Where is the Fata Morgana?

Yes, this is about Ubisoft’s AC Mirage. First of all, this is NOT a review or rating setting. This is about impressions. If the spin systems is about giving you impressions, I need to give you an Impression too, but it needs to be fair. 

And I cannot give you a review, because I did not play the game. Yet I believe that YouTube is filled with people who ddid not play it either. So here comes

On the plus side
It is stated by many sources that this is a return to the original AC games. I consider this a plus, no doubt about it. On the second side are the graphics and AC Mirage drips with amazing graphics. All the play throughs I saw, the graphics were amazing. The stage is set in a wonderful way. 

On the debatable side
This is my view, but the game is 78% at metacritic, the rest is giving it around 80%. That is not good. A game like this needs to be 90% or better, or at least very close to 90% and that is not a given, not from any of the sources that I find creditable. In a larger station nearly all of them have issues, bland this, bland that. It is THEIR views. What I saw is actors who gave 100%, to give the best characters. Characters like mentor Roshan, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo is more than a treat. Lee Majdoub plays Basim Ibn Ishaq and they did a great job from everything I saw online. Yet some reviewers say that this was bland, which amounts to not good enough. I feel uneasy to agree with this. The critical side on the story line is something I can support. You see, some sources give us that Assassin’s Creed Mirage is estimated to take players around 11 hours to beat the main story, 15 hours with side-missions added and just under 24 hours for a 100 per cent completion run. This is nowhere near good enough. It is less than the very first AC game. Yes, I have heard the setting that is was meant to be a DLC, I have heard that this game is only $80, but from those settings I state that this game is merely 50% of what it should be. This is an impression I have. If 24 hours is 100% and we see an introduction of around 2 hours, we see that this game is decently less than we find acceptable and Ubisoft should have done better.

On the bad side
To many reviews have issues with the game, to many media give us something is wrong here and we see too many YouTubes that give is all kind of solutions and shortcuts on the SECOND day. How weird is that? In all the parts I have looked at, this should not have happened, the fact that these video’s are out before the first weekend is out implies that Ubisoft have lost grip on the situation to a degree that is just too weird to mention. I get that these things become too openly available in week 2, but to see all this on day 2 is just unacceptable, it also gives too many people a reason to skip this title.

Verdict
I cannot say whether this game is good or not, but certain issues make this a lot less good than we would have given this. To give a frame of reference. I played the very first game on PS3 and Xbox360, I never got ALL the flags, but that was OK. I got nearly all of them and I played the game at least three times (twice on the 360). The game was above all a joyride of the first order and I believe that this part is seemingly missing in this latest edition of the game, especially with a main storyline a mere 11 hours large, and if that has a one hour introduction, the game is shallow. Too shallow. This is my view on the facts given to us and what angers me is that this IP was great, it was truly great. And the graphical side implies that the Ubisoft team hasn’t lost their touch. So why a game a mere 11 hours long? Forbes gave us ‘‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’ Reviews Are In And Just Okay’. Really? Just okay? That implies that Ubisoft is pretty much done for, and that is the firm Microsoft is sharing cloud conditions with? You have got to be joking. Other sources tell us that the completion time is less than 24 hours. Is this true? I cannot tell, but too many less than stellar views made it important for me to set my impression on the internet too. For those who have Ubisoft plus or Game Pass it does not matter. Oh it does, it is not on Game Pass, but apparently it is on Ubisoft plus. I reckon that Game pass will get it when the price drops in the shops. When we get another list of issues and ‘features’ and the game goes the pricing of some of the other Ubisoft games, it will probably be launched on Game Pass. And that is not speculations. Yesterday I saw some articles that there are stability issues. Is that true? I cannot tell, but these all relate to the PC version. So I cannot say whether this exists on Xbox or PS5. 

But overall none of these negative sides should exist. This is as I personally see it another flaw in the Ubisoft testing side of matters. Yes, it is speculative and it is my personal view, but consider that we see articles of game freeze issues. Perhaps valid, perhaps not yet the larger issue is that this should not have happened, these issues should have been captured in alpha stage, in the alpha stage we should have seen a much better storyline (read: longer) because if Ubisoft sees a main line of 11 hours as acceptable, they truly have lost the plot in gaming. That is how I see that part. In addition to all this we see all kinds of other issues. Yet, we do not see them from credible sources. As such I am not stating that these articles are false or wrong. I merely wonder why others aren’t giving us those articles. Is it platform related? Is it a simple glitch? Your guess is as good as mine, but the fact that these articles are out there is a call for other matters and I will let you consider what the matter is. I honestly do not know.

So consider what you will do, but I do recommend that you check with the sources you consider credible (example: EuroGamer, IGN)

Enjoy the day and enjoy whatever game you really like.