Gadgetory

the Assassin's Creed series has been a bit of a rollercoaster in terms of releases some are good some have been all right and some have just been playing bad and in short I'm leaning a lot towards throwing unity in the bad column for quite a few different reasons I'm not saying the game doesn't have it strong points more fun moments but there's a lot wrong with this game in a few different key areas ranging from simple game design choices to writing and voice acting and even just how it performs in general what's up guys Kevin here and before I dive into my list of complaints let's talk about the basics and what parts of the game I do like so far unity is the 5th or 7th main Assassin's Creed game depending on how you count them is the latest one come out for the new gen of systems since Assassin's Creed Black Flag last year which was in my opinion one of the best ones in the series it contains much of the same core in terms of character controls and abilities having players blend in with crowds sneak behind boxes and assassinate foes with a mixture of traditional weapons including swords guns and of course the series standard hidden blade while killing things is of course a given with the game's title the majority over time is spent on the game's platforming and free roam mechanics scaling the sides of buildings running from rooftop to rooftop diving off of towers or just going in directions you originally hadn't planned on now it's different about unity is the addition of two new mechanics which are heavily related first off there's a new multiplayer mode focused on co-op where two to four players work together to tackle a mission together and players now have a much greater degree of customization over the main character Arno's equipment which not only changes his appearance but also affects his statistics which can emphasize one particular play style or form of combat these new customization options are easily my favorite new gameplay aspect in concept its original intent is to help different players stand out and complement each other in co-op missions but even without that it's just a step in the right direction for the series in my opinion as it allows players to really emphasize the abilities and play styles that they like to use the game does throw in some additional new mechanics like getting points from missions to unlock new skills so you're kind of a pseudo leveling up and how many abilities have been locked as well as what kind of equipment you use gives you an overall power rating letting you know if a particular mission is going to be harder or easier for you now whereas Assassin's Creed Black Flag started going in a new direction by focusing on things like the ship based combat more spread-out settlements and more wilderness than city unity is taking a step back to more the style of the original Assassin's Creed games taking place in a gigantic sweeping city scape and I think they handled it actually pretty well this time it's not just that the city is big but there's a lot of details that you can make use of going through people's houses to hide or escape from soldiers having access to underground tunnels and sewers to infiltrate buildings and the games map feature has been improved to give you a 3d layout of everything showing you the pinpoint location of an assassination target or point of interest this is also made use of in the games assassination missions which are a bit less linear than in prior games rather than just give you a specific route to follow or an obvious way to assassinate a target the game allows you to choose to partake in optional side objectives that may make your job easier and let you stock your target to choose when you want to strike though in all honesty things still end up straight forward in some missions but these mechanics being a bit more of an illusion of an open approach while still being more or less linear and this marks the first of my many complaints about this game there's a lot about it that just tries to look and feel more than it actually is and it just ends up falling flat on its face and it's not just how the missions try to make themselves seem less linear than they actually are take the customization system I mentioned earlier which as I said I love the concept of problem is Ubisoft decided that the addition of a customization system would be a great reason to also add everyone's favorite way to bump up in games price microtransactions don't want to grind time away in the game to save up enough money to buy that really expensive 5-star armor that also looks super awesome no problem just by hacking currency with real life money and you can grab it right at the start of the game though to be fair there are some items that are awards from missions instead this is especially annoying considering the fact that money seems to come by a lot slower in this game compared to past Assassin's Creed titles you're never really lacking in it in the first couple of games whereas in 3 was literally everywhere trivializing the little minigame aspects for trading and Black Flag gave you a lot of money but you end up spending a lot of it on your ship so it all balanced out pretty well this time around though money is mostly made from mission searching pockets and opening the occasional chest but the prices of endgame equipment is so much higher than lower level stuff that saving up takes quite a bit of time not to mention the fact that there are several chests in the game that you literally cannot open unless you also download the Assassin's Creed unity companion app for mobile devices an app game that is pretty much the same Brotherhood minigame we've had in the past four games but now on your phone instead of in game to try and create a sense of cross-platform play which really only ends up harming the game sense of immersion since you'll stumble upon a blue chest that you can't open because you just want to play the one game you bought and not download any side apps for two bucks then there's the core gameplay itself which honestly I'm just getting tired of black flag was a great breath of fresh air because it took a lot of the whole Templar assassin space alien thing and put it in the background to the very end and instead focused on the story itself whereas unity is taking a step back to a lot of bad old habits the writing is on par with most of the past games which is a wave of hit and miss lines and it's a bit disheartening that for some reason voice actors this time around were chosen to have British or American accents rather than using French ones to help immerse players in the setting something that has been done since assassin's creed two with Italian accents or like in three with Revolutionary War English or black flags good ol pirate lingo well there are a few new options for what you can do in the core gameplay combatant free room is still much clunkier that really needs to be with awkward-looking combat and free roaming not always sending you in the direction we think it will it never really bothered me too much in past Assassin's Creed games until more games started coming out that did the same thing but better with examples like the batman arkham series or even this year's Lord of the Rings shadow of Mordor I don't understand how at seven games in Assassin's Creed continues to be nowhere near as smooth when there's obvious competition to take inspiration back from and further improve upon now if all that wasn't enough the games also got performance issues galore I can't speak for the Xbox one version personally but the ps4 version features visual bugs left and right and even some awkward moments in gameplay well the pc version simply has some of the worst optimization to see in a game this year with frame rates being well below what they should be for the kind of visuals the game has to offer and to be honest I don't think it's even really that good-looking it is a step upwards in Black Flag especially in characters facial nations and some fine details like a certain delete supporting characters hair but everything else doesn't look any more impressive than what we saw back in black flag despite it being exclusive for the newer gen systems so what some of you may be asking now is well what about the cough you mentioned they added that so maybe that's good enough to bring everything back well yes and then you out about coop was definitely a great addition and one I think the series can benefit from in the long run though it is worth noting that it's at the exclusion of the game's multiplayer which did have its own little small called fan base the problem is the missions themselves are in my opinion really unimaginative and bland they basically boil down to just missions that are harder than normal so teamwork makes it easier now that might sound like an obvious duh kind of thing but when I think about a game like this having comp I want to see something interesting or unique to draw it apart from the single player like having multiple objectives that need to be completed within a certain timeframe of each other forcing players to not just work together but also coordinate and split up at times sure something like that would make pickup groups a lot more annoying to play with but otherwise you have a mode that to me doesn't really do anything making it worth playing outside of wanting to get the immediate mission rewards or playing your game it's a neat side load to do but doesn't go enough for being a new reason to buy the game so in summary Assassin's Creed unity is a combination of the same Assassin's Creed core which could really use a tune-up by now with some new mechanics and modes that would have been really amazing had they not been spoiled with things like micro transactions and performance issues if you're a die-hard Assassin's Creed fan then you've probably already grabbed it and if you haven't you might still enjoy some parts of it to at least devour what new bits of story has to add but to anyone else that just likes to dabble in it or was thinking about starting in on the series since cock is now a I honestly can't say that's worth getting any time soon maybe after a few price drops but for full price it just doesn't cut it at all well that was my review of Assassin's Creed unity if you aren't interested in government copy despite my warnings I do have a link posted down below also down there in the description is a way to follow me on twitter if you guys enjoyed the video as always make sure to hit that thumbs up button let me know and if you haven't subscribed yet hit that button too obviously you guys with some more new content but until then i'm kevin kenzan and i'll see you guys later you