An Unlikely Pair: Assassin's Creed II and A Boy and His Blob

Friends and family were very kind to me with their gift-giving this year. Lots of great books and games. I've played a little bit of an odd pair of games, those being Assassin's Creed II and A Boy and His Blob.

I've posted about the game before, but in brief, Blob is adorable puzzle platformer in which you use the Blob's shape-changing abilities to get you around obstacles and past enemies. The challenges are smart but not frustrating, although I've only just started the game. The art and sound are perfect, with the hand-drawn backdrops and animation perfectly presented. It's a slow, smooth game that requires a quick mind without many quick reflexes.

Contrast that with Assassin's Creed II, in which you kill a lot of people. Brutally. But there's a whole lot more to it, thankfully, that breaks up core story missions. This game also has a lot more story than the first, which I'm very much into, dovetailing Desmond with Ezio in a past-future drama that is sure to go deeper into the rabbit hole. I've had fun bouncing around the open world, just finding things to do. You can easily get lost in the sub-missions, finding vantage points and courier missions in the incredibly-modeled environments. Controls are tights and fighting is much crisper than the last game. It really is Assassin's Creed 2.0.