ItsTheNew
I believe any game made before 1997 is "essentially cave man art."
I recently beat AC Valhalla.
I put 66 hrs into the dang thing.
However, around 15 hrs into it, I realized that the game's story wasn't going to evolve past the same story beats of king making for all 13 territories. Later on, my interest of playing the game waned. I started skipping cutscenes, side activities, running through missions instead of completing them "the right way." Basically, I was done moving the controls around and wanted to see the payoff after nearly 40 hrs. ANYTHING!
AC Odyssey has been called too long. I'd agree, but it's main storyline is as long as Valhalla. During that 60 hour playtime the naval combat and sailing system shakes up the gameplay. The boat in Valhalla only serves as a clumsy way to get to raids. So, you don't ever get any on foot gameplay reprieve in Valhalla. You're almost always on foot or on a horse.
This also exposes the monotony with the advertised "raids". These are just bandit camps near the river you have to collect(on foot) 2-4 chests from. Since they all play the same, the other gameplay systems like your crew, your custom npc, hell, even your loot has little to no influence. It's almost all nearly non functional or there to sell cosmetics.
I went online and saw nearly universal acclaim from review outlets, 85% on MC, but only around 70% from gamers.
I've been called jaded before but frankly as I've gotten older my time to play has decreased but my enjoyment for games has gone up. But if I was getting paid to write reviews and I've seen this open world formula countless times, I'd probably rate Valhalla a 4.
So what am I getting at? Reviewers are supposed to be well versed in games, meaning they play many games and are familiar with many contemporary gameplay mechanics. Presumably they have an Assassin's creed fan on staff, or at the very least an open world "expert". If they have to play these long ass games that show nothing new after 15 hrs of gameplay, how are they not voicing what their readers feel? Length bloat has creeped to critical levels. AC Unity's map icons wouldn't make anyone bat an eye at this point.
Putting myself in a reviewers role, it would be tricky to play the main quest, a decent amount of the side quests AND THEN write a positive review all within a week's time. The technical and gameplay issues in my mind would be magnified, especially if you're playing on a deadline, and preparing a review. So please, reviewers of overly long games, do yourselves a favor and ask for copy and pasted 80 hr open world RPGs to cap their paperthin story to 25 hrs max OR make sure there's enough going on to warrant the gargantuan playtime.
I put 66 hrs into the dang thing.
However, around 15 hrs into it, I realized that the game's story wasn't going to evolve past the same story beats of king making for all 13 territories. Later on, my interest of playing the game waned. I started skipping cutscenes, side activities, running through missions instead of completing them "the right way." Basically, I was done moving the controls around and wanted to see the payoff after nearly 40 hrs. ANYTHING!
AC Odyssey has been called too long. I'd agree, but it's main storyline is as long as Valhalla. During that 60 hour playtime the naval combat and sailing system shakes up the gameplay. The boat in Valhalla only serves as a clumsy way to get to raids. So, you don't ever get any on foot gameplay reprieve in Valhalla. You're almost always on foot or on a horse.
This also exposes the monotony with the advertised "raids". These are just bandit camps near the river you have to collect(on foot) 2-4 chests from. Since they all play the same, the other gameplay systems like your crew, your custom npc, hell, even your loot has little to no influence. It's almost all nearly non functional or there to sell cosmetics.
I went online and saw nearly universal acclaim from review outlets, 85% on MC, but only around 70% from gamers.
I've been called jaded before but frankly as I've gotten older my time to play has decreased but my enjoyment for games has gone up. But if I was getting paid to write reviews and I've seen this open world formula countless times, I'd probably rate Valhalla a 4.
So what am I getting at? Reviewers are supposed to be well versed in games, meaning they play many games and are familiar with many contemporary gameplay mechanics. Presumably they have an Assassin's creed fan on staff, or at the very least an open world "expert". If they have to play these long ass games that show nothing new after 15 hrs of gameplay, how are they not voicing what their readers feel? Length bloat has creeped to critical levels. AC Unity's map icons wouldn't make anyone bat an eye at this point.
Putting myself in a reviewers role, it would be tricky to play the main quest, a decent amount of the side quests AND THEN write a positive review all within a week's time. The technical and gameplay issues in my mind would be magnified, especially if you're playing on a deadline, and preparing a review. So please, reviewers of overly long games, do yourselves a favor and ask for copy and pasted 80 hr open world RPGs to cap their paperthin story to 25 hrs max OR make sure there's enough going on to warrant the gargantuan playtime.