It’s hard to discuss such a massive series. It feels as if everything has been said about it and people have largely gotten tired of the formula, but hear me out.
I actually never played any of them, I recently started playing the first one (from 2007) on my Steam Deck and I am actually loving it. It’s such a simple, straightforward game, with a basic but engaging story and honestly gorgeous visuals for the time. The mechanics are delightfully limited, in a sense that it really helps me to turn of my brain and just enjoy myself. I really like the world and how dense it is: all objectives are reasonably close and movement is quick and agile. A real gem for the Steam Deck!
I most certainly will get the sequel trilogy, as that one seems to be loved by a lot of people.
Oh man I wish I’d been old enough to appreciate old assassin’s creed multiplayer before it died. I remember seeing my brother play it but I was like 10 at the time and more interested in cod lmao
Hell yeah it did. I spent 10 minutes sat on a bench not doing anything and it was some of the tensest and best gameplay I’ve had in a multiplayer game.
Chances are, AC2 might absolutely blow your socks off if you’re that much into the first game. It’s a massive step up in nearly every way - except that it went for a softer, more painterly look instead of the sharper, more realistic art style of the first game. The story picks up very nicely too and at least at that point, I was still fully invested in both the Desmond and Enzio part of the narration and how cleverly they were interwoven. There is a tiny bit of bloat, it’s not as focused as AC1, but from the perspective of someone who played the first game not too long after its release, this is highly subjective, since that title almost felt like a proof of concept at times that could have done so much more with its game world than it actually did - and AC2 showed that Ubisoft definitely listened to this kind of very frequently shared feedback back then.
I love the old warning on the Steam store page for AC1, by the way:
Requires a dual core processor or better. Please check system requirements before purchasing.
Those were the days. This was one of the first games I tried on my new gaming PC in 2008 (after the most powerful PC I had regular access to was a machine from 2001, with some 2003 parts) and it was definitely a title that showed off the power of this extremely cheap, yet capable system, just like Crysis and COD4. In a way, this series in particular was a dream come true, since I’ve always been hunting for games that allowed me to truly immerse myself in a 3D recreation of the past. Much earlier, I had gotten a glimpse of that with the basic 3D-rendered scenes of historic buildings in Encarta and the unfortunately very limited (even though I hyped this up to no end before playing it) Pompei: The Legend of Vesuvius (2000), but AC1 far surpassed every earlier attempt at digitally reconstructing historic places.
One can criticize the more modern AC games for a great many things, but one thing they are getting right is that they are putting more of an emphasis on the educational side of things: Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla all come with separate and increasingly fleshed-out educational modes (also available as standalone titles) that remove all normal game mechanics except for traversal and instead offer bite-sized excursions into the world, explaining a little bit of the history, while also explaining some of the decisions the developers had to make during production.
I don’t know if that’s count, but I spent one Summer almost every night playing on an almost dead private WoW-Server with my Brother and my best Friend. Since we were only 3 People and the Server was almost empty, it felt like we had the whole World for us. This was such a fun time back then…
Probably back on dota1 before matchmaking and meta and all that crap, you could play any hero in any role on any lane and everyone was mostly just having fun
Ace Combat 4 and 5 both made me feel awesome, then sad, then vengeful, and then awesome in their campaigns. They start as casual arcade styles, throw in some grief, grow the antagonists’ justification, then the skies start speaking Latin and you systematically destroy some megabase. I was fairly young, so now sad Spanish guitar riffs cause me grief when thinking about Yellow 4 and 13. Is that joy? The memory of a fairly casual arcade game weaving in a heartfelt tragic war story?
At risk of making this my only personality trait, Far Cry 2’s desert at night was a treat for me. I seek out similar experiences in real life now. It didn’t necessarily create that desire, but it was my first open world game, if I remember correctly. It didn’t make me jump for joy, it just made me feel serene.
I’m sure it was driven by the memes, but Portal 1 gave me a great sense of accomplishment. It was mild reaction skill with some decent logic puzzles. The build up, the turn, the fight, the final song. Quite a trip.
Overall most joy might go to Forza Horizon 1. First open world Forza title, first (for me?) open world racing game with decent driving mechanics, excellent variety of cars, hit me at my peak interest in house music and other EDM, showed me Colorado scenery I’d see IRL 10 years later, and the campaign was focused around the Woodstock of a [cars X EDM] festival. I wish that was real and I wish the scene would be respectful. But, unfortunately, you can’t control 300 drivers and prevent them from one-upping each other and making it dangerous and disrespectful. And you gotta pay for parking everywhere nice. See: h2o, ocean city Maryland.
Far Cry 2 brought me joy experiencing the open world format. I fell in love with the desert at night there and now I try to visit real life arid regions at night.
Life is Strange, with the final decision of Bae vs Bay. It made me quit the game for two days before I came back and decided (Bae forever). I love a good, story-impactful decision. That might be weird in this context, but it was so great, and that enjoyment came entirely from the game.
PC only I think, the at style was interesting it was photo/high quality drawn. I remember seeing it on YouTube but can’t remember whose channel I was watching it on.
Not too long after it came out I was good at Siege and I mean good I was ranked in the top 1000 players and I thought that was pretty badass. I got a DM from some guy who was like “Hey I’m from TEAM and we wanted to know if you wanted to try out for our Siege squad?” I said thanks but no thanks, I have a mortgage and a full time and then some job. I dont want to take on the obligation.
I then went and googled the team, I was being courted by serious professional players. I still decided I didnt want that headache but as someone who has always been an underachiever it was like an IRL achievement popup or a level up notification. Like… look what I can achieve when I actually give a fuck and put the work in.
I’ve played a couple of non Zelda Zelda-likes over the years. Here’s a list of some of them.
Anodyne
Blossom Tales
Hyper Light Drifter
Tunic
Ittle Dew
Lenna’s Inception
Ocean’s Heart
Tunic
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
World to the West
I might have forgotten or misremember facets of them by now. Some of them have sequels now, some are more of the same and other more experimental.
Anodyne and Ittle Dew were the most puzzle focused of the bunch from my memory.
Tunic is kinda vague, it tries to capture the feeling of playing a retro game with a missing manual. I remember it having more secrets rather than puzzles. I kinda got the same vague feeling from Hyper Light Drifter too. The vagueness might not be for everyone.
Blossom Tales and Ocean’s Heart felt much like copies of Zelda games. I remember feeling kinda underwhelmed with Ocean’s Heart.
Lenna’s Inception at first glance look a loot like the Gameboy era Zelda, but it does some wired storytelling and also randomly generated worlds.
Hyper Light Drifter was probably the most action focused of them.
Ittle Dew and Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion got a lot of humor. Check their store pages or reviews if it’s your style before going in.
World to the West used a bunch of character switching to solve puzzles around a whole world map. Not so much classical go save to world story and setting, but I remember having a decent time solving some of the puzzles.
Anodyne, Lenna’s Inception and Hyper Light Drifter had kinda bleak stories. Most Zelda games are pretty cozy, at least initially. If you’re not prepared for the tone, that might be off-putting.
Someone named CrossCode, while I don’t really think it’s a Zelda like it’s a great game nonetheless. While definitely not a Zelda like, Toki Tori 2 is a pretty cool mix of metroidvania and puzzles. You only got a few abilities and have to figure out how they interact with the world and it’s critters to progress.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne