Real talk. Ubisoft in general have made some great games. Their current business model is to pump out repeats of things that worked, and so earn our scorn for them ‘as of right now’.
Who played AC 1 and didn’t want more. That we’re now up to AC 76 doesn’t diminish that they made something fun before they beat it to death.
Even their primary accomplishment of making every open-world game follow their formula of ‘1000 sidequests, item hunts and mini-puzzles’ doesn’t detract from the fact that those were really fun the first few times.
I wish the best to all the ex-Ubisoft developers. Go make cool shit without the $business oversight$. In an ideal world, the publisher should be there to cover the gaps when a new concept falls flat, not to force developers to keep doing the same profitable thing and otherwise stifle innovation.
I stopped playing AC when zero punctuation pointed out that the game was entirely useless gofer quests. Go over there and listen to x lines of dialog only up go back and listen to y lines of dialog only to return to the first person and listen to more… And these locations were not near eachother. It was a time sink that had little point to it.
Other games use similar mechanics at times but often not with characters that are so far apart and/or not without some kind of fast travel system that can make the whole process faster.
I get what they were trying to do; that specific game had new movement mechanics that I completely ignored and just wanted to get on with it. The idea was that you were supposed to learn the new mechanics while traveling between places…
The whole thing just set me off and I stopped playing any and all AC games beyond that point. I’ll probably go back and play AC 1, maybe 2 again… But the rest… Idk if I’ll ever touch them.
Go over there and listen to x lines of dialog only up go back and listen to y lines of dialog only to return to the first person and listen to more…
Other games use similar mechanics at times but often not with characters that are so far apart and/or not without some kind of fast travel system that can make the whole process faster.
IMO the problem is character writing.
As an example, AC Odyssey had some great gems, like the underworld, that island intrigue quest, anything involving Phoebe, though many “mundane” quests had quirky characters too. Kassandra’s VA killed it through the whole game. I still remember all that, and I remember enjoying the in-between because I loved the characters and scenery. It was such a compelling reward.
It did have filler quests though.
…If talking and exploring itself feels like a chore, then that’s the problem IMO. It shouldn’t be a low point between gameplay.
Mario/Rabbids is the game nobody asked for or expected anything from, and it turned out great. Instead of just a knockoff silly minions game, it was an amazing XCOM-lite with fun environments and suprisingly-deep tactical gameplay.
Meanwhile Ubisoft itself continues to pump out digital slop
Anno games
AC Odyssey
Immortals Fenix Rising
Mario x Rabbids games
Prince of Persia TLC
Rocksmith is great for learning guitar
Real talk. Ubisoft in general have made some great games. Their current business model is to pump out repeats of things that worked, and so earn our scorn for them ‘as of right now’.
Who played AC 1 and didn’t want more. That we’re now up to AC 76 doesn’t diminish that they made something fun before they beat it to death.
Even their primary accomplishment of making every open-world game follow their formula of ‘1000 sidequests, item hunts and mini-puzzles’ doesn’t detract from the fact that those were really fun the first few times.
I wish the best to all the ex-Ubisoft developers. Go make cool shit without the $business oversight$. In an ideal world, the publisher should be there to cover the gaps when a new concept falls flat, not to force developers to keep doing the same profitable thing and otherwise stifle innovation.
I stopped playing AC when zero punctuation pointed out that the game was entirely useless gofer quests. Go over there and listen to x lines of dialog only up go back and listen to y lines of dialog only to return to the first person and listen to more… And these locations were not near eachother. It was a time sink that had little point to it.
Other games use similar mechanics at times but often not with characters that are so far apart and/or not without some kind of fast travel system that can make the whole process faster.
I get what they were trying to do; that specific game had new movement mechanics that I completely ignored and just wanted to get on with it. The idea was that you were supposed to learn the new mechanics while traveling between places…
The whole thing just set me off and I stopped playing any and all AC games beyond that point. I’ll probably go back and play AC 1, maybe 2 again… But the rest… Idk if I’ll ever touch them.
IMO the problem is character writing.
As an example, AC Odyssey had some great gems, like the underworld, that island intrigue quest, anything involving Phoebe, though many “mundane” quests had quirky characters too. Kassandra’s VA killed it through the whole game. I still remember all that, and I remember enjoying the in-between because I loved the characters and scenery. It was such a compelling reward.
It did have filler quests though.
…If talking and exploring itself feels like a chore, then that’s the problem IMO. It shouldn’t be a low point between gameplay.
Mario/Rabbids is the game nobody asked for or expected anything from, and it turned out great. Instead of just a knockoff silly minions game, it was an amazing XCOM-lite with fun environments and suprisingly-deep tactical gameplay.
Too bad they shut down the prince of persia team :(
AC Odyssey is 7 years old though. I don’t know any of the other titles, but I suspect they are not exactly recent either.
PoP was last year