Assassin’s Creed: Unity: Review
WITH Assassin’s Creed: Unity There was a funny thing. Ubisoft Conducts a multimillion-dollar PR campaign of the game, irrigates all the largest industry exhibitions with spectacular presentations, abandons the public with statements about a breakthrough in the genre-and as a result, critics put up almost the same relatively medium score without five minutes, which receives Assassin’s Creed: Rogue – a minor in importance product, the bet on which the developers were significantly lower than. Failure, logical course of events or marketing error?
Return to the roots
About the non -standard work capacity of PRs from Ubisoft we already know firsthand. It is enough to recall the loud promises regarding Watch_dogs. Advertisers rendered a bear cub Assassin’s Creed, Putting her almost in a row with seven miracles of light. Yes, they coped with their task: the audience really believed that Unity will become a breakthrough in the series and acquires new mechanics, converted by parkor and a bunch of other pleasant buns. The great magic of marketing is that although everyone in his soul knew that there could be nothing radically new in the next part, everyone began to behave as if Ubisoft will begin to fountain an unprecedented creative.
What could happen as a result? True, broken hearts, unjustified hopes and painful disappointments. Against the backdrop of high -profile promises and rainbow fantasies, reality always seems to be seree than it is. The list of reasons for the public indignation was crowned by technical dampness Unity. The game came out simply unfinished – with a huge number of bugs. The characters fall through the earth, the laws of gravity every now and then disappear, the textures often “forget” to load in time, and the enemies sometimes try to prove that the zero IQ is not a sentence. Ubisoft already apologized for the misunderstanding, only it was easier for anyone to do.
However, if you forget about technical difficulties and talk about substantive matters, then it is worth recognizing that the concept Assassin’s Creed has already exhausted itself for long and painful adventures of Ezio. It would seem that the developers understood this and changed the course in time. But, having sampled the sea open spaces, we return to our native European continent and find that the WHO is still there. Black Flag was an experiment, a revolution, a radical turn in the development of a series. Unity – This is a return to the roots, to the big cities, Stlas and … at the same time it is a step backward.
You are a Templar, I’m an assassin. We can’t meet in any way
No matter how much hinted Ubisoft, that you can refuse the concept of temporary travels with the help of Animus and leave only the historical part of the Assassin travel, the developers are their own and bring the idea to a very unfavorable appearance. Take a walk along the “Abstergo” or chat with the members of the underground group of the killers will now not come out – the “modern” part boils down to the videos between the missions, in which the assassins of our era, as if justified for what is happening, explain that we forgot in revolutionary France of the late XVIII century.
In the plot component Unity imitates the previous parts of the series. The stories of love, revenge and political confrontation – all these lines are once again intertwined into a complex dramatic knot that we have to unravel. The plot starts quite traditionally: the father of Arno, who barely stopped walking under the table, is killed, a rich aristocrat takes care over the guy, with whose daughter the hero is tied up. The love line is a drama in the spirit of Romeo and Juliet – he is an assassin, she is a Templar, feelings flare up between them. The confrontation of two orders is the engine and shadow side of the historical process, the reliability of which is supported by the presence in the frame of Madame Tussaus, Robespierre, Marquise de garden and many other real historical characters. That’s why Unity He copes with his educational and educational functions perfectly.
The imitation of the second part is also found in vegaspluscasino.co.uk the image of the protagonist. Young Arno is a kind of Ezio young years. A sharp mind, violent character, neglect of norms – all this was fully different from the Florentine Assassin. At first, the character is interesting, but his image under a carbon car is removed from the second part, and therefore it is perceived as non -stale and secondary. And when the guy is dedicated to the assassins, his agility and enthusiasm are completely cooled. Arno will become a gloomy and taciturn type like Radunhanhada, covered exclusively by thoughts about revenge.
Paris, I love you
We will spend most of the game time in one huge city – Paris, recreated, according to the authors, in a scale of 1: 1. Developers worked perfectly on the setting. The surroundings of the revolutionary France were transmitted perfectly: general devastation, scaffolds on every corner, angry crowds, shouting the rebellious slogans. When you sit at the top of the Cathedral of the Parisian Mother of God next to the Stone Gorguli, it makes a trembling – it looks so picturesque and realistic what is happening there, on the streets that are teeming with hundreds of angry Parisians. Colorful videos were not staged, Ubisoft really shows us what non -stroke is capable of.
The city map is dotted with all kinds of synchronization towers, chests, shops, side quests. Unity offers us a rich “sandbox”, digging in which you can dozens of hours. The interface has become a little more convenient to find out about the location of the nearby “interesting” points, you can not turn your gaze to the map – important marks are visualized directly around the Arno model.
But the main innovation that has a direct impact on the gameplay was the emergence of open buildings. Now we can really get inside many buildings through the doors or windows and take a walk around the apartments, and not use the premises only as through corridors, as in the third part. The decoration of the premises deserves separate attention: both huge temple halls with stained glass windows, as well as cozy nests of small bourgeois are drawn and are very carefully furnished, which, of course, plays the hand at the hand.
The overlapping system of Parkuru visually looks good, but functionally often not intuitive at all. Sometimes you experience difficulties with performing certain movements like descent on a wall or repulsive from an object. In general, the movement on the roofs has become a little more complex and slightly less dynamic. This is also due to the fact that it became too easy to get off the chases – the guards do not strive to bother themselves with a climbing building.
Master of fencing
In any conflict situation, it is much easier to give a fight and hide from the eyes of the pursuers than to enter into a fight. But if it comes to the fight, then we have to meet with rather significant changes in the combat system. First of all – visual. It is a pleasure to look at the bloody fountains spraying from the victim after the colorful “fatalI” performed by Arno. The animations of movements and blows were redrawn and became more brutal, but at the same time their number decreased markedly, and the repeating techniques of the assassin begin to quickly come. The very principle of fighting the battle has changed slightly: “block – counterattack” against fighters with one -handed blades and “kuvrok – attack” when meeting with children from a heavier weight category – two tactical approaches, which, after an hourly practice, become a universal remedy in all fights.
The main change in the combat system is the new blocking mechanics. She now began to remind Batman: you will have to press the button at the time the enemy was hit. This did not bring anything radically new, but in the battle you will have to be more attentive to the yellow stripes sunbathing over the enemies. Difficulties arise when the process of monotonous overturning of rivals is interrupted by musketeers, who are quite confidently putting the cross on all Arno plans with only two shots. It is this circumstance that makes you do not climb ahead, but look for safer options for achieving the goal.
The authors managed to complicate the battle process, but this was done due to its primitivization. There were no captures and variable shock combinations left. Moreover, even change the weapon during the fight or pick up the blade lying on the ground. The inventory with the Assassin weapons and inventory. The developers unloaded the garbage box and left all the most necessary. We can capture one weapon from three types that differ in length and severity. However, the method of treating them in all cases is almost the same and comes down to an alternate press of two buttons – attack and block.
A gentleman’s set of killers also includes smoke bombs, pistols and a couple of other necessary “gadgets”. A phantom blade appeared, successfully replacing darts and crossbows. I am pleased that none of the gizmos is lying around the dead load in Arno’s pockets, all of them to one degree or another are useful.
Only now we can use all the equipment far from right away. The French Assassins were far from as smart as their ancestors, and therefore Arno will have to be mastered from scratch, gradually studying the skills and talents that were available to other great killers from birth. “Tuning” includes improvement of health, near and long -range, “stealth” abilities. For example, we can teach Arno such elementary things as opening chests or shooting from pistols. This is done for glasses earned during the execution of missions. In addition, the game has two currencies designed for the “upgrade” of the assassin equipment, and one of them is converted from real money. Microtransactions are not at all required for successful passage, but the fact of their presence is left an unpleasant display.
Do not kill. Or at least hide when you kill
The increased value of Stlass is evidenced by the very appearance of the regime of inconspicuous movement, which was so lacking in the previous parts. As already mentioned, the new “assassin” has grown not so much in breadth as deep. Spacious interior of buildings with a large number of interior items have opened new opportunities for gameplay. Hiding at the tables, beds and altars and in turn, eliminating opponents, Arno becomes something like Sam Fisher. True, stealth mechanics are not variable and worked out to surprise, and the opponents often refuse to notice even an assassin running right in front of their nose due to their stupid. You also feel a strong lack of a cut ability to whistle. But, being successfully built into the traditional parking gameplay, the local stealth creates at least some feeling of freshness.
Assassin missions turned out to be a pleasant highlight of the game: no extra scripts and tough indications of what needs to be done, there is no. There is a goal and a huge territory. Murder planning and a miscalculation of the trajectories of the guards of the guards give no less pleasure than the action. Sometimes there are several options for achieving the goal.
A slightly great variety than usual, and secondary tasks were distinguished. Riddles Nostradamus They will make you slightly move you with gyrus, and the “Parisian stories” will allow you to plunge into separate non-native mini-adventures. Not all of them are fascinating, but sometimes memorable tasks are found. The notorious cooperative missions are also well implemented. In addition, on the streets you will meet many random events like thieves running past or beaten innocent citizens of bandits. In general, in Paris there is something to do.
Unity – cut off from all sides AC. The developers deprived the game of a huge number of achievements of the series. On the one hand, this is bad, since we were already accustomed to the abundance of gameplay opportunities. On the other hand, the stealth charm of the first parts returned to us. But such a coup of a concept that once made Black Flag, V Unity It did not happen. The perception of gameplay remains the same. Before us is again tricked, beaten and a hundred times boring mechanics. From creative rethinking to blind copying – one step. AND Unity This step took.
Pros: Atmospheric image of revolutionary Paris;the presence of open buildings;good opportunities for stealth protrusion.
Cons: The storyline with a boring pathos and a boring hero;A weak AI is unable to support interest in the stels mechanics;lack of many gameplay elements of the last parts;microtransactions;bugs.