A Brave New World
PETA’s Not Gonna Be Happy
Mastery of the High Seas
Combat Devolved
Story Problems
Please Stop Making Multiplayer
Feeling The Crunch
Busy Work
What Happened?
Story Problems
The Assassin’s Creed series is on its third Creative Director, and it’s starting to show. Story lines are being wrapped up and it’s getting a bit sloppy. I’m not going to spoil anything here, but the Lucy issue is put to rest finally (at least I think it is), but the way it’s talked about treats it like it wasn’t a big deal. Like someone didn’t know what the Creative Director at the time wanted to do with that plot line and just slapped together a solution. Granted, the solution was addressed in the DLC for AC: Revelations. However, such an impactful event deserved more than it got; especially in AC3.
Another bit of sloppy story telling is how the liberation missions are handled. In each area there is a liberation contact that presents a problem with the district and it’s up to you to complete the liberation missions to resolve that issue for the district. An example would be the British executing citizens, or you needing to pump a leader for information. The problem is that you don’t need to speak to these contacts in order to get these missions; they just appear. So it can be a little disorienting for Connor to ask a guard, “where is your leader?” after beating him up, considering that you didn’t even know you were looking for someone specific.
If you don’t manage to stumble upon the liberation contact it will probably just seem like you’re doing good deeds, but there is an actual point to all of this. I guess it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s story bits you can easily miss. On the bright side though, the liberation missions are a good alternative to what save the citizen used to be. Instead of always saving someone from a group of guards, depending on the area you’re in, these missions can differ greatly. Also, there are a set number of each mission for a district. You will only have to save someone getting hassled by the tax man three times, and it’s the same with the other missions.
There are two main stories to follow in AC3: Desmond’s and Connor’s. You will play as Desmond every few sequences, most of which will take you to various locations to find power sources for the temple you’re in. There is no Animus UI, so you pretty much need to remember your mappings and keep an eye on the enemies to counter their attacks. Also, while you are in the real world with Desmond you will find out a lot about what the first civilization did to try to survive. These elements combine to make Desmond’s segments interesting; even more interesting if you read the e-mails.
It’s hard to say the same for Connor though. One of the biggest problem with his story is pacing. To be honest with you I was pretty bored throughout the first three hours of the game. There is a neat twist around sequence three, but then it goes back to being boring. For fans of the series I’ll try to put it into perspective: you’ll be doing basic tutorials until sequence five.
Even without the pacing issue, Connor’s tale is not all that great. There is a lot of opportunity here, with Connor helping the founding fathers to free America and who the real enemy is. It feels like the developers really didn’t capitalize on this. Connor has a bitchy attitude to say the least, and the developer goes out of their way to paint certain founding fathers (specifically George Washington) as weak and incapable. At least for me, it takes the fun out of playing alongside these figures. They stay within the confines of recorded history, but man, do they put it on thick at times.
Beyond that, the missions that you do leading up to the assassinations of your targets are generally “meh”. There were only a few times where I felt the same excitement of AC2, and that was a longer game than this. Perhaps it’s the crunch of putting out an AC game yearly that is finally showing, but ultimately I feel that Connor’s story is the least entertaining out of all of the series thus far.
This will be the shortest part of this review: the multiplayer AC3 is still lame. The same issues that have plagued the last two games affect this one. You are constantly urged to be stealthy, but in practice, players are rewarded for overt actions. Players that run up and kill their target have a better chance of getting the kill than someone who is being stealthy. If you try to walk behind someone, it gives them more than enough time to stun you if they are cautious. When you run up to someone there just isn’t enough time to counter and you get the kill. On top of that, it allows you to rack up kills faster and keeps players stalking you away from you if they are trying to be stealthy.
Some players will get just close enough to you and then run up for the kill. Once again it stops you from blocking them, but also lets them keep their stealth bonus if they are close enough. I said it last year, the year before that, and I’ll say it again: you need to be able to tag your pursuer once you have clearly identified them. It should keep them from being able to attack you. This would force them to be stealthy.
Instead what I have is a pursuer, who I have clearly identified because he’s running around, getting on a book case and air assassinating me without me having any recourse at all. Players who play the game the way it’s meant to be played end up playing at a disadvantage to those who are playing the exact opposite way the game tells you how to play.
After Brotherhood did so well, Ubisoft decided that it wanted to have an Assassin’s Creed game every year. AC2 and Brotherhood were planned to release the way they did, and there was a lot of polish there that made those games excellent. With Revelations and AC3 that polish is starting to fade. Bugs and anomalies appear to be more frequent. It was kind of freaky during one cutscene where two Sam Adams were present down in a dark underground shaft. One speaking to me like he should, the other sitting their lifeless; staring at me.
I’ve had soliders that magically detected me coming up from behind, the camera get stuck in buildings while I’m fighting, and even optional objectives failed that I clearly passed. Actually, many of the optional objectives were frustrating to complete because of the items I brought up about combat that I really stopped caring about them. One of the more frustrating things that constantly happened was dialog being cut off because you reach your destination before the NPC is finished talking.
I’ve had multiple missions where bugs caused me to have to restart the mission. During one liberation mission I couldn’t kill the leader of the group. No matter how many times I stabbed him, he wouldn’t die. I once got stuck inside of a dead body I just killed during a fight. Most of the bugs I ran into where a one-time deal, but there were still enough to cause me grief. The only one I ran into multiple times was where I couldn’t execute a killing blow on the ground.
There were certain items that just needed more polish. One of the more important abilities of the assassin is free running. This felt clunky and oftentimes resulted in climbing on stuff you didn’t want, over stepping, or sometimes going in the wrong direction. It also made chase missions very frustrating at times. Actually, AC3 has two of the most frustrating missions I’ve played in the series, and they were both chase missions.
There is tons of stuff to keep you busy in this game. Collecting feathers, completing hunting objectives, liberating all areas, etc. Taking the time to fully explore Boston’s underground tunnels will keep you busy for a while.
Templar dens have been replaced with forts. However, due to the nature of forts, you won’t be finding these inside the cities. Forts can be located directly outside cities, but you will mostly find them in the frontier. There really is no big advantage to doing these forts, since you don’t have to pass through these areas if you don’t want to. They become just another thing for you to do that doesn’t affect the game at all.
I think that’s the biggest problem with the extras in this game. There is zero urgency to collect or use any of this stuff. It doesn’t help you at all. It’s really only worth it for completionists.
As I played through the game I constantly found myself asking what has happened to this series. There is no doubt in my mind that it has veered off its original creative path; and the ending pretty much cements that for me. The polish, precision, and overall awesomeness at every level that we found in Assassin’s Creed 2 is gone at this point. It’s bad when the best part of your game is a mini-game sailing wooden battleships. I even thought the hunting would be more engaging, but that lost its flair quickly.
The problem is not that the extras are boring and make you not want to play them. It’s that the main game is so bland that you just want to get through it and push your way to the end. I didn’t want to savor what was happening or extend the experience by partaking in much of the extra stuff the game had to offer. I just wanted to see how the story ended.
Bland story with forgettable characters combined with poor, unstable frame rate, plus shoddy textures and shadowing leave a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to the series. My faith is all but lost, and I’m not sure how I would be able to get excited for an inevitable Assassin’s Creed IV.
