I can see why reviewers were harsh to Assassin’s Creed. The game has a few parts where it seems a little broken–hiccups here and there with graphics.

Your master assassin might throw his arms in the air when he dismounts from a horse at odd moments, but at the same time, it has a few amazing elements that make it a great game.

There. I said it. I thought Assassin’s Creed was a great game. Like Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, there were distinct moments in the game that made the story electrified and interesting.

Yes, it’s repetitive in some sequences, but if you give the game a chance, it becomes pretty addictive. Assassin’s Creed brought out the achievement junkie, a slightly obsessive compulsive element of my personality, and made me want to collect every single flag and complete every optional mission. I enjoyed the fact that it was repetitive but systematic, and each assassination was different.

That is, I enjoyed every single mission until I got to the final memory–a climactic moment I reached at 2 a.m. one weekend.

Ready to jump into the final conclusion, I selected it and entered the loading screen. There was my familiar assassin, Altair, waiting patiently in a cloud of light. As the 5.1 sound came to a constant hum, and the game was about to load, my Xbox 360 popped a message out of the right side of the screen–Disc Read Error.

What a cruel joke.

Apparently, a circular sequence of slight scratches on the disc that I had ignored were crucial to the disc’s final level but nothing else. I had almost sent the disc back early on, but decided to tough it out since the scratches caused no problems. I was impatient to start my journey as Altair.

I tried cleaning the discs several times–no luck. I finally jumped on the Amazon.com return policy pages to see about returning the disc–no luck. My disc was more than 30 days old and opened since Christmas Day.

My last chance was Ubisoft, the publisher of Assassin’s Creed. Luckily, I found an entry in the knowledge base two weeks ago that showed a disc replacement program. As long as the disc was purchased within 90 days–true–and the disc problems were not caused by any foul play on my part–also true–I would get free disc replacement. Whew! Relief.

It seems like it is going to be a little harder than a swap and replace, but for the moment, my Assassin’s Creed hopes will be at the mercy of Ubisoft customer support. It’s tragic when a gamer is separated from his ending.

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Boomshine Flash Game

Game’s creator here.

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I haven’t seen Cloverfield yet, but the ARG (or alternate reality game) to promote the movie keeps getting stranger.

The ARG started with the Ethan Haas Was Right site. The early trailers for Cloverfield linked fans to this site where they completed a series of puzzles and then added their email address to a list to receive updates on the next step in the ARG.

I did all the puzzles, and weeks later, I received an email from the site’s creator/leader “Van Mantra” which linked to Alpha Omega: The Game, some sort of MMORPG (or massive multiplayer online role-playing game). It seemed to have no relation to the movie, but I thought the game must be fake. The game is based upon an post-apocalyptic world, but it says it was all destroyed by natural disasters and diseases rather than by the big monster from Cloverfield. I never tried the game, but I signed up to be notified when it finally launched.

I continued to receive emails updating me on the status of the game’s launch, but none of them seemed to have any info about Cloverfield. I almost unsubscribed, but I stuck with it.

Just a few weeks ago, I got another message from Van Mantra.

Your destinies are your own. Now is the time to play your role. Mobilize, arm yourselves with knowledge, and enter the world remade.

This message linked back to the Alpha Omega game site again, which now has a little blurb about the Ethan Haas site puzzles. I just don’t get it.

Is this MMORPG tied into the movie somehow? I guess I will figure it out when I see Cloverfield, but if anyone else has completed the puzzles and joined in on the game, I would love to hear how it all fits together.

This ARG has been pretty in-depth, and with JJ Abrams involved, who knows what it all means.

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