Assassin's creed Origins

 Assassins Creed (AC) Origins is a game that was released in 2017 and was said to be a breath of fresh air to the franchise, I'm really not quite sure. I have also heard that the game that comes after this one, Odyssey, is like this one but much better, which I don't think would be too difficult to achieve.

Story

The story of this game is quite similar to other AC games but this being the "origins" the assassins are not yet fighting for the common good but rather for their own end, and during their own quest they find a greater purpose. The setting for the story, ancient Egypt, is very interesting and is something that has been mentioned in interviews a long time ago. As for true AC fashion, the game features some known historical figures, such as Cleopatra, who is one of the main characters in the story. 

In short I guess I could say that the story is pretty good, but it is missing a lot of the "origins" that, I don't know those were ever promised, but it is the name of the game so one would assume it would be about that. There is more about the assassins and their creed at the end of the game but this would have been a perfect opportunity to bring back the similar style recruiting that we saw in "AC Brotherhood". That was the only thing I wanted from this game and it did not deliver.

Gameplay

From the gameplay aspect we can see that whole engine, or the whole base for this game has been revamped. All the gameplay features, more or less, worked the same way in previous AC games. In this one nothing worked quite liked they used to. This is probably one of the best changes they made for this game since I don't remember seeing any bugs or glitches in this game, compared to previous AC games glitches almost seemed like a rule rather than an exception. 

The biggest issue I had with this game gameplay wise was the level system. It would not have been such an issue if the story missions were implemented more like previous games where you had to all the missions in order. Especially for people like me who like to play these games in a way that I first go through the story and if I liked the game I would go back and do the rest. This game did not allow that and it made me mad as all hell. See the problem is that there are very few actual "main story missions" and after each one of those missions you need to have gained several levels if you want to have any chance of completing that next mission. I got really angry at the game because instead of letting me play through the story, how I like it, it forced me to do other activities on the side so that at some point I could progress on the story.

One of the ways to gain levels in this game, aside from main story missions, are side missions. These are a really weird bunch, because you do not need to do these if you want to gain enough levels to progress in the game. Side missions are the fastest way, as far as I know, but they are all optional, so naturally I skipped bunch of them and only did enough of them to be high enough level to progress the main story. This again isn't even the worst issue, the worst issue is that a lot of those side quests that I did do, felt like important bits of the main story, not all of them, but most of them. So what they basically have done is, made all these missions that are part of the story, then make some of them main missions and some of them side missions. This might very well be what they did if they stared to build this game in the similar format as all the previous one, and they really should have released the missions as all being main missions because this format just did not do it for me. 

Open world

The world in this one is very interesting. You obviously know what the world is based the fact that it is set in ancient Egypt, but you need to unlock a lot of the map to actually realize what is what and where everything actually is. A big portion of the map is also, I don't know, because I did not discover maybe third of the map in my playthrough. The areas that I never went to, were too high lever for me after I had finished with the main story, and leveling up to that point had been such a pain in the ass that I did not want to do it anymore and just uninstalled the game. So a good portion of the worlds is unknown to me but the part hat I did discover fit very well into the theme of the game. 

Comparison to the previous one

The previous being AC syndicate, I definitely enjoyed syndicate a lot more. Syndicate gave me what it promised, an AC experience in Victorian England and even with all of it bugs, it was still enjoyable. Origins promised me an AC game in ancient Egypt, I made the assumption that it would also be an origins story to the assassins. It sort of was and origins story, just not very good one, and It didn't much feel like an AC game either, other than the fact that you could climb buildings and assassinate people.

The review

This was the worst AC game I have ever played, people are saying odyssey is even better and I don't doubt them one bit because it would actually quite impressive if they managed to make a worse one than this. The new engine and the setting of ancient Egypt are the only saving graces of this game. 3/10

Borderlands the Pre-Sequel

 Borderlands the pre-sequel is a borderlands game that was released in 2014, as you can maybe tell from the name, the game is set between the first and the second borderlands game but since it was released after the second game it it much more similar to that one rather than the first game. After finishing BL2 I started playing the pre-sequel, but didn't finish it until ages later so much of what I remember from this game is from the last half of the game

Story

The story of the pre-sequel is focused on the events that happened before BL2, on how handsome Jack became what he is in BL 2, and on the moon of Pandora, the planet where BL2 is set. Most of the story of the pre-sequel is a little bit different from the normal borderlands story but it very quickly deviates back to it. First you are helping out handsome Jack on his quest and after that you go right back to vault hunting, which to be honest was a bit of a surprise since I thought that there really was no need for that part in this particular game. Overall the story flows quite nice and makes sense except for the vault part that I mentioned earlier. 

Gameplay

The gameplay of the pre-sequel is very similar to that of BL2, however there are some new mechanics added to the game, on top of all the new and different guns with their own new mechanics. The main new mechanic from previous games is that there is no atmosphere on the moon so you need to refill your oxygen from time to time and can upgrade your O2 capacity with better equipment. The thing is that the O2 capacity is almost always so high that it might as well not be there, the other ways how this mechanic works is a lot fun though. The enemies also need to have an O2 mask on, and there is nothing as satisfying as shooting their mask broken and watching them suffocate. The lack of atmosphere also makes it so that whenever you loot containers all the stuff just flies out, you usually have enough time to catch the loot but sometimes it just drifts off. Other than that the main gameplay is very similar to BL2 and there isn't much to say here.'

I also got a similar feel from this game as I did from AC origins where I had to grind a buttload of side quests to be high enough level to do the main quests. Now this isn't anything new for Borderlands games and they are usually much better done, and by that I mean that the side quests are not a bother to do and you don't need to do too much of them to progress on the story. For this game it felt like it had gone to the worse direction to the point where when I approach late game I had to grind more and more and more side quests to be viable in the main quest line. Some of the side quests were also a pain to the point where I had to be above the level of the side quest to be able to complete it. For some people this might not be much of an issue, but for myself this is not fun.

Open world

You thought I forgot about the jetpack? Nope, but it's a much better fit here. See one of the new mechanics with the O2 is a jetback that jettisons O2 to work as a sort of double jump. The issue is that with the weaker gravity of the moon and a double jump, the levels also need to be built for those things in mind. If you had your general maps that you had in the previous games, you could just fly through the entire map. The map has been made so that it works better with the low gravity and a jetpack, but in the end it works worse. There are so many places that you need to reach, or you think you can reach easily thanks to these before mentioned mechanics but in the end they are almost impossible to reach or there is a completely different way that makes sense. So to put it simply, it's a nice idea but lacks a bit in the execution. 

Comparison to the previous one

I've already mentioned it a couple of times how the game is quite similar to the previous one with the exception of some new minor mechanics and a world that is more built around those new mechanics. But there is also something else that is new to this game compared to BL2. The amount of bugs is something that I've not seen in the previous games. Now I say bugs but there was really just one major bug that annoyed the shit out of me and that is when certain enemies would just fly into walls. This was specially annoying when I was downed and needed to just kill that one low health enemy, who then decides to fly into a wall and left me for dead. And this isn't something that happened once or twice. This was something that happened almost every time that there was flying enemy and a ceiling above them. So to if we do not mention the bugs, it was pretty much the same experience as BL2.

The review

Well I don't think there is much more to say on top of the things that have already been said. Pre-sequel is basically BL2 game with more bugs and some new features that frankly lacked on the execution and with some much grindier progression. Even another copy of BL2 might have been better but this game is still not horrible. 6/10

Titanfall 2

 Titanfall 2 is a game that was released in 2016 and just like the previous game, Titanfall, it pretty much flew under everyone's radar. This is a shame since it is a great game but there are plenty of rumours going around that this was intentionally done by their publisher Electronics Arts so that EA could then buy the studio cheap. 

Story

The main aspect of this game is not the story but it includes it so why not talk about it a little bit. The reason for this story to even exist really is to teach a new player the mechanics of the game and that of each different titan. The story itself is awfully cheesy to the point where you can't but help laugh out loud even on the sad bits because they are full of the same cheesy lines that have already happened a billion times in story telling and you could eat a full block of cheese and still not have consumed nearly as much as you will during the campaign for this game. But for learning the game it is incredibly useful and you really should start there if you are new to the game. 

Gameplay

So the main gameplay in this game happens in the online lobbies. The online gameplay is very similar to that of a Call of duty team deathmatch if it was on speed, crack and cocaine with the occasional chance of titans falling from the sky. The general idea of the game is like I said similar to call of duty as you are in an area with teams of 6v6 and you shoot the enemy team, that's pretty much where the similarities end. Titanfall 2's gameplay is incredibly high paced to the point where if you stay too longer than couple of seconds in the same spot, you are as good as dead, unless you know how to play sniper and dodge enemy bullets that is. In this fast paced arena combat, what you can do is nothing like any other game, at least not to this extent. You can scale large building incredibly quickly by wall jumping between buildings then jump on an enemy titan, remove their energy core, jump away, slide under a door to safety and grapple your way form the window to another rooftop at the same time as you are shooting at an enemy titan, pilot or AI grumps. A really fun and fast paced game. 

Level design

As you can imagine from a team based arena game that there is no open world but instead smaller maps that are either from the previous Titanfall game, or from the campaign. A lot of my friends said that the maps feel very samey but I personally did not feel this way. While there are a lot of restrictions how these maps can be build since you need to take into account normal sized pilots and massive titans and where they can or cannot move it can be quite challenging. I still feel like the team behind this game made a great effort to include a good variety of different maps. 

Comparison to the previous one

Can't really say much about this topic since I did not play the previous one. From what I do know is that the first game did not include a campaign, so I would assume it's a bit harder to get into and most likely most of the player base has moved to this one, so if you still aren't sure which one to buy, choose Titanfall 2 since with the addition of campaign you are sure to get more bang for your buck.

The revie

This is a game that teaches you the ropes so you don't spend too much time trying to get into the game itself. A very fast paced shooter that is a lot of fun for a long time, and is even better with friends. 8/10

Assassin's creed Syndicate

 Assassin's Creed Syndicate is an Assassin's Creed (AC) game that was released in 2015. After a long list of AC games the franchise was kind of dying down and Syndicate was said to be one of the worst ones. While this statement is kind of right, I still don't think this was a bad game. 

Story

The story was maybe one of the weak points of this game, not because it wasn't interesting but because it didn't really follow the flow of a story and for this reason felt a bit off. I feel like the story in this game had an introduction that really wasn't that long but it felt like it dragged on forever. After that was the build up to the story that seemed to start out of nowhere, and didn't really ever hit the crescendo and just kind of went straight to the conclusion. Other than that the story did have a point to it and I loved the fact that we got to explore the Victorian England and a little bit of world war 1 as well. 

The bad thing about the story is the same that has been ever since AC3 where they concluded the modern time story of Desmond Miles. After said game, the modern time stories have been random bits of whatever, not really connected to anything and might as well not be there. There has been some random references to older characters but again, nothing has come out of those references.

Gameplay

Now this was one of the better parts of this game. While the game was very much a traditional AC game, it did have something more to it. Most AC games always add a cool new gimmick and it isn't always for the best but we will touch on that later. The thing, or kind of two things that were added was the possibility to switch between two characters and both of them having their own skill trees. The way the skill trees are built basically means that you have to build the characters in a certain way, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having two ways of playing the game, stealth and combat, and being able to switch between those two was very interesting, as compared to previous game where you only had one character and had to get everything built on that one character to even be viable, this change felt really nice. 

One other minor change that was kind of added was carts. Carts pulled by horses as opposed to just being able to ride horses as in previous games. Now there has been carts in some older AC games but they have mostly always moved in a certain path. In syndicate you can freely move with these carts and let me tell you, those physics are not quite right. 

Open world

The open world is pretty much the same as in every previous AC game, with the exception of the setting. The thing these worlds is what always amazes me is it doesn't matter the setting. They always manage to make it interesting and work well with the AC games. Like I already mentioned the carts don't really work physics wise but if they were fixed a bit, would be, and are a very nice gameplay tool that has been nicely worked into this world. 

Comparison to the previous one

Technically speaking the previous one would be AC unity. It was so long ago when I played this game that I don't remember much from it other that it being your everyday AC game just set in the french revolution. Syndicate is sort of better because of the features that I mentioned earlier. The problem with these AC games is that they just keep stacking features on top of features and the games keep getting buggier and buggier. This is a problem that has plagued AC games for quite some time but I think the games on themselves are still quite decent.

The review

As an AC game this is a solid entry but the amount of bugs in this and the weird construct of the story does bring it down a notch. If this game was bugless I could have given it an almost 8 but at this state the game is not quite there and the final score will be 7/10

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: zero dawn was released in 2017 and had a great reception. Horizon: zero dawn is not a sequel to any game but hopefully we will someday see a sequel to it. I personally find the setting of the game really interesting and did enjoy the story too, but as we all know this is not everything a game is, so we will dig deeper to the aspects of the game to see where it did good and where it didn't do as good. 

Story 

[Spoiler alert] The story of horizon follows a girl called Aloy who was set as an outcast of her tribe since she did not have a mother. Aloy did not like being an outcast since the tribe members either bullied or ignored her most of the time, so she trained all of her childhood so that she could take part in a trial that would make her a part of the tribe again if she managed to win it. As she wins the trial, she and everyone else near her is attacked by a mysterious cult and after she survives the attack it is revealed to her that she indeed does not have a mother and she was found outside an ancient bunker to where she can not enter due to corrupted data. Aloy starts a journey to recover this data so that she could enter the bunker and find out who her mother is. Along the journey it is revealed that her mother, or rather who she is clone of, was a scientist who created an AI that overlooks the life on the whole earth to make sure that it doesn't die out and the cult that attacked her is part of that AI that has gone rogue. 

[No more spoilers] The way the game hands out bits of story, with all it's twists and turns, is done in a way that always leaves you wanting for more. When you have discovered an answer to a question you were asking before, you are simultaneously given another question that you now have to figure out. And the story doesn't just all from the same place, sometimes you discover it on your own from various different sources of ancient technology, sometimes it is given to you by a fellow traveler. The story is the main aspect of the game that makes you come back again and again and it never disappoints. 

Gameplay

This is probably the part where the game has most of it's issues. While the gameplay is a healthy mix of old school and more modern implementations, it still stumbles quite a bit. First issue with the gameplay might just be the fact that I am mainly a PC gamer and I find controllers quite inaccurate but even so the fact that this game is first released on console with PC release over three years later is a bit odd. The fighting mechanics, and most of the game on itself is based on the fact that you have to shoot weak spots on enemies if you want to kill them within a reasonable amount of time, and trying to do that on a controller is quite difficult, at least for me. The second issue that I found mainly affected the stealth, but also movement somewhat. A big part of the game is stealth gameplay, trying to hide in bushes from the enemies but unless the mission is specifically scripted for stealth, it does seem like the enemies do not really care about the bushes as much as they should. This was especially true with the rolling mechanic when trying to roll around bushes, or any obstacles where you would quite easily get stuck or just fail to roll properly. 

Sound Design

In the game the main character has a scanning tool that made a quick scanning noise when scanning, and that scanning noise came out of the controller speakers. I found it really cool when I found out that it did that but it became very irritating within 15 minutes and then after couple of hours I just completely ignored it. 

Open world

The game is set in a very generic open world, where the game is a one big map with several different biomes and it also has objectives that you need to climb in order to scan and reveal parts of the map. When take a little bit closer look into those biomes we can see that each one is made to represent a certain tribe that has a certain culture and is very much tied into their surroundings. So even with being such a generic open world map with your standard side missions and certain enemies in certain places, it does tie in very well with the overall story. The design of the entire setting of the world is also very interesting. Where the game sets in places that could probably be recognized by some people, but in general the world is set in so much in the future that the surroundings are nothing like we would have now. 

Comparison to the previous one

There is no previous one. As far as I know Horizon: zero dawn is, or was, a brand new ip. Horizon: zero dawn 2 when?

The Review

I had heard some good things about this before I played it and found it to be even better than I expected. The only thing that put me off was the jankiness of the matter of how the character controls behaved, especially during combat. Otherwise I am trying to look past the fact that this maybe shouldn't have been only console release originally but here's to hoping that the issues that were in PS4 version will be fixed in the PC version

Overall: one of the most interesting games I have played in a while and I would like to give it 8/10

Spiderman PS4

Spiderman PS4 is a game that was released in autumn 2018 as an exclusive to Playstation 4. Spiderman was also one of the biggest releases of 2018 even though it did get overhadowed by Red Dead Redemption 2 a little bit. There has been plenty of Spiderman games over the yearsbut the stories do not always connect to each other and so was the case with this game as well.


Story

{May include spoilers} Spiderman PS4 brings some new wind to the well known Spiderman story. The game does not tell the origins of spiderman as a lot of the movie reboots do, instead to the overall story of Spiderman combating his arch enemies when Peter Parker has already been Spiderman for quite some time. There are many of those well know arch enemies such as Doctor octopus, Rhino, Electro, Scorpion and the vulture and some newer additions like Mr. Negative. The game takes the player all around Manhattan, battling different enemies and completing different missions and trials so the content does not run out even after the main story. The game takes bits from different movies as well. The character model of Peter Parker looks a lot like he does in The Amazing spiderman movies and the technology his suit uses is very familiar to the suit in The newer MCU movies.


Gameplay

In the Spiderman game you can swing across the streets of Manhattan and climb the tallest buildings, including the Avengers tower. Swinging around with webs that Spiderman shoots out is one of the most fun thing I have had in a video game in a very long time. Even though swinging in the game is very smooth, it does feel like the game is not always on the same wavelength with the player and accidents do happen. The combat in the game is also very smooth as long as you learn even some of the different combos and unlock some new ones. Without learning the combos the game does feel like a Mortal Kombat game to a newbie where you just smash your head into the controller and hope to achieve something. In Spiderman the combos are much simpler however and it does not take a long time for someone less experienced to learn them quite quick.


Audio design

It makes a nice sound when you punch the enemies in the face.


Open world

The open world is maybe the best part in the game. As previously mentioned, swinging around the streets of Manhattan as Spiderman is so much fun that there hasn't been something quite like it for quite some time. Manhattan is also filled with side missions and collectibles that are quite standard to an open world game of this size and those side missions are just as fun as the main mission itself as they do include quite a bit of lore as well.


Comparison to the previous game

As I have mentioned before it is always important to compare a game to the ones that came before it to see how the series has improved. In this case it is a bit difficult since as far as I know Spiderman PS4 is not connected to the previous games too much and on top of that I have not played previous spiderman games other than one playstation 2 era spiderman game which name I can't even remember. And it is easy to say that the series has improved a lot since playstation 2 era.


The Review

When I got Playstation 4 I was wondering if I should first get spiderman or Red Dead Redemption for it. However I got spiderman bundled together with PS4 so I did not have to make that decision after all and after the fact there is no question which of those games is better. I heard good things about both games but in the end Spiderman was the one of those two games that I enjoyed a lot more. After getting my PS4, I played through the main story of Spiderman in a couple of days as I just could not put it down, and every now and then I return to lovely Manhattan to do side missions and enjoy the freedom that swinging around gives me in this amazing game. Out of the games that I played that were realeased in 2018, and out of the ones that I will propably ever play, Spiderman PS4 would easily get my vote for the Game of the year award.

Even though Spiderman PS4 is an amazing game, nobody is perfect and thus I give a score of 9/10

BlizzCon 2019

This is a slightly different blog from the usual. This won't be about old games but rather about the BlizzCon that just recently took place. While I do not approve about the bullshit that Blizzard pulled considering Blitzchung and Hong Kong, I still wanted to voice my opinion about the recent announcements. I will not talk about Hearthstone since I have next to no interest in that game but will talk about what I thought about Diablo, WoW and Overwatch announcements.

Diablo 4

There isn't too much to unpack about the Diablo 4 announcement trailers other than the fact that they look pretty cool. It looks like the game is launching with 3 classes, and the maximum group size is most likely going to be 3 as well instead of the 4 that it was previously. This is a trend that can be seen in several new releases and a trend that will most likely continue from here on out.
Having only played a little bit of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 completely, I am only worried that the gameplay is going to be simplified even more to target a more mainstream audience. This in turn can make the game a bit too easy or bland to the original fans of the game, in a way that diablo 3 already did but even more. 

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

I did not properly play the previous expansion of WoW because it was really bad and I was hoping this announcement trailer to go the obvious route and bring back, In my opinion, one of the best expansions that was Wrath of the Lichking. From what I understood about the last expansion, Sylvanas went crazy and has now destroyed the Helm of Domination revealing the Shadowlands. Previously it was said that someone has to always sit on the frozen throne and I really wonder what does it mean now that the throne is empty. 
With the Shadowlands expansion there are going to be some huge changes. One of the biggest changes is going to be the fact that level cap is going to be scaled down to 60 and all the previous expansions areas are going to be scalable and optional and if everything is going to be scalable, is now every old content going to be impossible to solo for mount and achievement gatherers? 
The feature trailer also shows us that the shadowlands is going to be full of basically all the enemies that we encountered this far and more, and that you are going to have to earn every factions respect in the shadowlands, that tells me that the expansion is going to skip the usual 'new expansions lore gameplay' and go straight into the boring reputation grind late game that I always disliked. 

Overwatch 2

While the Overwatch 2 announcement trailer was very emotional, I hated it. Overwatch 2 is what's called 'a massive money grab' and the fans of the franchise are going to eat it up like  it's a feast. While Overwatch is suffering from a lower playerbase than it originally had, this is not the solution. I'm not saying I have the solution but this is not it. While Overwatch 2 might boost the playerbase for a short while and in the meantime bring massive profits to Blizzard, it is not going to 'revive' the game. This would have been much better as a DLC/expansion that would have been priced accordingly, but there is no way in hell I'm going to pay for a full game to get what I already had plus some extra conent, no matter how much progression carries over. 
Another reason why Overwatch '2' sounds like a bad idea, at least to me that is, is just because of what it is. Overwatch is technically a MOBA and has been built as such from the beginning. MOBA market, even though almost everyone has their clear favorite, is very competitive. What Overwatch 2 is doing, is taking currently one of the smaller, but still popular MOBA, and cutting its playerbase in half. This is the reason that other MOBAs have just been updating their games, and not releasing a completely another one, is to keep their playerbase unified. In my opinion, like I said already, sell Overwach 2 as a story expansion/DLC and release the gameplay changes as a free patch. If they really need the money, they can go the hearthstone route and sell different types of stories, or different story lines as separate DLC.


Here are my thoughts about BlizzCon, I'm sure I've missed some info but I'm mainly going based on the launch trailers that were shown in BlizzCon.