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EGM Review: Assassin’s Creed Rogue

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
December 4, 2014

Switching sides

If you told me back in August, when Assassin’s Creed Rogue was first announced, that it would be the superior Assassin’s Creed game coming out this year—even though it’s a last-gen exclusive—I’d have said you went and lost your mind. But, here we are, several months later, and after having played both games to completion, I can attest that this is indeed the case, with Rogue serving as a perfect conclusion to the series’ time spent exploring Europe’s North American colonies in the 18th century.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue takes place between Assassin’s Creed III and IV, set against the backdrop of the Seven Years’ War (known as the French and Indian War here in the U.S.) during the 1750s and tells the story of Shay Cormac, a bright trainee of the Assassin Order whose first solo mission ends in horrific disaster. Furious at the Assassin Mentor, Achilles (yes, the same one who, in his later years, would train Connor Kenway in Assassin’s Creed III), Shay tries to undermine the Order’s future plans. Gunned down by his former associates when he’s caught in the act of stealing key precursor-race documents, Shay is left for dead in a snow bank just off Achilles’ Homestead in Massachusetts, where he’s found by a group of Templars and nursed back to health. Thus his conversion begins: From great Assassin prospect to one of the most effective Templars who ever lived.

I was originally afraid that Rogue would feel boring and would be nothing more than a complete copy-and-paste job with elements from the two games with which it links narratively. Instead, Rogue feels like coming back to an old friend. Familiar but changed in the time since last I saw it, full of new tales, but keeping the same mannerisms that makes it uniquely Assassin’s Creed.

For example, the game’s one proper city, New York, is completely different from what we remember in Assassin’s Creed III, since Rogue is set before the Great Fire of 1776. Buildings that were smoldering husks during Connor’s adventure are now mansions and monuments perfect for climbing. You can also undertake plenty of new side missions here, as well as in the outposts scattered about the brand-new Hudson River Valley region.

One instance of these side missions comes in the form of gangs led by Assassins that plague different areas. By removing the threat of these ruffians, you can increase the wealth of the area they formerly inhabited. Shay then gets a cut of that new wealth via the game’s economy, similar to the system seen in Assassin’s Creed II and Unity. As he helps the colonists prosper, he prospers as well, getting a steady flow of income to his bank account. He can also increase an area’s wealth by using materials collected during ship battles to rebuild important buildings that have seen better days.

Rogue also features Assassination Interceptions. Before, you’d go to a pigeon coop and get a side assassination mission. Now, you’re trying to catch pigeons to prevent assassinations, throwing a wrench into the Assassins’ plans. These defense missions provide a fresh twist on an old formula, since you have a time limit to hunt down would-be killers in a crowd and take them out before the target falls to a hidden blade or a pistol shot.

Also, the waterways that you sail on are new here. While the aforementioned Hudson River Valley and North Atlantic regions provide a topography that looks similar to what you saw in Black Flag, it brings its own set of challenges, such as clearing out French colonies in order to claim them for the glory of the British Empire or discovering a variety of collectibles like war journals and Native American totems.

Besides new outposts and colonies to explore, just the act of sailing itself is fraught with new dangers. Due to the freezing waters, icebergs are a constant threat—but they’re also a lot of fun to destroy as your crew gives a rousing “Huzzah!” with each one that breaks apart. You’ll also often find and recover building materials that were frozen inside the ice, giving you some additional economic motivation in bringing about their destruction. What’s more, sinking icebergs can cause huge waves in the surrounding waters, and by timing your shots right, you can sink nearby enemy gunboats and toss about other small ships to turn the tide of a battle more in your favor by adding that extra element of chaos.

Naval battles also see an upgrade. Not only does Shay have different weapons than Black Flag’s Edward had at his disposal (like flaming oil barrels that do massive damage if you can get an enemy ship to sail into them), but enemy ships are also more willing to go on the offensive now. Several times, it looked like I was going to have my enemy ready for boarding—but they rammed my ship and tried to board me instead. The results were the same, though, with me killing a dozen or so of their crew and stealing their cargo, and privateering as Shay felt a lot more invigorating than pirating with Edward.

Combat hasn’t just changed at sea, though. Shay has some special new weapons that come as a result of crossing paths with some of history’s most influential figures, like Ben Franklin, who bestows upon you a grenade launcher. I know—it sounds ridiculous that a grenade launcher would exist in the 1750s, but documents prove that Franklin had been working on a grenade back then. If you should happen to pilfer the prototype, and combine it with another new weapon in your Air Rifle, then history would be none the wiser. Admittedly, the grenade launcher is a bit overpowered and quickly able to whittle down crowds of enemy forces with just a few well-placed shots, but it’s also a lot of fun—I ended up using it more as an ace in the hole than something I’d frequently carry into battle.

Beyond the pleasant gameplay tweaks, Shay’s story is easily one of the most enjoyable we’ve seen from the series. With the large gap in history between Assassin’s Creed III and IV, Rogue avoids being backed into the corner that most interquels have to deal with, where the game has to start and end—no matter what—at a certain point in order to keep continuity in place. It also neatly ties up a few loose ends, especially in regards to a huge chunk of Haytham Kenway’s story.

Shay also proves himself as one of the strongest characters in Assassin’s Creed lore, and he almost instantly became a personal favorite for me. His constant struggles with his conscience—he’s often racked with guilt for leaving his former friends—shows a doubtful, remorseful side we rarely see from any series protagonist. The strong supporting cast of both Assassins and Templars only makes Shay a more well-rounded character, since he interacts with each in different ways—whether it’s the Templar George Munro, to whom Shay feels he owes his life (and he kind of does) or the contempt he shows the stuck-up French-Canadian Assassin Louis-Joseph Gaultier. In fact, I enjoyed Shay’s tale so much, and it offered such an intriguing glimpse into the other side of the Assassin-Templar war, that I was more than happy to pledge allegiance to the Templars when all was said and done.

It wasn’t just Shay’s point of view that told the Templar side of the story, however. The real-world sequences return in Rogue, once again having you play the role of an Abstergo Entertainment employee in Montreal. When you first access Shay’s story, it unleashes a virus that slams the building into lockdown. Only by bringing the computers back online, little by little, can you access more of Shay’s tale, and as you hack your way through a brand-new series of inventive and fun puzzles, you’ll learn more about the history of the Templars and what they think of the Assassins.

Even with these gameplay tweaks and the enjoyability of Shay’s story, it needs to be said that Rogue is a far from a perfect experience. In terms of narrative, Shay’s story is the shortest adventure in Assassin’s Creed, lasting only six Sequences. This puts a huge crimp on pacing—by the end of the game, Shay’s just chasing down all his former associates, one mission right after another, with little to no buildup. His dialogue’s also hit-or-miss: At some points, he’ll provide memorable, poignant lines, but in other spots, he’ll deliver cheesy catchphrases over and over again like a 1980s B-movie action star (I swear, if he said, “I make my own luck” one more time…).

Also, some glitches forced me to restart several main story and side missions. Often, assassination targets would spawn in (or behind) a wall, so I couldn’t reach them. I’d have to kill myself to desynchronize and then pick the mission back up from a checkpoint. Doing this once or twice always did the trick, but it was just the idea that I had to start entire sections of a mission over because the game became unplayable at points. Long load times and the occasional bit of lag also had me in constant fear that the game would crash at any moment. Unlike Unity, which did crash half a dozen times while I played it and also required several mission restarts, Rogue never completely locked up, at least.

Rogue also lacks a lot of the replayability we’ve seen in more recent Assassin’s Creed titles. There’s no multiplayer to speak of, competitive or cooperative, so once you collect all the items and complete all the side missions, there’s really not much else to do. As unpopular as it proved to be (I personally liked it, but I admit to being in a minority), at least the competitive multiplayer of previous last-gen entries offered something to bring you back for more.

Despite the rushed nature of the narrative and the semi-frequent technical glitches, I still found Rogue to be a far more pleasurable experience than I anticipated. It does just enough to put its own stamp on the franchise while also giving us critical story details in order to tie up loose ends between Assassin’s Creed III and IV. It acts as the perfect swan song for the franchise on the last generation of consoles, putting a neat-and-tidy bow on the Colonial Era Trilogy.

Developer: Ubisoft Sofia • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 11.11.14
8.5
The perfect Assassin’s Creed swan song on last-gen, Rogue offers perhaps the best protagonist the series has ever seen—even if the gameplay will be too familiar for the liking of some.
The Good Shay’s adventure is a perfect conclusion to Assassin’s Creed’s time in Colonial America.
The Bad Crams a lot of story into a short time, which hurts narrative pacing terribly.
The Ugly The shaggy, porno-esque goatee Shay sports before turning Templar.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue is available on Xbox 360 and PS3 and is coming to PC in 2015. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360. A retail copy was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

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What? Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire are evolving!

When Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire came out more than a decade ago on the Game Boy Advance, it was one of the more intriguing entries for the franchise. Kicking off what would later be known as Generation III, Ruby/Sapphire introduced players to the Hoenn region, as well as to 135 new types of Pokémon.

It was an odd release, though, because it did away with the day/night cycle introduced in Gold/Silver and no longer encouraged players to try “catch ‘em all”—neither game allowed you to catch all 386 Pokémon known at the time. Still, new Pokémon like Treecko, Mudkip, and Torchic would help these entries find a way into fans’ hearts just the same as previous games had. Because of this, much like how Red/Blue and Gold/Silver were remade several years after their original releases, Nintendo felt it was finally time to do the same to Ruby/Sapphire. Unlike those previous remakes, however, Omega/Alpha feel familiar but also add enough new elements to actually warrant a remake.

Your adventure starts off the same as it did a decade ago, with your family moving to the Hoenn region after your father, Norman, is named Petalburg Gym Leader (the fifth you’ll have to face on your way to the region’s Elite Four). Looking to follow in your father’s footsteps as a Pokémon trainer, and with the help of local Pokémon expert Professor Birch, you decide to become the best Pokémon trainer in the world. As you set out to collect the eight gym badges required to make a run at the Pokémon Champion, however, you stumble upon a plot hatched by a nefarious group of Pokémon trainers (Team Magma in Ruby, Team Aqua in Sapphire). They’re trying to revive the legendary Pokémon of the region (Groudon in Ruby, Kyogre in Sapphire), which would spell doom for human and Pokémon alike if they were to succeed. So, naturally, you strive to become not only the very best, but to save everyone and everything you know along the way.

Coming shortly after the release of Pokémon X and Y proves more advantageous for Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire than either of the previous two generations of remakes because of the huge changes X/Y marked for the franchise as a whole. The story of Ruby/Sapphire, however, remains almost exactly the same, beat for beat, which should lessen the learning curve for returning fans but might also deter them from exploring as much as they might with a brand-new adventure.

The only narrative changes you’ll see are minor dialogue rewrites meant to accommodate X/Y features ported over here, like Mega Evolution. Even the “Delta Episode,” which helps explain how Mega Evolution functions, isn’t as new or original as it’s been touted to be.

Meanwhile, what did come over from X/Y goes a long way toward making this familiar adventure feel as fresh as it did 11 years ago. The world of Hoenn looks fantastic, realized in full 3D as you make your way through redesigned gyms, towns, and dungeons. Plus, the Pokémon seem to jump off the screen with the enhanced graphics, and the game, as a whole, easily looks just as good as X/Y.

There’s also the inclusion of Mega Evolutions. Not only are they tied into the story now, but more Pokémon can achieve these new, more powerful forms, including Latios and Latias, one of which will now automatically join you on your journey. Primal Reversions also debut here, but they’re really just new in name only and meant to serve a narrative purpose within the tweaked plot. In reality, they’re simply the Mega Evolutions for the legendary Pokémon Groudon and Kyogre, but instead of needing to activate this power on the Fight menu once already in battle, they’ll transform automatically as soon as they enter the fray.

Curiously, though, some of X/Y’s features didn’t make the trip to Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, like being able to customize your trainer beyond choosing whether they’re male or female at the start. Instead, a new feature called Secret Bases—special holes scattered around Hoenn that you can crawl into and make your own special playroom out of—are meant to scratch your customization itch. It’s a nice idea, especially since you can share different rooms with your friends, but I’d much prefer being able to dress my trainer however I want and let my friends see that in battle, rather than show them whatever new lamp I just bought and stuck in my treehouse.

There’s more to Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire than just having some of X/Y’s notable features crammed in, though, as it does some interesting things on its own. In conjunction with X/Y, you can now complete the most recent National Pokédex for the first time, since some Pokémon are only available in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. That’s right: If you work hard enough, you can get all 719 Pokémon between the two games.

There’s also the exclusive Cosplay Pikachu, a special version of everyone’s favorite electric rodent that you can win by participating in a Pokémon Contest, a side-activity where Pokémon are rated based on the moves they perform on a stage for an audience. Cosplay Pikachu can’t be traded or evolved but instead wears a variety of outfits into battle that allow it to learn unique, off-type moves. For example, Rockstar Pikachu can learn Meteor Mash, a Steel-type move. And while I think it’s a stupid idea to put a Pikachu in an assortment of different outfits and call it a “feature,” I can’t argue with the fact that it’s actually one of the most powerful Pokémon in the game and ended up being in my final six before taking on the Elite Four.

Besides the completionist’s dream (or nightmare) of trying to complete the Pokédex, a new device called DexNav makes it easier to find those rare Pokémon that only appear at certain times of day or in particular areas under unique conditions. This new feature singlehandedly changes the entire mechanic of searching for (and trying to capture) Pokémon, because it lessens how much luck is involved in the process.

The DexNav can easily be turned on via the bottom screen of the 3DS and works by constantly scanning an area with a radar-like system, leading you directly to these rare, more powerful Pokémon. For example, I found a Mightyena that knew Ice Fang, a move that it wouldn’t normally learn over the course of its training outside of a TM (technical machine, which teaches Pokémon moves they wouldn’t learn otherwise). I also found a Sandshrew that was 10 levels above all the other Pokémon in the area. This randomness in regards to strength and move list makes it much more interesting to catch Pokémon again compared to just shuffling through grass and hoping for the right random encounter.

The biggest change to the game, though, probably comes from the new ability to soar. This new ability is exclusive to Latios or Latias, and only when you’re ready to take on the eighth gym in the game and later. It’s not a move that takes up one of your four slots like Fly or Cut, though, and instead requires a special item, much like riding the Bicycle. Instead of riding on roads and through grass, though, you can ride one of the Eon Pokémon like your own personal jet through the never before explored skies of Hoenn. And once you soar, you can try to capture Pokémon that you wouldn’t normally find as you jet through the airways above the entire region.

Special Mirage Spots­—accessible only by soaring—lead you to the legendary Pokémon from other games, which is necessary if you’re to complete the entire Pokédex. I was honestly shocked at how much fun I had soaring. Not only did it make getting to certain areas easier, but also seeing the entire region of Hoenn from a bird’s-eye view was absolutely beautiful.

And speaking of battling, it’s just as easy now to jump into a versus match against another human in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire as it is in X/Y—but now you can choose if you want to do game-exclusive matchups, which limit you to using Pokémon only from those games. For example, you wouldn’t be able to take Rayquaza into an X/Y League match or Xerneas into an Omega/Alpha match. Other options allow you to use whatever Pokémon you like, but I imagine these new rulesets are more for competition’s sake.

Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire surprised me with how much it was able to add from Pokémon X/Y—yet manage to stay true to the original adventure from more than a decade ago. Not all the new features were as impressive as they were hyped to be, and not everything that should’ve come over from X/Y did in the end, but despite this, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire are more than worthy of the Pokémon name, and they work as either new adventures for newcomers to the series or fun strolls down memory lane for lifelong trainers.

Developer: Game Freak • Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 11.21.14
8.5
New features like DexNav and the soar ability add just enough new gameplay elements to the classic Pokémon formula to help make this decade-old adventure feel new again.
The Good New visuals; soar and DexNav add fun new gameplay elements.
The Bad You can’t customize your trainers like in X/Y; Primal Reversions are just glorified Mega Evolutions.
The Ugly Cosplay Pikachu: it reminds me of all those stupid people out there who insist on dressing up their pets.
Pokémon Omega Red/Alpha Sapphire are a Nintendo 3DS exclusive. Primary version of game reviewed was Omega Red. Review code was provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Assassin’s Creed Unity

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The past repeats itself

It’s a little hard to believe, what with all the releases the series has seen, but Assassin’s Creed Unity marks the first time that an entry in Ubisoft’s history-based action-adventure franchise has been developed solely for a new generation of consoles since, well, the very first game. The original Assassin’s Creed was full of great ideas and really showed the potential of what the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation could offer developers and players alike, but it had some rough edges and poorly implemented early concepts, many of which wouldn’t be realized until its sequel, Assassin’s Creed II.

The hope this time around was that Unity would allow Assassin’s Creed to make a splash on new-gen without having to deal with the growing pains usually associated with a shift in technology—that it could introduce new ideas without the bumps and bruises seen when the series first launched. Unfortunately, Unity’s ideas are as much of a mixed bag as the 2007 original: Some are great, some are bad, and some are just poorly implemented.

Continuing the thread started in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Abstergo—the megacorporation at the heart of the series—has begun mass-producing the equivalent of a set-top box Animus they call “Helix”, allowing everyone at home to now enjoy a variety of Assassin adventures filtered through their rose-colored glasses. When you start playing, though, your box is hacked by the actual Assassins, and they ask you to help them by playing through the French Revolution in 18th-century Paris. So, you’re basically playing a videogame where you play a person playing a videogame. So meta, Ubisoft. Also, very boring. Here, though, you take over as Arno Dorian, a young lad whose father dies under mysterious circumstances and is adopted by the Grandmaster of the Templars.

You watch as Arno grows up and then begins a love affair with his adopted sister, Elisé, always in the dark to his adopted father’s affairs. When the Grandmaster is murdered, however, Arno comes across the Assassin Order—which, unbeknownst to him, puts our hero at odds with his love, who’s been trained in the Templar ways all this time. What follows then is easily one of the most gripping stories to date in the Assassin’s Creed universe: Arno’s tale is filled with romance, intrigue, mystery, and lots of action. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Arno might have to duke it out with Black Flag’s Edward Kenway and Assassins Creed II’s Ezio Auditore on my all-time favorite Assassins list because of his robust character growth over the course of the game.

Sadly, all the other players in Arno’s story—except maybe Elisé—fall completely flat in terms of their development. Characters who are important to the canon of Assassin’s Creed like Napoleon Bonaparte (he wields an Apple of Eden at one point in his life), critical figures in the French Revolution like Maximilien de Robespierre (commonly believed to be one of the architects to blame for the Reign of Terror), and even Arno’s mentor, Pierre Bellec, along with many others, are underutilized and barely serve as little more than footnotes in the development of our protagonist. This was disappointing, considering how many great supporting characters we’ve had in previous games like Leonardo da Vinci, the Borgias, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Blackbeard, and Black Bart. I wanted Arno to pal around with Napoleon. I wanted him to learn more from Bellec. And I wanted him to have some banter with Robespierre. I got none of this.

And since I mentioned the real world, I think now’s a great time to bring up the most startling thing about Unity’s story: the complete removal of that aspect from the game. Not once do you leave Arno and Helix and move about in reality. Instead, you get a handful of voiceovers from your random Assassin hacker telling you what to do and why to do it.

These sequences, which were a welcome respite in previous games, are now replaced by “server bridge” scenarios where Abstergo IT security tries to track you in the primary French Revolution scenario—so, in order to protect you, the hidden Assassin jacks you out of 18th-century Paris and into one of three other time periods. Once you complete a traversal challenge, you go back to the French Revolution, but if you want to revisit these other time periods, you’ll be welcomed back by minigames in which you have to collect inconsequential data clusters that award you 10, 20, or 50 points. This is by far the worst thing Unity attempts to add to the series—it feels like a pointless excuse to give players a chance to climb the Eiffel Tower during World War II or see familiar Templar designs in medieval times.

But there’s more to Assassin’s Creed than just the story. Ubisoft loves to point out their three “pillars of gameplay” (combat, stealth, and navigation), and they’ve said that they set out early in Unity’s development to address each one and hopefully improve upon it for new-gen—but they were only successful in some regards.

The first major tweak comes with the combat, which feels like a change we didn’t know we needed until it happened. It’s much more difficult now, since the overpowered counter button has been removed in place of the more finesse-oriented parry maneuver. Shades of the Batman: Arkham games bleed through here—your enemy’s lifebar will light up above their head when they’re about to attack, which allows you time to prepare your parry. If your timing’s right, your opponent will now be left wide open for a follow-up attack. If you’re surrounded, however, you may have several opponents try to attack at the same time—and Arno’s far more human than Ezio or Edward and will fall to enemy blades if he finds himself surrounded by more than three foes in most cases. The days of piling up dozens of enemy bodies in the streets are over, but walking away from an encounter alive is surprisingly more satisfying now.

Another huge improvement comes in the form of the stealth elements, particularly during assassination missions. This was a huge focus for the development team, because fans have been clamoring for more emphasis on this for years—and part of the success of this change comes about due to the aforementioned combat becoming more difficult. Sneaking around enemy fortresses and encampments is now a must if you want to survive.

The assassination missions are also more open-ended, and the game tells you before you even start your attempt how many entrances exist and how many opportunities you’ll have for special assassinations (my favorite was on a guillotine stage) before letting you loose to overcome the seemingly impossible odds however you choose. Optional mission objectives, such as paying off a maid to open up a particular window or retrieving a monk’s lost keys to open up a church’s back door, are also present and allow for more possible strategies when tackling your task, but they’re by no means mandatory. I had so much fun with these that I wish there’d been more—or even an extra mode just dedicated to assassinating different targets again and again.

As welcome as these improvements are when it comes to two of the three gameplay pillars, however, there’s one that falls flat on its face: the new parkour system. I put more than 35 hours into Unity, and I still never felt like I got the full hang of it. In the original Assassin’s Creed, you held the RT and A buttons (or R2 and X on the PS3) to climb around. Later on in the series, the trigger button alone handled this duty, and the series did away with the grip that became known as the “Creed claw,” since you’d spend most of the game holding those buttons. Unfortunately, in Unity, the developers have gotten away from the one-button concept in favor of a ridiculous four-button system. You still hold the right trigger to run, but if you want to run up, you need to hold A (or X on the PS4) in conjunction with the trigger. If you want to run down or climb over low walls, you hold B and the trigger (or Circle on the PS4) instead. If you want to climb into windows of a certain altitude, you hold both triggers.

Honestly, it becomes a real pain in the neck after a while, because it never feels as intuitive as the one-button system. At one point, I spent 30 seconds dancing around the four corners of a window I was trying to sneak into—before I remembered that I needed to press the left trigger, too. And there’s nothing like falling into a crowd of angry soldiers because you slipped and pressed B instead of A. It felt like I was fighting the controls the entire time, and even when I thought I was doing it right, Arno felt floaty and not nearly as controllable as he should’ve been.

To Ubisoft’s credit, the “controlled descent” feature, which allows you to slide down high walls or quickly get down from towers with RT and B (R2 and Circle on the PS4), is a welcome addition. But I don’t understand why the developers couldn’t just keep the one-trigger system and then add that controlled-descent mechanic on top of it.

And this seems to be Assassin’s Creed Unity in a nutshell. For every good feature or two that Ubisoft Montreal implemented here, they did something else that made me question what they were thinking.

Another example of elation and disappointment comes during the side missions, where you’ve got a cornucopia of tasks that vary greatly in scope and objective. I loved some of them, such as the Café Théâtre’s missions. The Café Théâtre is a small bistro in Paris under Assassin ownership and serves as Arno’s home base, much like Monteriggioni did for Ezio. It also affords the game an excuse to reintroduce an economy system like that seen in Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood. Having a constant flow of currency (and being able to increase that flow via special missions and unlocking other clubs around Paris) is a huge boon and also makes the customization far less daunting, since you’re more able to easily afford the pricier, more powerful items over time. The customization and upgrade system are also surprisingly well balanced, and I never felt like I lacked the necessary skills to complete an assassination.

The co-op missions are also a healthy change for the series and provide some really interesting side stories, along with the single-player-driven Paris Story missions that add both color and context to the time period, as well as the Assassin-Templar war. My only wish is that co-op could’ve somehow been worked into the main campaign. Also, since these missions—much like the game itself—are so narrative-centric, many of them lack the replayability you might expect.

But for every great Club or Paris Story mission, there are the disappointing Murder Mysteries and Nostradamus Enigmas. In the Murder Mysteries, Arno must help the bumbling police force solve various crimes around Paris using his Eagle Vision—but these segments are beyond simple. While you’re awarded with a rare item upon the completion of each case, these mysteries often require far too much running around Paris to solve a crime that you could easily piece together after only a few telling clues—or, if you’re really lazy, you can just Google the answer, since many are based on real-life events.

The Nostradamus Enigmas, meanwhile, are supposed to be the spiritual successors to the Glyph puzzles of Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood or the hacking puzzles from the real world in Black Flag. Instead, cryptic riddles point you to landmarks around Paris, where you scour the building in time-sensitive Eagle Vision and look for weird drawings. There’s no thinking involved—just more tiresome legwork.

Even in terms of the look and feel of Paris, you can find things that’ll leave you scratching your head. The city does feel more alive than any previous Assassin’s Creed setting, with gorgeous graphics and animation helping highlight the scores of NPCs crammed onscreen. But it also brings about the potential for several hysterical glitches, like people snapping into place like a movie extra late for the “action” call trying desperately to get their spot, or some getting constantly stuck on random pieces of furniture in houses or boxes in the market. The vibe is also rather bland, with most of the districts taking on similar, monotonous tones that just start to wear you down after some time. The game does briefly take an aside in Versailles, but even then I found myself longing for the cities and landscapes from previous games.

For the first time in a long time, in fact, an Assassin’s Creed game felt like a bit of a grind. Arno’s story, the new combat, the return to stealth, and the economy and customization were all high points. But the implementation and addition of many other ideas fell short of the quality I expect from this franchise. I can’t help but think that even with a four-year development cycle, this game needed some more time to polish and flesh out the concepts. It’s kind of funny how a franchise built around reliving history is reliving some of its own now, though—so, at the very least, I’m still looking forward to its sequel when, hopefully, they finally get a lot of this stuff right.

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 11.11.14
6.5
Unity follows in the original Assassin’s Creed’s footsteps in many ways as the first game in the series developed exclusively for the new generation of consoles. And, much like its ancestor, for every good thing Unity does, it adds something else that just leaves you scratching your head—giving the whole experience a hit-or-miss feel that we haven’t seen from the series in a long time.
The Good A strong main narrative; combat and stealth are much improved.
The Bad Fighting the parkour system the entire game; side missions are hit-or-miss.
The Ugly All those French people…and almost no French accents.
Assassin’s Creed Unity is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review.
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Disney Infinity helps Disney Interactive finally turn a profit

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For the first time since they merged their gaming and Internet divisions back in 2009, the Interactive division of Disney finally turned an annual profit, the company announced this morning.

Attributing a large amount of the success to last August’s release of Disney Infinity, the company’s financial year, ended September 27, 2014, saw a $116 million dollar profit, with three million starter packs of the near-field communication game having been sold by April 2014.

Disney Infinity can’t take all the credit for this financial turnaround, though. Back in March 2014, Disney cut its overhead by nearly a quarter when it laid off 700 employees. Some of the fiscal success also comes from new mobile efforts for the company, like Frozen Free Fall.

“We are very pleased with the results of the first installment of [Disney Infinity] and we feel good about the launch of the second installment thus far,” said Disney Interactive President James Pitaro during an investors conference call this week. “But we will have a better sense of overall performance as we enter the holiday season.”

It was also noted in the financial statement that Disney Infinity 2.0’s shorter window ahead of the fiscal year’s end helped offset that quarter’s profits, although their Q4 was still $18 million in the black for Disney, which is $2 million more year over year for the company.

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Ubisoft reports Q2 fiscal earnings, beats expectations

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November 6, 2014

Ubisoft reports that their Q2 fiscal sales exceeded their projections by 46 percent this year.

Ubisoft’s second fiscal quarter, which lasts from July 1-September 30, netted the company 124.1 million euros ($156.6 million dollars). While this marks a decline year over year by 43 percent, it exceeded their original 85 million euro predictions.

Ubisoft’s total year over year earnings up this point are up by 65 percent at this point, attributed by the company to strong continued sales of Watch_Dogs, which launched in their fiscal Q1. There has also been a 90.4 percent increase in digital revenue in the first half of this year compared to last year.

“The very strong momentum we saw at the beginning of the fiscal year carried on into the second quarter and enabled us to once again exceed our performance expectations,” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. “Ubisoft continued to capitalize on the popularity of new consoles, the successful launch of Watch Dogs, the quality of its back catalog and the considerable growth of the digital segment. Consequently, our operating income and cash flows improved significantly during the period.”

Reported sales by platform indicate that 21 percent of Ubisoft’s quarterly revenue came on PS4, 19 percent on PS3, 17 percent on PC, 16 percent on Xbox 360, and Xbox One brings up the rear with nine percent.

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EGM Review: Fantasia: Music Evolved

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Composer of the cosmos

When you think about the library of Kinect games for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it’s a rather sad state of affairs. One developer, however, has consistently put their peripheral expertise to good use and taken advantage of what’s otherwise been a disappointing piece of hardware. Of course, I’m speaking about Harmonix.

Dance Central provided the group fun of Rock Band—but without the expensive plastic-toy inputs. Wanting to continue this trend but offer fans a bit of changeup from their bootyshake-prompting staple, they teamed up with Disney to explore the classic combination of animation and music: Fantasia.

Fantasia: Music Evolved is one of those few Kinect games that you can actually play comfortably from your favorite chair, because it only requires your arms. You play as Yen Sid’s—the wizard from Fantasia whose name is conveniently “Disney” spelled backward—newest apprentice, and must prove you’re worthy of wearing his magic hat in the hopes of responsibly conducting the cosmos with your rhythm-infused fingertips. As your mastery improves, new worlds full of music and sound will come alive as you play 33 classical and contemporary songs, along with unique minigames, like beatboxing with talking vegetables or harmonizing with a yeti, to add your own special tracks to each world.

Along the way, you’ll also encounter Yen Sid’s former apprentice, Scout. This is where Music Evolved differs from most other Harmonix titles, since it actually provides a story. Once you’ve grasped the gameplay basics, Scout will come along and accidentally unleash “The Noise,” a cacophony of offbeat, ear-splitting rhythms that you must vanquish from the game’s 10 worlds by playing through the soundtrack and unlocking a pair of remixes for each song. Some remixes, for example, might see a classical piece from Dvorak and give it the old 8-bit treatment or take a contemporary artist like CeeLo Green and give “Forget You” a dubstep drubbing.

This is where I found a bit of fault with Music Evolved, however. With only 33 songs at launch (more coming via DLC, of course) you can blow through the whole thing pretty quickly—and disappointingly, for a $60 title. In order to force a second playthrough, though, you can’t unlock the second remix for each song, and therefore can’t 100-percent the game unless you play each song again after beating the story mode.

While it was still fun, I felt limited by not being able to just unlock each remix and minigame on my first run and hated having to go back and play many songs that I didn’t particularly care for a second or third time seemingly just to push the game from a three-hour experience to a six-hour endeavor.

Also, 33 songs isn’t a lot at all, but I was also disappointed by the fact that a game with the word “Disney”—a company known for its fantastic cinematic music—didn’t use any iconic songs from their films to flesh out the soundtrack. One could argue that the original Fantasia only used classical compositions, and the couple of original pieces that composer Inon Zur (best known for contributing to game soundtracks such as Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, and Soul Calibur V) adds are great, but then why do we have to deal with Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj? I’d much rather have had any number of songs from The Lion King, Aladdin, Mary Poppins, Cinderella, or The Jungle Book to really hammer home the Disney feel and flesh out what quickly feels like a paltry playlist.

That said—and musical tastes aside—I couldn’t deny how much fun I had during the short time Music Evolved lasted. Each of the game’s worlds is beautifully designed in regards to the cartoonish art style, and being able to interact with each one in weird, wonderful ways filled me with a surprising, childlike glee. The Kinect picked up my motions rather seamlessly, even in my tiny living space, and as I swept my arms around and saw the bright flashes of light and color onscreen, I felt like I was indeed moving the heavens to music like Mickey back in the 1940 film. Unlike Mickey, though, it’s much harder to fail in Music Evolved, and I found myself racking up huge multipliers and nailing at least 80 percent of the moves in every given song. There’s also no option to bump up the difficulty—songs are simply rated on a 1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the hardest.

Beyond the core gameplay, though, the minigames might the brightest star in your orchestral sky. An assortment of different situations actually task you to think a little with pattern recognition and even require hopping about your living room as you charge up musical solar panels or realign the displaced pieces of a voice synthesizer. These elements aren’t limited to outside the songs, either. Five different games called “Composition Spells,” which also play an integral part to Scout’s story, allow you to mix notes while in the middle of playing a song and add a track unique to that particular playthrough.

With the ability to record game clips, you can also upload your best or most original performances to the Music Evolved YouTube channel, providing an interesting social wrinkle to what, by nature, is probably one of the least social of Harmonix’s games to date. There’s a local multiplayer component to Music Evolved, but it’s only for two people, and it can be a bit hard to track whose cues are whose when various swipes, punches, and traces start filling the screen.

Fantasia: Music Evolved may not be the deepest game, but it’s definitely a memorable one. It blends Harmonix’s ability to utilize music in interesting, dynamic ways with Disney’s uncanny knack to make most anyone feel like a kid provides a fun—albeit short—romp that once again provides that rare good Kinect experience.

Developer: Harmonix • Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios • ESRB: E10+ – Everyone 10 and up • Release Date: 10.21.14
7.5
Waving your arms in front of your TV like you’re conducting some kind of cosmic orchestra is a surprising amount of fun, but the lack of content leaves the experience feeling a bit bare.
The Good Simple, fun gameplay; looking around Yen Sid’s workshop; Inon Zur’s original compositions.
The Bad Lack of songs on disc, repeat playthroughs required to unlock all songs/remixes.
The Ugly Harmonix is still the only developer who knows how to make a fun Kinect game.
Fantasia: Music Evolved is available on Xbox One and Xbox 360. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Harmonix for the benefit of this review.
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Hands-On: Assassin’s Creed Rogue

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50 Shades of Shay

With so little information out there right now about Assassin’s Creed Rogue, I admit I was very worried about what I’d see when I finally got to play it. I was convinced that last-gen games couldn’t offer up as enjoyable an experience as their new-gen counterparts. But if Rogue proves to be the swan song for Assassin’s Creed on Xbox 360 and PS3, there seems to be no better title to possibly do it with.

Over the course of about four hours, I was able to play Sequences 3 and 5 in Rogue, where we first get to see Shay Cormac fall in with the Templars, who would tempt him away from the Assassin Brotherhood. They show him a different way of doing things—a possibly better way of doing things—and then we see his meteoric rise up through their ranks.

During these two sequences, what I found most interesting was watching how Shay reacted to how the Templars went about fighting the war, how he questioned his own motivations, and even second-guessed orders from Haytham Kenway, the Templar Grandmaster of North America at the time. This small cross-section of gameplay made me realize this was much more than a simple revenge story.

Shay has the potential to be one of the deepest, most complex protagonists we’ve seen from the series, because he’s constantly fighting a war within himself—as well as in, and around, colonial New York City. The underlying themes of “How far would you be willing to go to feel safe?” and “How much does freedom cost?” were also constantly on display each time Shay had one of those integral moments of doubt, making him highly relatable given the current temperature of world affairs.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the gameplay. When I first heard that the game was set in New York City again, there was definitely some trepidation that we’d see a lot of copied and pasted elements from Assassin’s Creed III. And, yes, the layout of the city’s roads seem to be similar to what we saw then, but because this game takes place 20 years before the bulk of Connor’s story, it’s a very different New York—one that’s not been touched yet by the Great Fire of 1776. This means new buildings to climb and new things to see, even if some will definitely serve as callbacks to previous games.

Speaking of the time period, though, I think the thing that excites me the most about Rogue is that, although you’re not playing as a Kenway, the game really seems to serve as the bridge for Assassin’s Creed III and IV, filling in key gaps in the story and tying up loose ends. Since it comes after those two games, though, it’s taking the best elements of both of them and mashing them together.

The sailing is just as good as ever, and the idea that you can now be boarded while traversing the high seas adds a brand-new dynamic to the North Atlantic and Hudson River Valley that Edward Kenway’s Caribbean in Black Flag didn’t have. Shay’s Fleet is also very different from Edward’s because while Shay is fighting the Assassin-Templar War, the Seven Years’ War is going on around him, and he can send his ships into the naval conflict of the war and actually have a more direct say in a huge historical event instead of just sailing for more coin.

Some old ideas also return in new ways in Rogue. A new economy system has been instituted so that as Shay liberates more districts from enemy control, he’ll see more money flow into his bank account. He can also spend money to fix up key buildings in and around New York to promote further development of his own wealth, all in the hopes of not only making his own life better, but hopefully better for the people he hopes to protect in the Colonies.

Rogue also brings new weapons. Besides iconic stuff like dual hidden blades and an assortment of swords from the time period, Shay will meet up with his old friend Ben Franklin, who’s working on a grenade prototype that Shay can attach and launch from his rifle. This is, surprisingly, historically accurate—Franklin did make a grenade prototype that never saw mass production. And maybe that’s because Shay was running around, using it for Templar plots instead!

We also see the return of the Stalker enemy type; they were prevalent in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and would dress in civilian garb and try to sneak up on and attack Ezio. Similarly here, Shay’s stalkers won’t just hide in plain sight but also in outhouses and bushes to try to get the drop on him when he least expects it.

Despite my early fears about Assassin’s Creed Rogue, this short preview demo allayed much of my worries. As soon as I picked up the controller and started running around New York and then sailed out on the high seas while listening to some classic sea shanties sung by my crew, it felt like I was coming home to an old friend. But while there’s more than enough here to make Assassin’s Creed Rogue feel extremely familiar, there’s also just enough new stuff to keep you on your toes. Couple that with Shay’s compelling story, and Rogue does more than enough to remind us that last-gen isn’t quite dead yet.

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MLG announces first Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare tournament for end of November

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The very first open tournament for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be held November 28-30 in Columbus, Ohio, Major League Gaming announced today.

Featuring 140 of the best Call of Duty eSports teams in the world, the tournament will be streamed live from MLG.tv and will officially kick off the first season of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare MLG Pro League.

“Call of Duty eSports has become a mainstream phenomenon–there’s nothing else like it,” said MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni in a press statement. “With the introduction of Advanced Warfare, we are positioned for continued growth showcasing the best players in the world on MLG’s premier platform for a global audience of passionate eSports fans. This is just the beginning.”

The winning team will be awarded $25,000, 25,000 MLG Pro Points, and the last four spots in Season One of the Pro League.

If you happen to be in the Columbus area, VIP and spectator passes for the tournament are available for purchase if streaming it just isn’t enough for you.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be available for public consumption on Windows PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360 November 4.

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EGM Review: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments

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Dostoyevsky would be proud

Even before his recent upswing in popularity due to Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern portrayal, Sherlock Holmes has been one of the world’s most beloved fictional characters ever since Arthur Conan Doyle penned his first adventure more than 125 years ago. Given his penchant for puzzle-solving and dealings with quirky characters, Sherlock Holmes seems like a perfect fit for the world of gaming.

Unfortunately, most of his gaming efforts haven’t really moved the needle. But developer Frogwares decided to give it another go by infusing this latest effort, their eighth with the deerstalker-capped man from Baker Street, with some elements we’ve seen from the modern TV shows.

Crimes & Punishments keeps the traditional setting of late-19th-century London, where you control Holmes over the course of several months as he’s confronted with six unrelated cases that deal with that most primal of crimes: murder. Taking a page from Cumberbatch and company, however (aside from the integral notebook, where you can easily reference facts for recalling later), this Holmes iteration has what can only be described as his own personal “mind palace.”

When key clues come up via witness testimony, examining the evidence, or some inventive re-enactments between Holmes and his trusted companion, Dr. Watson, the world’s most famous detective can piece together related facts to draw conclusions that appear as nerve endings in his mind. When enough conclusions can be clustered together, Holmes will have the ability to convict a potential felon.

Aside from how the ability to piece clues together in his mind, Holmes also has the ability to instantly analyze a suspect, looking them up and down and drawing conclusions—sometimes key ones like noticing particular tattoos or dirt under the fingernails. This “instant profiling” draws another parallel to the modern Holmes incarnation, and it’s another welcome addition in making players feel more like the great detective.

Something else new, though, is that Holmes can actually be wrong. Most cases will provide evidence that could allow Sherlock to convict multiple suspects, and while the game will move forward even with an incorrect conviction, you’ll always know that you sent the wrong man or woman to face the hangman. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the extra challenge that multiple suspects provided, since it really did make me pay closer attention to everything involved with a case, I wish there’d been more of a penalty for coming to a wrong conclusion and that some real weight had been provided to this branch of the morality system.

Even when you do solve the case, you don’t have to convict the culprit of anything, since Holmes uncovers crimes of passion or long-unpunished abuse finally facing karmic retribution. But, again, no matter what you choose—whether it means sending the criminal to jail or finding a shred of humanity within Holmes and absolving those responsible—there seem to be no real consequence to your actions beyond how they affect that single character.

Another disappointment was one of my own making, but I still felt cheated a bit while playing the game. If you should look at the Trophy or Achievement descriptions, the culprits for all six cases will be spoiled for you, since special actions involving those characters are tied directly to proper convictions. I know that may seem minor, but you’d think that something like this wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the developers, and it took away some of the challenge the game would’ve otherwise offered.

Despite the fact that the final verdicts were somewhat spoiled, I was surprised at how much fun I still had working out the process to find enough proof to convict someone. While most puzzles are unintuitive in regards to their controls, they offer enough of a mental challenge to practically make the game worth playing in and of themselves. And the variety was welcome, with only the lockpicking puzzles repeating frequently throughout all six cases. Whether it was controlling both Holmes and Watson to work a series of switches or using Toby, Holmes’ trusted Basset Hound, to sniff for clues, my only complaint is that I wish some of the puzzles had been reused more often because they were so fun.

Unfortunately, a few glaring flaws persist. The graphics aren’t the prettiest, even on the new generation of consoles, and though the voice acting for the major characters will grow on you, these actors aren’t going to win any awards for their distant, disconnected performances. At least Holmes being distant and disconnected fits the character, but not with anyone else.

Despite these cut corners, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments does a fine job of teasing your brain into coming up with the right conclusions. I wish the new morality system was more fleshed out, but the other additions help make this 19th-century stalwart character appeal to a modern audience, and I can’t wait to see what adventures Frogwares has planned next for Holmes and Watson.

Developer: Frogwares • Publisher: Focus Home Interactive • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 09.30.14
8.0
Fun puzzles, inventive murders, and new crime-solving features help make up for a morality system that needed far more fleshing out to be effective.
The Good Strong emphasis on puzzle-solving; open-ended solutions for each case.
The Bad Unintuitive puzzle controls; lack of moral weight to choices.
The Ugly The Trophies and Achievements spoil the end of each case if you look at them beforehand.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is available on PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Focus Home Interactive for the benefit of this review.
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Hands-On: NBA Live 15

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Hitting the hardwood

Trailers and behind-the-scenes looks at NBA Live 15 have continued to show steps forward since last year’s abysmal return after the franchise’s self-imposed three-year absence from the gaming scene. The next hurdle the NBA Live franchise needed to clear in order to continue its battle back to relevancy, though, was finally letting the press go hands-on with this year’s iteration.

After playing a pair of games as my New York Knicks, and getting about an hour’s worth of hands-on time with NBA Live 15, I can say there’s been a clear step forward in how the game handles itself on the court (I just wish I could say the same about the Knicks!). Starting off with a brief tutorial where I played as cover athlete Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers, I was taken through the ins and outs of basics of offense: passing, shooting, dribbling, and alley-oops. The HUD showed each player’s stamina bar, and a meter let me know my chances of making a shot from a particular range and how open I was. I then got the chance to move to a 5-on-5 scrimmage to try out everything I just learned.

On offense, I was immediately able to make significant strides as I stepped confidently down the lane for a powerful dunk with Amar’e Stoudemire or kicked it out to Carmelo Anthony in the corner for a clutch three once we moved to real game action. Ball movement felt swift and, for the most part, accurate. There were some moments in my haste, however, whether trying to beat the shot clock or the end of a quarter, where I wanted to pass to one player and instead passed to another, which led to an ill-timed turnover—and led to my questioning the intuitiveness of the system. Maybe I just needed more time with it, but there were several moments where the ball just didn’t seem to go where I wanted.

Another thing I noticed on offense was the new rag-doll physics. Though they weren’t prevalent throughout the court, everything near the basket seemed to have improved physics, with players naturally adjusting in mid-air to work around a steadfast defender in the paint or taking a hard foul and contorting in ways that would accurately depict contact. Considering the amount of action that usually takes place around the basket, it was impressive to see when players would fight for rebounds or try to draw a foul on a layup for a potential three-point play.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to the game of basketball than what the tutorial showed me, like the entire defensive side of the game. For as competent as I felt on offense, the only thing I felt when transitioning to defense was dread. At least in the demo, NBA Live 15 didn’t do nearly as good a job of teaching the defensive basics as it did the offensive elements. I ended up in foul trouble more often than not as I tried learning the best timing for steal attempts. Meanwhile, shot-blocking was an endeavor I’d rather forget about, and my players flew away from the shooter about often as they succeeded in getting a hand in the opponent’s face.

And in those few instances where I actually succeeded in making the shot attempts more difficult for my opponent, I had no idea how to command my players to box out, and my frustration only grew as I gave up offensive rebound after offensive rebound. These are basics that the game should’ve focused on just as much as passing and shooting.

At least the presentation for NBA Live 15 appears to be top-notch. Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy’s commentary, representing ESPN’s No. 1 broadcast team, provided a lot of authenticity to the presentation, and their commentary was hysterical—especially when talking about James Harden’s beard when facing the Houston Rockets. Meanwhile, Jalen Rose hosts the pre-, post-, and halftime shows that give game highlights and spotlight superstar players in a way that would make you feel like you’re actually watching an ESPN/ABC broadcast of the NBA.

I walked away from my NBA Live 15 time with more positives than negatives, and I definitely had fun while playing it. But I also think that if it’s going to successfully close the gap between itself and NBA 2K, it’s going to have to deliver a more complete package than what I saw in my brief hands-on time.

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