As most of you know, one of the many yearly games that I look forward to a lot, is those that take part in the Assassin's Creed franchise and this year, we get not one, but two new entries. One for 8th gen platforms and one for 7th gen platforms but both for PC too. In Unity, we play through the French Revolution and also see how co-op works while in Rouge, we play through the events that fill up the gaps in the Kenway saga while also concluding said saga and unlike III, we play as a Templar for a lot more than just the first few parts of the game. Interesting stuff in both games so let's not waste any more time as we take a look at the 7th and 8th main instalments in the overly popular Ubisoft franchise that pretty much everyone craves for more than the terrible Call of Duty games:
Unity
So the first game of the series to be based in the French Revolution of all things, has you play as Arno Dorian (voiced by Dan Jeannotte) a Frenchman who was born to an Assassin father. As a child, he saw his father get killed and was then adopted by a Templar man who many years later, following shenanigans by Arno, also got killed with Arno framed for his murder. These two deaths pave the way for him to become an Assassin and work up in the ranks much like those before him to do the good work of the creed. Meanwhile in the present, you the player are tasked with reliving Arno's memories to help the assassins with their jobs. So this game took about three years to make and preparation went underway following Brotherhood and its clear to me that like with Black Flag, Ubisoft have worked the asses off to make this game the best it can be and all I can say is that they have succeeded in that. As the first 8th gen exclusive, It is visually impressive. The amount of detail put into the open world that is Paris, it just looks great. Word of warning though which is unlike previous games, you go into the game straight away. No main menus, no save files. You go in straight away and I don't know how people would feel about that, but for me, I'm ok with it. Like with other games, you've got viewpoints to synchronise, treasures and artifacts to find, a lot of side quests to do, all while playing through a character driven story. The map has been improved to look like a 3D map which can be compared to Google Maps as being quite similar, but at least you actually get to see 3D models this time around instead of having to deal with a 2D map. The staples of the series which are free running, stealth and combat have been improved to make it a fresh and enhanced experience compared to other games, but it can start out to be difficult to handle, but you'll get used to it over time. As you guys know by now, I'm not really a fan of the whole online multiplayer thing and that was indeed the case with this game. I just can't get into it. I don't know why, I just can't. And yes, there will be times where the game lags only a little bit and you'll need to get all the disk space that you can get because this game will take up at least 50GB which is more than the average game would need so keep that in mind. I think its a good game, I mean its definitely been able to try and be just as good or better than Black Flag, but its just not enough to surpass that game. I mean exploring the big city of Paris cannot compete against the great ocean. Its just not at that scale for me I'm afraid. But that being said, I do still think its a good game for what it is. Its not perfect, but its definitely enough to keep the series going and I like that Ubisoft learned their lesson to keep the characters interesting and likeable, unlike in III. I look forward to seeing how this will go, but for now, its a good start. 8/10
Rouge
So in this prequel to Unity and the final instalment in the Kenway saga (taking place between Black Flag and III), you play as Shay Patrick Cormac (voiced by Steven Piovesan), an assassin who is doing the good work for the creed under the leadership of Achilles Davenport (Conner Kenway's mentor in III, reprised by Roger Aaron Brown). But on a mission that causes the town of Lisbon to be destroyed thanks to a piece of Eden that Shay touches, Shay realises that the work of the assassins is nothing like he thought it would be and takes a whole new path into becoming a Templar to prevent them from causing any further destruction. Meanwhile in the present, you the player are tasked with restoring the servers for Abstergo Entertainment and further explore the memories of Shay which is what the staff consider to be the most important assassin that ever lived. Now for the most part, the game feels like a clone of Black Flag in that you have everything that Black Flag had with a few enhancements to make it new which in my opinion, is OK, but could be better. Its good that the single player campaign can now take advantage of the multiplayer side of things which make it good, but ultimately its the story that makes this game good. But I will let the whole thing about Black Flag slide because I loved that game so much that this makes me feel like playing it again, just on a less advanced console than the PS4 and because of that, its not as visually spectacular as that game and there will be the occasional lagging and long loading times which for a big game like this, you're bound to expect to see those things. Still, despite everything that I said, I do still think this is a great game despite being very similar to Black Flag and if this is the last game of the series to come on 7th gen platforms, then I'm glad it ended with a game that turns the tables and has you play as a Templar instead of an assassin, though for a much longer period than Haytham Kenway in III (who also makes an appearance, reprised by Adrian Hough in both motion capture and voice). 7/10
Now depending on which game to play first (and obviously you would need 7th gen and 8th gen platform from Microsoft and/or Sony or just have a highly advanced gaming PC), I would recommend playing Rouge first just to finish the Kenway saga and the Colonial era of games as well as the fact that, that game has something in there that ties into Unity, revealing the person who killed Arno's father and really, its not that surprising on who it is. And there is plenty to do in each game so have fun.
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