Tag: assassins creed

Video Game Review – Assassins Creed: Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla lets you change Eivor's gender whenever you want | PC Gamer
Eivor the main character (Female) of Assassins Creed: Valhalla

To start I want to say i do not support the way Ubisoft treats it’s employees. I follow gaming news closely and I know about all the internal allegations and misconduct. I fully support the better treatment of workers. I choose to support the games and the franchises because I genuinely enjoy the world the developers and people on the ground create. I support the artists, voices, designers, engineers, musicians, testers, software developers etc etc who make these games come to life. It’s sad that such a collaborative art can be held tight in such a strangle hold of capitalist and dude bro toxicity. So I Support the workers who make these games come to life. I enjoy the games and the world they build for me to experience.

I have always found video games to be a release or escape. Like a good book, movie, or TV show, video games have always given me great stories, interesting puzzles, or downright memorable characters. Assassins Creed Games satisfy all the gaming itches that I feel. I completely understand the criticisms of the game for being overly bloated with side content, or being too long, or having convoluted stories and endings. Those reasons are why I LOVE AC games. Especially since AC Origins, when the series dove more into the RPG mechanics. To me that is when the series really started to shine. I’ve been into the AC series since it opened up a bit in part AC3 with Connor.

This game features a main voiced and acted character, Eivor. You can choose whether you want to play as a male or a female gendered character and the game even slyly justifies you being able to change midway through the game. The game implying that the DNA is so old that the Animus system is unable to determine gender (or something to that degree) It’s a non issue, just thought it was clever. I chose to play as a Female character “letting the animus decide”, it didn’t change for the whole game and I never messed with it again. I think if you make certain choices it may change your gender at some point in the story, but as I said the Animus decided I was a female Eivor for the whole game till conclusion. There is very little difference in dialogue options and story other than the voice of the Character.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

The controls are a bit looser than the past entries. I don’t know how to explain it. The blocking and parrying is a bit delayed it felt, compared to AC Odyssey. I very quickly got used to it and it was a non issue after the first hour of play. Just something I noticed. It may be tightened up now a year and some months after release. All the other functions worked well. There are a lot of systems in this game. But as in any game that is part of the fun of learning and becomes second nature

AC Valhalla is a tale of brotherhood, and loyalty. A story or triumph and a touch of AC’s famous mystical, metaphysical, sci-fi, computer shit. It follows you leaving your clan to attain your own glory and status in the world. Tired of the old ways Eivor and her brother Sigurd, whose family adopted Eivor, decide to leave their clan in the icy north for the shores of what would be medieval England. From there you establish a settlement village by going on viking style raids up and down rivers and the coasts of the beautifully crafted world map. this all gets more complicated when you meet up with your brother and he is obsessed with these strange visions and beliefs. You slowly conquer your way through the land helping replace thrones and otherwise help people along the way. This game loop was fun for me. The characters are well written and voiced well.

I genuinely liked being a Viking and learning about their culture through the games lore and my own curiosity. Assassins Creed games genuinely interest me because they inspire me to learn more about the time setting and see what may or may not have been actual history and what was completely AC Fiction. Regardless it inspires me to do light research into history to further personify the character I’m spending dozens of hours with.

I liked the raiding aspect and the overall RPG elements felt good. The world they crafted is absolutely beautiful and the Music is solid. The settlement you build feels alive and subtle audio details enrich the visuals, like wind in trees and the sounds of animals and people chatting and singing. The music is enchanting, and I never got tired of stopping at my home settlement just to play some dice, rest, upgrade, or plan my next series of event for the main story. The winter festival was absolutely wonderful and decked out he whole settlement in decorations and let me take part in dorky drinking games and drunken boxing matches. Great little touches like that is why I still admire AC games and the people who make and design them. (NOT shitty CEOs or Shareholders)

The game play loop of conquering areas of the map, raiding monasteries, and upgrading the settlement in pursuit of keeping your brother happy felt mostly balanced to me. I enjoy the combat in these games because I change it up regularly. I don’t repeat the same tactics because then the action would get boring. there are so many ways to take out enemies that the game should only ever really get bored if you let yourself get bored with it. Usually by that time in a game I’m more than powerful enough to just finish the main story at least. There were some good mind****s in proper AC fashion. The ending is bat-shit crazy and begs to be discussed. I implore you, Finish your games.. so we can talk about them. 🙂

Some things that may be seen as negative. Assassins Creed is long. I don’t mind this as much but I also make time to play video games. Someone with less time may not enjoy the sheer amount of playtime it would take to explore and see and keep up with the story. There are tons of side content that distracts you from the main story or conflict. I am used to these games and I have two different play styles. I alternate my time playing side content, collection, and exploration, then the next session I am usually strong enough to power through a larger chunk of the main story or complete a full quest line. instead of constantly distracting myself in-between major story missions. It helps me keep track of where the story is, I’ll get to a good stopping point, and then switch to exploration and side quests.

People who get bugged easily by glitches may be annoyed sometimes. It was never game breaking but during the larger sequences, A LOT is going on on the screen at once. Sometimes I would see some pretty funny glitches. Bodies flying and glitching out in silly ways, NPC’s not helping me bash down doors, and other minor sound and visual anomaly. The one that bugged me the most was the audio being absent in dialogue sequences. The subtitles worked so it wasn’t game breaking but would require me to save and restart from the main menu. Again nothing terrible. I bought it on launch day and in my 100+ hours in the game it only ever fully crashed maybe 2 or 3 times playing on old ps4 hardware. i’m sure it’s a much tighter experience by this time a year on.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Review | Scholarly Gamers

This game was great to me. A wonderful way to spend the coldest parts of the year. A good story where your choices have some impact on the final scenes. Some of the music still rings in my head from time to time. Eivor was a solid character and some of the philosophies they spoke were relatable and thought provoking. I try to go into every game pretending like it’s a new experience. I know games can be cheesy and ultimately fall flat for some people. That’s completely OK. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a long story in a beautifully crafted world. As a player it felt up to me whether I was playing the story or whether I was engaged in side content and collection.
who would enjoy this game.

All in all I highly recommend this game. It’s a long, epic game, but should be experienced by anyone who loves rich colorful worlds, walks through historical settings, or fairly consistent action or exploration. RPG lovers may take to the modern formula of Assassins Creed games as well. This series may have gotten stale for some, but the games have gotten better since Black Flag in my opinion. I finished this game around February of 2021, so it’s been a minute. Just catching up. Thanks for reading, hope this review was helpful or informative.

Pax

Video Game Review – Assassins Creed: Odyssey

I generally like the Assassins Creed series but I’ll admit I got series fatigue after Black flag and never finished Unity and I never even purchased or played Syndicate.  I absolutely love what they did with Origins though and as result I thoroughly enjoyed the newest installment, Odyssey.  I got a Platinum trophy on the Playstation4, thus I fully explored the game and most of what it had to offer.  This game is absolutely massive and Gorgeous to behold.  I must say it is an impressive game even at its worse!  Never once can I say the game is very bad at all there were some minor things I found silly or repetitive but that is literally any video game.

Most importantly I thought the game was fun!  It’s fun and rewarding to explore, the action is fun, and they give you so many options on how to fight and engage the enemy that, as long as I kept changing up my perks and switching up my play style and weapons, the gameplay loop never really got boring even after 100+ hours.  To me that is a pretty good experience.  There was some repetitive stuff but to me it never felt super drab or grindy. 

I truly enjoyed the characters and time setting. I liked the Greek accents even if they were a little cheesy sometimes I thought it felt pretty genuine for the most part. Most every review I have seen or read praises Kassandra as the better and more lively of the two playable characters. I chose her because quite simply a female character adds so much to the dynamic and way I play the character. I personally like the “Bad Ass” female persona, I grew up watching Ripley fighting aliens with machine guns duct taped to flamethrowers. I wasn’t disappointed by Kassandra in the slightest. I read a review that says, “playing as her turns the game from a good one with a solid male lead character into an epic game where you are basically a mini Wonder Woman.” I would definitely agree and second this statement.

The characters felt pretty real and alive. She displayed emotions in a great range, she was funny, and several times I felt the dialogue was specifically tailored to her sex, which to me was refreshing. A friend of mine played through the game as Alexios so I got to hear some of the dialogue and the way people talk to him. There is definitely a difference in the way the NPCs address the main character depending on their sex. It added a nice touch of realism that helped to immerse me in the world that much more.

Some of the Dialogue is kinda cheesy and after spending so much time in the game you start to see the limitations of your choices and effects but The game is Massive and their are so many interesting tid-bits of lore and story, I rarely felt bored and logged over a hundred hours in the game. Better yet I have yet to see any added content so I know I will spend even more time in this gorgeous world. I like how the tale dipped into the legend of Leonidas and the 300 soldiers who fought against the Persian Empire. Some of that kinda gets lost in the story because it is so long, but I was happy with their depiction none-the-less.

The games graphics look very similar to AC Origins. Which I am not complaining about. Origins was a breathtaking game, and Odyssey is no different. I think Origins was a little bit more solid and fluid but Odyssey is larger by a fair degree. Altogether the small glitches and rough spots were easily overlooked next to the beauty and detail everywhere else in the game. I also appreciated the music. As I explored the gorgeous scenery between objectives beautiful female voices echo and twangy sting instruments play serene little riffs that took me to the rolling hills of the Mediterranean.

There were a couple of glaring little things that kinda made me chuckle or were kinda annoying but these ended up being kinda charming, such as the glitchyness of Skyrim. None of these things are game breaking but hard not to notice.

The NPCs dive directly into my horse when I am riding through populated areas. I feel like people stayed more out of the way of my horse in Origins.. but maybe it was just as bad. It’s not a terrible glitch it’s just funny when people are yelling at you to “watch where you are going” as they dive into your horse as it passes them. It happens a lot too.. not just every now and again. I think there is some small timing or spacial issue but I don’t know anything about the technical side of bugs or glitches..

I thought the inventory Menus are kinda clunky as well. I think there should be some kind of fast dismantle option or a way to highlight and sell all of your junk weapons and armor with one button press instead of Ka-chunking through every single piece of worthless armor you collect throughout the game, and you collect a lot, so I found this kinda annoying.

I felt like sneaking and being stealthy was easier than it has ever been. Especially once you power up some of your assassination perks, you can quite literally skip through some of the bases without ever alerting anyone. This is cool and all but I feel like the Enemy AI could have been a little bit better in the hearing and noticing disturbances department. Otherwise I liked how the game kinda levels up with you so when I went back to do missions that I had long passed they were still somewhat difficult and not just a waste of time. I felt like the pacing of the game was pretty good overall.

Lastly, I thought the story was a little bit Convoluted. I ultimately got everything and understood everything but there were some twists that were kinda random and some times in the game where I was like WTF? I feel like they should have gated a couple of the Cultists of Kosmos so that when I got to a certain place, I hadn’t already killed the leader and thus make all of the missions in that area pointless.. This game is so massive that it would be impossible to make it flow without a couple snags. It’s worth noting that most AC games are a little weird when they try to explain themselves.. so it wasn’t too hard to overlook the strangeness of some of the events or pacing issues.

All in all I feel that this is a strong game in the Assassins Creed franchise. I really enjoyed it. It was refreshing to have some RPG elements combined with the glorious action and stealth in the Assassins Creed style. Overall this is a great game for anyone who enjoys big open worlds and lots of exploration. The game was engaging throughout and I still have more to return too and I will. I played a lot of video games this past Holiday season and am just barely now getting to the reviews.

You may not like this game if you dislike long games with Massive and complex stories. There is lots to read and do and can get distracting from the main missions. There is also a degree of grindyness to this game that may turn off some gamers. I don’t mind a bit or repetitive grinding, as I said earlier they give you so many options that the game can only be boring if you play the same way for the whole time.

Definitely recommend Assassins Creed Odyssey.