Show Posts
126
General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?
« on: February 26, 2018, 02:27:04 AM »
Assassin's Creed: Original! (PC):
So I'd sworn off this series after really disliking Unity, and as part of a general determination to not waste my time with these treadmill open world games. But I just got off a long work project and had a hard hankering for a big old bloated AAA western studio game, and Origins was really well received, and well . . .
I'm like 12 hours in. I kind of hate it and also find something deeply satisfying about fucking with a big checklist, quest marker-chasing game like this after having avoided it for two years.
-Positive: It looks really good on medium-high settings and runs shockingly well on my mid-range Acer laptop. I actually only pulled the trigger with the idea that it wouldn't even be playable. I think I've got it at 720, but my screen is two feet from my face and I don't even notice.
-Negative: The game isn't really fun to play on a moment-to-moment level. Everything basically works, though your character feels a bit like a hunk of meat you're throwing around, and the lack of a sprint function on either foot or camel gives things an overly sluggish feel, especially when the game in so massive and involves so much running back and forth between objectives.
-Positive: I was really not enjoying the opening sections, and I stopped to just ride a camel across most of the map, and there was something weirdly impressive and satisfying about it, and it kind of smoothed out the "come up" of engaging with the game.
-Negative: Egypt is kinda boring, predictably. Only a few small low-height urban areas, lots and lots of desert with absolutely nothing in it (realistic!), many copy-and-paste riverside farming areas, 95% stupid bandit camps and military forts.
-Positive: No more climbing futzing, which reached a nadir with Unity!
-Negative: They solved the climbing problem by basically just wrapping a climbing mesh on everything. Outside of the occasional pillar or unique object, the world feels like it's made of some chintzy sub-fabric that you can generically scramble around on. Nothing like the actual platforming and climbing puzzles of the Ezio games remains, and it really takes meat out of the experience.
-Positive: There's lots to do, and they manage to sift around sidequests and generally funnel progress in a way that takes you through most of the points of interest.
-Negative: There are very few types of activities. Investigations are a joke, and almost all missions end up killing bandits or otherwise engaging in combat.
-Positive: There's a cut-away with a rowing galley ship in the Aegian Sea that makes me wish I was playing a Mediterranean 0 BC Black Flag instead.
-Negative: Stealth options feel very gimped, and it feels futile to try to approach most situations this way given the general design and geography. So it's combat focused with all the weapons and everything, but it manages to feel very shallow and annoyingly resistive at the same time (a different mix from the equally bad Unity combat).
-Positive: They got rid of the awful Unity garter belts-and-wristband armor system and just reduced everything down to basic attributes like armor, attack strength, and quiver size.
-Negative: This involves an annoying crafting and loot system that I'd really rather just not have to pay attention to and earn upgrades through actual game tasks. But alas
So I'd sworn off this series after really disliking Unity, and as part of a general determination to not waste my time with these treadmill open world games. But I just got off a long work project and had a hard hankering for a big old bloated AAA western studio game, and Origins was really well received, and well . . .
I'm like 12 hours in. I kind of hate it and also find something deeply satisfying about fucking with a big checklist, quest marker-chasing game like this after having avoided it for two years.
-Positive: It looks really good on medium-high settings and runs shockingly well on my mid-range Acer laptop. I actually only pulled the trigger with the idea that it wouldn't even be playable. I think I've got it at 720, but my screen is two feet from my face and I don't even notice.
-Negative: The game isn't really fun to play on a moment-to-moment level. Everything basically works, though your character feels a bit like a hunk of meat you're throwing around, and the lack of a sprint function on either foot or camel gives things an overly sluggish feel, especially when the game in so massive and involves so much running back and forth between objectives.
-Positive: I was really not enjoying the opening sections, and I stopped to just ride a camel across most of the map, and there was something weirdly impressive and satisfying about it, and it kind of smoothed out the "come up" of engaging with the game.
-Negative: Egypt is kinda boring, predictably. Only a few small low-height urban areas, lots and lots of desert with absolutely nothing in it (realistic!), many copy-and-paste riverside farming areas, 95% stupid bandit camps and military forts.
-Positive: No more climbing futzing, which reached a nadir with Unity!
-Negative: They solved the climbing problem by basically just wrapping a climbing mesh on everything. Outside of the occasional pillar or unique object, the world feels like it's made of some chintzy sub-fabric that you can generically scramble around on. Nothing like the actual platforming and climbing puzzles of the Ezio games remains, and it really takes meat out of the experience.
-Positive: There's lots to do, and they manage to sift around sidequests and generally funnel progress in a way that takes you through most of the points of interest.
-Negative: There are very few types of activities. Investigations are a joke, and almost all missions end up killing bandits or otherwise engaging in combat.
-Positive: There's a cut-away with a rowing galley ship in the Aegian Sea that makes me wish I was playing a Mediterranean 0 BC Black Flag instead.
-Negative: Stealth options feel very gimped, and it feels futile to try to approach most situations this way given the general design and geography. So it's combat focused with all the weapons and everything, but it manages to feel very shallow and annoyingly resistive at the same time (a different mix from the equally bad Unity combat).
-Positive: They got rid of the awful Unity garter belts-and-wristband armor system and just reduced everything down to basic attributes like armor, attack strength, and quiver size.
-Negative: This involves an annoying crafting and loot system that I'd really rather just not have to pay attention to and earn upgrades through actual game tasks. But alas
