Recent reviews by DuckBoi Quacklemore

I haven't beaten the game, but I can tell you I've stopped playing with any sense of excitement.

If you loved New Vegas and never shut up about it, then sure - this is the game for you. If you want a game that actually has substance and doesn't try to use it's kOoKy and random characters to cover up its empty and boring gameplay, maybe give this one a pass.

The overworld is pretty, and travelling to different planets is a plus. The game has a solid Firefly feel and its a pretty scathing criticism of capitalism run amuck. Some of the characters are interesting, but most of the plot boils down to screaming outlaw country and accepting that all of your choices are wrong.

Combat is adequate, but its pretty barebones. It's actually pretty last-gen feeling, complete with a stock-standard bullet time effect ripped straight from a 2009 shooter. The enemy variety is not fantastic - but the bigger issue is that none of the enemies are really interesting. The Marauders are bascially 1 to 1 rips of the Firefly marauders - they're just walking, gameplay-padding plot devices with literally zero personality or motivation beyond the generic, all encompassing explanation of insanity. In fact, there's only the barest implication that the marauders are victims of unregulated drugs that the corps push onto their own citizens - but even this is pretty much just an excuse to make the marauders the mindless killables they already are.

The RPG mechanics are frustrating: Hacking is a stealth skill for some reason, progression is muddy to put it lightly - the game recycles about 10ish armor models back and forth with various skins, so once you're level 6-8 you've basically seen everything in terms of weapons and armor. None of the weapons feel overly satisfying to use, even after mods - granted, they're not awful, but they've genuinely reached the shooter standard of an early 2010s game. I barely got off the first planet before the prospect of looting a dungeon zone got a little boring sounding, and only a few times since then have I actually found something worth checking out. Consumables can really just be ignored; there's nothing stronger than your basic health stim, and its not really worth the hassle to set up the inhaler with consumables.

In fact, since the game is pretty much Fallout in space, its worth noting that even compared to FNV or F3, this game is extremely cut down. The skills of Hacking and Lockpicking are still present, but there's no minigame mechanic to give those skills substance - its literally just a binary of whether you have the skills or not. Character customization is ok, but you're locked into that appearance for the whole game - there's not even a barber to fix hair if you decide you don't like the cut you have. There's no option to romance, and no other way to connect yourself to your crewmates or inworld acquaintances beyond just being their friend or enemy.These complaints might seem small - but there are more objects like this throughout the game and they quickly add up to a experience that lacks a lot of the quality of life improvements that a lot of folks expect out of a supposed AAA RPG experience.

This game tries really hard to pull you in with its Fallout appearance, its retro futurism/Edwardian look, the bright lights and colors, and with the kooky and quirky characters and corporate culture artifacts; To this games credit, all of those things are pretty great. That being said, once you start diving into the meat of the game, you'll quickly realize that the setting is little more than a well prepared spread of expensive icing on a thin and bland tasting piece of stale cake. You walk places, and then you talk to people or shoot them, and there isn't a ton of in-between.

Lol with 800+ hours I'm not going to be bitter and say I didn't enjoy my time.

This game, for new players, is deeply unforgiving. You can be killed in one shot, through a wall - and the firefights are nerve-wracking af - but the rush of actually getting even one kill is something else and I can safely say that no other game comes close to what Siege is doing

It does get frustrating - the constantly changing meta, the toxic community, the uncompromising difficulty can all be pretty draining - but just, don't take it too seriously, take regular breaks, study the maps, and experiment.

This game can be very fun, but if you let it - it will play you as much as you play it.

I played this game through twice, very happy both times.

Origins is atmospheric, griping, dark and daring. The story is incredible with some small exceptions, the combat is difficult but rewards skills, and the for the first time in a long time I felt truly sucked into Egypt like the cow in Twister being lifted off the ground.

I love Bayek and Aya - they're both incredibly well written and Bayek's revenge story is heartbreaking and awe inspiring. I know it's not likely, but I would love to see more of Bayek in a potential sequel.

I'll list my criticisms below, but please know that these are nitpicks more than they are legitimate criticisms. Spoilers for the main story ahead:

- The ending of the main campaign was a little clunky - the transition from frreelancing Medjay to Hidden Ones was a tad overdone, and quick. It's understandable given the difficulty of telling deep, cinematic stories via a game - I guess I have some creative differences with the team. I feel that there was an opportunity to create new iconography for the Hidden Ones - the Assassin's symbol felt just a tad out of place in the antiquity world of Egypt. Where every other symbol felt like it had truly been carved, or painted by hand, or sewn - the Assassin's symbol looked printed on. Again - very small gripe, but I think changing something small like the symbol away from AC symbol to what could have been literally like, an isocelles triangle to represent a blade - that would have added a lot of unspoken credence and depth to the newly formed Hidden Ones - and it stops you from writing yourself into a corner.

The Hidde Ones DLC had a similar issue - the immediate creation of the traditional white and red Assassin robes was, imo, a misstep - that color choice was (I assume, I realize you created it) a choice originally made to reflect the time period of Altair, who wore those colors to blend in with monks and templars. There was an opportunity to create something new, which would have added depth to the Hidden Ones - and depth back into Assassin's Creed 1, by simply implying that the Levant Assassin's were essentially responsible for the orgs rebranding.

Last one, I swear: The Curse of The Pharaohs DLC: I don't think we heard enough from Bayek in that story about the simulations crafted by the apple - how did he come to the conclusion that the afterlife is a trick of the mind, and could we hear more about that in more than just a passing comment? Conversations in which ancient characters wrestle with the science the Isu bring to bare is a big part of grounding the story in science fiction, which keeps the player grounded in a working understanding of the game world - this problem was largely addressed in the Fate of Atlantis DLC in Odyssey, so take notes from there.

Again - I realize I went on a rant - but these small details were not at all game breakers for me - this is literally one of the coolest games I've ever played and I am high key surprised that it was this good.

So I played about 80+ hours I think, long enough to complete all of the main quest, and whatever side quests were required so that I could level up and continue main - I did not buy the DLC because the base game was deeply dissatisfying and I won't give it any more of my money.

This game has a litany of issues: The combat is confusing and not as weighty as Origin's - if you want to stafe literally ever you have to use their weird toggle lockon (seriously, give players the option to strafe or make the lockon a hold-button option), The story occasionally waxes interesting - but the premise of mercenary goes out into the world is stale, and the story takes dozens of crappy shortcuts because apparently properly grounding the story in good dialogue and solid sci fi themes was too much. This game is also much buggier than Origins - which leads me to my next, much bigger point:

This game is too damn big - it's so big picture oriented that the small picture moment-to-moment gameplay suffers deeply because of it. The sheer size of the game is a massive contributing factor to why the combat, story, and resiliancy of this game have suffered - by the simpler virtue that on the dev side there was too much to do, too much to test and in the end it apparently could not all get done.

AC: Origions, in my opinion, was an excellent change of pace - it was atmospheric, gripping, and rewarding to play. Odyssey did not have any of those things in comparison. There's very little atmosphere beyond greek capitalism, the story is clunky and trips over itself, and after a while finding gold and mats feels less like a reward and more like a grind.


This game is not all horrible, and I hope the good parts carry forward:
- Visual customization of the character is good
- Having the character react more often to Isu ruins helps ground the player in that character's view, and gives us context for how those ruins should make us feel - the era of the silent protagonist is over, give me perspective.
- Once you level way, waaaay up the combat becomes bearable and even a little fun - being able to spartan kick dudes or insta kill them is the big good feel.
- Sailing is still awesome, not really much to say there. Thought Origin's had better ship combat but only because their combat was new and weird - Odyssey ship combat was still good, liked cutting other ships in half.

In conclusion, save your money for Valhalla - go watch this game on Youtube

It's very early in development but Scrap Mechanic is super addictive, charming, and very smart. Building a capable vehicle is the culmination of hard work farming the materials, and smart design choices - and because of that it always feels super rewarding to hop into your own creation and find out IT WORKS.


I'm really looking for a place to post feedback to the devs with ideas for future features I'd love to see. I think a game like this has so much potential and I'd love to be able to float ideas.