The Assassin's Creed Series

[Hellraiser]

So I've just finished Assassin's Creed Origins.

Spoiler

It was very meh. It didn't feel like they put the extra year of developement time to good use as the game doesn't feel much different from it's predecessors. Finding out the origins of the Assassins is not nearly as interesting as it sounds. We have a revenge plot again. What a surprise. All the characters are very bland and none of them really stand out. None of them are on the level of Ezio or even the twins from Syndicate.

The world is huge but there is not all that much to do outside of main missions. There are supossed to be over 100 side missions but most of them just amount to "go to this place and kill all the Roman soldiers and maybe rescue some prisoners while you are at it". Fighting in the arenas gets old fast and I never could figure ou how to win chariot races (to be honest I only tried once or twice though). 

The final boss fights feel anticlimactic. The best fight takes place about halfway through the game when some dude poisons you and you have to fight a giant Snake in your dreams. And even that fight is nothing more than dodging the poison the snake spits at you and then fire arrows at it.

We also get to play outside the Animus. This time we play as a woman of Egyptian descent which is nice. But they don't go into her backstory much unless you want to read all the e-mails and documents on her notebook. And these sequences outisde of the Animus are nothing to write home about. I hope they can manage to make here more interesting if they should stick with her for future sequels.

And there is no final confrontation with Abstergo after the ancestor-part of the story concludes. At some point Abstergo turns against you and sends some goons your way who you can easily dispatch. Later Desmond's father turns up to recruit you to the Order. I assumed that I would have to flee from Abstergo reinforcements with him but once you exit the Animus after the main story ends you can't interact with him. He simply walks around the tomb you are in. Weird. 

At some point they find the DNA of the protagonists wive (which we can use since they have a new Animus modle that lets you look into DNA that isn't your own). They present it as a very important thing and I thought it would build up to a huge twist in the end but it goes absolutely nowhere.

Origins doesn't offer anything new but if you were into the series before you'll have fun with it I guess.

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by Hellraiser

[Benji]

I'm two games behind trying to 100% Unity at the minute (just got chests and cockades to go, then the DLC). I'm amazed how many bugs still exist in this. Still a more fun game than I remember though.

[stokeriño]

@Benji Does that 100% include the multiplayer trophies? You're a better (read: crazier) man than I.

My interest in Assassins Creed has sort of plateaued at the point where I'm perfectly happy to play the games (acknowledging that they're unlikely to improve in the way Ubisoft keep claiming they will), but not at all fussed to do so unless the period/theme really interests me. That's a big reason why I liked Syndicate as much as I did, but I just can't motivate myself to care about ancient Egypt.

[Benji]

Yeah, the multiplayer ones on Unity are easier than you'd think if you want me to boost them with you. The co-op missions can largely be done alone, you just need a partner for two or three of them and they're all very easy. Honestly I expected them to be a ballache, but so long as you have a partner on mic they're a cake walk.

My biggest complaint with AC has always been the collectibles. I hate games that think adding collectibles = adding gameplay. They're needless busywork that artificially extend the game. If it's not fun, don't add it, just let your work stand alone.

[stokeriño]

I've never minded the collectibles too much...but that's because I always cheated and got a guide map online if I was serious about getting them all. Fuck the idea of wandering around blindly for days looking for them.

The worst single-player AC trophy I've done is still the 'destroy 5,000 roadside objects' one from Syndicate. That literally took hours of driving carriages along pavements round and round the same few streets. Ridiculous.

Not at all motivated to pick Unity back up again (for trophies or otherwise), but cheers for the offer.  

[Benji]

18 minutes ago, stokeriño said:

The worst single-player AC trophy I've done is still the 'destroy 5,000 roadside objects' one from Syndicate. That literally took hours of driving carriages along pavements round and round the same few streets. Ridiculous.

See, that's just a dumb trophy because why would you intentionally crash into things? Trophies/achievements should be an actual achievement, not "be so bad at the game we felt bad for you".

[stokeriño]

Just now, Benji said:

See, that's just a dumb trophy because why would you intentionally crash into things? Trophies/achievements should be an actual achievement, not "be so bad at the game we felt bad for you".

What's more, apparently it was a typo in the programming and should have only been 500 objects.

I mean, Christ. It's almost like being punished for not being bad enough at the game.  

[Benji]

Oh Ubisoft, never change

[Arjen Robben]

I’m quite enjoying Origins, combat can be quite annoying cause I feel like I get killed SO easily, but I enjoy the world. Think the last one I played was Black Flag which was great fun, bought Syndicate and never played it. Something quite cool about climbing massive iconic historical things like the pyramids though.

Like some of the stuff in the Ezio ones was alright I guess but I can’t think of anything else in these games that’s made me think right at the start “Right fuck all this, I’m heading to Giza to climb the pyramids”.

I like some of the random shit with the wildlife. Like I narrowly escaped a hippo earlier, then ran headlong in to a crocodile that I may as well have done a cartoon skid with that, and then when I fled that I ran in to a pride of lions.

One day they should just go all in with it, make it all foreign language based on the setting instead of English with an accent and the occasional random Greek or Egyptian word flung in.

At this point, I could do without all the Abstergo and Animus shit. I’d settle for setting up the game at the beginning in modern time and setting up shop wherever and climbing about, then just dump you in the world, wrap everything up inside that then right at the end back in the real world it’s just everyone going “good that wasn’t it? Pint?” to each other then credits.

[Benji]

I got all the main game Unity collectibles last night, so platinum is done... now I move on to the Dead Kings DLC collectibles

[Arjen Robben]

[Benji]

And we are done! So long France, it's been... French.

[Lint]

On 11/9/2017 at 04:03, Benji said:

I'm two games behind trying to 100% Unity at the minute (just got chests and cockades to go, then the DLC). I'm amazed how many bugs still exist in this. Still a more fun game than I remember though.

I completely gave up on Unity because of this.  I read about all the glitches whenit came out, so I waited.  8 months after it came out, I bought it.  Waited for the patches to install, started to play...locked up hard 3 times in 2 hours, to the point I had to unplug my PS4 to get out of it.

Unity is the only main branch game I haven't completed

[BuddyAwesome]

That's so weirdtoo me I think I lucked out because only had two times when the game glutched bad and both were trying online games. Other than that I enjoyed the game. Not as much as Rogue that same year, though. 

[Lint]

Oh yea Rogue was great, but it was also practically a mod of Black Flag, which is the best AC game

[BuddyAwesome]

The best thing about Unity having so many glitches at launch was that Ubisoft have me Far Cry 4 free. Which I've never had time to play.

[MDK]

Assasins Creed: Black Flag is a free download on PC for the next week. I got this ages ago and didn't play it for the longest time because of reasons but as soon as I got into it I loved the game. 

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/event/world-in-conflict-giveaway/

[Benji]

Oh that's sweet, Black Flag is definitely one of the better AC games.

[Bobfoc]

The pirate stuff in Black Flag is great fun. The actual assassin part of the game bored me, though. If you get to the part of the game where you are free to sail around, that's as good as it gets.

[Benji]

Reminds me, I'm looking forward to Skull and Bones.