Assassin's Creed: Unity - First Impression

Assassin's Creed: Unity
A whole lot of lost potential - First Impressions

I played around 4 hours of Assassin's Creed: Unity, and I really wanted to love it. My last Assassin's Creed was Assassin's Creed 3; and compared to ACIII, Unity is far far better. However, and this is a big one, the port is bad. 

Plot - spoilers ahead, probably you want to skip. I'll put a TL;DR
The story of AC:U revolves around Arno, a child born into a family of Assassins. Early in the game, his father was killed by a mysterious person and suddenly, Arno was orphaned. He was taken in by his father's acquaintance, a Templar, and raised as their own son. Years went by, until one fateful night, Arno's stepfather was murdered. Arno was wrongly accused of murdering his stepfather and imprisoned. In the prison, Arno met another one of his father's friend, an Assassin, who taught him the ways of the Brotherhood. And... that was as far as I have played. 

As a character, Arno is likeable. Unlike, Connor, Arno is not overly-zealous with his cause. He has his own goals, in that he wants to bring his step-father's killer to justice and live happily with his Templar -to put it crudely- girlfriend, Elise. If any, Arno is much more Ezio than Connor in terms of personality. Witty, brash, and is yet kind and compassionate to those in need. 

TL;DR The plot is good. In my opinion, it is at least on par with ACII.

Performance and graphics
This is where the game breaks down. I am running the game on a i5-4670 and a GTX760. To put things into perspective, my rig can run Tomb Raider with maxed settings (except Tress-FX) at almost constant 60 fps. It's no GTX980, bit it's no slouch for sure. With AC:U, I cannot even get constant 30 fps, at high settings. 

It would be fine if the game looks out of this world, but it's not. I must admit that the character models, especially the named characters looks fantastic. The detail in the clothings, skin, eyes, and expression looks amazing. Animation quality is also top notch, especially in cutscenes. However, for the rest of the non-named NPCs, they look horrible. Environment textures too look horrible, even at Ultra setting. Doors and pillars look horrible in this game, and is especially emphasized when the high-res character models interact with the objects. This mismatch in texture quality really detracts from the experience as they are really jarring.

One thing that I should commend about the game is that the lighting looks absolutely fantastic. Most of the reviews that I read online don't really touch on lighting, but I think it's so awesome that it deserves its own paragraph. If you are using an NVidia card, please do yourself a favour and turn on the HBAO+ lighting effect. Although it does tank the fps quite a bit, the really good lighting masks much of the murky environmental texture and improves the overall look of the game. 

In game screenshot that I think really emphasizes the beauty of the lighting in the game. Just look at that light pillar.

Gameplay

The biggest change in gameplay compared to the previous AC games is the addition of downward parkour. You will not know how much does downward parkour helps until you've tried it. It really is a godsend, especially when you want to descend from a ledge without jumping off and alerting every guard within a 20 meter radius. One drawback that I have with it is that every time you parkour downwards, the camera turns to face the ground for some reason. It wouldn't matter if the camera can quickly swivel back towards the horizontal, but it doesn't. So every time you parkour downwards, you need to readjust your camera to know where you are going.

Combat

Another big change in gameplay is the combat. In previous AC games, I have 2 main problems with the game: disarm and chain killing. Disarming allows you to kill anything in the game, including those that you cannot counter with the hidden blade; and Chain Kill is simply over-powered. The removal both of these aspects in AC:U makes me glad they. AC:U feels less like the power fantasy that recent AC games started to be and places more focus on stealth, rather than combat. 

Another big omission to me was the inability to equip the hidden blade in combat. What this entails is the you can no longer counter-kill enemies in AC:U. In AC1, you cannot block when equipping the hidden blade, making the hidden blade a high-risk, high-return weapon as a successful counter on-shots almost any enemy, whereas failing would mean taking damage. In AC2, they allow you to block with the hidden blade, removing the risk, but is still very difficult to counter with, providing incentive to master the timing. In AC:U, you cannot equip the hidden blade in combat at all and I find that as a rather odd design decision. I hope that Ubisoft brings hidden blades back into combat in subsequent AC games, but return it to how it works in AC1. 

All-in-all, the changes in AC:U combat has really made it better in my opinion. It is now much more difficult to kill a group of guards, and, combined with the improved parkour mechanics, this makes running when outnumbered a more viable and enjoyable option. Unfortunately, smoke bombs are still as over-powered as ever, allowing you to kill 5-6 guards without difficulty and are ridiculously cheap. Ubisoft, nerf them will you...?

Conclusion

So far, Assassin's Creed: Unity has captured me with its story. I will be playing more of it, only to see the story unfold as it is, in all honesty, quite interesting. However, I can only barely stomach the performance issues that the game has. If you can wait, do wait for a patch that fixes the game before purchasing. I will bring a full review once I have completed the game, or stopped playing due to frustration. Ubisoft, get it together, please. Patch it.

Freedom Wars

First Impressions - So far, So good

So, I picked up Freedom Wars on a wimp. The gameplay videos looks good and I am itching for a monster hunting game. After a few hours of playing, I can say that it is really worth hyping for.

Plot

Let's start with the plot. It is fortunate for me to report that there is a story in Freedom Wars, and it's not bad. The writing is cliche and does not really break new grounds. It is really typical anime plot whereby you are there to save the world with the power of friendship, bla bla bla. But, it is the setting where Freedom Wars really kills it. It goes something like:

The earth is basically ruined due to shortage of resources. Humanity now live in Panopticons, a "city" where some people live as a prisoner with a million year sentence from the moment they were born. In the game, you fight as one of the Sinners, who committed a sin by simply living, and must reduce your one million years sentence by going on suicide missions against other Panopticons. 

The 1 Million Year Sentence at birth

You really have to hand it to the Japanese to be able to come up with such brilliant and unique setting. It's really sufficient to provide a decent backdrop to the whole game.

When you start the game, you need to choose your Panopticon among the 50 randomly chosen cities around the world. The choice does not really matter as you can play with anyone from any Panopticons, but there is a leaderboard of some sort to rank which are the top Panopticons, but I am not sure how the leaderboard system works since I have not touched multiplayer yet.

Gameplay

Typical of many hunting games, gameplay consists of mainly combat and crafting. There are some conversation choices, but so far, choices does not affect the story at all. 

Combat

Combat is amazing. Although the weapons feel a bit samey, the thorns more than made up for the lack of weapon variety. Equipping different thorns makes up for the lack of distinction between the different weapon classes that are generally present with other hunting games. Jumping on Abductors and hacking away parts of their body still feels great after a few hours. I have heard that there aren't that many variety of Abductors in the game, but so far I cannot say that it's not fun. Battle do get a bit clusterf*ck-y, especially if the arena is small. At low health, the Abductors hit some sort of enrage threshold and start spamming attack. If your team is stuck in a small space, you will die pretty quickly. 

The main enemy in the game, the Abductors. Yes, you can jump on top of it and hack away parts of the enemy.

Another interesting addition that Freedom Wars adds into the combat are accessories. They are sort of the felines that you encounter in Monster Hunter games. They act as a companion the battle, acting as a distraction and support character. Outside battles, they act as your personal assistant and jailer, recording your progress, relaying messages and giving additional years to your sentence when appropriate. This causes me to, embarrassingly, develop sort of a bitter sweet feeling towards them as they will be the character that you interact the most during your playtime. 

Crafting

Crafting is handled differently in Freedom Wars. They are on a timer, like much mobile games. They will continue to tick down as long as you don't terminate the application. This gives me mixed feelings about the game. On one hand, I like it because this give some sort of resource management aspect to the game, in that you need to time your upgrades so that you will not be stuck using inferior equipments because your best weapons are being upgraded. On the other hand, it seems to be unnecessary clutter as you will just assign the upgrading to your different facilities as you end your play session anyway so that when you come back, they are all done. Also, some people seems to be bothered by the RnG aspect of crafting in this game. The fact is that the final stats of the weapon that you craft is randomly assigned and so far, I have not encountered any way to make the odds of obtaining a superior version increase. Take it as you may, but I am not really bothered by it. 

Graphics

An in game screen-shot as seen on the Vita TV.

The graphics in this game is easily one of the best on the Vita. Despite the sub-HD resolution that the Vita has, the graphics looks amazing. I did notice some jaggies, especially during character close-up shots in cutscenes, but they are hardly noticeable unless you are looking for it. Also, I think Sony does balance particle effects and graphical flare during combat as battles look bombastic, but not too cluttered.

In game on the PSVita.

Sound

Music is amazing, if not lacking in variety. There are a few tracks for the few locations in the game, but each of them sounds great. Weapon sound assets too sound really great. The sound, combined with the excellent visuals, makes the attack feel really powerful, especially when you can pull of a large hit with the great sword on the enemy Abductors. 

Bottom-Line

If it's not obvious by now, I really enjoy Freedom Wars. I will continue to play it and will write a full review once I am done with it. However, so far, I feel that it is really really good. 

FlappyBird Developer to take down his game from the Play Store

By now, this should have been public knowledge: FlappyBird will be taken down by its creator. For those that are not in the know, Flappy Bird is a game that was developed by a game developer named Nguyen Ha Dong and it involves one simple mechanic, to keep your bird alive while it maneuvers through a series of obstacles. Since uploaded, the game has been downloaded up to 50 million times and is generating tons of revenue from advertising.

The title screen showing the start button and an online leaderboard.

Unfortunately, the developer decided the success of the game was too much and he "cannot take this anymore." 

Tapping the screen propels your bird upwards.

The natural question to ask is why was the game taken down when it was generating tons of revenue. Call me ignorant, but from what I played, the game does not take much programming or even development to speak of. It has a pixel art graphic style, a basic set of sound effects, and no BGM. As such, it should have given him a huge source of income. 

Also, this abrupt exit is similar to the exit of Phil Fish, the creator of FEZ, albeit with much less drama and hate. 

What I hope did not happen is that the media publicizes his success so much to the point that he broke down. If that is indeed the case, the media has caused two perfectly fine game to never be played by anyone ever again.  

In any case, Nguyen did allow some time for downloads to be made and as the time of writing, the app is still available. However, it won't be for long so get your copy fast.

The LEGO Movie Review: A Great, Funny Movie

The LEGO Movie Review

So, I saw the trailer a months ago and I was excited to the max! However, the excitement quickly died down because I thought it was going to be disappointing. Oh, I couldn't be more wrong.

The LEGO Movie with its myriad of cameos

Well, to be honest, I cheated a little bit before watching the movie. I watched a video review made by IGN. So, I did have a certain expectation going in the theater. However, the movie blew my expectation away. 

Story

If there are any weak points to the LEGO movie, it's the overall story. It's as generic as it can get. So, don't go in expecting an Oscar-winning clever plot writing here. It's not lame and not overly stupid, but just not brilliant. There's no drastic plot-twists or anything like that, it's just a plain and straight story that gives the whole movie coherence. Also, the story gets a tad draggy at times and there are a few jarring plot holes, but overall, it's still alright

However, oh boy wasn't it a fun ride. Where the LEGO Movie shines is the script writing and the execution of said plot. In short, LEGO movie is funny. The jokes are well placed and are delivered in very short bursts such that they don't get old. There are some pretty touching moments, although even some of those (spoiler: the falling from the bridge scene) are still genuinely funny. This jokes helps very well with the drag that occurs at several points during the movie. 

This movie is also jack full of references, as you should have noticed if you have seen the trailer. On top of the various casts that LEGO have franchises with (DC heroes, Harry Potter, LotR, etc.), LEGO included several lines of its most popular lines of figures such as the Space, Knight, and Wild Wild West series among others. They are great to see and for everyone who have played with the original bricks, you will certainly enjoy this one. If there are any downsides to this is that they don't use their characters to their maximum potential. Outside of the original characters, the only one with significant screen time is Batman. I am tempted to say this is due to the popularity of the Batman trilogy, but I HOPE that is not the case.

Superman in The LEGO Movie

Picture Quality

CG is top notch as expected from WB. Also, some of the sets present in the movie are made form actual LEGO bricks. The kicker is, from watching it in the Cinema once, I cannot tell which are is which. The bricks are actually painstakingly detailed with chips and smudges to give them a feeling that they have been played with. Some interviews with the artists even mentioned that they even added details such as dandruff and dust to make the scene even more realistic. I didn't notice this personally, but if so, the details are absolutely amazing.

A scene from the trailer showed Emmet's house.

Animations are very good, especially the "builder-vision" that the character "activated" when they want to build stuff from random bricks. Another point that I like is that unlike in LEGO games, the LEGO characters in this movie has no elbow and knee joints. This makes their movement seem clunky and choppy. However, this actually makes the movie even more nostalgic in my opinion. Combined with the animation style which mimics a stop-motion movie, this lack of joints actually suits the movie much better.

The lack of joints is evident here with the stiffness of the forearm especially.
Also note the detail present in this shot, especially on Emmet's hair.

As I've mentioned, the animation style actually looks very much like stop motion. Reading some interviews and wikipedia article, the animators referred to stop-motion videos of lego figures that are available in Youtube for research during the early development phases. In my opinion, I am glad that they went down this route, rather than the route taken by the LEGO games. Although I understand why the games took that path, the use of such a stop motion-like movement allows them to differentiate themselves from other animation movies.

Sound

Music in my opinion is not the strong aspect of this movie. There are no obviously boring BGM, but they are not mind-blowingly good. To their credit, the music in this movie fits the movie and served its purpose, to help build the atmosphere. That being said, "Everything is Awesome" is a very catchy song and is easily the best piece throughout the whole movie.

Voice acting on the other hand, is top notch. Morgan Freeman (as Vitruvius) nailed again his trademark holy man role and I love Allison Brie's (as Uni-Kitty) performance giving life to this otherwise easily forgettable character. Will Arnett made Batman into an a**hole, but it does give an interesting contrast to Nolan's Batman. The main character, Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is... plain. Now, before you start flaming me, I didn't mean that in a bad way. Chris Pratt as Emmet was solid, but he is... bland, Emmet has no aspect that makes him special in any way. To their credit however, Emmet is SUPPOSED to be a very generic character and if that is their intent, they nailed it perfectly. The rest of the cast is alright and I won't list it here as it's available in Wikipedia. Overall, the movie has a solid choice of casts and there are no jarring mismatch between voice and the look and feel of the character.

Conclusion

Well, it might have been my nostalgic feeling that I have for LEGO toys, but I really enjoyed the movie. It has a well written script combined with excellent CGI work. New York Times wrote, "'The Lego Movie' could easily have become an extended ad for the Danish toy company" and I think this aptly sums my feeling about this movie. This movie is certainly no where near the level of Frozen or Toy Story 3 in terms of music, story, and character design. However, this movie could have been a cash in from LEGO and I think we should be grateful that it is as good as it is. The story is generic and the music is just above average. What nailed it for me is definitely the strength of the LEGO brand and the script writing.

In conclusion, the LEGO Movie is definitely not the epic masterpiece that Frozen and Toy Story 3 was. However, it was a nice and nostalgic ride. It won't blow your mind, but it will certainly entertain the child in you (Spoiler: I think that is what they are intending to do, to entice the child in you). If you are a LEGO fan, definitely go out and watch it right now. For the rest of us that are not so much into LEGO, I'll say it's a good watch and I encourage you to watch it if you have the extra cash to burn; if not, then you are not missing much. 

I don't do scores as I think it's ridiculous, but if I must, 6.5/10 if you're not a LEGO fan and a 11/10 if you are.