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Assassins Creed Valhalla - set in the Viking age - now on Steam

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Codex Year of the Donut
Odyssey was probably a fluke but yeah it's good
They got the bright idea of taking interesting mechanics from a bunch of different popular games and smashing them together while de-emphasizing the ubisoft formula.
 

Zarniwoop

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Yeah, an Assassins Creed game where you can't assassinate anyone. Awesome concept 10/10 GOTY material.
 

cvv

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Odyssey is basically Witcher 3

Valhalla is to TW3 what Aliens are to Alien - a dumb but enjoyable action sequel to a smart and stylish masterpiece.
Heard even worse things about Valhalla in terms of how it portrays history.
Yeah I wanted to say "Odyssey is to TW3...", my bad.

As for Valhalla, AC was never super concerned about portraying history faithfully, it has always been full of great historical detail but Ubi never let history stand in the way of mass-market entertainment.

It's about as faithful as the TV show Vikings, i.e. not much but it's not an all-out assault on your intelligence either. If you wanna something a
 

Zeriel

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Odyssey is basically Witcher 3

Valhalla is to TW3 what Aliens are to Alien - a dumb but enjoyable action sequel to a smart and stylish masterpiece.
Heard even worse things about Valhalla in terms of how it portrays history.
Yeah I wanted to say "Odyssey is to TW3...", my bad.

As for Valhalla, AC was never super concerned about portraying history faithfully, it has always been full of great historical detail but Ubi has never let history stand in the way of mass-market entertainment.

It's about as faithful as the TV show Vikings, i.e. not much but it's not an all-out assault on your intelligence either.

IMO the original was pretty grounded. 1 & 2 are very, "Okay this kind of makes sense, secret society based on templars a few hundred years later isn't that unbelievable in a make-believe kind of way", but with 3 and onwards they just completely jumped the shark. The moment they went "ackshually templars predate templars and the crusades existing at all" was the moment they became an absolute joke.

And 3 and onwards is also when they started advertising the whole "this game is made by a team of dindus and trannies" disclaimer and became openly woke, with templars being associated with ebil right-wingers and etc. Before then it was relatively "okay".
 

Zarniwoop

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IMO the original was pretty grounded. 1 & 2 are very, "Okay this kind of makes sense, secret society based on templars a few hundred years later isn't that unbelievable in a make-believe kind of way", but with 3 and onwards they just completely jumped the shark. The moment they went "ackshually templars predate templars and the crusades existing at all" was the moment they became an absolute joke.

And 3 and onwards is also when they started advertising the whole "this game is made by a team of dindus and trannies" disclaimer and became openly woke, with templars being associated with ebil right-wingers and etc. Before then it was relatively "okay".
Yeah the first one made great effort to fit in with real history. One of the things that drew me to the series. And made me hate it later when they abandoned that.

The THIS GAME IS MADE BY A MULTIKULT TEAM PLEASE DON'T SUICIDE BOMB US ISLAM IS PEACEFUL disclaimer was there from day 1 though.
 

cvv

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IMO the original was pretty grounded.

Gotta admit, never really played the first game. Bought it for peanuts on GOG three years ago, tinkered with it for an hour or so but by that time I was already spoiled by later sequels and the original felt incredibly anemic, repetitive and BSB.

I remember loving AC2 but again - full of genuine historical detail (buildings, clothes etc.) but I also remember riding a wooden tank or some such and blasting enemies. So whenever "fun" calls for some ridiculous "AWESUM VISCERUL" moment Ubisoft doesn't hesitate to crank it up to eleven, history be damned.

Btw if ya'll wanna play a truly grounded, historical Viking game go for Expeditions: Viking. An amazing party based, turn-based, Fallout-like RPG with great attention to historical detail, made by actual Danes :obviously:.
 
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Zeriel

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IMO the original was pretty grounded. 1 & 2 are very, "Okay this kind of makes sense, secret society based on templars a few hundred years later isn't that unbelievable in a make-believe kind of way", but with 3 and onwards they just completely jumped the shark. The moment they went "ackshually templars predate templars and the crusades existing at all" was the moment they became an absolute joke.

And 3 and onwards is also when they started advertising the whole "this game is made by a team of dindus and trannies" disclaimer and became openly woke, with templars being associated with ebil right-wingers and etc. Before then it was relatively "okay".
Yeah the first one made great effort to fit in with real history. One of the things that drew me to the series. And made me hate it later when they abandoned that.

The THIS GAME IS MADE BY A MULTIKULT TEAM PLEASE DON'T SUICIDE BOMB US ISLAM IS PEACEFUL disclaimer was there from day 1 though.

Was it? Huh, guess I just forgot it. But AC3 to me seems to be the moment where they just went overboard. I still liked parts of it, but it's the point from which it really starts to become a slog of having to ignore like 50% of the game to enjoy the other 50%. And it was mostly just carried for me by the fact I really love snow environments.
 

Atlantico

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Really? I do dig Greek mythology and classical period aesthetics, but I've avoided the game solely because it's a recent AC title. Should I reconsider and give it a try?

It's basically larping as a mercenary in ancient Greece, and very light on the AC part.

It's open world, and well worth it if you want to play an action RPG set in ancient Greece. Just avoid the DLCs, they are trash... as Rusty said, this game is probably a complete fluke.

So if you get the base game on deep discount, like 20 bucks, go for it. I hate AC, and I still liked this.
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
But AC3 to me seems to be the moment where they just went overboard. I still liked parts of it, but it's the point from which it really starts to become a slog of having to ignore like 50% of the game to enjoy the other 50%. And it was mostly just carried for me by the fact I really love snow environments.
I like 3 solely for larping discount tarzan.
 

Tyranicon

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One thing I'll give 3 is the fucking brutal combat moves. The only good thing about synched combat is that the animations did look sweet.

Animation-wise, everything from Origins onwards is steep decline.
 

Zeriel

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Worth noting that the meta/modern-day plot in AC is irrredemable shit, and the developers continue forcing the player to sit/play through it.

Yeah, that they killed off a character that a lot of people generally liked in favor of the manboon of the week is the ironic part. It's like they want to be hated.
 

cvv

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In the first few games the metaplot was fantastic, it made the series interesting and unique and the idea of playing a game within a game and the associated mechanics was p. cool. But from AC3 on it became more of a meme and now it's way beyond funny or even embarrassing.
 

Atlantico

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In the first few games the metaplot was fantastic

In the first few games: Fantastic? No. Serviceable, at best.

Ironically it was still better than the main plot by comparison – which is damning with faint praise – , since the meta-plot was little more than a crutch to explain why there were invisible walls to prevent you from exploring the world, linear plot without reactivity and other limitations.

The main plot of the first few games was so bad, it was consistently cringeworthy and stupid, without any self-awareness, the historical inaccuracies so offensively atrocious and daft it beggars belief, and the main plot seemed a satire of extremely stupid dudebro adventure games written by discount-Frenchies on coke.

I guess that made the meta-plot look good by comparison. AC2 is a game that starts out with West Side Story, has quotes like "It's-a-me! Mario!" and has you in mêlée combat with the Pope and his magical papal staff.

The stupid was laid on thick and only the most ignorant NPCs unironically claim any historicity with this juvenile and low-information fantasy schlock.

When the games became open world and started to incorporate RPG elements, the meta-plot lost all purpose and has been an albatross on the series ever since.

The current-year female multicultural POC "protagonist" of the meta plot has nothing to do with that. It would be as stupid and as redundant with that insufferable twat Desmond. No, it's albatross because it serves no purpose anymore and only distracts from the main strength of the games today, i.e. that they are open world fantasy RPGs set in historical times. To be torn out of that into a meta-plot at random, is a fundamental game design flaw.
 

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