This is a fun little trip, but I can't help but wish for something just slightly more ambitious. The gameplay is primarily about collecting enough money to progress to the next level through either repeatedly accomplishing a rudimentary pickpocketing minigame that becomes tedious fairly quickly or getting people on the level the thing that they want. This usually boils down to a guy saying "Geez, I wish I had a [BIG PIECE OF CHEESE]" and then you go find the [BIG PIECE OF CHEESE] and give it to him. I'm of course being somewhat facetious; some of the puzzles, while not difficult, were fun in a casual sort of way. There's also a minigame to do with tricking cashiers into giving you money which is honestly even more tedious than the pickpocketing, and this one you can't even turn off. It's important to note that, while every level has more money than is required, there's no real reason to collect extra. Everything after a certain threshold is technically a waste of time, and if you're here for real gameplay, pickpocketing and tricking cashiers is entirely unnecessary. The game was strangely buggy; nothing gamebreaking, but I did get some graphical issues and discovered at least two infinite money glitches.

I wish every single RPG in existence would take note about how side NPCs just start talking when you approach them in this game, without having to be interacted with at all. I'm thinking of Pokemon games draining precious seconds of my life so Old Man can say "The variety of berries sure is cool!". As far as the NPCs go, there's some enjoyable background storytelling. The game got a few real laughs out of me, but most of it was just cute in a "smirk and sharp exhale" kind of way. That being said, the 90's references were pretty excessive; first couple times it's charming, then it gets obnoxious. As far as the main story goes, it's... there? It's more of a premise than a story. There's a twist towards the end which could've gone somewhere, but they more or less sidestep all of that to get to a quick, neat conclusion. I'm not asking for Shakespeare, but a little character depth and development would've gone a long way, especially with Ali's thieving companion. One weird thing worth mentioning is the character of Mari, who I think I must've missed something with. I was not allowed to call her until the very end of the game, but they're talking like there's been a whole adventure and a romance with them?

The biggest thing worth mentioning is the aesthetic, which is probably the main reason to play the game. Visually, it's just wonderful. I love the doodle look, the vibrant colors, the radical designs. The music is also really solid; I've had the main theme stuck in my head for a few days now.

I definitely can't knock this as a fun, one sitting kind of experience, but if certain aspects of the gameplay and story had been pushed further, I think it could've been much more memorable than it is.

“Yes. I used to be called the Eagler Bearer, but Ikaros is long gone.”










Oh boy where to start with this one.

This is definitely the most controversial and hated AC game and I completely understand and in parts agree with the sentiment. This is straight up not an AC game. It takes place in that universe and utilizes the established lore in some pretty cute ways even but at the end of the day there are no assassins or a creed to be found. Instead of the assassin fantasy you are a misthios, a Greek mercenary, who travels through Greece, kills cultists and has excessive amounts of gay sex.

There is definitely a hurdle to overcome here since this is one of those games you can write off on principle alone but you know I’ve come this far so I was very accepting of this diversion that I wish had stayed as a one off.






You can choose between playing as Alexios or Kassandra, with the opposite gendered sibling being used as a key character in the story similarly to something like the third and sixth Pokémon generations and their rival characters. For convenience’s sake I shall talk about Alexios as the MC since I played with him (he’s not the canon one tragically but he will forever be canon in my heart).

The best way to describe Odyssey’s narrative is cute and simple. Much like Syndicate, Ubi Quebec’s previous game, it can be pretty easily summarized as Alexios goes on an odyssey across Greece in order to find and reunite his disjointed family. This game is VERY similar to Syndicate in fact. The happy go lucky and whimsical tone that goes hand in hand with extreme violence and other horrible things to create this unhinged but very entertaining writing is very much still there and honestly better than ever since the setting of ancient Greece really fits that vibe of wonderland with a pinch of brutal way better than Victorian London did.
I was surprised by how much I liked Alexios. He has sprinkles of Jacob’s goofyness but he’s overall way more serious and dedicated which gives him that very charming sense of someone who’s not only nice and kind but also extremely brutal when needed. Michael Antonakos did a fantastic job voicing him. I really enjoyed Alexios’ odyssey and the way his story concludes is very unexpected and interesting, with the epilogue handling masterfully the way he has to cope with his newfound task and the mental fuckup that those events caused on him, gave me strong Arno from Dead Kings vibes. So yeah Alexios is shockingly kinda awesome I really really fuck with him.

The huge majority of the narrative is dedicated to the misadventures Alexios has to go through in other to find his family and destroy the Cult of Kosmos, yet another ancient rendition of the templars who in this game are pretty much cartoon evil guys so not much going on there. Due to the structure of this narrative and overall better pacing of its story beats, there was a great level of consistency achieved that I think Origins was kinda struggling to balance between its razor-sharp focused narrative and the gigantic open world necessities. The cast again just like Syndicate is very charming and likeable but always tries a bit too hard at times to remain superficial which results in a lot of characters never fully reaching their potential. The relationship Alexios had with his family was really nice tho with one of the scenes he shares with his mom and sister being particularly striking. Herodotos and Barnabas are great best buddies and the epilogue of the narrative really stood out to me with the way the bond between Alexios and those 2 was realized. Also loved the very prominent presence of the Athenian philosophers, the party scene in particular stood out as one of my favorite moments in the game, Sokrates my oomfie. The ending is very cool too and is pretty much the only scene in modern day that has compelled me since AC3.




Speaking of, man I completely forgot to mention the return of playable modern day in the Origins review because well, THERE WAS NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT. We have a new main character in modern day through Layla Hassan who is ok if not a bit cringey at times but absolutely nothing happens with her story in Origins and then in-between that and Odyssey there is a really big and weird amount of events that just happen off-screen and we never get to see them so once modern day starts in Odyssey it feels really disjointed and there are only like 4 short sections of it so it’s once again barely there.




Gameplay is definitely an improvement over Origins. The more aggressive combat is good and the addition of abilities finally gives more meat to it that helps with the feel of repetitiveness that crippled late game Origins. Ship combat is back and feels seamlessly untouched from the previous ship-based games which is pretty nice. The only downside to me was the mercenary system which starts out cute but very quickly reveals itself as an extreme annoyance that legit feels like the game harassing you whenever that inception sound goes BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOM and the mercenary Scrunky The Poop Shitter shows up to interrupt your missions. I have to mention tho that the cutscenes in this game are a step down and a step forward. There’s a lot of very simple shot and reverse shot conversations which to me are perfect for side quest dialogue since the way Origins handled those by just having the character literally standing in game and talking was awkward but the high demand of having one of those for every single convo definitely shows itself with the reduced amount of more cinematic cutscenes and the facial acting just not matching up to the quality of the previous games for the most part.

The world is fucking gorgeous, I loved this open world. It’s big but it never felt too big and I adore the way it felt like a Greek Black Flag that evolves the design of that game by making every single part of the map connected instead of locking the bigger cities behind a loading screen. It’s a great setting choice and Quebec nailed it. Also really appreciate that they managed to put mythological stuff in a way that made sense in lore so fighting the Minotaur and the Medusa was epic. The way they toyed with the fact that this is the most ancient setting in the series so far to utilize a lot more izu and mystic related shenanigans was nice.

Loved the music btw, the main theme “Legend of the eagle bearer” is visceral as fuck, I fuck with it a lot. Lot of it is very ambience based like a lot of the more recent games but it’s good stuff.




Overall…… Yeah, I did really like this game. Once you go in with the mindset that this is a little cute game that expands another side of the AC universe it’s a good ride and even the bloated duration didn’t make my experience miserable since the xp gain was fairer than in Origins to compensate. Gud time and Alexios is a certified badass seal of approval MC.

Destiny has been a long-awaited next-gen shooter. With one of the biggest hype trains in existence known as Bungie, Destiny had a lot of push behind it. It was dubbed the next-generation social interaction shooter. Destiny is also the most expensive game ever made coming in at around $250,000,000. Sure they made that back already and then some, but was the cost worth it? I sadly have to say it wasn’t. Destiny is probably the best slightly above average shooter you will ever play. While I was continuously disappointed the further I got into the game I just couldn’t put it down. Destiny is a strange dance of mediocre story and atmosphere mixed with fantastic gunplay and challenging gameplay. So just how does a game split like this?

First off the story feels non-existent. There aren’t many cutscenes and all we are really given is a synapse and a crisis to dwell on. There’s a story about a Traveler which is a giant alien looking moon/ship hybrid that appeared above Earth one day. With all the alien-fighting there is a last standing faction of humanity called the Guardians. You just so happen to be the only one who can make it through all these alien strongholds to finally bring Light back to the traveler. It honestly never really makes sense and towards the end of the game, you forget what happened in the beginning. Once you get down to it, the shooting, you forgive the paper-thin story a little.

The shooting mechanics are solid and extremely fun. Each sci-fi gun has its own personality and you actually learn to like a certain class of weapons or switch between them when the situation calls. There are a lot of RPG elements mixed in that feel similar to Mass Effect. Take into account your class leveling, the cap is at a weak 20 and unlocking of attributes with various armor you pick up. You will use everything at your disposal to kill the hordes of aliens you encounter because this game is extremely tough. There were sections I had to retry over and over again to get the strategy down right. Now the game is built around a light MMO play model. There are open “maps” and within these maps are non-respawnable areas filled with “Darkness” with little to no checkpoints. Of course, the game was designed for co-op but I played through just fine by myself.

With all the grenade tossing, super-charged stomping, shotgun blasting, and class powers getting thrown around you start to realize something. The game is pretty much the same everywhere you go. There are only a few select enemy types and you will be killing these thousands of times before the end. It honestly gets quite old. Instead of the large planets, you thought you could wander there are just large maps for each of the four planets. Yes, just a measly four. Old Russia on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and Venus. While it’s pretty awesome to see these planets being recreated I really felt cramped. This game is so small for such a large scope in design. With the level cap at 20, you can blow through the entire game with 3 other people in less than 20 hours. This could have been remedied with varied objectives or even scripted events but instead, it’s nearly the same mission over and over. You have a companion called Ghost (voiced by the bored-sounding Peter Dinklage) who you must protect and that’s nearly all you do. Scan this area, cover me while I scan this area times 100 ad nauseam.

Destiny really had a lot of potentials but seemed to just have shrunk in scope during development. The best moments I had were the raids you could compete with players online. Each planet had one to two raids and it was extremely satisfying when you finally killed the end boss after chipping away at him for over 30 minutes. However, there are few moments like this in Destiny. I honestly can’t really recommend this game to the average gamer wanting to just pick up the latest shooter. Avid FPS players will find all the little flaws and weak spots in the game. When it comes to visuals and audio Destiny really delivers. The game looks fantastic despite areas like the Moon and Mars looking overly bland and boring. While looks good on a technical scale it feels like it lacks any type of artistic flair. I honestly kept thinking back to Halo too much. You can see the obvious inspiration from that series bleed into Destiny a little.

With all that said Destiny has tight gunplay and some fun moments during Raids but that’s really it. It feels underwhelming in scope and is extremely repetitious and will bore most players. However, there is some sort of spark that sticks in the game that keeps you going and racking up your kill count. The gunplay is rock solid and I honestly have to say this is the best slightly above average shooter you will have played in a long time.