{"id":379,"date":"2017-11-29T23:18:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T04:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=379"},"modified":"2018-01-13T21:41:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T02:41:21","slug":"game-ramblings-58-assassins-creed-origins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=379","title":{"rendered":"Game Ramblings #58 &#8211; Assassin&#8217;s Creed Origins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/assassinscreed.ubisoft.com\/game\/en-us\/home\/\">More Info from Ubisoft<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Genre<\/strong>: Action\/Adventure<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform<\/strong>: PS4<\/li>\n<li><strong>Also Available On<\/strong>: Windows, Xbox One<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TL;DR<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Combat&#8217;s is serviceable.\u00a0 Best part of actual combat is in the capabilities around stealth and distraction-based kills<\/li>\n<li>Fantastically gorgeous imagining of what ancient Egypt may have looked like<\/li>\n<li>Story serves as an interesting starting point to the lore for the overall story, without the usual distractions of the assassin vs. templar nonsense<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So after a year off, I suppose the question became\u00a0<em>Is this game actually good?<\/em>\u00a0 In general, the answer to that is a pretty resounding yes.\u00a0 However, I also enjoyed <em>Unity<\/em> and <em>Syndicate<\/em> a lot, despite them being an obvious step back from\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em>.\u00a0 What this one has managed to do is smooth out a lot of the core mechanics in the previous titles, while also shedding a lot of the collection madness that plagues later entries.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-384\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-384\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_visuals.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The visuals of the game are an obvious starting point. They&#8217;re pretty universally fantastic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ll start with the obvious one and keep this quick, this game is up there on the list of best looking games ever.\u00a0 A lot of this feels like the culmination of a lot of past games.\u00a0 The water from\u00a0<em>Black Flag\u00a0<\/em>is used here a lot, whether it&#8217;s in sailing down the Nile or puttering around the edge of the Mediterranean.\u00a0 When sandstorm are rolling in they look imposing; when you&#8217;re stuck in a sandstorm it&#8217;s threatening.\u00a0 Humans during cutscenes are significantly less derpy than in the past, and now actually do a good job of getting the emotion of the scenes out there, even if hair is still a bit of a struggle.\u00a0 Even moving into the non-desert areas in the northwest, the plains full of grass and flowers swaying in the breeze are a sight to see.<\/p>\n<p>However, that&#8217;s not important in the grand scheme of things.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s get into gameplay.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_382\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-382\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-382\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_climbing.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-382\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climbing and exploring is still a huge part of the game, and pyramids everywhere give you lots of opportunity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I suspect most people would talk combat, but to me the core of the Assassin&#8217;s Creed games that I enjoyed was the exploration and stealth, and that&#8217;s still a great thing here elevated to even greater heights thanks to the landmarks you get to climb.<\/p>\n<p>The synchronize points were always a fun distraction in past AC games.\u00a0 However, it&#8217;s another entire level when the point is at the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza or at the top of the Pharos of Alexandria.\u00a0 These areas have some of the better pure climbing in the game, and the views from up top are always spectacular.\u00a0 Even better is the fact that any of the historical landmarks you go up to generally have some sort of puzzle-based temple in them.\u00a0 While these are generally quick hitters, some of them get into some pretty neat use of weight-based physics segments to make sure that crashing a temple isn&#8217;t just about climbing in a straight line.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_381\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-381\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_autopilot.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-381\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getting around is easy thanks to autopilot camels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Exploration is aided by the fact that moving around in the environment just doing random things is generally just really easy and a lot of fun to do.\u00a0\u00a0<em>Origins\u00a0<\/em>has had a severe reduction in pure STUFF to do.\u00a0 Ya there&#8217;s still sync points, there&#8217;s still side quests, but there&#8217;s no longer fluff things in the map like paintings or unguarded treasures.\u00a0 What this has been replaced by are small areas such as forts, trading posts, abandoned temples, etc that may contain things to collect.\u00a0 Ultimately this ends up resulting in a lot of time in-stealth either shanking or avoiding enemies, but at least providing some amount of gameplay beyond just walking up to a thousand icons on the map.<\/p>\n<p>The best part of all of this though the process of moving around the world.\u00a0 At the end of the day, the game feels a lot like\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em> despite the lack of pirates and sailing, and it comes down to how you travel.\u00a0 The lack of a distinct singular large city opens up the map.\u00a0 Sure, you have larger areas like Alexandria or Memphis, but the bulk of the map is small villages with a few shops and people, similar to the smaller forts and villages in\u00a0<em>Black Flag\u00a0<\/em>that were found just in sailing around the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p>The horses and camels basically become your sailing replacement.\u00a0 Sure you can move around manually, but the best thing to do is set autopilot and let the horse do its thing.\u00a0 This combines with the ability to swap to the main character&#8217;s eagle, allowing you to scan for resources, look out for enemies, or search for objectives all while your horse heads towards where you want.\u00a0 It takes a lot of the tedium out of travelling, allowing you to focus on other things as you go.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_383\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-383\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-383\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/creedorigins_fire.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-383\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I can&#8217;t avoid the topic of fire. It&#8217;s everywhere and always great.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I guess that leaves us at combat.\u00a0 In a lot of ways it&#8217;s definitely the weakest part of the game, but not necessarily because it&#8217;s bad.\u00a0 In general it&#8217;s just kind of simple, and feels like the backup for when things don&#8217;t go as you want.\u00a0 There&#8217;s both bow &amp; arrow and melee weapons in place.\u00a0 When going into melee, you can do a shield bash as a parry or a dodge maneuver, both of which can be timed against solid and obvious tells in the enemy actions.\u00a0 However, that&#8217;s about it.\u00a0 Ya there&#8217;s some subtleties in the usage of the attacks, but it&#8217;s basically details at that point.\u00a0 The real strength of the combat systems is when you avoid it entirely.<\/p>\n<p>Pure stealth is still the ideal way to go about the game.\u00a0 You&#8217;ve got your straight stealth kills, which is still an effective way to deal with baddies.\u00a0 There&#8217;s also a number of tools in place to cause havoc.\u00a0 A couple of the highlights are the ability to set poison traps on dead bodies or the ability to enrage enemies resulting in them attacking each other.\u00a0 There&#8217;s also the little use of fire.\u00a0 You can have swords with fire, bows with fire, set horses on fire, shoot pots that explode into fire.\u00a0 Basically, when things go on fire it usually results in hilarious things, even if it&#8217;s a bit dangerous to be around.<\/p>\n<p>So is this a big redeeming game that was worth Ubisoft skipping a year for? I dunno.\u00a0 It feels like a natural extension of\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em>, and not something that they spent an extra year doing something groundbreaking.\u00a0 However, it&#8217;s still a pretty solid game.\u00a0 If you enjoyed\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em>\u00a0but were pretty cold on the games since, this is a pretty solid spot to jump back into the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Info from Ubisoft Genre: Action\/Adventure Platform: PS4 Also Available On: Windows, Xbox One TL;DR Combat&#8217;s is serviceable.\u00a0 Best part of actual combat is in the capabilities around stealth and distraction-based kills Fantastically gorgeous imagining of what ancient Egypt may have looked like Story serves as an interesting starting point to the lore for the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=379\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Game Ramblings #58 &#8211; Assassin&#8217;s Creed Origins&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,37,6],"tags":[18,35,34,29,133],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action","category-adventure","category-ps4","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-assassins-creed","tag-ps4","tag-ubisoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":386,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}