Assassins Creed Mirage - standalone Valhalla spinoff set in medieval Baghdad

[PorkyThePaladin]

Origins and Odyssey were ok for Ubisoft style open world romps, kinda formulaic by the numbers games with high quality production but soulless content. Valhalla was so boring, even Ubisoft players could barely stomach it.

 

[racofer]

https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comm...lar-anti-piracy-software-hours-before-launch/

 

[Vyvian]

Mack takes issue with all the "modern conveniences" in the game that basically make it play itself.
Also X-Ray Vision!

 

[orcinator]

Mack takes issue with all the "modern conveniences" in the game that basically make it play itself.

So he's saying it's an Assassin's Creed game?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Deserts are fucking boring. I just want to climb gothic cathedrals in Europe.

 

[Oracscube]

Well I'm enjoying it, you can do the missions in different ways, you can stealth them without killing or kill everyone.
I don't know why reviewers are complaining about the combat being too hard against groups, if surrounded, use your fucking tools and learn to parry.
Yes you can cheese certain stealth mechanics, but you can cheese in any game I just never felt the need to do it and just played naturally
It is very similar to the older creeds, if you like Creed games you'll like it, if you don't you really won't.
I've played 15 hours and hardly touched the main quest, I don't know why everyone rushes games.
..and no romances and everyone telling me they are gay, unlike in Valhalla..probably thought the Muslims would set them on fire.
I like petting the kitties.
It's very relaxing
I'm actually reading the Baghdad codex entries
I can't stop pick pocketing
I like walking around Baghdad and the game looks really good in 4k
I like the music

Please rate this post poppamole

 

[Vyvian]

They are probably complaining because in recent AC games you were basically a berserker that could use stealth if you wanted to.
Alexios/Cassandra and Eivor could rush into battle and easily dominate groups.
This looks to be focused on stealth and Basim being relatively weak in direct combat which is good if it's true.

 

[Oracscube]

Basin isn't weak in combat if you know what you're doing and the kill combos are great fun.
However stealth is the main aim

 

[toughasnails]

Depressing thing here is that the return to stealth focus could've only been a return to their early formula, and a pretty uninspired one from what I can see.
Now imagine a Hitman-like game set in medieval Baghdad, with disguises, infiltrations, hidden poisons, arranged "accidents" and "suicides"... A plot focused on labyrinthine political intrigue, seasoned with that Arabian Nights mystique.

 

[ferratilis]

AC1 still holds up in many categories, animations especially. Actually, AC1 is the only entry in the series where you could completely turn off the HUD and look for targets by yourself, based on information you're provided. You know, like a true assassin would. No need for minimaps and quest indicators. Of course, that went away immedialy after, in AC2.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

I find this entry difficult to stick with. Going back to the series' "roots" is huge downgrade from the Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla IMO.

The combat was never good in the RPG titles but it feels way more jank in Mirage. Enemies alternate between power attacks and regular attacks so you have have to choose whether to dodge or parry respectively. The problem is with the enemy animations. Their attacks come out so quickly it's hard to consistently react accordingly. It feels unfair and not very fun.

Every side activity is a mini puzzle on how to enter a building, but the whole city looks samey so it makes it more annoying than fun. It feels designed to pad out the time it takes to complete minor content and I find it exhausting personally.

Traversal is straight up ass. I loaded up Origins and Odyssey just to confirm I wasn't misremembering and yeah, the parkour is way better in those games.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Origins and Odyssey were ok for Ubisoft style open world romps, kinda formulaic by the numbers games with high quality production but soulless content. Valhalla was so boring, even Ubisoft players could barely stomach it.

Valhalla is the most profitable game Ubisoft had ever made. People ate that one up.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The selling numbers of any game are often tied to the success of the previous one from that company/franchise, not so much its own. See Starfield...

 

[deuxhero]

See also: Battle Network 4 being the best selling Battle Network game by far (excluding the compilation). 3 was an excellent game, 4 was horrible.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The selling numbers of any game are often tied to the success of the previous one from that company/franchise, not so much its own. See Starfield...

How long do you think that last? The game came out November 10th 2020, and was one of the best selling games in American in 2020 and 2021. You think it was still riding the wave of the previous game going into the next calendar year?

I’m sure it’s very easy to find people on the Internet saying how bad Valhalla is. And it’s definitely overly repetitive, (the combat kind of sucks [although better than The Witcher games people seem to love] and the further gimping of ship stuff [which I think only happens because of their perpetually in development Black Flag online spinoff game] fucking sucks) but don’t get that mixed up and delude yourself with this idea the game not doing well. Valhalla is the most profitable game Ubisoft has ever made. It’s the first game they’ve ever done to hit a billion dollars. Just a year ago they announced they had 20 million players on it.

---

Shouldn’t Starfield have sold horribly then, given its coming off shit like Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls: Blades? Not only is Starfield coming off two shit game (and Fallout 76 finally getting reviewers and the wider audience to not just handwave what buggy messes Bethesda games are) but it’s also “free” on Xbox Game Pass. And yet Starfield still sold well.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Well, I've never met anyone who said they liked it yet, and even Steam reviews are lukewarm, but you keep shilling for it, bre.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

Went to the AssCreed Reddit and saw a bunch of them nutting themselves over this. What a bunch of simpletons. It reminds me of the "but the people are retarded" meme.

Anyway, there's mild fun to be had here. You can tell it's DLC repurposed as a full game. Ubisoft must have been desperate for a new game to sell since there hasn't been a new Assassin's Creed in years.

Baghdad is cool historical setting. Shame they don't do anything interesting with it. Mirage has none of the awe or wonder found in Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. Maybe there is a cool easter egg or two but I haven't found anything. Other than that this what you experienced in the new trilogy only on a much smaller scale. Ymmv depending on your tolerance for Ubisoft.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

The selling numbers of any game are often tied to the success of the previous one from that company/franchise, not so much its own. See Starfield...

Nah. I think Valhalla sold well because it was different than Origins & Odyssey, at least on the surface. It was the first ac game in half a decade to not be set in a boring fucking desert. Plus, the series had never done Vikings before, and Vikings are exciting, new, and cool.

So what do they learn from that? They decide to go back to the desert and set the whole game in a city full of tiny, copy-pasta'd-looking, beige mud huts that are barely indistinguishable from the beige desert. Yes, ac1 did that and it was massively successful, but ac1 did that partially because ac1 was a shitty tech demo where the devs were trying out the basic gameplay systems and engine without wanting to do something as complicated as Renaissance Italy yet. The setting itself was really dull, though (in fact, apart from the central engine and parkour mechanics, ac1 is a pretty terrible, repetitive, and half-baked game all around).

Also, the people yearning for a "back to basics" like the original ac games were super complicated are idiots. Their combat was always just rock/paper/scissors and had almost no strategy. You could also just hold down the dodge button in crowds and dodge endlessly. The stealth was always overly simplistic and any difficulty involved was mostly just annoyances of waiting long enough for someone to move slightly to the left. All of the original ac games had terrible gameplay mechanics. However, no one noticed or cared because they were usually really fucking gorgeous looking (for their time) and there was usually a bunch of shit to do in them.

Origins' combat wasn't good, in fact it was so basic that it was kind of dull, but it was also the first game in the series to have combat that made sense mechanically. In the other games, you'd just kind of hold down the buttons and see what happened. Or just switch weapons to instantly overpower people. Or just beat on someone while they block endlessly until, randomly, they suddenly didn't block anymore, and you'd insta-kill them, but never be quite certain why.

These games have always been mindless and stupid excuses to just run around gorgeous looking historical settings.

 

[JarlFrank]

AC1 still holds up in many categories, animations especially. Actually, AC1 is the only entry in the series where you could completely turn off the HUD and look for targets by yourself, based on information you're provided. You know, like a true assassin would. No need for minimaps and quest indicators. Of course, that went away immedialy after, in AC2.

Man this direct comparison video shows how little the graphical advances of the last ten years matter.

We could have stopped developing new graphical technology in 2010 and games wouldn't look any worse for it.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Graphical advances are still being made, but the issue is, early 3D graphics looked like absolute shit, and by 2007-2010, polygon counts, texture quality, etc have reached somewhat realistic levels, so all the low hanging fruit has been gathered. Now, to improve graphics, you have to do more challenging shit with less returns on it. Games like Witcher 3, RDR2, CP2077, KCD, etc are still absolutely gorgeous when running on latest hardware, but there will not be the same amount of difference between now and 2007 as between 2007 and say 1999.

 

[deuxhero]

The biggest issue for 2007-2010 games, besides terrible art styles (brown, bloom, potato faces) is the texture quality. Both the PS3 and 360 had terrible ram, so devs would compress textures to shit and give everything a kinda blurry look. Not all PC versions offered higher quality textures. If the actual master file for that texture still exists, such games are one of the few places where a remaster is actually called for. Games from PS2/GCN tend to age pretty well in comparison because most were still using fairly flat textures (even in comparatively "realistic" styled games) where this was never an issue (hard to compress the texture for a character's socks when they're literally just #FFFFFF white).

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Well, I've never met anyone who said they liked it yet, and even Steam reviews are lukewarm, but you keep shilling for it, bre.

Don’t be a fucking bitch about it.

I’m just pointing out reality. And the reality is, despite you reading some Steam reviews (and never meeting anyone who liked it like that means anything) it’s the most profitable game Ubisoft has ever made. That’s not shilling. Pointing out that something, despite its quality, is also the most profitable game Ubisoft has made isn’t shilling.

Now you can say: Oh, well, that’s because of the last game. But how long do you think that kind of thing works. How long does a game coast on the popular of the previous thing. Like sure, the new thing can make money of the back of the previous thing. But how long does that last? The first weekend? The first week? The first month? The first two months? The first five month?

I mean, I kind of hate most of the GTA game, but I don’t also pretend they somehow lost the audience when they all sell so well. Valhalla does a lot of dumb shit, but it would also be stupid of me to frame that as Ubisoft losing their audience with it when they’ve announced stuff like it being the most profitable Assassin Creed and that last year it hit 20 million players.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

AC1 still holds up in many categories, animations especially. Actually, AC1 is the only entry in the series where you could completely turn off the HUD and look for targets by yourself, based on information you're provided. You know, like a true assassin would. No need for minimaps and quest indicators. Of course, that went away immedialy after, in AC2.

Man this direct comparison video shows how little the graphical advances of the last ten years matter.

We could have stopped developing new graphical technology in 2010 and games wouldn't look any worse for it.

I wouldn’t say that. But I do think a lot of developers could release games that essentially have the polygon count of a good looking Xbox 360/PS3 game for the character models, and nobody would really give a shit as long as the textures and lighting looked good.

Hell, I remember seeing that Quake 2 RTX stuff a few years ago and thinking: As long as the textures and lighting are good, people would probably be OK with games that were basically at the level of Quake 2. A modern audience might want better FX on things like blood and gun fire than Quake 2 has, and they might want something more like the damage system of Soldier of Fortune 2 instead of the enemy transforming into a slab of meat when shot, but outside of that the character models could pretty much just be what you’d fine in a (good looking) game between the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

 

[Zlaja]

Vikings are exciting, new, and cool

You serious? Viking shit is so overdone these days. Personally, I just can't stomach it no more. And look where I live, lol.

It doesn't help that every bloody northern tribe/snow niggers in any game setting is always just a take on the vikings.

 

[Oracscube]

Maybe there is a cool easter egg or two but I haven't found anything.

I found a number of interesting things such as..

Spoiler

If you start looking for rare books you'll find the notes of a certain mad arab and the Necronomicon in a ruined Seleucid city and obtain a cthulhu talisman, which I found amusing.

So what do they learn from that? They decide to go back to the desert and set the whole game in a city full of tiny, copy-pasta'd-looking, beige mud huts that are barely indistinguishable from the beige desert.

No, the city of Baghdad has recognizable districts and landmarks with incredible detail, it's been put together extremely well

I've always found the Creed games to be fun, especially if you use a bit of creativity with your kills.










The writing however for Odyssey and Valhalla was obnoxious with ridiculous progressive politics.
Mirage less so, no more female guards for instance, no romances and it is better for it...true there is one stronk female assassin, but surprisingly enough..

Spoiler

You get to smack the bitch down in a fight and make her leave the Assassin Order

Unfortunately the forthcoming Assassins Creed Red looks like it will be progressive bollocks.