#I also got rid of any text that mentions rarities

[thatonebjp]

I tried to turn some cards from our card game into magic cards

[impurelight]

Assassin’s Creed Origins - What Happened To All The Marble Statues!?!

Assassin’s Creed Origins is an acquired taste. When I first started playing it I didn’t like it. But the more I played it the more I started to like it.

This is perhaps most noticeable with the controls. There are a lot of controls. You have movement, whistle to attract attention, whistle to call your horse, your bird, assassinate, dodge, attack, lock on, your shield, arrows, animus vision, interaction, toggling walk/run (although they should have got rid of this option entirely because I kept hitting it accidentally), follow road, keep going forward (which is completely useless), and any special skills you’ve unlocked. Although not sprint button strangely enough. It is so complicated that the hotkeys for your bird and your whistle are actually the same key: a tap does one action and a hold does another. But you get used to it.

But you know what? If most of the features weren’t so bad I might not have liked the game as much as I did. Take combat. It feels very slow and clunky. In fact I frequently swung my sword only to be facing the wrong direction. Lock on might help but it appears to only change the camera angle. Come on guys: the Tales series solved this god knows how many years ago. When you click just run up to an enemy and then attack.

I even thought: they should just use the Arkham series’ combat. But the more I learned to fight, the more I liked it. It’s very deep. Especially when you get the shield breaker skill (which really should be a mandatory skill, don’t even get me started on that). You just have so many ways to fight. It actually made me like combat just so I could show off what I learned.

Another example is stealth. It feels sort of like a Far Cry rip off. Not that that’s a bad thing. The AI is not as good as Far Cry but I think the changes, although they may look bad on paper. Made the game a lot better for it.

First of all enemies won’t hear you unless you are really close. And I mean really. For instance you could stealth kill someone and the guy around the corner won’t hear you. OK, maybe that’s normal. How about this: if you get into a full scale battle and end up killing the guy the guy around the corner won’t hear you. I actually had times I eliminated a group of guys only for the enemies a few steps away to be oblivious to my presence. It’s definitely no Splinter Cell. But I like it. It means every encounter is fresh. And it’s hilarious when you sneak up on a convoy and assassinate each one without the rest of them realizing you’re there.

Of course, stealth isn’t perfect. The AI is a bit inconsistent sometimes seeing you and sometimes not. It’s hard to hide from enemies when you do get spotted, although it’s still possible. And enemies will turn around occasionally if you’re trying to sneak up on them. Also of note is if you stealth kill people before a certain story event they’ll just writhe around on the ground forever instead of dying.

Also the game has become much more. Gamified. I mean Far Cry’ed. First is the Convoys. One of the biggest changes between Far Cry 3 and 4 were the convoys and there are convoys here too. They appear as 3 horses. And as previously mentioned it is possible to assassinate each one. Just make sure you don’t let the people in front see.

The convoys themselves transport raw materials. And it is here where the biggest change in Assassin’s Creed Origins, or so I’ve been told (I didn’t play the previous games that much), lies. The game feels like an MMO.

There are creatures to skin and crafting materials to get. They allow you to upgrade your weapons and armour. You also can equip armour but your upgrades carry over. I know, it’s very confusing.

Another way Origins feels like an MMO: there are levels. And if you try to fight an enemy even 1 level higher than you you’re in for a challenge. Even stealth attacking them likely won’t kill them in one hit. And they’ll likely 2 shot you with arrows. If you see someone at a higher level don’t even bother. I got killed by a vulture once. I couldn’t see its level because if they’re way higher than you you just see a skull instead of a level number.

So just like an MMO you get XP for killing enemies and using certain skills. The stealth kill gives a slight XP boost early in the game but it doesn’t scale. It’s still significant in the later game but not as much.

There’s also different weapons and shields. Also loot has rarities. Although I just found myself equipping the highest level gear I had and perhaps something a few levels lower if it had a status effect I wanted. But don’t use those weapons that set everything on fire. Those things always backfire.

There are a lot of overpowered enemies. These guys give a nice challenge although earlier in the game they are quite annoying. There’s a guy that can block all your attacks, a guy that can dodge, a guy with 2 swords, and a guy that uses a shield attack skill. The only way to reliably kill these guys is with your shield breaker skill. It sucks that it isn’t a required skill, but oh well.

Also there are quests. And quests are tied to your level. Later in the game I was overleveled and I could do anything but earlier on there were some quests I had to level once or twice before I could attempt.

Let’s talk about the eagle. It’s like a better version of the Far Cry Primal eagle. In Primal you had to launch it. In Origins it’s always there. You can even see it if you move your camera around. So no bothersome animation. You just press a button and instantly you can see the game from the sky. And I’m glad they had this because Egypt is quite beautiful from the sky. It’s beautiful from the ground. Especially Alexandria, my new favourite video game city, but it’s more beautiful from the air.

The eagle can also hover in the air. It’s not particularly realistic but it’s a nice feature. Your eagle can also mark enemies and objectives. However sometimes you will be constantly spammed with ‘call Senu’ even if you don’t want to yet. There is a nice animation of Senu landing on your arm when you’re not moving. And there is a skill to use Senu to distract enemies. And while they’re distracted you can just walk up to them and stealth kill them.

The controls are also a little clunky. And this time not in a good way. You have to hold ‘alt’ to jump over obstacles a lot and climb ladders. This should really be done automatically but oh well. Also the horse when set to ‘travel to objective’ will constantly bump into people. It’s not bad. But it’s funny.

Also Origins falls victim to what I call the ‘volumetric fog curse’. There is way too much volumetric fog.

There are also two interesting things about the combat. First of all there is horse back combat. And it doesn’t feel tacked on. It feels legitimately like a new form of combat. When outnumbered or fighting guys on horseback: call your horse. You can also see how much damage you’ll do before you attack. This is especially important for arrows as you can see if you’ve lined up a headshot before you fire. It’s a bit cheap but I like it.

A few more things. There’s no way to truly ‘clear’ a camp of enemies. The closest you can get is accomplishing all the tasks in the camp. Then enemies will keep on respawning. I like the Far Cry system better. When you steal a boat the text is ‘borrow’.

The ‘skip’ option for cutscenes appears way too often. It appears to be caused by moving the mouse but the mouse also controls the camera. The hippos are also quite adorable. Especially when 3 of them are running at you. There are some random events that task you with saving people or killing a rogue animal. They’re nice but the xp they give you doesn’t make it very noteworthy.

There is this animus vision that displays all items and arrows around you. I wish it didn’t display arrows but it’s not too bad. I spammed the button which I initially didn’t like but it’s fine.

It’s also difficult to jump in holes like most games these days. And there are detective quests. Less awesome versions of the Arkham detective quests. It’s nice.

So in summary Origins doesn’t really do anything special. It sort of reminds me of Watch Dogs 1. You’re a family man out for revenge. The story could be a bit clearer but what’s here is serviceable. And at the end of the day that’s all that matters.