Video Games- At least 2023 looks like a banger

[Toth]

I did this on and off thing with Assassin's Creed Origins as well. Same shit as with the other newer AC games I guess, minus the fact that I found Bayek exceptionally sympathetic as the fatherly nice-guy who heroically helps out everyone he meets and because of that has friends in every city... (that particularly stands out to my short time in Unity where I wanted to strangle my character at every turn of the plot)... which stands in stark contrast to the gameplay having you messily murder hundreds of people for barely explained reasons. And that gets tedious as hell because of my damned completionist mindset forcing me to clear all question marks and all encampments off the map.

Had also tried going back to Assassin's Creed 1 with the intention to make my way through the whole series and did get quite far in it (I hope), but every time I want to boot it up, I shudder at what the needlessly complicated key combinations for climbing will do to my fingers and then I don't.

[Slurktan]

3 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

These posts make me want to get back into AC Odyssey, which I loved for 30 hours and then completely burnt out on. It's a really fun game. But I think the problem with it, aside from it being absurdly long, is that you really did have to do a lot of sidequests to level up enough to do main quests. If Valhalla does away with that, it's a huge step in the right direction.

Best AC is still, for me, Black Flag by far. Perfect size, amazing pirate simulator, and for once you have a protagonist who (for most of the game) seems to realize that the Assassin/Templar crap is pretty dumb.

Valhalla is pretty much better in all ways other than the female lead voice acting than Odyssey.  And the male voice actor in Valhalla is as good comparatively to the female in Odyssey.

[Werthead]

I gave up on the AssCreed franchise about 4 hours into the original game way back in the day, and have never really felt the need to go back. I picked up Black Flag a few years ago when it was mega-cheap because everyone loved the boat stuff but have never got round to playing it, and the last three do sound like they've gone much more RPG-ish than the action focus of the first game.

The problem is that I have played almost all of the other Ubisoft open-world franchises and there does seem to be an agreement that they all much of a muchness. And I'm burning out on 50+ hour games, let alone almost 100-hour ones, unless they really justify that time investment. Very, very, very few games do that (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2 are the only ones that immediately come to mind, and the Bethesda games are at least more modular in combining story, side-quest and optional pasttimes, and you can mainline their main storylines pretty quickly in each case). 

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I gave up on the AssCreed franchise about 4 hours into the original game way back in the day, and have never really felt the need to go back. I picked up Black Flag a few years ago when it was mega-cheap because everyone loved the boat stuff but have never got round to playing it, and the last three do sound like they've gone much more RPG-ish than the action focus of the first game.

The problem is that I have played almost all of the other Ubisoft open-world franchises and there does seem to be an agreement that they all much of a muchness. And I'm burning out on 50+ hour games, let alone almost 100-hour ones, unless they really justify that time investment. Very, very, very few games do that (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2 are the only ones that immediately come to mind, and the Bethesda games are at least more modular in combining story, side-quest and optional pasttimes, and you can mainline their main storylines pretty quickly in each case). 

I'm with you on this one, @Werthead. I own every single AC game, and I kept hoping one of them would speak to me in some way, and really work for me. Hell, even the third one, which many dislike, I played through exclusively to run around in 18th century Boston (wasn't born there, but my folks raised me there). And though Black Flag has unarguably the best score out of any of the games, I never managed to get into it on account of, among other things, an overly crowded hud and UI and a constant sense of being overwhelmed and not knowing what to do. 

Even AC: Origins, which I previously felt was possibly the strongest game in the series to date, never quite did it for me, despite Sarah Schachner's excellent audio and sound design and the ability to venture around the areas that gave birth to the philosophers I studied so extensively in university. 

But AC: Valhalla is the one that finally does it. It finally embraced emergent gameplay in a truly satisfying way, and stopped forcing me to play the game on its terms, and let me simply *have fun* in a way that no previous game did. Yes, the microtransactions are gross and a stain on the grand work done by Ubisoft's clearly talented artists and designers, but thankfully nothing offered is necessary to complete and/or enjoy the game. 

Even the UI is nice and clean and doesn't swoosh around incessantly and flash in front of my eyes like a child discovering a flashlight for the first time. It's streamlined, clean, angular, and features a good contrast of white text against a dark background. It's all the little things that have really made AC: Valhalla a consumately delightful gaming experience. So much so that I'm able to look past the vikings somehow ahistorically having tattoos. 

[Argonath Diver]

Its funny how gamers differ (as much as any other hobby). I am completely the opposite of Wert - I am uninterested in learning new games and prefer the massive time sink games. I need to satisfy the gambling/repetition/familiarity itch more than the excitement of exploring a new title. 

Hell I'm still just grinding out a new Valheim playthrough and I *still* play Diablo 2 (well a superb mod of it but still)

[briantw]

I don't think I've actually finished an Assassin's Creed game since Ezio was the main character despite playing most of them.

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, briantw said:

I don't think I've actually finished an Assassin's Creed game since Ezio was the main character despite playing most of them.

I’m bad for getting games and barely playing them, but I’vr completed every AC game apart from Origina, Odyssey and Valhalla. Once I’m done with Odyssey, I’ll play Origins.

Black Flag is great, sailing the Caribbean. I like the Victorian London setting of Syndicate.

I’ve visited Rome’s Castel St Angelo, and Tower of London, and Brotherhood and Syndicate do good jobs of recreating them.

[briantw]

12 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I’m bad for getting games and barely playing them, but I’vr completed every AC game apart from Origina, Odyssey and Valhalla. Once I’m done with Odyssey, I’ll play Origins.

Black Flag is great, sailing the Caribbean. I like the Victorian London setting of Syndicate.

I’ve visited Rome’s Castel St Angelo, and Tower of London, and Brotherhood and Syndicate do good jobs of recreating them.

It's not even that I've barely played them, though.  I played Odyssey for like fifty hours (I got into the Stadia beta and got the game for free) and I don't even think I was half finished with the main quest.  I enjoyed that game a lot, but I spent so much time doing all the side quests that I got burnt out on the game as a whole, and none of the modern AssCreed games have a main narrative that's generally compelling enough that I really need to see the end.  I think that's a consequence of the narrative structure that sees these games framed as memories rather than happening in real time, which renders everything that happens in the past a little meaningless.

They really should have just ditched all the stupid modern world stuff like eight games ago.  It was kind of neat in the first few games when it seemed like it was actually going somewhere, but then they just kept making more of the fuckers and it all became incoherent and meandering.

[Slurktan]

42 minutes ago, briantw said:

It's not even that I've barely played them, though.  I played Odyssey for like fifty hours (I got into the Stadia beta and got the game for free) and I don't even think I was half finished with the main quest.  I enjoyed that game a lot, but I spent so much time doing all the side quests that I got burnt out on the game as a whole, and none of the modern AssCreed games have a main narrative that's generally compelling enough that I really need to see the end.  I think that's a consequence of the narrative structure that sees these games framed as memories rather than happening in real time, which renders everything that happens in the past a little meaningless.

They really should have just ditched all the stupid modern world stuff like eight games ago.  It was kind of neat in the first few games when it seemed like it was actually going somewhere, but then they just kept making more of the fuckers and it all became incoherent and meandering.

There actually is a neat little twist at the end of Valhalla for the "modern" story that ties it in with the main game.  You have to do all but one zone though so it takes a long time.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

There actually is a neat little twist at the end of Valhalla for the "modern" story that ties it in with the main game.  You have to do all but one zone though so it takes a long time.

Is it related to the funny little "glitches" across the world? 

[Denvek]

9 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Is it related to the funny little "glitches" across the world? 

Yes

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, Denvek said:

Yes

This now prompts a second question: in AC:V, there's an allusion to something acquired in AC:O. How does ACO compare to ACV? And do I need to play it to fully appreciate ACV?

[Slurktan]

16 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

This now prompts a second question: in AC:V, there's an allusion to something acquired in AC:O. How does ACO compare to ACV? And do I need to play it to fully appreciate ACV?

No you don't.

[Fez]

39 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

This now prompts a second question: in AC:V, there's an allusion to something acquired in AC:O. How does ACO compare to ACV? And do I need to play it to fully appreciate ACV?

Kassandra is one of the most fun protagonists I've played in a video game. But ACO is even worse than ACV about gameplay feeling like filler. And although there's lots of great one-off moments and bits of dialog, every long-running quest and storyline ends with a disappointing whimper that mad me go "That's it?!"

[Gorn]

OK, this is confusing. Is AC:O Assassin's Creed: Origins, or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey? Or are different posters talking about different games?

[Rhom]

SpiderMan 2 is trending on Twitter right now.  Looks like Fall 2023 PS5 exclusive.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Kassandra is one of the most fun protagonists I've played in a video game. But ACO is even worse than ACV about gameplay feeling like filler. And although there's lots of great one-off moments and bits of dialog, every long-running quest and storyline ends with a disappointing whimper that mad me go "That's it?!"

Yes. When you’ve got a choice of using a mish-mash of gear, or spending ages hunting animals/sinking ships tonget enough cloth to keep your matched gear upgraded, you definitely notice the time wastes

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

OK, this is confusing. Is AC:O Assassin's Creed: Origins, or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey? Or are different posters talking about different games?

I think AC Origins is supposed to be AC Or.  But honestly I have no idea.  Never actually played that one

[IlyaP]

6 hours ago, Gorn said:

OK, this is confusing. Is AC:O Assassin's Creed: Origins, or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey? Or are different posters talking about different games?

Oh, erm, good spot! 

How about...*thinks*

ACOd and ACOr, as ways to differentiate?

But we were talking mainly about Odyssey, at least for the moment!

[Kalbear]

This is an awesome writeup on a bug in WoW about a ridiculously rare mount that for about 12 hours became very easy to get for the new race.

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-world-of-warcrafts-new-dragon-race-brought-a-10-year-old-loot-system-to-its-knees/