I find all this hate talk for AC Unity but nobody appears to have a lick of sense about the game. Not saying it's perfect, not saying it's a great game and everyone is wrong about it, but it's clear that most people who trash talk it don't have any idea about the true nature of the game. It'd be nice for a chance if those that did play it have something critical to say about what it does right, what it does wrong, but people who just run their mouth with no idea of what they're talking about are dominating any discussion about the issue. If you want good games, then let those with something constructive to say say something about it, so the devs and publishers take notice. Otherwise they're just going to see all you know-nothing-know-it-alls gabbing on like idiots and not doing anything constructive to make the games better, it's just "durr, DLC, blah blah.... durrrr, micro-transactions blah blah".
My first criticism about the game starts with previous AC games, and that's with the Astergo (Templar) and Assassin's in modern times, there was way too much story arc to make it accessible to newcomers. AC Black Flag did it right IMO, sure there were hidden tidbits talking about the previous games and Desmond and whatnot but for the most part that could be ignored. The modern time Astergo office and diving into the animus at your computer desk worked good. There wasn't too much backstory to worry about and the blend of this worked really well. In AC Unity on the other hand they just completely abandon this blend, you mostly just stay in the game. There's some hint about Astergo doing research under the guise of entertainment but it's not clear and wouldn't be accessible and understood for newcomers. Still, while I find this as a drawback at least it's not drowning in plot points that alienate newcomers completely like previous entries.
Another thing I've noticed is people claim the game is too easy. While certainly I agree that the combat was very easy to attack and counter I found that in Unity that's not the case. Combat is less forgiving, partially because they want the player to make more calculated moves, and to level up, but the combat is far less forgiving than other games. I don't mind this actually, not by itself, but it does present itself as a problem given that another blemish on AC Unity is the loadtimes. They're soooo damn long. So, the less forgiving combat, coupled with the longer load times, they're really two things that don't go hand in hand together. The long load times I assume come from the huge world and large crowds, the large crowds are a great feature for the game except when one must endure the long load times.
The biggest narrative problem IMO is how fragmented the story is. The game doesn't really focus on story and probably because they focused too much on the social aspect of the game, so if you're someone who completely disregards the co-op missions there's probably much less game here. I however once I realized how much fun the co-op missiosn were found a lot more value here. Now, honestly it's nowhere cool as looking as the pre-release demos let on, but they're still pretty fun nonetheless.
However, the social aspect feature probably lead to a lot of bad design choices, like locking out skills or assassin abilities in the SP into a multiplayer like leveling system which really frustrated me at first but became less frustrated with as I gained the abilities over time. In previous AC games my play style was much more used to syncing the high points, find collectibles on section at a time. In this game many collectibles are locked out by having to do certain things first, like unlocking the needed lockpicking skills, and in some solving the riddles which aren't always very intuitive. It's very different than other AC games in this regard and along with all the other major changes to the game left me feeling more lost than ever about what to do. But, I'm not that impatient of a gamer, it'll be baby steps for a 100% playthrough, which I plan on doing it.
One thing though I see people bitch about that's not been an issue though, and that's micro-transactions. I mean they're there, no denying that, but there's nothing about playing the game that makes me want to waste additional money on it. Everything you can unlock by buying hack points (what real currency becomes), you can just as easily earn by playing the game. Which is usually the case about anything people bitch about when it comes to micro-transactions.
Anyhow, it's not a perfect game, it's not a horrible on by any stretch. It's okay for what it is, and what it is attempting is to drastically alter the AC formula to incorporate a greater social multiplayer experience. Sure they made mistakes in its design but it's hardly something to condemn the developers for attempting, and sure you can clearly point out that certain design choices didn't wok it's by no means worth treating the developer and publisher like a super-villain over.
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