As promised I’ll give you guys my thoughts on two games I’ve been playing recently:
Assassins Creed Unity
I know that in all likelihood nobody is going to care about this (especially 7 years after it’s release
) but I need to get this off my chest. Just to be clear: I’ve played every AC game from AC 2 to Unity and despite not being able to call myself a hardcore fan of the series, I definitely appreciate what Ubisoft has created in the past, especially in regards to the historical settings and the parkour. This is also the first AC game that I’ve played since Black Flag was released in 2013, so yeah, it’s been a while. My copy has been catching dust for years, since I never bothered to play it because of all the negative feedback it received.
I kept my expectations low in regards to the story, especially because of other Ubisoft games released around that time, which had insultingly bad stories (Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs) and AC 3 was incredibly lackluster as well. As expected the the plot didn’t have much to it and neither was Arno a particularly charismatic nor likable protagonist. In my opinion it was boring and uninspired from start to finish and culminated in a convoluted mess.
I’ve heard a lot of people praise the „new“ and „more fluid“ parkour system, but in all honesty, I found it to be quite underwhelming. Arno is slow and clunky as shit and controls like a fuckin’ lorry most of the time. You still jump or climb on stuff you don’t want to jump or climb onto, going through windows often only works after a multiple tries, and overall I was under the impression, that the parkour was dumbed down to the point were it only served as means to get from A to B. I can only recall a single story mission which was centered around parkouring, and that was towards the very end of the game. Mini games like chasing after chanties or races against the clock were completely removed.
The combat is, as in any AC game, relatively average. Arno fights in slow motion, the controls are often completely unresponsive and since countering got nerfed it’s not possible anymore to kill a dozen enemies by spamming square without even absorbing a single hit. This is especially frustrating if an enemy carries a pistol, since they eat your health for breakfast, and if there’s a sniper on the roof (which there are plenty of) you’re basically fucked, since they can one shot or two shot (at most) you and you’re dunzoe.
The mission design is mediocre at best, although admittedly there are at least a few good levels in there. Unfortunately the stealth aspect falls short quite often. If you get discovered in an open area by one guy you’ll have 50 enemies on your ass within a matter of seconds. Fortunately the ultimate cheat in order to easily complete almost any level in the game is to bum rush your target like a crazy baboon. This also works when you haven’t even figured out where the target is even located, just spam eagle vision while you’re getting chased and you’re good because everybody else is too slow to catch you lol.
Side missions are repetitive as fuck and in general far too easy. In other games you would at least interact with bizarre characters who want you to do something or at least provide some entertaining dialogue. I’ve encountered a guy who was wearing a dress, who wanted me to fight a few duels against some rowdies and that was basically the highlight when it comes to side quests.
The only aspect about the game which is generally well executed is the game world. Paris looks stunning and the graphics even look great 7 years later. But even the open world has it’s flaws. The game has immense technical problems. If you’re running on ground level the frame rate goes to shit and by that I mean single digit frames per second. I’ve encountered quite a few bugs like corpses spazzing out and multiple info windows popping up over each other (that one happens every time you take a side mission lmao), and others forced me to restart the game a handful of times, like NPCs refusing to continue to walk in missions.
Character customization is quite good in this game, there a tons of cool looking pieces of clothing, but the best shit in the game is unfortunately locked behind a paywall, unless to sink an ungodly amount of time into those shitty side quests.
Overall the game provided some entertainment, but the flaws outnumber the positives by a landslide. I think my AC journey ends with Unity, I doubt that future games revolutionized the series and overall I just don’t believe the series can really compete with other top tier open world games anymore.
Yakuza 0
Small disclaimer: This is not a review, but rather my first impressions, if you can call it that after 13 hours of playing time. Obviously there won’t be any story spoilers.
Yakuza has been on my radar for quite a while now, so I’ve added Yakuza 0 to my game collection. According to my research this is the best game to kick off the series for a noob like me, since it is a prequel to the very first Yakuza title, and is supposedly one of the best games in the entire series.
I’ll try to keep this short
er so here are some observations:
This game features a lot and I mean
A LOT of cutscenes and they’re ridiculously long too. The dialogue is generally very well translated (no English dub, just subtitles), consistently snappy and the Japanese voice casts does a great job. Depending on who you’re talking to, it is either going to be pretty serious (main story) or bizarre and hilarious (random encounters with strangers). In both cases though, and this is really important if you consider buying this game, you’re going to get absolutely crushed with dialogue. This game will test your patience, I’ve been asking myself quite frequently when I finally get to actually play, it honestly feels like a conversation simulator. Out of those 13 hours in game time I’d say that the actual playing time is below 50%, I’m not even kidding. So yeah keep that in mind, I know a lot of people don’t like that.
The gameplay consists of beating the living shit out of your foes. There are numerous fighting styles, which you learn along the way, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages. Visually they’re all distinguishable from another and the developers have been quite creative with power attacks. The protagonists punches feel powerful too, overall the combat is done well, me gusta.
The game is set in Tokyo in the 80’s. You don’t get to use cars and the map is tiny, but I’m really digging the open world. It is great stylistically, feels vibrant and is packed with side activities like karaoke, arcade stores, strangers missions etc., just to name a few. There’s one enemy type who is among the most obnoxious I’ve ever encountered in any video game. Those guys act and look super goofy and can melt your healthbar within seconds, two hits and you’re dead.
Despite the dialogue to gameplay ratio I like the game a lot. It’s entirely possible that I’m going to play Yakuza Kiwami at some point in the future, that one’s a remake of Yakuza 1 I believe.
Those are my thoughts for now, if I’ve missed something I’ll update my post later on.