The "What are you playing now?" Thread

[Jack Brickman]

Yeah Athens looks awesome. I'll have to cop that after Red Dead.

Just read about the Witcher game. They make it seem like it's card-based but a different thing than Gwent. A prequel to the trilogy. But an entire narrative... card-based RPG or something.

Right. Was just saying it's a part of their Gwent game, not truly a new Witcher game.

 

[cavman]

Red Dead, how is it? Anyone?

 

[Chris]

Red Dead, how is it? Anyone?

I got to the open world, but was leaving town so had to leave. What I played was about a 2 hour prologue mostly on rails, but it did a great job establishing the story and characters.

Pumped to get home tonight and play more.

 

[Jack Brickman]

So I googled how big the map is in Odyssey. It's about 160 square miles. I know a lot of that is water, but holy shit that's absurd. That's about twice the size of the two main maps in Witcher 3 (Novigrad and Skellige) combined, and it's over 160 times as big as the map in the original Assassin's Creed, which wasn't even half a square mile.

I just got to Korinth and it's another fucking massive city. Not quite as big as Athens (which apparently is an entire square kilometer in the game), but probably still at least as big as Novigrad. And I'm sure there are more huge cities. I've already seen a few other big ones, although nothing quite on the scale of Korinth and Athens yet. But I've still got several giant "countries" on the map that I haven't even come close to yet that require a level higher than where I'm at now, and I haven't hit any of the islands on the east side of the map yet aside from Euboea and Keos, both of which are right near Athens.

It's almost daunting looking at the game's map and realizing I've probably only explored 10-20% of it in forty hours.

 

[Chris]

Has the combat gotten more fun/satisfying?

 

[TyGuy]

Isn't the input lag really bad over through steaming?

 

[Jack Brickman]

Has the combat gotten more fun/satisfying?

I mean, the combat is fine. Nothing special, but for the most part it's functional. I just try to avoid it as much as possible and go with the stealth approach, which feels a lot more viable here than it has in the past Assassin's Creed games I've played. You can pretty easily pick guards off one by one, and often guards keep wild animals caged in camp that you can free to cause some extra mayhem.

It's worth noting that there are quite a few combat upgrades that I haven't really bothered with since I spend so little time in combat. I got the Spartan kick, as it makes capturing enemy ships easier (you can just kick guys off the boat to kill them), an ability that gives me up to 50% health when fully upgraded (you don't regen health in combat unless you have abilities that do so), and a shield-breaker ability to make shield guys easier. Other than that the bulk of my upgrades are in the hunter (bow) and stealth trees. The game encourages you to play more or less how you like most of the time. That's one advantage it has over Witcher 3. The writing isn't as good, but the gameplay is just a lot more varied.

Also, while stealth isn't ever really mandatory, it is encouraged, because if you just walk into a fort and start fighting guys, you'll get a bounty on your head real quick, and that shit can add up fast. Whereas if you kill or attack someone and nobody else is around to see, you'll get away with it. It's pretty easy to move and dump bodies as well, although it's far too easy for bodies to catch on fire from the torches they drop when you kill them. I've had a few bodies discovered because I couldn't pick up either the body of the torch in time to avoid them lighting up, which means you can't pick them up for a couple of seconds.

Fun story about bounties...in Odyssey, each country in the game has a leader. As you weaken the country by killing their soldiers, destroying their supply crates, looting their nation chest (which just gives you a bunch of gold), and doing missions for the invading army (there's a war going on in this game, after all), you weaken their leader. The guards around him will become less powerful and, if you lower the country's power as far as possible, often the leader will become isolated and easy to kill.

Well, I thought I had a clean kill on a leader once. The guards didn't seem to be looking at him, and they were all camped roadside en route back to his home. I crept over to him and ended him, but one of the guards must have heard it, because immediately my bounty meter filled up all the fucking way, which sends like five different bounty hunters after you. I ended up just reloading my save and killing him later, but for a couple of minutes I was on the run from some bounty hunters that significantly outleveled me and probably could have ended my life in one hit.

Isn't the input lag really bad over through steaming?

At times it can get borderline unplayable, although usually pausing and unpausing the game fixes it for at least a few minutes. For the most part, though, it's worked pretty well. The lag isn't really noticeable enough to get me killed except on very rare occasions. When it's working well, you couldn't even tell you were playing it via streaming.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Saw that Odyssey got some free DLC today, with apparently more to come. The one that dropped today is apparently an hour or two long quest, and according to Ubisoft it's the first of seven Lost Tales of Greece.

Considering how big Odyssey already is, I'll admit to being impressed that they're doing free DLC at all. Looks like they're taking a model similar to Witcher 3 where they do a bunch of smaller stuff for free and then charge for bigger expansions, and I am perfectly fine with this model, especially in a game like Odyssey that has over a hundred hours of content to begin with.

 

[Chris]

Saw that Odyssey got some free DLC today, with apparently more to come. The one that dropped today is apparently an hour or two long quest, and according to Ubisoft it's the first of seven Lost Tales of Greece.

Considering how big Odyssey already is, I'll admit to being impressed that they're doing free DLC at all. Looks like they're taking a model similar to Witcher 3 where they do a bunch of smaller stuff for free and then charge for bigger expansions, and I am perfectly fine with this model, especially in a game like Odyssey that has over a hundred hours of content to begin with.

The two paid ones look dope too.

 

[Jack Brickman]

The two paid ones look dope too.

I haven't really looked into them much. My copy of the game expires in mid-January so no idea if they're even included at all.

I read they're going to add more mythical creatures for free too, although I haven't gone against any of the ones that are actually in the game yet. I did have a brief encounter with what I assume is the cyclops, but the path to him was destroyed and I'm guessing I just have to go back later. I imagine most players discover this one early because it's on an island right near where you start out.

Pretty sure you have to kill all the ones in the game later for one of the major plot lines, so I'll get to it at some point.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Also, I know I've talked about Odyssey's combat, but I'm gonna talk about the stealth now. Now, I didn't play enough of Origins to know if it was the same (and it was probably at least similar), but man, they have massively improved sneaking around in this game compared to previous entries.

One of the things I always hated about playing Assassin's Creed games is that the stealth was always dog shit. It was very difficult to go undetected in previous games. Borderline impossible much of the time. I remember how frustrated I'd get in AC3 and Black Flag when I'd try to be sneaky on missions in enemy territory where the slightest glimpse of you sends every guard in the world running straight to your location. And given that these games were titled Assassin's Creed, the lack of good stealth was really disappointing.

In Odyssey, though, I regularly make my way through entire enemy encampments, slowly picking them off one by one, hiding the bodies, and then looting the place clean once everyone is dead. It's very satisfying, even if it requires a lot of patience. But I love stealth games, so I'm fine with that.

They also give you quite a few different abilities that give you new options to help you stay hidden. You can upgrade your stealth so you make less noise when sneaking and when backstabbing guards. There's a mid-range attack where you chuck your broken spear at an enemy, effectively letting you backstab them from a distance (and you can chain it I think up to three times when fully upgraded). There's an overpower backstab that helps you deal with stronger enemies who might not fall to a regular backstab (it costs stamina, which you gain from killing enemies in normal ways).

And then there's the bow and arrow. I know ranged combat isn't really new to this series, but this is the first game I've played where it feels like a major part of it. Again, maybe Origins and some of the other newer games did this too, but this game has an entire skill tree dedicated to upgrading your bow and arrow abilities. Not only are their various abilities (like an overpowered arrow that, like the backstab, costs a bar of stamina), but you can also craft like five or six different types of arrows, including fire, poison, and explosive ones. This factors into stealth play, as obviously a bow and arrow makes for a much more silent kill than the pistols I remember from past games.

One further nice feature is that, when a guard sees you, you will get a brief couple of seconds (which you can upgrade to get a bit more time) to react as time slows. If you kill any alerted guards before time speeds back up, an alarm won't be raised.

It's hard to really quantify in words how much better the stealth is in Odyssey compared to the early games in the series. It feels more similar to Dishonored than previous games, as your various abilities make you a death-dealing force of nature when used right. There are still the typical Assassin's Creed issues where you never quite seem to jump exactly where you want to, and occasionally that will get you caught, but the game also added a quick save feature to help out in that regard. You can't save when you're in a hostile zone, but it's a pretty easy feat to off a guard or two, hide the bodies, then slip just outside the zone and save before sneaking back in and killing another couple of guys. Rinse, repeat.

Oh, and if you play Odyssey, I'd make the following recommendation: play as Kassandra. Her voice acting is just way better. Really glad I didn't pick Alexios, because I've seen videos of people playing with him and I hate his voice.

 

[Chris]

Also, I know I've talked about Odyssey's combat, but I'm gonna talk about the stealth now. Now, I didn't play enough of Origins to know if it was the same (and it was probably at least similar), but man, they have massively improved sneaking around in this game compared to previous entries.

One of the things I always hated about playing Assassin's Creed games is that the stealth was always dog shit. It was very difficult to go undetected in previous games. Borderline impossible much of the time. I remember how frustrated I'd get in AC3 and Black Flag when I'd try to be sneaky on missions in enemy territory where the slightest glimpse of you sends every guard in the world running straight to your location. And given that these games were titled Assassin's Creed, the lack of good stealth was really disappointing.

In Odyssey, though, I regularly make my way through entire enemy encampments, slowly picking them off one by one, hiding the bodies, and then looting the place clean once everyone is dead. It's very satisfying, even if it requires a lot of patience. But I love stealth games, so I'm fine with that.

They also give you quite a few different abilities that give you new options to help you stay hidden. You can upgrade your stealth so you make less noise when sneaking and when backstabbing guards. There's a mid-range attack where you chuck your broken spear at an enemy, effectively letting you backstab them from a distance (and you can chain it I think up to three times when fully upgraded). There's an overpower backstab that helps you deal with stronger enemies who might not fall to a regular backstab (it costs stamina, which you gain from killing enemies in normal ways).

And then there's the bow and arrow. I know ranged combat isn't really new to this series, but this is the first game I've played where it feels like a major part of it. Again, maybe Origins and some of the other newer games did this too, but this game has an entire skill tree dedicated to upgrading your bow and arrow abilities. Not only are their various abilities (like an overpowered arrow that, like the backstab, costs a bar of stamina), but you can also craft like five or six different types of arrows, including fire, poison, and explosive ones. This factors into stealth play, as obviously a bow and arrow makes for a much more silent kill than the pistols I remember from past games.

One further nice feature is that, when a guard sees you, you will get a brief couple of seconds (which you can upgrade to get a bit more time) to react as time slows. If you kill any alerted guards before time speeds back up, an alarm won't be raised.

It's hard to really quantify in words how much better the stealth is in Odyssey compared to the early games in the series. It feels more similar to Dishonored than previous games, as your various abilities make you a death-dealing force of nature when used right. There are still the typical Assassin's Creed issues where you never quite seem to jump exactly where you want to, and occasionally that will get you caught, but the game also added a quick save feature to help out in that regard. You can't save when you're in a hostile zone, but it's a pretty easy feat to off a guard or two, hide the bodies, then slip just outside the zone and save before sneaking back in and killing another couple of guys. Rinse, repeat.

Oh, and if you play Odyssey, I'd make the following recommendation: play as Kassandra. Her voice acting is just way better. Really glad I didn't pick Alexios, because I've seen videos of people playing with him and I hate his voice.

Sounds like it's really worth playing. Going to try to scoop it up for cheap this Black Friday. Red Dead is going to occupy me for a long time but maybe I can alternate between these two, since I don't see any other huge ass games coming out that I want until well into next year.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Sounds like it's really worth playing. Going to try to scoop it up for cheap this Black Friday. Red Dead is going to occupy me for a long time but maybe I can alternate between these two, since I don't see any other huge ass games coming out that I want until well into next year.

This is probably going to be the first Assassin's Creed game I've finished since Ezio was the main character.

 

[Jack Brickman]

So I've been spending some time ignoring the main story in Odyssey and trying to knock out some side quests and track down members of the Cult of Kosmos, which is essentially stand in for the Templars in this game.

The Cult gets its own menu screen in the game:

This isn't from my game, as I've taken down roughly half of the Cult thus far, but it gives you an idea of what's in store. Tracking down the Cult is actually quite a bit of fun. You get clues to additional Cultists from each one you kill, or by completing side quests or even main story missions. Sometimes these clues are vague, like a Cultist was hiding in a wolf den in a certain country. Sometimes they are pretty specific, like one that says the father of the Cultist is a leader of a country (which means you can presumably find information as to his whereabouts by killing the father).

A few are straightforward but time-consuming, where you'll basically have to weaken a nation to the point where a conquest battle opens up for control of the nation. By taking part in this battle, you'll draw out the Cultist, who will be a champion on the other side of the fight. Others simply say the Cultist is in a country and helping people there may reveal information (which is code for do some fucking side quests).

Once you find all the information on a Cultist (sometimes you only need one clue, but for the guys in the center you need to get a clue from killing each Cultist in their branch), you can track them on your map, at which point it's a simple matter of waiting until you're an appropriate level and then going to where they're at and getting your stab on. Naturally, you get additional rewards for killing each one in the form of a legendary weapon or piece of armor, along with a piece of material that you can use to upgrade Leonidas' spear once you collect enough.

But man...I spent a couple of hours last night just doing these side quests on the Silver Islands in the game just to draw out a Cultist, and found myself involved in a rebellion against a corrupt and brutal dictator on Mykonos. There was a love triangle along with several plot twists and I found that my own actions in an earlier side quest directly led to the death of a friend in the finale. I definitely was not expecting that when I sailed there.

Then tonight I decided to head back down to the island on the bottom right of the map. I'd been there before seeking out the game's Arena, where you obviously fight to the death. I also did a couple of side quests there and got started on one that sent me to hunt the Minotaur, but only saw a small section of the Eastern part of the island (the island is massive and split into two nations, Pephka and Messara). I went back and wrapped up the Pephka stuff and decided to venture in Messara.

Upon doing so, I looked at the map and there were seven fucking side quests dotting the landscape, and I'd only unlocked a small portion of Messara on the map. Two more popped up as I journeyed further in. I'm no longer convinced this game ever actually ends.

The best part is that I went into Messara specifically to hunt down a legendary animal as part of a quest I received early in the game (I was finally at an appropriate level), but I never even made it close to where the animal is actually located because there was so much other shit to do. Guess I'll try to get to it tomorrow.

 

[Marcus]

Twiddling my thumbs waiting for Fallout 76 to drop. Also have Super Smash Bros. on pre-order.

In the meantime I've been grinding away at Destiny 2. I'm also thinking about picking up RDR2 in the very near future.