#Ubisoft sucks a lot

[bruisedconscience]

??? Just bought Inmortals Fenyx Rising on Switch after playing the demo I enjoyed and it won’t let me continue without making a Ubisoft account???

This is not acceptable? This isn’t Fortnite? I am not playing this as an online game, I do not care??? About their online content??? I will have to call Nintendo and get this refunded somehow…

edit: the only way around this is to play in handheld mode, because that is the only way you can play in airplane mode and not get this pop-up. Ubisoft is disgusting and I wish them a very nice stop making video games.

[cyberstarlope]

I haven't watched clh yet but I have been playing ac2 for the first time so uh. that counts right?

edit: fixed the french pronoun because apparently 2 years of it in school taught me nothing

[distancealliance]

Sure does suck that Ubisoft doesn't want you to own the games you buy.

Trackmania is a genuinely fun experience and I honestly think their payment model is fair considering that the game is offering a very online-based experience and nothing else.

Now that Ubisoft showed their true colors, I can't see Trackmania's payment model in the same light. There's a great game there, supporting Ubisoft in any way just feels like heresy now.

Good thing there's a game just as good as Trackmania that will never have this issue called Distance!

[thebicanary]

.

[raymetalheadsoffical]

OKAY I

KNOW

ALL I DO IS REBLOG WITHOUT MUCH INPUT AS OF THE LAST YEAR-ISH BUT I AM

GLAD

I HAVE A CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH

I. LOATHE.

CHIP N' DALE RESCUE RANGERS

I have a personal boycott for Disney & Netflix to where I avoid providing any money for their services, if I wanna see something, I gotta pirate it.

It's how I saw Season 1 of WOY, it's how I watch Mitchell's vs the machines,

and it's how I saw both

Chip n' Dale + Captain Laserhawk Remix.

BUT there are a few things on why I can excuse CLR for (on the surface) doing the exact same things that make me DETEST Chip n' Dale.

CLR is distinctly set within its own alternative universe, "remixing"; if you would, characters and series we all love, like turning rainbow six siege into xenophobic power rangers, Rabbids into parasitic kaiju's, Rayman going from a manipulated media pawn into a jaded "traitor" with a heart of gold, and have the Templar being the ones that run this entire cyberpunk fascist regime. OUTSIDE of the BG&E characters + Rainbow 6 siege ??maybe??, almost everyone was treated with a margin of respect with their characterization. Michel Ancel (whilst a bastard) had always intended Rayman to be semi-self absorbed, we saw a hint of this with Rayman being a tad cocky in Rayman 3, but Davide Soliani has done a phenomenal job characterizing Rayman in a way fans would love with a hint of what Ancel had intended by making Rayman ecstatic to take the invitation to be on the Space Opera network. So having Rayman still have a caring heart for the Hybrids to the point he's willing to kill to make sure Bullfrog doesn't get assassinated on HIS show after some mysterious look-a-like replaced him. It's not our original rayman, but for something that is taking as many creative liberties to use the Ubisoft characters like new canvas to paint on, this oddly feels ??right?? for the character, like yeah if you want to edge-ify a beloved character, I'd rather you'd still have me be able to recognize them as THEM instead of making them go completely 180° "oooh, I'm EVIL now and I LOVE slavery".

Meanwhile Chip n' Dale doesn't have us humor the idea that this is a completely different reality where we can separate the characters we love from the one's in the movie, if anything it doubles down saying that the Chip n' dale from the original rescue rangers TV show don't ACTUALLY exist, the original rescue rangers show was just a mere in universe televised program where all of those advantages where staged, scripted, produced, you name it! Its the complete opposite of what CLR, One show leaves the main universe/series alone to do its own original take, whilst Chip n' Dale tells us to forget EVERYTHING we know and to just tolerate that "tHiS iS hOw tHEiR wOrlD rEAlLy iS" Meaning that we should just fully disregard the escapism of thinking any Disney movie happened within their own fiction world, in ""reality"" they're all just cynical actors. This even applies to the FREAKING CHARACTERS FROM OUTSIDE OF DISNEY, like the main 6 from mlp, grasshopper from Kung Fu Panda, Sora?!?

There can be a lot of good and bad things to say about CLR's story, like the mismanagement of the BG&E characters, or how the show does a rather decent job in handling its mystery. But one thing that can be praised is that this animation has so much blood sweat and tears put into it you might as well call it a liveleak video. Every fiber of this show oozes with passion, personality, this shit is so fluid you might as well call it an ocean!

Disney, the multimillionaire "I'm chill with our writers starving and going homeless on the streets" Disney...it makes perfect sense they would puss out once again on actually having real 2d animation because it would be 00000000.1 less pennies in their pocket for their scheduled summer trip to Epstein's island. I love mixed media animation like gumball, the CNcity bunkers, and Roger Rabbit, I have a passion to perfect 2D, 3D, and stop motion animation for my own personal projects. of course the medium of my passion project is a 3d videogame, which means I have to use cell shaded 3d models for some of the characters that are meant to invoke 2D animation...if, i ever have doubts that I'm falling to capture the illusion of genuine 2D animation...all i have to do is look at chip's stupid fuckin' face and realize Mochi_ch from YouTube, Matsu009 from Twitter, and even sony pictures does a better god damn job implanting the illusion of 2D animation or at least in Sony's case replicate the fluid 2d movements in their 3d characters via the Hotel Transylvania series, yeah they do that a whole lot better then Disney the ANIMATION company.

Actually I know I've been doing a pattern from hopping from CLR and Chip n' Dale for comparison, but I need to break that pattern to mention the ONE, FATAL reason I have a burning passion against Chip n' Dale, and that's what they do with Bobby Driscoll. Yeah, there's no pussy footing around how the similarities between Chip n' Dale's Peter Pan and the real story behind Bobby Driscoll being a ""misfortunate coincidence"" ESPECIALLY AFTER MR. BOB "unfortunately, there’s huge collateral damage in the industry to people who are supportive services" IGER'S STATEMENT AROUND THE TIME OF THE WRITER'S STRIKES. Disney is a gosh darn factory for pumping out child stars left to mentally rot, Disney KNOWS what they did. A poor, rancid parody of Bobby Driscoll bastardizing him and the character they modeled his FACE off of.

sorry, Chip n' Dale is something I WISHED more people ripped into because it's more than just a poor edgy take on some cartoon from the 90's that spawned a cult off of Gadget Hackwrench, this sounds like Linkara levels of paint chip munching s t u p i d, but that damn dumpster fire of a movie began my slow metamorphosis into a socialist due to the transparent greed and grime around it.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

why is the new big thing corporations do just "what if your favorite iconic characters.... were depressed and cynical and hateful haha!"

[dare-to-dm]

I have such a love/hate relationship with the Assassin's Creed series.

On the one hand, I hate that it feels like Ubisoft is maliciously designing this franchise to eternally suck money out of my wallet without ever giving me narrative closure or quality design. Like, there are so many cynical at best design decisions in this series. For context, I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and I've already played every mainline title up to this one, except for AC: Unity, because I've decided to die mad about the whole "It's too hard to make a female playable character" thing. And for a long time now, it feels like each new title is shallowly chasing industry trends in order to try to appeal to a more mainstream audience. In AC Valhalla, there are so many mechanics straight up lifted from other popular games, but implemented so poorly and in such a vestigial way that it doesn't feel cohesive. Like, they tried to implement the pawn system from Dragon's Dogma for some reason, or the puzzles from Senua's Sacrifice. And this is a sad look for a series that was at one time so groundbreaking that it was influencing other franchises instead. In addition to just stealing a grab bag of mechanics from other games, Assassin's Creed is sacrificing its own unique identity to emulate other popular genres, with the combat in AC: Valhalla feeling way more soul-sy than it has any rights to. I mean, there are straight up boss battles in this game.

Boss Battles. In an Assassin's Creed game.

And you can't even just straight up assassinate anyone anymore. Like, if the opponent NPC is a higher level than you, than an assassination is basically just a fancy attack that does a little extra damage. Meaning there's hardly a reason to bother with stealth anymore, you might as well open up combat with a big flashy ability that will at least stun other opponents.

To their credit, you can change this in the Settings. In fact, if there's one thing they put a lot of effort into designing, it's the difficulty options. You can make it so assassinations are always an instant kill. You can make it so that opponents are always the same level as you. You can precisely calibrate how much damage you give and receive. There are also difficulty options for the stealth and for the exploration. You can literally remap the controls however you like. Honestly, I laud them for this. Although a cynical side of me feels like it's also indicative of a weak vision for the game. Rather than crafting an experience for a specific audience, it's another attempt to design for broad appeal.

All this is not to mention all the crap they've gotten up to with their monetization strategies. That could be a whole other post.

I've stuck with the series due to my interest in the story, and it feels a little like they're holding that interest hostage. Each new release gives me tantalizing bread crumbs, but little if anything is ever truly resolved or answered. It leaves me wondering if there's any kind of master plan for the whole thing, or if they're literally just stringing me along with whatever bullshit they think will keep me engaged with no end in sight.

But on the other hand, sometimes those bread crumbs are so good.

Like, there's at least one person on the development team (and probably far more) who is putting real time and effort into making a well researched, intricate, interconnecting story. Someone who makes me feel rewarded for my 100% completion tendencies with all these little nuggets of story and character and clues that feels like it all adds up to something special.

A moment for me in AC Valhalla that reminded me of why I like this series so much is when the viking protagonist travels to "Vinland" and meets some First World People there, who in the game are speaking Iroquois. And there is no translation. Like the protagonist, you are stuck guessing what they are saying from their body language and context clues. It's such a cool way of getting you immersed in the story and setting, and it really stuck with me. And then of course I searched online for a translation, and it feels like the writing team integrated the lore and culture here very respectfully. Like with ACIII, it's clear they consulted with real current speakers of the language, and in addition there is an inclusion of a Mohawk creation myth (which also ties into tidbits explored in both ACIII and AC Rogue). And those creation myths might have been shared simply as a nod to the culture being presented here, but it might also tie into the greater mystery surrounding the Isu, which is cool to speculate about.

Basically, there are some really cool storytelling things happening in this series, and it often motivates me to research and learn a bit more about real history. I just can't give it up.

I've heard that AC Mirage was more of a "return to basics", and optimistically I hope that means the game mechanics are returning to more of what gives Assassin's Creed it's own unique identity. But as long as they keep giving me those narrative nuggets of gold, I'm stuck for the ride.

[rinelasheart]

There was not enough hoopla from Nor and Ri’nela when the PC escapes Field Hangar Lima and makes it back to the new Resistance Hideout. Nor and Ri’nela should’ve been beside themselves hearing no info about the PC or Teylan after the party massacre. Ri’nela would of course try to be calm and level headed, but there should’ve still been a hint of noticeable terror in her at their clan of 4 being ripped in half in the blink of an eye. Nor is already anxious about not being “Na’vi enough”, and now their so called clan is in even worse shambles. There should’ve been more emotional interactions with Ri’nela and Nor after the PC returns.

Then once the PC is revealed to be alive, the three of them could’ve been happy to be together but now nervous for Teylan. “Where is he? He could be anywhere across all 3 territories! But which is worse, him being all alone or with Mercer??” The PC had been kidnapped, but they at least have survival skills (gained after being on the frontline for all major events). The chances of Teylan surviving in the wilderness or escaping an RDA facility were significantly much lower than the PC’s. He would have almost zero chance of being able to make it on his own.

Instead of saying “eh he’ll come back when he feels like it”, Ri’nela and the PC should’ve at least tried to search for him. Figure out what happened to him after the attack. It could’ve been an optional side quest that just ends with you figuring out he’s with Mercer earlier than when you see him there in the main quest line.

Plus, Nor not worrying for Teylan at all!! He has even less idea what happened to Teylan than the PC and Ri’nela did, and yet he never asks. Never questions what happened to the fourth member of their clan. If the PC and Ri’nela didn’t go looking for Teylan, then it at least would’ve made sense for Nor to try to go searching only for the two of them to persuade him not to (to continue hiding Teylan’s betrayal.)

I don’t know, I just feel like there should’ve been a LOT more intensely emotional interactions after the party massacre. Sure the Resistance humans had a lot going on, but I definitely feel like outside of them, the Sarentu themselves should’ve had their own fears & anxieties at the forefront given there’s literally only 4 of them left and they’ve already been through so much together.

I’m chalking the lack of intensity down to Ubisoft struggling to write found family, rather than the Sarentu “not being all that close”. Because that second option sucks, so this is one of those very rare times when “this was just poor writing” is bringing me comfort lol

[cippicat]

The Evie Freye's problem

Assassin's Creed Shadows is coming.

The combat system will be based on the Syndicate's one but with the big difference that the player will choose with what character fight, Naoe or Yasuke.

We know that Naoe and Yasuke apparently (because there have been a lot of leaks that in the main gameplay Yasuke's lore will occupy most of the screen time) will be main characters and will share the same amount of time on screen "like Evie and Jacob".

This is the problem.

People still think that Evie is the main character in Syndicate.

THIS IS NOT TRUE

She is a co-protagonist, while Jacob is the main protagonist. Evie was supposed to have an equal screen time, but in the end Ubisoft's marketing team decided to minimise her role to put Jacob in the centre.

We can see on the AC Syndicate's cover. Jacob is in the centre in a very manly pose, while Evie is in the background with the other characters.

In the main trailers on YouTube we only see Jacob.

Evie's missions will decrease to leave space for her love story with Henry (very forced in my humble opinion).

Also in the DLC Ubisof dwarfed Evie on the cover to give Jack more space.

Why ?

I have a few theories:

Sexism and misogyny

Sexism and misogyny

Sexism and misogyny (because three is better than one)

In 2014, there has been a huge scandal because of Elise de la Serre. Elise should have been a playable character, and should have taken part in missions alone (or with Arno). But in the end one of the developer came up with a stupid excuse regarding the animations, and the amount of time to create them for a female character, so Elise was decreased to a NPC. Everything was disproved, along with many polemics, so Ubisoft came up with Evie to butter up mostly the female audience.

The majority of AC players are males and many of them don't feel confortable* to play with a female character (or a black character, or a homosexual character etc...) even though these are pixels not real life person. Why ? We live in a patriarchal society where everything considered feminine is perceived as weak even pixels (this is a very very very strict summary).

Ubisoft marketing team sucks.

That is why Evie cannot be considered a protagonist but people seem to not understand, in 2024.

*Don't worry, your little friend down here won't fall off or reduce his dimensions if you play with a female character. I have scientifical evidences to prove it.

[devsgames]

Hi, I have some weird etiquette questions, if you would have tips.

When talking to devs who worked on games but got laid off sometime during development, would it be polite if I complimented the aspect they worked on or should I avoid the topic?

And a second one, is it a faux-pas to wear merch of a cancelled game to events? I did and happened to run into one of the devs who worked on it (what are the odds). They just said it was surreal, but I'm a bit worried it was super inconsiderate of me.

I'm just starting out so I don't want to be the guy who keeps putting his foot in it D:

Hi, thanks for the ask!

I think it's probably what you would assume: everyone has different feelings about layoffs and trashed projects.

Generally I don't think anyone would fault you for complimenting their work; even if they had a bad experience with production, they still spent a lot of time and effort creating it and hearing that someone enjoyed it can be validating despite the circumstances. Sometimes it even makes the work worth it.

Regarding layoffs, emotions can be different from one developer to another: some might be happy have had the experience while others might hate their former employer's guts. Just try and be familiar with the history of local studios and if you know they got laid off try to avoid the topic out of courtesy, but sometimes it'll come up incidentally and that's fine - it happens. A sympathetic "Ugh, that sucks, I'm sorry to hear that :\" to acknowledge it and move on past the subject is usually all it takes.

Devs might harbour feelings for a long time (as they should, getting laid off is incredibly traumatic), but ultimately it's not really on you to know how someone feels about being laid off or their history and be able to accomodate it in the moment.

In fact, often the case is that devs will have trauma from projects that are successfully shipped in the first place, and it's pretty normal for some devs to make backhanded remarks about a project or studio once they know each other better. One of my former jobs was ex-Ubi people who often bonded over our resentment of Ubisoft corporation, even despite the fact none of us had been laid off from there 😛

For your second question, I think "merch of a cancelled game" is just super weird conceptually. Cancelled games rarely see the light of day and let alone see merch get made of them, so I'd bet that's why they said it was "surreal". It doesn't sound like a judgement call against you, nor does it sound like that dev was particularly upset about your interaction. Again, you didn't know you were going to see them there, so you didn't really do anything wrong. There's arguments against supporting studios who lay off their employees, but that's a separate conversation.

Anyway, the games industry is generally pretty casual and there's not many weird faux-pas you might encounter. A lot of it is just common sense - I think you're fine. 😉

[arachnovolt]

ArachnoVolt's 2024 Game of the Year List

The time has come once more! As the minutes tick away and the final hour draws near, I wanna shout out the best of best from my extensive laundry list of games that I played this year before we're once again reminded of the inescapable march of time. Counting only titles that released this year, I've played a total of 27 games this year with two of them being early access titles. It was hard to narrow it down but here's my list of the top 10 games I played this year.

10: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Before I say anything about the game, I gotta acknowledge that Ubisoft sucks. Not only for continuously chasing NFT and crypto shit, but for also being complicit in the systemic abuse and harassment of their employees. So I normally avoid Ubisoft titles but I found this used in a GameStop and picked it up cause I was craving a new metroidvania experience.

What I got was singlehandedly one of the best metroidvanias I've ever played in my entire life. The only reason it's not higher on this list are the reasons above. With fast paced combat utilizing one of the most satisfying parrys I've ever used, stunning environment and character design, a great story, and a massive map to map out and explore, it quickly became a stand out title for me. But what pushed it over the finish line was the accessibility options. It had most of stuff you normally expect (high contrast modes, difficulty toggles, etc) but the true stand out was a map marker that displayed an image of the location, giving you a visual reminder of exactly why you marked that spot. I highly recommend checking this out if you get the chance. Even if it means hunting down a used copy, this game absolutely deserves to be appreciated.

9: Minishoot' Adventures

If there's one thing I love more than anything, it's taking the mechanics of one genre and blending them into another. And that's exactly what Minishoot' Adventures is. This game is a Link to the Past style adventure game where you'll be exploring dungeons, collecting upgrades, and slaying bosses on a journey to save your friends. What makes it special is that it's a twin stick shooter meaning that your mid dungeon pick ups will be things like a wide shot attack or a screen clearing bomb. If you're interested in a dungeon crawler with a unique spin, Minishoot' Adventures will sure to leave you satisfied.

8: Core Keeper

One of my most played games of all time has to be Terraria. I love that loop of diving into dangerous caves to explore, mining for resources, and slaying bosses. Core Keeper is a game that asks the question "What if you never left the caves?". I had been following Core Keeper throughout its early access period but I finally decided to pick it up when it had its 1.0 release back in August. This game follows that same loop as Terraria and while I haven't played all too much of it yet, it's one of the few games that have tried to hit that Terraria loop and succeed just as well as they did if not equally so.

7: Nine Sols

Yep. We got another metroidvania on the list. Nine Sols gets a lot of chat from people talking about its Sekiro inspired combat and, while I think it's phenomenal, that's not the main reason I put it on my list. For me, the game's main selling point is the setting and presentation. The hand drawn animations and cutscenes help bring the story to life and make every action look and feel great. This game is also my first exposure to taopunk and from the early few minutes of the game, I was instantly invested. Check out Nine Sols if you wanna get lost in a sci-fi fantasy world like no other.

6: UFO 50

If you're up to date on conversations in the indie community, you've probably heard of this one. If you haven't, I'm thrilled to be the one to introduce you to this gem. UFO 50 is a collection of 50 games developed by a small team of different devs all contributing different kinds of games to the project. What makes it special is the narrative premise. UFO 50 is presents itself as an archive for a fictional and now defunct retro game studio and all the titles reflect that level of quality. This collection contains everything from puzzle games, platformers, strategy games, and even a full length exploration platformer and JRPG. I can't guarantee you'll love everything in this collection, but UFO 50 absolutely has at least one game that'll be your cup of tea.

5: Animal Well

Okay! Top five time! And the last metroidvania on the list. Animal Well is definitely the most interesting metoidvania on this list primarily because, rather than having a strong focus on combat, Animal Well is a massive puzzle box broken down into smaller ones that take up each individual screen of its sprawling map. Every screen transition presents another challenge to solve. Whether it's activating a platform, dispatching an dangerous animal, or collecting something you'll need for another puzzle later, Animal Well kept me guessing and thinking the whole way through. With secrets upon secrets upon mysteries upon challenges, Animal Well is definitely the game that put my brain to the test this year.

4: Another Crab's Treasure

I really want to like soulslike style games but I tend to not vibe with them for one main reason: I'm real bad at soulslike. It's not that I can't play them. It's that I hit a wall (and by wall, I mean a boss that snaps into me like a Slim Jim) and I just get frustrated and/or bored and move on to something else. Another Crab's Treasure is different in that regard by being the only soulslike I've played with options to make the game easy enough to manage difficult combat encounters while still maintaining a consistent challenge without ever making me feel like I'm lesser than for having to utilize those features. Hell, it actively encourages it by making one of the trophies directly tied to using one. On top of that, it's incredibly charming. Both the spoken dialogue and the random text all over the human debris littering the sea floor is absolutely hilarious. The environments and characters are vibrant and colorful. I'm constantly having a blast with Another Crab's Treasure. It's the first soulslike game I've ever played that feels like it wants to be beat it and is actively encouraging me to do it.

3: Sonic x Shadow Generations

Long before I would come to truly call myself a Sonic fan, Sonic Generations was my absolute favorite Sonic game. I still have my working PS3 copy. So you can imagine my delight when this got announced. But Sonic Generations isn't why this got my number three spot. It's Shadow's portion that truly elevates this package into becoming the best Sonic game ever made. Building on the fundamentals from Sonic Frontiers and covering the story of the titular hedgehog, Shadow Generations is the love letter to Shadow that he rightfully deserves.

2: Balatro

Let's be honest. Do I really need to write a whole paragraph talking about this one? Odds are that you probably ended a run right before you started reading this, plan on doing a run after this, or you know someone who falls into the first two categories that won't stop pestering you about it.

And before the coveted numero uno, let's take a little break for...

Most Disappointing: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind

Now this is the third year I've done this list so I wanna take a step back to provide context on this entry. I don't put games here because I think they're "bad". I think that's a reductive way of looking at stuff. Rita's Rewind isn't a bad game. The dev team have been very active and responsive patching major issues since launch and adding quality of life features. It's honestly really fun to play. So why is it here? Simple: Compared to other beat em ups out there like Streets of Rage 4, TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Video Game, it's really bare bones. All of the Rangers play the exact same. Same damage, defense, speed, etc. They even all use the same basic hand to hand combos despite them being shown to have their weapons. If you're a fan of MMPR, you'll enjoy it for the love and attention to detail it pays to the original series. If you're not a fan of MMPR however, there's a laundry list of more compelling beat em ups out there worth playing.

Honorable Mention: Fields of Mistria

So a rule I have for my list is that only games that hit a full release are eligible for a numbered spot. So while Fields of Mistria isn't a full release yet, it did launch in early access this year so it's eligible for this spot and it's rightfully deserved. What it lacks in gameplay content it makes up for with vibes alone. The 80s anime art used to bring Mistria's inhabitants to life looks great and even in its current state, every NPC's dialogue is varied and unique, making Mistria feel like a living town. Whether you're willing to deal with its growing pains or you'd rather wait for the 1.0 version, Fields of Mistria is one to keep an eye on.

And now, it's time for the moment you've been waiting for! It's ArachnoVolt's Game of the Year! A game that needs no further introduction! Say hello to...

1: Astro Bot

If you know me from any Discord/Guilded server, you probably saw this coming. And I wanna highlight something. I don't have a massive love for PlayStation. Out of the 92 different Sips referenced in the game, I've only played 4 of them so I don't praise Astro Bot for the references. I love platformers and I've been playing them for years. This might be one of the best ever made. Every single aspect of this game oozes passion, charm, and joy. The soundtrack is one of the catchiest I've ever heard. The way Team Asobi utilizes the all of the I can't say enough positive things about this game.

[thefloatingstone]

Sadly I'm not even sure it isn't a calculated choice on ubisoft's part to include a character who will stir up blatantly obvious racism just so it can be the primary discourse of their mediocre game to cover up all the other problems and microtransactions its bound to have, and get people who otherwise wouldn't have cared to buy the game both on principle and to hate review it. Cause it sucks but man is the racism so... predictable. But I hope the people who wrote the game at least took advantage of it to write a good story and characters if that is the case.

Oh yeah make no mistake Ubisoft is an awful garbage company who makes terrible games on purpose so they can sell micro-transactions and they have openly stated they want to move forward by having NPC ambient dialogue written by AI from now on. They also harbour an environment of abuse towards their workers and have been protecting high ranking members of their studio from facing legal or financial consequences for sexual assault.

Fuck 'em.

The game is not going to be good. I already know this and it sucks. Especially because I know a lot of the devs and writers and researchers working on AC want to make good games and really want to be historically accurate as they were once highly praised for when AC was at its peak.

Including Yasuke as such an important focus of the game is absolutely a marketing stunt by AC both to drum up support for their studio run by confirmed rapists and the backlash and racism is a convenient smokescreen from how awful their company and studio is. Especially if it can outrage people enough to support the game out of spite.

It all sucks because an Assassin's Creed game as they used to be made at their peak making a game with Yasuke as a major focus would be really interesting and something I would love to see. Hell, make an entire game ABOUT Yasuke and follow a fictional imagining of his life from whatever tribe he was part of in Africa, his capture and selling into European hands and being shipped of to Japan where he is elevated into the Samurai class structure in (I think??) the Edo period. That would be great!

Yasuke is a very interesting historical figure simply due to his very existence. And I think interpreting what his life could have been like would make for a fascinating narrative. And at one point Ubisoft could have done it justice.

But their studio is awful, they are using this as a smokescreen to distract everyone from their liberal use of AI to do their quest writing and dialogue, and they are still protecting their higher ups from facing legal consequences for sexual assault. All while selling games which are made to be bad on purpose so they can sell a criminal amount of micro-transactions to you.

And it just sucks.

But what sucks more is how these people who love to complain about "woke culture" are the ones who seem to be so incredibly obsessed with this with SUCH fragile coping mechanisms that the simple use of a real historical figure who was black is enough to send them into a shrieking tamper tantrum about it.

They have literally become as sensitive, maladjusted, and unable to cope with reality as they THINK "SJWs" and "Woke culture" is. When in reality most normal people don't get this upset about a video game character existing. It's really pathetic.

But, on the trailer for Assassin's Creed Shadows I saw this comment, and I think it says all that needs to be said about the whole situation;

[hard-times-paramore]

The Assassin's Creed movie was so bad it was funny.

Like... I don't even know what to do with this. I didn't know if that movie was a canon installment to the franchise, because it contradicted pre-stablished canon from the games.

It looked cool though.

Full ramble under the cut.

It sucks as an entry to the Assassin's Creed universe. It completely messed up the modern lore Ubisoft built for itself. As a movie on itself it was confusing as hell too because it's supposed to be a tie-in to the games. They priorized the visuals over the story, and the poor protagonist didn't know what was happening 90% of the time - just like anyone trying to watch it without seeing the games - but anyone who did play the games knew that most of the exposition and plot and elements directly contradicted canon.

So yeah, it was a mess. It was a beautiful trainwreck.

There were some pros. Listen, Michael Fassbender is a hot dude. I like the hot dude and it did give me great enjoyment to see him all anxious and soggy in hospital-prisoner clothes. There was a lot of whump in this movie with the beautiful man and I can appreciate that.

But we also had a buuuunch of exposition and Abstergo apparently just hunts Assassins to do experiments on them now, and yet, they keep them - people who know how to sneak around and steal shit - in the same building as a bunch of ancient Assassin weapons.

And the whole fuss over finding the Apple, like. Aren't there a ton of Apples? Why were they treating that one as unique? Don't they still have Desmond's remains to find the other one? Was Callum really their last hope?

I also dig the historical sessions. Aguilar de Nerha, Callum Lynch's ancestor (also played by Michael Fassbender) was fucking cool in his hooded robes and hidden blades doing parkour chase scenes around. But yeah, he didn't have that much characterization either. Again, it's like they just priorized the visuals of it. And him speaking Spanish, like 💀 my god.

I'd genuinely have enjoyed just the historical sections aside from their last fucking minute where they revealed fucking CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was a friend to the Assassin Order and the person Aguilar trusted with the fucking Apple of Eden.

IF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS ANYTHING HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TEMPLAR. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

Also you should see this movie's Animus. The Traumatron 3000. They put him in the GLaDOS

It looked like a fucking GLADOS, seriously, it was a VR spine connected to the ceiling and Callum was AWAKE for his memories instead of sleeping like Desmond's. He was having full Bleeds after ONE session and everyone was like "oourgh he can't go back in there it's too risky"

Y'ALL HAD A PERFECTLY SAFE ANIMUS, WHY DID YOU MAKE A NEW ONE THAT MAKES YOU GO CRAZY FASTER?

Also, Aguilar fucking hated Callum. Like, in his Bleed episodes, his ancestor just fought with him. It's so fucking funny when you compare with Ezio and Desmond, who was like "everything will be alright, your suffering will end someday" meanwhile Aguilar was just beating the shit out of Callum.

And in the end the fucking Oppenheimer quote when Alan Rikkin was asking his daughter for a world domination speech.

What a beautiful trainwreck of a movie. Dude it sucked, you gotta see this.

[luigiblood]

Game Ownership

In sort of a response to the Ubisoft director of subscriptions where he said that we need to get more confortable not owning games...

Well, reading that interview from GamesIndustry.biz, turns out he never really said that. It's more of an observation of the gaming subscription services, and comparing different views. It's actually a pretty interesting read.

But the negative response to the more clickbait part where the gamers went very much against this from the get go was something that particularly striked me as how I really just didn't feel like I was part of those who responded like this.

I do not care about owning games that much. I may be a owner of retro consoles, games, and about 50 Switch physical games, but the reasons ranges from passion to just practical and economical.

Taking the example of the Switch, what currently makes me attached to physical games are more of how it's usually cheaper in my country (like, first party games day one tend to be 25% off brand new), and the practicality when you live in a household with 2 Switch systems, it's just easier to share the games that way with your family. If I could just buy digitally with the same advantages, I'd just do that.

This view on game ownership has mostly to do with my past of a guy who pirated games and movies like crazy before we got a little more comfortable paying for stuff. But this past also comes with a deeper importance on the presence of data locally. Cloud gaming is something I hate on passionately if the industry keeps going on that as a means to play games exclusively. It would be the kind of thing that would make my heart broken about modern gaming as a whole, but thankfully we're not even close to there, and I suspect we'll never be.

But I could also not need to pay for the games, I don't really see a lack of ownership as a problem on its own. The only thing that matters is if it's practical or not, and that's the part that feels like it tends to be skipped when explained. That's how it went about movies and music.

That practicality is critical, and that is the part that's the most in danger. The big reason why is how companies can decide on a whim what is accessible to suit their needs. That WILL be completely in the process of enshittification due to how companies have to keep growing until it makes no more sense. You don't even need to look very far to understand this, video streaming services are already very good at doing absolutely this, but I also dare say the Game Pass and PlayStation Plus are on a similar boat to a different extent, though.

One of the recent examples of how bad shit is HBO Max's removal of a huge amount of content just for a massive tax write down. There is financial incentive to fuck us all, and I consider the future to do absolutely that in the long term for gaming.

That kind of thing SUCKS. That is what we're actually scared of as a consumer. I hate seeing art being considered as a throwaway product.

I even saw a french article that was so complacent with this and kept saying complete bullshit things like "oh if they remove that game from the service, just take it as an opportunity to play another one" just, fuck off. That's not how I see this kind of service.

I love Nintendo Switch Online, despite a lot of its flaws, and hate on Virtual Console's overall legacy personally. I'm all for ways to allow discoverability and pick the curiosity of people. That's the kind of shit that I love in having some ease of access to catalogs, despite not owning them.

Wasn't it the dream to just access to everything with less money though? Don't tell me otherwise because I wouldn't believe you. I do think there's something nice in this kind of service, but we also need to figure how to keep companies from the inevitable enshittification that will ensue on the constant need for growth beyond any reasonable sense.

[darfeld]

Ok so, I want to talk about Star Wars Outlaws, even so it's a Ubisoft game and Ubisoft sucks in general. Now that this is established, let's go. I think there is a very good blend of genre in this game. The fact the protagonist is a thief leads to a kriffing lot of game tropes to make sens in univers. Like...

Stealling everything that is not glue to the decor for one thing. But also...

Recruiting your crew. This is a major trope of heist stories. This is the perfect pretext to go visit several planets.

The faction system works really well to make me forget I'm doing essentially grind missions. I'm just taking care of my rep, ok ? (Also the fact that you don't get those missions if you don't go find them is good.)

The fighting isn't the best in this game, but this is generally the game punishing you for getting caught so it my sens they didn't put to much effort into it. Although... they do force you to fight your way out several times... I get things have to get ugly in this genre, but maybe don't make me kill dozens of people on my way out. (I don't mind killing imps, but it's just weird to kill so much of them while I'm just a law life thief.)

Nix is a great companion, and sharing a meal with him is delightful.

Sabacc is good. I know it's this game own kind but it works for me. I would gladly play it with real cards.

The planets look good and are fun to explore. It's sometime obscure that you can't yet complet some objectives though which have been annoying once or twice. But I love going from point A to point B and I rather not use fast travel most of the time. ( it does help when you need to make to much come and go... )

I like Kay Vess... This one is obviously subjective but I get her. I like ND-5 too. I have yet finished Tatooine so there are a bunch of character I don't know yet. I like their version of Qi'ra and Lando. ( This reminds me, I need to reup my rep with Crimson Daw... You see what I wrote above? This doesn't fill like grind. )

And maybe I'm also happy with it because I didn't play every open-world out there. I played both Zelda botw and totk, Elden Ring, Horizon Zero:Dawn and Watchdogs Legion. Never finished any of them but I don't mind. What I get to is I played a bunch but maybe I don't feel the same fatigue with the genre that other player can experience, and I didn't play to the most recent Ubisoft blend to compare Outlaws too. Also it's Star Wars. Call me biased. But I do think this one works on a fondamental level. The theme and gameplay works well together and it's just great to have an open world game in the Star Wars univers. ( I mean, I guess Lego Star Wars : The Skywalker Saga qualify too, but that just not the same )

There are a couple of the I don't particularly care for, if I'm being honest. There are still a lot a of stuff that seems there only to mak the game longer. Sometimes you will see question mark on your compass that are mostly parcours bait with loot at the end. Fun on occasion but distracting. There are some event poping up when you travel the map like imps attacking pirates where you can go and steal from imps... Frankly I could do without those. And when I need a blaster upgrade to complete a treasure hunt I would like to know. The journal could be more clear about some stuffs. And I already told what I though of scripted fights, in a game where those are mostly a punishment for failing to sneak pass guards. ( I do like that you can die rather quickly in those fight tough... The punishment for dying isn't usually too painful, and it means you can quickly reset your infiltration attempt. ) Anyway, so far this game has failed to bore me out yet. I just wish I got more time to play it. ( But also it's a ubisoft game, which is its most fatal flaw... )

[mr-double-downer]

Honestly the thing that's annoying about the ubi yasuke situation ain't that he's there- it's that they're either going to ignore the fact that he was a slave and treated like rat piss dogshit by pretty much everyone but Nobunaga- or they're going to try and make that a plot point and there's no fucking shot that'll work out well.

Like I don't get why they didn't just make up a totally not yasuke character like they did with Eivor totally not being the beother of Skallagrim and set the game later in time.

Ngl I don’t trust Ubisoft to him Justice since the Yasuke anime is unironcialone of the few pieces of media I can call “woke” due to changing a lot of the historical record to appeal to a modern audience.

Like yeah, he was a slave before he came into Oda’s service but I wouldn’t say he was treated poorly, but again I don’t really trust anyone but a Japanese dev to not turn him into what amounts to a token black guy.

Also the AC games just kinda suck now and they’re so far removed from what they were originally I just don’t bother with them. Wish they would just end. Franchise zombie to the extreme.

[pixies-and-poets]

In hindsight the Rabbids didn’t actually “steal” the Rayman series. As a kid I thought that but the actual answer is pretty mundane.

Every main Rayman game from Rayman 1 all the way to Rayman Legends has always been developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and Michel Ancel. Ubisoft Montpellier only developed 2 of the Rabbids games. Rayman Raving Rabbids and Rabbids Go Home. That’s only 2 entries in the Rabbids series which is nothing really. Keep in mind Rayman RR was originally Rayman 4 before they scrapped it.

Every other Rabbids game was made by Ubisoft Paris or other divisions of Ubisoft mainly by the studios who made the Just Dance series. Which makes sense cause most Rabbids games were mini game collection that were simple to create.

So what held Rayman up? From what I’ve seen nothing really tho the closest answer is likely that both Michel Ancel and Ubisoft Montpellier we’re busy on Beyond Good and Evil it was announced in 2008 and likely the entire team were focused on that. However if you know development trouble happened which held the studio up for quite some time. It was temporarily shelved which gave Ancel time to make Origins and Legends then he went back to BG&E 2 after Legends in 2017 where it was reintroduced but is now in development hell to this day.

Yep. I was young in an era when a major entry in my favorite game franchises could come out every year, or every other year. As I've gotten older, game dev has gotten more and more complex and lengthy due to a variety of factors. My awareness of that fact lagged behind the reality of it happening, but I am quite aware of it now, largely due to watching a lot of videos, reading a lot of articles and even having some friends at major studios.

I'm a Donkey Kong fan. Why has there been no new DK game in a decade? Has Nintendo totally given up on one of their major franchises? No, the rumors are that they leased it out to a third party studio, changed their minds, and started over in-house as they have a new vision for the DK series that they want to oversee. What's going on with Metroid Prime 4? Who knows. The game industry is such a mess I'm amazed we get any truly great passion projects out of major studios at all.

It's not as simple as "People want thing, make more of thing!" If fans want something, there are devs out there who want to make it too. Maybe even people for whom that series inspired them to get into the industry. But that doesn't mean it's going to end up happening. Still, it's why I think Rayman in the Phantom Show is so great, because the devs (at least a lot of the creative team) really did want to make it.

I feel like the idea that the Rabbids stole Rayman's franchise, and that Rayman died so the Rabbids could live, exists in that knowledge gap before understanding how complex everything is. Maybe it made sense for a time, but it really doesn't hold up to scrutiny now. Things aren't really a zero sum game like that, and so much has happened in the intervening years to contradict this idea.

It is funny, in my stream we were talking about how people don't really harp on this narrative so much anymore, with good reason... Only to have the most stereotypical "RABBIDS SUCK AND RAYMAN DESERVES BETTER" gamer show up like thirty minutes later, lol. Well, people will cling to the stories that help them make sense of the world, I suppose... Even if it makes them unhappy.