Assassin's Creed: Unity

[Hotfoot]

I haven't purchased this one yet, and given the incoming reviews, it looks like I'm going to keep to that pretty well.

Holy shit, Ubisoft fucked this one up pretty hard. Real world money transactions (20-100 dollar amounts don't get "micro" tacked on, fuck you Ubi), parts of the game gated unless you play side apps, reworked controls that don't really work that well, the usual uPlay network connectivity bullshit, but worst of all, they apparently made the game boring, start to finish. More boring than the worst parts of the first game and AC3: Wooden Acting combined. I knew this game was up for some ridicule ever since the E3 debacle with the "No Female Assassins" bit, where they got hammered by the press and the former head of their animation department who worked on the AC games directly, but I didn't expect it would be this bad. Maybe this is a warning sign I should add, if a company complains it would take too many resources to add female character options to multiplayer, it's because they haven't planned their game out well and it's likely to suck.

Holy shit though, how do you make a game about the French Revolution BORING? I mean this is one of the juiciest fucking settings the series has had in a long fucking time. How do the Templars and the Assassins play into the turmoil in France? Who is propping up Napoleon? Are you saving the nobility, or hunting them down, or both? Fucking hell, you're running around Paris with some major shit going on, there's a lot to be done here.

The previews even showed some fucked up time-shifting to WW2 occupied Paris, ANOTHER fantastic setting for the series, available as bonus/Day One/Pre-Order DLC. So there was a lot of promise there, but Ubisoft pissed it all away. Rogue has the potential of still being good, though as a project that was announced only very recently, I question it.

I know this wasn't a big draw for a lot of people, but to the people were looking forward to it, you may want to pass on this year's installment and go back for another run of Black Flag.

[White Haven]

I might have a closer look myself once the usual uPlay day-one clusterfuck cools down. Not that I'd buy it, of course, but I have a free copy lying about, and from the sound of that post 'free' is the right price.

Disappointing, provisionally.

[Hotfoot]

I love how everyone howls about EA, but everyone gives Ubi a pass. Maybe it's not that way as much now, but I mean shit, you've got a $60 game (even on PC), with a $30 season pass (usually a good deal, Ubi does follow up on those nicely), Pre-Order DLC and extras, and up to $100 in-game currency payments (almost certainly a loophole to get around the Steam DLC rules, one of the big reasons EA started Origin). They are banking on people dropping $200 on this game on day one, and the worst part is, people will.

Do let me know your experiences with it though, because very little can beat free.

[Hotfoot]

As an added note, I finally watched the launch trailer for Assassin's Creed: Rogue, and man, I'm wondering what the hell is going on in Ubisoft's HQ. You've got the ship stuff from the past two games, and a storyline that deals with Achilles, the best character from AC3, only you're not playing Achilles, which would have been fucking awesome, but no, you're playing some asshole who betrays the Assassins.

Still, could be interesting, I'll have to see how the reviews are, because, of course, both games had a review embargo.

Oh, and the PC version of Rogue doesn't hit until NEXT YEAR. Fucking Ubi.