What are you currently playing?

[laggyteabag]

Good news for everyone who hates the Dark Souls sub-threads: now we're in an Assassin's Creed sub-thread!

Woops.

Anyway - I finished Revelations.

Whilst 2 was an improvement on 1, and Brotherhood was an improvement on 2, I feel like Revelations was just a worse Brotherhood. Sure, I didn't spend as much time in menus as I did in Brotherhood, but I just feel like a lot of its mechanics were pointless, and I never felt invested in its story.

I never used bombs. The Assassin's Guild never felt necessary. The hookblade undermine's the game's own climbing mechanics. I did the tower defence minigame once.

And the story was just weird. The entire story of the Ottomans and the Templars etc, felt completely tangential to unlocking Altair's library, and I never felt like Ezio pulled into this plot. Other than the Templars being Templars, this had nothing to do with Ezio, aside from that one time that they kidnapped his girlfriend, and the main villain was surprise revealed in the second-to-last mission.

It just felt weak, and was definitely the weakest of the 3 games, overall.

Its interesting, because for years I felt for sure that 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations were basically the same game, just with different stories and cities, but having played them for the first time in my adult life, I can say for sure that my assessment was incorrect. Originally, 2 was my favourite, but now I will definitely be singing the praises of Brotherhood. The other 2 games are fine, but definitely don't hold up as well.

If anything though, im now more invested in playing the rest of the franchise, just to see how my opinions have changed.

And now, onto 3 (Remastered).

First impressions: the game handles much nicer than the Ezio trilogy. For the first time in the series' life, there is a change in engine, and that change is substantial. Everything looks much nicer. The terrain is much more complex. Ships! Fantastic animations. Additional bells and whistles, like more accurate cloth simulation. Its great!

The only weird quirk is that they added manual aiming to ranged weapons. In theory, this is fine, but in practice, for some reason they offset the crosshair to the right, so I have to undo almost 2 decades of muscle memory of centre-screen aiming, just to quickly land a shot. Or, you can just press the Y button, and your character will immediately shoot the highlighted enemy. Guess I will be using the Y button, then.

As for the story - the first quarter of the game gets you to play as someone who turns out to be a Templar. The next quarter of the game, you are now playing as the first character's son, and you trying to convince some old, retired Assassin to train you. Now im on Sequence 6 of 12, and... I've barely even started? Okay. We will see how his plays out.

I've got to say though, that im having fun. Navigating the frontier is a blast, and im about to captain a ship.

Can't wait.

 

[Dalisclock]

As for the story - the first quarter of the game gets you to play as someone who turns out to be a Templar. The next quarter of the game, you are now playing as the first character's son, and you trying to convince some old, retired Assassin to train you. Now im on Sequence 6 of 12, and... I've barely even started? Okay. We will see how his plays out.

I've got to say though, that im having fun. Navigating the frontier is a blast, and im about to captain a ship.

Can't wait.

Yeah, the pacing in 3 is kinda of bad. You get a 3 sequence intro, then 3 more sequence of essentially tutorial as Connor and finally the game starts to pick up around the halfway point once the revolution kicks into gear. However, the game feels seriously rushed at the end. And I say that as one of the few people on this board who likes 3. It's not my favorite by any means but I do unironically enjoy it despite it's myriad flaws("WHERE IS CHARLES LEE?")

Oh, and do the peg leg missions. They're this games version of the Assassin Tomb missions. And if you have the paitence, do the missions for the homestead once it becomes available. I felt it added a lot of soul to the game and acts much like the Villa did in 2, but you actually get to know the people who live there, not just buy upgrades for the town.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Furi. Beat the first three bosses but I don't know if I want to continue. Learning every goddamn pattern feels like homework - every boss has like 5 or 6 phases and it can take so long to get to each one, let alone master it. We'll see. On the plus side it's a tantalizingly short game, with only boss fights and only 9 bosses total. So technically I'm 33% of the way there.



In my experience the water room is the hardest mob fight in the game. Always dread it.

Strangely enough it also goes for the water room in the first Uncharted on Crushing. Actually that room is probably the hardest part of at least the first three games.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Strangely enough it also goes for the water room in the first Uncharted on Crushing. Actually that room is probably the hardest part of at least the first three games.

Yup. Only got through that part using that cheat that spawns everyone without having to drop into that room.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Yup. Only got through that part using that cheat that spawns everyone without having to drop into that room.

That was something I could ever get to work right, so had to basically take them out systematically after watching some YouTube video. I think this even topped beating Killzone 2 on Elite.

 

[happyninja42]

Now, time to play through Ghost Runner.

Yesssss......*steeples fingers gleefully* GOOOOOOD!!!

OT: Wifey and I are almost done with the storyline of Age of Calamity. On the last story mission, but we're stopping to do the sidequest stuff. And, I love me some Urbosa, Lightning Goddess of the Desert.....but......Un-Sealed Zelda has kinda become new best gurl. Just, holy (literally) shit I'm having fun with her. I've always been a sucker for paladin/cleric archetypes in D&D and fantasy and the like, and she is definitely hitting that button in my dopamine brain meats like crazy.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That was something I could ever get to work right, so had to basically take them out systematically after watching some YouTube video. I think this even topped beating Killzone 2 on Elite.

Worked for me in the original PS3 game. Don't know if it works in the remaster. If I remember correctly you just backtrack past the cannon by the entrance of the catacombs until you hear gunfire and fight music, them go back and take out every enemy fish-in-a-barrel style without dropping into the room.

The actual worst time I ever had in a mob gunfight was FUBAR difficulty Spec Ops, the siege around the downed helicopter.

 

[Silvanus]

Played Ori & the Will of the Wisps recently & enjoyed it a lot. The addition of boss battles was very welcome.

Currently I'm just mostly raiding in Guild Wars 2. I've played GW2 for a really long time on-and-off, but only last year got into raids. Plus, the announcement of another upcoming expansion (in Cantha, no less!!) has brought some of my old enthusiasm back.

As soon as my flatmate finishes Crash Bandicoot 4 (It's About Time, not Wrath of Cortex) I'll start that. I'm not going for 100% (like I did for the N. Sane Trilogy), because 100%-ing this one looks like an absolute nightmare. Ordinary run-through will be good enough for me this time.

 

[happyninja42]

Currently I'm just mostly raiding in Guild Wars 2. I've played GW2 for a really long time on-and-off, but only last year got into raids. Plus, the announcement of another upcoming expansion (in Cantha, no less!!) has brought some of my old enthusiasm back.

Yeah I keep finding myself debating booting that game back up. As I really enjoyed it's overall MMO setup. The shared looting, don't need to join a group to all contribute really helped remove griefing as a negative to me from MMOs. I could just jump in an help your group if I wanted to, and even get a little reward out of it. And me doing so, didn't degrade what YOU got out of it.

I also really enjoyed a lot of the stories they were telling with the narrative aspect of it. I think the last time I played was a little after they introduced the plot twist that The plant race (forget their names) actually WERE badguys, and offshoots of the dreaming plant dragon's madness. And the "bad guy" plant people you fight, who call the player faction of the race aberrations, were 100% truthful. And that the non-homicidal variant of the plant people, were NOT the true aspect of their species. which I just found a fun little twist there. Sadly the game itself, sort of failed to keep my interest for long. Though I have lost a lot of interest in MMO's in general over the years.

 

[Dalisclock]

Played Ori & the Will of the Wisps recently & enjoyed it a lot. The addition of boss battles was very welcome.

I've only played the first game so far. I like the idea of the escape sequences at the end of each big level but they got tedious after a while since you'd have to do the entire thing in one go, no matter how far along you were and that really sucked the fun out of them after a while.

Are the boss battles better put together?

 

[Silvanus]

I also really enjoyed a lot of the stories they were telling with the narrative aspect of it. I think the last time I played was a little after they introduced the plot twist that The plant race (forget their names) actually WERE badguys, and offshoots of the dreaming plant dragon's madness. And the "bad guy" plant people you fight, who call the player faction of the race aberrations, were 100% truthful. And that the non-homicidal variant of the plant people, were NOT the true aspect of their species. which I just found a fun little twist there. Sadly the game itself, sort of failed to keep my interest for long. Though I have lost a lot of interest in MMO's in general over the years.

Sort of. The Sylvari were indeed created by Mordremoth, and his intention was for them to serve as his minions. But since so many of them rejected that calling even after it was revealed to them, I don't think it's safe to say they were "bad guys" really. That's just what their asshole creator had in mind. Similarly, the Nightmare Court were correct in a sense, in that they were right that Sylvari had been influenced away from their original purpose. However, even a lot of Nightmare Courtiers (including Faolain and Chrysanthea) rejected Mordremoth: they had devoted themselves to freedom, and saw Mordremoth as just another oppressive master.

 

[Silvanus]

I've only played the first game so far. I like the idea of the escape sequences at the end of each big level but they got tedious after a while since you'd have to do the entire thing in one go, no matter how far along you were and that really sucked the fun out of them after a while.

Are the boss battles better put together?

They are very well put together in my opinion, and make very good use of Ori's tactile movement & manoeuvrability; they're usually more about flitting about than they are about just out-damaging the boss. They're very sparing, though; IIRC there's only about 4 in the whole game. Also, there are still a few of those fast-paced escape sequences too, but not as many as in Blind Forest. I think they got the balance a lot more right.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The actual worst time I ever had in a mob gunfight was FUBAR difficulty Spec Ops, the siege around the downed helicopter.

As painful as the water hall is, the actual worst mob gunfight I've ever played through is One Shot, One Kill. Even on Regular, it requires you to know pretty much exactly where to put your explosives and where to be aiming when, because the ghillie suit does nothing against AI and you have basically no cover. I've never played Modern Warfare on Veteran, and I don't ever intend to because of that sequence.

 

[SilentPony]

So im trying my hand at Assassin's Creed Vikings. I'll just come out in say it, I enjoy the modern Assassin's Creed games. I have some 100+ hours in Odyssey. I find the gameplay fun, the open world is fun to explore, and they look beautiful and the stories are usually compelling enough. And yes I know Ubisoft is the worst and they should go fuck themselves with a very rusty dildo.

Having said that Valhalla is sloppy. And I mean real sloppy. Google tells me the game came out 2 months ago, and from what I've seen in the first hour or so its still in Alpha with a generous release date of Christmas 2021. First off no one mouths have moved yet. Its like a From Software game. Everyone just kinda nods and jesters and words come out, but mouths firmly closed.
Second half the NPCs are T-Posing to assert dominance. The opening scene where you're a little kid at a Viking party half the guests were T-Posing, and when the battle started even in the pre-rendered cinematics there was T-Posing. Later I get back to the main castle we call home and there are Archers in the town, T-Posing to scare off raiders.
Third pop ins are absurd. I was almost directly on an island that I was trying to get to before the game even rendered anything in front of me. Enemies and buildings just pop in. I was trying to snipe a dude with my bow, perfectly aligned head shot to kill instantly, fire, and boom! A Tent appears, the dude is inside, and now the whole camp is alerted.
Fourth and maybe this is an Epic Store thing, but the game barely starts. What I mean is I have it in my Epic library, but that doesn't start the game, instead it opens Ubisoft's app. But that doesn't start the game either. What I mean is I click "play" and I get an error message that a .dll file is missing, and I need to reinstall. I tried that several times and it didn't work. Then I went directly to the files on my computer, found the Valhala.exe executable and clicked that and the game finally started. Maybe because Epic limits the PC market Ubisoft didn't bother to make it work on PC and just took the money. Also funny enough my graphics card because I have to run it from the files itself doesn't recognize Valhalla as installed.
Fifth the graphics look last gen. and I don't mean PS5 vs PS4, I mean Valhalla looks like a PS3 era game. The models are awkward, stiff, not well detailed, the environments are all samey with low details, and I'm on a very good PC rig at max settings.
Sixth the gameplay feels sluggish. And not low frame rate, it feels like I'm controlling Arthur Morgan, in that he's a chunky stiff guy who takes a while to move around and get going, because he's not supposed to be a free jumping parkour type guy. Except its a free running, jumping parkour type Assassin's Creed game that is simply hard to navigate.

So far Odyssey blows this out of the water. This is like comparing Plan 9 From Outer Space to Aliens.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yesssss......*steeples fingers gleefully* GOOOOOOD!!!

Juts bought it, will be starting it today.

I played the demo a few months back so I know what to expect and how goddamn fun this game is.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

And here I thought the water hall was bad. The Novistador room in 4-2 on Professional is impossible. The bugs have too much health to kill, in numbers too great to control the crowd even with grenades, and deal too much damage to just tank with what few healing items you have left after the El Gigante twins. And they spawn infinitely, so any thoughts you had about clearing all the bugs out preemptively, stop having them, that won't work either. And if you want to just run past them? Besides the chokepoints where you can't, even just in the main room they're faster and more agile than you, so you'll get surrounded and die no matter what you do.

Fuck this. It can't be done.

 

[happyninja42]

Juts bought it, will be starting it today.

I played the demo a few months back so I know what to expect and how goddamn fun this game is.

Yeah that was probably my GOTY for 2020. It just hit so many sweet spots for me, in such a fun way. I've already given it a relatively full review much earlier in this thread, but damn do I love it. Just so much fun personally.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just played through Smile For Me, an indie first person adventure game. You have just joined The Habitat, a facility for people who cannot find their smile and you pretty much just try and make everybody happy. The characters are fun enough and the game has a surreal quality with a pinch of horror that I found pretty appealing. It's quite short too, so it definitely doesn't wear out its welcome. I enjoyed it a fair bit.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Resident Evil 4: By some fluke, I made it through the 4-2 Novistador room.

 

[Hawki]

So playing through the N. Sane Trilogy, I've beaten Crash 2; in the sense that I've collected all the crystals and beat Cortex. Contrary to the prior game, I'm actually going for all the gems, and at this time of writing, have three more to collect. So, thoughts are:

-Christ, the bosses are easy in this game. The only one that gave me any trouble was N. Gin. The rest, I beat without dying once, with the exception of Tiny Tiger, where I died, well, once. And the final Cortex boss is a joke.

-Speaking of ease, the game's definitely easier than the prior one. That said, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, because the higher levels of difficulty are available to you if you want them, namely the gem hunts. It definitely controls better overall, and the slide is a small, but neat addition to the game. It's arguably to Crash what the spin dash is to Sonic - introduced in the second game, helps their mobiliy, allows you to approach obstacles differently, etc.

-So, this is going to be weird coming from me, but I think the presence of story, such as it is, arguably makes the story worse. For instance, you know going in that Cortex isn't on the level (if you don't, I have some property on the moon I can sell you), but it's dubious as to how, when, or if Crash even realizes this. For instance, if you collect a gem, N. Brio appears and tells you that he's the one making life difficult for you, so when Cortex appears much later and tells you that N. Brio is leading the opposition, this isn't really a revelation unless you've missed all gems up to this point. Furthermore, there's how things play out at the end. Cortex tells Crash to give the crystals to N. Gin, but that just leads to a boss fight where N. Gin immediately starts trying to kill you. Then after said boss fight, Cortex goes "WTF? Okay, fine, get the last five crystals." Then, finally, before the final boss, Coco tells Crash Cortex's actual plan, at which point Crash has all the crystals. And he acts by...going to confront Cortex? Outside the space station?

Problem is, I don't know if or when Crash wises up. Yes, Crash is an idiot, but he does fight N. Gin and defeat him, but if he's wised up at this point, why even bother collecting the remaining crystals for Cortex, and why save the revelation for the very end after these crystals. I know I'm paying too much attention to story in a Crash game, but you could so easily alter the timing of some cutscenes and/or the dialogue and remove these issues.

Still, the game's enjoyable. Like I said, I think it's better than the previous one. Now I just need to get those last three gems, and then it's probably onto Crash 3.