General gaming discussion

pixelburp · 03-07-2021 10:52AM

I've only played the very first AC, and maybe the tutorials of the immediate sequel. Kinda forgot to actually play more and the subsequent, Labyrinthine story put me off the rest. I've heard Black Flag and #3 were the best though?

I do remember lamenting that the first game built all those evocative, bustling cities and existed as nothing but window dressing. No side quests or reason to explore; but Ubisoft don't seem very good at making smart use of those large maps - just checkpoints, towers and busy work rather than Bethesda's talent for making proper distractions and segues.

Penn · 03-07-2021 10:54AM

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I love the AC series not completely put off the latest one. I finished Origins but it was too much of a departure for me, didn't enjoy the rpg elements. I got about 10 hours into Odyssey but it was waaaay too big and i just lost focus. Hearing the new one is 70-90 hours long and there's a lull between the 30 and 50 hour mark i read in a few reviews completely put me off.

I never played Unity, wouldn't mind trying it.

As fun as being a pirate was, the series never topped 2 and Brotherhood imo.

Yeah Black Flag actually suffered from the typical AC bits, as the large cities were replaced with small shanty towns and plantations.

I really did love Odyssey, but couldn't bring myself to go through it all again with Valhalla. It's why I never got past the first few hours of Unity. Once I got to a stage when the map started populating with icons all over the place, I just couldn't be arsed, especially when AC games were annual at that point.

gizmo · 03-07-2021 11:00AM

Sonics2k wrote: »

Does anyone else just miss the simple Assassins Creed games, back when you played an actual assassin type character?

Every now and then I go back and play the original games, alongside Black Flag (my favourite) and then Unity and Syndicate. And while the games are buggy messes with more texture problems than a pre-school art class, they're still enjoyable games.

With Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla they were decent games, but I don't know, running around with a big sword and shield and just doing open combat really takes away from the point of the game.

I find myself constantly going back to the older games, or googling to see if I can find any game with the same style of game play and stealth aspects.

For context, I'm still playing the games in release order, albeit as part of a vain attempt to tackle my backlog, and Syndicate is next in line for me. Even at this stage, I agree with your first point though. As the games became larger and more, let's just say, mechanically varied, they definitely lost that original feeling I had when playing as Altair and early Ezio of an actual assassin doing assassiny things as my primary goal.

As much as I enjoyed the absolute hell out of Black Flag, it was perhaps the worst offender here too and while Rogue at least focused the story and mission objectives a little bit more, it was still a far cry from that feeling of walking through the markets in Damascus or jumping the rooftops in Venice, getting ready for my next mission. Unity attempted to rectify this somewhat and while playing it so many years after release helped me avoid the technical pitfalls others faced originally, it still sticks out for me for perhaps one of the strangest reasons - moving through the streets and having random NPCs suddenly turn around and say "Hello, Arno!"

Like, who the **** are you? Why do you know who I am? I'm meant to be a god damn assassin, who thought that was a good idea?

shrewdness · 03-07-2021 11:05AM

I've gone through the same process with the last 3 AC games - play through it for a while, enjoy it early on, then get tired of it as it becomes clear just how long the game is. With each one I seem to have stuck with it a bit longer, but I hit a wall each time and just move on to something else. The gameplay just gets very samey after a little while.

I think I've put in a little over 60 hours into Valhalla, but still seem to have so much left, and I eventually lost interest. I thought the Ireland DLC might pull me back into playing the game, but that feeling didn't last more than a couple days.

Sonics2k · 03-07-2021 11:32AM

Like I've really really tried with Odyssey and Origins to properly enjoy them, and they are in themselves good games with decent game play. But I play AC games for the assassination gameplay more than anything. Also while the original games weren't exactly "accurate" they were better than the current DLC things that get thrown in flaming horses and other madness.

It'd be if a game like Hitman suddenly started to move away from being a silent killer, and instead made it fully viable to just run in with a bazooka and kill everyone.

I just finished AC Black Flag again, and was very happy to go to each town to grab a contract to kill someone, sail there and blow some Spaniards up on the way. Even with Unity, despite the low performance and issues, it's nice to walk through the bustling streets of Paris and run along rooftops.

I get that the new games are now more focusing on the story of the AC lore etc, but it's a shame we've lost the core gameplay that really attracted players in way way back.

Sonics2k · 03-07-2021 11:40AM

gizmo wrote: »

For context, I'm still playing the games in release order, albeit as part of a vain attempt to tackle my backlog, and Syndicate is next in line for me. Even at this stage, I agree with your first point though. As the games became larger and more, let's just say, mechanically varied, they definitely lost that original feeling I had when playing as Altair and early Ezio of an actual assassin doing assassiny things as my primary goal.

As much as I enjoyed the absolute hell out of Black Flag, it was perhaps the worst offender here too and while Rogue at least focused the story and mission objectives a little bit more, it was still a far cry from that feeling of walking through the markets in Damascus or jumping the rooftops in Venice, getting ready for my next mission. Unity attempted to rectify this somewhat and while playing it so many years after release helped me avoid the technical pitfalls others faced originally, it still sticks out for me for perhaps one of the strangest reasons - moving through the streets and having random NPCs suddenly turn around and say "Hello, Arno!"

Like, who the **** are you? Why do you know who I am? I'm meant to be a god damn assassin, who thought that was a good idea?

Black Flag is by no means perfect, although Kenway is easily my favourite lead character over the series. It doesn't explain in any real way why he seems to have Assassin abilities from the very start, and long before he's even heard of them. I just enjoy the fact he's a greedy jerk who's literally just doing things to make money.

johnny_ultimate · 03-07-2021 11:58AM

Most Ubisoft style open world games have quadrupled down on trying to be single player ‘forever games’ - seemingly endless amounts of content designed to keep someone occupied for dozens and dozens of hours, almost akin to multiplayer titles. Assassin’s Creed has become the ultimate realisation of that goal, and one which is to me anyway immensely off-putting.

When you look at what actually can be done with open worlds - whether that’s freeform exploration / detective gameplay (Outer Wilds, Paradise Killer), big mechanical playgrounds (Breath of the Wild, although that ain’t too shabby on the exploration front either!), eccentric hiking simulator (Death Stranding) or even just exuberant, absurdly polished arcade driving (Forza Horizon) - it’s hard not to think of Ubisoft games as a series of expensive missed opportunities. Massive amounts of content that could keep you occupied for hundreds of hours, but little in the way of genuine ambition or design invention.

03-07-2021 12:29PM

Yep very much so, I'm never planning on finishing Valhalla at this stage. Watchdogs legion was similar. I just don't have a desire to invest time in it.

CastorTroy · 03-07-2021 01:02PM

gizmo wrote: »

For context, I'm still playing the games in release order, albeit as part of a vain attempt to tackle my backlog, and Syndicate is next in line for me. Even at this stage, I agree with your first point though. As the games became larger and more, let's just say, mechanically varied, they definitely lost that original feeling I had when playing as Altair and early Ezio of an actual assassin doing assassiny things as my primary goal.

I'm the same. Way behind in the games and only finished 3 recently with Black Flag next on the list.

Not to knock Brotherhood completely but it did annoy me a lot. Maybe I'm just bad at it, but any time I tried doing anything parkoury along the rooftops the guards saw me and then I had to become anonymous which usually took me away from where I wanted to be. It kinda defeated the purpose of a feature of the game if I couldn't move as freely as I should. Revelations gave me more freedom, I found

gizmo · 03-07-2021 01:37PM

Sonics2k wrote: »

Black Flag is by no means perfect, although Kenway is easily my favourite lead character over the series. It doesn't explain in any real way why he seems to have Assassin abilities from the very start, and long before he's even heard of them. I just enjoy the fact he's a greedy jerk who's literally just doing things to make money.

If you enjoyed Black Flag and haven't played them already then I'd definitely recommend the Freedom Cry expansion for it and Rogue. It's more of the same but, as I mentioned above, more focused and bookends that side of the story quite nicely.

CastorTroy wrote: »

Not to knock Brotherhood completely but it did annoy me a lot. Maybe I'm just bad at it, but any time I tried doing anything parkoury along the rooftops the guards saw me and then I had to become anonymous which usually took me away from where I wanted to be. It kinda defeated the purpose of a feature of the game if I couldn't move as freely as I should. Revelations gave me more freedom, I found

Nope, it's definitely not just you. As the series went on, the rooftops became borderline no-go areas unless you wiped out any guards you came across. As the cities became more winding and complex I found that particular change to be all the more frustrating when it came to navigation.

As for missed opportunities in the series, I still regard the premature end of Desmond's story and the possibility of a fully modern day AC title to be the biggest misstep in the series. Someday we'll hopefully get something close to either it or a similarly themed Thief game with the resources of a larger studio behind it.

RobertFoster · 03-07-2021 01:40PM

I expected / wanted Assassin's Creed to become more modern as the games progressed. When I imagined sequels I thought the buildings would get taller and you'd eventually be exploring future cities as Desmond or his descendent. Then AC3 happened and we got trees and two storey buildings in the new world.

The last one I finished was Black Flag which was fun enough. Still overly long and checklisty though. I started Unity last year some time but I haven't touched it in 6+ months.

wotzgoingon · 03-07-2021 01:45PM

I played the first AC game around release back on the 360 and wasn't impressed and couldn't be bothered to play the second then I went off gaming for a while and missed many games and then got back into gaming with a PC. Then picked up a Xbox one late into it's cycle, then a One X and currently a series x and gaming PC even though I don't actually play games that often anymore.

Retr0gamer · 03-07-2021 04:56PM

Does the story even make sense anymore? I heard there's very little of the future stuff anymore.

Potential-Monke · 03-07-2021 10:01PM

I'm a bit opposite to people in that I was getting sick of the same assassin formula. I didn't finish Unity or Syndicate because they just felt too similar. I feel that Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla were a natural forward progression for the series. It couldn't go forward in time really because of modern weaponry making it harder. Going backwards, they started exploring the lore of the ancient civilisation, pre assassins but how they came about. They couldn't be assassin heavy because assassins didn't really exist yet.

They're no longer assassin games, they're combat games with early assassin elements, and that fits the time periods. I like them, with Odyssey being my favourite. But Valhalla is too serious, not helped by having played Fenyx Rising inbetween, which is just fun and doesn't take itself seriously. But I'm worn out of them. I don't know where they're gonna go next, but it needs another change up. Not sure how they'll do that, but no matter what they do, they won't be able to please everyone, as they now have fans who want more assassin stuff, and fans who want more combat.

They need to perfect the ability to play the game wholly assassin, wholly combat or your own mixture of both.

Cordell · 03-07-2021 10:54PM

I know that most gamers of my vintage will disagree but I never really liked AC before Origins, and never finished one before Origins.
I really don't care about the overarching story either (Abstego, Templars, Animus, all that), I think it's just a McGuffin that serves no other purpose than to provide the excuse for the main game stories and the weak connection between them.

I my book Odyssey > Valhalla > Origins > all others with Immortals Fenyx Rising like a breath of fresh air

Markitron · 04-07-2021 07:44AM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Does the story even make sense anymore? I heard there's very little of the future stuff anymore.

The future stuff is still there driving the meta plot, if anything Valhalla went further with the future story more than any game since AC3. It probably accounts for a similar amount of time as the earlier games but now attached to an 80Hr+ open world game sees its % of the overall game drop dramatically.

The story makes perfect sense, although whether it is good or not is a matter of personal taste. The problem is that there will never be any kind of satisfactory resolution. As long as the games keep selling they will keep it going. Valhalla simultaneously took it in a new direction whilst recycling some stuff from the older games.

Penn · 04-07-2021 08:10AM

Markitron wrote: »

The future stuff is still there driving the meta plot, if anything Valhalla went further with the future story more than any game since AC3. It probably accounts for a similar amount of time as the earlier games but now attached to an 80Hr+ open world game sees its % of the overall game drop dramatically.

The story makes perfect sense, although whether it is good or not is a matter of personal taste. The problem is that there will never be any kind of satisfactory resolution. As long as the games keep selling they will keep it going. Valhalla simultaneously took it in a new direction whilst recycling some stuff from the older games.

They stretched the bajaysus out of the modern day story up to AC3 where they had to end Desmond's arc. They should have stopped the modern day stuff then, just have the games be about historical assassins (with some references or connections between them). All the modern day stuff since then really seems to have been tacked on nonsense (especially since they finished off the Juno arc in a comic book just to be rid of it).

I enjoyed the modern day stuff in the earlier games (except Revelations). Even the short Desmond bits in AC3 were done pretty well. But now it's a huge hindrance.

Exclamation Marc · 04-07-2021 08:28AM

For me they should have found a way to keep going with the Desmond stuff - even small modern parkour sections each game would have been great. I liked him, I liked the continuity over the first few games and I liked him driving the narrative. Modern day Colosseum was a lot of fun.

As mad as a bag of cats as it was, a lot of people did like it. When they offed him, it killed the modern day stuff entirely and it lost all focus and brought it into mcguffin territory where I think most people skip where they can. I do think that Valhalla was their best effort to make it interesting again but meh.

Worst was the utterly brutal first person modern day portion (I think in Black Flag?) where you worked at abstergo and had a desk job. Jeez.

quokula · 04-07-2021 08:40AM

For me Black Flag was by far the best / only modern day bit that was in any way enjoyable, because they ditched all the nonsense and just made it into a parody of a games company and had fun with it.

That said, I’ve enjoyed pretty much every AC game and I couldn’t care less about the modern sections, they’re just an excuse to visit any place and time period with some form of vague continuity.

I did prefer the more assassin focussed games prior to Odyssey, but I’ve enjoyed both styles. It’s probably the fact that the ancient world just doesn’t hold as much fascination for me, there’s been very little architecture in the recent games that could hold a candle to the previous games set in Paris or London.

Penn · 04-07-2021 09:24AM

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Worst was the utterly brutal first person modern day portion (I think in Black Flag?) where you worked at abstergo and had a desk job. Jeez.

All the modern day sections in the games, to some degree, let you read a few emails to get some backstory. That was by far the read emailsiest.

gizmo · 04-07-2021 01:38PM

Penn wrote: »

All the modern day sections in the games, to some degree, let you read a few emails to get some backstory. That was by far the read emailsiest.

The contents of which were even more amusing to read when playing the game so long after release.

ac5_egypt-jpg.58002

Jordan 199 · 05-07-2021 09:51AM

I have been playing Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered over the last few days, and I am having a blast playing it. I prefer being a cop over a racer.

Potential-Monke · 05-07-2021 07:59PM

I gave that a go seeing as it's free and I found it meh.

RobertFoster · 05-07-2021 08:10PM

I remember it (the original not the remaster) took me a while to get into as the driving felt a bit off to begin with. I was chasing that Burnout Paradise dragon though, so it came close but not quite.

Potential-Monke · 05-07-2021 09:22PM

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with it, it's just meh. Maybe it's because modern racers feel a bit more full, compared to this pick and race and go style, but it just feels like it's missing something. I'll give it another while, but at least I didn't pay for it so won't think twice about just stopping if it's not scratching an itch!

The Phantom Pain · 06-07-2021 03:21AM

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

For me they should have found a way to keep going with the Desmond stuff - even small modern parkour sections each game would have been great. I liked him, I liked the continuity over the first few games and I liked him driving the narrative. Modern day Colosseum was a lot of fun.

As mad as a bag of cats as it was, a lot of people did like it. When they offed him, it killed the modern day stuff entirely and it lost all focus and brought it into mcguffin territory where I think most people skip where they can. I do think that Valhalla was their best effort to make it interesting again but meh.

Worst was the utterly brutal first person modern day portion (I think in Black Flag?) where you worked at abstergo and had a desk job. Jeez.

I loved the modern day sections. The ending of Brotherhood, in particular, had me so shocked the first time I played it I sat in silence with my mind racing through the full unskippable 20 minute credits. Valhalla's modern day was just bad. Firstly, it was penned by Darby McDevitt who is perhaps the most knowledgeable of the current writers when it comes to the lore but he's completely forgotten how to write Shaun who , for some reason, has turned into Rebecca's manservant. McDevitt also makes exactly the same mistake he made in Back Flag which is introducing a convoluted plot point that the next writer is going to struggle with. First it was the sage nonsense which he then brought back to use as a justification for the gender swap in the animus and now time travel. It's gonna be a mess going forward.

Zero-Cool · 06-07-2021 09:27AM

This is fantastic. Heavy spoilers for multiple games so be warned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQUsLMAzUP0

Very similar video, same music and games but different clips and channel..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYYHTjw-fY

gimli2112 · 06-07-2021 09:56AM

some of my favourite games in the first one and uhm TLOU2. Surprised how many I recognised considering don't watch cut scenes. Caaaaaaaayyydee

Christ the second one is even better

Zero-Cool · 06-07-2021 05:44PM

Just in case anyone has missed that boards is migrating to a new platform tomorrow and the site is going read only tomorrow and Thursday. New platform will have some cool features like just pasting a YouTube link and it will auto embed and uploading a pic straight from your phone to do the same. Very handy for mobile users like me.

Most importantly, it will have the ability for reactions so i can 'disagree' with any anti Days Gone posts

New features for users
Images: Images can be directly uploaded from your device and embedded into a post without any of the faffing about with copying links we currently have. From third party hosting sites, again you will be able to just insert the link using an Insert Media button. This includes the likes of Twitter and Instagram posts.

Videos: Can be simply embedded with just the share link from Youtube or Vimeo. No wraparound tags required as they are now and it will not be limited to YouTube only.

Save as Draft: if you start writing a post but aren’t ready to post it, you can save it as a draft to come back to later. It’s a feature that lots of users have asked for over the years (and would have been useful writing this post!)

Q&A: A user can mark their post as a Question rather than a Discussion and can officially accept one or more of the replies as the answer.

Tags: the ability to tag a new thread is something that users have asked for and that will be available, it also helps with search.

Badges for profiles, for various achievements, first post, first ten posts, amount of time on the site and others. While there is a basic set of badges available to us, we can also create our own Boards badges which will be fun. Badges will be displayed on a user's profile. Badges won't be available on the initial rollout but will be implemented at a later stage.

Reactions: We can add various reactions to posts aside from just Thanks, e.g. agree, disagree, like, LOL, Promote but initially we’ll just have Thanks.

Swear Filter: the swear filter has migrated our banned words across, however these will all just be replaced with **** regardless of the length of the word typed.

Signatures: you can hide sigs entirely or just strip out images and see text-only signatures. Images in sigs will be automatically resized to the allowed size so you won’t need to resize images yourself.

JimBurnley · 06-07-2021 06:17PM

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Most importantly, it will have the ability for reactions so i can 'disagree' with any anti Days Gone posts

Boozer likes this

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