Giovanni de’ Medici, but Ezio has always managed to stop them. It’s the least he could do for one of his closest friends. (Eventually Giovanni would indeed die and was buried in the Basilica Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Does that last name ring a bell?)

At some point, while sitting in his library with all of his books, Ezio hears the sad news of a dear friend’s passing. Leonardo da Vinci dies, May 2nd. Now, all alone in his quest against the Templars and finding the remaining temples Minerva talked about, Ezio turns to his son and daughter. Both being athletically gifted, they learn the ancient craft of being an assassin from their father. On yet another day of hiding behind his history books Ezio comes across a book by Fernando de Encisco, Summe de Geographia. The book describes a mountain formed by three volcanos. Mount Kilimanjaro. Ezio strongly believes that this is where the Gods must have lived. On top of the tallest freestanding mountain in the world. A perfect place to wine and dine.

Ezio soon finds out that this trip is not something he can physically handle anymore. His old body is letting him down, so he sends his son and daughter. They are at the age that he started being an assassin himself and if they have any kind of genes in common with him it should be the assassin ones. The kids travel to Africa to find a temple and a brave new world opens itself up to them. I cannot spoil how the story unfolds further, because that would mean nobody would ever buy the game to see for himself. I will however leave you with some nice new gameplay elements:

• You will encounter tribes that live in the area, you can hire their warriors.
• New weaponry includes spears, rockslingers, pointy sticks and other stabbing weaponry made of bones or ivory.
• You can ride giraffes, lions, elephants, rhinos and more, upgrade them with toxins brewn by the tribe medicine man.
• Swinging from tree to tree on the Savannah has never been so cool!
• Hidden blade? Uhm, no. It’s in plain sight.
• Poison blades? Nope again, you throw cobras and rattlers at people from a basket on your back.
• Get your attire painted at the local muddy stream, your koteka has never looked so fancy.

Disclaimer: I absolutely love the Assassins Creed game series and this is in no way meant to be a snide article towards the series, African tribes, giraffes, lions, elephants, rhinos and other African animals…

I’ve played online shooters in clan competitions for over 5 years. I still regularly beat people up in GTA IV. I slay zombies using lawnmowers, bowling balls and every other item I can use as weaponry in Dead Rising. I know a lot of other people all around the world do, just look at the sales figures of games in general. It’s a booming industry. How many people out of the millions that buy these games actually perform horrible acts like this? I’d say the percentage is well below 0,0001 percent if not less (luckily).

All I’m trying to say is that games are not the reason people do these things. The media always loves to blame them though when it comes to acts like this one. Can games be the trigger that ticks them off just that final bit? Maybe. Maybe not. But it can just as well be any other thing; a violent movie, music, you name it. But you never see those pop up in the media. “German shooter listened to death metal”, “German shooter watched serial killer movie the day before”.

It takes a person with a serious mental disorder to do a thing like this. If you do these kinds of things your life is a mess. At least in your own perception. So much that you think your only way out is death. Seeing as how he goes to his old school to eventually reach his goal, only seems to indicate that his stressor originated there. At least, in my non-psychiatric opinion. All I’m trying to say is that the media should stop blaming games for the world’s misery.

Fallout 3 (Xbox 360)
From what I’ve seen and read, Fallout 3 is going to be a really good game. Seeing as how the guys from the Oblivion series are behind, which got good reviews all around the world, I’m not doubting that it’ll be a good game. What I am doubting about is if this is something for me..I have played Oblivion for a while and I have to say that it never really grabbed my attention. I guess it just wasn’t the game for me. I liked it’s looks, but the gameplay just didn’t appeal to me at all. And that’s exactly the reason that I’m unsure about playing this, seeing as how (as far as I know) it is a similar game in some ways.

Fable 2 (Xbox 360)
Fable 2 is a game that I’m seriously considering. Unlike Red Alert 3 and Fallout 3 I think might enjoy this one. I haven’t played Fable 1, so I don’t really have any reference, it’s just a feeling I have. I’m not sure if I will be getting it, seeing as how the 3 games from my previous post will probably take up a lot of time, but we’ll see when it comes out

Red Alert 3 (PC)
An RTS, another game genre that has never fully taken my interest. I’ve played C&C:Tiberian Sun, I’ve played Red Alert 2, but I just don’t seem to get hooked on it. I think I mainly played those games for either the fun units and the cutscenes, which will probably be brilliant again as in any C&C game. I’m sure that this will be a big seller though and it will get people to lock themselves in their room for hours at a time playing online wars against one another. I probably won’t be one of them though.

Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People Episode 2 (PC)
I have yet to decently start playing Episode 1, but will most definetly play episode 2. These games came from a combination of one of my favorite internet cartoons and a company that has already hooked me with their other episodic adventure series, Sam and Max. Both work in a similar way, but take place in entirely different settings. The game has the same humor that the internet cartoons have, so I’m enjoying the time I spend in Free Country USA. Now if only I could win the Triannual Free Country USA Race To The End of The Race Race…

Spore (PC)
One of my most anticipated games for quite a while now. I think I heard about this more then a year ago. The whole concept of creating your own creature is already enough to lure me into this. But the game takes it to another level (or 4) by also implementing a cell, tribal, civilization and space phase effectively making it a 5 in 1 game. Seeing as how this is being made by the same guys that made the Sims I’m fairly sure it will all work out great. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the “The Sims” franchise for the type of game it is, but you can’t argue that these were solid games.

Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)
The first game I ever bought for my Xbox 360 was GoW. Mostly because I had heard that this was a very good game and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. It was by far the game that caused my Xbox to produce a huge quantity of noise with it’s fans but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make to play this. I still haven’t finished this in the hardest difficulty simply because there have been games after it that have demanded my attention (most recently GTA 4). Plan is to at least finish it again before part 2 is released which shouldn’t be too long away either. If it can top part 1 this can be great!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)
The only Star Wars games I ever played were the KOTOR series and Jedi Academy. Those games managed to catch my fascination but most other Star Wars games never really shone as much as they should. The Star Wars is the only science fiction story that interests me unlike other people who just eat and breathe sci-fi. The hundreds of different combo’s you can make with the different force powers and your lightsaber should be a guarantee for a great variation in the combat aspect of the game. On top of that the story seems to be really good and that’s something I always like in a game. A good story that drags you in and at the end keeps you begging for more (Dreamfall anyone?).

That’s it for now. There’s lot’s more coming out in the next few months but that’ll be for another time