I'll steer clear of story spoilers and focus purely on the gameplay and the experience. I'm 11 hours in and I'm playing on hard.
At its core, it's still Assassin's Creed. And it continues the trend of that "Ubisoft jank." The game is littered with bugs and glitches; I get stuck on loading screens and have to restart the app, character models don't load correctly, and the game's AI (both friendly and enemy) are unpredictable and broken in some senses. Friendlies who I had to escort to safety would run into a group of high level enemies forcing me to fight them.
That said, the setting is the star of the show. It's amazing, it's beautiful, and it's full of things to do and see. The music is great too and compliments the setting perfectly. They did a great job of nailing down the atmosphere of Egypt.
The map is ridiculous HUGE. Like I've said, I've been playing for about 11 hours and I've maybe explored/seen only about 1/5 of the map. It's possibly the biggest map in an open world game I've played in recent memory.
The added bow and arrow mechanics are my favorite part. The added RPG elements really let you customize Bayek the way you want. You want to play purely stealth and use a bow and arrow that's essentially a silenced sniper rifle? You can do that.
The RPG elements (including crafting, leveling, skills, and loot) are very clearly derivative of Destiny's. And that isn't a bad thing. It's very straightforward and sleek and the menus are easy to navigate.
I never played Black Flag, Syndicate, or Unity, so I can't comment on those experiences, but I'm of course aware of the series fatigue which is what led them to taking an additional year to developing this game. It definitely does show. I'm hoping they continue suit as they continue to create future installments.
I want to be reminded of the magic I felt during Altair and Elio's stories, and Origins is the closest Ubisoft has been to that in a while I think.
It's far from perfect, but I am enjoying myself.
Feel free to ask me anything about my experience so far!
PS - Apologies for my posts the other day about Helix Credits. I was unaware they were considered a series standard at this point. With the good press the game had gotten regarding the exclusion of paid loot boxes (of which there are none in the game), I feared Ubi was lying to their consumers out right which wasn't the case. The game unfortunately does include a store in which you can literally just shovel money into and get the best gear immediately rather than earn it in game. It's a shame, but oh well.
Edit 1: For anyone saying it'll be better with a "Day 1 Patch", I have been playing with the game already updated.
Version 1.02
Improved performance and stability
Fine-tuned the balancing of the game
Reworked photo mode controls for better comfort
Edit 2: I'm running the game on a PS4 Slim.
No comments:
Post a Comment