Assassin’s Creed Rogue Review

So recently Ubisoft had the bright idea to release two brand new, full-priced “Assassin’s Creed” games at the same time- one called “Rogue” on the current generation of consoles (as in PS3 and Xbox 360) and acting as a bridge between ACs 3 and 4, and one called “Unity” on next-gen (PS4 and Xbone) set in the French Revolution. Unity’s been getting a lot more attention and some have simply swept Rogue to the side, but the joke’s on them, because not only is Unity a buggy, broken mess and Rogue runs smooth as you like, the latter is also a serious contender for best game in the series, and is without a doubt at least one of the best.

You are Shay Patrick Cormac- an idealistic but brash young Irish American and part of the Colonial American Assassins run by Achilles (Connor’s mentor from AC3) in a time after AC4 but before AC3, and as such featuring cross-over characters from each. The well-publicized twist in the tale is that, after a mission in Lisbon goes disastrously wrong and results in the destruction of the city Shay crosses over to the Templar Order and becomes a ruthless “Assassin Hunter”. It’s an interesting set-up, but after the game’s story trailer hit I was worried that the game would simply switch things around so that the Templars are good and the Assassins evil so as to make everything ethically simple. While that is the case in a broad sense, it’s a strong story with enough nuance to make the role-reversal feel natural and believable rather than just an artificial change. Basically the Assassins are painted as wanting freedom at all costs while being unwilling to accept any responsibility for the consequences for this while the Templars seek peace through order and control but due to being seen as evil have to put up with constantly being murdered by Assassins. I won’t be able to go back to an Assassin view point next time- the Templar mindset is painted so well here, at least for me. Achilles’ Assassins are shown as blindly loyal and devoted to their creed to a dangerous extent and Shay has to put them all down for the good of humanity. It’s pretty heavy, particularly considering the series’ usual tone. Compared to the other games the story here feels shorter but leaner- everything here feels necessary whether it be for set-up or part of the pretty hectic work Shay has to do once he’s a member of the Order, and the characters are all pretty strong, with Cormac himself being the clear stand-out. The future sections are pretty much the same as they were in AC4 but with a much better pay-off, and the whole thing ends with a neat twist that joins Rogue and Unity together.

Gameplay wise it’s very much revising and adding to what came before- sailing makes a triumphant return from AC4 but in trickier, often shallower waters, the combat is pretty much the same but with some new animations, an air rifle replaces the blowpipe and can fire three different types of grenades, and forts make a come back, but in reduced quantity. Elsewhere “Far Cry”-style gang hideouts require you to complete three objectives including killing the hideout’s Assassin leader, Assassin ships can be raided (complete with a hooded captain always up for a scrap) and warehouse raids now consist of multiple locked warehouses whose contents combine to make-up the total haul you get from the Island. If the gameplay has a theme it’s making things more involved by adding objectives that need to be completed where killing a certain key individual would suffice, but these manage to avoid feeling like mere padding. The game is split into large areas- New York, River Valley (a large expanse of water with a lot of islands and coastal areas worth checking out) and the North Atlantic- an arctic region complete with heavy snow, polar bears and sheets of ice thick enough for you to run on, which created some nice organic moments where I’d drop anchor away from the island I was infiltrating and sneak in across the ice. Another new feature is that falling into the water while sailing will make you gradually lose health due to old-timey hypothermia (which I assume to be hypothermia but it’s racist and doesn’t think women should have the vote). The combat and stealth are pretty much at an all-time high for the series, with barely any tailing missions or parts where being spotted by one guard who does literally nothing in the second before you kill him somehow alerts everyone on the bloody map and for that, if nothing else, AC Rogue deserves all the commendation it can get.

Overall, “Assassin’s Creed Rogue” is a great addition to the series. It takes the gameplay of AC4 and adds in extra things to do to make it more involved, the story is great with interesting characters and the all important Templar viewpoint is very well done. For my money it’s easily up there with AC2 and AC4 as one of the best in the series, and a serious contender for best in the series. Definitely give it a look- it’d be a real shame if this gets overshadowed by Unity.

By James Lambert
@jameslambert18

Indie Game Super Review, brought to you by Overgamerisation

Because I’m a terrible lackadaisical human being (This is Reuben writing, not James. James has a work ethic) I’ve written barely anything for this blog in the past year. That changes now however, so prepare to have your regularly scheduled itinerary of reviews and well thought out opinions supplanted by my hilarious comic stylings*.

A big part of the reason that I didn’t review anything is that I haven’t bought any new games in about a year. I put together a great gaming PC just after Christmas then realised I’d spent all my money on components so couldn’t get anything to play on it. As a result, I’ve spent the past few months going back and trying older games that I’ve managed to snag in steam sales or, the holy grail of PC gaming, indie titles. Because what better way to celebrate owning a PC with lots of RAM and a high end video card than using it to render 2d sprites? I mean maybe something with 3d graphics and actual effects, but shut up.

*The Reviewing Floor takes no responsibility for any comic stylings that do not reach the appropriate level of hilarity.

To make up for my lack of review writing, I have written three reviews! They might be games that you’ve never heard of, or last heard of ages ago, but they’re really good I promise. Three vastly different games with different genres, mechanics and art styles, all alike in being a lot of fun to play. So we shall begin at the beginning, with…

 

Steam World: Dig

Despite hailing from the overly optimistic school of game naming (see also: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) SteamWorld: Dig has its feet very firmly planted in the ground. Or rather underneath them. You play the part of a steam powered robot named Rusty, who receives a letter from his uncle leaving him ownership of a mining claim in rustic little hamlet called Tumbleton, populated by the usual cast of colourful piston powered locals. He ventures into the mine, promptly finding his uncle’s corpse and setting off on a journey to investigate the secrets of the underground world he discovered. Simple, yet effective opening, and a story that more or less gets out of your way in order to let you get to work.

Dig, as well will henceforth be calling it, bares some initial similarities to other popular underground mineral retrieval simulators Minecraft and Terraria. It seems more visually similar to the latter, but in fact has bugger all in common with either. In fact it’s closer to Metroidvania than a crafting sim. You use your trusty pickaxe to adventure deeper and excavate valuable minerals. Later upgrades like a drill and explosives can be used to break harder rocks quicker and reveal more valuable elements. While there are upgrades available for Rusty throughout, the materials found in the mine are simply converted into gold which can then be spent to buy them. There is also a secondary currency of Orbs, which are harder to find but vital for the higher level upgrades.

Visually, Dig has an aesthetic all its own. Bright cartoony character and enemy models move smoothly and fit into the animated world perfectly. It won’t win any prizes for graphical fidelity, but it looks damn charming and in a game like this that counts for more than lighting effects. Although those are present and look good too. All the models have simple designs and personalities communicated by the odd snippet of dialogue.

Steam World: Dig is  a short game, but one that makes every second of it’s time enjoyable. The three worlds and the selection of puzzle caves that make up it’s 5 hour story are short and sweet and left me wanting more. Which was not something I expected. I was pleasantly surprised by Dig, and I hope we get to see more use of the Steam World Colon franchise.

 

Gunpoint

So next we move onto Gunpoint, a game as different to Dig as a Saturday morning cartoon is to Blade Runner. Set in side a noir world made of grey buildings and shady dealings, Gunpoint follows the exploits of freelance spy and general grey hat Richard Conway, who’s acquisition of some high-tech new trousers leads to him being framed for the murder of a arms manufacturing executive. And his day only gets worse from there. Attempting to rectify his precarious situation leads him into a bitter war between rival companies and the murky underbelly of a town so full of corrupt and incompetent cops it’s a wonder that anyone ever gets convicted of anything. But for all its noir infused sensibilities, Gunpoint has a rather wonderful sense of humour. Every conversation has a wealth of dialogue options and they can take wildly different turns depending on what you say, and to whom. Conway can be a sarcastic asshat or an indifferent gun for hire, sometimes in the space of a single interaction.

Mechanically, Gunpoint falls somewhere between stealth ‘em up and puzzle ‘em sideways. Each mission focuses on one of Conway’s assignments, usual an object to steal or a computer terminal to hack. The aim is to reach your goal, bypass the security systems and guards between you and your loot. But because you’re a spy, a wealth of gadgets and fancy hacking tools are available to you. The aforementioned fancy pants allow you to leap massive distances, stick to walls and break through glass walls. A phone app called Crosslink allows you to wire any two electronic devices together, as long as they have both an input and output. So for example, light switches can be used to activate doors, motion scanners and cameras can trigger electronic booby traps and so on. These devices are controlled via an overlay activated using the mouse scroll wheel and work in real time so getting everything to line up can require quick thinking and quicker fingers. Although initially tricky to get your head around, especially since Gunpoint refuses to hold you hand or mollycoddle you after the initial tutorial level, the hands off approach really pays off when you eventually figure out the solution, as you can be sure that you reached it on your own, without any kind of hint or prompt from the game itself. All the information is there, you just have to know how to read it.

Gunpoint is another pleasant surprise (seeing a theme yet?), a game in a genre that I am both terrible at and has also grown a little stale of late. It’s unapologetically a stealth puzzle game, with none of AAA games concessions to alternative play styles. Rather it rewards creative puzzle solving and lateral thinking. It says a lot about the game that the gun is actually one of the less useful items in it. Or possibly it just says that the game was poorly named. Either way, it’s really good, so go play it.

 

Luftrausers

I have tried on several occasions to write about Luftrausers, and on every single occasion, except this one of course, I have failed. Not because I have nothing to say about it, and certainly not because anything I’d have to say would be bad, but rather  because every time I think about it I remember the theme music and then I have an uncontrollable urge to play it again. However I’ve managed to restrain myself long enough to write the following paragraphs about the 8-bit arcade shooter. On the off chance I succumb before I finish though, it’s really really great.

A simple description might come across a little underwhelming. Or intriguing I suppose depending on your opinions on the following words: 8-bit arcade style bullet hell shooter. Using the arrow keys and the X key you guide your custom made (more on that in a moment) jet fighter through the skies above some duo-chromatic ocean, dodging the other planes, boats, battleships and blimps sent by the opposition to stop you from rausing the luft. Where that gets interesting is in the way you move. The up arrow fires your engines, propelling you in whatever direction you’ve pointed the nose of your craft. Unusually for a game games if this type however, the planes in Luftrausers have momentum. Kill your engines at any point and you’ll start falling, still moving in whatever direction you were travelling. If you were flying straight up, then you have a couple seconds grace before you start falling with style. This might not sound like a much of a gameplay addition but it’s one of those wonderful mechanics that is simple to get the hang of, but makes you feel like a badass once you’ve mastered it.

The other little tweak is giving you a endless battlefield to play in. Most shooters of this type have a limited area you can manoeuvre in, usually equally to the width of the screen. Whereas Luftrausers will scroll either left or right indefinitely, meaning you can feel or chase your foes for as long as it takes to get them right where you want them. Usually on the business end of your machine guns/homing rockets/laser cannon.

The other thing that Luftrausers does to set itself apart from the majority of other games in its genre is the addition of customisable plans. Every plane is split into three sections, weapon, fuselage and engine. Each one of these comes with different properties, usually one pro and one con each. Each individual component comes with an optional objective, usually revolving around killing a certain number of things in a certain way. Completing objectives with the different parts will unlock new parts and so on. Every part is compatible with every other part and each possible combination comes with its own title and its own remix of the game’s music. This is itself a thing of beauty, as the soaring electronic drive of the theme not only compliments the fast paced dog fighting perfectly but serves as a neat little relfection of the other gameplay elements. Also, I defy anyone to not feel like the greatest pilot in the history of space and time when the drop happens.

Luftrausers is a game that take all the best elements of its various genres and discards all the stuff that either weren’t fun or didn’t look cool enough. The result is a game that looks like  throwback, plays like a dream and sounds like the best thing in air-to-air combat since Kenny Loggin’s Danger Zone.

 

 

 

And there you have it, three different games, all if which are worth the pittance their respective creators are asking for them. So next time you’re bored and trying to wade through the video game slurry drowning the Steam front page, why not look up one of those. Then send me some chocolate to thank me for being so right.

As I said, regularly scheduled Reuben will be coming at you as of now, so stay tuned next week for some stuff that I’ll write about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Or possibly Assassin’s Creed 4. Because I can finally afford AAA games, and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

 

Oh and so the title of this post isn’t totally in error, why not click the link and watch some youtube videos on Overgamerisation, the official (I know there’s no way there’d be an unofficial one but still shut up) youtube channel of the The Reviewing Floor. Here’s some thing to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0PUOaiihEk