Okay right so now you know what no you don't. Just guess. Okay fine, I'll tell you.
I've switched to Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I have done that. I did it. It is the game that I have started playing.
I like the open world ubisoft formula, even if Assassin's Creed may be the worst implementation (Watch Dogs is the best, Far Cry is okay in a Just Cause way, Assassin's Creed falls apart with its pointless overcomplications and its moronic mystical conspiracies and its so immensely terribly idiotic and annoying animus device). And also it gets awkward. There must be someone at ubisoft who is very similar to me and completely different from me : they set their worlds in my favorite universes (18th century caribbean seas, ancient greece) which are precisely universes that I'm overprotective about (you're treading on thin ice if you're intending to present me stupidly videogamed versions of famous historical pirates or greek gods). And there I am, propelled into a stupidly videogamed version of ancient greece. It's, as I said, awkward.
Americanized greece is usually cringeworthy. TV series made a conan versus mad max version of it, Hollywood had made a schoolplay version of it (I love all thing harryhausen, but that cardboard olympus with laurence olivier belonged to a shopping mall) and then went full grimdark greybrown desaturated iraq war trauma style. Gaming-wise, Titan Quest had an awesome rendition of greek geophysics (as a simple top-down dungeon cleanser it doesn't need much more), but God of War is just DnD, and as for the world of comics... yeah, let's spare marvel/dc the obvious. So, AC-Od. Bought, installed, launched. Wary.
Aaand... it's spectacularly odd. It's charmingly full of good intents and... uh, well it's a videogame. The atmosphere is absolutely great, Titan Quest levels of geographic immersion. Quite emotional to me (I'm an absolute fan of Greece's ground, always want to hug and kiss the dry earth over there, don't ask). The only truly ridicule visual design is the main character, clearly cosplaying as her skyrim avatar all while complaining about the mediterranean heat (maybe lose three layers of furs, idiot?). The sound environment is cool, with the occasional wild goat, and the background village chatter in what sounds like a mix of ancient and modern greek (although a very noticeable audio lack of donkeys and roosters breaks the "effet de réel"). But all the actual characters speak in english. Like germans in war movies or russians in spy capers, many characters speak with a convincing greek accent, which is something I guess. But greek isn't present neither in the voices choices, nor (this is more insulting) in the subtitles choices. If you're greek and can't/don't want to deal with english, go play something else.
It's annoying, because clearly ubi would have had the required resources. It's a rich game by a rich company. Its dialogues and deliveries and characters are totally fine, I instantly felt very very very far from Jurassic World's cringe. The wonkey american gamey aspects (such as the anachronistically modern expressions in banter like mock corporate talk, or some voices, lines, deliveries that make you reach for your six-shooter) are to be expected and forgiven. The general mix is charming even if it barely ever goes beyond a very sincere "aaww such a lovely try". The music is great and fitting, almost Sands of Time quality. And I look forward to dive deeper in that greeklish version of Gothic 2.
Quite literally, as the game sometimes asks you to go swim in full metal armour and fight some of these famous mediterranean great white beach sharks or whatever. Videogame logic. I don't mind it in my videogames. I so often play just for the environments, and just demand the game to let me interact freely with it. Open world, free exploring, no Bioware-like invisible corridors marked by 10 cm-high fences or whatever. And beautiful 3D postcard of one of the craziest place on Earth, like 3000 years before greed and corruption plastered it with concrete. Fun times. Good enough.
Just hope it won't get too frankmillerey on me. The intro was a bit threatening in that regard (capitalizing a bit on the gamers' hard-on for sparta), we'll see if that was just a mischevious hook or a sign of tones to come.
