Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey - Before You Buy

oh boy we're back with another episode of before you buy that show we give you some straight of gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing once again it's me Jake Baldino and we're talking about ancestors humankind Odyssey like I said a lot of games coming out right now there's a lot to talk about the humankind Odyssey this is really an incredibly unique game huh start with that it's out now on PC and apparently it drops on consoles before the end of the year in December it's turned heads because it's behind one of the original minds behind Assassin's Creed the trees SLA now this is a very different game it's not just assassin's creed but in prehistoric times and instead of climbing buildings you climb trees like a lot of people were kind of thinking it would be this is a survival game but it's actually completely unlike any other and that part about it I absolutely like I think I love but this game is more immense than you would imagine it also has some massively weird stuff I just didn't jive with now I've had this game for about two weeks thanks to being sent a review copy and you probably glanced over reviews by now and saw a lot of reviews just didn't get it or you just couldn't crack the code because the game doesn't tell you anything at all it even says it in the intro of like when the game starts up it says hey good luck we're not really gonna tell you anything but I think that's the point that's what they're going for here the game is set up to completely toss you into the early human perspective what do you do do you explore do you find food do you drink what can you how do you deal with predators what do you do what happens if you bang two rocks together all of this is in there it's in the game but it's up to you to slowly figure out and decode for yourself just like the early humans did themselves nobody told them how to do anything know what's supposed to make it fun though is that you already know what happens kind of so you have an easier time because you already know you can crack a coconut open with a rock or use a branch from a tree to defend yourself stuff like that they had to figure that out it's all about unraveling it yourself you know those oh [ __ ] oh my god I figured it out moments those aha moments are the best parts of the game there's still more to discover to the gay a lot of possibilities and combinations with the environment and items that I think a community will take off with this game once people figure out what you know say this rock does with this plant or what this thing does with this being on my own playing the game for review with like no guide or anything I had a lot of fun discovering stuff on my own but I think it's gonna be even more fun to see this game grow even more but unfortunately the rest of the core of it is pretty repetitive slow grindy and tedious without much payoff like I give it tons and tons of points for being insanely new and weird and different I can't stop thinking about this game but it's still rough and the fun is hard to find I'm starting to think it's a failed experiment but I can't quite put my finger on it anyway what it is there there are a lot of mechanics in place but like here's the gist you start out as an early aide with a small group of others millions and millions and millions of years ago you have a small little home it's up to you to venture out and discover things so stray too far in the jungle the screen gets all scary like to illustrate that your ape is afraid of the unknown so then you spend time in that environment and use your detective vision modes of sight hearing and smell to scan and identify stuff in the environment and get used to an area and just expand your territory there are also points of interest that you can push further for even more bonuses and these by bonuses I mean like having a child accompany you like on your back will help you essentially get more points for levelling up and discover a new plant that is safe to eat just find a new rock type or you know encounter and run from a new predator and basically everything else you do contributes to you being able to unlock and learn more you have essentially a skill tree and you earn neurons which you can dump into different branches to unlock stuff like identify plants from further away say a new way to use your hands hold two things at once longer windows for dodging predators and more these need to be locked in though if you want to progress to a new generation and fast forward so each child you birth and have in your clan allows you to lock in some stuff you have learned all their mutations will happen naturally let's say you have a new child that you breed they can essentially be born with a random mutation of say having better probability to withstand eating a certain type of plant developing certain immunities etc stuff like that so then do that progressive generation you'll find yourself years later with the normal Apes now elder Apes and the babies have grown to adults and you could do that over and over again but it's up to unit you know every time develop a bond a breed have more babies and explore and learn more eventually you can cash in all of your achievements like what you have discovered and how many times say you know make a sharp stick five times to progress the timeline millions of years in evolution the game also does the math with modern science and holds it up to see if you're advancing quicker or slower than actual history from what we know after that you'll be able to start off fresh with a new clan and a new section of the environment which the environments absolutely seem massive like insanely massive by the way but then you go from there the idea is to eventually keep this loop going keep grinding out learning and progressing to eventually become a fully upright walking early ape-man thing at least that's what the trailer suggested but I've put hours and hours and hours into this game even after I really started to not be as happy with it just to see if I could break through and figure out that one last thing that pushes me further into a new sequence of the game where things change up but even after grinding out and progressing millions of years it just felt way too long and unsatisfying and my ape was barely walking upright the progression is brutal I can see the light at the end of the evolution branch tunnel but the game loses its luster before then and that's a bummer it even feels like the game doesn't want you to get there not in the way like where it's like difficulty like it just feels like the game doesn't care now you might hear that type of stuff and immediately go okay well that's because you suck review a person and you just couldn't figure it out and you might be right I don't know but I've seen a lot of stuff I've journeyed really far across the map with the slow movement speed it takes forever I've dodged and killed multiple predators have crafted sharp rocks to make an improved sharpen stick I've kicked some ass I've applied the right plants to buff myself and healed wounds I figured out tons and gotten so far in my little monkeys journeys and gotten over the huge huge difficulty curve being on the learning curved and still I feel like I just have nothing to show for it this makes the game feel like an endless grind even though I've had the great payoff moments of learning something new or stumbling across something surprising that still just didn't quite feel worth it for me like worth the journey especially because the core isn't too fun I will say climbing and swinging through trees is absolutely exhilarating it feels like well-designed and one of the better mechanics at a game but like when you're on the ground and facing off against animals and doing stuff like that it's just not that fun it's all about a timed button press that takes a bit of time to get used to but when you finally can effortlessly pull off a Dodge or a nice counter-attack it all feels useless it's simple and unfun because the first time you fend off an attacker it's exhilarating the hunt the stalk the surprise you're successful reaction the music swells the ape screams triumphantly but then you do it a thousand more times and you have to see the same thing over and over again and that's every time you have a child or progressive generation or even evolve into a new era you just see the same cutscenes over and over again and you can't skip a lot of them and after a while after watching the 50th time I had a child since it's necessary to grinding out and I have to sit through the cutscene of the child being born I'm just sitting here like going what am I doing here why am i grinding through this especially like if your whole clan dies a lot of it feels like a big waste especially if you've been grinding for hours and hours it's a shame that the good moments here really lose their luster it's still more interesting than your average survival game like I don't play a lot of them I'm not the biggest fans of them this one's unique and weird and different that's why I put so much time into it especially that and it's beautiful the music is very memorable the Apes act and animate and sound convincing and the scenery is so vast and detailed it looks pretty killer on PC especially at certain times during the day and night cycle all of the sound design is great actually and although I want to point out if you're hard of hearing some of the smaller contextual actions like properly breaking a shtick required distinct very quiet audio timing cues that you have to listen for until you upgrade it so keep that in mind ultimately I want to freaking love this game it's one of the few survival games that has ever appealed to me just because it's so damn different and try something absolutely in namely ambitious the problem is I just didn't have too much fun with it and by the time I figured out a lot of the game it felt like a chore to play I'm curious again to see what the gaming community thinks and makes of it because it's really up to your own brain the act of figuring stuff out was really fun I just wish the rest of the game was but again I still think about it even when I'm not playing it just something about it it's hard to put my finger on but it is appealing if you're still up in the air it's hard to get across what this game is I'd say take the time in and watch a let's play don't watch a video for like 10 minutes I'm saying like watch for an hour and see what the game really is and that might help honestly inform you a little bit more into like what you're getting into what the loop is but that's it before you buy I give you some pros some cons and some personal opinion and now I want to hear yours down in the comments there's a lot to unpack about this one especially you know now once the main public gets their hands on it I'm sure it'll be more interesting but anything else you got for me if you got any questions I get it it's confusing hit me up on Twitter and Instagram at Jake Doughty you know I'm there for you but if you enjoyed this video and maybe I helped you out a little bit maybe informed your purchase clicking the like buttons the best way you can help us out we'd really appreciate that and if you're new it's worth considering subscribing and hitting that notification bell because we put out videos every single day and we have tons more before you buy videos planned but as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time [Music] [Music] you you

Channel: gameranx

Views: 1,558,641

Rating: 4.9061723 out of 5

Keywords: ancestors, ancestors game review, ancestors the humankind odyssey, ancestors humankind odyssey review, before you buy ancestors humankind odyssey, ancestors before you buy, ancestors pc graphics, ancestors gameplay, ancestors the humankind odyssey gameplay, gameranx, game review, monkey game

Id: Tv1k1hI_Rf0

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019