Assassin's Creed Origins

The extra year in development has resulted in a game much more fleshed out with a rebirth in mechanics. Origins deserves you taking a look whether you're new to or tired of the past offerings. It truly is a worthy game of the year contender, in this unbelievably great year of games, and it's easily the best Assassin's Creed offering to date (and by a large margin).

Combat:

Combat is much deeper as different enemies behave differently and are quick to switch arsenals pending on your distance. Additionally each weapon type has different combos and timing so on some you may want to throw out more heavy attacks and others will punish you for doing so. By experimenting you can discover powerful combos with each weapon type. There are more bow types than really feels useful, but the plus is each type has it's own ammo pool. You can spec out your skill tree as you level up to gain additional power with the tactics you prefer. Health is now regenerated outside of combat saving you the hassle of spending on and using health regenerating items. The varied enemy tactics, rewards for fights, and variety/complexity of the weapons bring fresh life to the Creed combat mechanics and is much improved and deep. Also the addition of rpg stats and grades and perks in weapons further deepens the strategy and choices. For instance right now I'm using a slow club I don't feel very comfortable using, but it does give me health on hit which offsets it's slowness.

Character:

The combat improvements alone would have made this sequel worth picking it up, but the improvements are much deeper than just combat. The world this time feels largely designed around the story and missions surrounding it, making it felt lived in. You can easily sense the people around you built the town in front of you and make up it's ethos and design, whereas in the past the inhabitants felt put in to match the town design, now it feels as if the people around the town built it up. This impression is built by the characters you meet. All the major characters have a background story which is not only told by the individual themselves, but their surroundings, their family if it's nearby, and the way the townspeople interact and speak of the individual. The characters aren't black and white either, they may have smiles around family and friends, but do evil behind closed doors. The animation and dialog in the game does a great job of fleshing out emotions between the characters. You can't help but grin at the child's devoted love of his father, and a wife's love of one's spouse is conveyed with the well done graphics and animations. The time spent giving each area it's own feel and characters has paid off making each area a welcome to visit and actually participate in gaining knowledge of it's inhabitants and structures. If you decide to backtrack and visit a town you have been to you don't simply sense the familiar architecture, you will also remember the characters and creatures surrounding it and their stories interweaving with your own, which is possible because each town has it's own feel not just look. Most games with the amount of content in Origins quickly become a fast click through unmeaning dialog, to get the quest/mission, not true here as most missions have an interesting side story around them and are varied as the characters offering them. The sheer amount of time in developing the quests and quest givers is astounding. It reminds me of the GTA franchise where the amount of characters and story arcs is immense, here it's amazing how they provided the the depth they have with 2 years time.

Environment:

The above had me sold on this being the best Assassin's Creed yet by a large margin. Then I climbed my first Pyramid and loved the game that much more again. As you run up to a pyramid you get an amazing sense of it's size, it's truly amazing how the developers managed to convey the feelings of immensity and awe while not going overboard and hurting the gaming mechanics. First off you see the pyramids far off and they feel much nearer (due to their size) than they are, you quickly realize this as the journey there takes longer than expected. Then you expect to scale it as you have easily the few story buildings cluttering the world, but this time it truly is a test of endurance. You begin your climb and quickly realize just how big the structure is as a single building block is many times your size, as you walk up to them you quickly realize this is not going to be an easy task. As you climb the camera pulls away and your character sways and if you reach for a hold that's not there your character slides making you want to hug the structure and not fall further. The camerawork and animations to convey all this are extremely well done leading to a sense of being there and doing something monumental. In addition to the pyramids, the variety of wildlife, and their locations, flush out the world giving each area it's own uniqueness and keep the game fresh with new experiences. Then their are numerous environmental details, you have the size and beauty of Egyptian architecture here all fresh and unaged around you, you have many different types of vegetation in the wild, side roads are made of lesser materials than main roads, and roads show the wear and tear of use, there are so many such details and they add to experience.