GlitteringSpeed

My system: Gameplay 50, Graphics 30, Story 20. This used to be the most polished AC, until the release of Shadows. Graphics are so good they haven't aged at all and would pass today. Excellent water, volumetric effects - fog, dust, particles, realistic lightning. Impactful, brutal, slightly Soulsesque combat which just works. Excellent animations. Living, breathing open world. Mature story and probably the most likeable protagonist in video games. My only complaint - the main story ends really abruptly and is obviously rushed. But in The Hidden Ones DLC there is "the real" ending. I don't like that they cut off ending and then sell it back as DLC, it's scummy. Also there are a couple of zones, which are completely empty! Which probably is related to the game being rushed at some point. However, since it's quite old, you can get the game with both DLCs with large discount. And on PS5 it plays with smooth 60fps. Gameplay: 5/5 Graphics: 3/3 Story: 1/2, because of abrupt and misplaced ending Total 9/10

My system: gameplay 50, graphics 30, story 20. Ubisoft wants to make a game with a female protagonist but seems terrified to actually do it, all the way until Shadows. Evie is a badass. She's pretty, she walks with a strut and grace. She's smart and on a mission. Jacob is her moronic little brother who tags along, who tries to be funny but is annoying. That's just Quebec studio style - to disrespect anything they touch. Combat is what killed it for me. WHY I have to hit each regular goon 10-11 times in a row to knock them out?! It's very spammy and bad. You also can't freely move in combat, you somehow get "stuck" by design. It tries to copy Arkham Knight combat with timed parries but it does it badly. Story is nothing special. Clear each district from corrupt Templars. Gameplay: 1/5, only because Evie is an eye-candy Graphics: 2/3, generally good but showing age. Being entirely in a city without a need to render landscapes and foliage also "helps", the tech seems to carry what it's tasked. Story: 1/2, for not being terrible and being about AC. Total 4/10

My system: Gameplay 50, Graphics 30, Story 20 It's copy-paste of Origins assets with poor polish and low effort. Despite being newer than Origins and technically having higher res textures, it looks MUCH worse. Origins had volumetric effects - fog, dust particles. Realistic lightning. Realistic materials - marble, metals. Very advanced water physics and fidelity. Lively active open world. Good animations, weighty impactful combat, motion capped cutscenes, lip sync. Serious, mature story, likeable protagonist. And it was about Assassin's Creed. Odyssey got NONE of that all! Ubisoft Quebec seem to just copy other studios' work and then **** on it on top of that! It starts with flat lightning, bland environments, plastic look, awful animations and visuals from last generation. Combat is floaty, weightless and just bad! The open world is an epitome of copy-pasted quantity over quality. It looks like a joke. A parody of Origins. I couldn't believe the same developer greenlit this! And then you got malaka all the time. Sh it and fu ck all the time! I don't mind cursing but this is ridiculous and too much, it's juvenile, it's not serious! Quebec studio got zero respect to anything, including AC. They already attempted to troll AC Syndicate with that moronic male character. That's just what they do. Odyssey also got nothing to do with Assassins at all! Awful travesty ****! 0 on all aspects.

My rating system weights:Gameplay 50%Graphics 30%Story 20,%It looks good but feels bad to play. It also took a creative risk but didn't bother to polish the game. I'm suspicious that the "play as any NPC" doesn't have anything to do with innovation but rather aggressive cost-cutting. No need motion capture - copy-paste Watch Dogs 2 NPC animations which are quite awful and laughable. No need to write protagonist background or voice acting either because there's no protagonist. The de-facto "protagonist" in this game is Bagley - your AI assistant, since he's talking the most and he's the most common character throughout the game.Then the gameplay loop itself - just frustrating. I can't open the door, need keycard. To hack the door, I follow the wire. It leads to a console. I can't hack the console either. But I can proceed by physically destroying it. Shooting doesn't work because **** you. But there's an explosive object nearby - nice, not, as the explosion is out of range! I'm literally out of options, stuck on a mission! I die and go again with another NPC, who DOESN'T have a keycard either but now I can just open the door ??? was it a bug? And was it a bug before or now???Also stealth is bad, if you get spotted, alarms are practically inevitable and you'll get swarmed with mobs. Combat and shooting is bad too. Spiderbot controls are bad too. The only thing I liked was driving around futuristic London, graphics and destruction physics. But driving around randomly gets boring. Car controls are a little too arcadey. And you can't fall through front window on collisions. Car radio options are very few and they all also are bad. Story goes this - techno-fascists have installed a dictatorship and mass surveillance in London and you're there to stop it. But it goes in odds with the gameplay - the checkpoints never do anything to you and everyone's hanging around feeling jolly like nothing's happening, the game world is at direct contradiction with the story. Overall it's lazy, unpolished game, where even innovation doesn't seem like coming from a good place. Even in clothes shops they didn't bother to design interiors - you just stand literally outside on a street, viewing menus... And why London? Because Ubisoft already made the same area of London in AC Syndicate, very likely they just copied and modded that map.. another aspect of laziness, attempt to make a quick buck with minimal effort. Gameplay: 1/5. For driving around.Graphics: 2/3. Graphics are good but lip sync and movement animations are terrible.Story: 0/2. Extremely cliché with it not even reflected in the game world.3/10

My rating system, weights: Gameplay 50% Graphics 30% Story 20% For total 100% This is finally a great AC game, the last before being Origins. It took open world design to the next level: not just dynamic time of day and weather but also dynamic 4 seasons! A lot of visual variety even in the same places. And the rain and snow looks so damn good! Map isn't cluttered with markers but the open world got tons of stuff - you just uncover it via environmental storytelling, or eavesdropping on a random conversation, hearing a rumour, finding a clue. It's for both - quests and side activities. And quests, including main are open too! Too many open world games got linear main story, which seems to be somewhat at odds. Your main quest is also free to be taken in any order you want or can, starting with those targets, of who you got any lead or intel and then going from there. It's innovative, and it just works. Totally makes you feel like a badass detective/assassin, wondering Japan, which looks like a painting, like a dream. If you prefer movie-games which are linear on-rails and cram cutscenes constantly at you, then you probably won't like this game. Combat is weighty and impactful, parkour, stealth and assassinations are the best in modern AC game. The gameplay loop is very, very satisfying. While dual character system adds value to the game, Yasuke is the secondary character, you unlock him only after about the first 10 hours, and if you wish, you can continue playing only with either, you can swap them anytime. While Yasuke is a badass in combat, Naoe is the assassin experience and the whole huge main story is Naoe's story. Yasuke probably would resonate more with Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla fans and Naoe more with original AC fans. The story got some very interesting approaches which I won't spoil. Not just the main quest, even side quests got a lot of good dialogue and background. Story involves real, historical people, although of course it took many liberties for gameplay and dramatisation purposes, it doesn't claim to be historically accurate. While unlike Origins it doesn't have a tour mode, it does have a log of various real things, places, events - everything Japan, which you uncover as you play. Descriptions of castles, temples, historical battles, culture, etc. I did spend quite some time reading those, many of them also come with real photos from museum expositions. It's very fascinating - having an option to learn more about Japanese culture and history while playing a game. Gameplay: 5/5, innovative, polished and very fun, and going back to being an assassin. Graphics: 3/3, not just looks incredibly amazing but features a lot of physics and destructible objects - you can even cut foliage! Story: 2/2, creative and captivating. 10/10

My rating system: Gameplay 50% Graphics 30% Story 20% This is the best couch co-op there is and I wish there were more co-op games with this level of quality and production values. It's creative, always something different and unexpected, sometimes funky and ridiculous but always fun! Coordination is an absolute must. The puzzles themselves aren't too difficult, but be warned that for non-gamers this game will be too hard. While the controls are very smooth, responsive, platforming forgiving, it still requires fast reaction, running while moving camera, double jumping and dashing while guiding your direction mid-air. You have to have at least some action game experience to be comfortable. And later on, especially bosses will only get harder - with many fire and laser particles, crazy, dizzy camera movements and requirements to aim precisely during chaos. Level variation is great, graphics are 100% modern AAA and the story is multi-layered with both womens' characters developing over the course of the game. My only complaint is that there's no single player option even after beating the game, I wish to replay it sometime.

My rating system: Gameplay: 50% Graphics: 30% Story: 20% This game is a corridor walker with zero interactivity. Crazy bloom which was stylish 2 generations ago, to mask bad graphics. Running animations are goofy and shockingly bad. There is no lip sync, it's worse than bad - there are completely random lip movements with zero correlation of what's said. Same also on French version... if that doesn't take you out of immersion, nothing will. It could very well be a mobile game. And it's highly likely heavily generated by AI. Turn-based combat with obligatory dodging and parrying is the worst of both worlds. Just an idiotic design decision. It's like playing a FromSoft game with your feet glued to the ground! You don't get the low pressure planning and strategizing of a turn based combat, and you don't get interactivity and excitement of real time action combat. Parrying is also too overpowered. It's very binary - you parry, you win, even if you **** up everything else. All those other skills don't matter. You didn't parry despite doing everything else good? You still get wrecked. It's essentially a rhythm QTE game. Cheap. It also follows the worst habit copied from other parrying games - baiting. There is zero chance to read the attacks and you'll be baited all the time - boss swings back, ready to attack .. soon .. soon .. soon ...soon .. nah ah, not yet.. soon.. soonBAAAHM!! You didn't parry?! You lose. You'll just die repeatedly trying to memorize attack patterns. That's just awful! Story was far too predictable to even bother talking about it. Gameplay: 0/5 Graphics: 1/3 - I was digging the fantasy French theme, that gets the one point. But cheap production and the game world, interactivity and general experience is far poorer than expected. Story: 0/2 you can read a similar quality story in fanfiction. Total 1/10 Perhaps this is what it is - a fanfiction mobile game, which got astroturfed and picked up by the internet hivemind. And nobody dares to say anything - "the emperor's new clothes" saying totally applies here. Think on your own - watch the gameplay videos, play a demo, don't waste your money because of an opinion of a hivemind.

My rating system: Gameplay: 50% Graphics: 30% Story: 20% Result: Gameplay: 0/50%. This is not even a real videogame - it wants to be a movie. Many cutscenes, forced slow walking and talking. Extremely linear corridor walking simulator. "Gameplay" itself is throwing bricks and bottles at enemies, and then engage in piss poor stealth or combat. Controls are very clunky and heavy, there's not even a dodge button! Melee is telegraphed, too slow and animations can't be cancelled. Shooting aiming is poor, reloading takes seemingly forever, and you're often short on bullets. The enemy AI is very stupid which breaks immersion. Gameplay was obviously an afterthought. The same developer made Uncharted 4 so they know how to make gameplay, they just didn't think TLOU needs it. Graphics: 30/30%. It looks almost photorealistic, lip sync is good, motion capture is good, voice acting is good. But it has to be, since this is a wannabe movie. Story: 10/20%. Cliché. Very predictable. Somewhat intriguing but nothing extraordinary. By how much movie-games rely on a story, I honestly expected more. If you do want to see the story - just watch on YouTube.

The amount of lies and fake promises CDPR actually got away is completely insane! The biggest downgrade - removal of 3rd person. This was done only in order not to animate your character! Why have character customization and clothes in the first place??? There's still 3rd person when using vehicles - because then there's no need to animate! Even cutscenes are 1st person. Mirrors require "activation" - so pathetic! This is no longer an RPG, officially. Your choices and lifepath don't matter - at all! The big update exposed how sad is this game - now you can shoot tyres of cars! Now police won't just spawn behind you but you'll have wanted level! Amazing! Kind of **** GTA had decades ago! The world is empty. Not living, breathing. NPC AI nonexistent. You can't buy mansions, not even a garage. No wall running, no verticality. The story itself has been cannibalized by adding Keanu Reeves and making it all about him, not you. You're playing a side character. There's still absolutely atrocious pop-in! The world in general looks ugly, especially in daytime - the lightning is completely flat! The promises and hype all sank like a rock in a river! And THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT! Class action lawsuit settled! Gaming community forgave them! The final product even after all the patches is still nothing at all what was it implied to be. Cyberpunk is one of the worst examples of gaming industry along with ME Andromeda, Concord, DA Veilguard and others. And there's no sign that there are any real consequences of lying and releasing an absolute garbage product - fanboys will swallow anything!

I for one love winter themed games so it's already starting strong. It's mostly platforming, scripted story scenes, and stealth, melee and gun combat. Graphics and FPS are very good. Tombs are very fun and in a good balance of difficulty, complexity. You got several skill tree upgrades, gear upgrades, cosmetic outfits and good, subtle interface. Story is nice, although a bit too predictable. Weak points: During soviet installation, graphical fidelity and general look takes a nosedive and unfortunately it's a large area. You cannot drop aggro, even yellow no matter what. You will be slowly but surely found out and then chased, overran and beat by numbers. This discourages to even bother with stealth and just go guns blazing. Economy. Advanced gear upgrades are to nonsense level expensive. Rappel engine costs 200 ancient coins, after endgame I had 10... and I did many optional tombs... Maybe I'm missing something. Overall it's a strong game with few weaknesses, I also recommend checking out the rest of the trilogy.

This is THE game of the generation! Amazing graphics, haptic rain effects, buttery smooth 60 FPS which stays stable 100% of the gameplay. OST so incredible, unique and creative it should win GOTY, it's not just the usual choir, violins and piano - you also got rock, metal, dubstep, d'n'b, even k-pop and it's all with impeccable quality and creativity. Combat is the strongest aspect, it's very deep but introduced and developed gradually, so you're never overwhelmed. It's like DmC meets Soulslikes. Parrying is slightly delayed, tied to animation which is about 0.5s so it's not instant, it takes some practice and often demands to learn, predict and time enemy movements and attacks, but with good reaction time you can still parry on the fly. Characters, story, voice acting and facial animations are all great! You get 3 main endings. The story is unpredictable, multi-dimensional and frankly underrated. I was constantly yearning to find out what's next in my 1st gameplays. Game is mostly linear but with several large open-world side-quest activity maps available so it's in a way both linear AND open-world. Side content quality is good, no filler. It also has Point of No Return endgame, of which you'll be warned before you choose to proceed. Your character has no levels, but your weapon does. You have access to several cybernetic augmentations, several different skill trees and many different cosmetic outfits, which are not microtransactions but included already for free - crafting blueprints you can either get from NPCs or find in the world. While many of them are sexy, they're never crossing into NSFW or nudity category, even the most revealing ones. And they're always fitting into the theme - cybernetic, high-tech, modern. You do also have plenty of more conservative outfits too, the variation is large. Eve is also always stoic and mission-oriented, she's not a giggly sex object at all - she's a super-soldier from the outer space who just happens to have more risqué outfits. Overall, very very few games have made me so entertained, engaged and just happy. Don't sleep on it!

It's so lazy and dishonest it's simply incredible! Bait & switch right from beginning! The beginning area around the 1st boss looks gorgeous - but everything after looks awful! I felt cheated by buying it. Just because it's on Unreal Engine 5 means little. You'll still see very low res textures like on PS2/PS3 era, pop-in despite close field of view and generally lazy, low detail design enemies... who are SO overused. You'll be repeatedly killing the same husks until you'll feel sick! Traversing is probably the worst in the history of gaming, it's a linear game with only one path but it forks a lot and deep, and also vertically. You'll spend a lot of time just to hit a dead end and clueless where to go next. Difficulty is non existent. Mobs are not threatening, bosses are attack sponges. The game feels very anticlimactic and even broken - it feels like playing with cheats turned on. There is no music mostly. Only during boss fights. The game is very quiet. Voice acting also is painfully cringe and uninspired. Note this is after version 2.0 which was supposed to be amazing. I wonder what kind of garbage it was before! It's also FAR too similar to Dark Souls, to the point that if FromSoftware wanted to sue them, they could win easily. I really wonder why they don't. It's even more similar than another FromSoftware creation - Bloodborne. But it doesn't have the detail and quality of Dark Souls. A hollow imitation.

Probably the best and most expansive RPG ever, but it's not perfect. The game contains 1 small intro map, 2 very large main maps, further expanded by HoTS DLC, 1 small outro map, and 1 large B&W DLC map.Loading screens will never be an issue. Side quest / activity quality is on par with the main quest. The game looks gorgeous despite being already 10 years old. Especially water and sunlight. RPG element is strong - your choices matter and have consequences. Characters are charming, interesting and the story compelling. Facial animations are very good and lifelike. And Gwent is totally not overrated. Now the weak points: 1. The main story boils down to "Find Ciri before she gets caught and murdered" the sense of urgency is always there but it's in a direct conflict with the very large amount of side activities. 2. Horse controls are still frustrating. 3. PS5 version somehow got even WORSE pop-in than PS4 - rocks, grass, foliage, building textures. It's honestly unacceptable on the next gen hardware, but it's already known that tech is not CDPR's strong suit - see Cyberpunk 2077. 4. Balance. Sign build is very underpowered compared to both Alchemy and Combat.5. Combat is a bit floaty and not feeling impactful or visceral. It's not that bad as people say but if you compare to Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor, Mad Max, Spiderman, etc. you'll feel that it definitely COULD be better. Overall, if you're into RPGs, it's a must play. If not - manage your expectations. It's very good but it has weaknesses.