Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey takes you to ancient Greece, to the beginning of the Peloponnesian Wars. Just as the Wild West perfectly suits Red Dead Redemption 2, this setting, combined with the rich experience from Ubisoft's work on previous titles in this expect series mean that numerous tasks and mass battles in a beautiful open world await you.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - Greek Life

In its predecessor, Assassin's Creed: Origins, the setting was Ancient Egypt, to such a stunning extent that it could be explored without the game itself. This time the story takes place 400 years earlier, in Ancient Greece. Before your journey begins, you must choose which character you will be - Alexios or Kassandra. The two are mercenaries from Sparta and have no backstory or motivations, apart from that they are in search of answers. And here is one of the most initially engaging parts of this game - it all comes down to the choice of person you decide to be - there are missions with different ending, lots of loot and skill possibilities depending on how you play it. For the first hours of play the whole thing seems pretty gripping and fresh, but then falls back into familiar patterns of battles, chores, and kicking people off cliffs. Many main missions don't differ much from the side missions. The story also suffers from the Open World structure. couldn't really warm up for the story. The characters are interchangeable, the dialogues partly questionable and everything is clichéd, just like in other Ubisoft games.

Peloponnesian War Fun

This freedom of choice also applies to the battles in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. After all - there is a war between Athens and Sparta, so you deserve your slice of the action. Your mercenary can take part in mass brawls with about 150 warriors, infiltrate camps (like in FarCry 5), kill generals or hunt other mercenaries. For every successful action there is delicious tasty gold and the influence of the opponents decreases. If you are too clumsy and are discovered, then bounty hunters are on your back, hunting you down. They are tough, but have lucrative weapons for you to take afterwards. Setting traps is an ideal way to turn the tables on them. If you don't succeed, you can reduce your search level with bribes, kind of like if you could pay off the cops in GTA 5 to reduce your wanted level. Ship battles have changed and they are tremendous fun. While not as extensive as in Black Flag, but the ships can be pimped up here with extra sailors, weaponry, and armour.

Glorious Game Mechanics

• The core mechanics work perfectly again in Odyssey. There are different weapons (but not too many), a good crawling system and a skill system that invites you to experiment. Despite the fact that you can change the difficulty settings and the fact that you can upgrade your equipment, yours opponents are never inferior, because they always develop along with you.

• Connoisseurs will be disturbed by the recurring game mechanics, which are so typical for Ubisoft. As well as sometimes getting stuck or falling, or when your tamed bear suddenly turns around and ends you. Don't you just hate when that happens? However, they can also be easily ignored. What can't be ignored however, are the annoying little chore missions in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey , as you run to fetch things for people, as well as the lengths you have to trek at times.

Big World, Long Load Times

• The open game world is huge, varied and detailed. There are forests, cities, palaces, oceans, caves and islands. The far-sightedness is excellent and there is a great feeling of freedom that is unparalleled, particularly when you are an eagle soaring on thermals over an olive grove, scoping out the next nest of Spartans to spear and hopefully to kick off some cliffs (I don't know if you've noticed but this is the most fun thing to do in this game. It really shouldn't, but it never gets old).
• All of this beauty and scope in the game unfortunately must come with some downsides, and for me the biggest is the long loading times. Within the game world nothing has to be reloaded, but changes of location, intermediate sequences and dialogues create pauses which can really stretch, so I'd advise you to put the kettle on, talk to your family, mow the lawn....

In summary, the Open World of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey looks wonderful and offers a hell of a lot in terms of different types of activity, with the new battles really standing out. Everything else is classic Ubisoft: a lot of things are repeated, the characters are interchangeable and the story can be a bit cliché-laden.