Assassins Creed 3
Developer: Ubisoft
System: XBox360
Score: 5/5
SPOILER ALERT....SPOILER ALERT
Okay so I got that clarified so if you don't want to find out what happens then stop reading now. I also want everyone to know that I rent these games so I only have 5-7 days to play them, a wife, a dog, and work 34-40hrs in that week. So I had to run through the story and not do a lot of the side missions. Also my notes I write on a notepad as a play them then I just put them in order that I write them in the correct category. I must say I do enjoy history a lot and the first half of this game was all about the revolution then the back half turned into all about hunting the Templars. Oh and Paul Revers midnight ride, hes riding shotgun and your in charge of the horse. I did enjoy that they added you into the history very subtly. In the Ezio games money was a big thing with buying shops and what not, but if you are playing just the main story, money is not that important. If you are playing a full game then its very important. Achievement Hunter update, sit through the credits, you get one just for doing that. Then it leads to an epilogue so you can go back and complete the rest of the achievements.
Visuals: A+
The cinematics are just amazing, the best I've ever seen in a game. The opening cinematic just grabbed me and pulled me right into the story. If you haven't played any of the other games that is fine, it catches you up in the beginning. In game shadows were perfect, every tree, animal, person, rock had a shadow that moved with the day changing. I did notice a few new climbing animations, parkour style jumps over fences and low walls, and sliding under objects and down hills which made it not the same boring things from the other games. LOTS of characters on screen. One of the first big battles I was involved in had a full regiment of red coats and I could go up and fight them all if I wanted too. So they got into the naval battles of the revolutionary war and the few that I did looked amazing, great lighting and the waves made a huge difference. So I thought this would be under game play but its not because in the trailer you see Connor climbing into one window running through the house and jumping out the other. Don't get your hopes up this is just an animation (a good one) but there are very few spots this can happen in. I did it twice through the same window. I'm not sure if they had this in Revelations but corner peeking with assassinations are awesome and so helpful on missions where you have to follow someone. One major plus is that in the cut scenes if your quiver is empty then it shows it, but one major flaw is if you change outfits it doesn't change it in the cut scene. So once I finally changed the outfits I noticed you could not preview you before you bought it nor change it at your homestead (at least I didn't figure out how to). So I had to change at shops around town. I found that annoying when I finally changed my outfit. The swim animations are very good, the swim fast animations are very awful, need to have Michael Phelps do the animations so it looks more realistic.
Controls: A
Nothing really changed much control wise from all the other games, same buttons, same wheel function. There were a couple of missions where the camera angle was awful just because the rooms were small and there was no where to turn. So one of the problems I had with the controls is that when you fast traveled you never faced the way you wanted to go, so if your in the frontier and you wanted to go to New York, when you fast traveled you didn't go to the beginning of New York but to the edge of the frontier and you faced back into it.
Audio: A+
First big thing I noticed was that Ben Franklin was a PIMP. He taught yea how to treat the local women and the native women. Him being a womanizer was portrayed very well. You finally get together with your father to fight a common cause in a few of the missions and I must say the banter between the two are hilarious. The music was amazing, while being chased it got my heart beating a little faster. The SFX were spot on, snow, wind, deaths, oceans, creeks. All sounded amazing.
Game play: A+
I noticed that while lock picking is a neat and a nice change of pace if you are playing with your TV turned down its a pain to do since you cant hear whats going on. The AI was a lot better than the other games, and one thing I noticed was that there wasn't the same old groups walking around the same beaten path the whole game. I have played AC, AC2, and AC:BH and I didn't mind the refresher missions on the free running and weapon usage. When attacking with your hidden blade it seemed like it did take longer to kill someone and a lot of the time you just wounded them. It is a nice change but in bigger crowds I just used the tomahawk to finish them off. While running through the snow in the few missions you have during the winter if you get off the path then you could run into snow banks and that made your character slow down a lot. I mentioned character before because I spent the first 5 to 6 hours as Connors' dad which you don't see in the trailers, plot twist hes a Templar!! He saves your mom and they hook up then she finds out that he was a Templar and shes an assassin. A major source of income in the game is hunting and not running around with a rifle but either using your bow and hair perched up in a tree or a snare. If you are really quick you can snag a beaver with your hidden blade. They put in tree climbing which comes in handy in a few situations but not a game changer. It was fun to set a hidden trap (explodes) on a road, climb up in the tree above it and watch the patrol walk into it and wipe them all out. I also had some kids following me around Boston so I found one of the few trees, climbed up and they were still there so when a patrol walked by I threw my rope dart, hit the guy held back on the joystick and hung him from a tree and the kids went a running. So in many other AC games the best way to travel would be over rooftop. Not in this one, there is a lot of guards at all times of the day. I almost think they wanted you to be on the streets to feel what it was like during that time. If you are an achievement hunter I will say that the 50 gamer points for full synchronization is not enough. I am by no means good at this game so it could be easier for some than others. So I must say when the few missions with Miles happens and you finally fight he is BA. I mean Chuck Norris would be scared. The kills are the most gruesome Ive seen and you cant even do them as Connor. So at the end your are trying to kill Lee and I must say it sucks, you spend 2 sequences trying to kill him, you wound him, beat him up and he always gets away. Then you finally kill him and its just a cut scene, I was like WTF. I noticed that they involved people on your homestead but I couldn't figure it out, not sure if I just didn't play enough but if it works then that could be a major source of income. If your looking for more Assassins to help out like in BH then good luck. I ran into one the whole game and that because it was involved in the main story. So not only does the environment look nice it plays nice. If a guy is up against a fence you can kick him and he'll flip over, if you "throw" a guy too close to a wall he just slams his head into it.
The game is already 40+ hours of your life, its not like you make any choices that could determine the outcome of events but the sheer fun of this game makes me want to rent it again.
Side note: If anyone is interested in helping write reviews for Playstation, Wii, or PC games let me know. I am needing help in doing reviews on new games on those systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment