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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2022 1:31:44 GMT -5
And after clearing 3 of the 9 assassinations and starting on the 4th.. yeah that's enough Assassin's Creed for me. I have no doubt the sequels incrementally improve considerably upon this original entry. But said original entry is just too lazily formulaic for my tastes. After fours invested in this trite nonsense I'm retiring this one. +Impressive parkour engine for its time (2007). +Unusual plot premise in its concept. +Visually interesting sword fighting. -Incredibly boring, repetitive, comically formulaic game design. -Bland graphics, boring word aesthetic, overly desaturated color palette. -The writing consistently failed to capture my attention or make me care. -Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad is jilted to a fault and entirely uninteresting. -The controls REALLY needed some context sensitivity. -It's pathetic that people would waste their lives seeking 100s of hidden collectibles. I'd give AssCreed #1 a 5/10 at most. Even in 2007 I'd have given this a 5/10. I do plan to give other AssCreed sequels fair chances eventually. I can tell you Liberation on Vita was much better than this was (a 7/10 in my book), I did at least finish Liberation. It's no mystery to me now why AC2, AC3, and AC4 all got "remastered" versions on PS4... but AC1 did not.
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Post by anayo on Apr 5, 2022 8:20:30 GMT -5
ExAssassin's Creed looked cool when it came out. Over the past 10 years I'd see it a lot in the background. Like if I entered the room and someone happened to be playing video games, it was often Assassin's Creed. It also got so many sequels and ports. I think there were even Wii U, PS Vita, and maybe even a Nintendo DS port. But for some reason my every instinct was telling me that this game just was not for me. It's like everything I dislike about modern gaming distilled into weaponized form. I've heard that one where you manage a pirate ship with a crew and sail around terrorizing the seas is pretty good, though.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 5, 2022 8:43:33 GMT -5
What's the matter Ex , don't want to do the same 3 mission types for another 20 some hours?
In retrospect it always feels like I finished AC1 out of spite. You should look up the ending though, I did think it was kind of cool. The weird Matrix styled side of the plot was kind of neat, but I remember even those segments were repetitive or got stale.
I wonder how it'd hold up in 2022+, but yeah AC2 is monumentally better across the board. The new protagonist Ezio was so good, the dude got his own entire trilogy. I still need to play Revelations someday and if I ever did, it would be to see his arc come to closure. The only minor fault to AC2 is that it starts really slow. But the pay off is nice. AC2 even has some really fun base building/recruiting mechanics, time leaps, etc. I'm never sure which I like most between AC2 and Brotherhood, but I tend to lean more towards AC2 I think since it was bigger and had a few more environments.
anayo: You're probably thinking of Odyssey with the sailing. That's the newest one I beat and it was awesome. The combat is more ARPG with the new ones. I prefer base building and more land over the sailing, but I didn't mind all the sailing either. Contrast to how boring Wind Waker is to me, AC Odyssey was a blast.
But yeah, it's Ubisoft. Even AC2 and whatnot will still have some repetitive elements and stuff I may not have tolerance for anymore with how overblown this kind of open world design became over the years. Their new Far Cry games from 3 and on are rinse and repeat too. I liked 3-4, but I don't think I need to play more of them. That's what happened to me and AC as well when they were pumping them out yearly. For gamers who just stick to a few IP's or genres and likes this stuff, they got a lot of them to play. But for me if you've played one, you've played many a Ubisoft games...
AC Revelations, Syndicate (cool Victorian England setting), and maybe the new Ragnarok are the next ones I may consider playing someday. But AC will never be a priority.
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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2022 9:46:57 GMT -5
I think there were even Wii U, PS Vita, and maybe even a Nintendo DS port. The AssCreed games on Vita, PSP, and DS were not ports. Those platforms received unique and exclusive AssCreed games for their respective platforms. (Although the Vita game did get ported to other platforms later.) I don't know anything about Wii U versions, other than the Wii U was likely a parallel release candidate along with PS4 and One. What's the matter Ex , don't want to do the same 3 mission types for another 20 some hours? Man there wasn't even 3 mission types, just the same exact mission structure over and over. I went back and looked at Metacritic reviews for this game during its release window, even in 2007 people were calling AC1 out on this: I agree with those opinions. Still it was good to play AC1 finally. I remember seeing this game megahyped SO HARD back in 2007. All the gaming rags and crap blogs at the time couldn't stop talking about it (likely payola to be sure). And I kept seeing articles about Jade Raymond being some kind of auteur and driving force behind AC1. When in reality she was just a producer (glorified studio manager in this case) and had nothing to do with the actual design and creation of the game. Truth is she was just a pretty woman involved with game production, so shite sites like Kotaku and Game Informer couldn't get enough of her (or may couldn't get enough of Ubisoft's payola $$$). I considered doing so myself, but then remembered my new gaming rule; I only finish long games that are at least decent 7/10, this was a 5/10 so it got dumped rightfully so. There was a lot of key development staff change from AC1 to AC2, so I believe that's possible. I do have the three AC2 related games via the PS4 remaster trilogy. It does seem like AC1 was just a glorified tech demo/proof of concept. AC2 is the real AC1 I bet, if you get what I'm saying. I assumed he was talking about Black Flag? That's good to read because the AC structure is better served by ARPG than action-adventure. I want better things to find in these open worlds than just collectible markers (you have found 2 of 100 King Richard flags!). I mean like sidequests or better weapons, optional costumes, something to that effect. At least NPCs you can talk to would be nice. Well after ER what else will hold up... I still need to get around to more of those... I've only beaten FC1 (6/10) and Far Cry Instincts on Xbox (8/10). Haven't played FC2 or anything after yet.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 5, 2022 12:49:58 GMT -5
I assumed he was talking about Black Flag? Ahhhh yeah, maybe that's the one anayo means. I heard good things about that one from what I recall. Hard to keep track of the 200 AC's over the years. lol The "take turns 1v1 and counter" combat in the old AC's and other games of that era (Batman Arkham), I'm not sure if I'd care for anymore. So that's kind of a red flag if I ever get back to AC Revelations. So AC Odyssey having health bars and being a little different was kind of for the best to me. I still don't love how these kind of 3rd person action games have this weird gravitational lock on systems and combat... it's hard to explain but they never feel as good as character action and Souls games to me. You do lock on a lot in Souls and sometimes have to battle the camera, but never do I feel like those games are taking control away from me, contrast to how strange some other modern games can feel. Just know that FC2 is wildly different and pretty hardcore. Has a severely reversed difficulty curve and starts off brutal. It almost feels like it's better compared to STALKER than the "refined" sequels. FC2 has one annoying gimmick where you have some disease though and often have to run back to a safe house to take some meds, which can trigger even during missions and stuff. I think you have to babysit that from start to finish. I remember the map being "in-game", in that crude yet somewhat extra immersive kind of way. Your character looks at an actual little drawn out map, rather than it opening up a nice grid and stuff. I didn't mind that.
FC3 was yet another team change and when it really feels like they just mirrored the AC blueprint into FC. It's very refined... very "safe"... mildly fun, but does kind of feel soulless in a way after awhile. FC4 felt the same, but I liked its Himalayas aesthetic a lot so that carried it for me.
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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2022 13:26:47 GMT -5
Yeah you can lock on in DeS and DS, but I hardly ever did that. Makes it way harder to dodge attacks, and I didn't have an issue kiting enemies or attacking them without being locked on. I did laugh in AC1 where when I was fighting like six or seven guards they all kindly waited for me to finish killing one before the next one attacked. DeS/DS definitely isn't polite like that. FC2 sounds great except for the "sickness" mechanic. Reminds me of other games like Metroid Prime 2 or Scurge Hive, stuff where the player is penalized for simply existing in the game world. I really don't care for that mechanic at all, but I'm willing to put up with it if the game's fun enough otherwise.
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Post by anayo on Apr 5, 2022 14:11:53 GMT -5
I assumed he was talking about Black Flag? Ahhhh yeah, maybe that's the one anayo means. I heard good things about that one from what I recall. Hard to keep track of the 200 AC's over the years. lol
Not Odyssey, I think that's the Ancient Greek one. I'm thinking about the 1700's Caribbean one.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 5, 2022 14:20:19 GMT -5
Yup. Odyssey had the cool female protagonist too. Her voice acting was good, whereas I heard (and sampled) some of the male lead and he was hilariously bad. Ex : I think that's where Batman Arkham Asylum was a little better, with the combat. It still kind of felt like enemies politely take you on one by one, but Batman's got more oomph to his punches and attacks, chaining things together is slick, etc. Haha dang, Arkham Asylum was 2009 so I guess it's HRG legal now too. That game freaking rules, except for some of of the repetitive boss designs. Once they went bigger with Arkham City, I lost interest shortly into that one so I haven't bothered with Origins and Knight. It's weird that I think I almost preferred the sandbox city styled open world games in the late 2000's. Crackdown, GTA4, AC was blowing up, etc. But now it's like my least favorite type. From what I played of Cyberpunk, I loved though. So I think the first person format still works with cities for me, since that's a bit uncommon compared to third person. Fun talking 2000's open world here... but uh yeah, it'll be interesting when I play another one someday in my post Elden Ring world. I can see it now "Eh... feeling like a 6/10 here. Should I just replay ER again instead?"
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Post by toei on Apr 9, 2022 15:16:39 GMT -5
Dumping Retro Game Challenge (DS), aka the Game Center DX game.
I liked the concept a lot, but so far, none of the games are worth playing. The first is a Space Invaders clone, and it's fine. I didn't mind it, but I got about a million options if I want to play one of those, and it's not like there's many things that differentiate one from the next. The second is a so-so single-screen platformer with doors which I hear is based on Ninja JaJaMaru-kun. I don't really like that type of game. It wasn't too horrible, but it wasn't much fun either. Third game is an absolute piece of shit overheard racer like those Micro Machines games nobody likes with slippery controls where touching another car sends you spinning like crazy while they get to keep going as if nothing happened. I can't stand it. Even if I had the patience to make it through that garbage, you have to play a modified version of it again as a separate game (Rally King SP), and there's another lame single-screen platformer, too! That leaves only three games I might actually like: a proper shmup, the Ninja Gaiden/Metroid game (provided the level design isn't actually like Ninja Gaiden's), and the Dragon Quest homage, Guadia Quest. But I don't think it's worth putting up with these crappy games just for a mini-DQ knockoff and a platformer I might not like, and I'm sure there are dozens of better shmups in the same style that I could be playing anyway.
Also, the localization is bad. Once again, they couldn't decide what to do with the setting; the original game is a spin-off of a Japanese TV show, and clearly takes place in Japan. They could have gone full American NES to try and evoke nostalgia (though who is actually nostalgic for the mediocre first-wave 8-bit titles most of these games are based on, rather than the later, better NES games?), or they could have stuck to the original setting to try and communicate what console gaming was like in Japan at the time; instead, they kind of half-assed it. You're still clearly laying down on a tatami in a Japanese room, next to a Japanese kid named Arino, playing a bunch of obviously Japanese games; but the magazines you read pretend that the games are American, including mini interviews with the random white people who apparently made Dragon Quest in this world (pretty sure their names are supposed to be references to Ultima or something, which just doesn't work), and fucking Yuri Lowenthal, 34 or 35 at the time, makes annoying voiced comments that are supposed to be kid Arino's as you play. I don't want to hear zany "whoa oh!"s and "dude!"s all day long. If I could find a save file with Guadia Quest and Ninja Haggleman 3 unlocked I'd probably want to play through them, and I'd check out the shmup, but as it is, this just another DS game with a good concept that doesn't deliver.
The second Game Center CX, which was fan translated, seems to have a better lineup overall. A Pac-Man clone, a Kung-Fu clone, a Famicom Detective Club-style adventure game, another Guadia Quest, two Mario-style platformers instead of single-screen crap, a Tetris clone and a shmup. I should probably try that one.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 9, 2022 16:37:03 GMT -5
I can help with that, haha. I played through all of Retro Game Challenge back in the day. I agree that some of the games aren't super awesome, but Guadia Quest and Haggleman 3 are aces. I noticed that GameFAQs has .duc saves for the game, so maybe start there, and if that doesn't work, I can dump mine for you. What are you playing on?
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