Note: This video is in Ultra-Wide because I'm on a temporary set up. We'll get back to normal aspect ratios soon :) Thanks to INNO3D for sponsoring the video. To learn more about Ray Tracing and DLSS visit Nvidia's website (www.nvidia.com/en-au/geforce/rtx/) and to check out the INNO3D range of 30 series cards, visit www.inno3d.com/products_detail.php?refid=556
"At least the monetization isn't as bad as X..." Is a pretty dangerous mindset, and is a big way companies like Ubi get us used to being milked ever dryer.
Comparisons are important for review purposes though. Especially in a time when every game has them, it's good to know exactly what you're getting into.
@@clark2109 Yeah, but that should not mean that should be a pass for the company to monetize. We as gamers should scrutinize game publishers no matter what.
@@retrobit5973 yes but they are not taking us seriously if we use terms like "predatory" or "dangerous" ... I mean come on it is insidious yes , it is shitty yes. But talking about this shit like it can impact your life in such a big way makes the publishers think we take the games as a necessity. So they wont stop doing this shit. Edit: I also blame Twitch streamers just because I hate them in principle. A bunch of parasitic shills. Exceptions exist of course. If you do Twitch streaming as a side thing that's fine but full time streamers especially the life streamers are a bunch of mutated parasitic vampire cockroaches. Diseased.
so let's stop making up terms like "toxic" or "predatory monetization"... because this notion that a company that makes games can impact my life to such an extent is absolutely ridiculous. Acting like we are victims. NO! If monetization is bringing in so much money it means we are accomplices not victims. It only reinforces the idea that we take these games as a great necessity. That emboldens the shitty publishers. If a person does not buy a game because of this that's the best way to send them a message. edit: sorry for the passionate response I am in no way blaming you for anything. I was just making a point.
Dude I can say ubisofts microtransactions are more forgiving than other companies. I mean look at rockstar they're making everything super expensive to the point 1 million dollars literally can't get you shit I the game plus NPCs call you non stop to buy property you don't need. Ubisoft dosen't advertise to you and pester you every second you play to buy shit and they don't re-release the same fucking game for the third time with nothing new
I’m pretty sure Ubisoft have like 4 different engines they are utilizing in their games. I know there’s AnvilNext (the engine used for Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six Siege, and the recent Ghost Recon games), Snowdrop (used for The Division games, Mario & Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, and Starlink), Disrupt (used for the Watch Dogs games), and Dunia (a fork of the CryEngine used for the Far Cry series starting with Far Cry 2). They do all have their quirks for sure. As you mentioned, Dunia has horrible AO, AnvilNext is very CPU heavy, SnowDrop seems to be very flexible in terms of the hardware it can run on, and I’m sure Disrupt has it's own quirks too.
Yeah, the "recruit anybody" and no real "cast of main characters" is my main issue with the game, and probably why i will be waiting for deep discount on this.
Mine as well. Its empty. Being able to be anyone means you dont have development since your never one person. And so the story cant focus on you. Your basically an npc that decided to do a mission
If they leaned harder into the home team running things as the stars it would've helped. I like the idea of playing the random field operative, I really do. I don't need a PC I can get attached to. But I would've preferred them leaning harder into the cast they did have. Begley and that random chick from the original DedSec were both under used despite Begley being an omnipresent entity.
That’s what makes the game great. Playing on resistance mode really gives an immersive feel of an organization fighting a very hard fight with permadeth etc
that sorta irked me about this game since i first heard of it, knowing that you could play as anyone, i knew that would take away too much from the story, cuz i still dont even know what the story is, but i can already tell it has something to do with 'liberation'
@@User71956 I figured it would still bother some and that's why there were fullscreen and widescreen versions of movies so it makes sense it bothered you here. I honestly find that you being distracted/not liking them should be the norm because there's giant black bars to distract us. Odd that some people don't get bothered 🤔
"Disjointed" is Watch Dogs in a nutshell, the first two games had main characters and what you saw in the cut scenes still didn't really match what you were doing in the game. The main character in the second game was a total pacifist during cut scenes, and then during gameplay you could murder whoever you wanted.
To be honest I think Marcus is meant to be played as a pacifist. You can still play him as a psychopath but I don’t think it’s canon to do so. Wrench seems like he would murder though
Wouldnt even play it if somebody paid me 50$. This looks graphically okay...but the style is debateable. Animations are okayish Story seems like nonsense. No Character is interesting and no one to bond with, means less Immersion and depth. Bad physics Bad dialogues, Mechanics make no sense.....while being in a real world, you have to somehow make sense out of this mechanics.this is just surreal nonsense Sandbox fun. Cant believe how offended I am by a product/ game I did not even desire at anytime and which I only found the first of thr series to be mediocre. Worst AAA Series I can think of.
Rockstar: Has literally hours of small talk between side characters in RDR2's camp and different dialogues related to your actions. Ubisoft: When you join DedSec you also join its hive mind so everyone talks to the protagonists like they're all the same person.
Ubisoft is like the opposite side of Rockstar's open worlds. Rockstar has tons of detail to the characters and the world, but focuses a bit too much on linear storytelling with set pieces in between. Ubisoft has tons of radiant/repeatable side content that are pretty bland and a story that's...kinda there.
You know, they could have made that a plot point. Have a big late game reveal that 'surprise, the player is actually a mind controlling AI/virus program that's been puppeting all those people this whole time.' Have a neat scene where the people you've been puppeting discuss the issue of morality involved in doing this. Because on the one hand, that's creepy and disturbing. But on the other, joining Deadsec is a choice offered to them, if slightly in ignorance of what it actually means. People who got used for missions could admit to the others how much the AI/Virus helped them to do what they couldn't have done otherwise, and if you combine it with a hidden tracker for deaths as a character you could have those who 'died' a lot when you used them talk about how many risks the AI took with their lives. There's some opportunity to make this mechanic mean something in universe that Ubisoft ignored, as they often do, and that's too bad.
@@jonnyrawket8158 More like a Crossover but it's very well done. If you have the season pass, definitely play it, if not, then just check it out somewhere, then you'll understand what i meant
@@z0ck3y23 I’ll give it a looksie, I’m genuinely surprised I might pick up the pass just for this if it looks good. Still laughing at the fact AC is being outdone by the phone hacker game.
@Jkong Hong hmmmmmm...I hope that didn't come out as a mindless answer just because Skillup reviewed it negatively, bc every other reviews I've seen so far has said otherwise.
@Jkong Hong I mean, that's alright, you can like what you like and dislike what you dislike. I think there are way more players loving the game than ppl hating it, it's not for everyone, some can overlook stuff, some take EVERYTHING into account so EGH, it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Obviously, people who dislike the game will gather to places that share their views so not surprising you see people disliking it in specific videos.
Ubisoft games tend to look a lot better than they actually are. Once you start playing it you realize you have already played the same game a dozen times before.
Ubi have been recycling their mechanics and design since AC2 lol. Gotta hand it to them. For a company with thousands of employees all over the world, they sure do phone it in.
All of their games are just homogenizing into one. A looter open world game built off of map markers. Seriously. Division 1/2, Watch Dogs 1/2/3, All the Assassins Creeds (though Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla break into the looter side) Breakpoint and Wildlands, literally all of the Far Crys Only games to break this mold are For Honor and R6: Siege. Its hilarious how they can only make the same game but with another IP. And embarrassing. Like im pretty sure the font in Legion is used in Odyssey.
You can buy this, you can buy that, VIP status, season pass, etc. Already heard enough, its a classic "wait for sale" game. Did Ubi change after the Ghost Recon fail? Nope
You can always just get a month subscription of Uplay+ for $15. You will get to play the Ultimate edition, and you will also get to play AC Valhalla. As long as you complete them in a month it will be $15. Of course it's like $180 for a year, still cheaper then what both of the Ultiamte edition is together. The only thing you don't get with Uplay+ is VIP status. So at least try it for a month. Uplay+ is only on PC, and not on console.
@@65firered I'm even going one step further and waiting for Ubi to give it away for free, either on -Uplay- Ubisoft Connect or EGS. With all the recent shit that came out of that company (the rape and abuse allegations), they're not going to see a single cent from me.
@@riftsalty7562 waaay better. All Rockstar cares about is stupid GTA online. Even the single player storyline is too short. Disappointing. I still play Gta 4 and its dlc every now and then. I havent touched gta5 since 2013.
yeah when i heard about this like a year ago, all i could think is that without a main character i dont know how you are meant to get attatched to anything
I always assumed there would still be an protagonist sitting somewhere in the secret headquarter and only he would be able to recruit new agents, and if he dies it's a failed state. Guess that would have been more interesting.
@@escarche9917 xcom was a very specific story, where u could customize your characters a lot, the classes, the clothes, the perks, and, they werent really the "main character", the ai still referred to you the player as the main character, rather than just ur soldiers
@@Walrazzlol That's true, but I think it works somewhat similiar. The goal of the stories is the same, it's less about personal's quest and more about freeing the city. About the revolution. In Xcom there are soldiers you recruit, in Legion it's recruits which abilities/styles speak to you. The player recruiting old grandmas will probably feel affected by the lost of his favourite grandma.
@@escarche9917 i think it would work better if you were the "commander" type person, so like the people were ur recruits, rather than u actually being all of the recruits
Every NPC in this game is either hideous or ridiculous-looking. How ironic that in a game where you can play as any NPC, I don't want to play as *any* of them. lol
I've had three spies (my favorite class) and all of them were indian women about like 40+ yo... Literally the only character looking at least "decent" is the guy with a single useless perk I selected when starting the game.
Microtransactions are an instant deal breaker for me sadly. Studios like Monolith have detailed why monetizing not only extremely cheapens the experience, but rips players away from what artists desired through pure gameplay and funnels them into a store.
@Lakerfan024 nothing against standard dlc's,season pass is different though,you pay for a promise that the dlc will be worth instead of getting it after reviews come out,also don't remember witcher having micro transactions.
It looks innovative at the first glance, sadly after i saw the world progression its still the same system like old AC. We have world divided by zones, and we need to free the zone from bad guy until all zone liberated, its not rewarding anymore.. Maybe i'll wait for sale like other ubi games, they pretty fast to get on sales
Bingo! They need to get way from the old formula. Ubisoft use to make really great games, but now they just create ok games. The only game I want to play is the new outbreak game...that is it. I use to look forward to Ubisoft now...not so much.
Yep, as always with Ubisoft open world games, the saying never gets old; "as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a puddle". This is why I'm sick of open world games unless it's done right.
@@faizanyousuf5896 Ghost of Tsushima is awful (I'm kidding I'm just salty that it was yet another great PS4 exclusive so I'll never be able to play it😭)
Cd projectred and Rockstar make way better open world games. I can't wait for cyberpunk 2077. That game will blow this one out of the water. I don't even think this game is worth it tbh.
The fact the coolest cosmetics are behind a paywall takes me COMPLETELY off of this game, or everything Ubisoft related. Seriously, wtf?! I always wanted to play Anno 1800 for example, but 60% of the game is on the base game, the rest you have to pay MORE. It's ridiculous.
anno is different. Almost all of those city builders and grand strategy suffer from that kind of monetization. Just look at any paradox game, like stellaris or city skylines. I still believe its poor practice 100%, but i cant place the blame on ubisoft specially; as much as i dont like them.
Admittedly Anno 1800 does have a fair few DLCs now, but the base game will definitely suffice bud. I bought one of the DLCs but haven't actually gotten to its content after playing over 20 hrs in total and would probably not get there in a few more. Ignore the DLCs and give it a try if it's your genre.
@GUNGA 2I mean it is subjective bit I think it looks cooler when they are wearing normal street gear to blend in rather then power ranger gear. It's like the unicorn in AC odyssey: looks kinda stupid if you think about it. That's just my opinion though so it's not a counter argument
My issue with the design philosophy, is sure, there are multiple approaches. But these levels are designed to make it possible for any character with any skillset to be able to complete. To the point where it doesn't really feel like you've come up with a creative solution. For example in the new dues ex games, you know they made sneaking possible so every place has a vent you can access to sneak through. It doesn't feel amazing to find a event, it doesn't feel like clever level design. You can hear the devs saying, make sure you put a vent in each location so people can stealth. It becomes a mandatory feature. Watchdogs takes this and turns it to 11. You can do 'everything' to the point where you really aren't doing anything.
I get what you mean, I love immersive sims but that's a problem I've had with deus ex too. The world and level design feels really artificial in it, so it didn't work really well as an imsim imo. If the game makes you feel like it's guiding your actions too much it isn't being a good imsim. But games like Dishonored 2 and Prey have really organic worlds I'm which you can do really crazy stuff. Prey especially is the pinnacle of imsims for me. It really gives you enough tools and has a good enough level design so that you'll certainly do a lot of stuff the devs haven't thought of.
Think of Assassin's Creed Syndicate which, just like this game, has a map with collectibles and fast travel, zones that need to be liberated by clearing outpost, a liberation story about oppression and classes, and is also in London. The recruiting system is nice but you can't deny this is getting repetitive. Fra Cry, Ghost Recon, Assassin's Creed, Watchdogs... t's the same game over and over with a different skin and "new" mechanics to match the skin. Plus they have microtransactions now which sucks. Ubisoft just isn't the innovative and cool company it used to be. I'm gonna wait a year to buy it on sale, it's just not worth full price.
Far cry is just 1st person version of it. Also there are rpg elements in AC now. yay i just wanted to level up my assassin! no....no i didnt ask for it... nobody asked for AC to have a tree skill system and leveling. There was joy when i could take out an outpost with minimal tools getting swarmed by 50 people or if im smart i could take out the leader silently and be on my way. now? Well i cant do that cuz the enemy has too much hp or i dont have X skill to stealth someone. (thats in Valhala btw)
This. So this. Even reviewers starting to accept it in games .. "well it's not the worst I've seen.." *cough* 18:32 *cough* Microtransactions are simply not acceptable in a premium price game. Hard pass.
@@jdub7986 You going to pirate Cyberpunk? I remember in that brief one frame message after the initial trailer they made fun of the concept of MTX but now they are in it like a year after saying that.
I'd agree if it was loot boxes or power ups bit character skins and outfits have been able to be bought for about 15 years now, there's nothing wrong with buying extra cosmetic options as long as they don't affect gameplay
The addition of Aiden Pearce makes the game freaking amazing now. You can basically play the entire campaign as him as your main character and it feels so much better. He has his own unique dialogue for all of the lines . Ubisoft really put the work in! His stand-alone story is also very well written
@@bigfauty2440 like many ubisoft games its kind of mediocre to good depending on how you immersive yourself In it. They released a new "resistance" difficulty which helps make the game more difficult and exciting because the base hard difficulty was a cake walk. Gameplay can be fun but there isn't much to do in the world and you can only spend cash on clothes... hand to hand combat is a joke and the game feels much better imo if you just switch to firearms when spotted to avoid the horrible fighting mechanics and horrible enemy AI
@@bigfauty2440 It's an ubisoft game, these days the general rule for them is to wait till you can get an edition of the game that includes at least the season pass for under 20$ to get your money's worth, other than that, don't get it.
@@DsgSleazy Not always, sometimes they produce genuine gems.....sometimes lol This, Division 2 and Immortals are the best games they've made since AC4:Black Flag and Siege.
Aiden alone doesn’t really fix a majority of this games core issues. Besides the combat. Even with an actual character, the story is still (mostly) boring. Bloodline was gas though
I agree on alot of the story stuff but I felt connected to my crew of dudes i recruited. I spent the first 20 hours just recruiting my team and that was the funnest part of the game for me. I built my own team, made up relationships (In my heads) and created bonds (again in my head). I dont think a game like this needed such a detailed story with a crazy narrative and voice acting, honestly the gameplay is so great that all they needed to do is add more to do with your team, maybe some interaction with team, some base building like MGSV, some character bonds like XCOM2, and generally more ways to interact with the world. In the future if they want to continue with telling a seriouse narrative they should have the player create 4 - 5 arhcetype from scratch with create a character that way the lypsicing and facial animations arent so much of problem. I personally dont care about that stuff, the gameplay is great and thats all that matters to me, the narrative is just a bonus
Fully agree with this review except you understated the fun factor. The freedom for the player and opportunities given to the player are immense, lending to personalised fun. Just need to think of player character as part of your load out. Interchangeable and modifiable for task at hand. Really enjoying it so far.
I'm curious as to how playing as Aiden Pearce would be in the regular game. Will he have all the same dialogue? If so, I feel like people are gonna be maining him just to have a better story delivery.
I liked the main casts characters in WD2, they kinda represented all the shit posting nature of the internet filled with memes and jokes. Did it go overboard at times, yes. But some of the missions made up for it, like Wrench loving his little robot which fits his character from the start
@@65firered but the characters in WD2 werent violent terrorists(for the most part), just people hurt by the system they are now fighting against. In legion its kinda weird that the entire populace is recruitable but they didnt all standup for the country in the first place
Watch Dogs 2 actually had a great story. Nothing revolutionary but it was fun and the characters become pretty likeable as the game went on. Poor is not what I would call the story.
Lol what's even worse is he actually has a 3090! Look at 3:39 in the settings menu it is showing 24GB of VRAM. This game runs like shit a 10900k and 3090 can't even maintain 60FPS at 4K ultra settings with RTX OFF. 4K ultra settings with RTX ON drops below 30FPS. "Runs beautifully" my ass
I think this particular brand, Inno3D, is advertising to get the name recognition out there. So when they do come back in stock you buy from them and not someone else.
Just realized there is a small bit of "actions have Consequences" aspect.. because apparently I had 2 operatives that were related and when one of them died. The other one I don't remember, either killed themselves or went rogue.
Your review confirmed my biggest concern about this game. It's best feature is also it's worst, having any NPC become the protagonist means there isn't a proper hero that you feel connected to, you're just switching between different NPC's all the time... still, being a Londoner, I am excited to explore a near future recreation of my home city :)
Me: huh that sounds pretty cool I might get it SkillUp: *spends 10% of the review explaining how extra monetization works“ Me: Huh, why would they charge full price for a free to play game?
This game needed a centered protagonist. A single person to sort of organize it all and handle some of the major events would've helped the story telling and tone for me.
I just finished the game and honestly the way how I approached it was to "play" my characters personality. I would pick and swap characters depending on the needs that would arise. I feel that it compensates greatly for not having a main protagonist to play as and creates a unique experience. At one point I had to infiltrate the Kelly Clan and I went out of my way to recruit a specific clan Kelly guy, then I finished the last few Kelly quests with that operative. It felt genuinely like it was some kind of redemption arc. In another instance Infiltrating the MI6 building with a Spy... My first spy, certainly a rookie in his behavior got himself captured. Not really James bond if you catch my drift. But the second spy I got was a lot more pro. and I send him to rescue the first one :P Something about that dynamic felt good. I'll just say that playing as the character, filling in the gaps, feels natural. If you sync with their abilities and lethal/non-lethal or stealth/not so stealth nature and let that evolve into its own playstyle its really a great dynamic... The more violent Merc equipped with missile drone, the careful sneaky granny... It gave me a great sense of immersion. By the end, I gave extra operatives a few missions to let them shine and it all felt like a real team. To be honest, much more so than any generic scripted hero character that constantly preaches non violence and fighting against crime. Only to then commit crimes non-stop, brutally killing off half the population of the city because the game doesn't give you an option to go non-violent. Watch dogs legion has come a long way since Aydan Pierce, I'll tell you that. That one mission in watch dogs 1 where you need to rescue your nephew, I took out all the enemies with knockouts and still WD1 acted as if I had just massacred them in front of the kid... thanks for the immersion breaking main story plot WD1. No such bad experiences to be found here. Maybe a little suspension of disbelief is required for sure, and some voice lines are a bit too oft repeated or over the top compared to normal "main character" dialogue. But the fact that it worked and things clicked most of the time for me would make me rate this game as one of the only open world games I would actually be willing to replay.
I understand where you are coming from since my recruitment attempt for one of the head slave traders of Clan Kelley implied that he was actually an alright dude due to hacking a hospital to patch up vulnerabilities (IIRC) but I don't think that occasional decent headcanon lining up with algorithm is enough. I still need to test with a non-lethal run (either by switching character to someone with no kills, killing those who have a kill count or genuinely having no kills) to know if this game responds any differently but it doesn't really matter because I had to play as a small cast (usually 1 character, one backup who I liked) to keep any sense of stakes and a consistent voice. It is really uncomfortable to consider all of the banter and story beats moving on as if a member that you recruited seconds ago has clocked onto all of Bagley's habits, actually knows who Sabine is and has any investment beyond agreeing to the idea of DedSec when their Deep Profiler barely shows any awareness. I can take a character acting a murderer consistently like Aiden or a pacifist like Marcus. Ubisoft weren't wise enough to revise some dialogue to consider mission alternative results or not write it instead. Legion can't avoid the issue by design though.
I refuse to encourage ubisoft's egregious monetization of single player games. Luckily ubisoft makes it easy for me by time and again releasing the grey gruel of AAA games.
You say it's a good game but every aspect of the game you describe sounds like a bad game. Skin deep environment, bad story, nothing to do, poor execution of the character system, heck the first thing you mentioned is performance on a videocard 90% of people can't buy only getting 50fps. If it looks like a duck sounds like a duck it's probably a bad game.
I think he likes the freedom of improvisation on some of the missions and the gameplay itself. But basically everything that lets you get to that gameplay is mediocre at best and unfortunately this is what you will be doing most of the time.
@@imo098765 personally I've never found the Watch Dog series to be worth a buy. better to wait for a better game than waste your hard earned money on something you won't touch ever again in a few weeks.
@@gerinx3994 honestly, even any other ubi game I enjoyed more, including the first 2 watchdogs. The "no real characters" approach in this one seemed to turn everyone into a 13 year old californian trapped in the body of a 80 year old Londoner. There is no sense of progression. Every challenge is exactly the same. Nothing in the world changes when you free an area. The art direction is super uninspired. The facial animations are the only thing entertaining due to how bad they are. I just couldn't find any other enjoyment from the game other than a few chuckles from the first few times I interacted from other NPCs.
Wtf this game ain't that bad not bad at all actually I'm having a blast I got this and cyber punk I say this game is more fun cyber punk is more immersive and bug ridden lol
Me too this worse than watch dogs 2 at least watch dogs 2 you can use a lot of weapons like sniper rifle and SMG in legion sound of shoot like Nokia phone 1997
To be honest, I wasn't expecting the story to be anything groundbreaking, my interest in this just came down to being able to play as anyone, so this is definitely on my list
@@pneumonoultramicroscopicsi4065 Good one fan boy.. Same puzzles as both other watchdogs games, shallow characters, boring game play loop after the first 2 hours, no need to recruit,, all characters can do any mission etc etc.. Empty world with nothing to do but look at pretty buildings and fast travel everywhere... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz .. Tell me whats new in this game from the other 2 besides recruiting ?
@@Pezby69 did you play it to say it's boring after two hours? You almost seem like you played it and not have biased opinions, it seems only the cons went into your head from this video, and you ignored all the good things about this game, you're the fanboy not me, you're just stupid.
Ubisoft has written only three good stories in the last 15 years: Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed II, and Assassin's Creed IV. I'm not expecting Legion to be the fourth.
The biggest quest of this game: "Find and recruit a truly beautiful woman character in your team".)) Some reports saying that this quest is bugged and cannot be accomplished.xD
Lol it's possible, although we have an incredibly slim chance of finding a young female NPC who has the skin color and the hairstyle you want. If she is a construction worker, I'd say keep her forever.
Like recruit woman 🤣😂fk this most hilarious and boring game in 2020 and also graphic is worse than GTA5 At least gta 5 is better than Ugly Dogs Legion How they make worse characters in game, 🤦🏻♂️🤣😂😂
@@rivendell13 I think people were down on it because it was so different from the other Prince of Persia games. Nobody really expected it, so when it came out, it was sorta like a culture shock. I think people are mostly at least lukewarm on the game now, compared to back when it came out.
I just want to say that I'm really happy that this game has delivered on it's ambitious pitch. It's refreshing to see, especially from Ubisoft of all companies. This is a complete 180 from the lies they told in the first Watch Dogs game.
Yeah I know the story isn't as gripping as people expected, but I think that we should engage the game on its own terms. This is a different kind of game and thank god for that. I hope Watch Dogs 4 or whatever is even more daring
Thanks for the review Ralph! Sadly I was kind of expecting more from the game. Can't stand to see another Ubisoft formula open world game with a shallow story and mechanics that that likely turn boring after a couple of hours. This already led to me not finishing the last two AC and FarCry games. To everyone still interested though, have fun playing it!
Do you think the story would've been slightly improved from having a player created protagonist that swaps out in gameplay but was there in all cutscenes?
Thanks for another great review! I do have to say, based on the title of thee video vis-a-vis some of the criticism you direct at the game, I feel like you are giving Ubisoft a bit of a free pass for being so.... Ubisoft in their game design. I really feel like we should start expecting more than marker-convoluted maps and pretty graphics from Ubisofts AAA offering. The bar is pretty low.
I think his review is spot on, its an enjoyable well made game that isn't just a cut and paste. It won't win any GOTY awards but it is enjoyable and by far the best Watch dogs game, they actually got all the elements right in this one and its a decent 8 or 8.5 out of 10.
@@nick1635 To each their own, I suppose. I concede the gameplay loop is better than Far Cry's "eliminate all soldiers in village", but still it begs the question: Why create such a big open world if you're not going to put anything beyond eye candy in it?
If cyberpunk didn’t get delayed another month I would’ve skipped this game until it went on sale for like $30 in a couple months for sure but here we are..
He says that the world is lifeless, but calls the game an immersive sim, if the world building is not believeable, there is no immersive sim, "open-ended" gameplay doesn't change that. Comparing this ubisoft's shit with great games like Deus Ex, Dishonored and Prey is a dumb and poorly informed statement.
@@MuriloRiFO First of all, lifeless of the world has nothing to do with the genre. The first System Shock is basically a space station full of monsters where everyone is already dead. Immersive sim in a nutshell. Second, Legion's world isn't lifeless, he is a bit wrong in this regards. There are tons of simulation under the hood, NPCs have schedules, relatives and friends, and your negative deeds towards them have consequences. Third, comparing Legion to Deus Ex and Arkane games aren't dumb at all. The game development was led by Clint Hocking (creative director of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2). He's a huge fan of immersive sim games, so all his games are player driven, highly systemic, highly immersive and pretty close to immersive sims, because they were designed based on the same principles. That's the reason why Harvey Smith (Deus Ex, Dishonored) is a huge fan of Far Cry 2.
@@KenTWOu Lifeless world goes completely against immersive sim. This expression don't mean a world desproved of literal life, the genre is know to build detailed worlds that seems to be very real with a credible contextualization behind them, even a game like System Shock has a level design that structures the space station in a way that gets closer to reality, you can interact with various things in the environment and the presence of audio logs or just the places where you found the bodies and some monsters, can explain how the things got wrong in a minor context, the station has life even if people are actually dead, it wants to tell what happened to them, creating a believeable universe, which helps to build a immersive place. Emergent gameplay and open-ended aproach to problems are just two elements of the genre, but they don't represent all parts of immersive sim, world building is just as important. This game is just a open world sandbox game, you have several tools to solve the problems, just like the previous Watch Dogs games and Far Cry games.
@@MuriloRiFO There is a huge difference between the way Far Cry 2 and latter ones were designed. FC2 gives you way more freedom, it's more player driven, its mechanics were implemented in a more immersive way. At least Watch Game Maker's Toolkit video where he compared Far Cry 2 to 3 and 4 if you don't have the slightest idea what I'm talking about. The same applies to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Almost all mechanics became systems driven in that game, while were heavily scripted in the first two Splinter Cells. Tvtropes org mentioned both Far Cry 2 and Chaos Theory in their immersive sim article for a reason, because they were designed in that way. So previous Watch Dogs games and all other Far Cry games don't really matter, because they were made by different creative directors with different visions behind them, based on different design principles. That's why contrary to popular belief, not all Ubisoft games are the same. Regarding the lifeless world, I repeat, Legion world is not lifeless. Even if it was, environmental storytelling (basically what you just described) has nothing to do with the genre. That's not immersive sim's distinctive feature. The game world must be reactive, and Legion game world is just like that thanks to its very robust AI Census System. For example, if you kill someone in the game who has a wife, his wife can be found at a cemetery mourning his death. Because the system will change NPCs schedules based on your actions towards them. If you beat up a guard during a mission, he might cross your path in an open world, recognize you and start bothering you. Watch Dogs 1 and 2 didn't have AI systems like this one, they weren't that reactive.
@@KenTWOu It's environmental storytelling in a game like System Shock that aims to make the player feel lonely and will focus only in the apocalyptic station and its residents, in games like Deus Ex and Dishonored it manifests in the details on the universe of the game like religion, geopolitic events, sports and social problems, for example. You can also enter in many different interior buildings (apartments, clinics, shops) and interact with various objects in the environment (simple acts like turn on a faucet or eat a apple helps to build up immersion). You can interact directly with random and useless people, even if it's just for a good morning or a leave me alone. All this is world building and is needed in the genre, it's immersion created by the world itself plus minor interactions, and not core gameplay mechanics or interrelated systems. Games like Bioshock 1 and 2 have little emergent gameplay and open-ended aproach, but are considered immersive sim due to the way Rapture was structured. In contrast, BOTW and MGS5 aren't immersive sim, though they have emergent gameplay. Far Cry 2 have a few interesting systems that work with each other to create emergent gameplay and unnecessary realistic mechanics like malaria and weapon degradation, but the game isn't in this genre, just the tedious repetition and the annoying respawn of enemies, kills any immersion that could be built by the universe. The latter is just a random aglomeration of outpost and small guard checks in savanna with bad contextualization, even worst than the newers Far Cry games, it lives only by the gameplay. You forget to say that tv tropes list this games as a "Other games featured on some Immersive Sim lists but not on others" and not a "The universally-acknowledged Immersive Sim Canon". All games in the last category have good world building plus emergent gameplay. From the same page: "Games in this genre aim to simulate a large believable lived-in 3D space wherein the players' avatar exists as an active physical entity, unlike in many other Simulation Game subgenres, - hence the "immersive" part" - How can you simulate a believable lived-in 3D space without a good world building? How the capacity to recruit any civilian to a terrorist group is believeable? This is a core gameplay mechanic that goes against any attempt to create a credible place, London is just a playground to use your fun tools and supply endless agents to play.
As someone who wasn’t that into WD2, I think the recruitment mechanic is genius, because it’s the only thing that might bring me back to the franchise.
Then you are just a dumb guy in general.Wd-2 improved most of the things from first games and added more details.Even wd-2 npc interactions were superior to any other open world game until rdr-2 came out.
If you didn’t like the first two games, mainly wd2 because that’s where they decided to change the style of the series going forward you won’t like this or any future entry.
The Kinda Funny podcast absolutely shredded this game. I had no interest anyway, but after listening to them about how bland and buggy it is, I find it surprising anyone would recommend it.
ACG is a top-tier reviewer too. I go to him for the wit and the more systematic review process. I also watch Shill Up cause I'm a Laymen Gaming fan and I like his chill, average joe style of reviewing.
skill up is the best honestly. ACG is way too lenient and has a much higher tolerance for repetition than me. I would never recommend a game that is less than an 8/10 for 60 bucks, seems acg is a littler more clement.
Played this for 10 hours, and spent the majority of it trying to recruit an army of Scottish soldiers. I found 3 people who had Scottish places of birth, and they spoke in a fucking London accent. 0 outa 10
An open-world Ubisoft Game without much to really do in the open world? Color me surprised 😶 Sarcasm aside, this feels more like a solid 7/10 popcorn time waster. Will enjoy the story and probably never touch it again. Still a decent enough hold-over until Cyberpunk 2077. (Hopefully AC: Valhalla is much better, but I'm still on the fence.)
Ubisoft have become the king’s of churning out 7/10s, I expect AC to be 8/10 because it’s AC and UB treats it better than the other titles(because it makes the most money).
Between this and Valhalla, this game seems more worth my money. Every ubisoft game sticks to the same formula, ESPECIALLY the recent AC games. At least Legion is trying something different.
"Immersive sim" has to be the most obsolete genre/subgenre label. Especially when you're applying it to what is ultimately a pretty standard open world 3rd person shooter formula, that label is just meaningless. Is Hitman an immersive sim too now?
@@JainaSoloB312 I agree. And I've put way too much thought into this stupid term because it bothers the crap out of me every time I see it. Basically it seems like someone (probably a journalist) dug up this "immersive sim" term from some old interview with the guy who made System Shock, and retroactively defined the whole genre. "Retroactively" because the genre could only be defined once System Shock was cloned a few times. System Shock was made back when most shooters were like DOOM. He wasn't trying to create a new genre, he was just trying to describe a new level of complexity and immersion in games, and pushing those boundaries. Choice-driven gameplay shouldn't be a genre (if it was, "immersive sim" is the worst name for it), it should be something games in general are striving toward. Nobody should be deciding "I want to make an Immersive Sim", they should be saying "I want to make a game with deep, complex gameplay mechanics that are driven by player choice." I'm sick of feeling like every game is just a derivative of [insert game], combined with a little bit of [insert other game], etc." /soapbox
Pleasantly surprised,will be picking this up in a week or so :) Edit:This comment aged very poorly,thank god I saved my money and bought Persona 5 instead
One thing I wished the game had is more dynamic character interactions. Say a character is injured, if you have a doctor on your team they could interact with them. Or maybe have characters develop relationships with each other, putting them in conflict with other characters. There's so much potential for a system like this.
It's not been delayed by THAT much. Honestly makes sense since they need to test, optimize and ensure all runs well on 9 different platforms ._. I kinda wish consoles didn't do 2 versions these days. Makes such a clusterfuck.
@@natewilkes1200 By 2 versions I mean stuff like a base model and a less powerful model. Not that there is a PS4 and a PS5. Heck microsoft came right out of the gate with a weaker version thus basically releasing 2 consoles. Since devs would need to test, optimize and validate for both of them separately. It's a ton of work. Even with old gen... PS4, PS4 pro, XBone, XboneS, XboneX. Only thing I wish is that microsoft got a person without a lobotomy to do the naming because by god their naming scheme is awful.
Maybe the group needed a admirable leader who you don't play as but has great dialogue and you must be their hand and shield! Gives a bit oh progression to story!
@@DravicPL Pop-in is not the same as draw distance. Pop-in is a result of draw distance being too low and/or asset loading issues. Most games try to hide the pop-in as much as possible. This was just a bit of an accidental irony, which I found funny.
As someone with a 16:9 screen, I'd love to see more ultrawide content. The wider FOV really lets you show more stuff in the same amount of time. It's also somehow kinda more fun to watch in my personal opinion.
