When it released in 2007, Assassin’s Creed instantly cemented itself as a big player in the gaming scene.  What wasn’t there to like?  You played as an assassin, navigating roof tops and busy streets to assassinate targets using a mixture of stealth and cunning, and delivering the finishing blow with a hidden blade.  It was (almost) every teenager’s dream, and created a space in the industry that was yet to be filled.  But over the years, the franchise has evolved to a point where it has become almost unrecognisable, ignoring the fundamentals that were established in the first 2 titles of the series.  In today’s post, I’m going to work my way through the series, looking at key changes from title-to-title that resulted in this huge shift in the focus of the series. It’s really important that you, as the reader, understand that I will be taking a neutral view throughout the majority of this piece.  Assassin’s Creed, as a franchise, has become controversial in...

  The Last of Us.  One of the most ambitious games ever made, and as impactful today as it was when it first released on the PS3 in 2013.  A title that sent shock-waves through the industry, scoring a mega 95 on Metacritic, The Last of Us is not just a game, but a cinematic experience.  A game that tugs on your heartstrings, makes you feel tension that very few games have achieved, and manipulates your emotions in no way a video game had ever done previously.  If we take a step back and look at the gaming industry then, and fast forward to now, it is clear to see the scale of the impact this masterpiece had on the gaming industry. The gaming industry was a very different beast just 10 years ago.  Games were, funnily enough, all about the gameplay, where having fun, first and foremost, was what gaming was all about.  That’s not to say that that isn’t the case now, but the focus is very different.  We can look to the old God of War games that had a...

  The Legend of Zelda is quite possibly the most varied series of any of Nintendo’s beloved first-party IPs, with a lifespan of over 35 years, it has seen many different iterations, from overhead design, to 3D, to whatever they tried to do on the DS (yes we’re talking about those painstakingly tedious stylus controls Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks), to the new era we’re experiencing currently: open world Zelda. The hype around this franchise is currently at an all-time high, thanks to Breath of the Wild, a game many respected games journalism outlets have named the Greatest Game of all Time, and responsible for bringing a set of fresh eyes to The Legend of Zelda.  Not since Ocarina of Time has a Zelda game been given this level of praise, and rightly so.  Ocarina of Time, in my eyes, is a masterpiece, a game I first played at 11 years old and struggled to finish, I came back to it at 17 and finally finished a game that cemented The Legend of Zelda as my favourite gam...