In praise of Ubisoft

Not an April 1st joke. For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege are actually very good games. I just got back to them past month and I'm having a blast. For Honor has one of the best fighting system I've seen (forget Nioh, Souls or Sekiro crap, this is the thing) and R6 while still kinda twitch based is a tactical paradise that rewards awareness and coordination if you're not twitch gifted like me.

Never thought I would say this but, Bravo Ubi!

 

Now if only you could play them without their shitty Uplay bloatware...

 

The "kinda twitch based" tactical paradise console FPS. Yeah sure.

 

R6 Siege was pretty good... in it's first 1-2 years.
Now it has become full blown meta. The last time I played it (a month or so ago), pretty much all original operators and some of the first year were all but useless (that amounts to roughly half of the character rooster).

They should've have just stopped adding characters around half of year 2 (even then they got awfully close to break the game) and worked on the overall balance between characters, adding only new maps.

As it stands you now have a game were you have:
-nearly 50 characters (some with very nerfed/situational/redundant abilities and others completely useless that make you wonder why they are in the game), because of this keeping track of the strengths/weakness of each character and how they all affect the others, went from engaging to just down right fucking tedious and tiresome;
-each operator needs around 20 hours of XP grind to be unlocked, and since the characters are what determine your playstyle and overall your enjoyment, we are looking at around 1000 hours of grind and busy work to be able to experience the full content of the game (unless you want to spend 5€ in micro-transactions to unlock each character);
-a very meta experience, were who has the most OP operator fares better (as opposed in the beginning were who was the most careful and cunning had more chances of winning);
-and finally it's a multiplayer game where you can't even say in the chat Nigeria, nibba, and other mean words without getting banned



As for For Honor. Yeah the combat system of the game is very good. If KCD had this combat system it would've been great.

However it's a system designed to fight human-like opponents. So you saying it's better than NIOH combat is a bit untrue since in that game you fight enemies of vastly different shapes, sizes and ways of movement. For Honor system wouldn't work there.
And comparing with Sekiro is kinda retarded, as that game's approach to combat is entirely different.

In games like NIOH, Mount & Blade, Dark Souls and Severance the combat is "slower" and more methodical (one thing you can even see in these games is that they all have a focus on resource management - like stamina). This were the For Honor falls in.
While in games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God Hand, Ninja Gaiden and MGR, the combat is fast and about aggression (they play more like fighting games). This is where I would put Sekiro.

I still prefer NIOH or Severance combat, but For Honor is also very good. But it does have some similar problems to R6 Siege.
-the new characters added are not very balanced, and some are just too OP;
-you also need to spend a good amount of time to unlock each new character (not as much in R6, about 10 hours which is still enough to put someone off);
-very little content - there are not many maps and even less amount of game modes;
-again chat censorship nonsense;

This is also a major problems of both games. Plus the fact you can't self-host a server or have direct IP and server lists - also in For Honor you can't LAN play, and in R6 you can't play against bots.

 

Now do offline games...

 

FFS, redirect the OP to GameSpot already.

 

Kill yourself. Preferably with that system.

 

lol, Siege is a hero shooter like Overwatch. It's just wrapped up in R6 branding. If you like that, then great. I myself have found some amusement in it.

But the last real R6 game was Raven Shield. Real tactical games will always have a heavy element of twitch gameplay when push comes to shove -- and no ridiculous 'hero powers' you can just call upon.

 

Can't comment on either of the games you mentioned, but I Rayman Origins/Legends

 

Don't credit Ubishit for Michel Ancel's work pls, thanks.

 

Disagree. The new Rayman games suck compared to the original trilogy.

 

Bullshit.

I played in first year too and the game is MUCH better now. The bigger number of agents added much more tactical variety to the game, the sort of counter-counter-counter that allows for a fuckton of possible teams and situations. And speaking of balance, I'm actually surprised at how much balanced the game is despite the big number of agents. Frankly, from the 40 or so agents right now, only 2 or 3 feel pretty useless (Tachanka, Kapkan and Blackbeard IMO), all the others have clear roles whose importance will vary depending on map and game mode. And what's more, the original agents feel the most straight useful for most situations, while the new ones combine roles or add new ones. The best example of this is Thermite (original) vs Hibana (new). Thermo is still the best pure breacher there is, opening holes big and fast enough for the whole team to blitz, while Hibana does holes that are smaller and slower but at the advantage of doing it at distance (thus more safely/with less exposition) and optionally making kill holes. The strenght of each will depend on map, game mode and if you're going team vs solo.

I agree here. The game is obscenely grindy. Ubi should be ashamed of this shit. I got the full blown edition in a sale, so I have all agents.

Bullshit. The game is still about who shots first and on target, and have better map awereness. It's common seeing veterans picking the RECRUITS-type agent still and moping up the floor with all those pretty agents...

...which leads to my only grudge with the game: I WISH it was less reliant on twitch skillz and more on proper tactical-awereness and agents specialties. Luckly, on PS4 people can't headshot as frequently as on PC so it does reward more awereness in a way (I know I've been getting my kills exactly like that, something I couldn't do on PC due to everybody being a perfect Robocop headshoting people blind).

 

Nah I stand by the comparison. Sekiro is basically a rhythim game of deflects, something For Honor also does. The difference is in Sekiro you must find the fixed pattern each boss has, while in For Honor the rhythm is dictated by each human opponent, so it will change based on: a) human opponents style and b) mindgames. While in Sekiro a boss will change his programmed pattern based on the phase of the fight, on For Honor this change will be based on your opponent realizing "Oh he likes to one-two from the left and then throw a heavy from the right" and then countering that in some way. Then the opponent will realize the change in pattern and counter-adapt. Mindgames bro.

Further, For Honor system is MUCH more robust than Sekiro or Souls. You can attack from different directions, feint, parry, grab, dodge, etc. and each fighter will have different moves based on his style and weapon so a fast left from the Berseker will be completely different from the Shinobi which will be different from the Knight, etc. requiring players to learn individual characters styles. Compare that to the "barrel rolling/parry competition" from Souls or "press the same button a thousand times" from Sekiro and it's not even a contest.

I honestly think 90% of Souls fans in the Codex never tried For Honor. Otherwise this game would be much more respected.

 

No kudos from me until they bring back Rayman and resurrect Prince of persia.

 

No, because 3 is nothing compared to 2.

 

3 is better than 2 IMO. I much preferred 3's humorous tone to 2's more somber mood.

 

If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Rayman 3 might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't.

Honestly 3 is a good game. It was just too different and random for me. I didn't really play the first one so I'm not sure which one is closer to the original vision. Either way, all those rabbids and old ladies don't appeal to me. I want to fight the forces of darkness and save the dying world.

So I'll not praise Ubisoft.

 

I'm not sure the first Rayman could be said to more resemble 2 or 3. It's sort of its own thing.

 

And until they return Rainbow Six to the level of pre-Lockdown PC entries.

Raven Shield was already a nice balance between accessibility (you could do operations on your own if you had godlike aim and didn't mind experimenting with your gear) and tearing players a new asshole on each mistake.

And then Lockdown came out and was shit.
And then Vegas came out and was popamole shit.
And then Counter-Strike: Siege came out.

 

Nah Raven Shield was shit. Classic Rainbow thrived on its set pieces, and Raven set pieces were too long and difuse, rewarding more twitch skills than sound strategy n' tactics. The ideal R6 map is the embassy from original one - a small map with three floors and four or so entry points. Bingo! Amazing replayability and emergence with a myriad ways for the mission to develop. Raven missions are not even realistic as most maps have dozens of terrorists. Who da fuck would send an 8 men swat team against 30 or so fully armed terrorists?

If you want to the classic experience, go original R6 or Rogue Spear. Or original Ghost Recon.

 

I like original R6 and Ghost Recon, but still find Raven Shield enjoyable as hell.

Hostage rescue in the Alpine Village is one of the most nerve-wracking missions if you try to solo it.

 

Wildlands PVP is actually pretty awesome, you fight vastly different chars against each other that can still rather easily kill each other.
Like you got a Rambo dude who can activate some replenish life skill, near invisible snipers, drone pilots etc.... Aint the best thing ever
but its pretty fun for a few hours.


If For Honor is anything like it used to be then it turns to shit on higher skill levels, i reached a point where i could parry every enemy attack
was dope as fuck while i was still climbing that invsible ladder... Once i reached my peak everyone could do that and nobody would ever
swing.

 

That must be For Honor on PC, right? On PS4 that ceiling is much higher, as 30fps make it very difficult to react. I'm a hundred or so hours in and didn't reach that point it yet. If you try to just react - specially against light spammers - it's suicide.

...which brings the point: it seems these games are actually better on consoles (or at least their meta are) due to that platforms limitations making em more difficult to master. Weird.

By the way, didn't know about Wildlands PvP. I played it's single-player when it launched and it was great for a handful hours until you realized the game AI is non-existent and the game ends up being about hunting for collectibles in a big but shallow map. I'll take a look into the PvP.

 

Siege is all about map and ability knowledge. Even OW is a much more mechanically rewarding game. I can't believe the amount of people praising Siege and calling OW decline when Siege takes decision making over mechanical skill to a whole new level of autism.

 

And that was the reason it was so successful. It was the "thinking man's" competitive shooter. One where even aimlets like me could fare well because of my superior strategy making and improvisation.
Also what is OW? Overwatch? If that's the case, I am sorry but Overwatch was cancer from day 1. The only good thing it can be said that came out of it was all the cosplay and porn.