Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Finished Far Cry 4. That's one of the worst open worlds I have played. It's a chore, monotonous and uninteresting. Gave FC3 an 8.5 but this one is a 7 for me. Not buying anymore FC. Also very very minor improvements to the combat and the story is worse (characters too).

Should I expect the same for AC franchise? I'm starting that franchise this year.

@Ralizah I honestly adore TWEWY but then I played it on release. I probably put up with more of the admittedly tedious stuff out of a general love of the things the game gets right.

@RogerRoger 380 playable characters? That's nuts! I can definitely see how this might serve as fanservice/content overload for a super fan like you. The degree of optional content here sort of reminds me of Koei-Tecmo's musou games, where you can blast through the story in 20 - 30 hours, but the bulk of the content will take you hundreds to fully complete. It's an approach I like, actually, when done well, since it allows different sort of players to experience the game to the degree that they like while still having a sense of completion attached to their time with it.

It's good to hear they've somewhat overhauled the combat and camera controls in this release, as those were aspects of these lego games that massively held them back for me. Particularly the combat, which was, yes, sloppy and very basic. Probably why I've only ever completed one of these games in the past, despite having played a number of them.

The scale of the environments sound impressive, and it's nice that they've better integrated the game's levels so that they have a sense of consistency and flow from one to the next.

Putting aside the inclusion of the new trilogy, this all sounds like a pretty massively improved version of The Complete Saga back in the PS360 era. Which was actually probably my favorite Lego game back in the day (aside from the ill-fated Dimensions).

It's hard to imagine a no-voice acting mode would be pitched as a positive, but I guess some people have never adjusted to these things talking.

Pity about the performance issues, although I suppose that's one of the risks of playing games when they release. Hopefully it's patched up sooner than later, though.

Will you be focusing on this game exclusively until you get the plat, or will it be the sort of thing you dip in and out of while playing other games?

Entertaining review, as usual. Your enthusiasm as a Star Wars superfan definitely shines through, and I'm happy that the developers have managed to translate the entire nine-film saga to lego game form as fully as they have.

I get your 'certain perspective' comment. It'll probably never be the quote-unquote "best" Star Wars-themed game, but it might end up being the ultimate fan-pleasing game tied to this particular IP.

@RogerRoger I enjoyed your TSS review. As a Star Wars fan but not a LEGO fan (yes, there are a few of us out there) I’m intrigued about the game, even if it’s outside of my wheelhouse. I suspected the game would be very good based on early impressions and previews. It might just be worth a dive for me someday!

@RogerRoger Once it goes low enough, I might grab this in order to play through episodes 4 - 6 in Lego form again. Love the movies, but you can only rewatch them so much before the thrill is lost.

Good to hear the developers didn't cheap out on this product, considering it probably would have been a simple thing to cut corners with assets, jokes, and whatnot drawn from their previous take on the first two trilogies.

The silent lego humor can be cute, but I'm not sure if I'm up for anymore mime-like cutscenes from my lego games. It works well in a certain context, but not when I want to re-experience set-pieces from [insert favorite IP].

To be honest, I'm surprised there haven't been any Lego James Bond games to date.

It's an amazing problem, isn't it, to not have enough time for all of the amazing games you want to play?

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a decent time investment. Probably 70+ hours of storytelling unless you're an especially fast reader. Definitely worth it, though: the series is taken to new narrative heights (particularly in the second game), and it has replaced the og trilogy as my favorite 'set' of games in the series.

The Stanley Parable was only a couple of hours long when I played it back in 2014 or so, although you'll probably squeeze more time out of it if you're going after all the trophies in this version. Especially if it's an expanded version of the game. Nevertheless, it probably won't be a huge time investment.

@RogerRoger
He'll of a write up and pleasure to read (so much so that I feel slightly inadequate praising it in a mere sentence of two!). I remember enjoying the first Lego Star Wars game a long time ago in a... As an occasional Lego game player and longstanding SW can (though not of your level, obvs!) I do have some interest in this. However as an occasional completionist with a never ending backlog I worry about the time commitment that it would entail. I agree that the Lego formula did need a bit of a shake up and its good to read that most of it landed.

Off topic: I always remembered KOTOR as my favourite Star Wars game ever, did you ever play it and are you looking forward to the remake?

... I feel personally attacked by this

Jokes aside I'm sorry to hear The World Ends With You didn't do much for you.

Back when the DS was in it's hayday I remember seeing the box for TWEWY quite frequently in my local gaming store at the time and just always passed over it for something else.

It always eyecatching... But I'm kinda glad I didn't pick it up now with how awful it sounds to control.

I did do a impressions piece a while back of the demo for the sequel last year or so (Which I'll admit was really rushed and poorly written) but a lot of things in your review unfortunately sound the same such as that bland music you've linked sounds very similar to the wallpaper paste that played in Neo, the whole hearing the thoughts mechanic that didn't really serve much of a purpose, a protagonist as interesting as the colour beige...

The combat wasn't as bad as the original sounds like but it wasn't very exciting and I recall thinking the enemy design was rather uninspired too.

Sorry... That probably doesn't fill you with a lot of confidence I know but... Uhhh... Hopefully it's better then that @Ralizah 😅

@RogerRoger fantastic review for TSS, your love of the star wars IP oozes from it 😀. I will confess to having never played a lego game! Ive always enjoyed the star wars and I'm hopeful that this game might be the thing that tempts my daughter into the star wars universe, as she loves lego but gets freaked by the star wars movies. Experiencing that story for the first time via the medium of lego probably isn't ideal but hey ho! Did you get the chance to checkout any coop? Thanks again for the amazing review and detail.

@HallowMoonshadow Honestly, my expectations are so low now that any substantial improvement will be welcome. Yeah, I could understand the thought-hearing thing if it was actually integrated into the audio design as a way to immerse you in the setting or something, but, as it stands, the mechanic seems to not serve much of a purpose.

I'll say this: when I first read your impression on the demo, I thought it might have been a little needlessly harsh, but with experience of the original game under my belt now, I'm inclined to say it was probably appropriately harsh.

Nevertheless, owing to an amazing $15 deal a few months ago, I'm now the proud owner of a copy of a physical copy of the Nintendo Switch, so I'll be getting to it eventually.

So harsh it took me a good fifteen minutes to find my impressions piece of Neo @Ralizah and re-read what I'd wrote all those months ago.

I apparently thought the music was even worse then what I recall having "scorched" it from memory (which I really don't remember) and the pins were tied to certain buttons/inputs so I kept forgetting what button correlated to what attack

... All I can really say is good luck. You'll likely need it

@HallowMoonshadow If you still have tab up (or know the page number), let me know. I think I'm going to add an incomplete impressions/demo impressions section to the directory. I also want to add my partial write-up on Monster Hunter Stories 2 to it.

Page 97 it was on @Ralizah... Just a few posts after the bugsnax review 😄

@Sorteddan I'm with you on "KOTOR" - without a doubt my favourite "Star Wars" game. In fact, when it released on the OG Xbox it just about kept my fandom for that franchise afloat in the wake of the disappointment of "The Phantom Menace". I'm awaiting the remake with a certain amount of trepidation!

@LN78
Maybe we should just skip it and live with the nostalgia for the original untarnished?!

@Sorteddan You're probably right. I think we'll end up with something not too dissimilar to the "FFVII" remake - the same story beats but with a much heavier action element. The thing is they'll never be able to recreate the twist ending because,well,everyone already knows what it is! It did totally blow me away on my first playthrough!

@RogerRoger it's probably the switch version I'll go for so we can play away from the tv and joy cons tend to be easier on smaller hands. Your right, seems to be completely fine even in handheld mode. I'm trying to tell myself I've got tons of games and can wait for a couple of patches and a sale but the call of the dark side (otherwise known as simply games.com) is strong!

Assassin's Creed: Origins - Impressions

Just finished Assassin's Creed: Origins on PS4 after 53 hours of playtime and it was an absolutely phenomenal game. I did pretty much everything in the game, such as doing all the question marks on the map, uncovering all areas, doing most of the side quests and so on. It's actually a much shorter game than I thought considering I did almost everything and yet it only took a little over 50 hours, while it took me over 80 hours to do most things in Odyssey and even then there were so many things I could've also done. In fact, if you just go through the story then it's a fairly short experience. You still have to do things like completing side quests, outposts and so on in order to level up accordingly with the story missions but I guess you could finish the game in 20-30 hours, which is very short for the open world type of AC game.

The story is honestly not that long and I was surprised to see that I had only uncovered half of the map when I was done with it. It's kinda misleading actually, most of the areas in the game are just desert areas with nothing to do in them. Anyway, I thought the game was more like a typical Assassin's Creed experience than Odyssey. I mean, it is called "Origins" so naturally they would explain how the Creed came to be. Odyssey takes place before Origins which is why it doesn't feel as much as an AC experience. But at least Origins had all the things that characterises an AC game, such as hidden blade, a group of assassins, the assassin hood, templars and of course a strong emphasis on stealth and assassinating targets. Not to mention the supernatural element which is present in all AC titles. So in one way, Origins is very much an unmitigated AC experience.

That said, the gameplay can feel a bit repetitive with too much familiar content and not enough variety. Sadly, the story missions don't feel any different than the side quests and while these things didn't bother me personally since I love Ubisoft games, a lot of people would probably get sick of them very fast. One difference I noticed between Origins and Odyssey is that enemies don't actually scale with you as you level up in Origins. So for instance, you could go to an area where enemies are around your level, and in another they are much stronger than you. This was never the case in Odyssey and I understand now why people didn't like Origins as much because you are basically "forced" to do side content in order to level up and keep up with the story. However, I do feel like this is something that's common with all RPGs so I don't really see it as an issue other than it restricts the open world aspect. It's not like you can play through the game again and have a different experience by taking other paths, because you have to follow a certain path so that you can level up properly. Odyssey on the other hand lets you go wherever you want right from the start because enemy levels scale with you so it promoted more freedom. Anyway, point is that I was not bothered by the structure of Origins as I still enjoyed the game a lot.

It's definitely nice to have finished this game now as it was one of those that I played for around 20 hours and lost my save file for years ago. Absolutely phenomenal experience and I highly recommend it to people who know what they're getting into based on my aforementioned impressions. I still have the two fairly meaty expansions left to do but I might do them later on as I take a break from the game for now.

@RogerRoger Yeah, I totally understand that. I've come to realise recently that while I'd rather spend my time completing as many games from my backlog as possible, it's still nice to play a long game once in a while that can completely absorb you into its world. I played through Mass Effect Andromeda a couple of months ago and that was a very long game as well, but it felt nice getting lost into it and playing it for hours on end. Just like with AC: Origins. And just like with you, I love Egypt as a setting and exploring it thousands of years ago was really cool. Seeing how the Egyptians worshiped their gods, how they took care of bodies after people died, learning more about the fauna of Egypt and simply exploring landmarks such as the Giza pyramids and sphinx as well as cities like Alexandria is just so cool. Not to mention meeting historical characters such as Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. It was a very cool experience, I think you'd enjoy it a lot!

I do think Origins is a good entry point as it's easily the shortest and smallest game when compared to Odyssey and Valhalla. I do have to say though that Odyssey it the better choice in terms of immersion because the level of freedom is just unprecedented for the series. But if you are the type that want to try out these games and don't care that much about the open world aspect then Origins is a good start for sure.

But yeah, it's so weird that I've come to play a lot of long games in recent time. Although it makes me more confident that I'll be able to finally play through MGS5 to completion this time around. Finishing that game would definitely be a huge accomplishment for me.

@LtSarge Origins is the Egyptian one, right? Have you tried the Discovery Tour mode? While I usually prefer my games to be... well, games, I think there's a lot of potential in video games for virtual tourism possibilities that aren't really being explored atm.

Regarding level scaling in open worlds, I can see it both ways. It can be an organic way to encourage players to explore some areas before others and give some structure to an experience. However, I've always felt like it was a bit antithetical to the point of big open worlds where you can supposedly go anywhere. I think, in my case, I'd prefer the level scaling solution you mention in Odyssey, but it really just depends on the game.

If I was gonna jump into the series, would this be a good entry to do it with? Or would I be missing out on tons of lore and whatnot from previous games? I actually really like Egypt as a setting. Far more than the settings of other games in this series.

Losing your save file for a game is always frustrating, so it's good to hear you now have a sense of personal achievement regarding this game.

@Ralizah That's right and no, I haven't tried it out yet but I'm guessing it just takes you to landmarks around the map and gives you information about them. Not really my cup of tea because I want to experience them throughout my playthrough but it's nice for those who want to "feel" like they've gone back in time and are visiting these places without needing to spend hours playing the game in order to get there. It's another reason why I love Assassin's Creed so much because it's one of the few franchises that actually visits different historical settings. I genuinely can't wait to explore Scandinavia and England during the Viking era in Valhalla.

So if you start with Origins, I think the only thing that would make it a poor first entry is the modern day story since it takes place after the events of the previous games. Some stuff would be spoiled for you but other than that, these sections are short, few and far between compared to the huge emphasis they had in previous games. In terms of the historical story in Egypt, it's a good starting point since it basically tells you how the Assassin Brotherhood came to be. I also thought they explained some things very well both in the main game and the DLCs in terms of why Assassins do certain things. For example, in the first DLC, there's a mission that shows you why the Assassins have learned to never hurt innocents, which is a reoccurring thing in all games, and that was explained during that specific mission, which I thought was really cool. So I think the game does a good job of teaching new players about the series. But yeah, chronologically speaking in terms of the historical settings, this game takes place way before almost all entries except for Odyssey so it would probably work well as an entry point.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the "Ubisoft formula" of collecting a bunch of useless collectibles was scrapped in Origins. There are still question marks around the map but it doesn't feel as cluttered this time around and the rewards are better, e.g. XP, weapons, skill points and so on. I also mentioned that this game is much shorter than the other open world AC titles like Odyssey and Valhalla, so that could be an appealing thing for you as well. Exploring Ancient Egypt is really cool as well, like seeing all the landmarks and also learning about what the political situation was like back then. I wasn't actually aware of the extent of Greek and Roman influence back then, so I learned a lot of history that way too.