Gaming Deals Awareness Thread. (Gaming)

by Kahzgul, Saturday, June 10, 2017, 18:03 (2727 days ago) @ Korny

GREAT POST!

I think the write-ups of HZD and AC3 could use some more emphasis, so I've put my own thoughts down here:

HZD is the best video game I've played in years. It is completely polished from start to finish, has a brilliant script, fantastic and rewarding action, and the difficulty levels are scaled in an unexpected way (at the higher difficulties, the monsters don't hit harder or have more hit points, they are simply far more resistant to damage types that don't specifically target their weak spots. This means that the skills you learn in the lower difficulty settings translate directly into the higher ones, and the weapons you never used because "why would I need to freeze the enemy when I can just shoot him with my normal weapon" suddenly become very, very important. Metacritic is wrong, this game is a must-play, and I'm gonna go so far as to say it's a must-play TWICE OVER AT LEAST. I'm currently playing through on the highest difficulty without using a single fast-travel and it's GREAT. I cannot recommend this game enough.

I give this game a 99/100. It's missing one point because I really want to be able to ride a T-Rex robot after I tame it.

One more bit: Even though the game is spectacular already, the devs keep patching in more and more features. Expect more from this game as time goes on.

AC3 is a 70-hour tutorial that effectively ends before it ever cuts you truly loose to explore the many and diverse systems in the game. Unlike any of the Ezio games, and WAY unlike AC Black Flag, AC3 locked the entirety of the gameplay mechanics behind the entirety of the story missions. You do not unlock all of the mechanics until literally just before the final mission of the game (which has a sense of urgency, so stopping that to go, I dunno, hunt 20 jaguars or something would just feel like you were letting the bad guys win). It's terrible design. You're constantly running across things that say "complete more story missions to unlock this" and then by the time you've unlocked it, you don't care anymore because whatever you'd get from it that would be useful no longer is. There are also quite a few very questionable choices: The unskippable cutscene with disgusting SFX every single time you skin an animal is stupid. And you'll have to skin nearly 100 animals to get the upgrades you need, nevermind if you want to sell some pelts or something. Also, the plot is pretty stupid, too. The boat combat is neat, but is so much better in AC Black Flag that I suggest skipping 3 and going right to BF. The entire rest of the game feels like one long linear progression of not quite letting you do the things you want to do until you no longer care about whether or not you can do them. While making an open world game feel like a linear game is an impressive feat, it's not a fun one and this game should be completely ignored by everyone involved. Even for AC fans, even at the price of FREE, it is not worth your download. Playing this game is like living through the second half of Flowers for Algernon.

I give a literal 0/100. The world is a worse place because I know this game exists.