#designreview

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a stunning 3rd person action RPG video game and is the 11th major installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise.

Overview -

Every Assassin's Creed game made was set in different locations and era, featured diverse cultures and great characters and Odyssey is no different. The game is set in ancient Greece with its historical story set in 431-422 B.C.

Ubisoft took a different approach to the beloved Assassin's Creed franchise with the development of Assassin's Creed Origins, leaning more towards the RPG style of gameplay. Assassin's Creed Odyssey features a massive open world, one of the biggest (biggest in the franchise) open worlds that, much like Black Flag, puts a lot of emphasis on traversing by sea.

Gameplay -

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has a ton of content for the players to engage in. The main campaign takes just over 40 hours to complete plus the game has a lot of additional content that sums up to and over 100 hours. Assassin's Creed Odyssey hosts a ton of side quests, conquest battles, arenas, fishing, hunting and a beautifully designed massive open world just begging to be explored, keeping the players engaged for days or even weeks (if you love exploration like I do).

After a tutorial masked as the prologue ends, players are provided with 2 playable characters to choose from with both the characters having the exact same story.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a systems heavy game with a lot of systems complementing each other, striving to provide a great experience.

Leveling system:

Players earn experience points every time they fight, for every quest completed, every location discovered and completed, every conquest battle won and more. These experience points help players level up. Leveling up increases the player character's health and damage and provides them with a skill point that can be used to unlock skills. Higher the level, stronger the player character is making the combat easier.

Skills:

Players can unlock skills across 3 categories; Hunter, Warrior and Assassin. The skills in these categories increase the damage stats for hunting, combat and assassination or stealth abilities. Each of the categories also have various abilities that can be unlocked, upgraded assigned to the ability wheels that can be used in game.

Abilities:

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has a plethora of abilities that can be unlocked and assigned to ranged and melee ability wheels. Players can equip up to 12 skills at any time, split between 2 melee and 1 ranged ability wheels (4 slots per wheel).

Abilities can be swapped by accessing the abilities menu.

Ranged ability wheel can only consist of Hunter Abilities and they are as follows -

Multi-shot.

Devastating Shot.

Predator Shot.

Spread Shot.

Rain of Destruction.

Overpower Bow Strike.

Ghost Arrows of Artemis.

The two melee ability wheels can consist of the following abilities -

Warrior -

Bull Rush.

Sparta Kick.

Second Wind.

Shield Breaker.

Flaming Attacks.

Ring of Chaos.

Battlecry of Ares.

Assassin -

Venomous Attacks.

Vanish.

Rush Assassination.

Call to Arms.

Hero Strike.

Slow Time.

Shadow of Nyx.

Players also start with some basic abilities that are upgraded automatically when certain conditions are met. The baseline abilities are as follows -

Summon Phobos - To summon Phobos, the player's horse.

Meditation - Allows players to rest and moves time forward.

Eyes of Ikaros - Ikaros, the eagle can be used to tag locations and enemy targets.

Assassination - Allows players to assassinate targets using the Spear of Leonidas.

Leap of Faith - Allows players to smash the ground and stun nearby enemies without taking any damage.

Whistle - Players can whistle to attract enemies.

Man at Arms - Allows players to equip a second weapon from the inventory.

Defensive Maneuvers - Provides players with the ability to dodge or parry right before an attack hits.

Recruit - Allows players to incapacitate and recruit enemies to join the crew of the Adrestia.

Ship Upgrades:

Players can upgrade their ship to increase the ship's health, arrow damage, ramming damage, javelin damage and the ship's armor. The following upgrades increase the previously mentioned properties -

Arsenal - The Arsenal upgrades increase the number of consecutive throws and damage of Javelins and Arrows and also increases the fire buildup and fire power segments of Braziers.

Weapons Damage - The Weapons Damage upgrades increase ramming, arrows and javelin damage.

Ship and Crew Endurance - These upgrades increase the ship's armor and health along with the crew's armor and also increases Rower Stamina that helps use the boost ability a little longer.

Special Lieutenants - Recruiting, hiring and assigning special lieutenants helps increase some properties of the ship.

Ship Cosmetics - As the name suggests, players can customize the look of their ship.

Inventory System:

Assassin's Creed Odyssey features an inventory menu that allows players equip armors and weapons. Player’s equipment are available in 4 different categories; Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary with Legendary equipment being the most powerful. Armors and Weapons are available upon looting and completing quests and they are assigned level numbers. Higher the level, the stronger they are. Players need to be at the same level as their weapons and armor in order to equip them. Armors and weapons can also be upgraded to the player's current level by visiting a Blacksmith. Blacksmiths also have weapons and armor available for purchase and allows players to engrave their equipment that provide special benefits.

Ship upgrades, engraving equipment, crafting arrows require various resources that can be found around the game world, such as; Olive Wood, Iron, Leather, Obsidian Glass and Precious Gems. Most of theses resources can be looted while wandering around. Leather can be acquired by looting hunted animals and fish.

Equipping the right weapons and armory helps increase the following stats of the player -

Health.

Hunter Damage - Increases damage dealt when using the bow and Hunter abilities.

Warrior Damage - Increases damage dealt with melee attacks and Warrior abilities.

Assassin Damage - Increases assassination damage and damage dealt with Assassin abilities.

The inventory menu displays the basic stats mentioned above and difference in stats when equipping a new equipment. It also has an option to view the detailed stats of the player character.

Modes and Extra Content:

As established earlier, Assassin's Creed Odyssey hosts a ton of content players can engage in. I'd like to refer to them as modes and they are as follows -

Conquest Battles:

Conquest Battles are an important means of players establishing dominance in the Peloponnesian War. These battles are available as part of the main story and as side missions that can be undertaken while players explore a region. Players can pick sides while taking up Conquest battles, where the winning side conquers that nation. Conquest Battles are available only when the Power of a Nation is lowered.

Mercenaries:

Mercenaries are powerful enemies wandering around the world. A bounty is placed on the player every time a crime is committed, making the mercenaries hunt players down. Players can avoid being hunt down by paying off all bounties in the Map.

Defeating mercenaries raises the mercenary rank of the player. This information is displayed in the Mercenaries menu. Players can spend hours hunting down the rest of the mercenaries to be the best mercenary in the whole of Greece. Although it should be noted that some mercenaries can be found and defeated in Arenas only.

Combat -

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s combat system is more complex than the previous games of the franchise up until Origins. Players can use the equipped weapons to fight enemies, attack enemies from a distance and perform stealth attacks on enemies or assassinate them. The various abilities and skills add variety to the the combat and help deal more damage and help get out of tough situations (depending on the abilities equipped). The game also features a parry and dodge mechanics that help parry and dodge incoming attacks. When the attacking enemy has a red glowing outline, it is advised to dodge as they cannot be parried. There are 2 versions of dodge that can be achieved by wither pressing the dodge button or holding it. The player character upon pressing the button, performs a simple dodge by stepping backwards and holding the button makes the character roll away in the intended direction completely avoiding the attack.

The combat mechanics of the ship are the same since Black flag with changes to the machinery used (due to the change in era) to attack rather than controls or mechanics. Cannons are replaced with arrows and heavy shots with javelins. Although mortars and swivel guns are no longer featured in the game.

Verdict -

Mirror’s Edge is a first-person action-adventure platform game, following the story of Faith Connors. an underground parkour courier who transmits messages without attracting the attention of the government.

Overview -

Mirror’s Edge is played from a first-person perspective and players must complete a series of levels that involve performing a series of acrobatic maneuvers, including jumping across rooftops, sliding down ziplines, running along walls, fighting off and evading the guards and cops, in order to progress in the game.

Gameplay - 

Mirror’s Edge does a fantastic job in conveying the story through its gameplay, environment and the dialogues during the gameplay rather than solely relying on its cutscenes. The cutscenes in the game follow an animated cartoon style and are often pretty short. These cutscenes happen at the end of every chapter.

Players spend majority of the game platforming. The platforming sections are usually fun and the game has a ton of variety allowing players to alternate between the different platforming mechanics. It is also important to remember that many of the platforms and pipes that can be grabbed are to be approached at the right angle. Not doing so causes Faith to fall, depleting her health completely, forcing players to start from the last checkpoint.

Faith’s hands and legs are visible when performing various activities. This is imperative as it conveys the player’s movement and interactions with the environment and enemies, which helps players get a sense of what their character is actually doing and how she reacts to their actions.

Players are guided to reach their destination with the environmental pieces that players can interact with highlighted in red, known as Runner’s Vision. The Runner’s vision is designed in such a way that it shows players where to go but not how to get there, leaving it up to the players to solve that puzzle for themselves. Preserving momentum is a very important aspect of the game as it allows players to run faster, jump farther and climb higher. Preserving enough momentum also allows players to use an ability know as Reaction Time, that slows down time allowing them to time their next move.

Although players can disarm enemies, perform melee and acrobatic attacks, players can also use weapons to take them down with ease. The issue with this is that carrying a weapon slows Faith down considerably and renders her acrobatic abilities useless until players drop them. Players regenerate a certain amount of health when they don’t take damage for a while

Mirror’s Edge features a 3 button control scheme for wall running, jumping off buildings, swinging on poles, climbing pipes, sliding under objects and jumping across obstacles and a number of other moves that are styled after parkour. This helps players play fluidly preserving momentum.

Although Mirror’s Edge does not provide any side content or free roam, as it is a very linear game, it does feature a time trial mode that tests the player’s speed, knowledge and skill of using shortcuts to get to a designated point.

Verdict - 

Mirror’s Edge is a great platforming game with excellent platforming mechanics and dynamics, great soundtrack, good environmental storytelling and a simple fast paced combat, that provides a stellar experience for fans of the platforming genre like myself. 

Quantum Break is a 3rd person Sci-Fi action-adventure shooter, following the story of Jack Joyce who is granted time manipulation powers after a failed time-machine experiment.

Overview -

Quantum Break is another one of Remedy's strangely beautiful concepts that centers around time and time manipulation abilities, delivering on the promise in providing a brilliant sci-fi experience throughout.

Gameplay -

All of the player's abilities revolve around time manipulation and each of the mechanics are introduced to the players as the game progresses, in a way that makes sense to the story.

Quantum Break, upon introducing a new, mechanic, teaches players about the underlying mechanic and how to use it, forcing players to use it in the encounter it was introduced in.

Players have the ability to control or manipulate instances of fractured time, which play a major role in the combat of the game. Following are the powers players can use in combat -

Time Vision.

Time Stop.

Time Shield.

Time Rush.

Time Dodge.

Paul Serene, the antagonist of the game, also shares the same powers as Jack Joyce, as they were both exposed to high Chronon energy during the malfunction of the Time Machine in the Project Promenade lab.

Players can take weapons from defeated enemies to use alongside their time manipulation powers. Players get their first weapon, the Pistol, in the earlier parts of the game. Players can only carry one of each of the 3 types of weapons; primary, secondary and heavy, with each type having unique characteristics.

Quantum Break has a ton of variety in combat not only due to the various powers and weapons players can use, but also due to the distinct enemy types. Each type of enemy encourages players to use different powers, sometimes a combination of those powers, to defeat them. Different enemy types also deal varying damage and have more resistance to certain attacks, allowing for a more varying and fun combat experience.

The levels are designed with the player's abilities, encounters and types of enemies in mind. Objects and cover locations are placed in a way that makes sense to the world while also supporting the player's movement and abilities.

Quantum Break also has a feature that allows players to be reminded of their objectives with the press of a button.

There are tons of collectibles that can found throughout the game. Many of these collectibles, often referred to as Narrative Objects, provide additional story details, while Chronon Sources are vital to upgrade Jack’s time abilities.

Verdict -

DWF vs PDF - the real site battle we all know 😄 One wants precision. The other wants easy sharing.

Different strengths. Same goal: getting the job done right.