Perhaps I should have clarified. I meant to say "I also played the second game." I thoroughly enjoyed the first game, and that was where my statement was directed to. The second game was fun in its own way, but not as much as the first.

 

Oh wow, I just found out Azure Revolution is an action RPG set - obviously - in the same universe. The devs say it won't be unrecognisable, but they're going in a new direction with the plan to make multiple games.

A demo will come with the VC remastered game. I might import it if there's no news on Western release by February

 

Just finished main story of AC: Syndicate. Though it keeps a couple of the really annoying quest archetypes, it was overall really fun. Grappling hook and de-empasising hackz-darts was a great move.

I found it odd that ppl were saying they liked Evie's character and hated Jacob (though I agree on a gameplay level. She has the hax stealth talents and super throwing knives). I found her to basically be Hermione. Super sanctimonious and by the book.

Jacob isn't perfect, but he basically says/ does what you'd do if you were in his shoes.

Going for my third AC platinum in a row now.

 

Evie win me over with her stupid ghost shit.

 

She definitely plays better if you like the assassin-y assassins.

 

Sorry, I wasn't referring to her playstyle at all actually. My fault for saying stupid ghost shit when what I meant was when she delivered one of the best lines in the game in response to the question "Do you believe in ghosts?" Had me in fucking stitches.

 

Battlefront is not impressing me. Clunky controls. Not a lot of content.

Looks great though.

 

Thank fuck for employee trade values, because after under a week with BF I traded it in, and I got almost as much in trade credit as I paid for it


Star Wars Battlefront II is one of my favorite games of all time and I still occasionally play it on PC. I understand that this year's new Battlefront is a relaunch of the brand, but there's so little depth and it feels so tangentially related to one of my favorite games, with so many differences that even though it's fun to play, it's disappointing as all hell.

 

I have to wonder if they're forced to hold a lot of the game back because it's TFA content.

If doesn't size excuse the extortionate price though ($175AUD for game and season pass). Or the unsatisfying shooter controls.

Want a fun Star Wars game? Play Disney Infinity :3

 

Telltale's Batman is in the works. The hype is real! I haven't played Minecraft: Story mode, nor will I ever do so, but besides that Telltale has a pretty great track record. The Walking Dead (Seasons 1 and 2), The Wolf Among Us, Tales From The Borderlands and Game of Thrones are all great.

Also, does anyone remember something about a Telltale Marvel game? Wonder what happened with that.

 

Happy you're happy, I'm personally really sick of telltale, but if you're wondering, they've probably got a game going for every popular franchise atm.

I was way more hyped by Farcry Primal. Looks awesome.

 

Really? I loved Farcry 4 and the previews of Farcry Primal just don't appeal to me. I guess I just love my guns.

 

Lol, and there's the rub. I've no interest in the main Farcry games, but give me a Grizzly companion, let me call her Misha and give me a bow?

I'm sold.

Different strokes, obviously.

 

It'd be nice if they finally have a decent game engine, but that's probably too much to ask for.

 

I've got to ask, does anyone else think that all the ACs after Revelations failed to live up to their predeccessors?

 

Anyone played the new Tomb Raider? Someone told me that, shockingly, it's supposed to be amazing.

 

The new AC is supposed to be good (I wouldn't know, my rig can't run it), but yeah, all the others after Revelations fell flat for me. Black Flag was fun, but not what I'm looking for in an AC game tbh.

 

The way I judge sequels/remakes is I imagine how gould it would be if the originals didn't exist. AC2 is what made most people fall in love with the series.

 

So here's the thing right. I've 100% AC 1 through to AC2:R, doing all of the missions, side missions and even the collectibles (except for AC 1 because there was no reason to give a shit about them apart from getting a bit of healing in a fight and one was nearby). I had a shitton of fun playing them and I legit enjoyed the characters and plot, and yes that even includes the Desmond shit because hey, turns out that if you don't just rush through the modern day segments to get back to murdering people with Ezio/Altair, you actually got to see Desmond develop as a character and get to know him and his backstory.

And then AC3 was a thing, and I heard about how terrible it was and how it was the worst AC game ever and how it ruined the AC series. My first reaction was to not give a shit, because well, I'd heard pretty similar things about AC2:R and well, I had actually enjoyed that game. The plot was fun, the characters were fun, I loved that we finally got to learn more about Desmond and his backstory and it really felt like for this game, Ubisoft had basically gone "You guys can try whatever the fuck you want now, have fun".

The hookblade was a cool idea that made sense in the setting and also allowed for some really fun mechanical shit . The bomb crafting was awkward in that it didn't take long for me to find the 'best' types of bombs, but holy shit did I use them a ton once I got used to them, being able to not only manipulate guard patrols, but also easily eliminate them in groups? Fuck yeah I'll take full advantage of that. As for the tower defense segments... Well, I will admit that they weren't amazing, but at the very least I respected them for trying something so different whilst also taking into account that people might not enjoy it so there was a way to skip it.

So what this meant was that when I started to play AC3, I went in knowing that people had bitched about it, but thinking that I would still be able to enjoy it. And at first I was right, Haytham was a pretty cool character and I had fun playing him, though I did know that there would be a twist and I would have to play somebody else. From what I saw at at the start I had a good feeling that Ubisoft would be able to write another solid main character that I would enjoy playing. Not only that, but the gameplay mechanics were actually really solid and fun, I liked the improvements from the old mechanics and from what I had seen, the other weapons that I hadn't gotten yet were even better. And then I had to play Connor.

Turns out everybody was right, Connor is probably one of the worst video game protagonists that I've ever had to play. And the reason for this is that thanks to the hilariously stupid plot and Ubisoft's historyboner for keeping shit exactly the same as actual history, we got a character driven by wanting to get revenge for the deaths of their family and those that they cared about (y'know, like Ezio which everybody loved in AC2), but for some strange reason (historyboners) instead of doing anything about it he would randomly let people live or go back and wait at the homestead for a decade or so.

I remember after the Boston Tea Party mission, I had just killed close to a hundred random guards that were just doing their jobs in stopping some random fucks from wrecking shit, and then all of a sudden one of the actual antagonists turns up. My first thought was "oh hey, time for the boss fight where I chase him down and murder him. Cool." instead I got to watch Connor talk about how since they had totally foiled the Templars plans there was no reason to kill him. This is coming from the guy who up until now was 1000% driven by wanting to murder Templars and get revenge for his family, who had just murdered a shitton of randoms for getting in his way (and for his amusement).

Moments like this and every single fucking time there was a mission that was just "Connor is at X historical moment being amazing and supercool" made it hilariously clear that unlike every AC game in the past that was a fun murderbox set in some alt-history timeline. AC3 was more interested in just having railroaded missions showing off random historical moments so that they could stroke their historyboner.

To top things off, all of a sudden Haytham is back and we're supposed to side with Connor over him. This is despite the fact that well, Haytham is legit right about everything and Connor is basically the worst. So we get to see Connor whining and bitching about everything and being dumb, and Haytham trying to make Connor not be shit. Holy shit would I have loved if Ubisoft had added a second twist and all of a sudden you're now playing as Haytham, and the rest of the game is just fixing all of the dumb shit Connor fucked up. 10/10 GOTY.

As much as I would love to continue going on about how terrible the plot in AC3 is, I can't because I flat out haven't been able to finish it. AC3 is one of the few games that I've never finished because of how much I loathed the plot, this is despite the fact that the gameplay is actually really fucking fun and that I had a ton of fun playing the game. It's just that then Connor would start talking and I would hate it again.

Instead I'm just going to just bitch about minor things that made no sense and were flat out worse than previous games. Lets start off with collectibles, I just loved that in AC2 I actually had a legit reason to give a shit about collecting the feathers, the game went out of it's way to motivate me to do so and provided an in character explanation of why Ezio was running around grabbing feathers. In AC3, Haytham is asked to grab note pages from Benjamin Franklin, and then a few decades later they're still floating around for Connor to grab and turn in. Wat.

And that isn't all, for some strange reason feathers are back, except now they're only to unlock another outfit. Rifts and Glyphs are totally gone so there goes a really fucking interesting source of worldbuilding and incredibly difficult (but fun) puzzles. But hey! At least now we have more generic collectibles that instead just give you money and items!

Then we get the new recruits, my first reaction was well, I was pretty goddam interested by what I had heard. The idea of having recruits that aren't just generic randoms that had an actual character, as well as their own reasons for wanting to join the Assassins to fight the Templars was pretty appealing to me. And then none of those things ever happened. I don't think that the words 'Assassin' or 'Templar' ever came up in any of the recruitment missions, instead they were all "Want to help me kill people?" "Only if you help me kill people." "Sure, lets go kill people".

The annoying part is that on the other hand, the new gameplay aspects of recruits was great, having the new recruits different abilities was a great idea and really helped to make me want to get the rest. And the way in which the missions worked was also pretty great.

And in all honesty, that really does sum up the entire game. The gameplay and mechanic improvements were all solid and enjoyable, it's just that they really dropped the ball in every single possible way whenever it came to the characters or plot. They were too obsessed with their historyboners and sticking exactly to the history books that they ended up sidelining their own plot for it. If they had just embraced the alternate history aspects of their games and had actually had the courage to mix things up a bit, and y'know, made Connor less of a cunt, AC3 probably would have been a huge success.

But they didn't so it wasn't. rip.

 

Honestly, Connor was the worst part of AC3. I would go as far as to call him mildly retarded, and very frustrating to play as during plot segments.

However, I feel that no AC game rivals AC3 in originality of gameplay. The seamless transition from city to wilderness was great, the hunting aspect of the game was fucking baller, and the environments felt alive and interactive and the traversal was exhilarating. The changing of the seasons, the wildlife, holy shit. Even the homestead was interesting if one got into it. I got to know everyone and even felt immersed in the homestead experience. Building my base has always been a great pleasure to me, and now I could get to know the people personally? Sign me up.

When I wasn't doing story missions, I was having the most fun I've had in an AC game in ages. AC3 had the best gameplay I can think of, and it's such a huge fucking shame that the story of it sucked that badly, because it completely drowned out the rest of it that was, in fact, a pretty fucking awesome game.

I will never forgive Ubisoft for giving in to pubic demand and killing Desmond off. Modern day has not made a lick of sense since, and Desmond had just gotten to the point where he was committed and awesome. A Master Assassin, trainer by the brightest and best Assassins of the past and renewed in resolve, ready to take the fight to the Templars in the modern age.

Instead we got what has to be the shittiest protagonist death in videogame history, and have ever since been using ... SIs, I suppose?

Fuck you too, Ubisoft. Don't be such fucking pussies.


I have to say, I consider AC: Revelations the weakest of the Ezio era. Unlike popular opinion, I found the hookblade rather unnecessary and even negative. What is it with people wanting to always modify my hidden blades? Leave them the fuck alone, I quite like them.
There's also the fact that Ezio basically saved the Turks from a Byzantine retaking of Constantinople, and as a Greek I'm pretty sure I am legally prohibited from having fun with that concept.

The plot itself felt weak to me. In AC:R, Ezio is using the Assassin's to his own, selfish ends, putting them in jeopardy and endangering the cause itself for personal reasons. I can't get behind that, and I'm pretty damn sure Brotherhood Ezio wouldn't, either.

Having said all that, Revelations was (as AC games tend to be) very good when one stopped and took in the details. I heard actual Greek people talking in the harbors of Constantinople, I saw Ezio grow old and weary and tired, shaky in resolve but not in morals. It was a very well-crafted game, even if I didn't like it.

AC:4 was basically pirates simulator. It was a fucking amazing game, don't get me wrong. The most pure fun I've had in an AC game (AC3 frontier activities notwithstanding). AC4 was awesome. The protagonist was just ... not an Assassin. And that's fine. As long as you don't go in there expecting an Assassin character doing Assassin stuff, you'll have a great time. AC4 had a huge fucking map with TONS of stuff to do, and blasting ships to smithereens never got old, nor did I ever get bored of boarding ships in ever more elaborate ways. The dual wielding swords felt like 'mandatory deviation from previous fighting styles', but eh, I can get over that.

But yeah, I will repeat once again that it's a huge shame that AC3 had such a shitty plot, because the gameplay was fucking awesome.