Rainbow Six Seige - A Mess in The Making

Rainbow Six Siege used to be our preferred place to be when it came to multiplayer games because it was unique compared to other games. Based on the novel "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Seige," Rainbow is about a fictional group of international counterterrorism specialist operators from all over the world. 

Although Rainbow started back in 1998, it has evolved from campaign mode to multiplayer mode, and by 2015, the game was rebooted with 20 base operators and Year 1 DLC operators: Valkyrie, Blackbeard, Caveira, Capitão, Frost, Buck, Hibana, Echo, and Recruit. The game itself pits the operators against each other in a VR simulation for training purposes. Six is a codename for Captian or Leader, as known by the introduction of Arnot and then Harry, whose job it was to recruit Rainbow operators and train them.

Toxicity through Gameplay

Rainbow was a tactical-based shooter where operators had to work together as a team to either attack or defend. There were several modes available in the beginning, which have again evolved with some improvements, but unfortunately, the major problem in the game has always been friendly fire. There are some players who simply cannot control themselves and play a game of cat and mouse by shooting and killing their own team members or ruining a game by killing the hostage. 

Ubisoft has spent years trying to fix the issue with this instead of simply taking the ability out. Their excuse is that it makes the game more realistic. Why does everything have to be realistic? Killing your own team members because you have no control over your anger is not realistic but downright toxic, hence the reason Rainbow has a bad name for toxicity. Due to this, we abandoned the game as it was simply unplayable or enjoyable because friendly fire was a daily or every other match annoyance.

Mess in the Making 

A few years later, we decided to give it another go and went back to playing, as apparently Ubisoft had made more improvements to the game. No, the friendly fire is still there, and team killing is just as prevalent as it was back then. Although annoying, we continued to play, and suddenly friendly fire, although annoying, took a back seat to what Ubisoft has done to Rainbow.

The game has newer operators and maps, and there have been some changes to the code of conduct where you can build up your reputation or standing with some rewards. Sadly, even this is broken, as the game seems to forget your reputation and standing. Still, this has improved the friendly fire problem, but not immediately, as in our first match, a guy comes in, kills the hostage, then leaves.

But that's not the real problem today, and now we have too many annoying distractions. Rainbow has evolved into Fortnite. Now, I am not judging Fornite; we play it and love it, but it's like Rainbow, another unique game that publishers are intent on destroying. Anyway, back to Rainbow, we now have a bunch of teenagers who treat it like a battle royal game and no longer work as a team but simply do their own thing.

If we go back to when Rainbow was released in 2015, you went through a training process with each operator and learned the game and how to use operators. Now people jump in dressed up as bananas and expect us to take it seriously. I get that people like cosmetics, but now we have this constant distraction that instead of playing a tactical game of 5v5 with specialist operators, we are playing battle royal with a banana (a slight exaggeration, but you get the gist). Its not the events thats the problem its using these skins post event. It's not only annoying to be distracted by ridicula skins, but it also takes away from what made the game truly great.

We are still playing Rainbow, but it's getting harder by the day to see it as what made it truly great, and it's filled with so many bugs to the point of pure annoyance. I have a lot of respect for developers, but I fear there is too much interference from the higher-ups. Ubisoft has this increadable ability to ruin what works to try and reinvent the wheel and turn it into a roadblock, and they do it with almost all of their games. They abandon what makes a game great and improve it by destroying it and turning it into something it is not and should never be. They have vision but have no idea how to implement it into their games.

End note: This is not a review but purely an opinion based on my own experience. I am not here to tell people what to play or how to play it. I'm not suggesting you stop playing either, and if you're happy playing a tactical shooter like a Battle Royal and dressing up as a Unicorn, then that's all that matters.

Read More

The Greatness of Assassins Creed Unity

 

"The Creed of the Assassin Brotherhood teaches us that nothing is forbidden to us. Once, I thought that meant we were free to do as we would. To pursue our ideals, no matter the cost. I understand now. Not a grant of permission. The Creed is a warning. Ideals too easily give way to dogma. Dogma becomes fanaticism. No higher power sits in judgment of us. No supreme being watches to punish us for our sins. In the end, only we ourselves can guard against our obsessions. Only we can decide whether the road we walk carries too high a toll. We believe ourselves redeemers, avengers, saviors. We make war on those who oppose us, and they, in turn, make war on us. We dream of leaving our stamp upon the world... even as we give our lives in a conflict that will be recorded in no history book. All that we do, all that we are, begins and ends with ourselves." ~ Arno Dorian

I was a huge fan of Assassin's Creed back in the Ezio days. Not that I didn't like the original; if it wasn't for Altair, the series would have gone nowhere, but there was something about Ezio that everyone fell in love with. His character and watching him grow into one of the greatest assassins—the story itself was phenomenal and taken right out of the history books. So why do I think Assassins Creed Unity excels? It has become one of my favorite AC games and one of the best. 

Being a history buff, AC was always my go-to game, and I loved how they brought history to a new audience, even though some of it was stretching the truth. When they introduced AC Unity and the world surrounding the French Revolution, my excitement level reached a new height, and it was phenomenal in every detail. Sadly, they didn't get a chance to expand or even evolve it further because of a few cheap shots by gaming magazines like IGN and others. 

The French Revolution was a period of uprisings, lies, deceit, and propoganda. Arno was born in 1768 to Charles and Marie Dorian. Marie abandoned the family, leaving Charles to raise his son on his own. After Charles was assassinated, he was adapted by François de la Serre (Templar). Arno was not aware of this or his father's history, so he was simply a boy who fell in love with a girl (Elise), the daughter of Francois, the father figure who raised Arno.

Arno later becomes an Assassin as his father, but he joined to find out who and why Francois was killed in an effort to clear his own name and to rekindle his friendship as he was still in love with Elise. The game itself becomes a murder mystery for Arno; while unknown to him, he was about to walk the shadow line, finding out not only about his birth father but also about Francious and Elise.

The game also contains side missions relevant to that period of time during the class struggles throughout France. It also has co-op for up to 4 players and helix mode, which allows you to play and view genetic memories with the help of Bishop (an unknown identity) and Shaun Hastings, known from previous games. The stealth is fluid and probably the best seen in any of the AC games, as is the combat and movement of Arno as he makes his way through the streets, climbing and entering buildings. The city is rich in characters known from that period of time, and the mission sequences are on point, as is the music for the game.

Assassins Creed Unity did everything right, and if it weren't for a few bugs, it would have been remembered for what it was: truly great. IGN did what they always do: play a game for 5 minutes and destroy it in one. That's why I never trust anything that comes out of their mouth. The most annoying of all was comparing it to Black Flag. AC Black Flag may be a phenomenal game in its own right, but it was a pirate game running under the umbrella of Assassins Creed. It didn't even touch the greatness of Ezio Auditore. 

In their conclusion or verdict, they claimed the character was not strong or interesting enough for THEM (Typical rush-through review) Then there were some control issues that they claimed ruined the game; yes, there was one mission I myself had trouble with, but I soon realized it was more of a player issue, not fully understanding what the game was asking me to do. I played the game on release and didn't see any of the bugs others claimed to have had, maybe because I wasn't playing on a PC. I don't know, but I do know that PC gamers buy games without considering or factoring in their rigs capabilities of running the game the way it is meant to run. 

Then we had people posting bugs in Unity with their caked dusty consoles and wondering why the game doesn't run or having their console trapped in an oven and complaining when the console shuts down but still blaming the game they were playing. I'm not saying that's the main reason for the bugs, but you can rule out a lot of issues simply by looking at some of the pictures being posted. Yes, Unity had bugs like most other games on release day, but let's leave it up to the gamers to decide. No one wants to spend dollars on a game that is unplayable, and there are some that may have been, but Unity was not one of them.

Now a days, most people watch others play demos before they buy a game, like the RadBrad, so they can see how the game runs or looks, or play the demo themselves before making a decision to buy. IGN may be the go-to place for some gamers, but for me, it's an opinionated preference. Ubisoft gave up too quick on Unity, so it never evolved the way it should have, and so they abandoned the franchise as it was and started pushing out games like Odessy, which for me is not an AC game in any shape or form.

Unity was the last AC game that felt like an AC game and even followed the greatness of Ezio, and it was the last of its kind. Mirage was Ubisoft's latest attempt at restoring what was known as an AC game, and it did go back to some roots that made AC great, but for me personally, it was still missing that click of being an assassin. AC Unity will always be remembered as an unfinished game because of IGN and Ubisoft's stone-stepping response to one of their greatest AC games. Unity still holds up today on new generation consoles and is still playable in its current form, but I hope they will one day do a remaster of the game and reintroduce what made it great for younger audiences. So for now lets reminace with this music video from AC Unity.

Read More

Final Fantasy XVI - Best Game of 2023

 

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI is the best game for 2023, in my opinion, and no other game comes close. Yet, it was snubbed by the game awards, and "Game of the Year" went to "Baldur''s Gate 3". Now, admittedly, I did not play it and was never interested in playing it or being interested in any of these games. The same could be said for Final Fantasy 7, as I barely touched it, so what changed?

Square Enix actually turned the industry upside down with their demo, which brought in a number of new Final Fantasy players. When the demo was released on PS5, it blew every other game out of the park and streamed all over the world while gamers eagerly hit that pre-order button. It was new and refreshing—not a remake or a seconds. This game should have won every award across the board, including all the voice actors in this game who all brought these characters to life.

Final Fantasy XVI being snubbed so much by the game awards makes me feel irritated that games are being given accolades that are not worthy and put on pedestals that should be knocked over. The same thing happened with Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima—new games being snubbed for seconds. I'm not saying remakes should not happen; hell, I loved the Dead Space remake and loved playing the game, but seriously, whatever the agenda with the game awards, it's getting old, as is everything they stand for, because this isn't about games anymore.

Read More