Yes, we all have moments where it is about the discount, and I had a promise to keep. So when I noticed that Breakpoint was available for less than 30 cents to the dollar from opening night 7 month ago, I decided to give it a go. There was a good point and a bad one. The bad was the bug I noticed last october, was still not fixed, it is seemingly part of the system, even after the 19GB patch (which was to be expected 7 months later) the game still has a lot to be desired. The bug I saw was that when you enter a bunker in the first mission, it immediately leaves you 4 hours later, it is suddenly late morning daylight. A lot of the reviews still applied 7 months later, and to some extent it is to be expected, but let’s be fair, do we need a mission for every bloody handgun? It is my personal expectation that I will still be able to end the lives of a lot of people with a trusty HK Model 23 (1991), that handgun 29 years later will still correctly end lives, it has a laser targeter (I never used one) and it also has an excellent silencer. So going onto missions to find some HP USP, even if it is 2 years younger, does not really load my canon. Now, I get the option that soldiers (non military) have their own preference to what is the most deadly solution (if they can aim) and YES, this is a video game, but Ubisoft could have thought it through. Some reviews of ‘they added everything, so you end up running for nothing’ and it applies to this game. I get the loot part, I get the lets look fun part, but a game that has more chopper and drone support then the entire US army had in both Afghanistan and Iraq is a little over the top. Oh, and the amount of opposition outnumbers the US army as well, as such there are more questions, but this is a game, I get it.
The good
The good are the graphics and the environment, yet the game has its share of glitches (I personally only experienced non essential ones) like winelines in midair (a meter above the ground), yet that is a non-essential glitch. The graphics are pretty good and I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere shooting people I never cared about, just like some people in real life. Th sounds were good, yet debatable, if soldiers talk that loud for real, they deserved to get themselves killed #Justsaying. So, the area was brilliantly selected (read: designed).
The Irritating
Yves Guillemot, you bloody idiot, every time I got killed in action, I got the ‘join and invite people’ yellow blinking part. You idiot, I don’t like others joining me, I don’t want to join other players either! It is a personal thing, learn and switch that bloody part OFF! The second irritating part is the Ubi Club redeem part, especially as the Ubisoft server was apparently not working, even though I was online. There was the issue of redeeming in game perks and for some reason that jut did not work, so when we consider that some published 16 hours ago ‘Ubisoft Making Accessibility Part of Company DNA’ all whilst I cannot redeem Ubisoft club points, clearly lost the plot. In the light, I reckon that David Tisserand needs to clear his speaking points with the Ubisoft internal IT department #JustSaying.
The past
Yes, we have seen the references to other games from within Ubisoft, yet the island made me remember the 1989 Rainbird achievements Midwinter. I keep on remembering this game towards that game. One review did give me that Wildlands is a much better buy than this game, but I felt it essential to try this game, especially as I reviewed parts of it on someone else’s dime (it was their game), so whilst I see the point that some reviewers made (boring and repetitive for example) I see that the biggest issue is that it had to be released to a closed circuit of testers and after that look at the final version, I personally believe that the Marketing non gaming department at Ubisoft has too much power. This game required 4-6 months more of testing and development. The second part (which was nice) was the gunsmith, yet in the middle of nowhere, there is no space to improve my rifle, add a silencer on a rifle I took off a dead person (headshots are an effective way to remove hardware that a person will no longer care about). I would have limited the gunsmith part to the base between the waterfalls, but that part did look pretty awesome. For me it was an interesting two days, but in the end, there is a stage where I accept that the game is optionally not for me, others will like it, I get that, but when I like a game mode and I see that there is still a dubious level of acceptance even at 30 cents to the dollar, the game has more than flaws, it has essential issues, especially when you get to a wharf and you are suddenly surrounded by 3-4jeeps, all with heavy miniguns and around 10 opponents, all triggered by talking to a person about a boat, we see the oldest flaw of all, event triggers, all whilst the army needing that much to stop one person (optionally four for someplayers) has a lacking trust in their own army.
Conclusion
In the end the games has good and bad sides, there is just that feeling that it still has too many bad sides and the fact that it is at 70% discount does not take that feeling away, that’s just sad (read irritating), I personally believe that Ubisoft should have done a lot better, it angers me because the stage of an open world of this size should have been more inviting, it makes me sad. And yes, I get it, I might be accusing their marketing department on a personal feeling, but where is it stated that Guillemot needed the money desperately enough to let a game be released before it was ready is a much larger nightmare than we would like to consider. Half a dozen games and all of them released before they were ready, that is how I see it, look at CD Projekt Red, they merely keep people waiting until it is ready and the perfection that Witcher 3 brought is still heralded 5 years later, that means something and it is time for Ubisoft to catch on, preferably before they waste every bit of IP they have.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 