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So I finally got around to finishing AC: Unity. I only got around to playing it this year, so all of the launch wrinkles have since been ironed out. Playing in 2017, Unity runs smoothly, with no noticeable glitches. The improved parkour and swordplay worked a dream. The rest of the game was... ok. I wasn't as engrossed in the story as previous game, which would explain the gaps in between sessions of playing the game.
My AC ranking so far...
1. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
2. Assassin's Creed: Rogue
3. Assassin's Creed
4. Assassin's Creed: Unity
5. Assassin's Creed: Revelations
6. Assassin's Creed II
7. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
8. Assassin's Creed III
I already have my copy of AC: Syndicate ready, I will be starting it in the next few days.
The different memory sections were built up of sometimes only two or three missions, one of which would be the assassination mission of some random person you're told is evil without being told why. It just felt so oddly paced, as nothing was given context or meaning and time seemed to jump indescribably ahead all the time.
I was disappointed in a way, as the core idea of the story at the start, of a Templar and Assassin truce, is an idea that hadn't been presented before but Unity does so little with it. I couldn't care less about any of what was going on and I actually laughed out loud when
Funnily enough, my favorite part of the whole game was the co-op, as the missions were the funnest for me and the most challenging with a good group or solo. I don't think it's the worst AC game, but it could've been so, so much more, the same feeling I have about Syndicate which in many ways was a regression in the series and just safe in others.
I've downloaded Black Flag to replay on my PS4, the one I actually want to play, so I'll see if I can continue to rekindle my interest in AC by going through that again. I want to try Origins even though I'm not blown away by what I see of it beyond the open world. It seems vast and interesting to look at, but the combat looks clunky, the quests appear to be empty grinding and fetch missions and I haven't heard great things about the narrative either, which is the biggie for me. At some point I'll have to jump in at a slightly lower price to see what it's about, but right now I still have to finish The Witcher 3 and some other games that interest me 1000X times more than AC 15.
Black Flag is the game that brought me back into the series. I never cared for the Ezio trilogy, then ACIII came along, and looked like the final nail in the coffin, for my interest in the series. It was someone on the internet, who convinced me to try Black Flag, even if it was the last chance, just try it. I did, and was pulled into the game from the very beginning. While it continued the story both in the past, and present, the Desmond Miles side the story, which was really beginning to creak and groan in ACIII. Black Flag is the best jumping on point for those new to the series, it's either that, or go all the way back to the beginning.
For Origins. I plan on picking up the Deluxe Edition, that's the one that comes with a few extras but doesn't cost a kings ransom.
What I like about the quests is there isn't really a checklist of things to do. So you're not just sprinting across the map doing this then doing that to complete it. You just explore and come across stuff at random. It's very Skyrimey and Zeldaey but still feels like Assassin's Creed. I think in order of best to worst
Origins
AC 2
Black Flag/Freedom Cry
Rogue
AC III
Revelations
Syndicate
Brotherhood
AC 1
Unity
It's the tenth one. Unless you count the side scrollers and stuff I guess.
@MajorDSmythe My advice would just be to get the normal version. I did that and the game is full of stuff as it is, most of the extras tend to be tacked on little missions and costumes to justify the higher price in my experience. So unless some of the extra content sounds really interesting to you I'd just stick to the standard £40 version.
@MajorDSmythe, I played Black Flag after running through the Ezio games and it quickly became a favorite for me as well. I guess it's fair to say that I'm less a fan of AC as it's known-weak modern day conspiracy, Templar vs. Assassin fluff, an all assassin focus-because a game like Black Flag that did away with so much of it that really impressed me. I had more fun having wars with other pirate ships, plundering treasure, doing naval contracts, fighting legendary ships and exploring islands than I did doing anything else in any other Creed game. I guess it's not exactly a great thing to say that the least Creed feeling game is my favorite, but those pirate aspects and the open world really hit a sweet spot in the way Red Dead did with western games. I'd always wanted a cool pirate game, but who would've thought one would be hidden inside the usual annual Creed release? Pretty nuts.
@thelivingroyale, I was having a laugh and exaggerating the number of games to make a point, but sadly even in my jesting I lowballed the number. There are 19 branded AC games in just the span of 10 years with over half of those being main titles. Christ.
But then to be fair, you can really see that they had an extra year with Origins with all the little details. So I think I would prefer a two year cycle from now on. They could just do more story DLC's to fill the gap.
@0BradyM0Bondfanatic7- I am in complete agreement about Black Flag not feeling like a typical AC game. Edward doesn't truly adopt the Creed as his way of life, until late into the game. But I am glad they did that with Edward. It makes him that little bit different.
I have played a few pirate games, two immediately spring to mind Pirate: The Legend Of Black Kat (PS2) and Risen 2: Dark Waters (PS3), but while both were decent enough pirate games, they can't possibly hold up to the epic, sprawling, pirate adventure that was Black Flag.
@thelivingroyale - Other than a map and soundtrack, the other extras of the Deluxe Edition are costumes, weapons and some ability points. I have enough points on my GAME card to make the Deluxe Edition cheaper than the basic edition. The prices on the other editions, especially the Legendary Edition, are ridiculous. But someone out there will buy that edition.
@thelivingroyale, Ubi are definitely supplying something, but I think demand is a bit too strong a word. Gamers and those in the industry have groveled about the exhaustion of the AC IP and the annual releases for years, and many reviews are amusingly filled with, "It's AC, what do you expect?"
Ubi can continue supplying their product, but I've charted a decreasing demand in many who are just as exhausted as me with it all. Good ideas should never be exhausted to death, and certainly not in the way Ubi have done it in the past where two games released in one year will have one game be a re-skin of another instead of a fresh idea. There's a certain formula to AC that inherently weighs it down, so choosing to pump out endless games doesn't do them many favors. A five star meal is glorious when paced out, but having it every night makes you lose taste for it and I think that's what we're experiencing now. Hopefully Origins is more of a breath of fresh air like Black Flag was, though I know it can't hope to beat the latter in truly being a departure from how an AC game was viewed to that point.
I'm just cynical about the industry in general and Ubi in particular, so that's just my perspective on it. Their support of the micro-transaction/loot box culture is not encouraging or inspiring.
Absolutely, @Agent007391. And Activision had the temerity to release an old game remastered with hoops to jump through AND charged more money for the remastered maps of a decade old game than the original price gamers paid for them when they first came out. It's a good thing they don't publish any games worth me buying, as I would sooner see them go the way of dinosaurs.
There's little value to your IP or your consumer if you're going to drown them in products constantly, with repaints and tweaks to appear as if you're making a fresh, innovative game. When all else fails, cut content out of the original game and demand an uneccessary price for it, force your devs to make your game a grind fest to tempt consumers into buying their way to progress, or trick gamers with season passes that demand they pay for content they don't even know the contents of yet.
So it's on these publishers and devs for doing this, and idiot consumers for continuing to support it. And it needs to stop.
Not sure if I'm reading your last post wrong so apologies if I am but I don't appreciate being called an idiot consumer for enjoying something. I buy Assassin's Creed and FIFA every year, and I bought Need For Speed every year when that was yearly as well, simply because I enjoy them. I can always rely on them for a good few hours of fun (well, NfS has gone massively downhill, but the other two I still can), and to me they do feel different enough to justify getting the new one every time.
While that's a fair comment, the whole point of the Assassin/Templar war is that it won't end and it's just history repeating itself. One of my favourite moments in AC III is when Haytham says something about how all the Templars don't need a creed, all they to continue is for the world to be as it is, and that's why the Assassin's will never beat them.
You're right that the modern day story doesn't seem to have really gone anywhere since Desmond died, but be honest I basically ignore the modern day stuff because I hate it and treat it as an anthology series anyway.
I know what you meant, and my post reflected a market fluctuation. People got sick of the yearly cycles, and that same fatigue seems to have set in at Ubi too after a certain point. With decreasing demand you could see a lack of a need for supply, and I'm simply wondering how long AC is going to ride this out. There doesn't seem to be any actual plan, the story has gone nowhere for ages, and Ubi are very coy about it all. If they simply wanted to make games in historical settings I would've preferred them cutting out the Templar/Assassin war and simply made an original story for each time period because the execution has been all over the place. Have a game in Rome focused on a warrior seeing the fall of the grand empire, or a Japanese game in feudal times that puts you in the center of the civil war.
I think it's safe to say very few actually play the games for any of the "main" story and simply like to experience the historical nature of the different locations with whatever gameplay and new characters there is to enjoy. It's always the low point of any AC game for me when I'm pulled out to be bored for an indeterminate amount of time before I'm able to do what I want to do again. To have all that cut out would be a dream.
I don't know your gaming habits so I don't know how you should take my post. But I do question the logic of those who blind buy season passes that are designed to fool people into paying for something they haven't even seen yet. The equivalent would be paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a car that a dealership is telling you is high-end and beyond compare, only for you to show up and find out that it's a clunker with two wheels missing.
But I don't think this fits you, from what I know. I don't mind people who buy yearly releases or anything else as you do, only those who give in to these publishers by buying loads of micro-transactions in the hundreds of dollars, snapping up a season pass without knowing what they're buying and all the rest. Beyond those not being smart spending decisions, it also creates a climate in the industry where publishers see how much they can get away with once they realize how much gamers are willing to compromsie. Then we end up having really great games jammed up with loot boxes where they originally weren't designed to be to fit the new bottom line at a developer studio that is slavishly ordered to meet their publisher's demands for more money, more, more, more.
I've lost a lot of respect for a lot of studios and companies in the past three years for how some of these business decisions have been made and how consumers have been treated. But as I'm quick to note, the consumers are only to blame when they enable this kind of behavior to persist in the publishers. If wallets were voted with, we'd see a much snappier revolution going on than what we do now.
And I don't think there has to be a plan or end goal really. They can just keep making new games, they still have loads of history to mine after all. I don't mind them making it up as they go along but apparently they've got a trilogy planned building off Origins anyway with Greece and Rome being next, which I'm quite excited for because I'm really enjoying the game.
And they do seem to have settled on a new direction/story for the modern day stuff now after sitting on the fence with it for the last couple of years. I wish they'd get rid of it entirely but to be fair I do already prefer Layla to Desmond so that's a promising start. If they execute it really well in the next couple then they might actually win me over after ten years of me moaning about how pointless it is.
I do get season passes for The Walking Dead game, because I know I'm going to get all the episodes anyway and it's cheaper than buying them individually. Microtransactions I don't do but I can understand why some people do. Games can be time consuming and some people might not have the hours in the day to unlock the fun stuff. I think the problem is that some games make it difficult to avoid microtransactions, rather than the guy who doesn't have the time in the day to spend hours and hours saving up for the coolest cars on GTA and would rather just pay an extra fiver so he can mess about on it for a couple of hours after work. Obviously it is a two way street and buying into it only keeps the cycle going which is pretty crap, but a lot of people who play video games are very casual about it and don't care enough to vote with their wallets, they'd rather just pay for the shortcut and enjoy it. It's a shitty situation but I don't think that makes them idiots, that's a strong word. They're just not invested enough in it to boycott it or anything like that, they just want to have fun with the game.
And that's why the industry publishers will always win: there's a built in formula to them always managing to shell money from those who aren't aware of what those transactions could amount to for the entire system down the line.
I don't expect Joe Casual to understand or care about the industry the way more serious/long time gamers do, but if people want to fast forward through a game experience I find that pretty sad. If you're already shelling out a lot of money to just buy the game, to spend even more on top of that just to unlock the things the publisher cleverly (I use this term loosely) had removed to entice them to pay towards a certain limit is pretty non-sensical to me.
The publishers and devs have the system perfectly rigged in their favor, with games now made to be grind fests to foster gamers paying to play what they want from the game that is hidden behind convenient pay-walls. And that's why I always place the blame on both sides, and lament a time when the industry didn't look like this and when gamers didn't have to feel tempted to pay their way forward. I just don't want to wake up in a world where every triple-A game is jammed full of micro-transactions and every game has been designed to puncture holes in your wallet, an end result that will be fast forwarded by anyone, casual or hardcore, that allows it to happen.
I think my use of the word "idiot" was too earnestly looked into, but needless to say my respect is low for those that are keeping the industry this way. But of course, these aren't the people who are going to experience the full effect of the climate they're helping to create in their casual and oblivious mindset, which almost makes it a worse offense. I just hope that people keep standing against bad business decisions and reviewers and critics in the industry continue to criticize it as well. Recently a lot of games have actually reversed their loot box policy after they got heat from it, and I'd love to see that continue. I want to live in a world where the Activisions and EAs of the world are terrified about where their next dollar is coming from. But beyond that rare bit of delusional idealism on my part, I simply don't want to be forced to leave gaming behind.
The unfortunate thing is we're almost there already. Rockstar, a dev whose sole purpose used to be giving the gamer what they asked for now sees their own future to be microtransactions.
Gamers are losing a war we should have tried to stop long ago.
Damn straight, @Agent007391, and boy is it depressing. I would be harder on Rockstar if they demanded money for every single DLC they sent out (they've been 100% free with GTA Online) but I don't see them using that model anymore. Especially when their corporate handlers have called their consumers an "under monetized" community. RDR Online could be the worst sign yet of their new bottom line.
So I took a coward's route and restarted the game uding a game glitch I read about, that gives you unlimited amount of green herbs. This game feels like the most unforgiving resident evil game ever. Don't know how the younger me ever got through it without cheating. Games pretty creepy too.
Edit: I plan to get it day one @Creasy47
Need my Star Wars fix
The stand-out to me was the 75% off price for Mad Max, a deal I took advantage of when I first played it over a year ago. At that price it's beyond a steal and for those who love the Mad Max lore or simply enjoy interesting open world games with a crazy bent and very visceral gameplay, I'd highly recommend checking it out.
True I played it a million times in 2010,2011,2012 etc but bought it for the pc and just wow
I always go independent with Scarlet Lake. I do like her and can't trust anybody within the agency after getting constantly betrayed.
From 97-99
We got
Goldeneye
Mission Impossible (man was that hard)
Perfect Dark
The World is Not Enough
From 2002-2005
We got
Splinter cell
Splinter cell Pandora tomorrow
Splinter cell chaos theory
Splinter cell double agent
Mission impossible operation sumara (another underrated spy game)
Agent under fire
Nightfire
Everything or Nothing
Goldeneye Rogue Agent
From Russia with Love
And from 2008-2013 we got
Quantum of Solace
Bloodstone
Goldeneye
Splinter cell conviction
Alpha protocol (all the same year mind you)
007 legends (which compared to where we are now feels like the original goldeneye sure the voice Work is shit and the plot is bad but playing through classic level designed from classic bond films how can any bond fan not have a little fun)
Splinter cell black list
Who knows maybe next year the trend will start up again personally I would love if in the next 5 years we got
A few splinter cell games
At least one independent spy game
Another mission impossible game
And dare I dream for a Macgyver game
Although and I hate to get on a tangent but for the life of me while a Macgyver game would be cool apart from a telltale style how would a game work... obviously the emphasis of a Macgyver game is to redevelop the stealth genre where you have to use your mind and what is around you to stealthfully slip in and out of areas voice actors and likenesses would be from the current show (with dlc from RDA maybe) ....
Since the macgyver thread I created went nowhere and because I want other people ideas if anyone wants to discuss this pm me as I have level ideas as well
I think EA realised that in the early 00s but the problem is a lot of those original storied ones still feel very video gamey. Not just in how OTT they are but how they're structured, how the story plays out. Except Nightfire. Nightfire got it so right.