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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla logo

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the newest entry into the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It’s currently out on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series X/S. It comes after 2018’s release of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, widely recognized as the best entry into the series in many years. Valhalla has added plenty of new mechanics, while also getting plenty of inspiration from numerous past titles. Taking place in ninth century Norway, the player takes control of Eivor, a Viking Assassin that must fight against the Templar Order that has infiltrated the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Eivor traveling through Norway
Like every Assassin’s Creed game, you can mix a combination of stealth and combat to eliminate your targets.

A New Breed of Assassin

Much of the gameplay in Valhalla will feel more like Odyssey than most other Assassin’s Creed titles. You can play as a male or female Eivor and explore many romance options with both sexes. There is a well-developed leveling system. Leveling up provides the player with a great deal of interesting benefits. There are also plenty of weapons in the game, with a brand new form of dual-wielding combat that will set this game apart from the others. The game is filled with major and minor decisions that can help shape the entire world of of the game, giving you plenty of control over how your character influences Northern Europe. This is much like Odyssey, where you could influence the tides of the Peloponnesian War, which would affect all of Greece. Also taking inspiration from older titles, Valhalla has reintroduced the ability to run settlements. Building them up and doings missions for them will provide various gameplay bonuses. The game does a great job at motivating you to keep on playing.

Eivor talking to an ally
Assassin’s Creed games provide many hours of content through the story.

Nothing is real. Everything is permitted.

The Assassin’s Creed franchise is rich with lore. Since the first game’s launch in 2007, we’ve seen fantastic events unfold. We’ve learned about the mysterious Isu race that helped guide human civilization. Every game has given us more understanding over the Assassin’s Creed universe. Fans of the series will be excited to see how the story presses on. Yet, what works so well with the Assassin’s Creed series is that it’s always easy to be engrossed in an individual title’s universe, even if it’s the only one that you’ve ever played. Each title takes place in a distant land, hundreds of years earlier or later. This keeps the settings, characters, and stories so fresh. Whether you’re a fan of the series or not, Valhalla will be an enjoyable game for most fans of open-world adventure games.

#assassinscreed #valhalla #ubisoft

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Yakuza: Like a Dragon logoYakuza: Like a Dragon has just been released for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and PS4. It’s coming to PS5 on March 2, 2021. This is the newest entry into SEGA’s Yakuza series and it’s made a great deal of changes in story-telling and gameplay that make this game unique and sets itself apart from the older games in the series. The player takes control of a brand new character, in a brand new Japanese city, and the gameplay during combat is totally different, too.

Japanese Crime Syndicate

Just like its predecessors, Yakuza: Like a Dragon puts the player in the shoes of man who must fight against a deadly and dangerous Yakuza clan. You primarily play as Ichiban Kasuga, but this new entry into the series has a huge difference from every other game. You actually play as a team of four players. Instead of being a beat-em-up style fighting game during combat, the combat is actually turn based. There are still a wide variety of traditional and wacky enemies that might require some skillful strategy to get through the game, and you’ll need to take advantage of the strengths of all your characters. Like the past Yakuza games, this game also has many minigames throughout the city. Traveling through the city of Yokohama, you can participate in everything from kart racing to batting cages to arcade game to karaoke.

Karaoke singing

They take karaoke very seriously in Yakuza.

A Fresh Take on Yakuza

Yakuza: Like a Dragon has also opted to make various other changes to the game. Every Yakuza game from 2006 until now has been exclusively voice acted in Japanese. You now have the option for the game to be played out with English voice actors. Voice acting legend, George Takei, plays Masumi Arakawa. He is Kasuga’s patriarch and father-figure from his yakuza past. The Yakuza series has always focused on telling a long story while providing plenty of side-quests, minigames, and memorable boss battles. Despite the vast differences in the way that Yakuza: Like a Dragon plays and tells its story, it still has the same core focus that past releases have had. Whether you’re a long-time fan or a brand new player, this game could provide many hours of entertainment. If you’re a fan of Japanese storytelling or turn-based games, give this game a try.

A Yakuza battle
Changing to a turn-based combat system will give the battles a very different feel.

#Yakuza #SEGA #Next-Gen

Four armed hackers on a building

Watch Dogs: Legion

Watch Dogs: Legion, coming to the Xbox Series X/S on November 10th and PS5 on November 12th is the third installment of the Watch Dogs series from Ubisoft. Watch Dogs broke new ground in the open-world third-person shooter genre in 2014 by introducing a wide range of hacking abilities available to the player through the character’s smartphone.The newest installment in the series is breaking ground again, this time by introducing the ability to recruit and play as anyone on the street.

Cyberattack

Like its predecessors, Legion’s single-player plot revolves around toppling corrupt futuristic law-enforcement and evil cybercriminals. In the future, “smart cities” use one operating system to control a great deal of the city’s infrastructure and property. Hacking into the system gives you the power to manipulate everything from traffic lights to people’s cellphones. You can even see the names of everyone walking down the street, along with various bits of their personal data.

Watch Dogs: Legion
Aiden Pearce, the original protagonist of Watch Dogs, makes an appearance through DLC.

Play as anyone

What sets Legion apart from Watch Dogs 1 and 2 is how that personal data now comes into play in a big way. Legion lets you actually recruit civilians into your hacker uprising and add them to your team. Every pedestrian in futuristic London will now have various traits that will make them stronger or weaker as a playable character. Finding a powerful team member is like striking gold. Like most typical open-world third-person shooters, dying means that you’ll wake up in the hospital. But now you’ll have to wait until that team member gets over their injury before you can play as them again. Unless… you want a challenge. For hardcore players, your player will actually permanently die and you will lose them with no way of getting them back.

Old lady with a gun in one hand, tasing a man with her other hand
That’s right. You can play as a stun-gun toting old lady.

Uniquity

With the GTA series having such a dominant position in this genre, the Watch Dogs series had to differentiate itself with the hacking system. Ubisoft has kicked off their entrance into the next generation of consoles by continuing to effectively innovate the series and set itself apart from other games with the ability to play as anyone in the city. Watch Dogs: Legion is unique enough that, even without experience in the series, it’s worth a try.

Watch Dogs: Legion, coming to the Xbox..
There will still be plenty of gun-based combat.

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