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Even if you just take into account Ubisoft's own sandboxes, its still crazy saturation. Especially considering Far cry 3 and Black Flag were spiritual siblings. And Watch dogs "borrowed" the same structure only a few months ago.
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Nov 3, 2014 04:58
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AC3's review are odd in that very few of them were positive if you read the reviews. A lot of "I didn't really have fun playing this glitchy unfocused mess, but there's so much stuff here! 8/10" style judgements. The most accurate review, for me, came from Kirk Hamilton over at Kotaku. This laid out why I was so puzzled by Assassins Creed 3 and why I wasn't enjoying it. http://kotaku.com/5958941/how-has-assassins-creed-iii-disappointed-me-let-me-count-the-ways That's a solid loving review.
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Nov 9, 2014 22:02
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Assassin's Creed has ran chunkily since they switched over to the new engine in AC3. I played that game when it first came out and it had freezing, massive framerate drops, mission icons and characters not activating properly, missing audio in cutscenes... it was a loving mess. And then Ubisoft hurriedly released a patch that fixed most of the problems, but also caused a host of new ones. I fondly remember how all of the cutscenes now had a pulsing "Skip Cutscene" button in the corner. Black Flag on the 360 had a veritable ton of pop-in, particularly with city civilians in havana. I downloaded Freedom Cry on the ps3 and it was a solid 10-20 frames below what the 360 was able to produce with Black Flag. Technical issues are part and parcel of the Assassins Creed "experience".
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Nov 10, 2014 22:54
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Shadow of Mordor is currently sitting in my ps4 as I write this. Its fun and shows a LOT of promise. But its rough around the edges, and a lot of the game's rpg upgrade systems is overcomplicated and the nemesis design is actually underused. Also, the review embargo for Unity and Rogue isn't even midnight, they're holding off til tomorrow morning. And most review sites haven't gotten copies of Rogue, so expect a solid delay for reviews on that. Sending off Mordor in the mail since I'll beat it tonight, and then I'll probably put Rogue in my gamefly queue.
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Nov 11, 2014 07:07
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Wait, there are co-op missions that REQUIRE partners? Ubisoft swore up and down that every co-op mission would be possible in single player. What the actual gently caress? Are the co-op missions at least playable with random people, or is it only accessible with people on my friends list?
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Nov 12, 2014 01:06
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So are ANY of the co-op missions available in single player by myself? I don't have ps plus and my internet connection is dried dog poo poo. Some reviews mentioned a ton of co-op levels, and if they're completely gated off from me I might not even rent it.
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Nov 12, 2014 09:11
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I used to not give a drat about framerate or pop-in. And ever since someone pointed it out to me, its something I can't NOT see. Even in AAA games like Arkham City, I'm still noticing how buildings will suddenly "pop" as they get better textures. Low framerates are similarly bothersome - I don't mind a 30 FPS (Hi, Shadows of Mordor!), but a framerate that jitters up and down is infuriating.
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Nov 12, 2014 12:31
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One of my favorite little touches was in Red Dead Redemption - press a button and Marston tips his hat and says hello to whoever he's walking by. Its more interactive than 90% of open world games, where you're interacting with the world by killing people or running over lightposts.
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Nov 13, 2014 04:52
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For those playing Rogue, do they address Edward Kenway's end? It feels like a fundamental flaw of the overarching Kenway saga that so many large chunks are stuck in the Expanded Universe novels.
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Nov 13, 2014 07:40
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Rogue is great, you guys. It's basically "what if AC3 ran better and had seamless naval combat and a not terrible lead". I'm not really liking Shay, but the game is laying out the plot rather nicely in the early hours. And man, this one is made for the fans. Freedom Cry is repeatedly referenced, and actually keys off a large chunk of the plot. There's callbacks to Liberation, too.
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Nov 15, 2014 01:36
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Rogue is a direct copy of Black Flag's modern day stuff - they even reuse the same offices. They contrive different scenarios and the hacked materials are fun in a meta way, but its not exactly riveting.
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Nov 15, 2014 07:00
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God of War is a weird case of a developer actually wrapping up the story of their main character, and then tackily throwing in a stinger that absolves that action of all weight. If you care at all about the stories of Adewale, Haytham, Achilles etc. Rogue is worth your time. Its kinda hilarious how much of the plot hinges on Achilles being a complete rear end in a top hat, but its definitely in line with what I remember from AC3.
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Nov 15, 2014 08:31
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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 all this talk about AC3's muddled plot had me checking out the wikia page. And now I'm even more confused, regarding Charles Lee. So Charles Lee didn't burn down Connor's village? Like, he had nothing to do with it? Then why the hell does Connor want him dead? My brain hurts.
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Nov 17, 2014 10:39
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I'm only a few hours into Rogue, but it almost plays like a "What if Assassins Creed 3 had seamless naval navigation and didn't suck." The naval combat is as good as ever, if not better. Some of the shittier weapons have been replaced with more useful tactics, and I think the arctic/northern setting is well realized. Though the game still has a ton of islands and villages to explore like Black Flag, the map is a bit more segmented this time around. There's basically three or so smaller sections that, taken together, form a map on par with Black Flag. It is by no means perfect, and the sheer amount of recycled content does occasionally grate. But there's plenty of new islands and themes and activities that do a fair job of shaking up the ole format. Really, my only real bugbear is that I wish they gave Shay at least a few new combat moves. Far as I can tell the vast, vast majority of the combat animations are ripped straight from Black Flag. The double swords matched Edward Kenway's character well, and made sense with his flashy sense of style. They don't really suit Shay all that well though, at all.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:50
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Finally got to the big twist moment in Rogue - and it is well acted and emotionally affecting. Well, it would be, if the cutscene didn't run at half speed and the audio didn't skip. Replayed the mission a little later on and it worked fine, but the momentum has definitely been dulled. That's the first major glitch I've ran into, and as a whole it runs about as well as Black Flag did. Just a shame that the glitch happened at such a key moment.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:52
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How is the french voicework? Please tell me that its at least passable. The british voice acting is so, so, jarring. I don't care about the reasons why - for me it automatically takes me completely out of any story they are trying to tell.
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Nov 18, 2014 07:26
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I occasionally feel a little guilty playing Rogue. There's a hell of a lot of collectibles, and most of them just unlock cosmetic outfits or weapons. And yet I keep hoovering up the items (with the exceptions of chests and fragments), my gaming OCD kicking in something fierce. Also, I really hope future AC games borrow or refine the stalker enemies in Rogue. They're basically the older games' multiplayer feature done in the single player, and it works really well. Narcissus1916 fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Nov 18, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2014 17:00
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Rogue's characterization is pretty solid, but some of the dialogue is wretched. And man, it has the usual issue of valuing exposition over enjoyable shading. There's a moment in the game when you meet some of your compatriots, and they invite you out for a beer. "Yes!" I think. "Some actual moments of levity and personality!" And then the game abruptly cuts to a year later with you and your friend all best buddies. Handwave that poo poo away, gents. But drat, that ship combat is so fun. The tweaks are really solid, and also refashion a lot of the ideas from Freedom Cry.
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Nov 19, 2014 06:23
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Black Flag is superior in nearly every way. I'm digging Rogue, but for a horde of reasons Black Flag is worth more of your time.
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Nov 20, 2014 09:43
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Setting a Creed game in a modernish time period would force them to give up sword-based combat, something they'll never do. There's not even enough time to properly improve the parkour into something workable, but they're going to radically redesign combat? Hah, yeah, sure.
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Nov 21, 2014 00:23
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I'm kinda worried that people still want AC to be a balls-only stealth game. Unity, from what I've heard, apparently moves towards that more than ever. I dunno, I definitely prefer the series to be more action adventure than stealth, stealth, stab. Nevermind that AC has never been a good stealth series, like ever. (Yes, I know Ubisoft made Splinter Cell Blacklist.)
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Nov 21, 2014 06:46
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Eh, that "Four year development time" is kinda bullshit. They had people working on the game for four years, but I'd bet anything that the bulk of the work and programming and actual implementation was maybe a solid eighteen months. I'm wrapping up my time with Rogue, and I really wonder what this dev team could do if they weren't tasked with a project Ubisoft clearly didn't give a poo poo about. Considering how much of the game had to be reused (the most baffling is how all of Kenway's combat animations are given to Shay, out of sheer laziness), they actually come up with some very intriguing additions and tweaks to the formula.
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Nov 23, 2014 00:56
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Rogue has a cool mechanic were random assassins will stalk you and launch surprise attacks on Shay. Its maybe my favorite mechanic in the game, but its also underused and really basic. Also things like "you can't sabotage the alarm bell unless no one sees you!" is super irritating.
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Nov 25, 2014 04:56
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Finished up Rogue last night, and I'm not going to go into spoiler territory here, but yeesh. There's some fun fan service throughout, but the idea that it "Fills in important blanks" in the series is comic gold. Curious how Edward Kenway died? How did Haytham, arguably the central character of this entire 'trilogy' end up a templar? gently caress if I know. Some wikia bullshit tells me I should pick up a novel about all that, but the complete lack of ANY depiction of these events in the "core" entries in the series (IE any of the drat video games) is some awful franchise management. Shay's character is reasonably well portrayed, with the second act a particular highlight. But he also largely exists as narrative spackle.
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Nov 25, 2014 20:32
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There was a great piece on Kotaku about how they had a guy buy the 99 dollar microtransactions package - and even with him buying everything that could be humanly useful he still had sixty bucks or so left. Also, I laugh every time Ubisoft trailer announces "Worked on for four years with TEN studios." How in the holy lord of gently caress is ten studios a good thing? That's not a selling point, that's just poor management. I'd be very curious to know what the division of labor was, in comparison to something like GTAV - which had pretty much every Rockstar affiliated studio chipping in but feels 100% more coherent.
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Nov 28, 2014 16:38
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Bounty hunters only attack you if you kill innocents. I never took Shay as a "fire grenades into crowds" type of guy, given his motives.
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Nov 29, 2014 00:07
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I really liked the elite troop dudes in Revelations - about the only "challenging but fun" type of enemies to fight in the series. I've never liked how many of the enemy types in Black Flag/Rogue are only vulnerable to one type of attack. Like how the only way to take down a captain is to counter and kick him in the balls... every single time. Unless I want to use darts or bullets or whatever, but that requires a level of faffing about in the inventory. For those with the ps4 version, has the framerate and pop-in gotten any better? My local redbox has this available to rent and I'm curious if I should wait another week or so for the last round of performance improving patches.
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Nov 29, 2014 09:17
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Has there been any word on what will be in the next patch, and if it will tackle the framerate being poo poo? I may have gamefly'd Unity and am curious if I should play it when it arrives tomorrow or if I should wait a week or so for a possible patch. I don't give a toss about bugs or glitches, I just want a stable framerate.
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Dec 3, 2014 00:14
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I rather like Shay, but he largely exists as narrative spackle for other parts of the AC universe. He's constantly getting upstaged by other characters from other titles in the series.
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Dec 14, 2014 05:15
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I gamefly'd Unity and finally got around to giving it a go, after spending literally all night downloading the patch. Holy balls, what a terrible opening. Yeah, throw me into a combat scenario without even telling me what parry or dodge or attack or anything even is. That's a brilliant choice, Ubisoft. And just to be clear, my options for voice work are terrible english accents (with young Arno sounding like Oliver Twist) or decent french voicework that doesn't match up to the lip syncing, turning every earnest conversation into a bad 70s kung fu movie? Oh, and the subtitles are super tiny on the screen. For gently caress's sake.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:20
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I think some people just don't see glitches. Black Flag had some loving hideous pop-up, on the 360 and the ps3. But whenever I mention that people go "what's that? nooo, you're imagining things!" and I envy them. It must be awesome to play videogames and not notice that swathes of people materialize from the ether every time you round a corner.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:23
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Haytham's big conversation with Adewale is well written and adds interesting shading. Unfortunately, its an entirely skippable conversation that ends if you stumble too far. So I completely missed it the first time around, including not being able to figure out where the hell Haytham's voice was coming from.
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Dec 21, 2014 04:31
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So I think I downloaded the patch and installed it, but on the ps4 I just got to Paris. And dear lord, the crowd pop-in is awful. Its fine if I stroll around, but the second I start jogging whole crowd just pop in and out of existence. Particularly hilarious is how the game can't decide what model to get me - so I'll get a generic french dude in gray pants suddenly turn into a gaudy aristocratic woman in a bright red dress. The opening "chase" scene during adult Arno's intro had massive clipping - hard to take a big bloke yelling "you won't get away with this" when people are clipping right through him. Arno's ankle also tends to jut out in hilarious angles if I get near a bench or stool. And this is WITH the patch installed? It looks great in screenshots, but the second I start moving it falls apart. ETA: Oh my lawd, I just got past the hideous rip off of the scarecrow sequences in Arkham Asylum. This whole game is like stepping into an alternate universe where black flag never happened. I'm getting tons of glitches (some small, some large) in every mission. ----- Um, I just tried to do the first Paris Stories mission, with the jailer and a prisoner. And the entire cutscene had their clothes wildly flickering into existence. Did I even download the patch? I'm not being a smartass here, I'm legitimately wondering. Narcissus1916 fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 08:08
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And I concluded tonight's play session with the "graduation" mission. Which was terribly designed and the point where I got up, poured myself another beer, and immediately berated a friend for telling me the game was "not too terrible." To wit: - The broken stealth system, which removes whistling in favor of a cover system that would be clunky three years ago. - I start the mission with no smoke bombs, because who cares, right? The game cares. They care so much that the game instructs me to throw a smoke bomb at two enemies - which I can't do because I already used one they gave me when prompted. The game's solution? have my escort character run headfirst into a brawl that quickly becomes a ten man melee. Only upon restarting do I realize that throwing a smoke bomb triggers him to do his own "attack, smoke bomb ,attack" pathfinding. - Finally, I'm told to chase my escort through the streets. Okay, sure. It goes fine, except the game glitches again and he says his one line, something about running when I'm dead, over and over again. I must've heard it about twenty times. The game warns me every time I'm starting a new mission with a quick "high difficulty, do more missions" message that is highly misleading. Even ignoring the microtransactions and companion app nonsense, the interface is an inchoate mess. The combat somehow took the series' basic and dull combat and turned it into a slow, grinding slog that feels even more unresponsive than before. The developers are almost lucky that the technical side of the game is such a rolling clusterfuck. I actually don't mind a janky framerate, but the constant "pop" of the clothes is the most distracting common graphical glitch I've ever seen. And so I finally made my way to the next mission, the same setpiece shown in a demo a few months ago. And there are good ideas at play, with a more open-ended almost Hitmanesque sense of level design. But the stealth mechanics and parkour combine to infuriate, aided with a newly arbitrary sense of difficulty. --- I beat the setpiece. And I just realized how much the overall ease of difficulty often obscured how terrible so many of the undergirding AC mechanics are. Who cares if stealth is bad when you can massacre everyone around you in five seconds? Yeah, I'm done. I've played every major AC release since the series' inception, including Liberation and Rogue. I've beaten them all. I'm done with Unity. I expected a game on par with AC3 - deeply flawed and the victim of over-ambition. This is not that game. In the slightest. Nothing works, nothing speaks to each other, nothing functions with a modicum of competence.
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Dec 27, 2014 13:33
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Yeah, I definitely deserved a "words" for what I wrote. That was pure unfiltered anger. I play a lot of poo poo games, since I rent everything. And Unity was the bridge too far for me. The freerunning might be able to be salvaged, but it still guesses wrong way too often. And when the penalty of the game picking the wrong ledge is "instant mob fight with five guards", it is that much more terrible. Ignoring the terrible interface - Making me choose whether to "accept" or "accept and track" and then trying to find a way to untrack a sidequest required me to delve into like five menus to find out how. Ignoring the story and the combat and the myriad technical issues - The stealth and cover system are the root cause of how frustratingly bad Unity is. Clunky, unworkable, erratic.... words that are too kind to describe what happens here.
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Dec 28, 2014 03:54
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Without getting all spoilery, does Arno ever get motivation? I made it just past the big Notre Dame assassination (the one in previews), and Arno just kinda like... wanders on over to the assassins for no drat reason. Shay's story is poorly told in some spots, but it benefits greatly from a sense of structure. A sense that I didn't find in Unity, at least in the first few hours
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Dec 29, 2014 16:07
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We complained for years that the combat was too easy. And its true, its no longer easy. Its just slow, sluggish, and a few years behind the curve. Copy the goddamn Arkham combat and move on, for the love of God.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:49
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Black Flag also had an excellent lead character - the pacing is a bit wonky (the middle section is Nassau is just mushy), but Edward is well written and a great lead to hang the game on. The ending, with parting glass playing and all of your departed friends around the table, followed by Edward meeting his daughter - that's as genuinely emotional as the series has ever been. What's the first thing Edward does? He saves Stede Bonnet and pals around with him. He's instantly likable. Whats the first thing Arno does? Watch his father figure die. Twice. And faff about with some idiots or something. Honestly I was too distracted by the jerky glitchy crowds to get absorbed in anything. The random and constant resetting of crowd NPC models, mixed in with terrible pop-in really were not ready for primetime.
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Jan 4, 2015 22:29
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 13:18 |
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Heh. Seriously though, the british accents are so goddamn terrible. Young Arno sounds like Oliver Twist, for gently caress's sake. They're not terrible performances, but its just all wrong for the world they've tried to build. And the actual writing is not good, in the slightest. Its also hilarious that Ubisoft had the whole "we can't animate boobs!" controversy, and then proceeds to write Elise with far more personality and motivation than the protagonist.
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Jan 5, 2015 07:37
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