Recent reviews by ModerateThundr

Please, take all of the negative reviews with a grain of salt. The first thing I have to get out of the way is that I LOVE this game. I am going to start off by talking about the AMD issue, and what it's current state is, so if that is an issue you are interested in, or HAVE, please continue reading. For anyone just interested in my opinion on the game, you can skip to the <START_REVIEW> tag.

The part about the game not being optimized for AMD cards was definitely true... the first day. I have a Radeon HD 7990 6GB, and I couldn't play on more than HBAO and SMAA. And even just the SMAA would lag me sometimes. I have a Logitech G19 keyboard, and it has an LCD on it, which I use to monitor various things, including my GPU usage for both 1 & 2, my VRAM usage, and the temp of the card (and the CPU as well).
I was very surprised to see that it was using 100% of GPU2, but hovering between 50-80% of GPU1, and the temp never went above 55c (which is very low for my card when it is being used to it's potential... normal temp at full load is around 60c-70c). My VRAM usage was INSANE though, topping out at just over 5.8gb, the most I have ever seen. I even got better performance by turning off crossfire, although not much. Basically it would lag slightly less when I used SMAA or Temporal SMAA.
THEN.... they released the 14.6 beta driver. They state that you can get up to a 30% performance increase by using the optimized beta drivers. It looks like they are telling the truth, as I can now play with HBAO+, MSAAx4 (x8 still bogs me down), DoF and all that, with everything on Ultra (except reflections, that is on High). I get almost no lag at all (MSAAx4 gets down to around 30FPS in heavily populated areas like The Loop), and I have had no crashes. My sensor readings now like they should, using 90-100% on both GPU's, and yet it still runs relatively cool at 60-63c at full load.
The only catch is that the 14.6 drivers ONLY work with Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 with .NET 4.5, essentially FORCING you to upgrade if you have Windows 8 (I did... I wasn't thrilled about upgrading, but it was relatively painless). So there is the good news. The AMD problem that people are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about is not an issue anymore.

<START_REVIEW>
I went into this game with high expectations, and honestly I have yet to be disappointed. The game feels like a cross between GTA, Remember Me, and Assassins Creed. And you can tell that it borrows heavily from the AC series in terms of control and overall movement and actions. The control scheme (when using the controller) is very similar, as they are both centered around freerunning. And this the game does decent. I can't say that it does it WELL, because I would like to be able to climb some higher ledges, or jump small gaps, which unfortunately you can't do. Maybe I just expect to be able to because of the similar controls? Either way, there is room for improvement there, but it is hardly a fail.
So far the side ativities have kept me busy, as there is always something that comes up. There is almost always a crime happening, or a tower to hack, and no matter where you are on the map you are never far away from something to do.
The base action of the game is hacking, and this starts to get addicting very fast. It borders on OCD when you do even simple things like walk down the street. You are always looking for that blue square telling you that this person has something that is worth your time. And one leads to another, and then you see a camera and think "Well ♥♥♥♥, from up there I can see EVERYONE that is down here!", so you hack it..... and your OCD reaches a whole new level. You quickly forget about what you were originally doing, because you are too focused on just hacking into random people and stealing their bank info, their secrets, or reading their text messages. There were times that I literally had to turn off the Profiler (the ability to hack into things) so that I could focus on the task at hand!

Crap, this review took a lot longer than I anticipated to write, and I don't have time to finish it now. Basically, here is how I score it, and my hardware that I am playing it on.

Score is based on a 1-10 rating system:

-- Gameplay: 8 (there is a lot to see and do, and Chicago is recreated beautifully < I live less than 90 minutes from there, have been there many many times >. The side activities can get overwealming sometimes, and cause you to lose focus of your goals if you don't get a handle on it. The skill and progression system is good, but pretty limited. You get to take most of the good perks pretty early, and skill points aren't hard to come by)

--Control: 7 (takes a lot from assassins creed series, but the rest of the controls are intuitive and the camera is quick, and never sluggish. The driving is exactly like you would expect it to be, as is standard in most games that require it)

--Graphics Options: 9.5 (really not much else you can ask for in a game... almost every option is available, and is very well done. The 64-bit platform REALLY shines here, and opens up a whole new world in gaming. Several other titles are 64-bit as well, but few take full advantage of the increased memory and processing power like this game does)

--Sound: 7 (sound options, ehh... nothing special about them. The sound itself is decent. Positional audio is good. Voice acting is very well done, especially some of the vocal effects they use. Song selection could be better, as well as a way to import your own music. There are other open world games that do that really well, so I figured it was a given for this beast... but I was wrong. I think I read that there is a way to mod the music in the game to play your own tracks, but it requires some more research on my part before I call it legit)

--Story: 8 (it is a bit cliche' in the revenge sense, but really original because of the hacking element. I won't get into anything other than that, but the story itself is good, with plenty of "Oh hell no!" moments)

--Fun: 8 (overall playing this game is a blast. There is so much to see and do, and the world itself is very dynamic. The story is easy to jump in and out of, and the amount of customization keeps the game interesting. Replayability isn't SUPER high, but it is comparable to any GTA type game... when you beat the story, you play it again to go berzerk on the town, blowing everything up that you can, and generally causing total mayhem and anarchy. Or maybe that's just me.)

OVERALL: 8

And here is my rig. Yeah, it's higher than most, but I don't see why any decent system couldn't get at least 50+ FPS with high settings, and even with the HIGH settings this game looks great. You really don't miss a lot by moving from Ultra to High, unless you are talking about the textures and world detail. To me, those two are the most important. I keep those as high as possible and then build a config around them that gives me the detail I want while keeping my performance up.


Windows 8.1 64-bit
Core i7 3930k six-core 3.2ghz
32gb G.Skill 1866mhz ram
Asus P9X79 WS Motherboard
Radeon HD 7990 6GB video card
ASUS Xonar Phoebus sound card; <<5.1 channel Logitech Z-5500 speakers, wall mounted rear, F-L/R/C are on my desk
Game is stored on Corsiar 512gb SSD
PC P&C Silencer MKIII 1200w PSU

<END_REVIEW>

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