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[Ywap]

The more i play, the more i like it

Stealth fans should be pleased

 

[touchfuzzy]

I bet these guards thought they'd be safe from the assassin when they got assigned to the post office, of all places. Wrong, suckers.

 

[adamsapple]

I bet these guards thought they'd be safe from the assassin when they got assigned to the post office, of all places. Wrong, suckers.

Basim probably internally monologues "got mail, motherfuckers" before assassinating them.

 

[touchfuzzy]

Basim probably internally monologues "got mail, motherfuckers" before assassinating them.

Like I literally broke into a post office and murdered like 8 guys just trying to do their jobs so I could get a peek at rejected fan mail for a famous poet. Who’s the bad guy here…?

 

[SJRB]

Played this for a bit to see if I should extend my Ubi+ subscription another month. Not only decided against that but ended up uninstalling the game altogether.

It's just so boring. The characters are all unpleasant, the dialogue and cutscenes are stiff and archaic, the story is basically non-existent, mission design is pretty much always "go here, steal/rescue/kill, leave". There's nothing here to keep me interested.

The saving grace, city design and parkouring through it, is not compelling enough to keep playing. The city is beautiful, yes, but parkour is extremely linear with a limited move set and usually consists of following a carefully crafted path with almost no option to deviate. Basim can't walljump, can't run up diagonally, can't parkour down. The freedom is limited, especially compared to Unity, which is the golden standard of freedom of movement.

Cherry on top is jank. Just dumb, typical Assassin's Creed jank that's been in these games for far too long to be acceptable. NPC's t-posing, clipping through geometry, getting stuck on geometry, stupid ragdolling, the extremely dumb "guard gets in the right position so the assassination animation can play", audio bugs. And the game runs pretty damn bad, even on a 4070.

I'm glad they brought back the big city, but man Ubi's next generation of games need a complete (technical) overhaul.

 

[John Marston]

Basim can't walljump, can't run up diagonally, can't parkour down. The freedom is limited, especially compared to Unity, which is the golden standard of freedom of movement.

Cherry on top is jank. Just dumb, typical Assassin's Creed jank that's been in these games for far too long to be acceptable.

Still playing after about 10 hours because I like the world and setting.

Yes I'm back again yelling in my living room "WHAT ARE YA DOIN'??" as Basim just jitters crouched on the corner of a rooftop or stutters in a loop mid-parkour like in a funny silent movie.

You make me want to reinstall Unity

 

[Jibran#one]

Valhalla burnt me out of these ac games , played all expansions but the side content was so much unnecessary junk it really took all the fun away.
Is this alot better than Valhalla?

 

[Games of Today]

Valhalla burnt me out of these ac games , played all expansions but the side content was so much unnecessary junk it really took all the fun away.
Is this alot better than Valhalla?

I didn't even play Valhalla because it looked like ass but I played a ton of Origins and some of Odyssey.

To me this one feels more like Assassins Creed that even AC3. I loved the the original game and especially when I booted this game up for a second time, it gave me this chill over my body that I was just looking at an updated version of the original game running on my PS5.

Don't twist my words, this is NOT Unity and really not anything close. The facial animations are the biggest drawback, they are literally AC3 quality, possibly even worse.

This is the biggest hurdle to get over and if you can the game DOES feel like AC1 with new graphics and old school AC gameplay.

 

[SJRB]

Still playing after about 10 hours because I like the world and setting.

Yes I'm back again yelling in my living room "WHAT ARE YA DOIN'??" as Basim just jitters crouched on the corner of a rooftop or stutters in a loop mid-parkour like in a funny silent movie.

You make me want to reinstall Unity

It's just so goofy when you assassinate a guard near a ledge and it ragdolls over an obstacle and the body just ninja-flips over the edge.

Not to mention this janky shit ruins stealth runs. The whole stealth experience is just super unreliable. And if you can't rely on stealth mechanics in a stealth game, then what's the point?

 

[Games of Today]

Alright fellas, I have completed the game. Wall of text time!

I've been playing AC since its inception and to this day it has a special place in my heart. Mirage is an intended homage to the original, and I can say 100% that they have managed to hit every note and transport me back to the AC1/AC2 days.

- Beautiful 9th century Baghdad setting where the city is the focus and the star. While there is a "wilderness" section, it's not where you spend a lot of time during your gameplay, unlike the RPGs where I felt like it was the exact opposite. For instance I really didn't think Alexandria in Origins or the useless Cyrene had any staying power. That is not the case here. It's an urban focused experience, where AC belongs.

- Very stealth and assassination focused gameplay. Combat is possible, but definitely not encouraged. It's idiotic to stay in combat for too long, and the game really drives that point home. You really get the feeling of being an assassin, a blade in the crowd that gets in and out. That is, or should, be the DNA of Assassin's Creed. Just as advertised.

- Huge emphasis on parkour. They have an awesome city layout in here where there are tons of paths that you can take, a lot of them seemingly intentional. Can't imagine the amount of work that went into this aspect. If you can do it right, you can have some parkour moments that feel cool.

- Linear design, no dialoge options or choose your gender BS. You have a set character that you follow from beginning to end, and certain upgrades, tools and outfits are locked behind main story progression. There's a sense of progressing together with Basim since it's only after you kill certain targets, that he ranks up and tools get unlocked. Kiiiinda like Altair did after losing his status.

- City feels more alive due to a good amount of NPCs, not quite Unity level but much better than the cities in the RPG games. You have a pickpocketing mechanic which doesn't sound too exciting on paper but in practice is actually fun. I pretty much did everytime you could.

- City is more reactive than ever. It's not some insane high end stuff, but it's hilarious that it took them 20 games or something to finally have characters go "HEY! IT'S THAT GUY FROM THE WANTED POSTERS!" or "mfer stole my purse!". You can even see them reporting to guards, and the guards will actively look for you. After a while when they can't find you, they'll go back to the NPC and apologize: "Sorry, there's no one like that here".

- The missions are mostly actually well designed, there are some great ones towards the end which take place in some of the most beautiful places, like the Bazaar or the Palace. That also applies to some of the contracts on your mission board which are side missions.

- The music is insane and really elevates the experience. I'm a huge fan of their composer choice for this one.

There's some more stuff but that's off the top of my head. You can tell that this game OOZES love and respect for the original games. I saw someone say that it's basically like putting AC1/AC2 in Valhalla's engine. That's pretty much how it is. I have no idea how they managed to pull this off considering the assets they had to work with. Of course, it's because of that that it doesn't manage to reach the highs of the earlier games. Parkour is still a little wonky, for instance. However, it doesn't detract from the experience all too much. If you love the earlier games, miss them, want to get transported back, this is literally made for you. It's genuinely fantastic in what it wants to be.

Oh, and I'd have to say that it's very gameplay focused. While the story is important and is obviously the main driver behind everything that happens, it's not great. There's some cool beats here and there I thought, but it's not the star. For those that already know Basim's story due to Valhalla it'll be okay enough, for those that don't, I can't imagine how lost and disappointed they'd be by the time the credits roll. Still, amazing experience that doesn't overstay it's welcome, I have finished it with around 28 hours clocked in, most people probably have a few hours less than me.

8/10.

Yep, this is in short how I would review the game. I'm actually temped to make a full write up post with some example videos. This is as close to an AC1 remaster as you're getting.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

Really nice OT cormack12

Been dodging AC since Origins, but I might pick up this one on a lower price. Feels short and sweet, not convoluted as the previous ones.

Clicking the thread happened to put me at your post so I figured I’d respond.

If you have Xbox or PC then you can sub to Ubisoft+ and play it for $15 if you can finish it in a month. Unfortunately it’s not on PlayStation.

 

[John Marston]

Valhalla burnt me out of these ac games , played all expansions but the side content was so much unnecessary junk it really took all the fun away.
Is this alot better than Valhalla?

I had over 120 hours in Vallhalla and got physically ill 1 hour into the Ragnarok expansion. Just recycled assets & systems.

Think of Mirage as an attempt to get back to the roots but not fully committed.

It's not "better" just a smaller scope AC with its usual jank but remains enjoyable for me so far.

Still should have been priced $39.99 as this was a DLC transmogriphied into a "full" game.

 

[touchfuzzy]

I finished the story and a lot of the side content, 25 hours and I actually really liked it. A nice streamlined experience, no dumb walky/talky sections, no stupid companions either with you or calling you and jabbering the whole time. I'll take a little bit of jank over any of that crap that infests AAA games these days.

 

[Ywap]

I just finished Mirage and did 100% so to speak. All in all, great game imo. I must also complement the fantastic visuals, crowd density and great performance

Some things i would have wanted:

1. Chromatic Abberation toggle

2. Camera auto correction toggle

3. A "hardcore" difficulty mode. Some suggestions could be:

- Only one gadget allowed

- Some skills unavailable, especially the last predator skill where you see the enemies through walls

- No mid mission saves

- More of those "elite" enemies

Anyway, i found it very entertaining the whole way through

 

[touchfuzzy]

I finished off the platinum trophy last night. Some dumb ones for sure (10 minutes is a remarkably long time to be in open combat in this game, you just have to find a mook enemy and dodge easy attacks for 10 mins) but overall not bad, got me to explore a few things I missed. 30 hours total. Had a pretty good time with the game overall.

 

[Jemm]

I finished off the platinum trophy last night. Some dumb ones for sure (10 minutes is a remarkably long time to be in open combat in this game, you just have to find a mook enemy and dodge easy attacks for 10 mins) but overall not bad, got me to explore a few things I missed. 30 hours total. Had a pretty good time with the game overall.

At TrueAchievements there was a tip where you can stay just out of a reach of a snake for 10 minutes and it'll unlock. I used this method and it worked.

 

[Sweden85]

Im sad to say it, its the worst game in the series since AC: Liberation. Lots of unlikable characters.

 

[Ywap]

Only one month until our next Ubi fix

Downloading Origins for the DLC i never played to keep me occupied until the mighty Avatar is unleashed the 7:th

 

[Oberstein]

I'm not embarrassed to say that I much preferred Valhalla. Going back to the old formula with all its inherent flaws doesn't work so well. I'm enjoying Valhalla more now.

It's complicated to want to get back to the basics of a license without reworking the gameplay, because well, ripping off already ridiculous warrant posters in AC2 isn't interesting or innovative.
It's the same for the rest, too much rehashing of old tricks without updating the gameplay.

 

[Ywap]

Im sad to say it, its the worst game in the series since AC: Liberation. Lots of unlikable characters.

Skärp dig!

 

[touchfuzzy]

At TrueAchievements there was a tip where you can stay just out of a reach of a snake for 10 minutes and it'll unlock. I used this method and it worked.

Ah, that would've been good, my method wasn't too bad but did require a little more focus. I just hate when developers add in dumb trophies like that, that there's pretty much no way to unlock naturally while you play.

In the meantime, no trophy for

 

[Sybrix]

Why isn't Mirage on Steam?

 

[Ywap]

I started playing Origins DLC:s while waiting for Avatar and i've forgotten how fun and gorgeous it still is.

Not sure if Origins or Odyssey are my favourite Assassin's game...

Btw. Great feature that you can remove the hud so you can't see the enemies in white or tagged

 

[Ywap]

Can someone find the option to disable Chromatic Aberration mentioned in the patch notes?

 

[ManaByte]

Just finished it. Easily my favorite since Black Flag.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I’ve been eyeing this since release. Played through Valhalla as my first in the serious (not counting about two hours of the first PS3 game) and I was enamoured. Fantastic game. Followed it up with Odyssey, which, as the female protagonist, was amazing. I own Origins, still sealed.

I decided to nab this while it is 40% off for the PS5 disc. UBI had a knockout with Prince of Persia, so I am hoping for something intriguing here.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I’ve been eyeing this since release. Played through Valhalla as my first in the serious (not counting about two hours of the first PS3 game) and I was enamoured. Fantastic game. Followed it up with Odyssey, which, as the female protagonist, was amazing. I own Origins, still sealed.

I decided to nab this while it is 40% off for the PS5 disc. UBI had a knockout with Prince of Persia, so I am hoping for something intriguing here.

Where'd you find 40% off?

 

[Shake Your Rump]

Where'd you find 40% off?

My mental math was off, it is only 30%. Currently on sale at GameStop in Canada. The deluxe edition is also discounted if you want to pay $10 more for skins and a "digital art book".

Anyone in Canada should be using this site:

Game Deals Canada • Video Game Deals for Canadians. Why pay full price for games, Canada?

Rounding up video game deals from retailers for Canadians. Why pay full price for games, Canada?

www.gamedealscanada.com

 

[Shake Your Rump]

So, I received the game and played for a few hours today. My interest in the game deflated pretty quickly. I completely avoid any videos, spoilers, and almost all reviews for most games, so maybe someone here can comment.

Valhalla was the first game in the series that I played. I thought it was great. I spent 100 hours and did almost everything. I then went to Odyssey, and again, it was great. I didn’t finish, but played for 80 hours and came close. Both of these games are heavy on loot and combat, with minimal stealth. I now realize that may be why I enjoyed them so much.

Mirage just seems to be pure stealth. Am I wrong?

What’s with the eagle vision? Is it intended that you will have it enabled the entire time? It ruins the game. In the other games, it is literally an eagle flying overhead, temporarily allowing you to see and mark enemies. Vision here is simply a wall hack that shows you all enemies, items, etc with no consequence. It doesn’t make sense, but you are seemingly forced to use it at all times while in a hostile area.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

So, I received the game and played for a few hours today. My interest in the game deflated pretty quickly. I completely avoid any videos, spoilers, and almost all reviews for most games, so maybe someone here can comment.

Valhalla was the first game in the series that I played. I thought it was great. I spent 100 hours and did almost everything. I then went to Odyssey, and again, it was great. I didn’t finish, but played for 80 hours and came close. Both of these games are heavy on loot and combat, with minimal stealth. I now realize that may be why I enjoyed them so much.

Mirage just seems to be pure stealth. Am I wrong?

What’s with the eagle vision? Is it intended that you will have it enabled the entire time? It ruins the game. In the other games, it is literally an eagle flying overhead, temporarily allowing you to see and mark enemies. Vision here is simply a wall hack that shows you all enemies, items, etc with no consequence. It doesn’t make sense, but you are seemingly forced to use it at all times while in a hostile area.

Mirage is definitely supposed to be a bit less like those two you mentioned, so that could be part of it. It's supposed to be more like the older games, though I have yet to play it myself and am on pretty much similar blackout so can't confirm. As far as Eagle Vision, I can't imagine they expect it to be on all the time. In the older games it was for specific instances or moments.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Mirage is fantastic, first Assassin's Creed since II that I've platinumed.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

This shows how long it’s been since I played the other games. I didn’t remember this wall hack ”vision”, but I watched a Valhalla video and it was there as well. The difference is that, in Valhalla, it’s activated by holding R3, so you can just send out a pulse to quickly check your surroundings. In Mirage, it’s a toggle on the d-pad, which is far more annoying. I wonder if that can be changed in the settings.

The eagle still works as usual.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Mirage is fantastic, first Assassin's Creed since II that I've platinumed.

I really need to play this.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

So, I received the game and played for a few hours today. My interest in the game deflated pretty quickly. I completely avoid any videos, spoilers, and almost all reviews for most games, so maybe someone here can comment.

Valhalla was the first game in the series that I played. I thought it was great. I spent 100 hours and did almost everything. I then went to Odyssey, and again, it was great. I didn’t finish, but played for 80 hours and came close. Both of these games are heavy on loot and combat, with minimal stealth. I now realize that may be why I enjoyed them so much.

Mirage just seems to be pure stealth. Am I wrong?

Valhalla was actually the first of the new games that could be played in full stealth, and they got rid of a lot of the loot elements from odyssey and origins, they also got rid of level gating, so it's closer to mirage than the others, but yes mirage is a more focused experience of just building up to an assassination, basim isn't a warrior like eivor or a demi-god like kassandra.

The eagle still works as usual.

It actually regressed from valhalla, back to how it works in odyssey, the eagle cannot tag enemies in valhalla because it slowed down the game flow a lot before every encounter.
Mirage is slower from the jump so the eagle can now tag enemies again, it even has upgrades to tag a whole bunch of enemies at the same time.

But yeah eagle vision is super strong in mirage, you'll have it on a lot almost like batman's detective vision; the constant wallhack is too good not to.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

We really need console hardware that can put out 4K/60. I played all day yesterday in quality mode. Today, I decided to try performance mode and it looks terrible in comparison. I think the higher framerate makes it look even worse, because you can see more of the missing detail.

For people who have played most of the games in the series, which game was the most recent to actually explain the Animus?

I only have a partial clue due to playing the first few hours of the first game on PS3. Odyssey and Valhalla are heavily based around it, but never explain what is going on. Mirage (so far) just ignores the whole thing, despite having a few callbacks in the loading screens and menus. It's also kind of weird that the towers are still used to "synchronize" when the game doesn't explain what that means.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

We really need console hardware that can put out 4K/60. I played all day yesterday in quality mode. Today, I decided to try performance mode and it looks terrible in comparison. I think the higher framerate makes it look even worse, because you can see more of the missing detail.

For people who have played most of the games in the series, which game was the most recent to actually explain the Animus?

I only have a partial clue due to playing the first few hours of the first game on PS3. Odyssey and Valhalla are heavily based around it, but never explain what is going on. Mirage (so far) just ignores the whole thing, despite having a few callbacks in the loading screens and menus. It's also kind of weird that the towers are still used to "synchronize" when the game doesn't explain what that means.

what do you mean with explain the animus? Like how the actual machine works?
That stuff kinda ended when desmond died, by now they just expect you to know I guess.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

what do you mean with explain the animus? Like how the actual machine works?
That stuff kinda ended when desmond died, by now they just expect you to know I guess.

Yeah, the whole thing about being in someone else's memories or whatever. If I hadn't done the tutorial of the first game, I wouldn't know anything about it. I was curious when they stopped explaining it. I don't even know why they continue with it. Odyssey and Valhalla would have been fine if they had completely left out those parts. Hell, Valhalla probably would have been better!

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

We really need console hardware that can put out 4K/60. I played all day yesterday in quality mode. Today, I decided to try performance mode and it looks terrible in comparison. I think the higher framerate makes it look even worse, because you can see more of the missing detail.

For people who have played most of the games in the series, which game was the most recent to actually explain the Animus?

I only have a partial clue due to playing the first few hours of the first game on PS3. Odyssey and Valhalla are heavily based around it, but never explain what is going on. Mirage (so far) just ignores the whole thing, despite having a few callbacks in the loading screens and menus. It's also kind of weird that the towers are still used to "synchronize" when the game doesn't explain what that means.

Def agree we need better upscaling on consoles so every game can be 4k as a baseline. So much of that fine detail is lost at 1440p and below. I was so pissed when Ubisoft lowered the resolution of Valhalla on PS5 ...it launched at 1600p then a few weeks later it gets a patch that made it 1440p

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Yeah, the whole thing about being in someone else's memories or whatever. If I hadn't done the tutorial of the first game, I wouldn't know anything about it. I was curious when they stopped explaining it. I don't even know why they continue with it. Odyssey and Valhalla would have been fine if they had completely left out those parts. Hell, Valhalla probably would have been better!

Yeah they stopped after black flag, desmond is dead and abstergo gets his body/dna so they can continue the research into the ISU by framing the animus as a video game, so in black flag you're essentially playing a video game inside a video game until the assassins come and tell you the truth. This protagonist "disappears", but its likely he was turned to the assassin faction.
In rogue you play a new abstergo employee who gets a choice at the end to join the templars, or die, nobody knows what happens but they probably joined.
Unity and Syndicate basically have abstergo's video game empire in full swing and an assassin uses their tech to go through the memories of arno/evie/jacob, their fate is also unknown.
Origins started a new trilogy with a new named protagonist, layla hassan, who was an abstergo engineer who wanted to work on the animus, she modifies a portable animus to be able to read different dna than from her own lineage and eventually finds the remains of bayek and decides to relive his memories.
Abstergo/templars didn't like this so they try to kill her and she winds up joining the assassins; if you've played valhalla you know how her story ends.
For mirage it's not known who is reliving the memories, but it's probably william miles, desmond's dad.

They keep these stories because it's essentially the main story of assassin's creed, all the diving into memories is to just find where the godlike ISU artifacts are stored; the templars want to control the world with them, and the assassins want to stop them, so whoever manages to get the DNA and get through the memories first wins.
The ISU parts are also just a cool way to weave/explain mythology into the games, instead of just ignore it an keep it purely historical.

 

[Bartski]

Just as expected from a project on a budget, in Mirage - "back to the roots" is all about back to systems designed in 2004 that felt fresh in 2007.

I may have played way too much TLOU2:R last month but man, since both are so heavy on stealth action... if Mirage was released in 2023 - Part 2 feels like a game from 2030.

Stealth is a complete joke. You can literally clear out whole enemy squads by whistling in the same patch of grass. Plenty of cool gadgets on paper, all made irrelevant by how dumb and blind enemies are against their own untrimmed lawns and your mandatory x-ray vision.

Combat sucks. The only saving grace is a parry mechanic resulting in some flashy-looking finishers, has probably the largest timing window I've ever seen and that's a plus 'cause if this was any harder I would have dropped it.

Worst of all, the parkour feels horrible, just fighting against constant friction, and getting stuck... Whoever came up with the hold circle to jump off mechanic should perhaps try just playing the game to see how that works in combat.

The historically accurate Bhagdad looks nice but has zero meaningful environment variety from district to district. On a positive note, I did like a lot of the codex and learned some interesting things about the ancient Middle East.

I hate the RPG bloat the series now stands for and never played any of those huge ass ACs longer than a demo. After playing Mirage... Not sure what's worse. I'd love to see a reboot of sorts with more grounded, up close action-adventure vibes like what they were going for with Altair but... this ain't it chief.

6/10.

 

[R6Rider]

Just grabbed a PS5 physical copy for $30. On sale currently on Amazon.