September kicked off the 2018 holiday season for video games with most big titles releasing over the next few months, right now we are going to talk about some impressions of games that have come out
First up is the latest game in the assassins creed franchise is Assassins Creed Odyssey which released on October 5th and puts you in the shoes of a spartan warrior turned mercenary who wields the legendary spear of King Leonidas, Yes the same one played by Gerard Butler in 300.
The game is set in 431 BCE during the Peloponnesian war, when Athens went to war against Sparta. Having spent over 20 hours with the game I can say it is the most fun I’ve had in an assassin’s creed game since Black Flag. The biggest improvement is that Odyssey feels more like an RPG than an action game.
Your choices now carry weight for example after deciding on the fate of a family during a side mission my choices later made a main story character resent me and made my mission harder. You can also romance characters for the first time in the franchise. The game contains more than 100 hours of content. The combat rides off 2017s AC origins and feels more like something out of the Witcher series then Assassins creed. Ubisoft also gave a grounded reason to include mythical beasts. Ubisoft has also brought all its open world experience to this game, giving players a huge map with lots of interesting locations to explore. The game also features an exploration mode which takes away objective markers until you’ve gathered enough information from other characters to know the rough whereabouts to your next mission.
The game also features a mercenary system which is similar to the nemesis system seen in Middle earth shadow of Mordor as well as an assassinate menu like the boss structure of Ghost Recon Wildlands. The biggest downfall to the game though is it is forced to be part of the Assassins creed universe. The switch between ancient Greece and the modern world is still annoying, what would benefit this game most is losing the assassins creed label and driving into the rich history of ancient Greece without having to tie it all to previous games. That being said Assassins Creed Odyssey is a welcome breath of new life to an old franchise and I can’t wait to explore more of Ubisoft’s ancient Greece.
Forza Horizon 4 released for Xbox one of the 2nd of October. Being the 4th installment of the open world racing game there isn’t much in terms of game changing mechanics but what it does change enhances your immersion a great deal. For example well playing the opening races game characters started to refer to me by my actual name, something that caught me off guard nut immediately made me feel more connected to the game world.
The next big changer is the seasons, every few races you qualify for the next round of races which take place in a new season. New seasons open up new areas of the map and change the driving conditions of the map. These changes aren’t enough to necessarily warrant the $80 price tag however if you sign up for Xbox gamepass, if you don’t know about this service seriously look into it, you can play Forza Horizon 4 right now.
