The story continues where the previous ended; Desmond, in today’s time, escapes from the complex that kidnapped him and captured his mind. This time he teams up with the good guys, and gets back in the seat in the machine that sends him back a few hundred years to Italy, during Leonardo da Vinci’s time, where he’ll play an assassin, in order to train himself the skills. We won’t go into detail of the story, but rest assured that it’s pretty well told and written, although the cut scenes and dialogue aren’t exactly top notch.

The gameplay is smoother than in the original game, feels more fluid and faster, especially the free-running, jumping and climbing around buildings. This is essential, since it’s a big part of Assassin’s Creed. Also, this time there are clear indicators that point you in the right direction, so you’re never lost on one of your missions. The missions in AC2 are certainly more varied than before, but the progress of how to approach and execute them remains largely the same. We wold have loved to see more variety there, taking cue from other assassin games, like Hitman.

Weapons are a plenty of, you can collect money and buy swords, hammers, knives, and lots of other gadgets (like clothes) at shops around town. However, the combat seems a bit slow and, dare we say, almost turn based at times, where a pack of enemies will attack you, but only one after another will actually fight you. Instead of surrounding and flanking — the obvious choices. The AI isn’t that great actually, your enemies are quite dumb and will remain frozen, swords drawn, and simply wait. To be killed. This doesn’t happen all the times, but too often for it to be noticed. Another thing that most might not consider a drawback, is that the game is very easy. Even on the most difficult setting, if you’ve played AC1, and if you’re just a bit good, you can complete Assassin’s Creed 2 without dying a single time. Or even being close to dying.

Visually the game still looks amazing, the city is beautifully rendered, the animations are top notch and there’s a great sense of good production quality throughout all aspects of the game. The missions can get too repetitive and there isn’t much new in terms of gameplay, but fans of Assassin’s Creed won’t be disappointed. However, if you didn’t like the previous game, there’s little chance that you’ll find what you’re looking for here. Still, it might serve as an interesting rental game.

The Good:
Beautiful visuals
Great animations
Great story
Lots of side quests

The Bad:
Enemy AI is dumb
Combat gets repetitive

Overall score: 8/10

The story in Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D 2) followed the same type of story and gameplay as its predecessor, the main campaign follows four survivors, played via online co-op with three other players, where the point is to escape through a maze and myriad of zombies of all kinds. It’s a style of gameplay where teamwork absolutely counts, in L4D 2, it counts even more. Don’t even think about going solo — you’ll be picked to your bones very quickly. The new campaign follows four new survivors, this time they seem to be more varied with better personality, however the AI is still lacking a bit behind, where they’ll often run in front of you, despite that it’s very clear that you’re shooting a very big gun right next to them. But this, of course, is gone when you play co-op — which you should, that’s the whole point, anyways.

The campaign spans around 5 diverse maps, which are are now part of the same overall story, in style of classic survivor zombie movies, music and games, this time, set in the South. Good stuff, really. On top of that, there’s a 2 player split screen mode, which also works online, so you can team up with a friend in your living room, and join two other players online.

The new game modes include Realism, which, as the name suggests, offer a lot more pain-in-the-ass-tense action that the regular mode, something L4D junkies will certainly enjoy. There’s a ton of new weapons too, which include melee weapons as well, but with the exception of melee weapons, the guns available don’t have a good feeling to them, often come across as toy guns, both in looks, sound and feels. Valve has made Half Life, Counter Strike Source and Day of Defeat; all of which had weapons that were pretty solid. But not Left 4 Dead and L4d 2, unfortunately. It also brings us to another area where the game lacks: visuals. The Source Engine, while doing great in Episode 2 (over two years ago), seems to be far less advanced in L4D 2, the textures are bland, the visuals treats are rarely there and the effects have also taken a step back. This might have something to do with the fact that it’s a co-op multiplayer game and the maps are large, but still, it feels very 2004-ish.

The new content in L4D 2 is good enough to justify a $50 purchase for the die hard fans, but for everyone else, there’s isn’t much new in addition to the original game. If you haven’t tried to survival horror co-op shooter, you might as well pick up the first game, which is sold at around half the price. The gameplay is 99% the same, actually 100% but I’m sure Valve has changed one bit somewhere. Probably.

The Good:
Still fun gameplay
Interesting campaign
Nice audio and soundtrack

The Bad:
Looks dated
Some AI issues
No gameplay improvements

Overall score: 8/10

The DLC includes 3 “custom and fully-tuned” variants of the 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe, and is available now for download to all Xbox Live Gold members.

It’s no surprise that Modern Warfare 2’s launch was anything less than a huge success considering the game was pre-ordered over 4.5 million times but VGCHartz has rounded up some preliminary week one data and the results are quite outstanding.

It seems that all together, the game has sold close to 9.4 million copies across the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC raking in an astounding $600 million for Activision. Now let’s just wait until the holiday season comes and goes and we’re sure to be seeing some ridiculous numbers.

I think it’s safe to say we will be seeing Modern Warfare 3, 4, 5 etc because I mean, it is Activision, after all.

For those of you who actually pay for Xbox Live got access to the Left 4 Dead 2 demo earlier this month but Silver members were left in the dark. Luckily, the demo has been unlocked today for Silver members and is available for download at your leisure.

Of course, if you just want the real game you’ll have to wait until November 17th, wait, that’s tomorrow, did you get your pre-order in?

The console has sold 12 million units in North America and 1 million in Japan since its release back in 2005, with worldwide sales topping 30 million.