Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Archile's Grab Bag: Early Wednesday Edition
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Now Playing: Darksiders II
Death comes to all.
It's no secret that I adored Darksiders(10 outta 10), first thing I did after I finished? Looked up where to buy Darksiders 2, which I promptly did the day after(Today). I'm dead serious. There's so much I want to talk about that I don't even know where to begin with...
Let's see, first thing I noticed after booting up the game? This music is amazing. Darksiders 1's music was nothing special, I barely even noticed it was there, which is why it surprised me so much. Guess I'll do gameplay next, well, the introductory segment up till the battle against The Keeper of Secrets/Dark War was fantastic, everything I expected Darksiders 2 to be and more, basically, Darksiders 1 with RPG elements, which sounds like a kickass idea to be honest. And then I reached the overworld... I dunno how I feel about it? It's a bit barren, sure, there are chests, pages and probably other stuff hidden away(And it's really cool how the barriers preventing you from accessing other areas are, well, the lack of tools to reach the entrances! I could already spot what looked like grappling points). Still, I liked Darksiders 1's narrower overworld a bit more, at least as far as I've played. After reaching the Cauldron I was afraid that the game turned into a Action-RPG with no puzzles, but my worries were laid to rest pretty early on, luckily. It's funny 'cause I usually prefer more straightforward action games, but puzzling is part of what made Darksiders so good, it had to return! Funnily enough, I couldn't avoid noticing that the game feels a lot like Kingdoms of Amalur, the greens and the golem-like enemies... it's very reminiscent of KoA, which is a bit odd, but it seems that DS 2 will take place over more... mystical lands instead of the remnants of Earth, which is a shame as the previous setting was great, but who knows the game might still surprise.
Then I wanna talk about Death. I spent a bit reading up on TVTropes, avoiding spoilers, about Death, and it seemed like he was gonna be a speedster type of character. And it shows, his frame is slimmer and he doesn't wear heavy armor or huge weapons, unlike War. Actually, you can equip hammers and maces, which are huge, but Death attacks very slowly while wielding them. Regardless, I was afraid that he wouldn't feel as badass, or as strong as he is supposed to be, he is the strongest of the Horsemen after all... Well, as soon as you start fighting you'll notice that the way he zips around, shredding everything in his wake, he could totally stand up to War. Heck, the first boss is an apparition of War. The first boss! Going back to War, I love how they have very different personalities, and they made a great job at portraying him as very cocky, but considering his strength, confident suits him better. He also seems to have a very cynical sense of humor "They call me pup or lad, but I much prefer my own name, Karn", to which Death answers "Pup it is then". If I had to choose, I prefer War, both visually and personality-wise, but Death is very cool in his own right.
Basically, I'm loving the game, I've mixed feelings about the overworld, but it might change with time.
Let's see, first thing I noticed after booting up the game? This music is amazing. Darksiders 1's music was nothing special, I barely even noticed it was there, which is why it surprised me so much. Guess I'll do gameplay next, well, the introductory segment up till the battle against The Keeper of Secrets/Dark War was fantastic, everything I expected Darksiders 2 to be and more, basically, Darksiders 1 with RPG elements, which sounds like a kickass idea to be honest. And then I reached the overworld... I dunno how I feel about it? It's a bit barren, sure, there are chests, pages and probably other stuff hidden away(And it's really cool how the barriers preventing you from accessing other areas are, well, the lack of tools to reach the entrances! I could already spot what looked like grappling points). Still, I liked Darksiders 1's narrower overworld a bit more, at least as far as I've played. After reaching the Cauldron I was afraid that the game turned into a Action-RPG with no puzzles, but my worries were laid to rest pretty early on, luckily. It's funny 'cause I usually prefer more straightforward action games, but puzzling is part of what made Darksiders so good, it had to return! Funnily enough, I couldn't avoid noticing that the game feels a lot like Kingdoms of Amalur, the greens and the golem-like enemies... it's very reminiscent of KoA, which is a bit odd, but it seems that DS 2 will take place over more... mystical lands instead of the remnants of Earth, which is a shame as the previous setting was great, but who knows the game might still surprise.
Then I wanna talk about Death. I spent a bit reading up on TVTropes, avoiding spoilers, about Death, and it seemed like he was gonna be a speedster type of character. And it shows, his frame is slimmer and he doesn't wear heavy armor or huge weapons, unlike War. Actually, you can equip hammers and maces, which are huge, but Death attacks very slowly while wielding them. Regardless, I was afraid that he wouldn't feel as badass, or as strong as he is supposed to be, he is the strongest of the Horsemen after all... Well, as soon as you start fighting you'll notice that the way he zips around, shredding everything in his wake, he could totally stand up to War. Heck, the first boss is an apparition of War. The first boss! Going back to War, I love how they have very different personalities, and they made a great job at portraying him as very cocky, but considering his strength, confident suits him better. He also seems to have a very cynical sense of humor "They call me pup or lad, but I much prefer my own name, Karn", to which Death answers "Pup it is then". If I had to choose, I prefer War, both visually and personality-wise, but Death is very cool in his own right.
Basically, I'm loving the game, I've mixed feelings about the overworld, but it might change with time.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Review #130: Darksiders
In which I proceed to praise this game from top to bottom.
Y'know how people with a terrible understanding of the word "mature" want a "mature Zelda"? This is that game. Developed by Vigil Games and published by THQ before their demise, Darksiders is a game that borrows a ton of elements from other games and blends them together seamlessly. The adventuring and puzzling from The Legend of Zelda series and combat mechanics that feel like a mix of Devil May Cry(the combo system) with God of War(The heavy feel behind the attacks, dodging), it's something that, surprisingly, hadn't been tried before, and it works. It works so well.
The game takes place before and after the Apocalypse. You play as War, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who comes to deliver the human race only to discover that the seals, which were placed to stop Heaven and Hell from invading the kingdom of man, hadn't been broken yet. War loses a fight with the demon Straga and spends 100 years in imprisonment while his wounds heal. Awoken and healed, he is directed by the Council to find out what happened and end all who were involved, placing him under the leash of a Watcher(Voiced by Mark Hamill!). The Story is alright, but where the game really shines is in its setting, the world itself, all the very memorable characters, fantastic scenes of badassery and some fantastic lines.
The game is set in the Kingdom of Men, or what remains of it, as War comes across the demon Samael who promises to take him to the Destroyer's lair if he slays the four Chosen of the Destroyer(The game is full of terms depicting badassery like these!). What this translates to is to War finding the dungeons, finding the boss inside and killing it. The game borrows a lot from Zelda in this regard, as the dungeons are filled with puzzles, and you'll usually come across a tool that will aid you in clearing the puzzles inside, defeating the boss, and then granting you access to treasures in the overworld that you couldn't reach before. Puzzles are very fun to figure out, and the way they gradually get harder as you advance through the game is very well balanced.
While Puzzles are a big part of any Zelda game, the combat is usually just a means to an end(Maybe clear the room to open a locked door or what have you) and very shallow to boot. Not so here, War will do battle against zombies, Demons and Angels, aided by his sword, the ChaosEater, a Scythe, a Metal gauntlet and other miscellaneous tools that double as weapons. The game maps the ChaosEater to the Square button, and whichever secondary weapon to the Triangle, while tools are used with the R2 button. Controls are very simple, but combat is very fun and gratifying. While War's moveset isn't as large as Kratos or Dante's, it's serviceable and allows for simple juggling combos or switching weapons mid attack. Thanks to the weight behind each attack, it feels really good. He also has access to deffensive manouvers, a dash that doubles as a dodge and a parry/counterattack move by timing the guard button just as you get attacked. War also has four different spells that can be assigned to a four-slot palette accessed by holding the L1 button. Lastly, as you deal damage with the ChaosEater you'll fill your chaos gauge, once maxed, you can enter War's alternate form, not unlike a Balrog from Middle Earth, and wreck havoc on your foes.
Killing enemies rewards you with souls, which you can then use to barter with Vulgrin in order to buy new moves, consumables or enhancements. There are 12 enhancements in the game, 2 that you can buy, the rest you have to find, these provide slotted and passive bonuses. Passive bonuses are granted just by possessing the enhancement, but you can also slot them to any of your three main weapons in order to gain better buffs. Speaking of finding, there's a ton, a TON of stuff to find, usually hidden behind puzzles, there's Life Shards(Collect four to extend your life bar!), Wrath shards(To increase your Wrath bar, aka mana), the Abyssal Armor set, relics and, well, the enhancements. There's no shortage of stuff to find.
The art direction for this game was helmed by Joe Madureira and it shows, big, muscled guys sporting huge pieces of armor and weapons, but it's all very stylized. Joe Madureira's art has never been translated to 3D so faithfully before, and it looks glorious. Character design is excellent all around, the NPC demons, like Samel and Vulgrim, in particular look very good and detailed, War himself is no slouch either. The world of Darksiders is very beautiful, with a lot of different environments to traverse. Voice acting is just as good, with a ton of known names involved, like Liam O'Brien and Troy Barker, but the rest do a solid job as well, every Voice Actor manages to sell you on their character. As for the music... it's there? It's not that it's bad by any means, it simply isn't very notable.
As much as I loved the game, there were a couple of minor inconveniences that I should at least mention. the biggest one being how limited your slots are. There are six tools but only three slots for them, which means that by the end of the game you could potentially have to go back and forth to the menu to equip and unequip some of them, especially if you want to use the Mercy. This also goes for the skills/consumables, there are four skills and a different variety of consumables, but they all share the same 4-slot palette, I played on normal and didn't use consumables at all, but I can see how this could become annoying. There's also a bit of input lag when pressing buttons, but nothing too bothersome.
Darksiders is hands down one of my favorite games released on the last generation, I actually struggled coming up with bad things to say about it, which is why I called them minor inconveniences, as they didn't managed to put a blemish on this masterpiece. Some people might take issue with the game not having a single original gameplay mechanic to call its own, but when it does what it does so well, who cares? A game doesn't need to be original as long as its fun, and Darksiders is as fun as it gets.
10 out of 10.
The game takes place before and after the Apocalypse. You play as War, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who comes to deliver the human race only to discover that the seals, which were placed to stop Heaven and Hell from invading the kingdom of man, hadn't been broken yet. War loses a fight with the demon Straga and spends 100 years in imprisonment while his wounds heal. Awoken and healed, he is directed by the Council to find out what happened and end all who were involved, placing him under the leash of a Watcher(Voiced by Mark Hamill!). The Story is alright, but where the game really shines is in its setting, the world itself, all the very memorable characters, fantastic scenes of badassery and some fantastic lines.
While Puzzles are a big part of any Zelda game, the combat is usually just a means to an end(Maybe clear the room to open a locked door or what have you) and very shallow to boot. Not so here, War will do battle against zombies, Demons and Angels, aided by his sword, the ChaosEater, a Scythe, a Metal gauntlet and other miscellaneous tools that double as weapons. The game maps the ChaosEater to the Square button, and whichever secondary weapon to the Triangle, while tools are used with the R2 button. Controls are very simple, but combat is very fun and gratifying. While War's moveset isn't as large as Kratos or Dante's, it's serviceable and allows for simple juggling combos or switching weapons mid attack. Thanks to the weight behind each attack, it feels really good. He also has access to deffensive manouvers, a dash that doubles as a dodge and a parry/counterattack move by timing the guard button just as you get attacked. War also has four different spells that can be assigned to a four-slot palette accessed by holding the L1 button. Lastly, as you deal damage with the ChaosEater you'll fill your chaos gauge, once maxed, you can enter War's alternate form, not unlike a Balrog from Middle Earth, and wreck havoc on your foes.
The art direction for this game was helmed by Joe Madureira and it shows, big, muscled guys sporting huge pieces of armor and weapons, but it's all very stylized. Joe Madureira's art has never been translated to 3D so faithfully before, and it looks glorious. Character design is excellent all around, the NPC demons, like Samel and Vulgrim, in particular look very good and detailed, War himself is no slouch either. The world of Darksiders is very beautiful, with a lot of different environments to traverse. Voice acting is just as good, with a ton of known names involved, like Liam O'Brien and Troy Barker, but the rest do a solid job as well, every Voice Actor manages to sell you on their character. As for the music... it's there? It's not that it's bad by any means, it simply isn't very notable.
Darksiders is hands down one of my favorite games released on the last generation, I actually struggled coming up with bad things to say about it, which is why I called them minor inconveniences, as they didn't managed to put a blemish on this masterpiece. Some people might take issue with the game not having a single original gameplay mechanic to call its own, but when it does what it does so well, who cares? A game doesn't need to be original as long as its fun, and Darksiders is as fun as it gets.
10 out of 10.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Review #129: Dragon Ball Z - Ultimate Tenkaichi
I hate myself for buying this garbage.
Which are the bigger criticisms that DBZ games get? That all the games are basically the same, they refuse to evolve, they are style over substance. So Bandai decided to make a new system(Which reuses a ton of animations from Raging Blast mind you) that makes the game, basically, play itself for you. This is to Dragon Ball games what Final Fantasy XIII is to the RPG genre.
There's four modes to this game: Story, Hero, VS and Tournament. The latter two are self explanatory, so I'll go over the first two. Story Modes is actually rather good, it covers the story from the Saiyan saga to the Buu saga, with a couple of bonus Movie fights and a GT fight. The story mode does an alright job of retelling the story, there's a nice amount of in-game cutscenes with a few remastered scenes from the anime(These are amazing, the quality is very crisp). Sadly, a ton of context is giving on text-scrolls before each chapter, and these take a long time to scroll, so you'll might as well skip'em, still, a very lengthy mode and a good retelling of the series. Then comes Hero mode, in which the much touted "Create-a-Character" character is the protagonist. This is an all new story, which is a mediocre fanfiction at most, but hey, at last we get to create a character! It does come with a few shortcomings however, the creator is very barebones, you can unlock a couple of new hairstyles or clothes from the main cast, but it's very limited all in all. As good as that could possibly sound, this mode is a grindfest through and through, you can unlock skills to customize loadouts, but these involve fighting each master 6 times, and each character in the cast is a master, so it will take a long time. This wouldn't be such a chore if the game was any fun, but more on that later. Grinding isn't just limited to that, the fights in this mode will get exponentially harder as you go along, requiring you to fight fights in the overworld in order to raise your stats, which takes a long time. Still, fights will get nigh impossible, with enemies that can destroy you in two combos while it would take you a whole lot more to bring them down.
Being a grindfest is the least of this game's problems, sadly. The new gameplay mechanics are downright terrible, no two questions about it. Basically, you are place in an arena alongside your enemy, and you both get free movement around each other. Fights take place either at "Blast Range" or "Melee Range", you can only change range by executing a move that has you pressing either left or right, your enemy does the same, if the enemy presses the same direction, you receive damage, otherwise they'll take damage, regardless of the outcome, you'll change range. Now then, Triangle executes a Strong Attack at close range or a strong ki blast at long range, while Square will produce a Ki blast combo or a melee combo. This is where it gets "interesting", after pressing square three times(And assuming at least the last attack connects) you'll enter a minigame in which you must either press Square or Triangle, once again, your enemy does the same, if they press the same button as you, your chain is cancelled, otherwise you initiate multiple cutscenes of you smashing your enemy while the game has you pressing square or triangle to make you feel as if you are doing something.
Notice the problem with the game? Everything(unless you hit them on their back) you do puts you into a 50-50 situation in which you either take damage or deal damage, regardless if you are on the offensive or not. This is so dumb, and worst of all, the game basically plays itself as the same animations and camera angles play over and over and over and over and over again. While some of the basic Square attacks are different between some characters, the special "enders" after each chain is the same for every single character, you'll be seeing the same animations over and over again. This game is terrible. There's another underlying mechanic in the form of ki, when the enemy uses a special attack, if you have Ki, you can spend it to guard, evade or counterattack the move, and there's a tiny bit of strategy involved, since if you get your enemies into a chain you'll take away from their Ki meter(Square button chains take away more Ki, but increase your Special move gauge slower, and it's the other way around for Triangle chains). Oh, and lest I forget, there's input lag. All those QTEs? You gotta be extra fast because your inputs register late. All those times you have to press a button once a marker reaches a certain point? Gotta press it earlier. This is especially noticeable in the tutorial where many have spent hours trying to get it right, you just need to know about the input lag.
One of the few neat things about the game is that you can choose which special moves to equip on a character, mind you, not all characters have more than two specials, but it's still a neat detail. Or it would be if it wasn't for the fact that the character roster is very lacking. If characters where more unique, I'd easily forgive it(Or if the game was any good), but there's no excuse for such a small roster that's missing characters such as Goten, Kid Trunks or Dabura while tertiary characters like Pui are in. It's even worse when you consider the huge amount of animations that were lifted straight from Budokai Tenkaichi/Raging Blast, where did they spend their budget money? Or was this game made on a small budget? The real question is, who thought that a game in which everything you do puts you in a 50-50 position to receive or deal damage, a game that plays itself would be fun?
Now that I'm done with the mediocre and the bad, comes the highlight of the game: Presentation. The game is drop-dead gorgeous, stages are brimming with color and life and they take damage as you unleash special moves. Character models use a new cell-shading style that makes characters look as if colored by hand with pencils. It's beautiful. The special effects such as beams and auras are also eye poppers. Guess this is where their money went, huh? On the flipside, the mouth animations are terrible, most animations come straight from Raging Blast and the way characters rotate when turning around during cutscenes is embarrassingly bad. Music is incredible, I love this game's OST, probably my favorite soundtrack on a DBZ game.... even though some tracks don't really fit the fights or the scenes they are used in, however, by themselves they are still fantastic tunes on their own right. The game offers dual audio, and while I can't comment on the American dub, the Japanese dub is great and I think that some characters got recast? I don't remember #19 and Gero having those voices, but I could be wrong.
Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi is a terrible game and strictly for fans. As bad as everything, besides the presentation, is, I'd say that the story mode is worth it for fans, but just the story mode, as the battle mode, by itself is terrible whether you play it by yourself or with other people.
2.5 out of 10
There's four modes to this game: Story, Hero, VS and Tournament. The latter two are self explanatory, so I'll go over the first two. Story Modes is actually rather good, it covers the story from the Saiyan saga to the Buu saga, with a couple of bonus Movie fights and a GT fight. The story mode does an alright job of retelling the story, there's a nice amount of in-game cutscenes with a few remastered scenes from the anime(These are amazing, the quality is very crisp). Sadly, a ton of context is giving on text-scrolls before each chapter, and these take a long time to scroll, so you'll might as well skip'em, still, a very lengthy mode and a good retelling of the series. Then comes Hero mode, in which the much touted "Create-a-Character" character is the protagonist. This is an all new story, which is a mediocre fanfiction at most, but hey, at last we get to create a character! It does come with a few shortcomings however, the creator is very barebones, you can unlock a couple of new hairstyles or clothes from the main cast, but it's very limited all in all. As good as that could possibly sound, this mode is a grindfest through and through, you can unlock skills to customize loadouts, but these involve fighting each master 6 times, and each character in the cast is a master, so it will take a long time. This wouldn't be such a chore if the game was any fun, but more on that later. Grinding isn't just limited to that, the fights in this mode will get exponentially harder as you go along, requiring you to fight fights in the overworld in order to raise your stats, which takes a long time. Still, fights will get nigh impossible, with enemies that can destroy you in two combos while it would take you a whole lot more to bring them down.
Notice the problem with the game? Everything(unless you hit them on their back) you do puts you into a 50-50 situation in which you either take damage or deal damage, regardless if you are on the offensive or not. This is so dumb, and worst of all, the game basically plays itself as the same animations and camera angles play over and over and over and over and over again. While some of the basic Square attacks are different between some characters, the special "enders" after each chain is the same for every single character, you'll be seeing the same animations over and over again. This game is terrible. There's another underlying mechanic in the form of ki, when the enemy uses a special attack, if you have Ki, you can spend it to guard, evade or counterattack the move, and there's a tiny bit of strategy involved, since if you get your enemies into a chain you'll take away from their Ki meter(Square button chains take away more Ki, but increase your Special move gauge slower, and it's the other way around for Triangle chains). Oh, and lest I forget, there's input lag. All those QTEs? You gotta be extra fast because your inputs register late. All those times you have to press a button once a marker reaches a certain point? Gotta press it earlier. This is especially noticeable in the tutorial where many have spent hours trying to get it right, you just need to know about the input lag.
Now that I'm done with the mediocre and the bad, comes the highlight of the game: Presentation. The game is drop-dead gorgeous, stages are brimming with color and life and they take damage as you unleash special moves. Character models use a new cell-shading style that makes characters look as if colored by hand with pencils. It's beautiful. The special effects such as beams and auras are also eye poppers. Guess this is where their money went, huh? On the flipside, the mouth animations are terrible, most animations come straight from Raging Blast and the way characters rotate when turning around during cutscenes is embarrassingly bad. Music is incredible, I love this game's OST, probably my favorite soundtrack on a DBZ game.... even though some tracks don't really fit the fights or the scenes they are used in, however, by themselves they are still fantastic tunes on their own right. The game offers dual audio, and while I can't comment on the American dub, the Japanese dub is great and I think that some characters got recast? I don't remember #19 and Gero having those voices, but I could be wrong.
Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi is a terrible game and strictly for fans. As bad as everything, besides the presentation, is, I'd say that the story mode is worth it for fans, but just the story mode, as the battle mode, by itself is terrible whether you play it by yourself or with other people.
2.5 out of 10
Now Playing: Darksiders
This game I like.
Know how people have been clamoring for a "Mature Zelda"? Well, by mature these people mean "it's dark and gritty and has blood and stuff", well, this is their game. Joe Madureira conceived the art for this game and oh boy does it show, it's like an Image comics come to life, it's gorgeous.
As for gameplay, Devil May Cry meets God of War meets The Legend of Zelda, it's so much fun! On my first session I played nonstop until Tiamat's defeat, and it was glorious. I've nothing bad to say about the game, maybe that the music is nothing to write home about(A metal soundtrack would've fitted this game so much better, it just screams of Metal!), but that's just a minor, minor issue.
As for gameplay, Devil May Cry meets God of War meets The Legend of Zelda, it's so much fun! On my first session I played nonstop until Tiamat's defeat, and it was glorious. I've nothing bad to say about the game, maybe that the music is nothing to write home about(A metal soundtrack would've fitted this game so much better, it just screams of Metal!), but that's just a minor, minor issue.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Review #128: Assassin's Creed III
The best Assassin's Creed since 2!
Ever since Assassin's Creed became a yearly franchise it suffered from a steady decline in quality. Storylines became shorter while side activities grew repetitive and obnoxious. And now we have Assassin's Creed 3, the number isn't just for show as the series went a rather large overhaul.
As per norm, the story focuses on two time periods, present-day has Desmond and his assassin allies trying to save the world from a catastrophe, and Ratonhnhake:ton aka Connor, an assassin of Mohawk blood trying to do right for his people during the American revolutionary war. Unlike most recent games, Desmond's side of the story is a bit more fleshed out, with three present day missions set around the world, plus, the actual conclusion to Desmond's story. Connor's has two parallel storylines going on at the same time, the optional Homestead missions which feature a ton of rather cliche'd, but endearing, storylines and the main storyline itself. The story is pretty good, but it does have a couple of oversights(Some which are explained in the novel, some which have no official explanation at all) regarding Connor and Haytham. Characters are a strong point in this one, Haytham in particular standing out as one of the best characters in the series so far, and now all your Assassin recruits have been fleshed out via optional conversations that flesh them out neatly. All in all, a decent story line, although it takes a bit before it gets going, Connor doesn't get to wear the Assassin robes until Chapter 5!, with great characters and a lot of optional depth.
The very first thing you'll notice is that the controls have been streamlined for the better. Basically, you can do as much as you could, but with less button presses. For example, running and sprinting are now one and the same, tied to the R1 button, while Parrying doesn't require holding the R1 button anymore. At times, muscle memory will fail you, but after getting used to it, the new controls feel much better. Gone are the shallow bombs, tower defense and Borgia/Templar influence liberation missions, replaced by much meatier side content. For starters, hunting, there's wild-life living on the Frontier, some are harmless, some yearn your flesh, and in order to end them you get tools like bait or traps. Another new addition is Naval combat, which is much more fun than it should. It does feel a bit out of place, like the tower defense mode from Revelations, but unlike that mini-game, Naval combat is incredibly fun and there's over a dozen different missions to partake in.
Borgia/Templar Influence has been replaced with liberating forts from the British, however, these are completely optional, not getting in the way of your income, besides, each fort is completely different from the other, while they do all play out the same in the end, they at least offer some variation in how you must approach them, besides, there's only seven of them. Finally, we have the whole tunnel system, probably the worst side-activity in the game, which is used to open up various fast travel stations throughout Boston and New York. It wouldn't be an Assassin's Creed game without collectibles, and the game offers them in spades, from Feathers in the Frontier and Almanac Pages, Chests and Peg Leg trinkets around the cities, there's no shortage of stuff to find.
AC 3 finally gets the economy right! Previous games either gave you too much money(2, Brotherhood) or too little(Revelations), but AC 3 makes it so that the amount of money you earn steadily increases as the game advances and you can buy more expensive stuff. The whole renovating mechanic is gone, changed by improving the Homestead. Improving the Homestead consists of over a dozen of optional side missions which see Connor recruiting people into his homestead. These people set up their trades in the homestead, allowing Connor to buy materials for cheap, and then you can either sell these materials or craft them into better stuff and sell them for more money. Homestead missions open up as you go along, so that you can't craft the really good stuff(Which includes the better weapons as well) until later in the game. The game has a very neat pace at which you are allowed to do stuff, which is something Brotherhood and Revelations really needed, unlike Revelations, you can no longer get the best stuff by chapter 3! Which reminds me, the whole armor system is gone, which is a shame, but in the long run it matters little.
I don't know if I've made it clear yet, but there is a lot of content in the game. There's a ton of Naval combat missions, homestead missions, a ton of activities and minigames and other really interesting sidequests. There are assassination missions(Very simple "Assassinate X target"), courier missions(They are not even timed!) and Brawler missions in which you have to fisticuff your way through various opponents. Then we have the really good ones, the Frontier Tales and Hunting Missions. Hunting sees you tracking special breeds of animals and then hunting them, while Frontier Tales have Frontiersmen telling Connor about a folktale(The headless Horseman, a Kraken, a UFO, etc) and then you have to find the origin of said rumor, these consist mostly of going from one place to another and then pressing circle on certain spots, but it's really cool to see where the mundane origins of these rumors! And if you thought you were done, you'd be wrong. Instead of recruiting random NPCs and getting them into Assassin's robes, you know must complete a certain set of missions to trigger a "Recruit Mission" in which you recruit an NPC, up to six, for your assassins. As previously stated, all six of them have different personalities, backgrounds and designs, which is a step up from the generic NPCs from the older games.
Assassin recruits have also received a major overhaul. Sadly, the extremely overpowered "Arrow Storm" attack is gone, kinda. Instead of simply summoning your allies, you now get a lot of different functions for them. You can have them escort you, as if you were a prisoner, in order to enter guarded areas, you can set them up to attack anyone who dares step into a certain area, you can have them follow you as bodyguards, you can have them attack from afar(Similar to Arrow Storm, but not as good). As cool as all these functions are, it would've been neat if they forced you into using them, as the game is still quite easy as not to need the use of these. There's new weapons as well, rope darts, guns and the bow, besides the gun, there's no real reason to use any other as your sword can get the job done just fine. To be fair, combat is now harder than ever, with a lot more enemies that are only vulnerable to a certain form of attack(Counter attacking, Disarming, crushing their guard or using environmental attacks), and with enemies swarming you dying is now easier than ever, however, as a whole, the game is rather easy, just not AS easy as previous installments.
It seems to be a recurring thing, but graphics are once again, much better than previous installments, at least when it comes to details on the character models. Boston, New York and the Frontier are all beautiful to look at and a refreshing sight, and the new weather system(Snow, Rain, Fog, Summer) is pretty neat. HOWEVER, neither Boston nor New York have as many high buildings as Italy or Constantinople, a minor loss, but it's quite noticeable. But, as per usual on AC, there is a lot of pop in and clipping. For some reason, character's clothes still clip through the horses, but even worse, during cut-scenes character's clothes will try to overlap each other, which is pretty jarring, not that seeing a ton of foliage just pop up in front of you out of thin air isn't. Music is fairly good, although not as memorable as previous games, and the voice acting is really good for the most part, with Haytham standing out(Not only is the character is extremely engaging, but the voice actor performed an outstanding job at delivering his lines).
Before wrapping up, it's worth mentioning that the game houses a fair amount of bugs. The least offensive being people disappearing in the distance. There's a couple of big offenders that are hard not to notice, one being that music will stop playing for no reason what so ever during certain missions and the other being the Percentage tracker getting stuck. I understand that pushing a game every year is a must for Ubisoft, but they could put more effort into quality testing.
Not since Assassin's Creed 2 had I had this much fun with a game in the franchise, heck, after Revelations my interest was waning rapidly, and then AC 3 came along. It's a fantastic game in every regard, it might not have the same impact as AC 2 had, but it stands on its own legs just fine. And Haytham is the best character in the series. Just saying.
8.5 out of 10.
As per norm, the story focuses on two time periods, present-day has Desmond and his assassin allies trying to save the world from a catastrophe, and Ratonhnhake:ton aka Connor, an assassin of Mohawk blood trying to do right for his people during the American revolutionary war. Unlike most recent games, Desmond's side of the story is a bit more fleshed out, with three present day missions set around the world, plus, the actual conclusion to Desmond's story. Connor's has two parallel storylines going on at the same time, the optional Homestead missions which feature a ton of rather cliche'd, but endearing, storylines and the main storyline itself. The story is pretty good, but it does have a couple of oversights(Some which are explained in the novel, some which have no official explanation at all) regarding Connor and Haytham. Characters are a strong point in this one, Haytham in particular standing out as one of the best characters in the series so far, and now all your Assassin recruits have been fleshed out via optional conversations that flesh them out neatly. All in all, a decent story line, although it takes a bit before it gets going, Connor doesn't get to wear the Assassin robes until Chapter 5!, with great characters and a lot of optional depth.
Borgia/Templar Influence has been replaced with liberating forts from the British, however, these are completely optional, not getting in the way of your income, besides, each fort is completely different from the other, while they do all play out the same in the end, they at least offer some variation in how you must approach them, besides, there's only seven of them. Finally, we have the whole tunnel system, probably the worst side-activity in the game, which is used to open up various fast travel stations throughout Boston and New York. It wouldn't be an Assassin's Creed game without collectibles, and the game offers them in spades, from Feathers in the Frontier and Almanac Pages, Chests and Peg Leg trinkets around the cities, there's no shortage of stuff to find.
I don't know if I've made it clear yet, but there is a lot of content in the game. There's a ton of Naval combat missions, homestead missions, a ton of activities and minigames and other really interesting sidequests. There are assassination missions(Very simple "Assassinate X target"), courier missions(They are not even timed!) and Brawler missions in which you have to fisticuff your way through various opponents. Then we have the really good ones, the Frontier Tales and Hunting Missions. Hunting sees you tracking special breeds of animals and then hunting them, while Frontier Tales have Frontiersmen telling Connor about a folktale(The headless Horseman, a Kraken, a UFO, etc) and then you have to find the origin of said rumor, these consist mostly of going from one place to another and then pressing circle on certain spots, but it's really cool to see where the mundane origins of these rumors! And if you thought you were done, you'd be wrong. Instead of recruiting random NPCs and getting them into Assassin's robes, you know must complete a certain set of missions to trigger a "Recruit Mission" in which you recruit an NPC, up to six, for your assassins. As previously stated, all six of them have different personalities, backgrounds and designs, which is a step up from the generic NPCs from the older games.
It seems to be a recurring thing, but graphics are once again, much better than previous installments, at least when it comes to details on the character models. Boston, New York and the Frontier are all beautiful to look at and a refreshing sight, and the new weather system(Snow, Rain, Fog, Summer) is pretty neat. HOWEVER, neither Boston nor New York have as many high buildings as Italy or Constantinople, a minor loss, but it's quite noticeable. But, as per usual on AC, there is a lot of pop in and clipping. For some reason, character's clothes still clip through the horses, but even worse, during cut-scenes character's clothes will try to overlap each other, which is pretty jarring, not that seeing a ton of foliage just pop up in front of you out of thin air isn't. Music is fairly good, although not as memorable as previous games, and the voice acting is really good for the most part, with Haytham standing out(Not only is the character is extremely engaging, but the voice actor performed an outstanding job at delivering his lines).
Not since Assassin's Creed 2 had I had this much fun with a game in the franchise, heck, after Revelations my interest was waning rapidly, and then AC 3 came along. It's a fantastic game in every regard, it might not have the same impact as AC 2 had, but it stands on its own legs just fine. And Haytham is the best character in the series. Just saying.
8.5 out of 10.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Now Playing: Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi
I am now officially playing the worst DBZ ever created. Maybe not the worst, but it's down there...
So, for some reason I decided to give it a chance. Because it looked gorgeous, it was dirt cheap and when I gave that weird SNES card-based DBZ RPG it ended up being really, really good. This is not the case. I'll admit it's not as terrible as I thought, but that's, probably, because I just started it, I can see the whole system growing old very fast.
My favorite moment regarding this game so far? The Tutorial. I spent more than 30 minutes trying to clear the Recovery tutorial, I wound up going to Gamefaqs, turns out I wasn't the only one. Turns out there's input lag, so the button prompts are basically a lie and you have to press the button before the cursor says so. So. Much. Fun.
At least it's beautiful, graphics look drop dead gorgeous, one my favorite uses of cell-shading so far. And the remastered anime cutscenes are amazing. The music is also not half bad, some tunes are really, REALLY good and some don't fit at all.
Overall? I don't like it. Not that I expected to, but still....
My favorite moment regarding this game so far? The Tutorial. I spent more than 30 minutes trying to clear the Recovery tutorial, I wound up going to Gamefaqs, turns out I wasn't the only one. Turns out there's input lag, so the button prompts are basically a lie and you have to press the button before the cursor says so. So. Much. Fun.
At least it's beautiful, graphics look drop dead gorgeous, one my favorite uses of cell-shading so far. And the remastered anime cutscenes are amazing. The music is also not half bad, some tunes are really, REALLY good and some don't fit at all.
Overall? I don't like it. Not that I expected to, but still....
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