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Yeah, if you're playing these games on release, I can see how you'd be miffed if a new one doesn't move the plot/gameplay any further. I've always intended to bow out of this series after Rev, and the current release problems, along with Ubi's move to companion app and micropayment bullshit only confirm that.
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Nov 16, 2014 11:15
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Everything HaitianDivorce said, but I also want to add mention of some mechanical issues. The engine was all new for the AC series, which meant new ways of doing old things that brought about new frustrations. In practice this meant different things, like how the parkour system had a tough time telling where the player wanted to go, often throwing you in wildly varying directions or other ill-desired effects. It bled over into other facets of the game (combat, etc) which bogged down the whole experience on top of the directionless story/protag. All this after the high point of AC2 and its follow ups left for a bad taste. A lot of that stuff was ironed out with Black Flag, which helped put that title at the top of a lot of fan rankings. AC3 was still an AC game and I enjoyed it, just less than pretty much all the others save now for Unity. It simply being the most messy of all the titles in nearly all respects.
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Nov 16, 2014 11:18
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Hannibal Rex posted:Yeah, if you're playing these games on release, I can see how you'd be miffed if a new one doesn't move the plot/gameplay any further. I've always intended to bow out of this series after Rev, and the current release problems, along with Ubi's move to companion app and micropayment bullshit only confirm that. If you're not burned out of the formula after Rev, Black Flag is a genuinely good game, Assassin's Creed or not, and I'd recommend skipping 3 to play it.
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Nov 16, 2014 11:44
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Orv posted:Revelations was mostly Ezio burnout for a lot of people. Also Istanbul is maybe not as interesting as some of the other cities. It's still a perfectly good game though, and a very good end cap to both Ezio and Altair. Istanbul should have been an amazing backdrop. I found myself not caring about the city or Ezio through the whole thing, despite being way into AC 2 and Brotherhood. The Altair stuff was OK. They really blew Desmond's story, too.
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Nov 16, 2014 11:51
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Hannibal Rex posted:What's the problem with Revelations? I got the AC series up to it on various Steam sales a while back, and I just now started playing it. AC1 was very lackluster, but I'm currently having a ton of fun parkouring through Renaissance Italy. I always figured Brotherhood and Revelations were just going to be more of the same, which I'd have absolutely no problem with. But apparently, Revelations has a pretty bad rep for some reason. As long as you a) didn't wait an entire year after Brotherhood for it, b) didn't pay more than  for it, or c) both, Revelations is fine. Not great, but not awful either.
Tim Burns Effect fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 11:58
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Orv posted:Revelations was mostly Ezio burnout for a lot of people. Also Istanbul is maybe not as interesting as some of the other cities. It's still a perfectly good game though, and a very good end cap to both Ezio and Altair. Also most of the new mechanics in Revelations (bombs, tower defense, that VR game) were tedious and / or unnecessary.
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Nov 16, 2014 12:07
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Orv posted:If you're not burned out of the formula after Rev, Black Flag is a genuinely good game, Assassin's Creed or not, and I'd recommend skipping 3 to play it. I've gathered this much, but the main reason I started playing AC in the first place was to go sightseeing in historical cities and soak up the atmosphere. From what I've heard, Black Flag doesn't really focus on that.
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Nov 16, 2014 12:16
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Reverse Centaur posted:They really blew Desmond's story, too. I liked Revelations okay but I will forever be mad at how you finally got to met Subject 16 face to face, and they did hardly anything with it  At least he got some fairly interesting DLC.
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Nov 16, 2014 12:55
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned the real sin of AC3: the tutorial goes on for-loving-ever. I believe one reviewer summed it up by pointing out that 7 hours into the game they hit the mission titled "Training begins"
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Nov 16, 2014 14:11
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Hannibal Rex posted:I've gathered this much, but the main reason I started playing AC in the first place was to go sightseeing in historical cities and soak up the atmosphere. From what I've heard, Black Flag doesn't really focus on that. It does to an extent. Havana, Kingston, and Nassau all have their charm. They're smaller than the major cities in the other AC games but they're still really fun to explore.
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Nov 16, 2014 14:14
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For all AC3's sins the twist at the end of the Haytham section with the achievement popping up and the sudden jump back to Desmond et al freaking out was one of the high points of the series for me. A really well done spit take.
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Nov 16, 2014 14:41
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That was a thing I thought was neat in AC3 - how the modern day people would have thoughts and opinions about what was going on in the past story.
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Nov 16, 2014 14:52
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I'll be the controversial one: I don't think AC3 deserves QUITE as much hate as it gets. Is it the worst AC game since the original? Yeah. Is the tutorial really drawn out too long? Yeah. Is Connor a boring and unsympathetic protagonist? Absolutely. Is it really the unmitigated piece of poo poo people make it out to be? Nope. I think there were a number of things to like in the game. I enjoyed exploring the underground parts of the cities. It had the beginnings of AC4's awesome naval combat. Hell, I even liked the Homestead bits people rag on in the game. I liked the feeling of building a new community and getting insights into the ordinary lives of the people setting up there. It felt more "real" than just paying to renovate a building and watching money appear in the bank. Also a lot of people rage about the modern-day ending and Desmond getting killed off, but I liked the insights into the First Civ storyline that led up to it. I just wish they did more to follow-up on it in the later games. I also liked some of the modern-day mission sections with Desmond climbing the skyscraper, and of the Brazil mission. There needs to be more poo poo like that. Speaking of modern-day stuff, it looks like Ubisoft decided to let Rogue be the one this year that carries that on. I haven't played Unity still but I've read what a lot of people have said about the modern-day sections, and I can honestly say I think I've gotten more info on the modern-day story by the half-way point in Rogue then people seem to have gotten from the entirety of Unity. Don't get me wrong though: It's still pretty minor plot advancement. I think there's a lot of cool stuff Ubisoft could be doing on that plotline but they've been half-assing it since people complained how it took away from the historical stories.
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Nov 16, 2014 14:53
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AC3 was butchered, and clearly released before it was ready (sound familiar?). Connor is an entirely different character in the homestead missions versus the main storyline, and that's ignoring the numerous reports of his entire arc being deleted due to bad managerial choices. And the mission design reflects that. I remember one of the "climactic" battles, which the last hour had told me would be incredible. Connor starts running and is IMMEDIATELY hit with a cannonball. He wakes up, stabs a dude in the rubble, and that's it. Goodbye setpiece, hello "oh poo poo, need something here" filler. Also, Rogue is GREAT. Shay's nowhere near as likable as Edward, but the storyline is told with a modicum of sense and structure.
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Nov 16, 2014 15:01
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So what's the best way to get Sync points (I think, the ones that unlock abilities) outside of buying them with real money. Is it a certain type of side mission or just the main story?
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Nov 16, 2014 15:19
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Narcissus1916 posted:AC3 was butchered, and clearly released before it was ready (sound familiar?). What I suspect with what's really bugging Unity is the heavy Uplay integration right now and is on the Uplay end of things. The game itself is actually pretty solid and should have been released without Uplay. Still would have probably had some of the rendering issues, but Uplay appears to be the source of most of the crashes and framerate problems. AC3 really needed a ton of polish in a lot of areas. It's kind of bad when you have to patch the game to make your in-game map actually worth a drat. DeadLetterOfficer posted:So what's the best way to get Sync points (I think, the ones that unlock abilities) outside of buying them with real money. Is it a certain type of side mission or just the main story? You can get sync points 3 ways. 1. Story mission reward (higher sync for more points) 2. Co-Op mission reward (anything not a Heist) 3. There's also about 30 or so that spawn in-world during Co-Op missions. You need to ping with Eagle vision to find them. (Thankfully, these are static between missions) The game really doesn't tell you about #3, though it is in the Progress Tracker. OJ MIST 2 THE DICK fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 15:20
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rizuhbull posted:What sucked so much about AC3? I only played for an hour or so after Connor become an assassin but I thought it was ok for that much. So you played for over half the game 
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Nov 16, 2014 15:38
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Just beat Revelations and I honestly loved it. Started the series from AssCreed2 about 3 months ago and it's been a hell of a ride, I'll miss Ezio's adventures but not really, I think I'll just miss him the most. Loved his ending and I love Altair's ending, even if I did skip AC1... I felt I got enough of a gist from AC2 and Brotherhood to sympathize with him. Constantinople was honestly beautiful and the hook blade was fun and made climbing everywhere a lot quicker, I barely used bombs except for like 2 notable situations and the tower defense stuff I did exactly one time when it was introduced. Time for AC3, expectations are tempered so I'm going in not expecting anything amazing and a mostly boring protag.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:41
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I feel like Revelations comes off best if you play it out of order. I didn't play it until I finished all the other games in the series, and it was fairly enjoyable. But it was really pushing what they could get out of that gameplay style, and a lot just felt like filler, so it would have been exhausting right after AC2/Brotherhood. Getting to beat up Duccio one more time was great though. 
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Nov 16, 2014 16:50
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Deakul posted:
We're here to be your support group if you finish or decide you can't.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:50
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Man, AC3 does not deserve the hate it gets. It's an exceptional game.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:56
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Cyra posted:Man, AC3 does not deserve the hate it gets. It's an exceptional game. It isn't even above a mediocre game. With the patches that fixes some of the absolutely terrible bugs it... still is significantly worse than the games both before and after it. Although Unity has raised its star a bit at least.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:57
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It's an exception, alright. To me, AC3 felt like a ton of really interesting systems that all did not work together in the slightest. Hunting? Cool idea, but useless in practice. Crafting and economic trading? Cool idea, but useless in practice. The entire plot? Useless. Everything in the game just didn't mesh together into a cohesive whole, so what you're left with is an entire game of half-baked ideas that don't pay off into anything. I spent the entire game waiting for it to all click and come together, and then suddenly the game was over and they introduced a whole brand new system that was a cool idea, but useless in practice. I'm having this same issue with Unity, because while I can see a good game in there if they do something about the performance issues and glitches, there's still the annoying app components that pull you out of the game. I'm not excited about finding and unlocking chests, because there's like a 70% chance that it either requires a higher level of lockpicking that I'm arbitrarily blocked off from getting until I play enough of the story, or it's a chest that requires the stupid bullshit app to unlock. At least with the community unlocks in Black Flag, they stay unlocked if you want to start a new game and have the stuff right from the start. Crappy Jack fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 17:05
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I still have no idea what the Templar plot in AC3 was supposed to be. It seemed like at first they wanted to start the revolution, because they started the Boston Massacre but then afterwards they were hellbent on ending it except for when they weren't. And I know this is a controversial opinion but I liked Shaun's contrarian opinions on why the American Revolution happened, it was a nice change of pace from what I heard growing up about the revolution being about colonists and OUR FREEDOM. Shaun himself is still a douche, however.Deakul posted:Just beat Revelations and I honestly loved it. I like Revelations if only for the part at the end where Ezio talks to Desmond. Also Subject 16 was surprisingly interesting, but then he had to go and die . Seriously I kind of wish he was the real world protagonist, he was an interesting combination of insane and knowing what was going on. Desmond, why didn't you let him ride in your head?
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Nov 16, 2014 17:35
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I am still unreasonably annoyed that Revelations has tower defense elements in it, even if just a little. Some of us buy action games because we don't like tower defense games.
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Nov 16, 2014 17:37
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Don Gato posted:I still have no idea what the Templar plot in AC3 was supposed to be. It seemed like at first they wanted to start the revolution, because they started the Boston Massacre but then afterwards they were hellbent on ending it except for when they weren't. This is just fan theory on my part, but I think the goal was to start the war so that the British would dedicate resources to maintaining superiority, and the Templars would then route some of those resources to finding Precursor artifacts in the native territories. They never actually thought the colonials stood a chance of winning the war though, so they were then trying to prop up the (pro-Templar) British government while still focusing on getting the Precursor stuff they wanted. In all likelihood it was just muddled writing on Ubisoft's part though and trying to explain it is like Trekkies explaining continuity errors in the series.
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Nov 16, 2014 17:41
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Samurai Sanders posted:I am still unreasonably annoyed that Revelations has tower defense elements in it, even if just a little. Some of us buy action games because we don't like tower defense games. Not just that, it's also a loving awful tower defense game. I'm just glad you only had to do it once. (As long as you kept on top of things.) Been playing Rogue, and I have to say, I like it a lot more than I like Unity so far. Maybe if my PS4 could run Unity at a decent frame rate it would be more enjoyable, but the new combat and general feel of everything, apart from Freerun Down, seems worse than the old games.
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Nov 16, 2014 17:42
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Don Gato posted:I still have no idea what the Templar plot in AC3 was supposed to be. It seemed like at first they wanted to start the revolution, because they started the Boston Massacre but then afterwards they were hellbent on ending it except for when they weren't. And I know this is a controversial opinion but I liked Shaun's contrarian opinions on why the American Revolution happened, it was a nice change of pace from what I heard growing up about the revolution being about colonists and OUR FREEDOM. Shaun himself is still a douche, however. They wanted the Colonies to be free, but wanted them to be free under their rule. Or as they put it to Conner, Washington and the others were just as bad as the British, and would keep exploiting people/screwing the natives if they had a chance. The Templars wanted to kill Washington/the leaders of the Revolution and replace them with themselves/Lee. Then they'd win the war, give full rights to the Natives ( who'd help them find more Precursor sites, but also probably join the Templars en masse. ), and rule the Americas as a new Templar stronghold. Also this isn't mentioned in the game at all, only the comic that came with it, but they aren't actually Templars. Haythem was sent over to America to find the site, but around the same time he found it/invited Lee into the Order, he found out the guy that sent him from the beginning of the game murdered his dad/sold his sister off as a slave, so he went back and murdered every single Templar he knew about in the old world. The American Templars basically wanted to form a new Order that was a mix between the Templars pragmatism, with the Assassins goals. Then Conner killed them all because plot. Just when you thought 3 couldn't get any funnier. If Conner didn't exist, none of the poo poo in the future would be happening, because Haythem's Templars would have molded the Order into more proactive Assassins, and they'd have probably kept exterminating the few remaining Templars in the old world. The Americas would have become some sort of crazed police state of course, but the world wouldn't be ending! Rookersh fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 17:49
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Rookersh posted:They wanted the Colonies to be free, but wanted them to be free under their rule. It sure would have been great if that was mentioned in any loving place in the game. Or gave the assassin's any goals other than STOP TEMPLARS to explain why I want to stop people who seem to have Connor's motives in mind. It does confirm that Haytham Kenway is still the best character in the game, he just stabs people and gets things done. Do they ever explain why he became a Templar in the first place, seeing as his dad was an assassin? I still haven't finished Black Flag's story since I lost interest after the British take back Nassau and just played the game like it was Sid Meier's Pirates 2013 Edition.
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Nov 16, 2014 17:58
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Don Gato posted:It sure would have been great if that was mentioned in any loving place in the game. Or gave the assassin's any goals other than STOP TEMPLARS to explain why I want to stop people who seem to have Connor's motives in mind. It does confirm that Haytham Kenway is still the best character in the game, he just stabs people and gets things done. Do they ever explain why he became a Templar in the first place, seeing as his dad was an assassin? I still haven't finished Black Flag's story since I lost interest after the British take back Nassau and just played the game like it was Sid Meier's Pirates 2013 Edition. I wonder what obnoxious outside "feature" FC4 will have? edit: I guess it's not just them, since Destiny had all the lore stuff only available outside of the game as well. Just making a game is no longer good enough for big developers, I guess, it has to be a multimedia extravaganza. Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 18:00
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Don Gato posted:It sure would have been great if that was mentioned in any loving place in the game. Or gave the assassin's any goals other than STOP TEMPLARS to explain why I want to stop people who seem to have Connor's motives in mind. It does confirm that Haytham Kenway is still the best character in the game, he just stabs people and gets things done. Do they ever explain why he became a Templar in the first place, seeing as his dad was an assassin? I still haven't finished Black Flag's story since I lost interest after the British take back Nassau and just played the game like it was Sid Meier's Pirates 2013 Edition. Basically, Edward died while Haytham was still a kid (not shown in AC4). He was taken in and raised by a Templar. He didn't find out that it was his foster Dad who killed his real one, or that his Dad was an Assassin, until much later. They covered some of this on the old version of the AC Initiates website, but it's also discussed a bit (at least in the database entries) in Rogue.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:05
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Don Gato posted:It sure would have been great if that was mentioned in any loving place in the game. Or gave the assassin's any goals other than STOP TEMPLARS to explain why I want to stop people who seem to have Connor's motives in mind. It does confirm that Haytham Kenway is still the best character in the game, he just stabs people and gets things done. Do they ever explain why he became a Templar in the first place, seeing as his dad was an assassin? I still haven't finished Black Flag's story since I lost interest after the British take back Nassau and just played the game like it was Sid Meier's Pirates 2013 Edition. Again, comics, but his sister was being courted by a Templar that didn't know they were an Assassin family. He eventually figured it out, and started trying to acclimate himself to them, to learn secrets of the order. After she snubbed him, he decided to kill Edward and kidnap her, while raising young Haytham as his own. It was only after he arrived in the Americas/start the American Templars did Haytham find out, and it caused him to go murder every single Templar in Birch's organization, rescue his sister, and declare his group was no longer Templars. Since he figured all the Assassins had been killed, he decided the best course of action was to rebuild both Orders as one, to stop the fighting between the two. So he formed his own group that had benevolent goals for the Colonies/people of the world, but would achieve those goals through violence/action. Then his son stabbed him to death because he was mean to a guard once.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:08
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Rookersh posted:Since he figured all the Assassins had been killed, he decided the best course of action was to rebuild both Orders as one, to stop the fighting between the two. So he formed his own group that had benevolent goals for the Colonies/people of the world, but would achieve those goals through violence/action. Then his son stabbed him to death because he was mean to a guard once. A microcosm of history at work! 
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Nov 16, 2014 18:11
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TLDR: Connor can't stop being a lovely character even in the ancillary products.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:14
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Samurai Sanders posted:Especially Ubisoft seems hellbent on keeping games from being self-contained ever, hence the smartphone app stuff and so on this time. Microsoft also did this with Halo 4 and those terminals. They basically hid a load of story exposition on a website that you needed to log into after finding certain terminals in the game. The content on these terminals were short movies that added a lot of background info and actually made the new villain somewhat coherent. Really stupid choice to hide it all on some site.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:15
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macnbc posted:TLDR: Connor can't stop being a lovely character even in the ancillary products. I'm still convinced that Connor could be a good character if you take the fact that everything he wanted--his people safe and happy, America a land of equality, his father reconciled with him with kidneys intact--turned to ash, and then go from there.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:15
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HaitianDivorce posted:I'm still convinced that Connor could be a good character if you take the fact that everything he wanted--his people safe and happy, America a land of equality, his father reconciled with him with kidneys intact--turned to ash, and then go from there. Yeah he's like the Watch Dogs guy, the real potential for development comes after the game ends and the character goes "oh gently caress, I'm the worst". Edit: say what you like about Connor though, he could pet a dog like nobody's business. Non-interactive animals are Unity's biggest backward step IMO. Tempo 119 fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 18:28
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Tempo 119 posted:Edit: say what you like about Connor though, he could pet a dog like nobody's business. Non-interactive animals are Unity's biggest backward step IMO. I want cats to rub on my legs again, what the gently caress ubisoft. So yeah there's this thing. Seems pretty promising! quote:The list of specific fixes is not yet final, but the categories that were focusing on include: tl;dr FIXING EVERYTHING
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Nov 16, 2014 19:11
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Daily Forecast posted:I want cats to rub on my legs again, what the gently caress ubisoft. Not really. It says so at the end right there that they still haven't locked down how to fix the framerate issue. At any rate, you gotta wonder why a Triple A game with an incredible budget that's been in development for years (their words) for new generation machines needs more than three patches in order to maybe make it playable at a decent level. I mean it's been out for less than a week and they've released two patches in quick succession. What the gently caress developers.
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Nov 16, 2014 19:23
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HaitianDivorce posted:I'm still convinced that Connor could be a good character if you take the fact that everything he wanted--his people safe and happy, America a land of equality, his father reconciled with him with kidneys intact--turned to ash, and then go from there. I liked Conner's character, the fact George Washington was an awful general was played heavily, and I liked the wilderness in AC3. Finally had a chance to play more and the Unity is pretty drat cool. Coop missions are really fun the first time. The map is so drat huge.
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Nov 16, 2014 19:25
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