Assassin's Creed Unity: Is This the Future of Gaming

Ok so most people know that Assassin's Creed Unity was released just recently. For Assassin's Creed fans this was a long awaited game. It was going to be the first in next gen gaming that would usher in the age of great game play and beautiful graphics. Well I have to say the game does fall short. I am a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed games and have played almost all of them. The only ones that I have not played is the new Rogue which is only on Xbox 360 and PS3, and mobile versions of the game.

The game is presented in a manner that is taken straight from Black Flag. It pits you as the main protagonist that is going into the Animus to relive the past. I do have to admit that I do like this approach to the game more then I did when they had Desmond as the main protagonist of the game. It gives more of a feeling of immersion into the game that the others to me didn't. It even has a throw back to the original Assassin's Creed in the beginning. I won't say what exactly that is as I don't want to ruin anything for anyone that has yet to play the game.

As far as the game itself. It is riddled with bugs and glitches. For example I would be running a mission and all of a sudden Arno, the main hero of the game, would all of a sudden fall through the map like I just jumped off of a cliff. Also there are numerous areas where you can see major frame rate drops in the animation and the game gets very choppy. Also when playing the PS4 version there is a glitch that would literally remove the heads from characters and leave only the eyes and teeth. Image shown below.

The co-op is not without it's problems as well. When playing co-op you will encounter a number of ongoing issues. I am unsure as to why Ubisoft decided to drop the multiplayer part of the game as that used to be one of my favorite parts of Assassin's Creed as they approached multiplayer in a whole new way that was a nice change of pace from the typical multiplayer that we see in games like Call of Duty and Halo. The co-op which has massive potential disappointed me mainly because what was advertised to me felt like I could go through the story either alone in single player or with friends in co-op. This is by far not the case. Strewn about the map are various co-op missions which require you to do various different things which can vary from saving someone to finding a book. There are also heists that you can do in co-op which is a simple break in a steal this item and get out. Needless to say I was very disappointed in this aspect as it is a far cry from what I thought it was and what it could be.

Assassin's Creed Unity just feels majorly unfinished. It has been reported that the game is to be 900p with a frame rate of 30 fps and there are times where it feels like that isn't the case. Graphically the game shows off a lot of what the new gen systems can do. Just the number of individual people that are just walking around the game is something to see. But I do have to admit the game doesn't feel polished. It feels very buggy and with the number of glitches that people are experiencing makes it feel like the game was just pushed out so they could make their money. As of the last few years it seems that a lot of companies are pushing out games that feel unfinished or complete. The game Battlefield was also riddled with bugs and issues on release, and a day one patch is starting to become more common in the game industry. Destiny from Bungie also felt incomplete upon release and had the gaming community in an uproar over supposed dlc already being on the disc that should have been in the game.

Is this the future of our beloved industry? Are we now doomed to purchase games that are broken with our hard earned money? I for one am very disappointed that this is starting to become a trend that is more likely to continue? It's a sad state of affairs when I look back in the history of games and see just how many companies are starting to go down this dark road. Of course some companies have a history of releasing games in this manner such as Bethesda. But companies like Bungie who created the Halo series going to this dark place shows me that this is starting to become a trend that is just not acceptable. While I love Assassin's Creed and Unity brings some nice new elements to the game, it is my opinion that until these issues are corrected you should just save your money. The game is fun, but it does have it's issues that can hamper game play and frustrate you. Here's to hoping that 2015 ushers in some great games that don't have these same issues. I do understand that there are some issues that just can't be caught before a game is released, but please devs, don't put a game out until you feel like it's complete. I for one can wait a couple of extra months for a game that delivers.

The Crew Beta

So for my second post I will be talking about The Crew. The Crew is a new racing game that is being developed by Ubisoft. It is being released on all platforms with a release date of December 2nd, 2014. It was originally slated to be released on November 11th but was pushed back to the 2nd.

Now let's get to the game itself. I was lucky enough to receive a beta code to try out the game. I have to admit, even for a beta, the game looks amazing. The map in The Crew is massive. It's been said that you can drive from New York to LA. With a map that large one has to wonder just how they are going to tackle that large of a project that doesn't include load times going from one area to another. i think that the devs at Ubisoft helped to solve this problem by not making it as realistic as possible. While playing the beta I had driven through a few locations which started in Detroit, and ended up with me in New York. The scenery while it might not include every little turn or building is amazing and they have done an amazing job with their design.

The Crew is broken up into different sections that encompass the United States. The map consists of 5 different areas. The West Coast, Mountain States, Midwest, The South, and of course the East Coast. As I've only visited a few areas I can't say for sure that there will only be select cities included in the game and this is just the beta and we have yet to know just exactly how much Ubisoft is trying to incorporate into the game.

The biggest thing that I think initially differentiates The Crew from other racing games is that it actually has a story line to it. Yes other racing games had a minor story implemented into the game like Need for Speed but The Crew has an actual story with cut scenes included. I won't get to into the story only to say that it starts out with your brother being killed. It then takes off from there and really had me wanting to do more. One of my biggest things for games is that it has to have a good story line. Racing games I always felt didn't really need this but the fact that Ubisoft incorporated a story into the Crew actually had me wanting to play more to progress further. The beta only allowed you to go up to level 10 and at a certain point you do get stopped as the game does require you to be certain levels to progress through the different story missions.

While the story did have me hooked as I am a sucker for a good story we do need to move on. The controls. I do feel like the controls are a bit to tight. For instance I would have to move the analog sticks pretty far to get the car to turn. I also felt that some of the physics could have been improved upon. For all the playing that I did, I found it extremely difficult to do any sort of a drift around turns in this game. Although throughout the game you can spec out your car for different types of races. I found that running through the games dirt spec made it somewhat easier to pull off drifts but the street specs were extremely difficult.

The Crew also boasts a unique feature of making up 4 man crews to run races against the AI in the story mode and to even set up races against other crews. While I didn't exactly get the opportunity to experience these aspects of the game they do seem interesting in and of themselves. As becoming the trend with a lot of games that are being released the Crew does require you to be online. I have yet to see an option to play the game in an offline mode.

The Crew is shaping up to be possibly one of the next great racing game. I myself will most definitely be purchasing this game when it is released in December and for racing enthusiasts who like a game with a decent story I would recommend picking this up as well.

Evolve the Big Alpha

So most people know that Evolve the Big Alpha had occurred this past weekend. Well I managed to be lucky enough to get to participate in the alpha on Xbox Once, and I have to say, I really wasn't to impressed with it.

Let's start by explaining what exactly Evolve is. Its slated as the next big thing in the fps (first person shooter) games. With Evolve there is no longer the 8v8 team deathmatch or capture the flag games we are normally used to. Evolve touts a spin on the fps by going the 4v1 route. That's right folks, four people against one. It pits 4 people who are the hunters against one person who is the monster they are hunting.Now while this might sound interesting it can get into the same monotony that you find with all fps games. Nothing but repetitive gameplay.

With that out of the way let's get down to brass tacks and really get into some specifics of the game. Mind you they may change since this was just an alpha and should be taken with a grain of salt.

First let's address the class system. There are 5 different classes that you can choose from. There is the assault class which is considered the main damage dealer. The trapper class which is essentially a tracker with a pet monster that acts as a dog and is used to actively hunt the monster. Next is the medic class armed with a sniper rifle and some strange apparatus that heals your fellow hunters. This brings us to the next class which in the alpha was called support. The support class can put up shields around team mates to help reduce damage from the monsters attacks. And last but not least is the monster class. The monster will probably be the most fun for most people as they are just beasts in the game and they can of course evolve into a more powerful monster.

Next we have to talk about the visuals. The visuals in Evolve look good but for me, I really felt like they could have done more. The way the environments were designed really felt like they could have pulled more from the consoles and really beefed them up. I do understand new gen consoles are still in their infancy and there is a learning curve but if you look at some of the other games that are being released it really felt like more time could have been spent improving graphical integrity and really make it shine. The visuals do look great but it doesn't scream new gen to me.

Now on to the meat of the game. The gameplay. Gameplay is your typical fps style. The way Evolve handles weapons in the game is that each weapon is assigned to a button. For example the assault class has an automatic rifle which is good for medium to long range damage. Which in the default configuration is set to the y button. His secondary weapon is some kind of electrical weapon that shoots bolts of electricity which is set to the a button. The b button was for a temporary shield and so on. I think the one thing that caused me the most confusion at first was that fact that nothing was explained in the game. Evolve gave you a short video explaining the different weapons and what the class does but doesn't give you any other information. It was basically sink or swim. It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly how the system worked. Again since this was just the alpha I'm sure this will be addressed at final release. Other then those couple of issues the game plays out in a manner of you are dropped onto the map and the trapper then sets out his pet to start hunting the monster. This brings us to a part of the game which really wasn't that fun. The maps are a fairly decent size and you can actually run around for a long time and not run into the player you are hunting for quite a while if they are good at running. Of course the developers tried to break up this monotony by throwing in wildlife that you can kill for power ups, or that van actually jump out and attack you. It was somewhat reminiscent of the bots that run around in Titanfall. It is definitely not the same thing but gave me that vibe. While hunting the monster, they are also able to kill the wildlife, in fact that is how the monster evolves into a more powerful monster. Of course there are little things that will help you to track the monster such as monster tracks, birds are attracted to the monster, and of course the trapper tracking the monster themselves.

About this time I was really starting to lose interest in this game. Sometimes hunts can take a while before you even spot the monster for the first and one can only shoot so much AI wildlife before it becomes boring. Even then once you find the monster the fights weren't that impressive. They usually only last for a couple of minutes unless the person playing the monster is very good and manages to kill the hunting party or escape from view at which point the hunt starts again. Of course once the monster evolves to stage 3 they can then attack the power plant thus winning the match. None of this is explained until you start your first match. I'm really hoping that this is changed once the game comes to final release.

Final thoughts on this alpha? I think it possibly has potential, but I am very skeptical that they will be able to pull it off. As it sits just from the different sites and the site for Evolve leaves me with little to no hope. It feels like it might not hit that mark. I for one would not buy this game on release and possibly won't get the game even afterwards as I don't think it will be able to give us much content will fall prey to great fps killer repetitive tasks. I see a lot of games that had great potential but repetitive game play just killed them. I can see Evolve heading down that path already. Let's hope it doesn't.