Jordiuly Reviews

Assassin's Creed: Unity (2014 Video Game)

Long life to Élise

[7/10 · 14 May 2023]

I've finished Unity after so many years. The story had a great beginning with the wink to Shay Cormac and the sentimental attachment that is quickly established with the grown-up Arno and his beloved Élise. But then the story gets lost into the French Revolution which, personally, it is not what I am looking for in a video game. Too much Robespierre, Napoleon, Desirée, and De Sade, and too few Arno and Élise. Ubisoft succeeded at developing two amazing characters but failed to give them enough action. It would have been great to be able to play as Élise for some missions too. I guess they realized that and fixed it in the following games.

At the start of the last sequence, it is obvious that Ubisoft is going to kill Élise. What a waste for such a strong and well-designed character. All of a sudden Arno becomes the leader of the brotherhood and seems to seek refuge or friendship in Napoleon.

Story aside, the game mesmerized me with the level of detail of Paris. Exploring the city was usually more satisfying than fulfilling missions. Indeed, there were too many side missions and collectives to be able to enjoy them. Simply too much, and too repetitive.

I also found a bit frustrating the constant sounds triggered by collecting something, or finding a side mission or checking the map, etc. They tended to ruin the atmosphere of Paris. Is it so difficult to let the player activate or mute those sounds?

The city is also famous for its underground, and I was disappointed to know that the several catacombs were not interconnected as in AC3's Boston. The map could have been much more useful and immersive; maybe with street names and markers for important places related to missions, like De Sade hideout, Napoleon's palace and so on. I feel that the city was greater than the game itself, as if Ubisoft couldn't develop a game at the same level as the city that they had recreated.

I am normally not very critical about bugs but in this case all the glitches related to the NPC destroy any magic that Paris could have. Sometimes there is just too many NPC and it is not strange to see some of them walking on top of streetlights or trying to traverse a tree.

Star Wars: Visions: The Bandits of Golak (2023) Season 2, Episode 7

The same old story on Indian dresses

[5/10 · 14 May 2023]

They wanted to do something Indian, even said that there is more than a billion people living in India and they have many stories to tell; but all they did with this episode was taking the same constantly repeated tale of a force sensitive child being persecuted by an inquisitor and covered everything with Indian style. Indian music, Indian accent, Indian persecutions, Indian clothes, faces, food. But at the end, the same old story. They could have created something new and different, but I am afraid they failed, and I feel quite disappointed.

I was expecting a Bollywood dance at the end of the episode involving all the characters, with the inquisitor dancing with the jedi and even laughing with the little girl, but no luck.

Assassin's Creed: Rogue (2014 Video Game)

Must play

[8/10 · 16 January 2022]

AC Rogue has grown on me throughout the hours of playing. Having come to it after Black Flag, it was normal that at first it seemed like a recycling of the previous game. Same game idea with four very defined environments: naval, land, urban, and Abstergo. Same idea of collectibles, treasure maps, shanties, computer decoding... But little by little, Rogue begins to become something unique, it manages to remove Black Flag from your mind, and in the end, you could almost say that Black Flag was launching from Rogue. The improvements carried out in Rogue are subtle, but they manage to polish the game, achieving a fluid and pleasant experience. The gameplay has been improved in various aspects. Navigation, lack of realism aside, is now smoother with an improved docking and return to ship system. The setting of the game is, in my opinion, more successful than in Black Flag. The existence of two naval environments, the fluvial and the marine, gives variation to the naval aspect of the game. The cold makes it possible to generate more striking outfits, limit the stay in the water, incorporate beautiful details like the vapor or the appearance of Nordic fauna. In addition, the city present in the game has been developed with great care. The first impression when arriving at New York is the same as when arriving at Constantinople: a living, enormous city, in my hands to explore every corner of it. I hadn't felt the same on the last few games. The soundtrack is amazing. Elitsa Alexandrova's work is incredible, and it seemed to me to be the best music in the entire saga to date. It blends perfectly with the atmosphere of the game.

There are also, however, some points that haven't been improved, especially the game menus. It is difficult to read the notes or descriptions. There are menus that seem incomplete, like the one for the different ships. And the option of being able to browse weapons and outfits from the menu without being able to equip them seems a bit absurd. The idea of collectibles that, by their very nature, you can't collect until late in the game, so you usually don't have any game left to enjoy the rewards, and the fact that outfits don't provide distinct abilities (I must Note that some outfits did have an associated ability in Black Flag) making the outfit you decide to wear a bit irrelevant, are something that Ubisoft should improve for next installments.

About the present time, the game continues with the story of Black Flag but with hardly any script developed. The degree of immersion of AC 3 is not achieved. However, in my opinion, the hacking of computers has been improved.

Lastly, and almost most importantly, Rogue is a vital game for the series to better understand the story of AC 3, Black Flag and, I imagine, Unity; to fill in blank spaces, and to give more depth to all the main characters. One is left with the desire to play AC 3 again, but the desire to continue with Unity is bigger.

In short, Rogue is one hundred percent recommendable. With very few errors. Almost the most notorious are graphic errors in the design of the scenarios and environments. And it is an essential game for those who love the Asassin's Creed franchise and for those who have played AC 3, Black Flag and even Unity.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Freedom Cry (2013 Video Game)

One of the best Assassin's Creed DLC

[6/10 · 1 December 2021]

Freedom Cry perfectly meets the expectations that anyone could have of an DLC. I think that being limited by the concept of DLC, the developers have put more attention on the design of the missions and the game itself. Port-au-Prince seems to me a better designed city than Havana, Kingston, or Nassau. Adéwalé's clothing and weapons have also been carefully designed. Anyway, the gameplay is the same as that of Black Flag, adding a new component related to the liberation of slaves. In fact, the historical context is more defined than in Black Flag and being a more linear story, it is easier to follow and delve into it. Although, once you have delved into it, the game ends. Personally, Adéwalé seems to me a much more interesting protagonist than Edward. It is a pity that the DLC is not immersed in the main game, as it would be fantastic to be able to travel throughout the Caribbean with Adéwalé and his troop.

In short, a DLC that can be one of the best within the universe of Assassin's Creed, and very interesting to play to tie some endings that allow you to better link Black Flag with Rogue.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013 Video Game)

Just a Pirates Game

[7/10 · 21 November 2021]

AC Black Flag breaks a bit with the characteristic scheme of the Assassin's Creed saga, to become, a decent pirate game. It is an action game, with a fast pace that personally reminds me quite of AC Liberation in terms of combat simplicity, shallow plot, and story with many fronts so that there is hardly time for characters' introduction or to enjoy their murders. All this takes us far from the level reached by AC III, but it gives us a lot of gameplay in a completely unique environment: the seas. More than half of the game is spent sailing, and here, Ubisoft has done a wonderful job to avoid it from becoming monotonous and to fill the aspect of game with new missions and possibilities. I'm not going to say that I was passionate about crossing the waters and assaulting enemy ships, it is not what I expect when playing an Assassin's Creed game, but I must admit that they have managed to make it entertaining. All the mechanics of the game are very well developed, being the first Assassin's Creed divided into areas of lesser or greater difficulty to which you gain access as you progress through the game. The "role-playing" side that we usually find in Assassin's games has been quite reduced, mainly limiting itself to the improvement of the ship, which makes the game even faster and less immersive. However, the game is long, and if you want to entertain yourself by collecting all the different collectibles out there, you are going to need a lot of hours.

In any case, the bottom line is that this is a pirate game fitted into the Assassin's Creed universe. Desmond Miles disappears, and the entire "contemporary" side of the game is severely depleted, adding very little to the Abstergo vs. Assassins story, and still leaving many doors open.

Normally I don't pay much attention to the audio of a game, but in this case, there are two important points to note: on the one hand, the excellent soundtrack, as well as the pirate songs, which both manage to make sailing on the high seas much more pleasant. On the other hand, the voices that fill the streets and squares, as well as those of the main characters, leave much to be desired. Ubisoft usually paid a lot of attention to this aspect, but in Black Flag we will have to hear modern Spanish in the golden age of piracy, even with phrases too modern to fit in that historical context. The same is probably happening with Portuguese, as well as with Italian, a language that did not exist as such at the time and that is surprising to hear from time to time among pirates. English has been more careful developed and even the letters written at the time show a more archaic English.

Finally, the quality of the menus is quite limited, at the level of AC Liberation, when it was expected to be more polished and user-friendly.

In short, a very entertaining action game that, although it does not manage to contribute much to the Assassin's Creed universe, it is worth playing it and putting yourself in the shoes of the pirate Kenway.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (2012 Video Game)

Worths its 10 hours of gameplay

[5/10 · 1 November 2021]

After starting AC Liberation, the first feeling one gets is that of surprise. Surprise for the visual quality of the game, its extension, and the level of gameplay, which has nothing to envy to its predecessors. All this is surprising because AC Liberation was not released to be played on a computer, but for PlayStation Vita, although the limitations of the console are almost undetectable in the PC version.

The game is a great adaptation of its predecessors' gameplay to a completely different environment. Rome and Constantinople now give way to a New Orleans that, although much smaller in size, is not devoid of life and emotions; although it is true that the city cannot overshadow any other that has been created by the franchise. New Orleans' surrounding, The Bayou, is a network of shallow lagoons, with mangroves and rotting trees. It is a great stage to get lost and jump from branch to branch and from trunk to trunk. Surely here, if it had been a PC game, the scenario would have been much more fantastic. But, with the in-game result, one feels that The Bayou lacks a level of quality in its development to offer to the player all that such scenario could offer.

Now let's talk about Aveline, our heroine. After playing the game, the prevailing feeling is that Aveline is the deadliest assassin in the entire AC saga. Incredible jumps, enormous strength, and steel ankles make her superior to anyone who crosses her path. The great addition of the game is the ability to switch between three different personalities that Aveline can adopt. It is an interesting idea that opens a range of possibilities but, in the end, they sum little and do not justify the effort of constantly changing personality or trying to achieve the objectives for each specific personality. In any case, it's a good idea, and with a little more dedication, it could reappear in an upcoming game.

A decent setting and an interesting protagonist should be enough to ensure the quality of the game, but unfortunately, Ubisoft has not been able to take advantage of those qualities and has limited the potential of AC Liberation with a fast and complicated plot, a brief development of the characters, and a rather shallow immersion in the life and story of Aveline. The scenes follow each other with almost no connection between them. The player jumps between plots as if he was following a single linear story, which confuses and prevents him from entering the story. The development of the characters, especially Aveline, falls far short. Connor, protagonist of AC III released at the same time, presents a much deeper and more detailed story. In the end, the feeling is that Aveline has not been given all the attention it deserved, which was somehow expected knowing that the game was not going to be released on computer or high-end consoles. The historical moment is also not well introduced, and it is difficult to get a good idea of what is happening without a basic knowledge about that period. This demonstrates the importance of Abstergo in the Assassin's Creed games, as Abstergo does not appear in this game, and we do not know which contemporary character is reliving Aveline's adventures.

All that said, it doesn't hurt to spend a few hours with AC Liberation (in fact, the game doesn't last more than 10 hours), to find out what was happening in the southern United States while Connor led their independence on the East Coast.

Assassin's Creed III (2012 Video Game)

The best AC at the date of its release

[8/10 · 18 September 2021]

AC III is a giant step within the AC series of games. It is easy to understand why Ubisoft designates this game as the third instalment of the series; Bortherhood and Revelations are mere expansions by its side. The main feature of AC III is that the game takes backs its primordial ideas, transporting us to a region in which you can not only travel between cities but the lands between them also have a lot to offer the player. After the Holy Land and Italy, we now travel to the forests of New England and the cities of Boston and New York. It might seem that these nascent cities have little to offer compared to cities like Damascus, Venice, Rome or Constantinople, and at first glance the cities of New England may feel repetitive and boring. However, the multitude of novelties presented by AC III as well as the new engine developed by Ubisoft, make the new cities full of life, in constant change, and a real challenge for the player.

The chosen historical framework, the American Revolution, may hook the player more or less, but the historical events are well presented, described and linked to each other. The pace of the game, without being slow, allows you to get acquainted with the characters, places, and historical landmarks. In addition, the main campaign gives us a wide variety of missions, something remarkable compared to the previous games in which the missions used to be reduced simple murders. On the other hand, the development of this new family of assassins, the Kenways, is masterfully carried out, and has nothing to envy to Altair or the Enzio's saga.

The great novelties of the game are the new main role of firearms, and the addition of naval missions. Regarding firearms, they do not alter the gameplay by unbalancing combat or making murders easier. Their use is correctly limited by reloading times, noise, and bullet availability. In addition, sword combat has been deeply renewed. One still has the feeling that the character is a kind of superhero, but the movements, blocks and lunges make each combat different from the previous one and unrepetitive. As for naval missions, one is surprisingly left longing for more. The idea of being able to visit secluded coastlines and having missions on them is a very successful. If the player gets tired of the cities or of jumping through the forests, he can always throw himself into the sea and enjoy a completely different experience, while still being fun and entertaining. Undoubtedly, the naval section gives the game a new dimension that I doubt Ubisoft will leave aside in the coming games.

Having said all this, AC III is a completely recommended game, which has improved the aspects that made AC a success, adding new features that makes the game even more complete. Some glitches in the game engine, especially when horse riding through the forests, as well as some bugs in certain missions, are not enough to leave aside what is, without a doubt, the best AC at the date of its release.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011 Video Game)

An unambitious game

[6/10 · 25 June 2021]

AC Revelations is more a standalone expansion of the Ezio Auditore universe than a new game by itself. The story behind Enzio, namely the aim to find Altair's Library in Masyaf, where he learns of Polo's hidden keys map in Constantinople, is a swift plot twist to take us to Ottoman Constantinople, a great addition after the Italian cities of the previous Ezio games. Constantinople looks vivid, colorful, and amazingly active. It is delightful to get lost in its streets or to roam its roofs and climb its minarets. Although, after some hours of playing, the city starts feeling small and the lack of surroundings make it a bit claustrophobic. I got the feeling that Brotherhood's Rome was bigger, more detailed, and airier. Having said that, I am afraid Constantinople is the only new contribution to the game series. The addition of bombs is sort of useless and one does not really need to get to use them to advance on the game. I could say the same about the management of assassin's missions. The historic frame it is not well developed. The story is short, and the pace is fast. There is no time to get to know the main characters and the gamer does not feel attached to them. The relationship of Ezio and Sofia is quite more alluring but still, it feels short and shallowly explored. Finally, the trip to Cappadocia will hurt those gamers with a bit of geography knowledge. There is no possible way to get to Cappadocia by boat and its underground settlements had nothing to do with the one we see in game. It would have been much nicer to climb and jump around the Cappadocian chimneys, but I guess that was too much work for the developing team.

Summing up, Ottoman Empire and Constantinople are a big and complicated frame in which to fit such a short and unambitious game. I certainly recommend the experience of exploring the city, but do not expect much more beyond that.

Earthlings (2005)

"Earthlings" is the story of the humankind.

[8/10 · 19 December 2007]

Each movie tells us a story; some ones are fictional stories, others are real stories. "Earthlings" tell us an unbelievable story but real: Year 2003, the Earth have been invaded by beings without piety, without compassion, without respect to Life, armed with the most powerful weapon all over the world, the cognitive cerebrum, and with it they have enslave and torture every sort of life. This is the story of a beings playing to be God. "Earthlings" show us what their protagonists can do to get food, to get dress, to get amusement, and to try to decode the language of Nature, a language with which they want to become immortals, with which they want to be God. "Earthlings" is a story full of sadness, of misery, of scare, of impotence, and full of blood, of terror, of horror, of pain. "Earthlings" is the story of the humankind.

The Dreamlife of Angels (1998)

An excellent human drama, highly recommended to those who like the genre.

[7/10 · 10 July 2007]

There are people who have not the lot to be born in a good family, with enough income to give to their children a life without difficulties and guarantee them a promising future. The people without this lot pass their days dreaming about a better life, a life in which don't have the need to search every night a bed to sleep, a life with a permanent job that assure enough income to don't care about the basic needs, a life to live not to suffer. But there are people able to keep going ahead, optimist people who can wake up every day with a smile, who are able to enjoy every little moment. But other people cannot take out from their mind the life that they want to have, the life with which they dream about every day. They do everything to reach that life, but they don't get it and they sink in a deeper pessimism that makes them live with sadness and disillusion. "La vie rêvée des anges" shows us the day by day of two young women in this situation. They either try to reach their dreamed life either try to enjoy the life they got. It is an excellent human drama, highly recommended to those who like the genre. Just the brilliant interpretation of both actresses makes the movie a must-see. In addition, the soundtrack is amazing; you must wait until the end of the movie to hear the unique song but it worth the wait.

Nobody Knows (2004)

I have never seen better performances. Must see

[8/10 · 20 September 2006]

"Nobody knows" demonstrates the hardness and crudity of life. The film is as simple as disturbing; it leaves you dumbstruck with every scene. You shudder remembering that the film is based on real facts. "Nobody knows" shows the life of four siblings abandoned by their parents, and how the older one (who is only 12 years old) tries to take care of his brothers. Nobody knows why those children have to confront a wicked thing which they doesn't deserve; this wicked thing was already part of their lives when they were born. Even so, since the first minute, the film irradiates optimism: before their mother abandon them, the family seems a poor family but so happy in spite of; even the difficulties that the siblings have to go on, it seems that they will survive (it is as if there is not enough wickedness to hinder the passing of life). The movie is strongly reinforced by the actors' performances (really striking and outstanding), it is as if a hidden camera was filming their lives without they noticing it. The boy who play Akira won the Best Performance by an Actor award in the Cannes Festival, but the truth is that the four children deserve the award.