It's not a game I'd buy but I've read it was gorgeous looking.

It doesn't play well?

It honestly plays really well on a base PS4. I didn't notice any technical issues at the beginning, it's just a sort of chopped up, crappily constructed set of sequences that don't initially make a whole lot of sense.

It's not a game I'd buy but I've read it was gorgeous looking.

It doesn't play well?

It's... tough to describe quickly.

The first AC game I ever played was AC2. Its a fantastic game, and at the time I was particularly impressed by how smoothly and seamlessly they brought me into the world, introduced me to the characters, brought in mechanics and systems and trained me how to play the game. It was all blended together in a way that felt natural and compelling. I was almost 10 hours into the game when an achievement popped up for completing the "training", and it made me laugh because I hadn't felt like I was being "trained" at all... that's how natural it all felt.

But Origins is so disjointed and clumsy, both in terms of how they introduce the narrative as well as mechanics. You start the game by being dropped into a small series of dark rooms with nothing to do but loot small amounts of currency from all these ancient vases. I'm thinking "really... this is how you start your game? Running up to a bunch of jars and looting coins for 15 minutes?" They introduce the basic climbing mechanics, but only partially. And as you go along, the training and instruction starts to feel completely arbitrary. They tell you which button to press to climb on to your camel, then tell you to get off your camel without telling you which button accomplishes that action (made worse by the fact that you need to hold a certain button to get off your camel). I've played 3 or 4 hours now, and its been a series of little moments like that the entire time. They toss all these systems and mechanics at you (either through gameplay or through the UI) and seem to randomly pick a few details to explain to you without explaining the rest. And I'm ok with being left to figure stuff out on my own, but only if I'm given the space and abilities to do so. For example, it took me several accidental fights in the street to figure out why patrolling guards would sometimes draw their swords and attack me, and other times walk right by me. They were responding to whether or not I had my sword drawn. Totally fair... except there is no button to sheath your sword... you just have to wait for it to happen on its own.

It just feels like they built the game, then cobbled together a vague intro. It doesn't feel crafted or thought out in any substantial way.

There's also some technical stuff. AC games have always had some goofy bugs in them, and this game is no different (the first time I set my mount to auto pilot, it plowed straight through a crowd of women and children, killing all of them). Stuff like that just makes me laugh... no problem. But there's a strange kind of technical jank that only pops up in 1 out of every 2 or 3 AC games. I think it has to do with the multi-studio approach they take to the franchise. One of their lead studios seems to do bizarre things with the game engine that make things feel strangely amateur in a way that you rarely see in AAA games. I first noticed it in AC3, then again in AC Syndicate (took me 3 tries to get the name of that game right... they all blur together lol). I'm talking about things like having the game fade to black for loading and saving, CONSTANTLY. Like, mid cutscene, in the middle of a dramatic moment, there's suddenly a 10 second black screen while the rest of the cut scene loads. And this might happen multiple times in a single cutscene. Or strange performance hiccups (I already mentioned the frame rate diving within the first 5 seconds of the game, during a cutscene).

All that said, it is a very pretty game with great scenery, and I'm having fun just being in the world for now. It's just strange to play a game that in some ways is like the height of AAA production values, and then in other ways feels totally hacked together and amateurish in its delivery.