3.0 out of 5 stars
A huge let down for the AC franchise
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2012
While others may contest with my opinion that this is the greatest game Ubisoft have released to date, I have to say I feel otherwise. For months there was speculation that the next Assassin's Creed was going to be set during the American Revolution, and my initial thoughts were that basically, it's going to suck.
While they've implemented some pretty good things into the game, I have to say that the storyline is very stale and uninteresting, the characters are hard to get invested into at all (I'm sorry, Ubisoft, but Connor is by far the dullest and most drone-like character I've ever played in a game, and I've played some pretty dull games in my time). Not only was the storyline just confusing and overreaching (it just gets further and further from the original paving the previous titles had done) but the introduction of a new character who was never mentioned in any of the previous games was such a huge 'what the hell' for me. It just really does feel like at this stage they are definitely making this up as they go along.
It pains me to say I've been forcing myself to play it because honestly, I'm one of those 'must complete' people. To have paid Forty quid for a game and NOT at least complete it would be such a waste of money (plus after having been playing since the original game, I did ultimately want to learn of Desmond Miles' fate).
The First three canon games (that is, Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood) were outstanding games that were atmospheric, breathtaking and unputdownable with storylines that were overwhelmingly fascinating. With each of them I can remember sitting there and losing hours and hours of time, so engrossed in what I was doing. Sadly with this, it gets hard to play for half an hour before I'm getting to that 'this is boring' point.
I'll break down a few noteable features.
* Weather. Rain or snow, etc. Can make it hard to see quite far but there's no challenge.
* Climbing in trees. Really only works on certain trees, good for hunting, crap for active conflict (You'll be shot down).
* All the opponent NPCs have guns. You will too, only it takes about 20 seconds to reload every shot. Having a gun fight with your opponent is the most boring combat in the world.
* You can cut through buildings during chase scenes. However, they are few and far between and the openings are so narrow you're more likely to run up the wall next to it anyway.
* The main protagonist is very dull, monotone and uninteresting. It's hard to get invested in him at all as he seems to have no personality at all.
* As a replacement for the Leonardo quests in the previous titles, you take part in Naval battles, which aren't really all that challenging. Once you've accumulated a little wealth, and have all the ship upgrades, you're pretty unstoppable. I think these are more just "filler" than anything, as the storylines to accompany them aren't all that exciting or involving.
* You can hunt a variety of animals, skin them, and sell their pelts (not for the faint hearted or the RSPCA). Some animals are just tricky to catch (Rabbits, raccoons) and some are just dangerous to tangle with if you're not good with reflex button tapping (bears, wolves and elks). For the first half hour or so, it'll make you feel very 'involved' in the game and the Native American culture as you sneak about trees trying to kill helpless critters for food and fur...and then it gets repetitive...quickly.
* Micromanaging an estate and having artisans craft items for you...a little confusing and there's NO real explanation on how any of it works and you have to play it by ear, so to speak.
* Instead of investing in shops to gain your wealth, your wealth is gained primarily by selling items to merchants, mostly through land convoys. Setting these up through the appropriate page is tedious and really boring. Micromanagement is really not fun. The convoy option gives you an additional mini-mission where you might randomly have to go defend it from the redcoats.
* Getting 100% synchronisation for your trophies collection is much, much harder. In previous titles, to get 100% synch on a single mission usually required you complete the mission doing one certain step (i.e. kill SirWhatsHisFace with a hidden blade). Now getting 100 synch on a single mission can take up to three steps (i.e. kill SirWhatsHisFace with a hidden blade while never losing 50% health and also getting a kill streak of 5). Much, much harder and frustrating as you can spend ages doing the mission to the letter for that ONE thing to go wrong and prevent you from getting the synchronisation (and utterly stopping you from eventually getting your platinum trophy).
* Capturing a fort/area isn't as frustrating as it was: the captains don't 'run and hide' like little girls now. Instead you get three different assignments capturing a fort (kill the captain, blow up the explosives, lower the British flag).
* Trying to get the collectables CAN be frustrating (or challenging), they're usually hard to reach (hidden caves with no actual sign of where you enter from for instance), and there are almanac pages that float about in the wind (and with so many soldiers on the roofs, you're more than likely to initiate a chase when you try to get them).
* Lockpicking chests. Some will find it fun, I found it tedious and irritating. It relies on your precision and being able to hold the analog sticks completely still once you find the correct position and then mashing your R1 button like absolute crazy in the hope you don't slip and set yourself back. First chest, I spent fifteen minutes just trying to get in (was enough to make me almost lose interest already and that was only an hour into game play).
* All the usual weapons, fabrics, etc stores have been brought together and are now ONE store (General Store). Much more convenient, but they are few and far between. There are a few travelling ones though that you can find on the map and they turn up even in the rural areas (like the Frontier).
* Climbing is still around; not quite as exciting, and there aren't as many interesting buildings to scale as there were in the other Assassin's Creeds. You won't find yourself at ridiculous heights (unless you're in a tree on a mountain), and you won't be swinging through interesting templar lairs. Has to be the most boring setting to freerun through to date in my opinion.
* You can play a little more than usual as Desmond, although these playthroughs aren't as fantastic as had been previously claimed by Ubisoft.
* The controls in this title are by FAR the worst to date. If you're not accidentally leaping off buildings trying to grab a ledge only a few feet away, you're galloping on a horse which gets itself stuck on a half-foot high ledge with mind-numbing fear and the inability to get down. While you're playing Desmond in the temple, check for the email from Rebecca Crane that lists the Animus patch notes and laugh when she claims the control are far better in her patch than ever before (I laughed so hard I nearly cried).
* Unlike the previous titles, there's less 'tutorial' in this game than normal, meaning you have to sort of mess around a bit and figure out what's what and how to do it. It miffed me when one of the most important assassination techniques (the 'ledge assassination' i.e. pulling someone off of a ledge/balcony) wasn't even introduced until about 60% through the game. Most successful battle combat moves seemed more accidental than anything and there's no finesse really, just mindless button mashing.
* No puzzles (like the Templar puzzles in II and Brotherhood, for example). You can play board games in this one but it's boring and the system nearly always wins or draws.
* Rankings! One interesting feature I have to commend is that the game keeps rankings on your kill numbers, economy numbers, etc, and compares them with other players worldwide (you can also compare with your friends).
* There are quite a few obvious bugs in the game at this very early stage (one of my favourites is the man on the bar stool in the pub in Boston who spins around in the air like he's doing ballet to jaunty Irish jig music). Occasionally you might come across a soldier stuck in a cluster of trees or at the side of a haystack who cannot be killed/cannot kill you. These issues don't actually break the game but occasionally you do come across the odd 'jam' where you need to restart the system.
So...would I recommend this game? I don't know. Probably not...this game is just so sub-par to the usual quality we'd expect in a game with the Assassin's Creed name. It feels disconnected from all the others, (like you aren't playing a part of it at all) and truthfully, I'm so let down by it all. The worst by far to be released, and although it's playable, I can't say it's enjoyable like the others were, the storyline let it down too much (you do get the feeling that there's something missing here).
I definitely can't see myself going through a second play but I'll do what I always do, get all the missions, all the collectables, and then this will gather dust. If you're wanting an Assassin's Creed title that has awesome replayability then go for Assassins Creed II or Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, by far, the best two titles in the series.
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