Hm, seems a step back, considering that in Black Flag the French characters had French accents IIRC...
Assassin's Creed - Unity: Dead Kings (Trailer) Well, at least it's free. Wonder how many patches this one will need...
Based on that trailer, the DLC would appear to have more to do with the Progenitor storyline that was completely absent in the main "Unity" game. Since it's free, I'll likely play it to see how/if it advances that particular story, but after the clusterfuck that was "Unity," I can't say I'm motivated to pay for any new AC games.
At this point, I'd probably preorder another game based on the Black Flag/Rogue engine, but I have no interest in Victory at launch.
Oh, I should have said this in this thread: Finding it really strange that in AC: Rogue, they keep referring to the Assassin bureaux that you take down as "gang headquarters"- given the basic conceit of the game it's very strange that they wouldn't call them Assassin HQs, especially since they're draped in Assassin logo flags... WTF is up with that?
I think it's Templar PR - think terrorists vs. enemy combatants. Same people, just given a denigrating name.
Didn't realize "Dead Kings" came out last month. I started downloading it this morning. We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, at least it's free.
Aaaaaand to follow up... "Dead Kings" downloaded yesterday, and I ended up playing it last night. Probably took about 4 hours. It was pretty much a lot of the same. The controls were clunky, and I didn't particularly care about anything I was doing, but it killed some time. It also made me realize exactly why I'm bothered by the lack of "modern day" story. Back during the first few games, the Assassins and Templars were using the animus to seek out progenitor technology. They chose Altair and Ezio because they came in direct contact with things like the Apple of Eden, and those memories helped lead the modern folks to even more stuff. At the end of "Unity," Arno ends up with the crazy progenitor sword. It's a rare piece of awesome technology, but nobody in the real world seems to give a crap. At the end of "Dead Kings..." Spoiler: Dead Kings Ending Arno finds the Apple of Eden. I don't know if it's the same one from earlier in the series or not, though honestly I think it would make more sense if it was a different one given the context of this game. ...AND NOBODY CARES! It's very hard for me to care about the story when the characters themselves don't even seem to care.
For those who were complaining about the lack of modern-day storyline in Unity and wondering where this whole Juno/Sage thing was going (if anywhere), I'm just going to leave this little bomb... here. Those who actually got into the Helix Rifts part of Unity and unlocked the Assassin Intel files will have seen this already (it's the last file). But that was text-only, this is audio that was recorded and then removed from the final edit of the game (to play over the end credits?). For those who didn't bother with it...I look forward to your reaction. Also for those who haven't seen the files, there's another intercepted conversation listed between Juno and Aita the Sage (or whichever human form he's taken now) online. I'll try to translate... Spoiler: WARNING: Probably VERY heavy spoilers for AC Victory and future AC titles... JUNO: "(A) Host Cipher (is) not feasible at present. Parietal and temporal inadequacies abound. As I may not live in a human host, the world must come to me." AITA: "Please advise (me), Beloved. What must we do?" JUNO: "Open the gates. Lead the people. Enter the Grey. The world of flesh will soon decay. The world of matter is done. Plug in and ascend." AITA: "Must we sabotage Helix? Or hijack (it)?" JUNO: "Coercion. Humans dream of a future in the stars.But their actions befit a race of sniffing dogs. They have no future, no hope, no vision. (They face) imminent self destruction. They yearn for other planets, but inch closer to the Grey - eyes on their feet, hands on their bellies, dreaming of escape. They will not survive off this Earth, but live hidden within it." AITA: "The future is Singularity, Beloved. The world reeks of death everywhere but in the Grey. Better to drop out of the world than rise above it." JUNO: "Yes, Beloved, yes! I desire that you be here with me... that you know this bliss. Where all is possible. Where all history is present. Where all is understood." AITA: "It sounds beautiful, Beloved. I want so much to live within (the Grey). To never leave again." JUNO: "The world is tending this (way). Be patient. In due time, all will plug in. None will leave, not one. Not Clay(!), not Desmond(!!!), not (anyone). All are here with me. All live in bliss. So must you do as well. So must you all. (Precursor DNA) samples collect. (Precursor artifact/ruins) data provide. To revive my race. The Hidden Twelve. To remake my world." AITA: "We long for it, Beloved..."
That's actually some nice meta-commentary about the AC franchise at this point (the out-of-Animus portion of it).
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02...ontent-to-all?abthid=54e50da66dd7a9a949000021 Halle-freakin'-lujah. Now I can finally clear those remaining chest icons off the map.
That was one of the main reasons I quit playing Unity. I'm a completionist, and it drove me absolutely crazy that there were chests blocked because I didn't have a frigging smartphone or tablet. What were they thinking?
There, 100% sync now. Those helix rift artifacts were a complete pain in the ass to collect. Even though there are several on each map, only ONE appears each time you run the map, so you constantly have to restart the mission to get the one(s) you're still missing to appear. This was especially terrible on medieval quarry, as you have to run up the slopes over and over again just to check if your missing artifact is there or not.
I'm so glad I'm not a completionist when it comes to video games. Collecting all that crap has always seemed like a huge pain.
Unlocked the text in Unity already. I don't think that's enough to qualify the game as making progress in the modern-day story, much less substantial progress like the earlier main games. And based on Unity I have no hopes that Victory will offer any more storyline advancement (because if I have no hopes they can't be dashed).
Got Patch 5 for my PC today. Plus: You no longer need that damn tablet/smartphone app to unlock the blue chests and get to 100%. Minus: The game now randomly crashes to desktop after a few minutes (if not sooner). No change at all: Slow/stuttering frames-per-second with no performance improvement on even my very powerful system (6-core, 8 Gb memory, AMD R9 200 video card). And that's at medium settings. I'm...I'm flabbergasted. This has become the textbook case in how not to make a video game. And with Rogue coming out for PC next month, Chronicles China after that and Victory maybe by this summer, Ubisoft's gotta be close to saying "Hell with it, we're done throwing good money after bad, this game's as good as it's gonna get." I really, really hope they've learned from this fiasco.
I thought they were already there, to be honest. Patch 5 surprised me. Must've been cheaper to patch out the need for the app than to fix the app.
Victory has apparently been set for a Christmas release - as far back as they can push it while still keeping to the company-mandated yearly schedule. So nine months to get the remaining bugs out of Unity/Victory's shared game engine. In other news, AC head writer Darby McDevitt vows the modern-day story will come back to the forefront starting with Victory, that the lack of it in Unity ("Nothing that was actually cut") was down to not enough time/resources to spare (it was all they could do to recreate 1790's Paris, apparently, to say nothing of the game engine problems). He also said (in what I strongly suspect will be Famous Last Words that'll come back to haunt Ubisoft): "We've created 500, 600, 700 years worth of [First Civilization] history that we hope to start teasing out for the next 10, 20 years - or however long we're around."
"Whoops, we didn't have time so we didn't bother to actually create a game in Unity. Hopefully the sidequest was enough to keep you busy!"
Yeah, I'm good. At this rate, I'll still be casually chipping away at Black Flag when Victory rolls around. I'll return to the franchise when they do something that actually stirs the pot.