Assassins' Screed Origins
The Apple of Eden is back.
This time you play as a girl. Finally we see a female that has the DNA string shared with one of the assassins. The very first one actually : Bayek.
Hes black, he is very black. There's moments when you can only see his eyes shine,or his teeth. This game would be most amazing played on a HDR monitor. And speaking of monitors, this is the very fist game I have played that supports FreeSync. I have played and tested FreeSync on many games,up to the point I started blaming it on my monitor thinking it's new technology and Samsung did not get it right. As it turns out it was actually the games. Black Ops 3 has no idea what FreeSync is,the screen tearing is huge in that game. AC:O delivers on the freesync and on the beauty of the graphics.
Not a better vegetation than Witcher 3 (that one still has the best forest of all time), and not better graphics than Mass Effect Andromeda. But it does have the very best water effect / feeling that was invented till 2018.
AC: O wins best water and best sound effects ever to be made in a game. I was not impressed with Witcher's surround sound, however AC really makes for a wonderful hearing experience.
The story not to good. I felt Ezio's struggle and need for justice and revenge. From Leonardo Davinci (who will ever forget the mission where you had to fly his invention and doge fire lamps in the sky) to all the other characters. That story had life and passion, this one does not. And it really went bad after AC3 ending ,this one is most definitely worst and pale one of them all. In AC:O I know exactly what is going on,but I don't really care, because the game does not make me care.
Everything is full of life and color. If AC: Unity was 100% different shades of grey and the rest of them, with the exception of Black Flag. I feel like the light and shadows are cast perfectly. In caves where you need to light a torch, there are no shadows to dark in the places where do not need to be, and pretty mucha llt he games do this wrong. In Far Cry 3 and 4 I had to turn the brightness up just to see during the night time. Which is very very wrong.
In every game, i never leave the brightness at recommended middle value, i always turn it a bit higher. This time around,the light is done perfect, and i have no reason to turn he brightness up.
You get to meet Cleopatra, and she is kinda ugly.
Getting back to Bayek, the most flexible assassins ever. Every muscle moves, he dodges at the right moment and the fighting is a spectacle. All the games out there, even very much Dark Souls should learn from AC: O how to make a fighting scene look good, and how to make a character mobility feel natural, not like you are controlling a robot. The Finishing moves are superb, they are different for every weapon. One thing that for the first time in gaming is done right, is that: your character does not need to roll on the ground every time in dodges an attack. In fighter will not do that in real life.
It is stupid how in Dark Souls you just roll over and over. Here Bayek knows how to really dodge, and yes he also rolls on the ground moving himself to one point to another, especially when he is surrounded by enemies, which makes so much sense.
And here I have a problem with the difficulty:
- if you play it at easy, it just gives you the story. The is no reason to explorer anything, you don't need money, you don't need gear, you don't need skill. You can defeat any enemy just by clicking on the left mouse button. It ruins the full experience, but they do say at the beginning that this will give you just the story, and in all fairness it does just that.
- In normal, the combat is still way to easy. yes if you ever played Dark Souls, AC:O combat is very easy.
- On hard the fighting is more real, and I love it. But here is the problem, the AI enemies are super stressful and they never leave you alone ,they will chase you forever,they will see you even when you are hiding, in towns its almost impossible to just walk on the streets. The game becomes to hard, cuz of the AI enemy being to insistent.
* I did not mention the arrows dodging that Bayek does. It's superb. The sound helps so much,but also him the way he moves his body when he is running and dodging.
You don't need to farm if you play at Normal. And you can buy loot-boxes with real gold,but they cost 3000....which is impossible to get money,when a weapon upgrade costs 2500. You never have to go back a single time to a place you have been, to farm....everything is in front of you. Take the game as it unfolds,discover every location and the fruits that come with it.
Performance ...I don't know.
Above you see the fps when I was doing video editing with HandBrake. For an hour it edited a video and i had around 30-40 fps. It's not a shooter, it felt a bit slow but still very much playable. I just wanted more from my Ryzen,reason why i got it and i also spent so much money having 3200mHz RAM. Same thing happens when I edit with Adobe Premiere, same fos drop, and for me is kinda disappointing.
Clean I can play the game on Ultra with around 40-50 fps,but ti makes no sense....that was more intended for people with 4k monitors hdr use etc .... I am fine with what you see in the screens above which is Very High. It's almost 60 or less than 60 all the time,I get 40+ as well, but i never feel it. The game is super smooth and I love it.
AC:O is maybe the the highlight of the year 2018 in gaming for me. I love the most a single player story,and 2018 with the exception of Vampyr (late 2018) brings nothing for me. So I play AC:O with the excitement and hunger for gaming as
"this is it" because fora few long months I think it is... Bioware Anthem is coming,but it is more multiplayer. Until 2019 hopefully Bioware new Dragon Age and Cd Projekts Cyberpunk 2077...that is a long way to go.
I have been thinking what this game does for a new comer int he world of AC. And how,and if a new comer will like to play for the very first time a AC game,starting with Origins. I do believe this is a good start. Anyone who does not care about the franchise but is willing to dive into high quality gaming, this is it. Considering how many titles out there cost 40$, this is 100% worth it. They have really taken Origins seriously and it shows. Everything is quality & detail. It might not be perfect depending on what you like, but you get what you payed for, over and over.
)