TCP

To me it felt like the true successor to the Ezio games. Very few glitches (though I did have a crash last night), no microtransactions besides speed up XP for 2 hours and stuff like that, likeable characters, decent enough story, and nice world. What's cool is the huge amount of side content that feels like it could be main missions. The coolest part of the game is actually a super secret sequence, that you should hopefully just discover naturally. The ending boss fight was super lame, I wish developers of these sorts of games would realize that final boss fights aren't always necessary.

What's that Pikachu lookin' mothafucka beside the baby form of Pikachu?

I just completed a little gem called Assassin's Creed Syndicate. What a game. Probably my favourite Assassin's Creed game... so what I'm trying to say is.... GAME OF THE YEAR! Wait, no. But it's OK.

I don't know if you can say you beat New Vegas until you get all the endings.

Wow, Japan got a ton of new footage.

I just plum don't get Ethan.

What? No... it can't be...

A couple thoughts on Syndicate... a follow up, if you will, to my post in What are you currently playing. I'm kind of thinking this might be the best Assassin's Creed game. Yes, 6 years after AC2, there's still issues this series hasn't worked out, but this game fixes literally every wrong I can think of from Unity, while also taking the series a few steps forward. Though that doesn't mean there isn't annoying/frustrating things. First, the side stuff. Unity's map was infamously cluttered but most of it was just collectables, chests, etc, very little actual side content outside of the murder mysteries. This game has some of that but also a ton of side missions that feel more like actual missions, complete with stories, side objectives, and cut scenes. This is when the game is at it's best, as you get to chose which character you want to play as, unlike the main missions which force you to be either Jacob or Evie (usually Jacob). I have the sneaking suspicion that up until a year ago Jacob was the only playable protagonist, and after the backlash about Unity not having a playable female character, especially with Elise being way better than whatever the main character was called, they switched it to make Evie playable as well. But unlike GTA5 which used multiple protagonists to do some really cool missions where your perspective would switch and you had to make decisions to use each characters strengths, this game does nothing like that. You start a mission and the game makes you one of the characters and you're stuck as that character for the rest of the mission. This sucks, for instance, last night I infiltrated some giant mostly impenetrable bank in a main mission as Jacob. But there was some locked doors and chests that I couldn't open because that is a stealth skill the Evie excels in, the game encourages you to develop Jacob as a fighter. Wouldn't it be cooler if you had to go in, unlock and set things up stealthily as Evie while Jacob fought off guards? Just a missed opportunity. Most of the main missions still centre around Jacob which is a pity because Evie is 10000000x better. Evie plays how an assassin should, stealthy, quiet, throwing knives, all that stuff. Personality wise she's better, she's cute, smiley, bubbly and nice. Jacob seems very much like Edward Kenway from AC4, without any of the charm. Yesterday the game did what could maybe be one of the coolest things in an Assassin's Creed game. It's not a major thing, and in fact I think it's possibly to entirely miss it. But it is very cool! The game does what Unity tried to do with being more open, letting players approach missions from different ways for different results, especially for major assassination missions. But the game just spells everything out for you. In the bank mission, it gives you a bunch of options to do, but the side objective is just "use the secret path" once you discover that, you don't need to do anything else, the secret path leads you right to the person you want to kill. That would have been way better if it was up to chance to discover that secret path. It's weird that this is maybe the best game in the series and nobody is playing it, but I don't think Ubisoft have anyone to blame but themselves for that.

There was some rumours about her leaving, but there were rumours last year too. I don't think anything was announced or confirmed. I'm hoping she stays at least one more season.

Clara is the best companion. Yet Zygon Clara is even better...

I watched a movie called Time Lapse, which had the girl who plays Caitlyn on The Flash and some other dudes. It was an ok concept but poorly executed and everyone was unlikeable. But you did get to see a picture of her having sex SO I'll give it an OK. I agree with Dean, Nightmare Before Christmas is not as great as an adult. Though to be fair, I don't really recall liking it much as a child.

Disappointed to see this look like just another Platinum game.

Only 9 more days GOH! NINE MORE DAYS!!

Oh my god it's beautiful I can't believe we're 10 days away. So soon, yet so far. I'm glad November 11th is a holiday so I can play it ALL DAY.

Why so cynical Jack? I can't help but feel optimistic for the future of games, between AAA games being better than they were last gen, and indie games delivering new experiences, this is the best state games have been in for awhile. None of your four concerns have been an issue for me and I can't see them being big issues in the future. Let's dig in! Microtransactions: These been a thing for awhile now, and they haven't affected me at all. I haven't spent a dime on them, I don't really play a games where they're integral. AC Unity had them, I ignored them as they were pretty much just time savers and say what you want about that game but the game wasn't designed to push you into needing things sped up. MGSV also had microtransactions but I honestly didn't even notice it was a part of the game. If you're playing F2P iOS games then yeah, microtransactions might suck but if you're doing what I imagine most of us are doing, playing mainly singleplayer AAA and indie console/PC games, then it's not really an issue and I can't see it becoming one. Right now they are an issue in some PC/console games, like Payday 2, but if you notice a trend, the majority of these games are shitty games from shitty developers. I expect microtransactions in $60 retail games to end up like the online pass, something that publishers realize in a few years isn't really working. Cut content: The only game I've played that I can think of had severely cut content was MGSV. It was still a massive game that I've spent more time with than any thing generation so I definitely feel I got my money's worth out of it, but yeah there was definitely a missing mission or two. But I'd say that was due to Konami's own incompetence, not a sign of the industry. And they're leaving the console/PC gaming industry anyways, so it won't really matter going forward. It is annoying when things like skins, which 10 years ago would have been an unlockable, are now paid DLC add on (looking at you Arkham Knight), but that's more of an annoyance than anything. Half-assed ports: Bad ports have always been a part of the industry, since day one. Honestly, as a predominately PS4 gamer, I haven't really noticed any bad ports this generation. That was not the case with the PS3 last generation. Season passes: Again, I haven't bought one, I just buy the DLC individually for what I want when it comes out and it hasn't been an issue. Outside of maybe Fallout 4 and the Witcher 3, I don't think of any recent and upcoming games that I would want all of the DLC. What I'm trying to say is you don't need to buy the season pass, even if you end up buying all the DLC and spending an extra 10 or 20 dollars over the course of 4-6 months, at least you had the option to pick exactly what you wanted to buy.

That's not Jennifer Lawrence is it? Sounds and looks like her.

Wow, they somehow managed to make Nier even crappier.

Looks like there's still major issues. Yikes!

Ah I see that the top icon is actually just a picture for the entire stat not a perk. I didn't pay that much attention because, again, Mysterious Stranger is the only perk that matters.

The Mysterious Stranger, he randomly shows up in trench coat, wielding a revolver and kills enemies for you. It's very helpful.

The 5th perk under Luck is the only one that matters.

I bought a fridge and stove from Best Buy last month, which gave me some points in their rewards program. Their rewards program is the most backwards fucking thing in the entire world, but it resulted in me having $25 of free Best Buy dollars (which expire... wtf?). I wanted a third DS4 since my original DS4 has a bad thumb pad and I don't feel comfortable with just having one useable controller. I saw this and couldn't resist: You see, it looks like an original PS1 controller. So cool. SO COOL!!!

I played a bit of Assassin's Creed Syndicate this weekend. I'm happy to report it's not garbage! It's the most "assassin" AC game since the last Ezio game. There's a huge focus on fist fighting combat which kind of makes it feel a bit like Batman. Also there's a rope launcher, again, like Batman. The female character, Evie, is very likeable and probably the best protagonist since Ezio. Besides being a total screw up, her brother is unremarkable. It's too bad the game couldn't have just focused on Evie, both her personality and play style are unique and a breath of fresh air, something this series badly needs. Anytime the game forces you to play as Jacob it's automatically less enjoyable. Doesn't sound like the game is selling well, I hope Ubisoft doesn't think that's due to the game having a female character. London itself is a little dreary but well captured, there's definitely a lot of giant climbable iconic buildings. At the end of the day, it's pretty similar to Rome and Paris. Hopefully next year we get Egypt or Japan or something else a little less western. The modern day stuff feels very shoehorned in and is very clearly an after thought. I enjoyed the Desmond stuff of AC1-3, and I kind of feel like Ubisoft painted themselves in a corner by killing him off. The whole modern day stuff just feels so half baked and directionless now. Syndicate's present day segments are very much like Unity, maybe with a few more cutscenes. I'm still not sure who I'm suppose to be playing as, or what the point of any of this is. It was much better when you were someone from the modern era exploring the memories of your assassin ancestors, learning how to become an assassin yourself. The whole series got way too focused on the first people, Juno, magical sci-fi shit, all that. Though, I haven't seen anything on that so far in Syndicate, besides the search for a piece of eden.