 There's nothing like clambering over a snow-capped mountain while exploring the hallowed lands of the Norse. Assassin's Creed Valhalla makes this experience, and many more, nothing short of breathtaking.
 There's no compromise on scale, though as you travel around you'll notice the odd bit of texture pop-in. Performance is fairly solid on the whole, though we did get stuck in the environment once or twice while searching for goodies in the wilderness. The approach to uncovering those goodies is fairly unforgiving, with only a vague spot on the in-game map to shoot for. It's a difficult balance to strike, since players tend to roll their eyes at unnecessary hand-holding, but the odd understated voice line to suggest you’re getting colder or warmer would be beneficial in some of the more complex areas. Valhalla can suffer from a lack of direction at times, but its Nordic influence seeps into every pore, leaving plenty to get excited about. Environments are very much divided into things you can interact with and things you can't. You can pick up health from odd pots of food that the locals seem to have absent-mindedly left simmering, but a pile of fresh apples and other fruit in a barn aren't deemed edible, for example. Elsewhere there are more inconsistencies, with Eivor being able to climb mountains endlessly - no stamina needed, à la Breath of the Wild - yet a few consecutive dodges during combat will quickly tire the protagonist.  Fortunately, combat as a whole is reassuringly savage and satisfying. Lower level enemies are entertaining fodder, but more advanced foes require you to keep your wits about you.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla can suffer from a lack of direction at times, but its Nordic influence seeps into every pore, leaving plenty to get excited about. Strong characters, choice of approach and presentation make it a great choice for those breaking in a new next-gen console or sticking with an older platform. Pros
Cons
9/10 Watch Dogs: Legion | Xbox One X Review6/11/2020  While we're not quite living in the dystopian future that Watch Dogs: Legion predicts, Ubisoft Toronto couldn't possibly have imagined the world it was releasing its latest game into.
 Firearms are sparse, as you'd expect in England, which favours the tech-orientated culture this series is known for. Drones of all shapes and sizes are everywhere and vehicles, as in previous titles, can be diverted with a quick hack. Environments are so interactive, in fact, that it's often difficult to focus on the small keypad in front of you as opposed to items in the surrounding area. An option which helps to set Legion apart from the swathe of similar Ubisoft games is permadeath; if operatives die with this setting enabled, they're gone for good. Problem is, recruitable characters lack personality, so rather than hitting on a personal level it’s just annoying to lose whichever special skills or items they had access to. Connections between characters raise questions like "Why is that construction worker being targeted by a hitman?" One nice feature, which admittedly has the potential to get out of hand, is a HUD element that displays connections between existing recruits and recruitable characters. It raises questions like "Why is that construction worker being targeted by a hitman?" and encourages you to start to build out a wider team, members of which are connected by emergent stories. When you get into recruitment itself, however, the variety of missions is fairly limited. Characters in general have a few shortcomings. Animation transitions are abrupt and occasionally wonky, while speech seems very skewed towards British stereotypes. That isn't necessarily a surprise, but, since you're hearing the same voice line or two whenever you get into a conversation, it gets old quickly.  While cosmetic customisation is possible via numerous shops, some of the initial character designs clash with their intended roles. It isn’t a major issue, but it is another thing that highlights the shortcomings of procedural generation in Watch Dogs: Legion. It’s much harder to care about these characters than it would be a lovingly hand-crafted cast.
Watch Dogs: Legion’s core gameplay is good fun for the most part, but its procedural cast of soulless characters don’t lend themselves to helping players be absorbed by alternate London. Still, the sights and sounds of Blighty’s capital are exciting to explore - especially in lieu of being able to amble around the city in person at present! Pros
Cons
7/10 |
READ MORECategories
All
Archives
December 2023
|
RSS Feed