What’s up since my last post ? Not much in term of backlog-stabbing I’m afraid.

Pros :

• + the world is among the most beautiful I've ever played in. The water is especially well rendered, the sunsets are gorgeous, and it's a pleasure to discover those Mediterranean islands one after the other. But JC being JC, they end up feeling more and more empty, just like in JC2 (where the universe was among the biggest of its time), as if one more time the devs didn't have enough time to make it lively and just tried to fill in the gaps between isolated spots of interest they actually and thoroughly worked on.
• + I had such a blast blasting everything away ! Once again, the explosions are the best I've seen in a game. JC3 is even more centered than its predecessor on how about being creative in exploding stuff. And it works (up to a certain point) : first, you try to destroy a base, let's say while in a tank, then the next one in a chopper, then on foot with a bazooka, then without shooting a single bullet but rather with the grappler, etc.
• + BTW the grappler is perfect : you can use it to kill enemies, to travel in combination with the paraglider and if you're imaginative enough (which I'm not really), turn it into a morbid fun-fair instrument (on second thought, this video is not about the grappler but the human rockets : didn't manage to find back the awesome grappler vid or gif I had in mind).

Cons :

• - cars and bikes driving is awful (but planes' and choppers' is better).
• - the main story doesn't re-invent the wheel : overthrow an evil dictator, period. I think I preferred JC2 factions system. The side-quests are dull and insignificant : find spare parts of dispensable weapons, find gizmo offering then fast-travel in a given province. Finally, what's a novelty of this opus, the challenges (like, who among your friends threw a cow furthest ?), are not my cup of tea and lose a lot of interest when you play the game as a patient gamer, which means the leaderboards are pretty still.
• - the loading times were a pain in the ass, particularly before the not-so-much-more-beautiful-than-in-game-as-you'd-expect'em cut-scenes.
• - t-e-d-i-o-u-s gameplay : kill, explode, destroy. Move to the next spot, kill, explode, destroy. Rinse and repeat. Nevertheless, compared to JC2, JC3 managed to keep me entertained and involved till the end and in spite of my poor creativity, I conscientiously took over all the cities and bases on the map.
  Verdict on Just Cause 3 : 7,5/10

Outside of Steam, I've played the good old (2012) third (but actually fifth) installment in the AC series. It's been many years since I had played the 2 first episodes on Xbox360. This time, I came back to PC for AC3, that I got for free in a Uplay official giveaway a couple years ago. In fact, I admit I'm quite hyped by AC Odyssey so, I thought I should at least skim through this episode before yielding to the Greek adventures.

Pros :

• + the 1776 period in the US is more interesting to me than the Renaissance in Europe (not so exotic for a European guy) or the Crusades.
• + I liked the fact Ubisoft tried to avoid the usual simplistic black and white approach to some extent : if I may simplify myself, we're shown the Templars pursue their own goals and have their own "faith" while some Assassins can be shady too.
• + in theory, the naval parts were a nice way of refreshing and diversifying the gameplay, eventhough 1) I didn't really enjoyed them and 2) Connor becoming an old sea dog on top of a stylish assassin was very hard to believe.

Cons :

• - the introduction is so long until you can actually play and do usual stuff in AC games (like you know, climbing anything higher than 10 feet so you can admire the skyline from above).
• - some staging and acting were laughable or pathetic, and some game design choices were ill-advised (for example, I hate when your character is forced to walk, for staging purpose, while you'd want him to run to speed up the situation).
• - so many glitches and bugs : the game got on my nerves when I had to manually reboot some sequences because some event didn't trigger as expected. That being said, the game didn't age so badly in terms of graphics and animation (apart from the ubiquitous collision bugs that ruins the atmosphere).
• - as usually, the whole present time stories felt awkward and boring to me : don't people play AC games for living little stories in the big history ? Moreover, I just can't emphasize enough how the raw violence of Desmond against the guards in his third mission made me ill at ease.
• - who on Earth believed it was a good idea not allowing the player to skip the 20-minutes-long credits ?!?
  Verdict on Assassin's Creed 3 : 6/10