Assassin’s Creed III Review (360)

The American Revolution awaits!

Having come off a terrific trio of games starring a compelling protagonist, and now with a brand new setting and hero, Assassin’s Creed III had a lot expected of it. Could Connor’s venture through the American Revolution live up to the hype? The plot of Assassin’s Creed III sees Desmond Miles using the animus to access the memories of his Native American ancestor Connor, in order to prevent the world from coming to an end in 2012. While doing so, he gets to relive the majority of Connor’s life as he battles the Templars and attempts to halt their advances in gaining dominance over colonial America. Just like previous Assassin’s Creed’s, the game jumps forward to the present day where you control Desmond, this time in his most physical and active role as you finally get to utilize the traits and skills of his ancestors. Prior to the release of the game, I had steered well clear of knowing too much about the plot as to ensure that any twists or surprise developments would really shock me…which actually paid off and resulted in what I feel was the high point of the story. Without going into too much detail regarding it, the event occurs during the prologue of the game which manages to last for a shockingly long amount of time and it just goes along with the very odd pacing of the game. The world doesn’t open up to you until almost ¾ of the way through the story, which is a problem for those expecting an open world they can just jump right into. Despite that, once you do get to explore the world, you are in for a treat as the world of Assassin’s Creed III feels very authentic no matter the type of environment you are in. Whether the busy cities of Boston and New York or taking in the wild life on the frontier, it is all so well-crafted and a world you could find yourself getting lost in. I’ve never thought too much of Desmond throughout the Assassin’s Creed series and he really didn’t do anything again this time around to change my mind of that, not his daddy issues and certainly not his ever-changing face could make me care about him. Despite that, the previous Assassin’s Creed’s had the brilliant and charismatic hero that was Ezio Auditore stealing the show and becoming a character that was synonymous with the word ‘assassin’. Now I’m not sure whether it’s because of how great Ezio was but as his successor, Connor ends up feeling incredibly dull and lacking any emotion that I felt was all that believable. You will witness a fair amount of problems that Connor has to go through, both as a child and as an adult and in spite of that, I never felt like I could really connect to or care for the character (and his monotone voice didn’t really help either). While combat in Assassins Creed III generally sees you rely on counters to survive just like previous games, there is now a nice diversity in the types of soldiers you do battle with, resulting in you having to change up the way you handle multiple enemies at once. Kudos to Ubisoft on the new animations they have implemented into the game as they have got to be some of the slickest and most fluid animations I have seen in a good while, both in terms of combat and free-running. Believe me; you will not get bored of seeing Connor stylishly take down enemies, sometimes up to three in one swift move. When you aren’t tackling the main objectives, you will have a wide variety of optional objectives you can undertake. From the usual Assassin’s Creed collectibles (almanac pages, feathers, treasure chests, peg leg trinkets and pivot points) to joining clubs (hunting and brawling), to liberating cities (whilst finding new assassin recruits) to growing your homestead by recruiting citizens to the well hyped naval missions.

Will not get bored of seeing Connor stylishly take down enemies

The naval missions are a welcome addition to Assassin’s Creed, as they add a fresh component that breaks up the usual mission routine that we are used to seeing. With simple yet effective controls, the missions you undertake out in the open sea are genuinely exciting. From having to tackle insane waves, to having your crew shouting and praising your efforts, it is a serious blast and one you will likely remember when looking back at this chapter in the Assassins Creed franchise. While you spend time building your homestead, you have the option to create objects out of materials you have found/bought and then have them delivered to Boston, New York or the Frontier. While this is a way to build up your funds, there are so many other solutions to do so, which deems this portion of the game rather useless. After doing this a couple times, I ended up thinking to myself “Is there really much point in doing this?”, there just wasn’t a reward that justified continuing to do it. If there was one problem I continually came across during the game, it was glitches. Now of course every game is bound to have a glitch, but the amount I came across was borderline shocking. On one occasion I was taking part in a mission which saw an ally of mine being chased by a group of redcoats, who I then had to pursue…5 seconds into the mission and my ally had managed to get himself stuck running into a fence while the guards stood looking at him, waiting for him to continue on the path he had to run. I ended up having to run into him myself to push him clear of the fence so that the mission could resume. Glitches don’t generally bother me that much but Assassin’s Creed III’s was a rarity, and as wonderful as they could be at times, the physics were likely the problem in causing this. I say that because a good portion of the glitches I came across happened while I was traversing through the game world. And as awesome as climbing and running along trees is, there were glitches that came about when doing so. Multiplayer continues to improve since its inclusion in Assassins Creed: Brotherhood with the addition of ‘Wolf Pack’, a mode which plays out as Assassin’s Creed’s version of horde and manages to do so rather well. You team up with three other players going through 25 waves of enemies to assassinate, and it is honestly nice to of been given the chance to assassinate targets alongside friends. Certainly something I would be interested in seeing Ubisoft build upon in future Assassin’s Creed games. Those expecting Assassin’s Creed III to be a major step up from previous instalments are going to come out of the game sorely disappointed. The pacing is very frustrating throughout the game, the characters excluding one aren’t very memorable and the glitches are a little too consistent. However the world looks gorgeous, the combat and free running mechanics are quality and the naval battles are intense and thrilling. As frustrating as some portions of the game can be, it is still an adventure worth undertaking if just to take in the brilliant world that Ubisoft have created.