daninthemix
Member
I was not expecting this. The ‘other’ 2014 AC turns out to be not just the better game of that year, but the best AC I’ve ever played. To illustrate why the game is good, I am inevitably going to have to crap on AC Unity to a certain extent, which I am always happy and willing to do.
Essentially what we have is the refined movement and combat of Black Flag (which is to say, as refined as an AC game can be) without all the awful regressions of Unity. It has the naval exploration, combat and upgrading of Black Flag, and a better version of New York from AC3. You take over outposts and liberate districts from the city, renovate buildings to increase income, fight and board other vessels to upgrade yours, conquer forts, loot warehouses and investigate islands.
Taking over outposts is a lot of fun. You have three objectives – normally locate and kill the enemy commander, cut down the flag, and rescue someone. Do those and the area is yours, you have a new base and fast-travel point, and your income increases.
As you play a templar, assassins sometimes lie in wait around the city, hiding in haystacks or bushes. A whispering sound gives this away, getting louder the closer you are. If you get too close they’ll pop out and attack, though you can counter-kill them like any other enemy. An interesting new idea, but somewhat overused.
It has Black Flag’s crafting system for upgrading Shay (main character), and I love how you have the option of either hunting animals for skins, or just paying money and buying the skins instead. Good call, Ubi.
It’s better than Black Flag because so many of Black Flag’s main missions were ghastly, with far too much tailing enemies/eavesdropping, and also too much ship combat (I also hated the diving missions). Here the missions are just better, and neither ship combat nor anything else overstays its welcome, which is something I can’t really say since AC2. There can be too much of a good thing, and the last few ACs have certainly demonstrated this (they also had plentiful bad things, too). Rogue is smaller, tighter and simply more satisfying.
The gameplay is the best of any AC to date. Parkour and combat certainly aren’t perfect, but Shay is a much lither character than Unity’s heavy and ponderous Arno. The counter-kill system works so much better than Unity’s awful, dragged-out combat because it gets it over and done with rapidly and with the minimum of fuss.
Berserk darts are one of the funnest of AC’s inventions, and Rogue is obscenely generous with them, unlike the paltry two Unity gives you by default, and they also shoot much further. Not only are they more plentiful, but looting enemy bodies often replenishes them, whereas it hardly ever did in Unity. It’s as if Ubi perversely identified what was fun about Black Flag, and did their damndest to ration and/or eradicate those things from Unity. What a weird company.
I love, love, LOVE the fact that you can just walk around without being scrutinised and/or attacked by guards. It seems in every prior AC, the world centered entirely around you. Guards were always looking at you and only you – even in a city with thousands of people. That never made sense. Here, they’ll only attack if you attack someone first, or if you enter a red zone (which are rare, thank goodness). I only wonder why it’s taken ten games for us to get such a common-sense improvement to the fundamental rules of AC.
The environment is my favourite of all the games, because it’s the perfect blend. Whereas Unity is just one large city and Black Flag was a sprawling tropical mass of islands, Rogue has both a city (New York) and two large ocean areas (one arctic, one tropical) dotted with islands, alcoves, warehouses and settlements. Crucially, none of the three areas are so huge you feel overwhelmed, nor are the collectibles and activities so densely packed that you never feel like you’re making progress, as was the case in prior games. Every time I’ve played, that percentage meter has advanced by a few points.
In terms of problems, they are fairly minor:
- I wish AC would just ditch the secondary mission objectives altogether (e.g. send 5 guards to sleep, hang this dude with a rope dart, etc). Few people value them, and they’re just a mechanism for forcing you to undertake missions in a certain way, when they should be more open if anything. Ubi’s job is to create the world and scenarios, not dictate our path through them. If they want to do that they should stay away from open worlds.
- There are too many assassins lying in wait around New York. This is only a problem because the constant whispering becomes an annoying distraction, and if they do attack, then defending yourself often causes open conflict with any guards who happen to be in the vicinity. Also the effect is dampened. The occasional assassin lying in wait would be really cool – here it becomes boring all too soon.
- When taking over an outpost, for some reason your darts (sleep and berserk) don’t work on the enemy commander. Okay, makes no sense but I can live with that. However, even using your berserk darts on other enemy soldiers will cause the enemy commander to magically discover you and run off, even if you shot them from cover. That’s dumb.
I played on PC. Much like Unity, there’s horrible aliasing all over the place, but because it’s such an undemanding game I was able to whack it up to 4K DSR which takes care of most of the jaggies and ends up looking pristine.
So uh, well done Ubi. I am pleasantly surprised.
EDIT: oh yeah, and the game has some really, really lovely music. We're talking AC2 quality here.
Essentially what we have is the refined movement and combat of Black Flag (which is to say, as refined as an AC game can be) without all the awful regressions of Unity. It has the naval exploration, combat and upgrading of Black Flag, and a better version of New York from AC3. You take over outposts and liberate districts from the city, renovate buildings to increase income, fight and board other vessels to upgrade yours, conquer forts, loot warehouses and investigate islands.
Taking over outposts is a lot of fun. You have three objectives – normally locate and kill the enemy commander, cut down the flag, and rescue someone. Do those and the area is yours, you have a new base and fast-travel point, and your income increases.
As you play a templar, assassins sometimes lie in wait around the city, hiding in haystacks or bushes. A whispering sound gives this away, getting louder the closer you are. If you get too close they’ll pop out and attack, though you can counter-kill them like any other enemy. An interesting new idea, but somewhat overused.
It has Black Flag’s crafting system for upgrading Shay (main character), and I love how you have the option of either hunting animals for skins, or just paying money and buying the skins instead. Good call, Ubi.
It’s better than Black Flag because so many of Black Flag’s main missions were ghastly, with far too much tailing enemies/eavesdropping, and also too much ship combat (I also hated the diving missions). Here the missions are just better, and neither ship combat nor anything else overstays its welcome, which is something I can’t really say since AC2. There can be too much of a good thing, and the last few ACs have certainly demonstrated this (they also had plentiful bad things, too). Rogue is smaller, tighter and simply more satisfying.
The gameplay is the best of any AC to date. Parkour and combat certainly aren’t perfect, but Shay is a much lither character than Unity’s heavy and ponderous Arno. The counter-kill system works so much better than Unity’s awful, dragged-out combat because it gets it over and done with rapidly and with the minimum of fuss.
Berserk darts are one of the funnest of AC’s inventions, and Rogue is obscenely generous with them, unlike the paltry two Unity gives you by default, and they also shoot much further. Not only are they more plentiful, but looting enemy bodies often replenishes them, whereas it hardly ever did in Unity. It’s as if Ubi perversely identified what was fun about Black Flag, and did their damndest to ration and/or eradicate those things from Unity. What a weird company.
I love, love, LOVE the fact that you can just walk around without being scrutinised and/or attacked by guards. It seems in every prior AC, the world centered entirely around you. Guards were always looking at you and only you – even in a city with thousands of people. That never made sense. Here, they’ll only attack if you attack someone first, or if you enter a red zone (which are rare, thank goodness). I only wonder why it’s taken ten games for us to get such a common-sense improvement to the fundamental rules of AC.
The environment is my favourite of all the games, because it’s the perfect blend. Whereas Unity is just one large city and Black Flag was a sprawling tropical mass of islands, Rogue has both a city (New York) and two large ocean areas (one arctic, one tropical) dotted with islands, alcoves, warehouses and settlements. Crucially, none of the three areas are so huge you feel overwhelmed, nor are the collectibles and activities so densely packed that you never feel like you’re making progress, as was the case in prior games. Every time I’ve played, that percentage meter has advanced by a few points.
In terms of problems, they are fairly minor:
- I wish AC would just ditch the secondary mission objectives altogether (e.g. send 5 guards to sleep, hang this dude with a rope dart, etc). Few people value them, and they’re just a mechanism for forcing you to undertake missions in a certain way, when they should be more open if anything. Ubi’s job is to create the world and scenarios, not dictate our path through them. If they want to do that they should stay away from open worlds.
- There are too many assassins lying in wait around New York. This is only a problem because the constant whispering becomes an annoying distraction, and if they do attack, then defending yourself often causes open conflict with any guards who happen to be in the vicinity. Also the effect is dampened. The occasional assassin lying in wait would be really cool – here it becomes boring all too soon.
- When taking over an outpost, for some reason your darts (sleep and berserk) don’t work on the enemy commander. Okay, makes no sense but I can live with that. However, even using your berserk darts on other enemy soldiers will cause the enemy commander to magically discover you and run off, even if you shot them from cover. That’s dumb.
I played on PC. Much like Unity, there’s horrible aliasing all over the place, but because it’s such an undemanding game I was able to whack it up to 4K DSR which takes care of most of the jaggies and ends up looking pristine.
So uh, well done Ubi. I am pleasantly surprised.
EDIT: oh yeah, and the game has some really, really lovely music. We're talking AC2 quality here.
