• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

STEAM | April 2014 - Insert witty title here.

Status
Not open for further replies.

eyeless

Member
fuuck, missed pixeljunk shooter on my first frantic scan through the list, ah well, thanks for no time to explain burgomeister!
 
There may be one or two keys that are mislabeled or used, hard to check with this many.
Thank you...
DZstaof.png

...for helping me reach 300!
 

oipic

Member
There may be one or two keys that are mislabeled or used, hard to check with this many.

Wow, that is... really quite something, thanks burgomeister!

I claimed Dark Sector, seeing as it's not available in my region (for whatever reason), but it had been used - regardless, thanks mate. :)
 

Tenrius

Member
Got Disciples III. I imagine it took quite a bit of effort to concoct a giveaway of such proportions. Thank you, burgomeister!
 

Tellaerin

Member
There may be one or two keys that are mislabeled or used, hard to check with this many.

I know some people here are going to yell at me for spamming up the thread with thank yous instead of doing it through IM's, but at this point, I don't think one more thank you post is going to hurt anything, so... thanks for Megabyte Punch, man. :D I've been wanting to play that one for awhile now. That was a hella generous giveaway, and I think you just made a lot of folks happy.
 

BinaryPork2737

Unconfirmed Member
Well, I wasn't really collecting any of that stuff anyway. I tried reading the messages, but lost interest rather quickly. It's not that any of this is particularly bad, it's just that you have to repeat everything so many times, it really starts to become routine after a while. Even the story sort of falls apart. It's nice when you steal the ship during that storm and you get a cool dude as your first mate, and there capital letters in the subtitles and stuff. But then it becomes largely incoherent, downplaying all the cool things that were introduced later, capitalizing on the tired assassin mythos that got old halfway through the first game and doing a really poor job of connecting the separated story missions. This may be exaggerating a bit (especially if you lower your standards a bit by comparing it to a lot of video games considered great), but I must say that the writing is just not very good in this game regardless. I see it as a missed opportunity: you take the coolest theme ever, write several characters that are actually interesting and likeable (a feat for Ubisoft Montreal), create some impressive graphical technology including the best representation of the sea in video games ever, you also get some top-notch music and some great game mechanics that just make you feel good (the naval battles, didn't really care much for the usual AC fare, personally) and then what? You fall in the typical AC trap: the story stops to make any sense about 1/3 into it and the player has to repeat every single gameplay element so many times it looks they are meant to stop having fun at some point.

The story definitely feels disjointed since it skips around a bit and then dives straight into the typical "we need to find this magical thing before the bad guys do" plot the AC games follow. The narrative sort of makes sense, but you've got to know at least the basic elements of the past plots in order to make sense of some details. They narrative feels a bit contrived at points, and ended up feeling like a highlight reel that probably could have been crammed into a shorter span of time than it was. The writing could have been handled far better, the characterization could have been done better, but it was serviceable/mediocre enough, although some of the characters just felt pointless other than serving as people you get to kill. I can barely remember most of the plot other than the big plot points themselves. Although random capitalization in subtitles really bothered me for some reason. I never really understood why they did that.

The repetition in the gameplay is definitely the game's biggest downfall. It's been a gripe a lot of people have had with the franchise for many iterations now. Unfortunately, it's the 'trademark' style gameplay that AC games are known for, so the thinking of the developers was probably something along the lines of "we need to have this style or else it would be Assassin's Creed." It's personally one of the reasons why I would have preferred this as a standalone new IP. Even the naval battles get dull after you engage in fighting the same style of ships over and over and over again. A lot of the time I just ended up ramming them repeatedly because I didn't want to circle around them to aim at them anymore. The legendary pirate ships offer a bit of a challenge in the later game, though, and even some of the bigger battles against the stronger ships when your's is weak can get pretty enjoyable and intense. But largely, it ends up feeling like a bit of a chore. One of the good things I can say about IV is that it doesn't feel like a tutorial for the first 5 or so hours of the game like III was. Ubisoft actually sort of learned from that mistake. One of my personal gripes with the gameplay itself is the requirements for 100% sync. I know it's supposed to make the missions challenging, but it just makes it more irritating to me, because to me it's the developers telling me that I should play a game a certain way. I'd rather complete missions the way I'd like to, but that's just me.

The settings themselves are great, though I would have liked a few more "creepy" areas in the game. I feel like that's one of AC's high points that they fail to capitalize on. The Assassin tombs in II could be pretty eerie at times, the Lairs of Romulus in Brotherhood were excellent in tone/style. One of my favorite parts of III was the Mad Doctor's Castle sidequest, and the underground segments felt like a huge wasted opportunity because they're filled with basically nothing when they could have held a lot of potential. IV has a few moments, like the swamp mission and some of the caverns, as well as parts of the diving missions, but overall it really lacks that for me. The sea itself was impressive, and the different conditions really helped to drive that point home. Having spent a good deal of time on the water, I can say that it's the closest thing to actually being on the sea I've ever encountered in a video game. The tropical scenery is great as well, but you run into the problem of the game's bloated quality again with multiple worthless little islands dotting the game world that serve no purpose other than holding collectibles and getting in your way during combat. The cities also felt a bit smaller and less interesting than I would have liked them to, as did some of the other locations like the prison, but I guess that's keeping with the frontier nature of the Caribbean at the time.

As for other stuff, the soundtrack has some really great songs, like Take What is Ours, and the shanties were kind of cool to hear while you travel the sea, though actually getting them was sort of frustrating at points. I was burnt out of playing games with a ton of collectibles after getting all of them in the game. Oh, you got all 200 orbs of adventure? You get nothing, unless you do more Abstergo challenges to unlock the cheats. Most of the sidequest items are fairly pointless or nonexistent, other than a few, like the Templar armor and pistol swords. It just adds to the unnecessary bloat AC IV has.

Still, despite all of its flaws, AC IV was one of my favorite games of last year, though it could have been far better than it was. I'm wondering if Unity and Comet will continue to improve past III or if it will just be more of the same.


That's a nice giveaway, by the way. Shame the one I would have wanted was taken while I was typing this.
 
Just wow, thanks for Huntsman. Hello top of page, just played a comp CSGO match with 1500 viewers, I am a legit celebrity now.

People watches random CS matches? Or are you ha league or something. Back in 1.6 I would alt-tab after i died so I didn't have to watch people camping for 3minutes with an awp
 

Salsa

Member
been the second time now that Playfire hadnt updated in a while and I sent them a ticket and a couple hours later I got my money

so yeah, buggin them after 4-5 days of no activity seems worth it
 

Sajjaja

Member
Oh, okay then. I think you should ask the support. I submitted a ticket way back before the ACIV release and they told me they would honor my preorder, its was a smooth experience.

Did they email you your question? I submitted my question for support and it doesn't show up in "my questions" nor did they email me a confirmation so I sent another as well.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Okay so in another giveaway I unwittingly got Cognition Episode 2, not knowing it is a series. Now I got Episode 1 so at least I can start it properly, but on the Steam store you can still only buy the entire season or nothing. Is there some way to buy the individual episodes somewhere else?
 

Dambrosi

Banned
There may be one or two keys that are mislabeled or used, hard to check with this many.
Holy shit, megagenerosity spotted! You really want that leaderboard position, don't you? :p

Thanks for NEO Scavenger, btw...for now...

Edit: And Astro Tripper!

Edit 2: AND Legends Of Aethereus!
Just one more try and I'll stop, I promise you that I'm not DarthKupi's alt account :p

Edit 3: And - and - the Avernum Great Trials Trilogy! That's enough now, I think.
 

Tenrius

Member
The story definitely feels disjointed since it skips around a bit and then dives straight into the typical "we need to find this magical thing before the bad guys do" plot the AC games follow. The narrative sort of makes sense, but you've got to know at least the basic elements of the past plots in order to make sense of some details. They narrative feels a bit contrived at points, and ended up feeling like a highlight reel that probably could have been crammed into a shorter span of time than it was. The writing could have been handled far better, the characterization could have been done better, but it was serviceable/mediocre enough, although some of the characters just felt pointless other than serving as people you get to kill. I can barely remember most of the plot other than the big plot points themselves. Although random capitalization in subtitles really bothered me for some reason. I never really understood why they did that.

The repetition in the gameplay is definitely the game's biggest downfall. It's been a gripe a lot of people have had with the franchise for many iterations now. Unfortunately, it's the 'trademark' style gameplay that AC games are known for, so the thinking of the developers was probably something along the lines of "we need to have this style or else it would be Assassin's Creed." It's personally one of the reasons why I would have preferred this as a standalone new IP. Even the naval battles get dull after you engage in fighting the same style of ships over and over and over again. A lot of the time I just ended up ramming them repeatedly because I didn't want to circle around them to aim at them anymore. The legendary pirate ships offer a bit of a challenge in the later game, though, and even some of the bigger battles against the stronger ships when your's is weak can get pretty enjoyable and intense. But largely, it ends up feeling like a bit of a chore. One of the good things I can say about IV is that it doesn't feel like a tutorial for the first 5 or so hours of the game like III was. Ubisoft actually sort of learned from that mistake. One of my personal gripes with the gameplay itself is the requirements for 100% sync. I know it's supposed to make the missions challenging, but it just makes it more irritating to me, because to me it's the developers telling me that I should play a game a certain way. I'd rather complete missions the way I'd like to, but that's just me.

The settings themselves are great, though I would have liked a few more "creepy" areas in the game. I feel like that's one of AC's high points that they fail to capitalize on. The Assassin tombs in II could be pretty eerie at times, the Lairs of Romulus in Brotherhood were excellent in tone/style. One of my favorite parts of III was the Mad Doctor's Castle sidequest, and the underground segments felt like a huge wasted opportunity because they're filled with basically nothing when they could have held a lot of potential. IV has a few moments, like the swamp mission and some of the caverns, as well as parts of the diving missions, but overall it really lacks that for me. The sea itself was impressive, and the different conditions really helped to drive that point home. Having spent a good deal of time on the water, I can say that it's the closest thing to actually being on the sea I've ever encountered in a video game. The tropical scenery is great as well, but you run into the problem of the game's bloated quality again with multiple worthless little islands dotting the game world that serve no purpose other than holding collectibles and getting in your way during combat. The cities also felt a bit smaller and less interesting than I would have liked them to, as did some of the other locations like the prison, but I guess that's keeping with the frontier nature of the Caribbean at the time.

As for other stuff, the soundtrack has some really great songs, like Take What is Ours, and the shanties were kind of cool to hear while you travel the sea, though actually getting them was sort of frustrating at points. I was burnt out of playing games with a ton of collectibles after getting all of them in the game. Oh, you got all 200 orbs of adventure? You get nothing, unless you do more Abstergo challenges to unlock the cheats. Most of the sidequest items are fairly pointless or nonexistent, other than a few, like the Templar armor and pistol swords. It just adds to the unnecessary bloat AC IV has.

Still, despite all of its flaws, AC IV was one of my favorite games of last year, though it could have been far better than it was. I'm wondering if Unity and Comet will continue to improve past III or if it will just be more of the same.


That's a nice giveaway, by the way. Shame the one I would have wanted was taken while I was typing this.

You seem to agree with me on most points, the main difference is that you don't see all that bloat as a dealbreaker. I sort of do, but I'm still pretty happy with what I got: 20-30 hours of fun is more than I got from some games. Still, I'd like it to be a more focused, concise experience. It would have been so much better that way.

As for the bolded part, it was a fad at the time: people capitalized first letters of nouns in written English. If you know that, I think it really adds to the atmosphere lol.

Did they email you your question? I submitted my question for support and it doesn't show up in "my questions" nor did they email me a confirmation so I sent another as well.

I don't really remember, but I think I used their overcomplicated system and then got an email or several. I think I submitted it on a Saturday night and got the answer the next Monday, don't remember anything about a confirmation. You got me curious, so I'll submit my own ticket a bit later (tomorrow, too sleepy now), so don't worry too much lol, one of them has to work out.
 
People watches random CS matches? Or are you ha league or something. Back in 1.6 I would alt-tab after i died so I didn't have to watch people camping for 3minutes with an awp

People watch randoms sometimes, and I am pretty high level, but in this case some guy named Unlucky brought a ton of viewers in from twitch, it was fun, we won.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom