Weekend Confirmed 138 - GTA V, Assassin's Creed 3, NFS: Most Wanted, Forza Horizon

My impression of the press and hardcore gamers "Nintendo land it's just mini games blahhh. Wii sports mini game collection blahhh. GTA ahhhhh hell yeah a bunch of crappy mini games this is going to be awesome, crappy car physics sweet, I can't shoot the broad side of a barn give me more!"

Lol

Assassin's Creed 3 is a drab mediocre gameplay experience wrapped in a stunningly beautiful and compelling world populated by intriguing, well acted characters.


I love the setting, I love the atmosphere, I could just wander the streets of colonial America for hours. Graphically the game is a feat, some of the best visuals this generation. The questioning if history and the question of basic human freedom and peace is more than most modern games deliver. And the animations a are just beautiful. Watching Connor walk, fight, climb and run is mesmerising. Few video game characters move with as much style and intricacy as the leads of the AC series.

It's just so unfortunate that the part where your hand meets the controller is so sub-par. The combat is embarrassingly easy, musket fire from a line of shooters can be shrugged with little concern. There's no need to upgrade any equipment or weapons since you start with the most effect tool strapped to your wrist. The rope dart, the guns, the bow an arrow are all fun to use but are otherwise inconsequential to the experience.

The homestead is a shallow waste of time that offers no incentive to engage in. Who really wants to navigate crafting menus to make items to use in the trading menus to earn money that can buy you nothing of use? It's menu after menu. It's dull and boring.

Hunting is a waste. It's a fun idea but to call it repetitive is an understatement. You approach a clue that takes no effort to find, a painfully obvious magnifying glass hovering over the clue that gives you the exact location of an animal. Forgive me for not feeling like a sleuth when the method of tracking takes absolutely no intuition or skill or effort. And when a hostile animal attacks you it's a quick-time event ... It feels so rushed amd so squandered. Sure these are option elements but they're not even deep or fleshed out in their own right. Even if you wanted to perform these tasks for role playing reasons they're not up to par. They're just supuflous tacked-on mini game shovel-ware. And you're constantly harassed to go and participate in these arbitrary, useless tasks.

Also, the lip synching is nothing short of a complete embarrassment.

The missions also range from fun and challenging to outright lazy and glitchy. Foot chases are just terrible. One chase scene asked me to avoid bumping into citizens which was frustrating when you are expected to turn tight corners with no camera control. Worse, the same button for running is the same button to dive into every haystack or climb any architecture you move towards. Once I discovered my quarry did the exact same loop of the city it was easy to exploit the sustem. Such a counter intuitive system is baffling and I find that achieving 100% synch has less to do with exerting real skill and cunning and more to do with overcoming bad gameplay systems and poor controls. Optional mission objectives should be a great way to add an extra challenge but they become a fight against sloppy systems and come down to learning to exploit the game.

To my pleasant surprise though, the naval combat is ingeniously simple and fun. I'd not been at all interested in naval battles anymore than I was at the thought of tower defence. The core gameplay of Assassin's Creed, free running, stabbing and badass combat, has been slowly drowning in a sea of tacked-on gimmicks and useless features and I really thought naval combat was jumping the shark but boy was I wrong. With my surround sound cranked, the creaking wood, fluttering sails, splashing water, sailors yelling, cannon balls whizzing, it all makes a symphony of fun. The simple loop of angling your ship and unleashing that perfect barrage is loads of fun.

It's beyond ambituous, it aims higher than most games this generation. The scope of the game and the amount of content shames most other titles. But overall, this game feels like it's bitten off more than it can chew. It feels like it needs more time to bake. The inconsistency is SO apparent, some parts of the game are polished and elegant while others are nothing short of tacked on and unfinished. It has high highs that are painfully punctuated by low lows. They really should have carved off most of the gameplay systems and polished the ones worth keeping.

Just wanted to throw this out there for anyone interested:

The Smartglass integration with Halo 4 is actually really cool. Its useful enough that I make a point of grabbing my Surface tablet and booting it up every time I play.

Its great for keeping tack of your challenge progression, plus you can access the Terminal videos straight from the app, so you can watch them as you unlock them without leaving the game.

I find the interface doesn't work as well on small screens (such as smart phones) because there is just too much info to cover, but if you have some kind of tablet I definitely recommend giving it a try.

I can't believe you guys when it comes to Resident Evil 6. Total bandwagon mentality. Just because the game was not designed around horror doesn't mean it should be counted against it. You can't judge a game based on what you want it to be. You have to see it for what it is.

Capcom wants you to run at the zombies and use their axes against them. Slamming their head against a wall is so visceral and satisfying! I can't believe you Garnett when you keep saying the game is so "funny" when you are fighting the zombies. You can't even bring yourself to say the word fun because the bandwagon already decided against this game.

I want you to have a debate against Tim Turi of GameInformer who gave the game an 8.75/10.

Despite what a lot of cynical websites would have you believe, most of the people actually playing RE6 are loving it. This is an exception but someone on my friend list have logged in over 150 hours into the game as proven by ResidentEvil.net which is a nice website Capcom put up to bring the RE6 community together with weekly in game contests and detailed stats and whatnot.

The game is meant to thrill you and you are supposed to have a huge smile on your face when playing the game. Nobody on this site will even admit how tight the controls are compared to 90% of other action shooter games. RE5 is free on Playstation Plus this week. Play just 5 minutes of Mercenaries in RE5 today and it feels almost unplayable without the dodge moves and counterattacks.

I hate the group mentality Weekend Confirmed gets sometimes. You don't have to like every game but when a game is love it or hate it like RE6, at least convey to the audience why you might possibly want to check it out. Present both sides of the coin. Game "journalists" come across so selfish sometimes. There are lots of games I straight up hate but still recomment to my friends if it suits their interests.

So Sony announced that Playstation Plus is launching on the Vita with 5 titles: Uncharted GA, Gravity Rush, Wipeout 2048, Jet Grind Radio, FF Tactics (the PSP remake I believe), and Mutant Blobs Attack!!! (which I dunno what that is).

For me, if anything could convince me to buy a Vita as is, this is it. But that also means that you'll probably have to buy at least a 16GB memory card, in addition to the cheapest hardware which would be over $300 all together. The good thing I guess is that if you already subscribe to PS+ because you have a PS3, that might not seem like a big deal. But if you don't, then you're looking at paying a whopping (approx) $350.

So, I mean I guess that could be considered good because you have a guaranteed year's supple of games, and the Vita is currently bundled with AC3L, and the CoD game for no cost above the core hardware. And in a way its like putting the hidden cost of buying a new console all out there. I'm sure you could easily spend over $300 buying a 3DS with some games. Buut, its still a lot of damn money. And I still think the Vita is a fundamentally flawed product, that diverges the gaming market at a time when it is screaming for convergence.

Anyone persuaded otherwise by this news?

Three most common games being played on my friends list:

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Halo 4
Assassin's Creed 3.

You?

Just a PSA for anyone playing Halo 4:

The Halo games have a tradition of giving players who complete the campaign on Legendary a special extra custscene at the very end of the credits.

In the case of Halo 4, the Legendary cutscene happens to contain the only real explaination of the Didact and his motives in the entire game. If you found the Didact to be poorly handled in the game, go to youtube and check out the Legendary ending. It really helps add some clarity... I personally don't understand why 343 didn't include this info earlier in the game. It would have helped things make more sense :-/

I mostly agree and in that way it reminds me of GTA. I love the IDEA of the playing the game but when I'm sitting in front of my TV, I think of other things that I find more fun (for both games)

So what is the chance of Move / Kinect support for GTAV?

I ask because that is how you get that stuff to run in a 'hardcore' game, if that 18 hole golf course is also fully supported with motion, it is a big fuck you to EA. This game has the potential to be the all-in-one experience that says fuck you to every other open world game and all those party game collections at the same time as offering a better experience in those features than all of em, into a fully cohesive world that isn't just a system of menus.

The sky is endless.

So, uh, this might sound weird but....Black Ops 2 single-player mode is actually pretty damn fun.

The "Cold War-era" missions are still your usual CoD fare, but with some added twists like playing near an entire mission on horseback close to the beginning.

I'm having a lot of fun with the "future setting" missions, though. The soundtrack is electronic and space-y like something you'd hear in a game like Deus Ex HR (though not AS good), and you get some neat abilities...like cloaking, that give it an almost Ghost Recon-type feel. The only thing reminding me it's CoD is the actual gunplay, which is good like always.

The multiplayer seems to have changed the least, but that new "pick 10" system is pretty damn cool. There are a ton of new ways to build your class to actually suit your play style this time around.

It's been a long time since I've actually enjoyed a CoD single-player, so I'm sort of impressed.

Glad the two Jeffs are enoying AC3. Particularly Cannata, who seems to have had a hate-on for the series since day one.

I've put dozens of hours in already... 12% complete. This thing is gonna take me through till next xmas at this rate.

Thanks Garnett for revisiting Forza Horizon.
I agree it's not perfect, but it's a first interesting try for Turn10/Playground Games. If they keep working at it like they did between FM1 and FM4, it's only gonna keep getting better and better, so it's worth supporting them.

It's a must to turn all the assists off, and some cars do handle more interestingly than others, like the Ford GT.
Also, I'm using a Fanatec wheel, that helps a lot with immersion obviously - waving between traffic with 900 degrees of steering sensitivity is pretty damn cool.

When I heard fishing for an example of '...someone trying to innovate on single player racing...' I just started screaming the words ‘SPLIT SECOND! SPLIT SECOND!!!’, and praying someone on the show would bring it up, but it didn’t happen. That’s what I want more of in racing games-racing not only as part of a competition, or to escape the cops, but also to survive-and as much as people didn’t seem to like NFS The Run, there was a bit of that present there. I think the stage was called ‘Independence Pass’, where you were not only racing, but avoiding debris from an avalanche too?-that was pretty awesome.

As someone who doesn’t care about anything that is multiplayer related, so far I’m not having a ton of fun with the new NFS MW- as stated, the single player experience feels hollow, and I don’t like just driving up to cars and getting them instead of earning them. Also the extra stuff like breaking fences and billboards is kind of boring to me. The best thing about it is just getting on the highway and weaving through traffic-do you think I might like Forza Horizon? Is it just as ‘arcadey’ as NFS MW (Don’t like realistic driving games at all).

So more on the GTA zapping system, I think the advantage of being able to zap between characters, will be to cut the fat out of making one's way through a GTA campaign. On one hand it sounds like you will be able to look at the different protagonists doing random things between missions, but on the other hand, it seems like the purpose of the zapping is to create deliberately more elaborate sequences that synchronize with one another so that the player can stay attached to the action of the story.

So the problem with the notion of applying co-op in that situation, is that the game would essentially have to make players wait in a certain spots, and perform a specific set of actions, like pieces in a rube goldberg machine, to complete the set piece mission. And if one person gets something wrong, the entire mission would have to be reset. Basically it would be like trial and error times 100 because all 3 players would impact the progression of the game.

If you don't do that the only other option is basically to start deinterlacing the missions which would defeat the whole purpose of what Rockstar is apparently trying to do. All of a sudden you wouldn't be able to force these characters to interact, and you'd have to give them their own missions---which would probably be really boring in comparison to the heists.

The whole zapping system in general isn't going to be about creating some great AI. Its going to be about creating meaningful scripted moments between the characters, while letting the player manage the mechanics. If I compare this to old Resident Evil games, they are more like a sort of pseudo precursor to asynchronous multiplayer. What this GTA system actually reminds me of, is the Active Time Event system in Final Fantasy IX---where at points in the game, when your party would disperse in a town, a little menu would pop up, giving you the option to temporarily control one of the side characters in like a mini-episode/vignette. It was incredibly effective at fleshing out side characters in that game, and it goes to what I always say about video games having as much in common with novels as they do with films---because like novels, video games are not a temporal medium and you can deliver loads of information to the player (like clicking X on an NPC to get them to repeat a line of dialogue), but like films they have all they have all the trappings of cinematic story telling to move the audience.

So, who's playing the new Paper Mario?

I downloaded it last night and started playing first thing this morning, and while it's probably no shock to anyone here that I'd be enamoured with a Mario game, I could barely put it down to eat.

Even with all the press this game got, I found the concept rather baffling. How do you make a turn-based RPG with no experience points, levels, or even stats? Isn't it just an adventure game minus the pointing and clicking at that point?

Having put in some hours, I get it now. It's not about the stickers, it's about the coins.

Basic attack stickers are in absolutely no short supply. The thing is that stomping a bunch of goombas will get you nothing, but stomping goombas with finesse gets you coins, which you can use to buy better stickers in order to fight bigger and stronger mobs with greater finesse. Also, the more coins you have, the more you can pump into the battle spinner, which gets you bonuses as well as letting you use multiple stickers at a time.

Better stickers can lead to better coin bonuses, but the game is balanced such that, at least at this point, I've yet to find a way cheese the system into giving back more coins than what it cost to buy the better stickers, so there's a good push and pull of just fighting regular goombas and koopas with basic stickers to build up coins to use in more urgent situations. At the same time, enemies are visible on the map and are very easy to simply avoid, should you prefer.

The humour is still there, and it's a breath of fresh air to play a game with actual wit and wordplay rather than just regurgitating tired references and internet memes. (okay, so someone did shout "hey, listen!" at me once already, but I'll let it one incident slide)

My comment is for Jeff Cannata.

I'm glad you're enjoying Assassin's Creed 3 but I must ask you. Don't you think that with every irritation it seems like the dev team are getting further away from what the core of AC games. Ship battles are fun and and all but what does it have to do with being an Assassin?

The game just seems to become more like a comic book story and less about being a lone assassin fighting against a group of people hell bend on world domination. That's why to me the first AC will be the the purest (read, not the best) in the series.

It just feels like every game game in the series is trying to 1Up (sorry for the pun but I couldn't resist) the one that came before it. I would not be surprised if the next AC you will be commanding a huge army. I have a feeling the next game in the series will be set in the US civil war time and Abraham Lincoln will be featured.

I just feel like they are getting further away from the creed of the AC game. I hope they give the series a long deserved rest once Watch Dogs comes out.

MMO exploration died post Everquest and coding in exploration with achievements and world events that are all specifically scripted aren't really exploration they are illusions.

Instead of accepting the player base as the dynamic force in the world (ala EVE) other modern MMO design has deemed that every player needs to be the star of the show at every moment to line up with other video games. What this does is drown all those moments into a deluge so that nothing stands out as being truly unique or dynamic and you see right through it all.

WoW's greatest success was it found out how to make the elements of MMOs more readily visible so that a mass audience could get into it, it was also the greatest weakness for the genre because now nothing is hidden or new or spontaneous everything is pre-planned and waiting for you to walk up to it.

As much as I want to agree with everyone that I wished one of the characters in GTAV was female at the same time I hate that response to art of any kind.

They didn't go into it with the express intent thinking "MAN FUCK WOMEN WHO WANTS TO PLAY AS THEM". They are designing their game and we shouldn't hold them to bear the problems of the video game industry on their shoulders.

As someone who completed AC3 I actually thought the first half of the game was much better than the second half. I think maybe the two Jeff's will agree once they play further into the game, because all of the characters from the beginning play such huge roles in the rest of the game and unlike what Jeff Cannata had said I actually wished the first segment was actually longer not shorter.

As far as Connor's story there were so many holes with big plot points that it was very frustrating to see how often the developers just missed the mark on really telling a great story. Honestly it felt like they just skipped over huge plots in the story and just passed it off as common knowledge between the characters to the point where when there is a confrontation between two major characters I was actually surprised when one of them didn't know about an event that happened to Connor in his youth. Not to mention by the end of the game you really wonder what is Connor even fighting for, a why he would do some of the things he ends up doing.

One thing I really did like was this was the first Assassin's Creed game where I would have an assassination and actually feel bad about who I killed and really wonder if Connor was actually doing the right thing by killing these targets. By the end of the game I was left wondering if the Templars not the Assassins were really the good guys after all.

What's everyone's feeling on this? Try not to spoil too much, I'm sure many have yet to even begin this game.

Weird. I've always seen the ghost cars of friends in Horizon's Rivals mode. I wonder if you have to hit a certain number on the leaderboard for it to upload your ghost replay for others to see?

Also, you failed to mention Horizon's lack of traffic in online multiplayer, Garnett. Point to point street races and free roam aren't just the same when there's only the max 8 real players and you aren't weaving around traffic like the single player mode. The world is almost entirely empty.

There's more than just races with the playground modes as well. King is a lot of fun, Infection is okay, but Cat & Mouse just isn't the same with the arcade style physics that bounce cars away upon contact. PIT maneuvers that were natural in the past Forza proper games are nigh impossible to pull off in Horizon.

WC Intro Video.
So you all are doing Adidas's job now? They should have sent you all a 15-30 second ad. In stead you all have to figure out how to fit them in and do multiple takes.

Garnett I want to take you to task about knocking on SWTOR and its F2P, and hopefully you address this in your next show.

I currently am active in the SWTOR PTS (Public Test Server) and have tested the f2p just so you know where i'm coming from.

1) What's up with the axes? I admit Jedi's running around with axes is kinda hilarious however they are Gamorrean axes. (Pig Guards from Jabba's Palace) to you that may mean nothing but to some star wars fans who play the game its a cool nod.

Uniqueness in MMO's - One of SWTOR's problems was the weapon itemization, every jedi/sith runs around with lightsabers for most of the game (understandably so as this is the weapon they use) but at the end of the day it is a game and makes players feel the same to all the other players, so this is a way for Players to add uniqueness to their character and no matter how outlandish it is for jedi's to run around with axes, being different in game is important players especially in mmos. The weapons are fully modable as other "orange" items so basically serves as a weapon skin that doesn't depend on character level. The axes are not going to draw people to play its the story but the item shop is a nice addition, Bioware is giving previous players retroactive coins for months paid so showing the items or the fact that there is a cash shop is a way to draw them back and reward them with some currency for previously subscribing. Also current subs will get a monthly allotment...this is fairly normal with mmos that are f2p.

Double Standard - Many F2p mmo's have cash shops with vanity items and thats the norm. They aren't selling Power so vanity items such as the many gear skin sets, pets, mounts etc...is the way to go. We don't complain when League of Legends sells skins some for as high as 9 dollars each.

Will F2p make SWTOR more profitable? - Yes it will, I thought it was odd when you all laughed at the idea. The reason they are going f2p is because the subscription model is not working for them and they know they will make more money/profit for it to be f2p..they aren't doing it out of the kindness of their heart, they are doing this to make it more profitable.