Won't be short, sorry.
I've uploaded important pics in another thread. Pics show
microtransactions. Some are benign as they add only cosmetics - they charge for dressup barbie, I guess it's okay as the game is still at it's core. Some microtransactions are used to buy weapons, don't sound the alarm, you'll loot so many equipment in the game, I don't see why should you buy those "iconic" whatnot through microtransactions. Unless you want to collect everything possible but then you need to pay $100 for twitch prime as there is some exclusive garbage with that too. Dunno if you get some exclusive rags if you go for a burger in Mcdonalds, wouldn't surprise me if there is.
Apart frome those ignorable microtransaction types there are skillpoints, maps and materials to buy for real $. Maps were always a part of AC games obtainable with ingame money. So this move behind real money paywall is bullshit. Materials are needed to upgrade different damage, health and tools. Skillpoints unlock skills.
These microtransactions are pay2cheat.
Said in that other post, if a reviewer put 9 or 10 score after seeing this bullshit, put that amateur reviewer on your ignore list and never read anything from that idiot again.
It's AC game so expect respawns and grinding. However, grind is on it's minimum, honestly. You don't have to waste time on respawned trashmobs, just follow the story, solve sidequests and clear points of interest (find a treasure, kill a sort of miniboss, solve a puzzle) you'll level up like crazy and get rich. But those f'n respawns…
The game frequently autosaves and you can't save manually. Upon death (desync in fact) your hero will reappear near the area you died, in nonhostile environment. Which sounds good, right? NO!
The game has a bug where your hero gets stuck on environment. If it happens in freeroam, you'll just fasttravel to some point and problem solved. If this happens during a quest of liberating a NPC from some bandits base or something, your only solution is to press R and restart from previous quest stage. Happens what? All those trashmobs are respawned back and you're grinding. Happened to me twice now. The workaround is complete the quest with the fastest route to lead NPC prisoner out of the hostile area, only then return to kill/loot everything so you don't have to repeat the grind over all the same trashmobs.
Hero stuck on environment is not the only bug I saw, graphics glitches occur here and there, trashmobs or loot can spawn below the ground or inside a wall/tree which makes them unpickable/unkillable (to force trashmobs to "unstuck" just move time to evening or day), the game can crash to desktop for no apparent reason, etc. But all these things are super rare. Compared to previous AC games, this one is in the best state on release. This is refreshing.
Graphics is not better than The Witcher 3, but is still great. Music is mediocre. Voiceovers are hit and miss, at least english ones.
Story, at least to me, is interesting. For those who want to learn more about ancient egyptian culture there are tons of scrolls and stuff to read about that, and I love it.
Unlike any other AC game this one has dozens if not hundreds of sidequests, some when solved open more sidequests to do. And some of these sidequests are IMO brilliant. No, these are not Bethesda "radiant" idiocy from Skyrim/FO4, each sidequest has it's own ministory.
Sadly, the whole questing thing is linear. At least it seems so, there are no choices to make, you can't choose if you'll kill or spare someone for example.
The most important thing however, sidequests have tons of humor. Yay!
You get to play the male hero most of the time, but here and there you'll be playing a female hero (his wife), and rarely, for a short time really, you'll be in the skin of a person using the abstergo "machine".
@Moriendor; will want to hear ship fights are in. Not as many as in AC:Rogue or in the worst AC game ever aka AC4. As before, K+M shipfight controls feel like home.
Combat is good, nothing much to talk about. I was afraid it'll be Dark Souls QTE2.0 crap but it's not. You're an assassin, you're supposed to be an assassin not Dark Souls dodger and that's it. Some bosses are a bit harder than common trashmobs, but nothing an experienced RPG player would sweat on. In fact,
after Elex, combat in ACO feels like kindergarden material, feels unbelievably easy.
UI and K+M controls are good except during chariot races.
While racing chariots, wasd is to move, space to break whatnot, shift to charge and e to ram. WTF is this? My hands are not hentai octopus!
In fact I'm allergic to any presence of need4speed races in games generally, luckily in ACO these races are optional activity and you don't have to waste time on that crap.
For whatever reason your map is full of clutter. No, not previous AC games clutter where you see every chest and stuff. You don't see those on the map, just general points of interest (a sidequest giver or areas with loot/miniboss) and fasttravel locations.
But apaert from those, there are revenge another player who died at some spot optional missions to waste time on (don't do those!) and players' screenshots - you can't disable this trash by default. Oh, but there is a cure.
Play the game in offline mode and you don't see any of this "social" garbage!
And finally the best kept secret all those "pro" reviewers on PC didn't dare to mention.
CPU hammering.
Everyone has FPS drops issue, you may see reports everywhere on internet. Here's one topic on the official Ubi forum:
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/1774494-This-game-has-a-high-CPU-usage-80-100
Imagine that.
100% usage of all cores on overclocked i7. Even 3D studio max doesn't do this.
The cause?
@RPGfool will dance. This is not confirmed ofc, but damn you Ubi if this is true:
https://torrentfreak.com/assassins-creed-origin-drm-hammers-gamers-cpus-171030/
Who said they'll wait for the "patch"? Seems I'll do that too.
Talked enough.
The game is fun, it's an above average product but thanks to CPUkiller code, "social" idiocy and microtransaction scam I don't see it deserving more than 7/10.
Please, do not trust "pro" reviewers who are praising this game. Either they didn't play it or are blind and should search for another job.
