Seneste anmeldelser af Fiasco

As a fan of the series since its first release, I was highly skeptical in regard of the changes brought to its format. I honestly believed it was going to be the last Assassin’s Creed game I was going to purchase.

Fortunately, I’ve been proven wrong. This release turned out to be fascinating, inciting and really immersive. It’s been a long time since a game pulled me in so strong, making me crave to boot it up on every occasion.

This being said, there are a lot of reviews out there, so I’ll limit mine to listing a few pointers, aiming more towards players who are familiar with the series, yet still holding back on purchasing this release.

So let’s get on with it:

- The story is OK, having also the benefit of a more personal note. It still IS and Assassin’s Creed theme, but there is a stronger connection with the protagonist and his personal story. However, the most important thing to mention is that there are a lot of side quests this time around, and they are all handcrafted. No more “grab a pigeon and go kill that dude”. Now, the side quests have cut-scenes, variety and personality. Don’t expect to have choices or decisions to make though. It’s not that type of RPG.

- While I can’t say the main protagonist is highly charismatic (although he does have his moments), he gets a lot of face time through the main and side quests, so he grows on you quite fast. Along with the other features of the game, this aspect does a lot for immersion.

- The world is huge and heavily populated with places of interest. Most import though: you now have true incentives to explore it. No more collecting feathers and crap. The new leveled loot system makes it worthwhile to scour every corner of the map, providing you with a ton of gear and trinkets that will prove useful one way or another. The game also does a pretty good job of exploiting the fascination of finding “treasures” around every corner. Of course, the Ancient Egypt theme helps a lot with that.

- The skills tree (now there is an RPG-type one) is well thought and really game-changing, albeit there are a bit too many cool abilities locked behind it in the beginning. But leveling up is fast enough not to get annoyed by the “naked” feeling you get at the start of the game. There are three skill branches: melee combat, stealth and ranged combat (bow). At least 80% of the combat skill tree is a must, but more on that later.

- The stealth…well…it feels a tad underdeveloped. Some cool stuff from the previous games was surprisingly left out: no more double assassinations, corner assassinations or horseback assassinations. That’s a bit strange, considering how much attention was paid to cool little “quality of life” type of things, like using your torch to light arrows and jumping on your mount on the run. Don’t get me wrong: stealth works well. However, aside from a double kill skill that you can acquire, all stealth abilities in the skill tree are about trinkets like bombs and darts.

- The combat system…was a bit of letdown as far as I’m concerned. It IS more challenging, but I feel a hit-boxes based system is not really the best choice for this game. It also has some development flaws. A specific trait of such a system is that it works best in open or at least larger areas. Trying to fight in small or confined spaces will make you lose situational awareness fast. The camera does not adapt well in such cases and also the active targeting system tends to get in your way. You’re better off using it only on bosses and mini-bosses. Otherwise it’s ok, but the combat only starts to be enjoyable once you’ve acquired most of its dedicated skill tree, which basically allows you to dispatch your opponents much faster. In any case, as long as you mind your character and gear levels and you don’t pick on opponents higher than two levels above you, you’re fine.

- The mechanics are high quality, as usual. The parkour movements are reduced to something simpler than Unity and Syndicate, but they are still fluid. The walking is a bit too slow though. While you’re supposed to be able to inconspicuously navigate a crowd (you know…being an assassin and all), you’ll get killed by boredom if you try to walk more than 20 meters. And when you’re running, you’re racing. Not so inconspicuous.

So, as a general conclusion, the game is beautiful, rich in content, complex in mechanics and heavily immersive. As an RPG, it doesn’t exactly reach the level of quality of Witcher 3 (except for the mechanics, which are better), but it gets really close.

There is one thing this game delivers in a brilliant manner: balance. It was one of the very few truly well-balanced survival experiences I’ve ever had in a game. Constantly tough, yet it always feels fair. It keeps pushing you into a corner at your every step, yet it always gives you options for a way out. This trait leads to a solid survival struggle experience and also a highly gratifying feeling of success. It also gives the game a lot of replay value.

Other than that and some cool music, I can’t really say I enjoyed anything in particular about the game. Every feature feels like it’s been developed strictly up to a level of sufficiency. It could as well have been shaped as a card game.

So, it is definitely worth playing, but it’s only worth half of the price they’re charging for it.

Surprising and intriguing story. The game also aged well.

While I generally enjoy stealth action games, I kept passing over this series. Figured it would be just another “creep around – shoot’em in the head” flic and ended up buying the game simply out of boredom. It proved to be so much more.

I’ll keep the review on a simple format though.

Pros:
- Beautiful setting (1943 Italy) and truly exploited up to its potential (many urban areas). Also, every map is heavily cluttered and furnished, making them all feel realistic.
- Great graphics.
- Large mission areas and they are truly playgrounds. A lot of interactive potential environmental hazards, a lot of ways to approach objectives (many accesses and connections between areas and buildings, most buildings are accessible; quite enough open buildings in the urban areas also).
- Very thoughtful and rational layout of the map assets. Good nesting positions and an abundance of close combat map sections. It’s not like in SE3, where the game pushed you towards the sniper nests, yet most of them didn’t provide a sound cover option.
- Lots of trinkets at the protagonist’s disposal. With that and the environment manipulation I genuinely felt like playing Dishonored on quite a few occasions.
- Takedowns. From almost any position. I hate games that make me feel like a god when nobody sees me, but if I’m looking an opponent straight in the face, I can’t even throw a punch. Not the case here. Cool looking takedowns and they also feature the X-RAY effect now.
- Smart AI. They are aware of each other, shoot straight, have a reasonable time of figuring out where you are and also they seem to have good peripheral vision. Of course, sometimes a rookie decides to take cover with his behind fully exposed to the hot end of your rifle, but nothing is perfect.
- X-RAY kill effect (well…the series’ trademark).
- Interesting movement dynamic. The protagonist is supposed to creep around stealthily, yet he moves quite slow when crouched. It was annoying in the beginning. But mixing sprint into the equation (as it takes into account whether you’re crouched or standing) really gave the game a totally different dynamic. It also felt realistic. I mean…not even a well-trained soldier can be truly be fast and agile with a ton of gear hanging from his body.
- It allows you any play style you feel in mood for: sniping, guns blazing, stealth.
- Every kill you make feels really satisfying. And actually…everything you do in this game feels like that.
- I think I said this before, but it’s worth mentioning again: it has a lot of replay value.

Things that could be improved (they are not really cons):
- While there are a variety of weapons available, they are more or less equally useful. That feels realistic, but the weapon upgrade system implies you completing a specific set of challenges with each particular weapon. So it basically pushes you to stick to the weapons you choose at the beginning, throughout the whole game.
- There is sort of an attempt to tell a story with a tad of immersion, by providing sort of a prelude for each mission, where you get to talk to some characters before starting it. However, the feature doesn’t reach its purpose. The protagonist simply plays the righteous cold professional role, so not much colour there. The others don’t get either a background, or enough face time to make you care about them. They’re also kinda’ uninteresting.
- I may have gotten used to Ubisoft’s character design, where every trinket hangs and dangles differently on your body, but I did feel the protagonist’s design was a tad stiff in this regard. Don’t get me wrong though: he looks great nonetheless and the textures are very well done.
- The single player campaign is not exactly long, or…well…to me it felt like it came to a somehow abrupt ending. But as I took my time to enjoy each mission, I did count 31 hours of gameplay. The DLC missions will probably give me at least another 10, and since there is so much replay value, I’d say the game is definitely worth its price.

Conclusion:
As far as stealth action games go nowadays, I’d say this is a triple A one. And if I were to express my opinion of it in just a few words, those would be: “a satisfying experience”.

This is basically a triple A game prototype. While limited by design choices in every direction, within those limits it manages to deliver a memorable experience, even if you’re not really into its theme, setting or subject.

Plenty of reviews out there, so I’m going to draw the line for this one right here.

The good:
- Cool art style and graphics. Also quite atmospheric, yet mostly in the cut-scenes and menus. It has a Wild West feeling, reminding me of Borderlands. The humor didn't rub off on it though.
- The single player experience is stable and free of bugs. Multiplayer has some issues, which I assume to be temporary.
- Cool looking characters and the cut-scenes give color to their personalities...albeit it's a tad the same color.
- Smooth controls and cover/movement system (at least in my own experience).
- Functional and somewhat engaging rock-paper-scissors melee combat system.

The bad:
- Shallow storytelling. There is a backstory and some lore, but it's only enough to explain the shape of the world and the context of the missions. There are cut-scenes at the beginning and the end of every mission, yet they're basically more focused on trying to give color to the characters. It is however slightly more than we usually get in multi-player focused games.
- Poor mission design. The missions are short and shaped as arenas, having you repeat various actions several times (example: kill some bad guys, fill a container, kill some more bad guys, fill another container, and so on).
- Poor environment design. I know, it doesn't feel like that in the clips, but you end up running and fighting around rocks most of the time.
- Too many customization options are locked behind multi-player gameplay. Hours of it, I'm assuming. Also, there's even game content locked behind the same feature. Lore, for example. You can READ most of it ONLY if you pay with in-game currency, the same kind you use for upgrades and even unlocking new characters. OK, you don't need to actually buy the lore with real cash, but it's a truly cheap and artificial maneuver to prolong your play time.
- The single-player (solo option) is not exactly optimized. You don't get AI team mates, so on higher difficulty you can't actually make it through the missions, unless you're really patient and lucky. Most of the AI feels an urge to shoot you point blank or break your neck with its bare hands, so you get swarmed easily. With nobody to watch your back and a high sensitivity to bullets and punches (on all characters) you're toast.
- Each campaign contains only 4 missions. Considering they are short, highly repetitive in terms of gameplay and taking place in really small arenas, I strongly doubt people will spend too much time playing this game.
- The characters' builds are not really interesting, nor engaging. Each protagonist has exactly one active skill, while rest are passive (AND locked behind repetitive gameplay and/or micro-transactions). The active skills themselves are...meh. In the heat of the fight I ended up not using any of them, on any character.
- If I am to judge the full game by this one campaign, I'd say it has little content. 4 campaigns, each composed of 4 short, cramped, horde mode missions with repetitive tasks.

The really bad:
- Outrageous "in your face" micro-transactions model. While it's not a "pay to win" game, almost every customization option is locked behind the shop. Also, the prices are quite steep. If you buy the whole game and a couple of pairs of underwear, you've paid the price of a triple A game. This is not a triple A game, nor it is going to be.

The disappointing:
- They give us these really cool characters and this amazing world, yet no option to explore and experience it. Not every game has to be an RPG, but this game's model is the simplest, cheapest and laziest multiplayer model on the market. It is sad to see such capable game designers bury their obvious talent and potential under the ugly choice of developing not a game, but a cheap themed amusement park.

EDIT (after the release or the second campaign): I kinda' promised myself to revisit this review after the release of the second campaign. However, after closely watching game-play clips of the new available missions, I concluded it's not worth another purchase. The conceptual flaws are exactly the same (small cramped mission areas with repetitive objectives). I don't know if the micro-transactions problem is still as I initially described it (so please doubt that part), but the rest of my initial review gloriously still stands (unfortunately). Also, I won't be revisiting it.

Initial review:

This review is based on also playing the first available campaign. Decided to put it also here 'cause this is where people end up first, upon finding out about the game.

The good:
- Cool art style and graphics. Also quite atmospheric, yet mostly in the cut-scenes and menus. It has a Wild West feeling, reminding me of Borderlands. The humor didn't rub off on it though.
- The single player experience is stable and free of bugs. Multiplayer has some issues, which I assume to be temporary.
- Cool looking characters and the cut-scenes give color to their personalities...albeit it's a tad the same color.
- Smooth controls and cover/movement system (at least in my own experience).
- Functional and somewhat engaging rock-paper-scissors melee combat system.

The bad:
- Shallow storytelling. There is a backstory and some lore, but it's only enough to explain the shape of the world and the context of the missions. There are cut-scenes at the beginning and the end of every mission, yet they're basically more focused on trying to give color to the characters. It is however slightly more than we usually get in multi-player focused games.
- Poor mission design. The missions are short and shaped as arenas, having you repeat various actions several times (example: kill some bad guys, fill a container, kill some more bad guys, fill another container, and so on).
- Poor environment design. I know, it doesn't feel like that in the clips, but you end up running and fighting around rocks most of the time.
- Too many customization options are locked behind multi-player gameplay. Hours of it, I'm assuming. Also, there's even game content locked behind the same feature. Lore, for example. You can READ most of it ONLY if you pay with in-game currency, the same kind you use for upgrades and even unlocking new characters. OK, you don't need to actually buy the lore with real cash, but it's a truly cheap and artificial maneuver to prolong your play time.
- The single-player (solo option) is not exactly optimized. You don't get AI team mates, so on higher difficulty you can't actually make it through the missions, unless you're really patient and lucky. Most of the AI feels an urge to shoot you point blank or break your neck with its bare hands, so you get swarmed easily. With nobody to watch your back and a high sensitivity to bullets and punches (on all characters) you're toast.
- Each campaign contains only 4 missions. Considering they are short, highly repetitive in terms of gameplay and taking place in really small arenas, I strongly doubt people will spend too much time playing this game.
- The characters' builds are not really interesting, nor engaging. Each protagonist has exactly one active skill, while rest are passive (AND locked behind repetitive gameplay and/or micro-transactions). The active skills themselves are...meh. In the heat of the fight I ended up not using any of them, on any character.
- If I am to judge the full game by this one campaign, I'd say it has little content. 4 campaigns, each composed of 4 short, cramped, horde mode missions with repetitive tasks.

The really bad:
- Outrageous "in your face" micro-transactions model. While it's not a "pay to win" game, almost every customization option is locked behind the shop. Also, the prices are quite steep. If you buy the whole game and a couple of pairs of underwear, you've paid the price of a triple A game. This is not a triple A game, nor it is going to be.

The disappointing:
- They give us these really cool characters and this amazing world, yet no option to explore and experience it. Not every game has to be an RPG, but this game's model is the simplest, cheapest and laziest multiplayer model on the market. It is sad to see such capable game designers bury their obvious talent and potential under the ugly choice of developing not a game, but a cheap themed amusement park.

The core game was already great. This addition makes it a gem. Ok...this is not really a review, but I needed to say something good about it.

Simplistic and occasionally half baked, even in terms of survival features, but more atmospheric than many games of its genre.

Gave it a negative review on account of having game breaking bugs still lingering years after its release. Decided to change my review because it's actually quite an enjoyable game and it's got a ton of content, mind a heavy lack of RPG elements. The bugs do have solutions in the end, and I only encountered one that messed up things. It only happened once though.

So, the good:
- Astonishing environments. The game hasn't aged a bit in this regard. And actually, in any regard.
- Charismatic protagonist. Haven't seen one since Ezio.
- Lots of customizing options for the character.
- Lots of content, more diverse and better built than in previous franchise installments.
- Interesting enough story. More personal, therefore more immersive. It was refreshing seeing the protagonist not giving much of a crap about the assassins vs templars mumbo-jumbo, being passed by an ancient artifact on the fly and not knowing or caring much what a sage was. Also, there are very little "present day" interruptions. Always found them annoying.
- Great dlc. Its atmosphere is even more immersive that the main game's, and it's also got a lot of content.

The not so good:
- Heavy lack of RPG elements. As in cutscenes that would've brought us much closer to the protagonist and would've made the experience much more immersive. The story is better than in the previous latest installments, but you end up not caring much about it. It's still there just to justify the sandbox.
- Movement bugs. While the parkour is more realistic and spectacular, the character's response to commands it's awkward and he gets stuck in many places.
- Not really a fan of the new combat system. It's still good enough though. Still spectacular.

The really bad:
- The "corrupt save" bug is still there.