It’s almost over. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I won’t have to drown myself in these avalanches of releases anymore! At least not until next year anyways. My only condolence lies in the fact that one of my favorite franchises’ returns triumphantly this week, and that’s enough to distract me from another franchise that I’m not all that hyped up about.

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher.  The following are subject to change without any warning.

Releases To Watch For This Week

Assassin’s Creed Revelations (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday November 15, 2011
Another year, another Assassin’s Creed. If it wasn’t for the recent revelation that Ubisoft will slow down its releases of Assassin’s Creed games past 2012, Assassin’s Creed would surely join the ranks of reviled games that have fallen victim to the Mega Man effect. But until then, we’ll still be getting more Assassin’s Creed, and this year, the guys at Ubisoft have seen Inception and clearly fell in love with it.

We continue Desmond’s/Ezio’s campaign against the Templars. How Revelations resolves the ending in AC Brotherhood, which I hear involves some kind of a cliffhanger, remains a mystery. What we do know is that Desmond will be reliving Ezio’s later years as evident by the graying beard adorning Ezio’s face. At this point in his life, Ezio started tracing the Assassin’s history by going to Constantinople. There, Ezio stumbles upon some kind of technology that allows him to relive Altair’s, you know the original assassin from Assassin’s Creed 1, memories. Good luck wrapping your head around that.

Because the Assassin’s Creed universe just can’t be covered fully in a measly single player campaign, the multiplayer mode promises to flesh out even more of it through the eyes of your enemies, the Templars themselves. As you know, the Templars/Abstergo have the animus as well, and as it turns out, they use it to train new Templar recruits. As a Templar recruit, you will undergo this training by stabbing fools in a virtual recreation of Renaissance era locales. Why they figure training people in the ancient art of warfare as opposed to more modern combat... well, perhaps it would be best if you just go with it. As you progress through this “training,” cutscenes and documents showing the Templar’s side of the story as well as their viewpoints become available to you.

Sadly, this class reunion did not end well

Oddly enough, the Templars train their recruits much the same way an Assassin trains. The whole cat and mouse gamplay hasn’t changed where you hunt down your target while evading your hunter. Yes, you level up your multiplayer character like before, and Revelations have taken several pages out of the Modern Warfare playbook. First of, you have perks that grants passive bonuses like a speed boost. Second, you have abilities which ranges from equipments like tripwire bombs to something as insane as teleportation. Perhaps the most Modern Warfare-esque change involves the ability to continue to gain level well past the level 50 cap. Whereas Modern Warfare has you resetting your entire experience, Revelations lets you keep everything but keeps track of the number of times you managed to gain enough experience points to get you back to level 50 again. You will be rewarded with rewards and bonuses everytime you pull off this monumental task, which can be done a whopping 99 times.

Assassin’s Creed’s compelling universe continues to draw in its fans, and thanks to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood’s newly introduced, and fairly innovative, multiplayer mode, its fans have grown even more rabid to see the series continuation. With the promise of telling the story of not only Ezio and Desmond but Altair as well and the expanded multiplayer mode, Revelations looks to make satisfy every Assassin’s Creed fans out there.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

Sunday November 20, 2011
Spanning two decades and 16 titles, 19 if you count the CD-I games but who actually would, under its belt, The Legend of Zelda series could theoretically be considered as “played out” by now. Try and say that to the millions of Nintendo fanboy out there, and you can expect a thorough trashing to ensue, or at the very least a shouting match. For all the rhetoric we have about a franchise’s expiration date, Zelda belongs in that small list of franchises that somehow manages to buck the trend and continue to stay relevant to not only its fans but to newcomers as well. That should explain the fervor behind The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Zelda fans who obsess over the Zelda timeline can rest easy in figuring out where Skyward Sword belongs on that timeline. Billed as the prequel to the Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword covers the events that lead up to the creation of the Master Sword, a series regular since A Link to The Past. Here, Link and Zelda inhabits the sky borne city of Skyloft where its inhabitants live and fly the unfriendly skies on the backs of giant birds. Lo and behold, a giant snake in the clouds eats Zelda, and Link steps up to rescue her, who recently came into the possession of the Skyward Sword. The Skyward Sword acts as both Link’s primary weapon and his guide. The sword turns into a female figure when it conveys information to Link. Later in the game, it will become the Master Sword.

A lot of the elements of Skyward Sword should be familiar to anyone who has played any Zelda games. Link explores dungeons, finds items that helps him overcome obstacles in said dungeons and in the overworld in general, fights several building sized bosses, and will somehow save the world from overwhelming evil eventually, but the guys over at Nintendo has promised that Skyward Sword will shake up some of its formulas. The most noticeable right up front will be the swordplay itself. Unlike Twilight Princess, which was originally a Gamecube game before it was ported over to the Wii, Skyward Sword was made for the Wii and based itself around the Wii Motion Plus, a mandatory peripheral for Skyward Sword. Utilizing Wii Motion Plus peripheral, Skyward Sword will differentiate between how you swing the Wii Remote. Swinging vertically makes Link slash vertically. Horizontal swings nets horizontal slashes, and anything in between will register as such. Most of Link’s enemies will require you to attack it in a very specific way. For example a spider with a very tough armor has to be flipped onto its back before you can actually kill it. You have to swing your remote upwards for the vertical attack to flip the spider. After that, killing it should be a breeze. Other enemies will be cognizant of this fact and will adjust their stance to counteract your attacks leaving open a new avenue of attack.

Early previews and reviews for Skyward Sword have been positively gleaming, and gamers remain just as devoted as ever to the Zelda franchise. Only an act of God could derail its inevitable success right now.

Saints Row: The Third (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday November 15, 2011
A little bit after the seminal Grand Theft Auto 3 got released, the series could have easily gone in one of two different directions. As evident by the later releases, the GTA series took the high road telling mature stories from perspectives we rarely get in video games. The Saints Row, on the other hand, filled the void that is the low road.

The Third Street Saints have gained the celebrity status they’ve worked for in the past games, and enjoying their stay on the top until an international crime syndicate, conveniently called the Syndicate, decided to topple them. Forced to flee to a new city and start over, the Third Street Saints will have to work their way up to the top again, one dildo sword slapping mission at a time.

Yes, Saints Row takes the open world formula and added a giant bucket of wackiness on top of it with out there characters like one that only speaks in auto-tune to Insurance Fraud missions where the entire point of the mission is to hurt yourself by getting hit by speeding cars. And then there’s the mind controlling octopi, which you shoot out of a bazooka onto people’s heads. Did I mention it explodes too? Add that along with being able to dress up your character with absolutely nothing but pixilated privates, and Saints Row will undoubtedly go down as the world’s only game that could offend... uhm... groups of people that aren’t easily offended.Maybe Saints Row won’t win game of the year awards, but if the prerequisite for winning game of the year involves the quantity of dildo swords in the game, we have a winner.