I game few and far between these days, with the greatest slice of my gaming time being made up of online FIFA 13 battles with Ryan. That said, here’s a quick round up of my thoughts on the games that I have played over the last couple of months – funnily enough, all coming my way courtesy of the current Microsoft Games with Gold initiative…

Dead Rising 2 (2010)

Five years after the events of Dead Rising, former motocross champion Chuck Greene is in the casino town of Fortune City, Nevada, to take part in Terror Is Reality, a controversial sports entertainment game show where contestants kill zombies for money and fame. Chuck needs the prize money to buy Zombrex (a daily medication that suppresses the zombification process) for his daughter Katey, who was bitten by her zombified mother during a previous outbreak in Las Vegas.

However as you might have guessed, caged zombies seldomly stay caged for long, meaning that pretty soon Chuck is running amok to clear his name, save people’s lives and keep Katey from turning into a zombie!

Dead Rising 2 is a 3rd person action game from Capcom that features some fantastically detailed shopping complex environments to move around in and beat up horde upon horde of shuffling zombies (interspersed with the odd crazy and psychopath) with whatever tool or fixture you can find lying about. (Seriously, just about anything can be used as a weapon, and best of all, you can combine multiple items into bigger badder zombie killing devices, some of which get pretty inventive in the process!). All of this open world beat-down action then gets wrapped up in a pretty enjoyable character-driven mystery story and complemented with a great soundtrack, voice acting and cutscenes, the end result being a pretty polished and neat zombie game.

That said, I don’t really enjoy zombie stories, meaning that I didn’t really enjoy this outing, and consequently haven’t bothered finishing it.

However, if you ARE a fan of zombies and their like, then without a doubt you’ll get a proper kick out of it – so worth it if you’re in that boat then.

(Oh, and in terms of gameplay overall, my only real gripe, apart from the plenty of load screens you encounter, is the fact that the strict time limits put on missions and the main storyline stops you from fully exploring the wonderfully built environment and properly exploring the various ways of mowing down zombies like you should have been able to!)

dead rising 2 xbox game chuck greene

Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_2

Assassin’s Creed II (2009)

After being forced to relive the genetic memories of ancestral assassin Altair ibn-La’Ahad through a machine known as the “Animus”, Desmond Miles is freed from his imprisonment by Abstergo Industries employee Lucy Stillman and together they make a daring escape.

Now in a safe place and in possession of Abstergo data and an upgraded Animus 2.0, Desmon agrees to re-enter the Aimus and relive the genetic memories of ancestral nobleman Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who lived during the Renaissance period of the late 15th and early 16th centuries in Italy. An assassin born from the murder of his family, Ezio, and thus Desmond, are now on a hunt to solve the mystery surrounding the age old Knights Templar movement.

If you are a fan of historical pieces then you are going to love Assassin’s Creed and its incredibly detailed conspiracy-driven story line. If you are not, then you are still going to love Assassin’s Creed and its incredibly detailed conspiracy-driven story line.

Seriously, this game is that good.

An absorbing story told via the polished and well executed platform of a 3rd person stealth-action open world game which sees you scaling walls, running along rooftops and causing all kinds of bloody chaos, before slinking back into the shadows or blending in with a cloud to avoid capture. A massive world, beautifully rendered environments, fluid movement mechanics, loads of cutscenes, and some decent enemy AI, all work in conjunction with a great setting, beautiful musical score and enjoyable voice acting to result in a game that is really worth your time to play.

In other words, I REALLY enjoyed this one from Ubisoft.

assassin's creed ii xbox game ezio drawing sword

Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_creed_ii