- 4 months ago
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora action-advneture game by Ubisoft.
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00So Jasmine has been playing Avatar Frontiers of Pandora for us, the much-delayed game.
00:05The main word that comes to mind when reading your preview and chatting to you about it is bewildering.
00:10Both from the mechanics, the UI, the gameplay, the navigation, the story, the sound, the crafting, the world in general.
00:16This seems like a very bewildering game.
00:19Yes, that is the word.
00:22And the thing is, it just doesn't feel finished yet.
00:25But what happened to me, I didn't write about it in the article, but I don't know if I can say it, whatever.
00:31But basically what happened was I tried to do another quest first, and I got to the area.
00:36It was like, oh, find a fire in the forest biome in the nether region of this map.
00:41And I got there, and there's a fire, there's something on fire, and nothing happens.
00:45I'm just watching it burn.
00:47I can run through flames, nothing happens.
00:49And then I called over one of the guys, and I was like, hey, so I'm at a quest location.
00:54I found it in the quest log, why is nothing happening?
00:57And they're like, oh, you shouldn't have done that one first.
01:00And I was like, then why is it in my quest log?
01:02So it's not even working properly.
01:04They set us up in the middle of nowhere, halfway through, like 25% of the way through the game.
01:09So it expects that you know what to do, how to move around, all the different items.
01:13There's nothing to help you, like, okay, this is my quest.
01:16It's like, oh, there are three quests, but apparently, oh, no, no, no, you have to pick that one.
01:21You can't do the other ones.
01:22So I was like, but what if I wanted to do that?
01:24What if I wanted to, like, go out of order?
01:26Well, I'm sorry, our game is that buggy that you can't.
01:29You literally can't.
01:30I was like, is something meant to happen?
01:31And they're like, oh, yeah, I mean, there's meant to be someone here anyway.
01:34And then they literally just moved on and didn't say anything else.
01:37I got to this, like, location.
01:38You have to find these specific fruit, which doesn't tell you how to find things, by the way.
01:43It's just like, find this fruit and bring it back to the HQ.
01:46So I find random fruit, I return, and I speak to everyone, and I can't find who I'm meant to talk to.
01:53I'm like, why doesn't it say on the map marker, oh, speak to this.
01:56Like, there should be something saying, like, something over their head, like anything, nothing.
02:01He's like, oh, if you go all the way upstairs, put it on that table, it'll trigger a conversation.
02:06How am I meant to know how to do that?
02:07And it's not like there's a fruit merchant?
02:09Yes.
02:09Oh, it's like, no, no, no, it's that table, specifically, and that table's not, like, got a, like, yellow highlight thing.
02:14Nothing.
02:15There's nothing to guide you.
02:16And I'm not sure if they're going to add this in later, but, like, you're not going to invite everyone around.
02:21This compass is blank.
02:23Nothing on it at all.
02:24I'm running around the jungle trying to make sense of my guns.
02:27Like, won't something attack me?
02:29Nothing attacked me.
02:30So I had to attack other things to get them to react to me, because otherwise it's just like you're passing through this beautiful, kind of empty world that doesn't react unless you've gone in order in these quest, these quest thingies.
02:43And I was trying to be nice because I spoke with the developer a little bit later, and I was just like, I've got no idea what this game is about.
02:50Literally, no, I couldn't pay you to, like, tell you.
02:53But then I spoke with the developer, he was really nice, and, like, he explained that it's basically what they want you to feel.
02:58They want you to feel out of your depth.
03:00They want you to be on the same footing as this character that you play who has no idea what's going on.
03:06So in their mind, it's literally, as he said, that's a sign of success for us.
03:11If you don't know what's happening, you have to grapple with this strange new world.
03:15And I get where they're coming from.
03:17I get that there's been, like, there is definitely something about the Souls-like genre making people feel out of depth.
03:24I understand that that's the thing that people like a lot at the moment.
03:27There's the exploration side of, like, the Zelda games, which is just go out and explore things.
03:32But things do have to happen to you when you go out there.
03:35The game can't force you to interact with it or be that buggy that it doesn't interact properly.
03:41But the other part that they're bringing into it, which, again, wasn't signposted, is basically, like, to a certain extent, a survival horror.
03:47It turned into Resident Evil for you because when you did come across somebody who was shooting back, you didn't have enough ammo left.
03:52Yes. And again, like, I found out about crafting completely by accident just by exploring.
03:57And you can't craft any ammo for anything.
04:00All you can do is there's, like, endless supplies of ammo for some reason in these abandoned bases, which are assumed to be from the enemy.
04:09Because the game takes place at the same time as the Avatar movies, right?
04:12But in a complete different area.
04:13So the idea is, like, you're fighting to hold down the fort on your end, whereas on the other side of the world, the movies are happening.
04:21Yeah. But, well, the first movie, sorry.
04:24But yeah, like, in this, it was like, I found myself just sort of being like, oh, I can just return back to this random base and loot it for more ammo, I guess, if I can't loot it.
04:33Not realizing that suddenly, oh, I'm in this combat heavy scenario, I've spent all of my bullets, I thought I was, like, out flying around in the sky on my lovely little ikhran called Carol.
04:45Suddenly, oh, you need to go and shoot down these bases.
04:47With what weapons?
04:49My bows sucked.
04:51My bullets in the gun, they were just gone.
04:53It was just like, I only had one gun as well.
04:55It was just this semi-automatic rifle just spraying and praying.
04:58And when that was empty, I had to leg it and fly off and try and find another base to raid for endless ammo.
05:06Again, maybe the designers have made it like that.
05:08Maybe that is part of the game.
05:10And you've talked about it being a bit of, like, a mix between Far Cry and Fallout.
05:13Yeah.
05:13And there is elements within Fallout where sometimes you do get to a place and you're going, oh, I didn't prep for this, I haven't got enough ammo, I stumbled across this, I need to come back.
05:21So maybe there is that side where there are those inspirations.
05:24But I think that the way that the game looks, it looks like this beautiful cinematic action that is a bit more Far Cry with it's just fun.
05:33And I just think that I understand you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but people are going to maybe be coming to this, thinking it is a more fun jump in, have a bit of a laugh, jump out thing.
05:42And it turns out, no, this is a hard game that doesn't tell you stuff, doesn't tell you where to go, doesn't tell you how to craft, doesn't tell you the mechanics.
05:48And it is, like, punishing, and it's, and like the developers said to you, their design is for you to be lost and confused.
05:55Because, like, to its credit, at first I thought, okay, I'm aware that I'm starting 24% of the way in.
06:01Like, maybe they explained these things earlier on, but it was just the fact that, like, if you were to just step into it, you would not have any idea what to do, where to go.
06:10So, and even, like, things that are interactable, like they have these little dots on the screen, I didn't realise that they were even important.
06:18I was like, oh, it's just part of the, because there's so much happening, that these little purple dots, these, like, pale purple dots, just look like part of a flower.
06:26Oh, so it's like particle physics, just going on, oh, so you're just like, oh, it's it.
06:29And you look around, and only when you look at a specific thing does it actually be like, oh, you can pick this for fruit if you want, there's nothing to sort of let you know.
06:37So it's not like, okay, so they've gone with, instead of it being a UI kind of HUD thing, where it, like, circles and it says a little bit of text, it's just a colour sprite instead.
06:47Yes, and then you look at it, and it tells you.
06:48But bearing in mind that this is a completely new world, so they've developed new fauna and new animals that nobody's ever seen, which is amazing, it's great they've done that.
06:55But part of it, understandably, if this is like, this is a flower I've never seen, you go, well, that purple thing could just be part of the flower.
07:01Yes, precisely.
07:02Like, it's that thing where, like, for me, I'm just concerned that the world is so beautiful and there's so much to do that it just takes away from this story that's supposed to be, you know, this well-written, really complex sort of story about, like, patriotism and learning about your roots and your family.
07:19And there's this wonderful story that, for me, just didn't come through at all, because I spent half the time being like, how do I run?
07:26Like, how do I build stuff?
07:29How do I become one with this world that wants to keep me at such an arm's length?
07:33It felt like I was fighting against the game to just know what to do with my time.
07:37If you're trying to work out how to just make it from point A to point B, if somebody's giving you an amazing lore dump on your headphones, you're like, I am not listening to you, because I just ran through a cloud that made me faster.
07:51Yes.
07:51But nobody ever told you that.
07:52So all of a sudden, you're pinging around, like, what happened?
07:54I don't know why that, oh, I went through a blue cloud.
07:55And then there's also climbing elements that, again, isn't how you have to shoot a certain thing to let the vines come down.
08:02But, again, because you were dumped 25% into the game, you're like, I'm sure there was a tutorial that told me this, but I didn't know it.
08:08And, again, like, even with that, there's no purple dot on the vine fruit saying, vine fruit, shoot me.
08:14It's just like, oh, you should know how to do this by now.
08:16Climbing, getting around isn't like a smooth kind of parkour, Assassin's Creed kind of feel.
08:21There's no sort of, like, obvious thing to do.
08:23And you can't jump as high as you might think, and I was grappling with that.
08:27But once you get to the top of this beautiful, like, animal rookery, you're on the back of this beautiful bird called an ikran, and you're swooping, and that feels really nice.
08:36But then it's like, oh, find a sky island with purple trees to continue the mission.
08:41There are about a thousand of these sky islands, and I literally was like, where?
08:47There's nothing on my mini-map telling me to go anywhere.
08:49It's not being specific.
08:51It's like, find a sky island with purple trees on it.
08:52And it didn't even say, like, south-south-west.
08:54No, no.
08:55So you're looking, you're up there, flying around, looking at thousands of islands, going, am I literally going to have to check every single one of these?
09:02Yes.
09:03I was, am I going to, like, my heart sunk.
09:05I was like, am I going to have to fly around the map?
09:07I can see on the map there are a bunch across the map on the other end of it, and I, my heart sank.
09:12I was like, am I going to have to fly, like, a hundred kilometers across the map to find this place?
09:18Luckily, it wasn't too far, but I did spend a good, like, 20 minutes circling, making sure.
09:24To fair play to them, they are trying something very hard, and it is very tricky to have that amazing exploration that you only get in a few games.
09:32But clearly, I think that they've missed the mark, and it's very unfortunate.
09:38Yes, I definitely think that the bewilderment comes from, again, this feeling of not knowing what the game, what it wants to be.
09:45Like, is it an FPS?
09:46Like, am I meant to be going around shooting everything?
09:48Is it, like, an open-world adventure exploration game?
09:51Is it a survival game?
09:52Precisely.
09:53Is it a survival horror game?
09:54Like, what am I meant, what does it want to do?
09:56I feel like it's trying to do a lot of things, and it does most of them competently, but the problem arises when I have no idea what the actual purpose of me exploring is.
10:06What will I gain from doing this?
10:08It's that the question for me was, what are the stakes involved here?
10:11Will I even get anything if I go off the beaten path?
10:14Will it just be another few thousand yards of just jungle?
10:19Which has been partly Starfield's problem.
10:21Definitely.
10:22But this seems like on another level.
10:23Well, Starfield, like, at least told you where to go.
10:27It was boring getting there, but you need to do what you're doing.
10:30Yeah, like, it's definitely something that, like, there will be people that want to just run around and have a good time and experience.
10:37People that are massive fans of the movies will love it, because to me, it feels more like a walking sim of Pandora.
10:43Okay, yeah, okay.
10:44So there's that benefit to it, where there is that it's very artistically driven.
10:49It's very lore-driven.
10:51Yeah.
10:51But if you're not as interested in that, then you're literally just fighting through, like, legions and leagues and leagues of jungle just to get from A to B.
11:00And you don't know why you need to be there.
11:03And it comes out in a couple of months.
11:05Yeah, in December, I'm quite sure.
11:07So, like, it's not far away.
11:10And, I mean, I don't know.
11:11Let's hope that maybe they add a little bit more in terms of pathfinding.
11:14I'm not asking for...
11:15Let's hope that the first 25% that you didn't play has some more two-show reels.
11:18Yes.
11:18Maybe there's something else that missed.
11:19You know.
11:19And maybe, yeah, some more pathfinding.
11:21Yeah.
11:22And that might work for it.
11:23I must say, 25% of the way into the game, and that's when you get the flying bird for the first time, that's 25% of the game that you're going to spend walking around on foot.
11:32Oh, no!
11:32I didn't even think about that until now.
11:34This bird makes map mobility so much easier.
11:37Yeah, you can fly places, like, 20 times faster.
11:39I mean, you don't know where you're going.
11:40No!
11:41But you can get to somewhere where you don't know where to go quicker.
11:43Yeah, you can fly.
11:44Whereas 25% of the game in, you've been wandering.
11:47Just wandering around.
11:48Oh, my God.
11:49On foot.
11:49Okay, well, fingers crossed that they completely changed the game in the next two months.
11:53Yeah, I mean, you know, there's hope.
11:55There's hope.
11:57I mean, Ubisoft are technically very good when it comes to open world games.
12:01I'm just hoping that that comes through in the final version for this.
12:05I really do.
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