Skull and Bones Was 10 Years of Development... For This?

Skull and Bones Was 10 Years of Development... For This? | Cold Take

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3 ай бұрын

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This week on Cold Take, Frost reviews Skull and Bones.
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@TheMcg197 3 ай бұрын

"More Routine than Rebellious" is a perfect, short scathing review of a game about pirates

@nomchomsley854 3 ай бұрын

"More Roger than Jolly" was chef kiss

@hazukichanx408 3 ай бұрын

I was like "Hey, this game almost looks kind of fun!" Then I saw the random shop entry for... Repair Cannons. That fire adhesive goo. To plug holes in allied ships. Yes, this is what a thrilling high seas adventure needs... full-auto nonsense blammers, and _repair cannons._ *_Le Facepalm_*

@Timblesink 3 ай бұрын

than*

@TheMcg197 3 ай бұрын

@@TimblesinkThank you

@31animafan 3 ай бұрын

@@hazukichanx408 Once again those at the top did the only thing they can, turning what could be fun or exiting into just another job, but this one you pay for.

@Balsiefen 3 ай бұрын

Sounds like they're doing a good job gunning for Yahtzee's coveted _3rd Blandest Game of the Year_ award!

@seanurbik 3 ай бұрын

More like 2nd

@Drenix 3 ай бұрын

@@seanurbik they want the legendary 0th spot

@Daniel-yy3ty 3 ай бұрын

@@scrittleYeah, the clusterfuck alone is too much to get the high spots... Hell, it might not even get in

@kevadu 3 ай бұрын

You guys don't get it. 3rd is literally middle of the blandest. In other words it's the true blandest of bland, not even bland enough to really stand out.

@hoshi314 3 ай бұрын

At the very least a ubisoft game is going in the blandest, which spot? I dunno though

@Slateproc 3 ай бұрын

If skull & bones was "AAAA" then I'm eager to see what horrific and industry destroying mess AAAAA will bring

@yourself1210 3 ай бұрын

Got to pay 5 different subscription services to make the game even launch

@YukoValis 3 ай бұрын

I doubt any dev or publisher is going to use the phrase again after this disaster.

@JodocusPocus 3 ай бұрын

Each A stands for another deadly sin. We already have the usual 'pride', 'greed 'and 'gluttony'. Ubisoft just added sloth. I personally hope they are going for 'lust' with the fifth A.

@main_stream_media_is_a_joke 3 ай бұрын

The high cost of game development combined with no risk taking for safe ROI will ensure that it's all downhill from now on. Also keep slapping in more and more crazy Drm's so that we the paying customers do not get to actually own the damn game that we paid for. Are these top management people really this disconnected?

@LyrisTheCat 3 ай бұрын

we already have AAAAA its called fortnite, because no other game in the planet has that amount of staff creating and taking out content within months that could be considered expansions for other developers.

@GameAnGrog 3 ай бұрын

Adding big glowing weakspots to ships really hammers home how terrified publishers are of any players being left behind. Why not help immerse players by teaching them something about naval combat? Aim for the water line, disable the rudder or steering, bring down a mast to slow them, injure the crew to limit their cannon fire. Nah, just add a big shoot here to win sign, those idiots will figure it out.

@peterclarke7006 3 ай бұрын

I'm absolutely convinced this game is intended to be a mobile game. Everything about the mechanics reminds me of the incredibly simplistic controls mobile games have to have to make them bearable.

@GameAnGrog 3 ай бұрын

@@peterclarke7006 I'd believe it. It took them 10 years to make a more watered down, easier version of Black Flags ship combat, while removing pretty much everything else. Including removing sword fighting. Ya know, the actual swashbuckling. The most exciting part of playing a pirate!

@queengames8421 3 ай бұрын

The Pirates of the Caribbean MMO had more interesting ship combat than this, and it was a kids game. Sure, it was just "shoot the backside of a ship for more damage, shoot the sails to slow them down, or shoot the same side of the ship enough to break it's armor for more damage", but at least it didn't signal those with weakspots.

@bofast 3 ай бұрын

Maybe it was too hard for Ubisoft management to understand the gameplay without the glowing bits 😄

@arturoaguilar6002 3 ай бұрын

Textbook AAAA game design

@JHawke1 3 ай бұрын

"I am congratulated 5 times" made me choke on my drink. Shit caught me off guard.

@yptrumpet 3 ай бұрын

"Donde está lá biblioteca" had me dying 🤣 Frost's understated humor is a delight, and particularly so as a counterbalance to Yahtzee's... more fiery humor. Frost is the yogurt to Yahtzee's spicy biryani.

@thomasprice7893 3 ай бұрын

>yogurt and spicy biryani Sounds like a recipe for explosive diarrhea

@JuanSanchez-qp1xp 3 ай бұрын

@@thomasprice7893 it’s gonna be saucy

@Mikineitor 3 ай бұрын

Was it a reference to community? troy and abed's spanish rap?

@E1craZ4life 3 ай бұрын

“Where’s the library?”

@travellerinthedark 3 ай бұрын

@@Mikineitor"Me llamo T-Bone, la araña discoteca." The Community song is the first place I heard that phrase in a joke about learning Spanish , but maybe it's a common joke.

@mjc0961 3 ай бұрын

"Be that as it may, I've never made 700 Frenchmen go on strike due to poor wages" HAHAHAHA okay I wish I could like this more than once

@MariaVosa 3 ай бұрын

Frost burn!

@dragon1130 3 ай бұрын

Don't worry, I'll like it on your behalf.

@rarazalproductions519 3 ай бұрын

@@MariaVosaYou. I like you.

@hefoxed 3 ай бұрын

It's a hilarious joke, tho French folk/people would likely be more accurate -- it was 700ish total workers, women and non-binary folk likely work there and most probably don't want to be called frenchmen*. Wouldn't have been as funny tho to be accurate -- frenchmen has distinct cultural associates. * "Men" is somewhat unisex in some contexts as originally it was unisex, but has heavy gendered association.

@boristheviewbot6056 3 ай бұрын

@@hefoxed Bro this has to be satire, right??

@Kharmitas 3 ай бұрын

The cannonballs don't even come out of the guns? Sid Meier's Pirates got that right!

@Romanticoutlaw 3 ай бұрын

I'd say sid meier's pirates is a hundred times the game skull and bones is, but 0 times anything is still 0. Every couple of years I go back to sid meier's pirates, something about it feels like rereading a great book

@ultimatum1895 3 ай бұрын

Let's not forget that Callisto Protocol also tried to harp itself as AAAA

@GZilla311 3 ай бұрын

I’m gonna just assume "AAAA" means "not for me" from now on. I couldn’t get past a few fights in TCP due to impossible dodge mechanics even on easy with "automatic" dodging.

@Rick586 3 ай бұрын

Oh, yeah, the Dead Space clone that's set it in the PUBG universe.

@ultimatum1895 3 ай бұрын

@@Rick586 idk about clone. Malnourished drug infused mutant found in a sewer, maybe.

@plasticbeetle6209 3 ай бұрын

@@ultimatum1895 It's like a whiff of the farts someone emits after a hearty meal of dead space. Tangentially related, yet unrecognizable

@ultimatum1895 3 ай бұрын

@@plasticbeetle6209 I like this one

@arcanum3000 3 ай бұрын

Man, I just wanted one of the old Sid Meier's Pirates games with Black Flag graphics and gameplay. Use Black Flag as a basis for replacing Pirates' abstracted top-down map and RNG or minigame-based activities with more sophisticated and engaging mechanics.

@reydecangrejos7087 3 ай бұрын

Man, that would have been great - especially if they made different ships FEEL different (a quick nimble sloop vs a hefty galleon)

@Gulyus 3 ай бұрын

Sea dogs has a demo on steam so try that?

@Xalerdane 3 ай бұрын

This, and a full player-driven economy.

@the_mad_fool 3 ай бұрын

@@cybercifrado It's on Steam now and currently on sale for $2.49.

@Gn3rd 3 ай бұрын

Ironically, I actually felt the urge to go play Sid Meier's Pirates! again from watching this video.

@rikou1986 3 ай бұрын

Wasn't this game in development hell for so long because the devs by contract couldn't give up even though they all knew it was on fire.

@CallN0w 3 ай бұрын

Yes. The rotation at the studio was insane, people came in, saw the state of development, and handed in their resignation

@FEARSWTOR 3 ай бұрын

@@blushingralseiuwu2222 I have to wonder if Ubisoft took the deal always planning to either cancel the project or release a quick shovelware game solely to get the incentives Singapore was offering. Then, when they tried to back out, the government was like: "Sure. Just give back all the money and also here's your new tax bill" and it was only then that they read the fine print. Probably not, but it feels like an Ubisoft kind of plan.

@GZilla311 3 ай бұрын

That. They would have dropped it, but they relied on it for tax breaks from the Singapore government. If they had quit, I imagine they’d be buried in back taxes, not to mention the punitive amounts.

@thatguy1080 3 ай бұрын

The Singapore government was paying Ubisoft to develop this game, but in typical Ubisoft fashion, they were in it for the money and they wanted to milk the contract until the time came where they had to make an actual "Video game".

@Daedalus117 3 ай бұрын

@@blushingralseiuwu2222yeah, blame the government for the work of profit-motivated corporations

@tobster9567 3 ай бұрын

AAAA for the louder screams

@thirdcoinedge 3 ай бұрын

Like that Vine! "aa, aaa, AAAA!"

@nah82201 3 ай бұрын

Came here to say exactly this. 😂

@arkhe1n107 3 ай бұрын

As per what Frost said, it could be a AAAAAAAAAAAA game.

@padmanabhanvaidyanathan7182 3 ай бұрын

Reminds me of the headless bomber dudes in Serious sam.

@15oClock 3 ай бұрын

No wonder I took it as a warning.

@sammyfreeman8494 3 ай бұрын

"Passable at best" is gonna be a common phrase for the next decade or so.

@jeffs1571 3 ай бұрын

@@SimuLordIt's the original "mid"

@tsb2041 3 ай бұрын

Considering how many studios are jumping on the live service bandwagon, that phrase will be frequently utilized. I dread to think that GTA 6 is secretly being developed as a live service to better merge in GTA online and become a new cash cow for R*

@golemgolden4670 3 ай бұрын

Just play indie and dont give yer money to ubisoft. I know boycots dont work but every penny they dont get is a penny better spent.

@KefkeWren 3 ай бұрын

Boycotts do work, @@golemgolden4670 and that's why the industry is where it is. That's why companies are desperately throwing around buzzwords to entice people into committee-designed games so statistically "safe" that people forget it exists the moment that it leaves their perception. It's why everything is a live service with a season pass, battle pass, premium pass, and queue pass. The AAA industry is absolutely _haemorrhaging_ money, and they can't afford to take big losses. They're in full Damage Control Mode and have been for a while - it's just that the people calling the shots are too out of touch to understand why it isn't working.

@sinjin8576 3 ай бұрын

@@tsb2041I hold 0 hope for that game to be honest. They no longer have the best writers there anymore and are more greed driven than ever before. I cant see it ending well. Itll still sell like crazy tho. The name alone will move a billion units regardless of quality

@totally_not_a_troll 3 ай бұрын

It wasn't 10 years of development. It was "taking money from the singaporean governament 10 years ago for completley something esle, and now the debt is due" in development.

@Rick586 3 ай бұрын

Ubisoft was basically using the Singapore studio as an excuse to give their execs paid vacations until the Singapore government started threatening legal action for wasting their money (the punishment for which may even include whichever executive is still on the island getting beaten with a cane).

@grip7777 3 ай бұрын

By your description of the game I'm reminded of what bilbo said in lord of the rings: "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread". This seems to be a big meal, but not necessarily an appetizing one.

@BigRoofus999 3 ай бұрын

So many things in this word have come down to, "There's nothing bad about it, it just doesn't add up to anything good."

@krazer9515 3 ай бұрын

@@SimuLordIt is like forgettable movies. It may not actively be bad, but at least bad gives you a memory. Bland gives you nothing but a hole in your memories where you played/watched it, and a hole in your wallet for the money you wasted. And sometimes bad at least tried something new or interesting and there could be a nugget of redemption. Bland always is the bare minimum and has nothing beyond "it didnt make me feel"

@AxeMan808 3 ай бұрын

I've gotten to the point where "Do I ENJOY the moment to moment gameplay?" If not, I don't care what systems are ALSO available. If I DO, then you don't even need more systems on top.

@g0ld3ney3 3 ай бұрын

"Skull & Bones" wants your money. "Helldivers 2" wants to be fun. The difference is as clear as night & day.

@Raida7 3 ай бұрын

And the funny part is... I'm here for giving Helldivers my money repeatedly! 😅

@g0ld3ney3 3 ай бұрын

@@Raida7 i'm-doing-my-part.gif

@31animafan 3 ай бұрын

Iv said for years nothing good comes if you start with the question "How can i get a lot of money out of people?"

@TonyGonzales 3 ай бұрын

The way to criticize a live service game isn't to suck off another one.

@Qreamey 3 ай бұрын

How have I only just now discovered this? I already can't get enough of "1950's smooth-talking Hardcase Detective reviews video games"

@tairyu2574 3 ай бұрын

I’d like to think there were a few years where Skull and Bones was just an excuse to vacation to Singapore. Singapore seems like a fun place.

@Rick586 3 ай бұрын

From what I've heard over the years, this is exactly what Ubisoft was doing. This really pissed off the Singapore government as they were actually funding the studio and the Ubisoft execs were actively wasting the money that was supposed to be used for making the game on their personal vacations. The government recently got sick of Ubisoft's BS and started threatening to take legal action if the game wasn't released soon, so they farted out this AAAA experience as quick as they could (perhaps out of fear of any executives still on the island getting sentenced to getting beaten with a cane).

@pingdragonify 3 ай бұрын

@@Rick586As a Singaporean, if ubisoft executives were getting beaten with a cane, it isn't for breaking the contract, it is for sexual assault lmao.

@FireFox64000000 3 ай бұрын

I think I have the most perfect quote for this game "but you were neither hot nor cold, you were lukewarm so I spit you out of my mouth" - God, the Book of the Revelation

@FirstDateFrt 3 ай бұрын

I thought that was daniel day lewis, gangs of new York 🤗

@FireFox64000000 3 ай бұрын

@@FirstDateFrt He got it from the good book. And let's face it that quote is fire.

@Mene0 3 ай бұрын

I thought that was a Katy Perry song

@Exesteils 3 ай бұрын

take so cold I'm gonna use it to chill my whisky

@MD0Hatter 3 ай бұрын

As someone who's spent plenty of time in kitchens, holy hell Frost that description of being wrung and baked had me cackling. Some beautiful writing across this review, thank you!

@chefbreccia2642 3 ай бұрын

"Perfect. I hope she likes it lukewarm"

@awkwardcultism 3 ай бұрын

As someone who's tired of people introducing themselves in every comment they make, I am very very mildly annoyed.

@starmanjr9179 3 ай бұрын

Slightly ruined by saying "wringed" twice

@njsteere 3 ай бұрын

“Third Pirate Shooter” was unexpected but A+ work

@inquisitorgrand 3 ай бұрын

It's absolutely baffling to me that Ubisoft nailed the ship sequences in AC4 and has since tried and failed to recapture it multiple times because they just don't know what made AC4 so well structured anymore. For me it was the weight of the ship with both navigation and combat: your cannons aren't machine guns, they're heavy as shit and you have to time and aim your shots carefully with each volley, and they pack a wallop every hit. It was also that sailing wasn't the full focus: you could switch between piracy and assassinations at a moment's notice so neither felt stale. But they don't know that, they only know people liked boats in AC4 and that other boat games (i.e. Sea of Thieves) make boatloads of money.

@CreativeInspireP380 3 ай бұрын

This kind of hits the nail on the head: a variety of competent, if not superb, integrated mechanics was what made AC4 so good. One moment you're sailing what feels like a competent approximation of a ship, seeing the sights and hearing the shanties. Then you're engaging a ship or two, in a somewhat tactical back and forth that you get to customize. Finally, if you want to, you get to sink the ship and move on, otherwise you get to board it. Want to swim over and be sneaky? Do that! Want to rope your way through? Cool! Vaguely saunter over? Sure. At this point you're engaging in the usual AC fare of somewhat interesting, twitch based arcadey combat, while the two crews also do stuff around you. None of the individual elements are particularly brilliant, but all together they form a fun and engaging gameplay loop.

@ArcaneAzmadi 3 ай бұрын

If you're still baffled, it _does_ help somewhat to remember that Ubisoft are MASSIVELY incompetent...

@EconaelGaming 3 ай бұрын

"Ubisoft" is a piece of paper, not a human. People leave companies.

@PhysicsGamer 3 ай бұрын

@@ASpaceOstrich In fairness, given the ambiguous time for the setting I could see there being a "machine gun" of sorts as an ultra-late-game boarding weapon. The Americans had a seven-barreled black powder machine gun on their ships in the War of 1812... a bit late, but still within the age of sail, at least. Unfortunately, this would have required the game have 1) actual ship progression, 2) boarding, and 3) historical ties. Since the game has none of those things this is what we're stuck with.

@TheNetherlandDwarf 3 ай бұрын

I remember friends and people online "voting with their wallet" in protest about content half the price of this and double the content even just a few years ago, and nowadays they just shrug and go "what can you do, for $60 you expect a AAA(A) game to release with buggy/unfinished/microtransactioned content". No matter what people do, the industry will just push ahead until everyone is too exhausted or inconvenienced to wait out better quality.

@Gulyus 3 ай бұрын

... $70 bucks. This game is seventy. Makes it even worse.

@Sarahm2261 3 ай бұрын

@scrittle I mean if they don't get money, then they die out so it not wrong, problem is there too many dumb people with a lot of money buying these slops cause they need something to press buttons.

@KickinRadTopHat 3 ай бұрын

@scrittle It’s also an unreliable at best strategy of social pressure because there’s no actual organizing force behind it, people just announce that they’re either buying or not buying something and hoping other people do the same. “Individuals making individual consumer choices” doesn’t have anywhere near the power people like to think it does.

@gatocochino5594 3 ай бұрын

@@scrittleWhat's the alternative then?

@russellfrancis813 3 ай бұрын

Wait it out? What do you mean? Just play DRG. Rock and Stone!

@augustday9483 3 ай бұрын

'AAAA' is the sound you make when you see the price they're trying to charge for this slop.

@TheRealDan0il 3 ай бұрын

I'm just here for the silky smooth delivery of those epic burns and backhanded compliments

@CivilWarMan 3 ай бұрын

This week's Jimquisition was a video about live service games in general, and I think this game has a complementary effect on its point. A lot of live services seem to be sort of set up to fail, and Skull and Bones feels like one of them. Basically hype it up massively, make the intro as exciting as possible and keep it going long enough to just barely outlast the refund window, and generate enough buzz to hook yourself some whales to harvest early on. Then, when it all starts running out of steam, start cutting things down to the bone, eventually shutting down the servers and firing the dev team a few months to a couple years later and pitching it as streamlining payroll and operational overhead to pump the company stock prices. Then while the bodies are still warm, start again with the next live service property.

@KickinRadTopHat 3 ай бұрын

It’s very much in line with the growing prevalence of scams across a lot of industries, and very similar to the behavior of your average scammer/scam business. Create a lazy/lackluster product, hook the lowest common denominator with a flashy ad campaign, get your bag and get out of town before too many people notice. This is what you get when business school doesn’t require students to take ethics classes.

@KickinRadTopHat 3 ай бұрын

@@SimuLordI'm aware that most business students would be checked out during their ethics classes if they had to take them, but if that's the type of person they are tbh I want the maximum amount of their time on earth to be spent bored and not making money lol

@jothki 3 ай бұрын

There's a bit of a fundamental issue with live service games in that the developers are sinking a ton of extra resources into a product that's already made most of the profit that it will make, with the goal of getting their playerbase to purchase fewer games in the future.

@baconlabs 3 ай бұрын

"AAAA, AAAA, AAAA, AAAA!" -Juan Carlos Bodoque, "Las Arañas"

@quaark 3 ай бұрын

I just don’t understand how anyone expected a game that was in development hell for 10 years and based on a specific mechanic from an 11 year old game would actually be a fully cohesive experience.

@Imperial_Squid 3 ай бұрын

The only games that are better for having been worked on for a decade are indie darlings with solo devs, no AAA game has ever been better because it had a double digit development span

@fochti 3 ай бұрын

Pretty much every single time a big-budget video game spends a very, veeery long time in development it always ends up being a massive letdown. It's like a law of the universe at this point, yet people will still go "But it HAS to be AMAZING, right? It's been worked on for so long! More years = better game, because game development scales linearly with time"

@ids1024 3 ай бұрын

I might, however, have expected it to do that specific mechanic at least as well as the 11 year game did. When it started with the code of that game... but reviews I've seen seem to suggest it managed to do it worse. If the project was better managed and stuck with a reasonable goal, it shouldn't really have been hard to make a game that incrementally improves on that aspect of Black Flag, with some story that isn't tied to Assasin's Creed. And no "games as a service" stuff. If not the best game of the year, that at least would have been generally well received.

@danang5 3 ай бұрын

hey dont blame the concept here,this is 100% ubisoft management fault there's plenty of pirate game that see better success than skull&bone

@Volvagia1927 3 ай бұрын

@@fochti So the next "Well...that's a disappointment" is going to be Perfect Dark 20(2/3)(?).

@adamruiz3683 3 ай бұрын

Honestly, I might've enjoyed the 'mellow seafaring' angle mentioned at the beginning, kinda like how I enjoyed the delivery aspect of Death Stranding, but I couldn't stop comparing it to AC: Black Flag and how fun and exciting the pirate aspect of that was, so it just couldn't hook me in.

@MeTheOneth 3 ай бұрын

If they had only set out to make a watery Elite Dangerous...

@edisontrent618 3 ай бұрын

@@MeTheOneth Naval Elite Dangerous would be pretty good, though I would hate if it kept all the MMO grinding aspects. Imagine playing a game doing the same RNG generated missions for 2-4 IRL weeks at 8 hours a day just to get from a single mast skimmer to a two mast frigate. The actual travel/combat would have to be astounding for that to keep me playing for more than a week or two.

@plasticbeetle6209 3 ай бұрын

@@edisontrent618 Eh, Elite ain't that bad, mostly cause you can use log out exploits to get enough engineering materials for a large ship's modules in like a day. Mind, I'd they patch those exploits, then I'm prolly done with the game, cause it would be intolerable

@adamradford8053 3 ай бұрын

The best part of Skull and Bones is the Song that Home Free did for them, "Skull and Bones"

@lando-z4534 3 ай бұрын

I can smell the Korn-levels of song naming conventions from here. 😂

@wombleking 3 ай бұрын

The Longest Johns did a cracking shanty medley too 'in association with' Skull and Bones. I didn't buy the game, but I do enjoy the music.

@xemnas0737 3 ай бұрын

Man I love pretty much everything second wind has out out since the split, especially fully ramblomatic. But I really, really love all the cold take episodes so far. If I could wish for one thing it'd be that they're longer, and maybe even a deep dive reporting on a topic similar to what GVMERS does. I could listen to this dudes voice talk about the fall of _____ for hours.

@TheRealDeadRock 3 ай бұрын

They have lots of longform podcast style videos too.

@starkravingmad31 3 ай бұрын

"That's enough of this petty back and forth you started" is such a good dig and argument ender. Gonna have to stash that in my back pocket.

@quillclock 3 ай бұрын

I think Frost is one of my favorite reviewers on this channel. keep up the amazing work guys.

@CranAss 3 ай бұрын

I've never listened to a cold take before. Your voice is hypnotic. I'd want you to narrate my life, were my life worth narrating.

@NothingYouHaventReadBefore 3 ай бұрын

Who would've guessed that the feature Ubisoft milked to death made into it's own game wasn't gonna be great. Edit: The thing is, this reusing of features, the absolute defanging of any kind of daring game elements, the obsession with comfort and ease of use that every triple (sorry, QUADRUPLE) A game uses... it's almost incestuous. It's all the same.

@Stoic_grimace 3 ай бұрын

A truly Titanic game. As in, sunk before it got anywhere.

@kylebaryonyx9478 3 ай бұрын

Ladies and gentlemen, I present for the court, a visual representation of dead on arrival

@ThatSpecificIndividual 3 ай бұрын

"More Roger than Jolly" is such a clever line.

@whosdaman911 3 ай бұрын

I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to hear a review from a bigger channel properly call out big publishers when a game isn't good or has nasty practices. So many review channels now seem to operate on a scale from 'good' to 'great' and seem to be almost afraid to steer people away from a game even when it's justified. I Truly appreciate this honesty and will be a continued supporter, great work.

@arkturhellsing1484 3 ай бұрын

The tinnitus was meant to be immersive from all the cannon fire.

@pyromaniacal13 3 ай бұрын

"But enough of this petty back and forth you started." Fucking lol.

@AppleBiscuits 3 ай бұрын

more A's in a battery means it's smaller, I don't know why people didn't expect the same for an AAAA game

@RifterDask 3 ай бұрын

Ubisoft are absolutely singular in their ability to consistently churn out the gaming equivalent of plain oatmeal. Just a thing possessed of no remarkable qualities that asks to be consumed.

@TheWolfSharp 3 ай бұрын

Damn shame, the resolution for Ubisoft own created issues has always been there, but they don't listen... People ask for Ubisoft games on Steam, they double down on Uplay, people ask for better pricing and less DRM, they make their games even more expensive -in more than one way-, and then add Denuvo drm on top of a number of other DRM. People ask for a new Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, Ubisoft does one of those, but doesn't invest in marketing at all...

@northernsarcasm7616 3 ай бұрын

Honestly. This just felt like a mobile game. Go here, do this, come back, talk to 5 people when it could have been 1 or 2, go out, do it again, get a bigger ship before you notice it's going to take you exponentially longer for each upgrade. I kept expecting an ad to interrupt me every 5 minutes. Happy the beta was free so I could decide for myself that this was bad

@MrThebadger200 3 ай бұрын

Not being able to swing on to a ship for a fun pirate sword fight is what the AAAA experience is all about.

@hartthorn 3 ай бұрын

It does make me wonder why doing a good pirate game seems so hard. It's full of so many tropes that people love, and seems raring to go for a game version. But it sounds like, at least in this version, they tried applying wrong genre action tropes. Battles shouldn't be you versus FIFTEEN ships. That's just insane. Getting in a 3:1 fight should be near suicide in a naval battle of this era. It should be closer to Marquess of Queensbury rules boxing match. Or a running chase, where the main goal is just GETTING AWAY. The idea that every ENEMY ship has a huge, glowing insta-kill box is just BONKERS.

@escape209 3 ай бұрын

"When corporations as mighty as nations rule the seas and dominate the world's.." Wow this is so different from literally right now

@bramvanduijn8086 3 ай бұрын

I know, right?! Nowadays the corporations rule the land with much more power than they rule the sea, and they primarily use the seas for shipping.

@jackmaney4276 3 ай бұрын

Like this game, the Ye Olde McRib is around for a limited time only.

@Ceece20 3 ай бұрын

It's not irrational hatred, it's very rational. Its rational to hate the sin of greed. This game is objectively a product of that sin. It has nothing to do with the actual game itself, but the product which created it. A greedy CEO trying to get their invested money back. It is perfectly acceptable to hate a game for the publishers. You might be able to separate the game from the publisher, but the game is objectively tied to the publisher and to pretend otherwise is an assumption that everyone has to pretend the reality doesn't exist.

@Ceece20 3 ай бұрын

@@SimuLord agreed. Games that make our game culture and medium worse deserve to be hated.

@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithm 3 ай бұрын

I'm genuinely surprised they messed this up. Maybe it's because Pirate Action RPG is something I would make if I could. Then again, I would go all in on roleplaying as a captain.

@Rick586 3 ай бұрын

If you want a good pirate game, I'll recommend one of my childhood favorites: "Sid Meier's Pirates!" (the exclamation point is part of the title and the game is indeed fun enough to earn it). It's a solid game full of ship battles, sword duels and treasure hunting, it'll probably run on a computer powered by a potato battery, and right now it's on sale for only $2.49 (if you're reading this a week after I've posted this then the price has returned to $10, which is still a genuine steal).

@Raida7 3 ай бұрын

Yes!

@Turtlesson 3 ай бұрын

What a voice for narration, I could listen to Frost read an audio book for hours.

@RiposteBK 3 ай бұрын

Damn. It's a bad sign when Puzzle Pirates is a much more indepth game...

@azk5811 3 ай бұрын

Puzzle Pirates was great though

@RiposteBK 3 ай бұрын

@@azk5811 hells yeah it was, but it didn't take 10 years to make into a quad-A game lmao

@TheAsylumCat 3 ай бұрын

Haven't watched the video yet, but I wanted to say, i could see this games fate from a continent away, i wasn't even paying attention but I still could see it lumbering in my peripherals.

@GZilla311 3 ай бұрын

It wasn’t a question of if it would be good (it probably wouldn’t be) or if it would release (more of a question, but obligated by Singapore). It was entirely "when is this gonna come out so we can stop talking about it".

@Sheyl3319 3 ай бұрын

Ooh, a hot cold take

@MotherKojiro 3 ай бұрын

As a former Spanish teacher and lifelong smartass, the biblioteca line absolutely killed me; excellent writing, as always!

@castillogrande8926 3 ай бұрын

"As dry, as stiff and as bland as a ship biscuit" was RIGHT THERE!!! THE HARDTACK JOKE WAS THERE AND YOU FUMBLED! Other than that, great video as always lol

@SiMBol10 3 ай бұрын

Think it's safe to say at this point leaving escapist was the best thing to happen to you guys, I would have never watched something like this before and I love it every time. Amazing, incredibly measured take on Ubisofts latest live service slop

@emadhafiz3507 3 ай бұрын

A smart choice to to put “review” in the title so we can tell the difference between which ones are reviews and which ones aren’t

@ShotgunMcgee666 3 ай бұрын

It's funny because while some of its missions can be quite samey, Sea of Thieves excels in the department of gathering materials in quests by having no fast travel and no quest markers. It's up to you to figure that out and it's such a small but fun detail that lets you really appreciate sailing the seas and stumbling across something random or unexpected.

@esoopthederp7672 3 ай бұрын

That sounds miserable

@bauul. 3 ай бұрын

@@esoopthederp7672 It's not, the islands you explore on resource quests are all quite small, and the act of physically getting to them and getting back (and fighting off whatever you encounter on the way) is pretty much the point of the game.

@That_guy_mike. 3 ай бұрын

Ya it’s actually pretty shocking that Skull and Bones can’t even match a game that botched its launch in 2018 and isn’t even close to a game their own studio put out 11 years and 2 console cycles ago

@sgtpastry 3 ай бұрын

@@bauul.So it's like Fallout 4 on survival mode. Sounds neat.

@browal14 3 ай бұрын

Sea of Thieves aimed for the piracy with friends feel and focused on it so you and your friends maintain the ship fire cannons load ect and it is enjoyable. There was no real attempt to cater to a solo experience.

@vonriel1822 3 ай бұрын

I know it probably hurts the bottom line a bit, but I really do appreciate putting the ad at the end of the video, before the Patreon credits. I watch everything through to the end, but allowing me to get right into the meat of the video is so very appreciated. And it's not just because it made the game look infinitely better when compared to the aggressively mediocre game that Ubisoft shat out on a table and Frost just reviewed.

@FilmAcolyteReturns 3 ай бұрын

Skull and Bones, the hardtack of a gaming experience.

@EHKOS 3 ай бұрын

I can totally get onboard with noir detective game reviews

@BoneRazrK 3 ай бұрын

I'm so glad I'm subbed to this channel. I really love these "Cold Take" videos! Thank you guys for continuing to produce entertaining and informative content!

@Tortue-et-Fitness 3 ай бұрын

As always, Frost, another impeccable review that's both nuanced, fair and feels true to your real impressions. One quick trick for the name "Yves", by the way, it's that it's pronounced "Iv". It can either be said by saying the "I" in "If", switching out the f for a slightly lower pitched v, or by saying the name "Eve", emphasing a bit more the v, again, and fading out the other e

@sharlockshacolmes9381 3 ай бұрын

The most interesting thing about Skull and bone is to bet on wich one between it and Suicide Squad is going to close down for good first

@tomking6006 3 ай бұрын

This is the weirdest Tom Waits track I've heard so far

@akaimizu1 3 ай бұрын

"You can't get off the boat" Answer: "Never get off the boat, unless you're going all the way." - Martin Sheen - Apocalypse Now.

@JasperTheFriendlyGoth 3 ай бұрын

Frost, did you bring the background music from the old place? I'm really happy to see you got to keep your branding and show name . Too many companies try to pin creators down by locking their image behind trademarks; a contingency plan should they dare set out on their own. May you always be the main benefactor of your work. Appreciate the show!

@FoxyAlice93 3 ай бұрын

AAA gaming is so dead and I am all for it. The faster these corporations learn that live-service microtransaction filled games that cast the broadest most mass appealing and blandest net possible are becoming unprofitable and hated the better

@emmy9345 3 ай бұрын

The game is grey paste.

@celnxtlvl816 3 ай бұрын

I've never seen any of your videos prior to this one today, but your delivery and technique here are both enjoyable and engrossing.

@kiri101 Ай бұрын

I've tried watching your content for years and for some reason this was the first video that really hit home.

@nomadgrappler9410 3 ай бұрын

Live service games are always garbage

@dirtylevel 3 ай бұрын

There's un underlying genius with the line "More Roger than Jolly". Tip of the hat to you, sir. Well done 👏👏

@marcusfuller7510 3 ай бұрын

Reading up on the wikipedia page for this game, it seems like even the developers knew it would flop, but management refused to cancel it because they wanted to recoup at least some of the rumored $200mil development budget. In that context, the developers seem to have done an amazing job making an at least passable game out of a washed-up product, instead of a brand disaster for Ubisoft a la Fallout 76. If I'm right, I feel bad for the many days the devs must've spent dispassionately working on this just to get something out the door.

@rowancarreira2826 3 ай бұрын

These cold takes videos are so good, I love them.

@Dark.Shingo 3 ай бұрын

This is becoming my favorite series of videos very quickly, love the prose!

@shmookins 27 күн бұрын

One of the best reveal trailers ever. The music edit in it has been my ringtone for years.

@1637ty 3 ай бұрын

Holy god damb this was a great review, can't believe I hadn't check your stuff out before.

@boreos3499 3 ай бұрын

This is such a fun way to listen to reviews. :)

@michaelkaruza490 3 ай бұрын

Cold Take is quickly becoming one of my favorite KZfaq series. Keep up the great work!

@Ouiigee 3 ай бұрын

These videos keep me coming back to this channel

@abdoreda7126 3 ай бұрын

These are soo good. Probably my favorite series. Please keep making them, would love to see more ❤

@jorgemontero6384 3 ай бұрын

I've spent the last 10 minutes laughing maniacally, as I consider an actual port where people head for the sea to escape the tinnitus.

@alexroy5854 3 ай бұрын

7:21 Oh I remember Mafia Wars Frost.. my Twin Bro and our best friend all made a fake account on FB that was some mafia themed pin-up model and amassed an army of people! To be fair it was mostly thirsty men and boys, but they all did our bidding just fine.

@stuartavis8165 3 ай бұрын

It took 11 years to make this. Eleven! Larian made BG3 in 5. It’s amazing what you can do with good leadership, a clear and shared vision, focus, passion and a community-centred approach.

@andrewhickinbottom1051 3 ай бұрын

"Third Pirate Shooter" - brilliant review Frost! Very well written and delivered

@armorhide406 3 ай бұрын

glad to see Frost doing reviews

@joefriedrichcbus 3 ай бұрын

Sid Meyer's "Pirates!" ftw

@01oo011 3 ай бұрын

“Your ship… gets tired…”

@deanisplemoni 3 ай бұрын

This is one of the best reviews of Skull & Bones yet. Hell one of the best reviews full stop. Love the dry delivery and humour!

@TormeyWoods 3 ай бұрын

Great review. Love the Cold Take review format as much as Fully Ramblomatic. Awesome to have them both on the same channel, and I'll happily watch a review of the same game by both of you to hear the different takes and delivery.