Gaming Assassin's Creed: Unity Review

Haha I guess this is bad news for me seeing as I just bought it

 

You have to feel rather sorry for all the writers, graphic artists, designers and devs that have made the game look so good, it seems they have also been badly let down because of the games poor controls and combat system with the added insult that

It often seems that the bigger games get, the less collaboration there is between all the different devs and beta testing, quality control seem very low on the agenda.
It's not surprising that many game devs leave big companies and go to work on smaller projects, "Long live the indie games".

 

There seems to be a proliferation of reruns in many forms of entertainment. It's kind of boring and dull for the consumer. An enormous hype machine promises tastes much better than the final flavor. Look at the amount of remakes in the movie business. It's either there's a skill shortage of writers, or content creators are unwilling to take a risk and step away from tried and tested formulas. Perhaps it's the consumer fault? We purchase this stuff time and time again looking for the warm and fuzzies from familiar experiences. I was considering FC4, but it looks like exactly the same game with a change of scenery.

 

I think it has a lot to do with the move away from niche markets. Sci-Fi movies and computer game used to be the domain of the 'geek', now they are mainstream and command big money. PC games took a lot of learning just to get installed and running and while consoles were much simpler back then, even the games themselves were often much more involved and complicated to play. Just look at the old fighting games of Street Fight, Tekken and Mortal Kombat and the combinations of control moves needed to activate certain fighting moves and powers and fighting combinations. Now you have games like AC and Batman: AA where all you do is pretty much press 'A' when required and button bash.
Everything has been dumbed down as they try to appeal to an ever expanding market, but this trend has a much larger impact in my opinion as I believe expectations have been lowered through continual disappointment and a lack of a high standard. For example, people raved about Aliens: Isolation and although I didn't play it long (about an hour up to the point of entering the transport) I found it pretty much boring and extremely linear. People were claiming that it was so open and yet there is a set, pre-defined path that you can not deviate from with every door that wasn't locked or blocked, leading to a single dead end room. Tons of random stuff in all the lockers but no real sense that you need to collect it all or why even if you do. After I entered the transport I thought I would take a break... I've not once thought of playing a second time.
Games just aren't the same, of course you get the odd title that raises expectations such as Skyrim but a single title often fails to raise the standard. I remember playing the Age Of Empires series and while each game had a sense of familiarity from one to the next, they were not the same and always brought something new to both the graphics and the game play itself. Now we get clones of games, generation after generation with very little actually new and often, even the graphics look the same as a 5 year old game. Too often to bring a new angle they just throw the game in to the realm of 'online' and this has it's own problems. Some games don't suit it, some gamers don't like it and then there is the feeling that the devs can never be bothered to get them working properly. Maybe I have a selective memory but I don't ever remember any of the Age Of Empires games being fundamentally broken at launch and in need of patches just to play.
The problem here lays with the change in the target audience. Back in the day it was people 'in the know' that cared about their games... now they are far outweighed by the general public who have zero intention to ever understand anything about gaming. If you said to a mechanic or car salesman that you want a car of the standard of a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari but you only want to spend £10k, they will say you can't and that your expectations make you an idiot. Yet these people are now buying computers sating that they want high end gaming machines but don't see the need to spend more than £400... These are the people that games are being designed and produced for now.

 

Some game companies don't even consider their customers to be gamers!

What he's said does make sense but it also shows the fan based market they make the games for and they will keep on doing it as long as they make money, for a lot of younger players all that's required is a few big guns, some aliens and zombies to play on console multiplayer and you got another winner, they generally like the game play and don't want much change just more of the same.

 

Try Far Cry 4. So far it's pretty damn fun.

 

You know, I don't come here very often nowadays, but almost without fail, this place has done excellent reviews for games at the absolute least. I don't think I have ever read a review here that I would consider terrible (probably just poor memory as I'd imagine there must be some), but it's good to see the tradition upheld even now. Kudos, Rick.

 

interesting points...

It seems to me that gaming industry is going through some major changes...
Back in old days (lets say "modern" old days e.g. quake/duke nukem 3d times) gaming was rather underground thing and pressures on devs were coming from a) their passion b) hardcore gamers – imo this was good. We consumers were careful where we spend our hard earned money. And there wasn't that much money going round in the first place (from consumers to investors). This has changed in the last few years. Gaming market expanded considerably. Women, adults, consoles, mobile to name a few factors. Kids have more money / say than ever before. That’s when things started to go shaky Result is that investors noticed this and tapped into the industry pumping money and expecting returns. This is a huge change and a big driving factor for majority of new games these days. Reduce the risk to minimum and get a quick return. Making money is cruel and doesn’t care whether hardcore fans are satisfied (unless they have big money to spend) and has one objective in mind “make money”. By all means. This results in a copycat / “milking the cow until it's dead” approach. This arguably stifles innovation in games. Prime example is Battlefield series. There are a few exceptions though (and thank God for this).

What we end up with is a number of awful games in the last few years (CoD, Battlefield 3/4, Need for Speed, ACs, Gears of War just to name a few). Sadly they still bring millions to people who funded them. And until that stops we will see another poor AC another CoD and another poor Need for Speed. Just slightly re-skinned. What’s the point of spending millions for innovation if they can earn millions from re-skinning. It would be awfully stupid business decision and someone would no doubt lose his/her head for making it. I think movie / music industry is going through a similar thing (Transformers AoE made over £800m of pure profit(!) that is madness – never seen such a shallow, copycat, sexist and depleted of new ideas and good script movie)

In ideal world we would like to get a highly optimised pc game that puts our high end sli systems to hard work and at the same time has gripping story and immersive world. And there were a few big titles which made good attempts; AC Black Flag, Batman AA, Skyrim, L.A. Noire, Tomb Raider 2013, Mass Effect 2, Tale of two sons, BBC2, Crysis 3, Trine, Far Cry 3, South Park TSoT, Wither 2, NBA 2k15, Grid 2, NFS Shift, Rayman Origins just to name a few games I enjoyed. L.A. Noire for example had innovative and amazing “face technology” which I would like to see in EVERY game. Not happening though, too expensive to implement. Instead we get some simple god rays effects and “every” average joe is happy

On the other hand I really think that releasing titles that are essentially unplayable (e.g. Far Cry 4) for weeks after release is unacceptable.
We need to be careful where we spend our hard earned money, spend it where they deserve to be spend. And for goodness (and gaming industry’s) sake stop buying CoD and AC