Video Games Art & Entertainment

Why am I not covering Life is Strange 2?

Destiny 2 Forsaken isn't just a good expansion, just like The Taken King in the first game it was responsible for bringing Destiny 2 up to expectations. This is why it is important to not over praise a game, to call the faults it has so they can fix it or at least, keep them in mind for a sequel.

I had seen the cutscenes prior to even owning Destiny 2 on PC, there were two things I knew. First, Nathan Fillion wouldn't be voicing Cayde in the expansion (I noticed it right away) instead Nolan North would be doing the voice, which is strange 'cause he is the voice of your ghost. And that's not even going with the Nathan Drake meta between those two, they seem fated.

I'm not saying Nolan wasn't up to the task, in fact I couldn't think of anyone better to replace Fillion, but just like when Baker replaced Hamill as the voice of the Joker, you can hear its different tonal delivery on top of the voice change, even if it's "minimal". Said replacement removed part of the emotional anchor of Cayde's death, as it took me out of the game to speculate about his death and Fillion not doing the work this time. I know they said something about scheduling issues but you know I don't buy PR bullshit.

Still, I was invested, I'm pretty sure I killed every baron with a sword strike as the last hit. You know what they say about blades vs guns when killing. Cayde was part of the reason I bought Destiny 1. Cayde's personality made it fun, especially since I main a Hunter, so he was my go to Vanguard for my gear. I spent a lot of time with him and then when The Taken King came out we had to get his stealth drive and stuff. So he was kind of the mentor which is what I tried to get across in the video.

Forsaken comes with the other two DLCs (Curse of Osiris and Warmind) and both were regarded as trash. Compared to the first two DLCs in Destiny 1, they are a huge improvement, but at least Curse of Osiris is kind of disappointing. Story wise it's fine, interesting even but gameplay wise, you'll be backtracking way too much. Warmind is a lot better and Anastasia is more interesting than Osiris, but honestly, you wouldn't be buying Forsaken for those expansions, so they would be bonus especially if you get it on sale.

Apologies the video doesn't look as good as the game, I can run it at higher settings with few performance hiccups but it does take more resources from my system, so I lowered them a bit 'cause it looks great anyway. Also 'cause I couldn't figure out how to make the video in 60fps like the gameplay, the recorded video is 60 but the render is 30 so it looks weird at times.

It has a few slight spoilers but nothing that you couldn't figure out/predict was going to happen anyways. And without the proper context, it still wouldn't spoil story elements.

Thank you for your time.

Odyssey continues the story of Layla Hassan, but it’s not the focus of the game, barely was even the focus in Origins. There are a lot of similarities in both games. Huge map, lots of “events” you can participate in, strongholds, side quests, loot but above everything else, the combat is the one thing that is pretty much the same. Sure you no longer have a shield nor  a hidden blade, but you won’t miss them. This game is done by the same people that worked on Syndicate and it shows. This team is more focused on fun than story telling. Not that the story is bad but more like the story works towards the same fun goal. I obviously chose to play as Kassandra and I can’t help but get some Korra vibes from her (not just those arms) I’m enjoying everything in the game so far but I’m barely lvl 19 which brings me to the controversy.

A lot has been said about XP boosters being part of the microtransactions, with a lot of people justifying them because (according to them) they never felt a need for them while playing the game. This is a repeat of Overwatch’s loot boxes, with people justifying it ‘cause “it’s just cosmetics” and “all future content will be free” which are both lies. Overwatch main reward, especially on events, are the damn skins. I wouldn’t even play the boring thing if not ‘cause I liked the characters so I want to get certain skins for them. Which by itself I admit is stupid considering it’s a first person game, other than Brigitte and Reinhardt nobody has a 3rd person view. I could bash Overwatch all day but this isn’t about them and again, I’d like to keep this page somewhat positive.

I bought Origins around December of last year, I instantly got engaged in the story. Abubakar Salim’s performance as Bayek is one of the best I’ve seen in gaming. Sure the character was well written, but it’d have been for nothing without someone able to deliver those lines and powerful reactions. You felt the struggle in Bayek’s head thanks to this. However, the urgency of the main story was halted by “gaming things”. Just like Fallout 4, you start with this urgent matter but the game then wants you to do all this side stuff because you don’t have the level to continue. I understand gating in games, but lately it was designed within the story, level gating can never be designed into the story unless you have a predetermined leveling system. Meaning that you don’t have to clear a zone in order to get the level required for the next one. Sadly in Origins after I got to lvl 20 - 25 I hit a wall. The main one being their Far Cry gear system in which I had to hunt certain animals to be able to upgrade my character’s stats. As if the level gate wasn’t annoying enough I had to hunt. I shelved the game for months and only the hype built for Odyssey got me to finish the game.

They made it grindy and annoying, the gameplay and story were working against each other. Origins gets a lot of praises but in reality, it’s not a good game. It’s a bad game design with good graphics, gameplay and story that don’t work well together (like that other game I mentioned in this post) The story tried to marry the gameplay, letting you know that months had passed between events, but again I feel like it didn’t work. For that to work, the side content should contribute to your main quest in some way, even if it’s some small piece of information. Hunting animals and taking over strongholds didn’t do anything towards that goal. Strongholds are a constant fun activity in open world games, but there’s a lot you can do with them that they never touch. Why is that location important, why is it being guarded and what are they guarding. Who is the head of the group and how they got to be the leader? So many small things that could have been done.

Odyssey learned from that, not all side quests add to your main goal but a lot of them do. Also Kassandra’s story doesn’t start with an urgent task, her past didn’t define her either. Kassandra is by no means a blank slate, she’s a sassy mercenary, you get to pick her motivation (money, justice, both) Odyssey feels a lot more like Watchdogs 2. With a fun main character but sadly Ubisoft failed to bring the crew to go along with it. Personally I think it’s crucial to any main character to have a crew/group of people they can go back to. There are a few characters in Odyssey you feel a level of attachment to, but not where it should be as these games are trying to copy The Witcher 3 rather than Watchdogs 2. The difference is in Witcher 3 it works ‘cause it’s the 3rd game with those characters, there’s already an attachment involved.

Speaking of borrowing from other games, they also added an investigation system that is similar to the one in Syndicate (which was borrowed from Batman) and another that is similar to Ghost Recon Wildlands. I understand why Ubisoft wanted to have an RPG, it works really well with their open world formula, but I wish they hadn’t used Assassin’s Creed, Watchdogs is far more suitable for it considering you could be perceived by the public as a menace or a hero, based on what you do in the game. (or at least that’s what they tried to do in the first one, the second one DEDSEC’s story is predetermined) This new formula ruins the pacing for those that want to experience the main story, but I feel it’s done on purpose to sell boosters which I’m quite disappointed about.

Like I said, I like Ubisoft games, I like The Division, Assassin’s Creed, Watchdogs, Ghost Recon and even had fun in For Honor

but I hope they don’t go the EA way with the microtransactions. They are terrible in For Honor with their loot boxes. They can’t justify them when their games are so expensive, hell For Honor even added a $15 starter version ‘cause they can sell you microtransactions for far more than the full retail price.

Overall, yes Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a very fun game, worth buying if you’re into looter RPGs, just don’t contribute to their microtransactions, this is a full retail price game, not a free to play or even a $15 one with microtransactions to cover the rest, there’s no excuse for XP boosters unless they are purposely holding your progression back.

EDIT:

I finished the game, got the three endings (I’m not talking alternate endings, there are 3 stories going at the same time and you get an ending for each) and have done most of the side quests, there are places I haven’t been to yet. I love this game, it’s not perfect and a lot of things it does have been done better ages ago. But in the best year in gaming so far (2018 has had amazing games) this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most.