Don't let past failures govern how you view the current games. Try them and judge them on their own merits. I had vowed never to play another AC game after AC Unity on PS4. Then AC Origins came along and wow. They went from a total disaster to one of the best games ever made, and AC Odyssey is even better.
I was always bored with the futuristic animus 'Matrix clone' stuff and felt it detracted from playing the actual open world game because it was not necessary. Ubisoft have realised that, but some people still like it, so it's diluted to the point that people like me can ignore it if they want, while still offering service to fans of the scifi element. Short of dumping it altogether and making a totally different game, I think Ubisoft got the balance just right.
For me, the whole Animus thing felt contrived. Cashing in on excellent The Matrix film that was big news at the time. It also allowed them to hide the limitations of the current console hardware. The early games before AC 3 had a lot of horrendous screen tear, so it was hidden by making the animus graphics glitch and tear. While playing the game, the uneducated would think the screen tear was animus interference. For me it was all bullcrap. And don't get me started about 'spoilt child with an attitude' Desmond ...lol
Well I'm playing the game right now on PS4 Pro and I an say that Ubisoft have done it again. They have delivered another masterpiece building on the excellent AC Origins. Very high image quality, smooth fluid performance that is responsive to play. Character that have a real personality and humour, that you can pick up on and bond to. The quests and side quests take a leaf out of Witcher 3 and GTAV. No longer are they simple isolated fetch my item or save my daughter. They are multi layer branching quests that don't play out how you expect. All the fetch and save people stuff is still there but it's intertwined to form interesting scenarios.
No spoilers so I'll make one up as an example: Someone owes you money, but they owe someone else, that other person will make me a special weapon if I help out, but as I'm doing so, the other person kidnaps a close friend to pay off the debt. You never know for sure how it will play out, so that unpredictability avoids the feeling of grinding simple chores. The dialogue give you control how far you go down those rabbit holes and thus how many branches you follow and the future consequences that occur. The whole system works really well and feeds directly into the deep RPG system.
I'm playing as Kasandra and it's pure joy. I'm getting an excellent Aloy vibe off her in a unique way that does not try to copy. In contrast, the new Lara in Tomb Raider looks nothing like the other Lara's and is a copy of Aloy and the characters in Uncharted 4. The Tomb Raider dev brings nothing new to the table. Every facet of Shadow TR is a collection of scenes from other games and character. For example, her side kick, the pacing at the village and the feeling that she is responsible for destroying it, were all stolen from Uncharted 2. I won't list them all but it's obvious to anyone playing Shadow TR after playing Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last Of Us and Uncharted 4.
I'm using TR as an example how AC Odyssey learns from other games that have done something well, but does not copy it note for note. It develops it's own version that goes off in a totally different direction. Anyone tired of Assassin's Creed like I was with all the boring grind filler stuff that you never ended up finishing, AC Origins and AC Odyssey are a million miles away from that. Instead of grinding crude scenarios as a chore like the older games in the series, you actually enjoy searching stuff out and doing them. The last time I fully cleaned a map like AC Origins and wanted more, was AC 2. AC Origins was a better game than AC 2, but AC2 had a stronger lead character. AC Odyssey wins both counts, no contest. The best AC yet.
I loved the original and this takes it to the next level. GTAV felt like a real place. More than any other map ever created, so I've got high hopes for this. The comments below claiming that other top draw games will be worried are just childish. Those games delivered the goods and cannot be touched. I'm confident RDR2 will do the same.
The lushly detailed GTAV on PS4 Pro in boost mode running at 30fps looked smoother than some PC versions running at 60fps. I guess frame pacing plays a part if you don't have the latest graphics card. That level of performance gives me confidence what Rockstar can achieve when building a game specifically targeted at the latest consoles.
Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games and Ubisoft are setting a very high benchmark for console games. This is why we now need backwards compatibility on PS5. Normally we never go back to previous gens because the graphics do not age well (not counting the new PS1 retro console which is a novelty collectors item celebrating the console that changed the industry.) These PS4 Pro games have reach a graphical fidelity that will stand the test of time and age well. We will still want to replay these games on PS5 long after our PS4 Pro bites the dust, even without a remaster.
Just like GTAV on PS3, there will definitely be an updated version on PS5, but I will still buy both to reward the dev for outstanding work like I did with GTAV. I still refuse to play the rip off GTA online and the upcoming RDR Online.
TR did not have to be like this in order to move on with evolution. The original Lara did not say much but when she did it was cocky and confident. They needed to build on that in order to maintain consistency. Uncharted showed them the way to go. The dev actually rebooted the series to emulate what Uncharted was doing, but they failed to give Lara a strong enduring personality. They can't even give her an enduring look. Her face changes with every game so that you can no longer bond with her as a person. The Uncharted characters remained the same as the polygon count rose and they grew older, so that you could still bond with them as an old friend.
The original TR games had a emphasis on exploration, travelling the world and puzzle solving. Uncharted kept that as a core value in addition to all the other stuff they added. The TR dev diluted the puzzle solving in the first two games of the reboot and focussed mainly on shooting guys. Uncharted had the shooting fun but it was perfectly balanced by exploration, puzzle solving, dramatic cinematic set pieces, moments of quiet contemplation, light hearted humour, strong characters and a deep story.
The latest TR game addresses some of those issues. It makes the tombs bigger with a heavier focus on puzzles rather than combat. They even attempted to up their game with better voice acting and a deeper story, but it still comes off as shallow. And worst of all, they still could not get Lara right. They have messed up her eyes trying to copy Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn who has fascinating eyes that are slightly out of align giving her a subtle flawed human appearance. But Lara's eyes are just weird. Subtle they are not.
Then we have Lara's size. What happened there. Why is she suddenly a midget. She is the smallest character in the game now, apart from the children. The TR dev has made too many mistakes to earn a second chance, especially after pulling that trick with the previous game by taking a corrupt bribe from MS to deny their loyal fans from playing the game for a whole year. After watching a Shadow playthrough on Youtube, I'll pick this up in a years time for completeness when the price drops. I'm good at waiting. I've had plenty of practice. A whole years practice waiting for Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Salty? Probably, because they just haven't give me a reason to forgive them so I'm taking revenge to punish them. The TR dev probably could have gotten away with all this and we would have just accepted it as loyal fans if Uncharted did not exist. But Uncharted and The Last Of Us hold a light against Tomb Raider and it does not look good. TR is ok when you have nothing else to play as an Uncharted sim while waiting for something better. With AC Odyssey and RDR2 on the horizon, TR is right at the bottom of the list.
Yes I preferred the old Lara with attitude, they turned her into a whiner that they could constantly punish and torture as a cheap way to fake the genuine emotions we see in the Uncharted games and The Last Of Us. At first you could accept it in the first one because Lara was learning the ropes, but in this latest game when she is supposed to be at her peak, she's still whining and moaning as the game throws everything at her. That might work with female gamers who are drawn to empathise and feel the pain, but male gamers just get frustrated and see the pretentious manipulation.
lol here's the paradox ...Sony are not going to tell Ubisoft about any secret plans to sneak out early with a fall 2019 release to get a head start on MS who have their hands tied by the expensive XB1X, if Ubisoft cannot be trusted and simply blab that to the press that the next gen is 2-3 years away. Major respected devs that talk to the press know nothing because they will be kept out of the loop. Rogue leakers are different.
There are many rumours that would affect how things play out if true. It looks like Sony have commissioned AMD to design the Navi GPU specifically for the PS5 with Sony chipping in on the tech research. If Sony has funded the work, then they will want exclusive access to the tech. A timed exclusive will reduce the cost and allow AMD to own the tech so they can offer it to other customers. That would mean PS5 uses Ryzen CPU and Navi GPU exclusively.
How would that affect MS. Well they would only have two options if this was true. Either they release a few years after PS5 when the Navi exclusivity ends using Ryzen CPU and Navi GPU, or they launch early alongside PS5 but are forced to use Ryzen CPU and Vega GPU.
I'm hoping the source only told half the story when claiming that Navi was designed for PS5. Maybe Navi was designed for the next gen consoles, PS5 and XB2, with help and funding from both of them. That way we see both consoles using Ryzen and Navi with secret sauce added for each customer. Navi is clearly 7nm so if they go for an APU system on a chip, then Ryzen must be 7nm as well. If Ryzen is not 7nm then they will have to be discreet separate chips. The APU route is cheaper if AMD can pull it off at 7nm, but discreet chips are easier to swop out for more powerful parts when doing the mid gen upgrade in 3 years time.
Some say the mid gen upgrade was just to support 4K TV and that next gen will support 4K as standard so no need for a mid gen upgrade. But when you consider that a 6 year gen starts to slip behind after year 3, the mid gen upgrade revitalises the console to see out the gen in style. That is how I use the PS4 Pro on a 1080p TV.
Speculation is fun but nobody really knows for sure. It's all educated guesses.
If you're looking for accuracy not fantasy, then forget AC with the silly animus rubbish that ripped off the Matrix. I ignore all that crap and enjoy playing it for the fantasy time period open world. Spoilt child Desmond in the scifi bits always had me yawning in those early games.
You make it sound bad that it's using what was good about the previous game. A great game iterates from the best games before it. Different does not always mean better. AC Odyssey is quality stuff using the same impressive game engine. Compare that to the AC Unity mess which had me deserting the franchise until Origins won me back.
justerthought's comments