Wait until we have a playable demo before making any judgments. A streaming or flash video of a game doesn’t always give you a sense of what the game actually looks like, due to the vagaries of video compression. Amazing looking games, when cut down in size to save bandwidth, can look far uglier than they actually do, or develop artifacts that you won’t see in the actual game.

My estimation of the graphics is that they’ll look great once the game is running in my Xbox 360, and the mecha are moving a hell of a lot faster than I originally thought they would, so it’s not quite fair to compare it to, say, most third-person shooters. Remember that these environments need to be comparatively huge in order for the tactical map to be necessary, plus From Software needs to make sure that two-teams in melee range needs to not drop frames just as the action is getting hot. Some drop in detail is expected when the battlefields are a hundred times as large, the players are at least eight times as fast, and the multiplayer focus means dropped frames can be a death sentence. If AC5 isn’t as pretty as Gears of War 3, then it’s because it’s bigger, faster, and more brutal than Gears could ever be.

As far as the Japanese girl is concerned, though, you’re right: there’s no excuse why every single Japanese stream needs a female to make strange noises as she doesn’t understand what’s going on. Then again, I suppose that’s what sells games over there. Everyone who buys AC5 in Japan is secretly hoping to invite their girlfriend over so she can make cute noises while watching the robots fight each other.