My Interest in Ghosts of Tsushima Just Shifted Laterally
In case you missed it, Sony’s most recent State of Play delivered an 18 gameplay demo. Except this time, there was actual gameplay, unlike Xbox’s most recent shindig. It delivered on a lot of things. It showcased how exploration worked and how organic and fluid it was. Then we got some combat gameplay where we saw protagonist Jin play two different styles. One as a samurai, and one as a “ghost”. But he’s not a ghost, he’s an assassin.
Yes yes, I was expecting a unique samurai dueling game but I got Assassins Creed: Odyssey. Or Origins. Moreso the new ones than the old ones. After playing Odyssey for 160 hours I kind of have that gameplay loop burned into my head.
Then I watched this 18 minute demo for Ghosts where the character marked a spot on his map then got on his horse to go to the spot. On the way there he, he picks up a branch without getting off. Clearly its for the crafting elements that are now mandatory for all games. The character also made a stop at an upgrade shrine, then another location where he unlocked fast travel. No climbing or synchronizing at least.
The combat comes next.
At first I was amazed at how the game appeared to be based entirely on reflex moves. Lost of samurai trope insta-slashes and bloody cool counter attacks. I thought that was unique until I also saw you can just whack dudes with your sword as well. But then they went back again and had Jin sneaking around the walls and gates, sneaking and assassinating enemies. Literally assassinating them, it says so on the button prompt.
Well then, not as unique as I thought the game was going to be. Watch the video for yourself. The majority of the gameplay experience looked exactly like the experience I’ve had in AC: Odyssey. It all looked far too familiar for me. That’s no a bad thing, as I’ve said, I sunk 160 hours into Odyssey. Why not sink some time into Assassins Creed Feudal Japan edition. Ubisoft never got around to making that Japanese setting that fans occasionally called for. Looks like Sucker Punch Studios is doing it for them. I can’t wait to get roped into the Ubi-loop once again.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the game in all honesty. It looks completely fine to me and I would definitely play it. But what started off as a very unique looking game has wound up into being a complete, by-the-books experience. All that’s left now is for it to have a great score, great story, and great fun. If it’s got all that, it’ll still be a solid experience.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
BTW, the Black & White mode and the ability to turn off subtitles for the Japanese voice track was the most pretentious bullcrap I’ve ever seen.
So, that went just okay. I need to learn how to talk more. And probably get a mic. I’ll get a better mic if 50 people comment on this exact page. Good Luck. Anyway, watching me watch something other people are also watching is fun and all, but what if you want to just get to the nitty-gritty? I’ve got you covered.
Games Unveiled
This is the list of games that made an appearance on the show. Each title will have initials indicating repeated features throughout the presentation, such as:
WP – World Premiere
XGP – Xbox Game Pass
SD – Smart Delivery
The first 3 are pretty self explanatory but just in case, let’s go over that. World Premiere means the game has officially been revealed. Xbox Game Pass is a monthly subscription service where you can play a rotating selection of over 100+ games, and all Xbox Exclusive titles end up on it. Smart Delivery is the new big thing. Anyting denoted with Smart Delivery means if you own it on Xbox One, you also own it on Xbox Series X. The game will most certainly be a higher quality experience on the XSX. It may sound mundane but this is the first time this has ever been done for consoles Alright, let’s see what we have…
Senua’s Saga: Hell Blade II
They didn’t actually announce anything. They just wanted to remind you that Microsoft owns Ninja Theory now and is looking promising. Here’s last year’s E3 trailer if you wanna know more on that. Fun fact, the song being chanted is a real European folk band called Heilung. XGP
Bright Memory Infinite
An FPS game with wallrunning and a grappling a hook, and that’s all you need to know. Okay maybe I should point out it looks absolutely awesome and was made by one person, Zeng Xiancheng. Check it out, great gameplay demo, albeit a short one. SD
Dirt 5
Dirt is the top dog of the rally racing game scene, and this one looks spectacular. There’s not much else to say. You have all the new features the other racing games are doing, various weather conditions and times that affect the tracks in different ways. Oh, also it has four player LOCAL multiplayer, that’s a novelty! WP SD
Scorn
This is a game that disgusted me so much I had to mentally bleach it from my brain. Then this presentation reminded me the game exists. It is genuinely too grotesque for me to play. Not much is really known about it gameplay-wise. XGP
CHORVS
It’s Starfox but with creepy cult scifi tones Lots of dark red and black contrasts with level design that reminds me of the Astral Plane from Astral Chain and Control. WP SD
MADDEN 21
Fuck off EA. WP
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
Thanks to the internet, this cult classic is finally getting the sequel fans have been craving. Appears to have the same game mechanics as the prior title, only better in some way. Can’t tell, the trailer is another pre-rendered cinematic. SD
Call of the Sea
This game appears to be a narrative experience game (AKA Walking Sim). It takes place on an island, has wonderfully rendered artistic graphics and… that’s it. The trailer was pretty vague. WP SD
The Ascent
A cyberpunk twin-stick shooter. Yeah that doesn’t really narrow it down. It’s very mech and exo-suit oriented. WP SD
The Medium
The latest horror game from Bloober Team, who overall have a good track record. They appear to be branching out, as they’ve brought AkiraYamaoka of the Silent Hill soundtracks, to do the sound and music for this one. WP XGPSD
Scarlet Nexus
What if I told you the next Platinum Games game has you playing as anime characters fighting living breathing ferocious house plants and gardening creatures? Well, it’s not Platinum, it’s Bandai Namco, and it looks dope. WP SD
Second Extinction
Presenting, the Turok/Dino Crisis spiritual successor that you never asked for. This game has dinosaurs, guns, and what appears to be 4 player co-op. WP SD
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
And now, the new Yakuza game that has been fixing to shake up the formula. From what we see in the trailer, it is still definitely a Yakuza game, but there are plenty of elements that make it unique. SD
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
In case you didn’t hear the hubub, Ubisoft said they were premiering the first “gamplay trailer” for the game. This was a lie. It most certainly contains in-game animations, but still has not shown anything representative of how the game actually plays. Either way, the trailer is still very cool and of course the graphics look amazing. SD
That’s it. I saved you some time, you’re welcome.
You can donate to hardmodegamerslol@gmail.com if you feel like tipping though, we don’t do ADs here.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
As I muse on whether or not to get an Assassin’s Creed tattoo… (see previous post), I now examine the games I’m playing. I haven’t picked up Final Fantasy 7 Remake because I’m fully content with the many other games I’m playing on rotation.
Doom Eternal, The Division 2, Forza Horizon 4, and Battlefield V. They are already seeing regular use on my Xbox. But my Switch! I recently moved the dock to a different TV because reasons. Am I playing a Nintendo game? NO! I’m playing Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection. It contains AC Black Flag, AC Rogue, and all DLC. Black Flag is one one of my favorites.
Now, let’s get to it. There’s a mingame in AC4 called “Kenway’s Fleet”. In this game, you manage a fleet of ships, send them on missions, and conduct sea battles to secure trade routes. Except I’m making this sound cooler than actually it is. It’s basically a free to wait auto-play mobile game before they invented the predatory microtransactions to accompany it.
In sea battles, you just select ships with stats to automatically fight other ships, then proceed to watch a handful of boat PNG files pretend to shoot each other.
It’s incredibly lo-fi.
When you send your ships out on a mission, it’s to get you money and resources. Now, these trade missions work in real time. If I send a ship to Mexico, it will be gone for 8 real-time hours. Even when I’m not playing. I send a ship on a mission, quit, go to bed, wake up, “Hey, my ship is back! Yaaaay!” Today’s Ubisoft would have sold you a “Time Saver” MT for this feature. How sad!
Coincidentally, there was a companion app for Black Flag that essentially worked as a second screen for the map, along with other features. My old crappy phone could barely handle the real-time map. But it could handle Kenway’s Fleet! As a result, collecting my gains was the first thing I did every time I fired that game up.
The app doesn’t appear to be on the Play Store anymore, and I’m not sure if it would work even if I found the .APK file for it. In the meantime, I’ve got about 3 more hours before my frigate “Triunfo” makes it home. Did you enjoy this minigame? What minigames have YOU enjoyed? Tell me in the comments.
This one’s slightly personal but here we go. I’ve been asked a few times why I don’t have any tattoos. I don’t have any super strong opinions on them, I just cannot imagine a single thing I like so much that I would like it permanently engraved on my body. Also, I’m a bit of a fatass right now, so no idea if a tat will look weird or wrinkled if I lose weight.
But I digress. An ex of mine wanted to get a Boston Bruins tattoo. She was a huge Bruins fan. I asked, what if she stops liking the Bruins? The team isn’t a permanent fixture, and the team has seen many great athletes come and go. I didn’t tell her not to get it, just literally expressing that same concern to her. What if you change your mind? What if I change my mind? Laser removal exists but I’ve looked it up and it’s hardly the best eraser.
You see the picture here, so you sort of know where this is growing. I’m a gamer, as you guys might have figured out. I run this website called Hard Mode Gamers, you might have heard of it. But is there a game with a logo I’d like burned onto my arm or back? Jet Set Radio Future is my favorite game ever but it’s too esoteric for me to get a tattoo. But then… there’s Assassin’s Creed.
I was on board with Assassin’s Creed since the first game.
I only briefly lost faith in it when Unity came out, and the only time I missed out on a mainline title was when Origins came out, I handed it off to someone else to review for the web page. But the first game came out in 2007, it’s a big fixture in gaming. Hell, it was probably the game that changed Ubisoftcs game design strategy for the foreseeable future. Think about it.
But… I’m already aware people have Assassin tattoos. Here’s the REAL QUESTION overall. Are Assassin’s Creed tattoos cringe? Because honestly, if I were to get one, it would probably be the Assassin logo. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” That’s a surprisingly poignant mantra. I really identify with their ideology. Freedom and whatnot. But a tattoo? I don’t know, that sounds pretty cringe to me.
Is it cringe? Is my aversion to picking a tattoo reasonable? Come @ me in the comments.
Listen here for the first episode of our brand new podcast idea thing.
(Read below if you hate podcasts.)
Stop Saying it’s Episodic or Incomplete
At some point during the development of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, one of the devs mentioned that the game might end up being episodic due to the scope of the project. That was a while back, can’t even find a source for you on that one so my source is “dude trust me”. But later on, we found out that the release we were getting was going to be just the Midgar section of the original title.
Some people took issue with this, because that’s approximately the first quarter or third of the game. According to people on forums, the Midgar section of the original game took roughly 5 hours to complete, give or take a couple hours depending on if you’re rushing or taking your time. That in turn would give some people the idea that they are not getting a full experience with the first release. That’s not the case at all.
Calling it episodic or incomplete was a great mis-characterization. That might have been said at some point, but that’s not what the end result actually is. Unlike the new Resident Evil 3 Nemesis Remake, the FF7 Remake is actually long. Very long.
What you are looking at is a 30-40 hour complete experience. That’s right, according to HLTB, that sure as hell looks like the length of a complete game, doesn’t it? It’s not stuffed with garbage either.
What they did was build upon everything that happened in OG Midgar. Bits that were one-off comments became full conversations. Characters that were one dimensional now have far more depth added on. The script is new and fresh. The structure of the game takes on a more modern experience than the linear path of the original. No, it’s not open world, thank god, we don’t need any more of those. But it has hub locations where you can go around collecting side quests and other fun tidbits.
I’ve mentioned before that I haven’t picked this game up yet, because I already have several games that are occupying me for the time being. I’ve also never played the original. So, maybe I’m full of sh*t. But from what I’ve seen in demo content and reviews, FF7 Remake is a complete experience with a guaranteed sequel. Probably a trilogy.
Final Fantasy 13 became a trilogy, and it was a COMPLETE GAME before the sequels were added (albeit the FF13 trilogy was so unnecessary, it’s baffling). I fully expect FF7 Remake to do the same. Getting the “whole story” you appear to be chasing is going to last for something close to a decade. Either way, this game isn’t the first episode or chapter. It’s the first whole game in a new series. Come @ me in the comments if you disagree.
Fallout 76 Wastelanders is Out and I Totally Forgot
You know I feel like gamers have been rather apathetic as of late. We finally get Half Life 3 (sortof) and everyone shrugs. We get a “Remake” for the beloved Final Fantasy VII and judging by the comments on my previous post, people have several misgivings about the release (to put it mildly). Now we have the game fixer everyone has been waiting for.
The massive failure of a game, Fallout 76, has finally done the unthinkable. It’s become an actual fallout game with quests, plot, NPCs, you know, Fallout stuff. The brand new “free” WASTELANDERS campaign is available to all owners of Fallout 76.
It has also been re-listed as Fallout 76: Deluxe Edition with the store icon changed to a new Wastelanders icon. The game is back at full price right now @ $60, or so they would make you think. The Wastelanders update is free, this deluxe edition is just giving you all the extra fluff crap you don’t need. Search harder and you’ll find a the vanilla version of Fallout 76 for $40 USD.
Reminder that if you own F76 on disc, the disc is basically just a 520MB license file, the game is all download. At least on Xbox, not sure on the exact numbers for PS4 and PC. Still no announcement of we’ll be getting it on Nintendo Switch (as if!).
I purposely avoided reviews for several reasons. I want to go into this expansion blind, and with a fresh frame of mind as I haven’t touched the game since they did the “Nuclear Winter” mode (which was oddly okayish). I’m sure there are plenty of opinions, hot takes, and reviews pouring into the net as we speak.
So, are you gonna go back to play it? Did you get rid of your copy? Are you no longer interested? Have you seen the reviews? Come @ me in the comments.
There’s Only One Game Type?
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Doom Eternal. Except any bit with the marauders. Screw those guys. But yeah, it’s fun. Beat the game, I’ve been going back through it finding secrets and collectibles. Only problem is I started getting bored of it.
So I checked out Battle Mode. Only recently have I gotten more comfortable with multiplayer games, which is weird because when I was younger I played the hell out of Quake 3 Arena. I used to do Splatoon 2 videos but then the Splatfests stopped. I digress, I didn’t pay any attention to the promo stuff regarding Doom Eternal’s multiplayer, so I had no idea what was in store for me.
It’s kinda cool. Kinda. But there’s only one game type in Battle Mode. One Slayer vs Two Demons. That’s it. You have some decent tutorials on how to play as the demons but you can’t really get a feel for them until you’ve played a few matches.
Problem is, I’m having a hard time finding matches. You can select to play as a Demon or Slayer if you want, sure. But more often than not, if I try to pick what I want to play as, the game will search for a match for about 15 seconds before giving up. Like, really? Can’t just keep searching? I was only able to start when I selected Quickmatch, which randomizes being a Demon or the Slayer.
I prefer to be a support type of character and while that is available, the small intimacy of a 3 person match is a far cry from 64 person Battlefield where I get to be a medic and just heal people who are better at the game than me. So, meh, could be better I guess.
But where’s the rest? That’s it for Doom? There’s no co-op horde mode? Really? That seems like the most obvious idea, you and other slayers face down an constant onslaught of demons that get harder and harder, until you’re left fighting three marauders, three doom hunters, and a baron of hell with only 3 shotgun shells left, and not enough zombies to refill your ammo, so you all panic and die. Sounds like a blast right? Well, where is it?
Horde mode is not an original game mode by any means. In a world where even Forza Horizon gets its own Battle Royale mode (I’m not even joking), you figure that a horde mode would be the first go-to. Oh god they’re not doing Doom Battle Royale are they? I hope not. Maybe I’m being too picky, it’s just really weird that there’s only one game mode and nothing else. Do they have a roadmap? One second. I stopped to look and see if there’s planned DLC. Looks like there is, but it appears to be single player content.
Welp, that’s fine by me I guess. I’d still like a horde mode though, can we please get it? Do you want a horde mode? Have you had a hard time with matchmaking? Come @ me in the comments.
Gamestop’s Ridiculous Pandemic Behavior
You’ve seen the myriad of shit they’ve tried to pull. Maybe you’re used to them taking advantage of you? I’ve not met one employee who likes working there personally.
But they are repeatedly putting you in danger with wanton abandonment of respect and dignity. They do not even try to hide the fact that they are more concerned with profits than you. At least other companies use corporate jargon to justify themselves.
But not GameStop. Go to work. Ignore the law. Buy your own hand sanitizer. Buy your own Lysol. And now my personal favorite, “tape plastic bags over your hands” (see YongYea’s video). Stop. Just stop it. GameStop is on life support and it’s a matter of months before they tank even harder.
I witnessed the death of “MovieStop” firsthand. They were literally “GameStop but for Movies” and were wholly owned by GameStop until the last few years of their existence where they broke off to form an LLC. And then they committed acts of desperation, and after act of desperation #3, I bailed. Turns out they closed approximately over a year later.
GameStop has been firing off non-stop acts of desperation for months. Read the signs. You, an employee of this heinous organization, need to get out. Have some self respect. Have some integrity. Need the money? Yeah so do 6.6 million other people. You also need to be ALIVE to spend money, don’t you?
Get out, this disease will end, and so will GameStop. Other big box retail organizations are going to see “GameStop” on your resume and they are going to know just how poorly you were treated. It’s a testament to your endurance. “Why did you leave?” Well, you didn’t see any future prospects in staying there. GameStop doesn’t have any future prospects either!
The time you can spend at home doing literally anything else is more value let than the peanuts they are tossing at you. Your time is valuable. Leave now, you will be glad you did, I guarantee it.
Assassin’s Creed Tattoos
This one’s slightly personal but here we go. I’ve been asked a few times why I don’t have any tattoos. I don’t have any super strong opinions on them, I just cannot imagine a single thing I like so much that I would like it permanently engraved on my body. Also, I’m a bit of a fatass right now, so no idea if a tat will look weird or wrinkled if I lose weight.
But I digress. An ex of mine wanted to get a Boston Bruins tattoo. She was a huge Bruins fan. I asked, what if she stops liking the Bruins? The team isn’t a permanent fixture, and the team has seen many great athletes come and go. I didn’t tell her not to get it, just literally expressing that same concern to her. What if you change your mind? What if I change my mind? Laser removal exists but I’ve looked it up and it’s hardly the best eraser.
You see the picture here, so you sort of know where this is growing. I’m a gamer, as you guys might have figured out. I run this website called Hard Mode Gamers, you might have heard of it. But is there a game with a logo I’d like burned onto my arm or back? Jet Set Radio Future is my favorite game ever but it’s too esoteric for me to get a tattoo. But then… there’s Assassin’s Creed.
I was on board with Assassin’s Creed since the first game. I only briefly lost faith in it when Unity came out, and the only time I missed out on a mainline title was when Origins came out, I handed it off to someone else to review for the web page. But the first game came out in 2007, it’s a big fixture in gaming. Hell, it was probably the game that changed Ubisoftcs game design strategy for the foreseeable future. Think about it.
But… I’m already aware people have Assassin tattoos. Here’s the REAL QUESTION overall. Are Assassin’s Creed tattoos cringe? Because honestly, if I were to get one, it would probably be the Assassin logo. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” That’s a surprisingly poignant mantra. I really identify with their ideology. Freedom and whatnot. But a tattoo? I don’t know, that sounds pretty cringe to me.
Is it cringe? Is my aversion to picking a tattoo reasonable? Come @ me in the comments.
Kenway’s Fleet Was Oddly Satisfying
As I muse on whether or not to get an Assassin’s Creed tattoo (see previous post), I now examine the games I’m playing. I haven’t picked up Final Fantasy 7 Remake because I’m fully content with the many other games I’m playing on rotation.
Doom Eternal, The Division 2, Forza Horizon 4, and Battlefield V. They are already seeing regular use on my Xbox. But my Switch! I recently moved the dock to a different TV because reasons. Am I playing a Nintendo game? NO! I’m playing Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection. It contains AC Black Flag, AC Rogue, and all DLC. Black Flag is one one of my favorites.
Now, let’s get to it. There’s a mingame in AC4 called “Kenway’s Fleet”. In this game, you manage a fleet of ships, send them on missions, and conduct sea battles to secure trade routes. Except I’m making this sound cooler than actually it is. It’s basically a free to wait auto-play mobile game before they invented the predatory microtransactions to accompany it.
In sea battles, you just select ships with stats to automatically fight other ships, then proceed to watch a handful of boat PNG files pretend to shoot each other. It’s incredibly lo-fi.
When you send your ships out on a mission, it’s to get you money and resources. Now, these trade missions work in real time. If I send a ship to Mexico, it will be gone for 8 real-time hours. Even when I’m not playing. I send a ship on a mission, quit, go to bed, wake up, “Hey, my ship is back! Yaaaay!” Today’s Ubisoft would have sold you a “Time Saver” MT for this feature. How sad!
Coincidentally, there was a companion app for Black Flag that essentially worked as a second screen for the map, along with other features. My old crappy phone could barely handle the real-time map. But it could handle Kenway’s Fleet! As a result, collecting my gains was the first thing I did every time I fired that game up.
The app doesn’t appear to be on the Play Store anymore, and I’m not sure if it would work even if I found the .APK file for it. In the meantime, I’ve got about 3 more hours before my frigate “Triunfo” makes it home. Did you enjoy this minigame? What minigames have YOU enjoyed? Tell me in the comments.
A final reflection on the games of 2019. It’s a bit late to talk about last year but I filmed this a month ago and it needs to be seen. Consider this a preamble to the HMG redemption arc.
2019 WAS AWESOME, I HATED IT.a final reflection on the games of 2019. it's a bit late to talk about last year but I filmed this a month ago and it needs to be seen. consider this a preamble to the HMG redemption arc.
That’s right, 2019 was awesome, I hated it. As of right now, YouTube sucks so I’m going to be sticking with Facebook Watch or any other non-YT video hosting platform. Plus, the FB page is where all the memes are at, so follow the video to my page and SMASH THAT LIKE.
Assassins Creed III is the latest game from Ubisoft to receive the “Remaster” treatment. Pretty much all of their games have now been upgraded or started that way. Even Assassins Creed 1 has Xbox One X enhancements. Yet still, there are a plethora of videos popping up. They show the new remaster looking much worse than the original. This isn’t even the first time this has been done. Assassins Creed, the Ezio Trilogy was also lambasted for looking worse. However, in that case, it didn’t actually look worse. Polygon just chose to only show off stuff that looks worse. It included a bug that has nothing to do with the remaster. And here they are doing it again. The character models may look like clay, but everything else in the game looks far better than it ever did before. Here’s why.
Also, it’s free if you had the season pass for Assassins Creed Odyssey. Considering that the standalone game or the season pass both cost 40, you should definitely buy the latter.
Feminists everywhere love the realism of this art.
We all know that the body positivity movement is constantly under attack. Sexist and hateful bigots everywhere say it’s bad. We know this simply isn’t true. Women are healthy at every size. It takes a strong and bold woman to prove to the haters that their hate is all lies.
You’ve seen many fat acceptance renditions of all your favorite comic book heroes, video game characters, and Disney princesses. Re-drawings like those are reshaping the very paradigm of sex. A new culture is emerging and proving to everyone that women are beautiful. However, there have been certain issues with some more recent characters. We just don’t have enough of the perfect feminist role models in media. When we do, the characters are still very problematic. A whole army of people trolled the tolerant studio Bioware because their beautiful female protagonist wasn’t sexy enough for them.
We just don’t have enough of the perfect feminist role models in media.
Now we have the default star of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Kassandra. Although she is both very strong and smart, her appearance in the game needs to be unpacked. She has really big muscles for woman, and that’s a completely unrealistic standard. In order to get that big and muscular, she would have to go the the gym twice per day to look that good. But because it’s in Ancient Rome, they didn’t have gyms back then. So there’s nothing that can be done about that. She would also need to drink bulking powder and that didn’t exist back then either.
Fret not. We went to tumblr and found the perfect recreation of this iconic new character. Jessica Goldberg from @goldenbergerarts on the site had all the skill needed to show people what Assassins Creed needed. In true response for tolerance and peace of the women’s mind, this version was created. Now THIS is what feminine beauty is supposed to look like! Share this post everywhere. The manbabies on the far right hate it when people draw accurate representations of the better sex. You can already taste the toxic male tears.
Thankfully, this post was SATIRE in case you weren’t tipped off by “Ancient Rome”.
Despite what some online comparisons indicate, the remaster is the superior version of the game.
Let’s preface this one differently. I was a big Assassin’s Creed fan but AC3 greatly reduced my love for it. And Unity murdered it. When I played that game all those years ago, I was disappointed on all fronts. I was also setting really high expectations that could not be reached. And I wanted to beat the game before the real life “December 21, 2012” end of the word scenario so I rushed through all of it. Hated the difficulty, the setting was underused, Connor wasn’t a good protagonist, and lots of bugs and grievances with the detection settings for NPCs.
Well, I either completely sucked back then, or Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a much better experience. This re-release comes with a remaster of Liberation HD (a remaster of a remaster?) as well. This remaster came out March 29, 2019 and either is free with your Assassin’s Creed Odyssey season pass or in the store for $40. The season pass for Odyssey costs $40 so you have almost no reason to not have that marvel of a game and its DLC packs. So, is it worth a revisit after so many years? Or perhaps, for those who haven’t played it, a decent entry?
GRAPHICS: 2/2
There will be a video on this in the near future but this title is the subject to a bit of controversy. If you look for graphical comparisons on Youtube, you will see that some of them imply it to be superior, yet others imply that it is worse. Whether it is misrepresenting the game on purpose or not, this review is from the “Xbox One X” version of the game, so the most graphically powerful console release. I can personally confirm that the release is highly superior in the graphical department. With the exception of a handful of faces, you’re getting better looks across the entire board. You have better color with HDR, lively landscapes, and incredible textures.
STORY: 1/2
You can’t really change an entire story in a remaster, can you? What you CAN do is try to engage your player more this time around. AC3 tells the story of… Haytham Kenway? Yes, the game pulls a reverse Metal Gear Solid 2. A sizeable chunk of the game has you playing as a character who is completely absent from all of the marketing materials. After a while, you do finally get to Connor or Kanien’kehá:ka (don’t try to pronounce it, just give up). The problem with this character is the game gives him a very rich setup due to the events of the first hours of gameplay. Yet at every turn, Connor manages to remain as dull as humanly possible. More on that in audio.
The other issue is that the setting doesn’t really do a good job at expressing the ins and outs of the Revolutionary War. Sure, there’s a lot of text you can read, but in terms of the game on its own, you basically just jump in and out of several world-famous events. Funnier is that it implies that Connor was at the front of all of them. Paul Revere? Connor? Boston Massacre? Connor. Boston Tea Party? Connor. The freaking battle at Chesapeake Bay? Connor.
Really stretching the believability, but then again this series more firmly expresses itself as alternate history. This makes the second time around a lot more enjoyable. Not to mention, I personally was able to focus more on a lot of content I had to pass on because I was so eager to finish.
AUDIO: 1/2
It’s not every day you come across a voice actor who is a direct descendant of American indigenous tribes with a fine understanding of their languages, but here we are. Noah Watts, of the Blackfeet nation, voices our protagonist Connor. He speaks English and… not English. #OnlyTheFacts | Now, as said before, Connor is a dry and wooden protagonist. This is really not the fault of the actor. The dialog given for his character contains little in the way of flair or emotion. He speaks very directly at all times. He comes in two flavors, deliberate and agitated. That’s it. The rest of the cast wasn’t too great either. As for SFX? They’re mediocre. Nothing wrong about them but nothing to grab your attention.
I must make it painstakingly clear though, this game has one of the GREATEST original scores in the entire Assassins Creed franchise. That genuinely made the game a good experience overall. Quite emotional too, making up for some of the acting.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
So, at the time it came out, AC3 had a bit of a difficult learning curve. A lot of the combat mechanics, controls, and gameplay style of the game change in the transition from the Ezio trilogy to III. However, coming directly off of AC: Odyssey, the game is retroactively easier to come to grips with. If anything, the game feels more limited. No dedicated stealth mode button. Combat is the old style of “counter-attack kills” that were prominent in most of the series. The simplicity of the game in comparison to the new game actually made it feel a bit more streamlined. It was almost arcade-like to play this game after every game we’ve had since.
It also seems as thought a lot of changes streamline the overall experience. Some redundancies were eliminated. Enemy detection appeared to be slower. The ship combat was easier to handle. Every step of the way, quality of life improvements are there, on every front. Oh, and the load times, those are some short load times. Especially for fast traveling and desynchronizing.
FUN: 2/2
The fact that I took my time to play through more of the game is a very big deal. This time around, I bothered to unlock all the fast travel locations in the underground. It was a bit grindy, but manageable. The silly “homestead” missions actually felt like they were worth the time. That is despite the fact that the “convoy” system of the game was an absolute waste of time and needlessly complicated. I did all the district liberations and recruited all 6 support assassins. I did several of the optional naval battles. Not everything could be helped. The almanac pages are still dumb, as are all of the other fetch items the game throws at you. But I must stress that above all else, I had a much, MUCH better time playing this game again. I was supposed to be playing other games, yet I kept coming back to this re-release time and time once more.
Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a huge improvement on the original iteration. Between the streamlining of gameplay elements, the simplicity, and the visual quality? This is a good remaster that has been released at exactly the right moment. If it has been a while since you last played, give it another shot. If you’ve never played it, also give it a shot. And ignore the real world plot, it’s still crap.
SCORE: 8/10
If I find time, I would like to play the Tyranny of King Washington DLC as well as Liberation, but that will have to wait.
Legacy of the first blood has concluded with the final chapter, Bloodlines. In our last video on this, Chet went through a series of questions as to what was in store for us on this episode. Turns out, some of those guesses were true. Have a look and see what Chet totally called back in January.
Chet supports AC: Odyssey’s Season Pass. 3 episode DLC, a $40 game, and then another 3-episode DLC, it’s absolutely worth it.
Robots forgo hostile human takeover and settle for subjugating us by making addictive video games instead.
Ubisoft, has found a winning formula for their video games. We all know this. And they are sticking to it like a bear on honey. For one thing, almost any game from them will have an absolutely gargantuan map. That and an absolute ton of copy-pasted assets. These same games also follow a pretty simple formula. From Ghost Recon Wildlands, to FarCry, to Assassins Creed, your goal in the game is very simple. You open your map screen, there’s a bunch of things to do. You click on one of the things, and then you go there to do the thing. Then the game rewards you for doing the thing. Then it gives you some things and then unlocking more things to click on and go to.
This “carrot on a stick” form of game design is utter genius. Many gamers, present company included, are perfectly content with these time-devouring opulent offerings. Ubisoft has never been more confident that they have a winning formula until now. Just look at their recent offerings. The Crew 2 is a game with a map that is vaguely the size of the entire USA. They loaded it up with a bunch of pinpoints full of races for different types of vehicles everywhere.
So it begins…
That’s why Ubisoft was proud to announce this in a recent PAX East interview. They want to take the design of their games to the next level. Starting production in May, Ubisoft New Jersey will start on their next Assassin’s Creed title. But this is no ordinary dev team, as Ubisoft New Jersey runs completely run by automation. That’s right, the dev is actually a smart AI called U.B.I.S.O.F.T. (Which is short for Universal Binary Interface Siumulator of Future Technology). Several UBISOFTs will be operating day and night to crank out the next edition of your favorite title.
Ubisoft producer Marc-Alexis Côté mused on this exciting event. “We already know how to make a game that everyone will want to play. We have it down to such a science, that we soon won’t need developers anymore. The UBISOFT AI is perfectly capable of replicating our formula. It has already designed the entire map of the next game. It’s 8 times the size of Odyssey”. When asked if this would decrease morale among the human developers of Ubisoft he was resolute. “Well, the elimination of jobs by robots is just part and parcel of living in a society.”
What’s next?
Right now, nobody, not even Ubisoft themselves, know what the plot of the next game will be. Not even the location. The robo-team at Ubisoft NJ will be performing its own internal company showcase. “Everything is so easy to make. Our AI team will be doing all tasks for this project. The script and the main character will be made by our robot friends. We’ve also asked them what they are going to do for voice talent. They said they’ll either hire somebody on their own, or they might even do the acting themselves! Isn’t that neat? They are so smart they literally don’t need any humans to help them make this game work.”
By the way, this interview? It was also performed by the UBISOFT AI. They used their network database of every Ubisoft E3 show ever. After, they constructed a hologram of Aicha Tyler to ask all these questions. The likeness was completely uncanny, including her saying really awkward things that made the entire audience uncomfortable. Digi-Tyler asked Marc if they even knew the title of the game, he admitted something interesting. “We aren’t sure what they are calling this new project yet. But they’ve already presented several working titles based on the titles of other games on the market. It will still be called Assassin’s Creed, but the subtitle is either going to be: Redemption, Revolution, Sisterhood, and Revelations IV.”
Right now the UBISOFT is downloading all the assets used from every Assassins Creed game ever made and will be making slight modifications to them so they look newer. Another arm of the AI has already started distributing random pins on their map where they will eventually add quests to. Expect to hear more about this at E3 this year. The current one.
In case the slow dip into insanity wasn’t enough to tell you, this article is SATIRE. Seriously, Ubisoft New Jersey? C’mon, you know better than that. A simulation of Aicha Tyler? Really? Actually no that would be pretty cool.
