Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – From Ancient Greece to the American Revolution and Back with One Season Pass

First of all – the fuck? Whenever Rabidgames buys the ultimate or whatever version of a game to enjoy the complete version with all DLCs or just because it is dead cheap and the 360 version is in a box, boom, a remaster appears out of thin air. Dragon’s Dogma, boom! Far Cry 3, boom! Red Faction Guerilla, boom! And now, Assassin’s Creed 3, boom! How about Oblivion Remastered then? Or New Vegas, you know, the Fallout people fucking want?

Anyway, what were we talking about, oh, Assassin’s Creed 3, right. As you might have heard, the Remastered version will be part of the Season Pass of the soon coming Greek tragedy Assassin’s Creed Odyssey! Or you can buy the game separately if you don’t like Greek culture and food, or if you’ve had one too many ouzos once or twice …

So yeah. There are some reasons to question Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – it is set before the Assassins were formed, it is set only in Greece (which feels a bit sad after the diverse climates and the pyramids of Egypt), people there don’t revere cats as much, and then there’s a focus on naval combat no one has really asked for because let’s face it, naval combat in Black Flag – aye, naval combat in Origins – nay.

But it could still be a great game – there are also tons of good news – exploration mode for isntance. No more “follow the main quest” … well, still a bit, but Odyssey allows you to explore Greece at your leisure even more than Origins did with Egypt. One could say you can have your own open-ended Odyssey …

Choices also appear to be meaningful in this seemingly deep action RPG, at least if we believe Ubi’s PR machine. In many ways, Odyssey sounds like the Bioware game fucking EA has denied us this generation. True, Inquisition was decent enough, although it paled and withered once The Witcher 3 claimed the RPG throne. But Odyssey could have what it takes to best at least Bioware’s efforts. At the very least, we can decide if we support Athens or Sparta, and it seems we can do a whole lot more dirty mercenary work, including recruiting a crew again (there’ll also be a trophy for having recruited an all-female crew) …

And then, all the stuff after release. Sure, it would be nice to have all at once – but have you read the details of Odyssey’s Season Pass? Two expansions, one about Atlantis! The episodic content sucks, sure, but Atlantis!

Here’s the thing. Ubisoft does questionable, very questionable things at times, like still having games with fucking loot boxes, or always-online for The Crew or The Division. And fucking loot boxes! But when it comes to value for money, Odyssey looks like a big fucking deal! Procided you like Assassin’s Creed, you pay 80 to 100 quid (depending on the version) for a 100 hour game. Plus the massive Assassin’s Creed 3 (hopefully a bit streamlined) plus its great tyrannic alternate history, plus the smaller bonus of Liberation!

And then, there’s the free stuff. We’ll get another Discovery tour and more free weekly and daily DLC in the form of mini quests! So, that’s plenty of bang for your bucks. But … well, there’s also a big concern. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey could very well have an expiration date, similar to pretty much every fucking game this year if you own a PS4 or a One. Let’s face it, Red Dead Redemption 2 is already raring to go, and unless Rockstar does a massive, massive fuck-up, it looks like a goddamn serious Game of the Decade contender. But pretty much every game this year has that red dead problem …

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Time to Say: Fuck Nintendo!

Remember how Nintendo always pretends to guise the clothes of the only consumer-friendly company in a world of sharks? Well FUCK THAT!

First of all, yes. Nintendo sometimes pulls of good shit such as the Xenoblade Chronicle games or the Zelda games – although quite often you feel they would get -10% points were they released on more advanced systems. Take Breath of the Wild – great phyiscs and a big open world, something unseen on a Nintendo system. But not exactly innovative in any way. We’ve seen physics before, we’ve seen open worlds before, we’ve seen a stamina system before. And we’ve sure as hell seen breakable weapons before, although hardly ever that ridiculously.

But – apart from that, Nintendo is an incredibly backwards company (just look at their 50s style family presentations in their games) and above all, they rip off their blind sheepish fans wherever they can – and always get a way with it!

How, you ask? Well, imagine Sony games would never get cheaper. Look on Amazon for the price of Breath of the Wild – 50 quid. For a game that was releases way over a year ago! Imagine Sony selling controllers for 60 quid – and that’s the “Joy-Cons” (imagine frustrated folks buying them thinking they bought a dildo …). But the motherfucking icing on the shit cake is this, quoting Eurogamer’s slightly rose-tinted article about the terrible Switch online service (more on that below):

the gall to present those £49.99 NES controllers – which only work with the NES app and not with other games – as a privilege, something that Sony or Microsoft would surely never have the gall to attempt

Funny, isn’t it? Imagine Microsoft designing a retro Xbox controller that ONLY works with original Xbox games. Sounds fucking stupid now, doesn’t it?

And then that shambolic online service. First, you need a phone app for voice chat. If only a console could handle that … Second, you can back up some of your saves now that you have to pay to play online, but as soon as you don’t feel like paying, Nintendo fucking deletes all your cloud saves straight away! How fucked up is that?

But let’s be clear – Microsoft and Sony and their paid online is as fucked. We’ve become used to pay for a service that is often still utter shit. And Nintendo joining them doesn’t make Nintendo worse (in this regard). But – Nintendo isn’t better. Nintendo isn’t the motherfucking knight in shining armour rescuing gamers in distress from the evil dragons Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is just the same, and when it comes to online, Nintendo is incompetent as fuck on top of the shit cake they’re all eating together.

But couple this with ridiculously overpriced pricing for peripheral devices, couple that with the always extremely high prices to buy their games, and we see the combined result: A greedy company leeching its devout fan base on a level only EA and Activision reach, while pretending to be completely different wearing the family friendly colourful disguise of someone who almost credibly cares. So here it is: Fuck Nintendo!

 

Shenmue or Why some Glitches Should Stay …

You’ve probably heard about the Shenmue remaster, that transports a game to this generation that is stuff of legends. Back then, the open world of Shenmue wasn’t famous for its size but for its continuity. No markers, you had to follow signs or what people told you. You couldn’t even fast-forward time all the time, so you had to find things to do to pass the time. And sadly, Shenmue also introduced, or at least popularised, a prime scourge of gaming. No, not micro-transactions, those came way, way later. Quick time events. Those fucking excuses for gameplay.

And these days, Shenmue is a sometimes burdensome but mostly wonderful anachronism. And more. It feels like the blueprint for Yakuza, yes. And yeah, sadly quick time events. Urgh. Anyway, the main thing about Shenmue is its deceleration. In this, it is pretty similar to Life is Strange. Why be in a rush? Sometimes, you just take your time. And sit back to look at things. Just breathe.

Oh, and the remaster isn’t without glitches though, which is a shame. But, Shenmue also offers an amazing audio glitch. Or perhaps this street really is haunted …

Let’s find out by playing the game, shall we?

Destiny 2 Stealthes to PSN Plus: Panic or PR?

What the fuck? Out of nowhere, and just in time for its next expansion, Destiny 2 arrived on PSN Plus in a rather stealthy manner.

But is it PR? Goodwill? Panic? Or a mix of all of it?

Who knows. Fact is, the player feedback for Activion’s cash trap has been quite negative, no wonder if you take shit out of the base game to re-package it as DLC … There hardly was anything new or worthwhile when Destiny 2 was released, Activision did some idiotic amateur mistakes, and so it’s no wonder the free-to-play competitor Warframe is rumoured to be the best Destiny experience these days (sure, the shooting ain’t as crisp, but there’s already more story and character in its first 10 hours than there has ever been in all of Destiny 1).

To be fair to Activision (even though we probably shouldn’t), it seems they listened at least to some of the complaints and changed quite a few things in Destiny 2. There’s more mix and match possible now with weapons in the fabled update 2.0, for instance.

But after 5 hours in, it’s still the same old and Destiny … yeah, gunplay is great, but fighting the same waves of enemies all over again? Boring. The story now features more cutscenes, but there’s still not much of a story there. The gameplay is still “go there, shoot shit, go there again to shoot shit again”. No tactics, no cinematic stuff after the first couple of missions. There’s a bit of atmosphere when walking through the derelict ruins of the old world, but with enemies and other guardians spawning left and right, the atmosphere is quickly swallowed by the umpteenth meaningless shoot-out. Chances are if you finished Destiny 1 and were already bored, Destiny 2 will bore you to death.

Rabidgames wonders: One thing is for sure – Activision doesn’t give away Destiny 2 out of the goodness of their rotten, microtransaction-infested hearts. But if the aim is to lure in players by presenting an overhauled base game, fine. If the aim is a cry for attention, also fine. It’s a chance to look at the game again, and it might suit some. But if you look for more than great gunplay (solo, co-op or multiplayer), Destiny 2 doesn’t offer it.