• Published October 12, 2016

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Greetings everybody

For those of you left in the dark, rAge 2016 has just come and gone. As such we’ve been given a closer look into what’s around the corner for the next few months. I had the pleasure of being the point man when it came to all things Ubisoft which , as it turns out, in the next few months is quite a few releases. Today we focus on a few of those releases, namely: For Honor, Watch_Dogs 2 and Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

First up we have Ghost Recon. For anyone that has played the last game in the series (Future Soldier) this should be immediately recognisable, gone however are the bright LED’s and blue rings instead being replaced by the traditional “near-future” modern, military shooter theme. I for one am a little disappointed by this shift for Ghost Recon, especially since most of the series has always been a little more technologically focused then say, Rainbow 6 or Splinter Cell. Moving swiftly along from my slight disdain, this weekend I was able to catch a behind-closed-doors preview of Wildlands and this is what I’ve learnt.

The Customisation

Firstly anyone who adored the absolutely fantastic gunsmith editor in Future Soldier will be quite happy to see that it makes its return in Wildlands and from what I witnessed, with quite a few more options in terms of customisable pieces. From scopes and camo, to triggers and side rails, gunsmith is sure to give rise to quite a few enthusiasts of the “gun porn” style of doing things.

Next we have the character editor which seems quite complex and deep, the folks over at Ubisoft seemed to have learnt a bit from what they did with the Division and provided (what seems like) a few crazier options.

The Gameplay

Unfortunately other than the customisation, what we saw was the E3 gameplay demo, albeit at night with some rain slapped on for good measure. The gameplay itself looked polished and well-rounded with included multiplayer which honestly seems like the only way to play the game at this point, I have a feeling that playing Wildlands solo, is going to be far from how the Ubisoft intends for people to play. Let’s hope the AI is competent in their performance.

After all this, there isn’t much left to say, I fear this is going to be another typical Ubisoft open world which I find incredibly sad since Ghost Recon always held such an awesome thematic niche.

Watch_Dogs 2

WAIT! Don’t skip this! I know what you’re thinking, “Nobody asked for this” and you’d be correct in your assumptions, after the mediocre, hype-train derailment that was the original Watch_Dogs, I honestly thought we’d never see another entry in the series nor did I really want one. However what I saw makes me WANT to have hope. Here’s the rundown

The Characters

Honestly I didn’t think too much of the characters before but man, am I now completely in love with Wrench. The spike-clad, mask wearing hacker seems to be so far out of the park that you just want to be his friend. The typical net emojis strewn across his mask depending on his mood actually provide quite a bit of visual humour and the rest of it is provided by his actions. Enough about him, the rest of the main cast seem like caricatures of what you would expect typical millennial hackers to act like…and it’s pretty great.

The Gameplay

A large problem the original game had was (quite simply) mediocre gameplay. The hacking felt like an unnecessary annoyance when you could just use a bullet to fix every problem anyway and it wasn’t fun to do. By the looks of things here, Ubisoft has intentionally tried to make the hacking over-the-top and a lot more fun. You now have options to call the cops on someone or take control of a stationery car and send it careening into on-coming traffic , all of which seem to perpetuate a mindset of doing something just for the sake of doing it and having a laugh in the process.

The Multiplayer

There are a few cool features advertised with the multiplayer as well, for example if you’ve been going around injuring or killing civilians (or invading other people’s games and attacking them) you may get a bounty on your head. This bounty then draws up to three people at once into your game. If they manage to kill you, they get rewarded handsomely, if you manage to kill all three of them however, the rewards you receive are a LOT larger.

I’m optimistic about the future of Watch_Dogs 2, it may be the biggest surprise of the year so far. I love the new focus on the characters which all seem to be either people you would really love or really hate in real life, both are good enough reasons for me to want to experience their stories. The new multiplayer stuff seems to add another layer of using your “powers” to screw people over which is one of my favourite pastimes anyway. Keep an eye on this one.

For Honor

The only Ubisoft title I was actually able to play this weekend but what a play session it was! Stunt and I jumped into a game, as soon as doors opened on Saturday morning and for the next 10-15 minutes did we have a blast.

The Setup

The way the booth was setup had two teams of four players on either side of it fighting against each other until only one walked away. We started with a quick practice mode before the real battle began.

The Gameplay

After picking your class of extra special, medieval badass, you get dropped on either side of the battlefield surrounded by much tinier (and human looking) grunt soldiers. They push a point while you’re busy slaughtering other gods among men. What a feeling that is! One of the first things I did was run headlong into the enemy battalion of grunts and kill about five of them with a swing of my mighty katana. I stayed encircled in this crowd for a while killing throngs of them without moving a centimetre…until a knight burst through them and swung at me. For Honor is not a type of game in which you can spam button presses and expect to win, a fact which my opponent realised quickly as I cut him down only to be jumped by two of his comrades. Luckily Stunt was there to back me up and we killed both of them (albeit with me very nearly dying in the process).

What followed was a mishmash of skirmishes and deaths until we were able to push our grunts into the centre point and have them fill our ticket counter to give us the win. What happened next dear reader, was what solidified For Honor as a MUST play for me. After we had pushed to victory we still had one final objective left…to kill all remaining enemy heroes a fact which we executed until the last two of were left.

One brave knight charged us from behind and nearly killed me before he was swiftly cut down by the rest of the team, a sight which the remaining enemy team member witnessed in its full glory. Upon seeing his final comrade fall, he chose the route many of is would’ve and started running. The pursuit which ensued caused the rest of the enemy team (which were standing behind us) to start screaming at their lone survivor details such as how far we were away and which path to take to avoid us all the while he was exclaiming his terror. Eventually we caught him, cut him down and had his body fall from the ramparts where our chase ended. This caused everyone involved in this match to walk away smiling in a state of enjoyment.

This is why For Honour has now become my most anticipated game of next year.

That dear friends, is my opinion of everything Ubisoft, I got to experience at rAge 2016, keep your eye out for more articles from me over the coming period.

Article Tags: 1337 hax0rs · featured · For Honor · ghost recon wildlands · rage 2016 · ubisoft · Ubisoft at rAge 2016 · watch dogs 2 · Watch_Dogs 2

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