Three Kingdoms: First Impressions

I’ve clocked 30 hours on Total War: Three Kingdoms and completed my first campaign, so I figured it was time to share my first impressions of the game. As I said in an earlier post, I wasn’t super excited about 3K because it’s not a setting I’m very familiar with and I was also concerned about how the battles would compare to the Warhammer games.

Going from a game like Warhammer 2 where you have lizards riding dinosaurs that shoot laser beams, to a game of spear man, sword man and horse riding man – how can it not feel like a step back? And it’s true, in many ways the battles of 3K do lack the spectacle of Warhammer – there’s no magic, no monsters.

But I do think Creative Assembly have done a great job of making the battles as good as they can be considering the setting and the limited unit variety. The battle maps are great, with unique map types for every minor resource settlement and city maps that expand depending upon the city level.

 

Sieges in 3K are extremely enjoyable to fight or defend, with maps featuring multiple layers of defence. In some ways, the city maps aren’t quite as complex as those in Thrones of Britannia, but unlike Thrones, these maps don’t just look good, they also play good.

This is helped by what is probably the best siege AI in the series, which actually does a pretty decent job attacking and defending settlements. I thought it would be hard going from Warhammer to 3K, but as far as sieges are now concerned, it’s going to be hard going from 3K back to Warhammer.

But even standard land battles in 3K are a lot of fun. I played my campaign in Romance mode, which adds a Warhammer style fantasy twist to the gameplay, as generals operate as single entity units and can engage their rivals in duels. And these duels aren’t just for show – they really do add another tactical layer to the battle, as matching up the right duel at the right time is what can win or lose you the fight. And like the siege AI, land battle AI is also an improvement over previous games in the series. It’s not a massive leap, but it’s another step forward and not quite so easy to abuse.

 

Despite going into 3K with reservations about the battles, I’ve actually been very impressed by how much fun they are to play, and how tactical they become as you progress as new unit types and formations are introduced. The only criticism I have of the battles is the unit vs unit animations, which can look good at times, but at others they become pretty messy and awkward.

I think CA have done a really good job making the battles fun and engaging. I’d actually say I find them as fun as those in Warhammer, although for different reasons. The real star of 3K isn’t the battles though, but the campaign.

The campaign of 3K really does feel like a major step forward for the series. For the first time in a TW game I’m actually spending more time on the campaign map than in battles. Managing your empire, your characters and most notably – your diplomatic relations – is rewarding and enjoyable. The diplomacy of 3K is the best we’ve ever had in TW.

 

It’s not just the range of options that’s impressive, but that the AI actually makes full use of them. That’s not to say the campaign AI is perfect – because the diplomacy is so much more complex, it also opens more opportunities for the player to abuse it – but the AI actually behaves in ways that make sense based on your interactions and the new character ‘relationship’ system.

Because this is a First Impressions post, I don’t want to delve too deeply into all the new systems, not until I’ve got more hours and at least another campaign completed. I’ll save that for the proper review. What I can say now is that I’m having a real blast with the game.

Visually, 3K looks fantastic. I wasn’t sure I’d like the colourful ‘romance’ style, but it really does look gorgeous. The range of gameplay options is great, allowing you to customise your experience with things like alternative unit cards and, of course, the Records mode for those who want a more ‘traditional’ TW experience. The sound in 3K is also great with both English and Chinese VO options, some very pumped up battle chanting and what may be one of, if not the best soundtrack in the series.

I’m also impressed by how engaging my campaign was from beginning to end. There was no point where I felt like the campaign was ‘won’ because I was just snowballing my way across the map. I had to stay on my toes throughout the entire campaign, making full use of my unique faction mechanic (manipulating other factions through diplomacy) to my advantage.

As a result, when victory came it really did feel earned. I’d fought for it and most importantly – I’d needed to be smart about it. It wasn’t just won because I was good at fighting battles, but because I’d very carefully played the diplomatic game from beginning to end, manipulating both my enemies and my friends.

As far as bugs and performance goes, 3K is probably the best TW release yet. It’s very stable, very smooth and actually performs better than Warhammer does, at least on my system. I said at the start of this post about not having much knowledge of the setting, and that’s something to keep in mind.

Before playing 3K I took some time to read up on the period and the people involved, which gave me a good context into which I could understand the campaign. And that’s something I’d recommend doing if you’re going into 3K. It’s certainly more exciting when you fight against or recruit unique characters when you actually know who they are.

Overall, 3K has been excellent so far. It may be that I’ll find more issues and things to be critical of as I progress, but right now, I can’t wait to jump into my second campaign.

Now Playing: Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Assassin’s Creed: Unity is easily the worst Assassin’s Creed game I’ve played. It’s even worse than the extremely dull Assassin’s Creed 3. The only reason I even played Unity is because Ubisoft were giving it away for free following the tragic fire at Notre-Dame. It seemed like a nice gesture, but I’m now wondering if they were only giving it away for free because who the hell would want to pay for this turd?

Unity feels like an incomplete, half-assed game compared to Black Flag, or even AC 3. AC 3 was boring to play, but at least it had a good variety of content and effort put into it. Unity, in comparison, feels like a shell of a game.

I quite liked Arno, the protagonist, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about the characters or story. It’s an incredibly dull and ultimately inconsequential tale set during the French Revolution. If there’s one thing I do always like about the AC games, regardless of their quality, it’s the historical settings. It’s just a shame Unity doesn’t really do anything interesting with it.

 

They’ve stripped the ‘modern world’ aspect of AC to an absolute minimum in Unity, but this doesn’t feel like a decision made based on feedback from players who didn’t like it, and more of a ‘let’s cut costs and push this shit out the door’ kind of decision. And a lot of Unity feels rushed and knocked together on the cheap.

The map of Paris is large and nice to explore, but there is a lack of variety in terms of environments and the vast majority of the map doesn’t even factor into any of the missions. And the missions of Unity are, overall, poorly designed and just not very fun. I found stealth to be absolutely pointless and it was far easier to just charge at my targets, stab them, and then drop a smoke bomb to escape.

Trying to plan, to use stealth and strategy is a waste of time when the AI is so bad you can just run straight at your target and kill them before they can react, and then escape before their friends can stop you. The main missions are bad enough, but the side missions are even worse and you really won’t miss out on anything by skipping them entirely.

 

Like previous AC games you have a home ‘base’ you can upgrade, but like so many aspects of Unity, this feels half-assed and tacked on. The upgrades you can buy are rather meaningless and don’t even change much visually. You can also purchase ‘social clubs’ around the city which unlock missions to ‘liberate’ the local area, although this doesn’t actually seem to do anything.

It’s a bit like the random ‘tackle the thief’ missions which pop up as you explore. You can tackle the thief, at which point they just awkwardly stand up and walk away. There’s no reward, no feedback that you returned what they stole, no thanks from the npc who called for help . . . just nothing. Like I said, so many aspects of Unity just feel tossed in and incomplete.

I only finished Unity yesterday but I’m already struggling to recall most of it, which gives you an idea of how dull and uneventful it is. I guess one positive aspect is the combat, which at least – early on – provides more of a challenge than AC 3 or Black Flag. The character customisation / weapon selection is also nice, but once you unlock and purchase better gear, it also totally kills the difficulty and combat becomes a joke.

 

Graphically, Unity can look very nice – particularly the main character models – and the city is nicely detailed, aside from the times the game randomly drops the resolution turning everything into a blurry mess.

Unity also has a lot of visual glitches and bugs. When you’re running through the city you’ll frequently see textures loading in on npcs. The size of some of the crowds is impressive, but their animations can go totally wonky and it’s not unusual to see people sitting on invisible chairs, talking to npcs which haven’t loaded in, or stuck in a loop, running on top of a box.

I certainly didn’t go into Unity expecting to dislike it. I was actually kind of hopeful. I haven’t played an AC game since Black Flag and I really liked that one. And at first, Unity seemed like it might be a pretty decent game, but the more I played, the more I realised how unfinished it felt. The missions became increasingly tedious and the story, ultimately, just went nowhere. The final few missions were a disjointed mess and the game ends with a absolutely terrible boss fight.

Overall, Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a bad game that’s just not worth your time. The only really good thing I can say about it is that it kind of makes me want to play Black Flag again. Even if you can get it for free, like I did, I’d still say it’s not worth playing and you’re not missing out on anything by skipping it.

4/10

Suburban Killbot Year 7

I kind of wish I’d never started these yearly updates, as they’ve turned into something of a nasty reminder of how little I’ve achieved since the last. Actually, that’s not totally fair because I think I’ve done and achieved a lot over the last year – the problem is, I’ve still not achieved what I really wanted to.

It’s like being on a journey with a fixed destination in mind but every time you feel like you’re getting close to reaching your goal something else happens to blow you off course. You’re forced to take a detour, to head back or to the side, never quite moving forward. It’s like trying to progress through the main plot of a video game only to be continually interrupted by side quests.

But I guess that’s life and you just have to deal with it. Maybe next year I’ll finally get where I want to be. Hopefully before Google shut down Blogger because nobody reads blogs these days. Anyway, I guess it’s time for the updated mosaic of my top rated games. Enjoy!

Now Watching: Endgame

Infinity War was always going to be a tough act to follow. Avengers: Endgame isn’t as fantastic as Infinity War, but is still a pretty damn good film, which is all the more impressive considering what it was attempting to achieve.

Because Endgame doesn’t just serve as a sequel to Infinity War, but to the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a film that attempts to tie together 22 movies and wrap up the ‘infinity stones saga’ in a satisfying way. And it succeeds, despite the odds stacked against it.

Endgame isn’t as well paced, structured or tightly scripted as Infinity War which benefited massively by using Thanos as a central anchor upon which to ground the plot. Endgame focuses more on the heroes than the villain, which makes sense given what the film is attempting to do, but as a result, it does lose that anchor.

There’s not a lot you can really say about Endgame without spoiling things and I’d rather not do that in this review. This is certainly a film you’ll enjoy more when you don’t know what to expect. I guess it’s okay to say that time travel is involved – I think we were all expecting that – but whenever a film uses time travel as a key component, you know things are going to get a little messy as far as the plot goes.

Like with other movies that utilise time travel, it would be easy to pick holes in Endgame and point out what does and doesn’t make sense. But this is one occasion when I’m happy to sit back, relax and not worry too much about the temporal complications.

Endgame is unashamedly a movie for the fans, for those who have followed this series and these characters for over a decade. It’s the ultimate fan service movie – in a good way. The film does have a bittersweet ending, but I’m pretty sure we were all expecting that, too.

Overall, Endgame is a very good film that may not be as perfectly composed as Infinity War, but it succeeds where it needs to – by delivering an enjoyable and satisfying end to this decade long saga. Of course, it’s not really an ‘end’ – only a new beginning.

I do kind of wish they’d taken a year or so off, just to give this film and its events a little more time to breathe. But hey, I guess we need to keep this money train rolling. The real question is, how can they top this? With Disney now back in control of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, it’s going to be interesting to see what they do.

7/10