Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is an iterative step along the path set forth by Assassin's Creed 2. It makes minimal improvements to the existing game formula, largely adding half-cocked new features instead; it tosses away some unneeded cruft, like subtlety, and pacing; and it continues the franchise's descent into vapid, absurd storytelling.

First, the good points. While I felt that AC2's refinements on the first game's insufficient combat system were, well, still insufficient, Brotherhood's combat just feels better. Mechanically, I think it is barely any different, but it seems like enemies simply move and attack quicker this time around. My biggest complaint about the previous games' combat was waiting around for enemies to strike and expose themselves, and this time, there is virtually no waiting. So that's a significant gain.

Although I was sated by the second game's impromptu empire-building mechanic - renovating the Villa Auditore and building up a ridiculous cash income - the shallowness, and ultimate lack of utility, of it was off-putting. The Brotherhood version may not be any more useful, but it is at least more involved; now Ezio can purchase property all throughout the city, opening shops and buying landmarks to the point of literally owning Rome.

Relatedly, one of the bullet-point features for Brotherhood is recruiting helper assassins. These guys can be used in two ways: they can be sent away on missions, alone or in groups, to earn money and find items (they can also earn experience points and level-up from these missions); or they can be called in during the main gameplay to help out, by taking out targets you can't reach, or blitzing some guards who mean to get in your way, or even en masse by showering the area with arrows. Like the villa renovations in AC2, the experience system and the lackluster missions make this come across as a half-implemented feature, even though it can be a nifty time-waster.

But this is also a nice lead-in to one of my more philosophical problems with the game -- that it all but discards the subtle, from-the-shadows angle. Although there are campaign missions that auto-fail when Ezio is detected (which is an annoyance in its own right), in general there is no need for any sort of stealthiness. Why bother setting up a distraction for the guards, then sneaking up behind them with a hidden blade, when a head-on attack with a huge sword is more effective? Between buying up the city, flooding it with assassins, and outright assaulting the Vatican in plain sight, Brotherhood shows what amounts to an open war between the Assassins and the Templars.

Granted, slowly and methodically weaving through a crowd in the first game wasn't very fun, but the idea that the Assassins operated completely out of the public eye made the setup innately interesting. Ezio's faster-paced, devil-may-care attitude about spilling blood on the streets feels like a deliberate echo of modern action games. It feels like it's let go of what should be a key tenet of the franchise. But it's clear that Ubisoft doesn't really care about what made Altair's game a unique surprise -- it's much more intent on making this series about fast-paced action, minigames, and "community" integration.

But I digress. Back to the game -- while the map is chock-full of activities to do, almost none of them feel fun or worthwhile. Between the Borgia towers, the property purchases, Lairs of Romulus, Templars, side-missions with Courtesans, Mercenaries, and Thieves, Leonardo's war machines, Subject 16 glyphs, hidden treasures, recruit missions, shop quests; there is absolutely no risk of running out of things to do in Rome. But the majority just boil down to poorly-written side missions that exercise the same few mission types, like avoiding detection, or chasing a dude, or killing a bunch of dudes.

Hell, the recruit missions don't even involve any gameplay; you just open a menu, send them on their way, and then wait 6-20 minutes until they come back. And this is where Ubisoft's mechanical direction for the series shows most clearly, with recruit missions, shop management, and the sheer amount of navigation that must be done from the map: a lot of "gameplay" is happening from a Flash menu. It's certainly a lot easier to design and implement than real gameplay, I'll give them that. But it does little to allay concerns that this is just turning more and more into a Facebook game.

Narratively, the Rome campaign is nothing if not formulaic: Ezio is ousted from the Villa, rejoins the same three factions (Courtesans/Mercenaries/Thieves) who helped him last time, does recon with each faction on a particular target, finds the Piece of Eden and tackles the Pope. It's decidedly flat for the duration, particularly in the last two chapters, when the production team realized how close their deadline was and completely cut out sections of exposition and stage-setting. At this point the game abruptly and repeatedly jumps ahead months at a time, I guess in an effort to re-associate itself with documented history.

Meanwhile, the real-world storyline in 2012 continues to be absolutely retarded -- if Uncharted is the Indiana Jones of video games, then Assassin's Creed is the National Treasure. Attempting to retcon human history as a secret society's conspiratorial ploy to pacify the public, using ancient magical artifacts from the same alien lifeforms who of course created humanity, is as eye-rollingly lazy as ever. It hardly seems fair, when other games hire actual writers, for Assassin's Creed to get away with pointing at some event in history and saying "Templars did it."

AC2 introduced the memory-fragment glyphs, which a previous Animus tester left behind in the simulation (using computer-magic or whatever), leading to wacky puzzles that ultimately unlocked a little additional story insight. The puzzles themselves were framed with these dumb little "Hey, did you know Henry Ford was a Templar?" tidbits, attempting to flesh out the Templars' influences throughout time. And Brotherhood reiterates these sequences, but, with some frequency, features people who are still alive. George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, a number of US Supreme Court justices, and many currently-relevant corporate entities (like Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods) are named as participants in the Templars' international conspiracy. More than just lazy, this kind of thing strikes me as intentionally inflammatory, and somewhat socially irresponsible; if the parties involved became aware, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about slander claims against Ubisoft.

Gosh, I wonder why Microsoft isn't implicated as a Templar puppet.

So the gameplay isn't evolving sensibly and the writing is some of the worst in the industry. Why do I keep playing these games? Because despite all my complaints, Assassin's Creed continues to be adequate. Though refinement on its core mechanics is slow, and it is gradually morphing into an entirely generic open-world action game, it works well enough (and adds enough new, albeit unfinished, features) to keep my attention for the few-hours' duration of its campaign.

And because I am actually, morbidly curious about where the 2012 story is going. I've already suffered through the setup; I want to hear the punchline.

Better than: Prototype
Not as good as: The Saboteur, Uncharted 2
I guess there's a multiplayer mode also: but who gives a shit about that?

Progress: Finished the campaign, and a few of the extra things

Oblivion (or, what I saw of other people playing it) didn't impress me, nor did Fallout 3. And frankly, I have less respect for Bethesda's development acumen than just about anyone else's. But the noise around Skyrim was getting way too loud for me to ignore.

Having previously been trained by no small number of overhyped, undercooked holiday releases, I found myself quickly preparing for disappointment. And at first, that's exactly what I got: although the landscapes are beautiful, close-up graphical detail and animations get fairly ugly. NPCs never hesitate to interrupt each other mid-conversation, masking dialog which may or may not be important. And, crucially, the melee controls and combat are just terrible -- clumsy movement (whether in first- or third-person), no sense of aim or range, and with frequent shield blocks, no sense of impact.

So I related my impressions to a co-worker, who had already played the game to death, and he vehemently suggested I abandon my melee trifles for spellcasting. Man, what a difference it makes -- the aiming reticle is actually useful, the awkward close-quarters movement is completely mitigated, and the spell effects are awesome to behold. Clearly, magic spells are the real point of this game; with magic, the combat is actually fun.

Once I got over that hurdle, I allowed myself to become engrossed in the world of Skyrim. And here is where Bethesda's talent for creating content really shines. The world is enormous, and although its wilderness is spacious in the way of Red Dead Redemption, the scripted dialog, town construction, and quest log are all quite humbling of Rockstar. I'm being meticulous in exploring towns, examining items, and talking to NPCs, and as a result I don't know when I'll have the time to read, let alone accomplish, all the quests they've given to me.

The graphics are still underwhelming most of the time, and the engine technology is still creaky at best -- not to mention how unpolished the game can feel at times, like when the last autosave was half an hour back. But examined at its highest level, where you have the freedom to sling fire and lightning around a huge open world filled with secrets to uncover, Skyrim is pretty damned compelling.

Progress: Slew my first dragon!

Solar 2 is a game about assimilating and/or crushing the opposition, wherein said opposition is made up of outer space shit. That is, asteroids, planets, stars, you know. At its core, the goal of the game is to keep absorbing lesser bodies until you get to black hole density, and can consume the entire universe; then the big crunch leads to a big bang, and it starts all over again. And this sandbox experience is surprisingly fun, in the same way that flOw allows you to grow from an insignificant spec into a big intergalactic-schoolyard bully.

But there are also discrete tasks to take on -- not just the game's achievements and individual challenges, but significantly, "story" missions: about a dozen for each of the Asteroid, Planet, and Star phases. The mission objectives - such as defending against alien ships, escorting a planet to a goal area, and "stealing" planets from other systems - are pretty diverse and distinctive. Not to mention the "Entity" narrator, whose wry sense of black humor keeps the game's universal scale light and goofy.

Solar 2 offers a surprising amount of gameplay for its dead-simple control scheme, and the soundtrack is pretty cool, to boot. Ten dollars seems a tad steep, but for the right price, this is quite the entertaining diversion.

Better than: Universe Sandbox Legacy
Not as good as: Super Mario Galaxy
I guess Solar 1 was on XBLIG?: looks like it might be worth a buck, if you care.

Progress: 100% story mission completion

Given a pleasant-looking aesthetic and, uh, controllable dragons, this was a painless purchase from the Steam holiday sale. And I was impressed by the game's mechanics, which are solid and fun to boot -- progress feels swift and meaningful, and there's never a shortage of tasks to attend to on the map. I'd definitely encourage you to try the tutorials in the free demo.

But what holds this back, for me, is that there's no campaign. None whatsoever.

The gameplay is fun enough, but without an overarching goal to taunt me along, I have a very limited interest in this.

Better than: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, in terms of mechanics and features
Not as good as: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, in terms of longevity (since, you know, no campaign)
Seriously guys: I will buy a sequel/DLC pack if it includes a campaign!

Progress: Gave Up -- Won a few AI matches

While "reverse tower defense" is all but the game's tagline, that doesn't really describe it well at all. In Anomaly: Warzone Earth, you're not throwing units at a defensive wall -- in fact, you're trying desperately to preserve the lives of a small group of units, as you weave them through chokepoints and take out enemies strategically. And while some missions require planning in the form of your unit loadout, generally the game is much more about real-time tactical decision making, revolving around commander powerups (such as a decoy to draw enemy fire away). Also, you can upgrade units with money you make, from killing enemies and finding mineral deposits. Basically it's an RTS with a very low army limit.

The campaign is brief, but feels like it sufficiently explores the game's mechanical depth. And while the story is pretty dumb and the voice acting is hit-or-miss, the graphical presentation is impeccable.

AWE is a neat idea, and a fun diversion for its short length, but needs some more complexity to really stand out in the strategy genre. Stuff like a non-linear campaign, upgrade research options, multiple unit groupings, or additional powerups could make a pretty interesting sequel.

Better than: Majesty
Not as good as: StarCraft
Make no mistake: the "Casual" difficulty becomes pretty trying by the last third of the campaign

Progress: Finished on Casual

Yes, while your Kirby army is still building up, the game is pretty basic and boring -- unfortunately, even a full complement of 10 Kirbys plays pretty shallow. There simply aren't that many mechanics to exploit: just leading the army around by touch, or flicking individual Kirbys around, which is pretty difficult to do with any precision since they're all clustered together. Boss battles have the most complexity, where you'll have to lead the group away from obstacles, then rapidly sling them at a weak point when it opens. That's it.

I know it's wrong to expect significant depth or challenge from a Kirby game, but this is just unfulfilling. Not to say Mass Attack is bad, per se, but its uniqueness feels diluted and unremarkable, only really interesting for a few minutes. At least Epic Yarn's occasional tedium could be allayed by playing it co-op.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished the first set of stages

The game mechanics are neat, and I am a fan of the presentation -- not just the cyber-blue aesthetics, but also (and especially) the excellent soundtrack. But I just don't care for the balance of it. I'm still super-early in the campaign, so I wouldn't exactly call it "hard," but it does require a level of attention and intricacy that I'm not really willing to spend on a video game (edit: yeah I guess that's not true).

While planning out a turn step-by-step is pretty fun, there are just so many variables in the execution - that is, potential, unknown enemy actions - that the pre-emptive simulations seem more misleading than unhelpful. Attempting to predict the AI is one thing, but I feel like there's too much guesswork in estimating weapon range and accuracy; the kinds of things that might be resolved using the simulations, but those results just aren't reliable. And even though the number of units you're given seems to generally be pretty low, some missions don't allow for cautious play.

Anyway, it seems pretty well put-together, but I don't think I have the patience for its learning curve or strategic nuances.

Progress: Gave Up -- Did some skirmish, finished the first couple campaign missions

Less content, no story (as far as I know), worse controls, lower-fidelity graphics and sound; but I'd expected this downloadable port of the original GBA Four Swords to come up short when compared to Four Swords Adventures. What I didn't expect was, in single-player mode, you can't control all four Links; you only get two.

What's the point? I'm not at all interested in a Zelda Two Swords. It needs more swords. And if I have to meet up with other players to get them, well, no thank you.

Progress: Gave Up

At first, this was one of the most interesting parts of my new 3DS -- specifically, the Find Mii game. Tossing co-workers' and strangers' Miis at ghosts, in what is effectively a stripped-down turn-based RPG, is a really neat idea; and there's even a little depth in it in the form of level-ups and magic spells. Plus, the Puzzle Swap game is a nice little collection activity to eat up a few minutes. But both of these games ultimately lose that spark of intrigue as they scale poorly.

After defeating the Find Mii dungeon once and not really finding any hats I wanted my Mii to wear, the next step was running through the dungeon again; but this time the ghosts have more health, such that first- or second-time StreetPass encounters with a Mii (or buying Wandering Heroes with pedometer coins) simply aren't leveled-up enough to make significant progress on an enemy. And Miis max out at level 7, which is about what I had going with my co-workers at the end of the first dungeon run, so I can only imagine that even maxed-out Miis would end up grinding away at the dungeon's second run for quite some time.

But it seems almost silly to critique the high-level design of the Find Mii game when it feels like what it's gotten right is more coincidental than intentional. Spells which buff the next hero work great, but since you can't control the order your heroes attack in - or even see the order after you've started the game - it's purely by chance whether or not they're actually useful. It's the same with the colored shields, and with situations where you need a specific spell (such as White "light" magic to light up a darkened room) -- heroes are wasted because they didn't happen to have the right color shirt. And you can't even hedge your bets by trying to build up a big, multicolored team before heading into the dungeon, because you have to check StreetPass updates before you can see what Miis you've met -- and once you check them, you must use those Miis or have them completely overwritten by the next update. There's no way to 'queue' your found heroes.

So having come to the point where the level one and two Wandering Heroes are utterly worthless, I decided to drop coins into Puzzle Swap instead, just to go for the collectible 3D artwork. But when you use coins to buy puzzle pieces, sometimes, they're pieces you've already found! In fact, most of the pieces I bought were duplicates of pieces I'd already traded with StreetPass. What!

Initially, the games in the Mii plaza were, more than a fun little diversion, a real, tangible motivation to bring my 3DS everywhere with me -- racking up pedometer coins, and trying to get as many StreetPass tags as I could. This was one of the original design intents of the 3DS, to support spontaneous play and events by encouraging users to keep their 3DSes on them; and with a little more polish on Find Mii's strategy and pacing, it could definitely fulfill that long-term. But now that the dungeon-crawling has lost its luster, I'd just as soon leave the 3DS sitting until I want to pick up a specific game.

If Find Mii was a little deeper, I might bother giving it a bad "score," but as it is it isn't even deep enough to consider a real game.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished one run of Find Mii

I expect that first-timers will not be as pleased with OoT 3D as those who have played it before. As I mentioned, there were a number of instances where I got by purely because I remembered what I was supposed to do; Navi's advice wasn't super-helpful, and knocking around Hyrule to figure out my next step would have been more than a bit frustrating.

But if you've got fond memories of the original - or feel willing to put up with a few relics of game design from the 1990s - this is the definitive version.

Better than: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (forgiving Ocarina's occasional lack of clarity)
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) (forgiving Twilight Princess's occasional long-windedness)
Now how about: Wind Waker 3D? Toon-shading with depth sounds pretty awesome, right?

Progress: Put a sword in Ganon's head