Having wrapped up the campaign story for Assassin’s Creed III, I saw it fit to write up a review on what I thought was good and bad about the game. This review is for the campaign only, as due to the time of writing, I haven’t had a chance to dive into multiplayer. So without further ado, let’s activate our Eagle Vision and lock in on this review…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: The American Colonies, 1775. It’s a time of civil unrest and political upheaval in the Americas. As a Native American fights to protect his land and his people, he will ignite the flames of a young nation’s revolution.
There is no denying that ACIII is a nice departure from the tired setting of past games in the series. Come Revelations, players were bored of playing as Ezio and seeing the same ol’ same; I know I was. So it’s a nice breath of fresh air when you start playing ACIII and see wide open seas and dense forest. The main character you play as is the Native American, Connor, who gets roped up in battling the British in Boston and surrounding areas. His motives are straightforward, but become a little wishy-washy as time goes on and keeps getting pushed around by the likes of George Washington and Sam Adams. Throughout the game, you’ll see some nice set pieces, such as running through a crumbling Charlestown, as it’s being bombarded, or trying your hardest to not get your ass shot off when crossing a raging battlefield. Even with all these amazing scenes, I still felt a little disappointed with the main storyline, especially the ending. The targets you’re meant to assassinate, boiled down to a set path. Add to that the optional objectives (e.g. kill all without getting detected), where if you decide to do them, you’re funnelled through and penalised if you try to deviate from the path.Thankfully, as these objectives are called optional, you don’t have to do them and can wreck as much havoc as you want, or not. Still, trophy hunters beware, you might not get as much enjoyment out of the product, if you try to do them all in your first run through. As for the ending, the final boss fight mounts up to a lame chase sequence and cut scene. A feeling of being robbed washed over me come the end credits sequence.
If I had to pick one part of the game that is the best, it would be the
amazing sea battles. You take control of a ship and battle others on the treacherous high seas. The graphics during these sequences are a
sight to behold and the controls for the ship are fantastic.
If you get bored of doing main missions, there is plenty to do in the world. You can hunt, deliver letters, complete frontier missions (headless horseman!) and build up your homestead by helping people in need and recruiting them, once you pass the side mission. Oh yeah and there’s also a big multiplayer portion, that I didn’t even touch yet. The game certainly isn’t lacking in the things to do department.
Besides the past parts of the game, you also get to control Desmond in a variety of different modern settings, which honestly aren’t as fun as Connor’s adventures. Most of the time you’re just sneaking around avoiding guards and eventually chasing after a person. Although, I did like the part where you climb a skyscraper. It was really nice looking and nerve wracking for anyone with a touch of vertigo.
Assassin’s Creed III is a beautiful looking game, with a new weather system, which brings you rain, lightning and snow. The woods are full of animals to hunt and the towns a crammed full of people. This all comes off looking amazing at first, but the more you play, the more issues come up. You start to see people wearing the same clothes during the winter as the summer, synchronize points being in trees that are exactly the same looking and don’t get me started on the horse, oh god the horse. Riding this heinous beast on roads brings no problems, but try to move off the beaten path and you’re in for a world of hurt. The horse doesn’t like to jump off of rocks that are two feet high, or go down small slops and you’ll constantly be caught up on trees. Ubisoft needed to look to Red Dead Redemption to see how a horse should control.
Sound design is brilliant, with music being appropriate to the time period and every sword swipe and musket blast sound, perfectly replicated. Voice acting is also once again great in a series that’s known for it’s solid voice work, but I did laugh a little at the old native woman, who sounded like a teenager, trying to sound like an old person.
Assassin’s Creed III is a hard game to rate. On one hand, I enjoyed most everything about it, with the fleet battles being the highlight. Still, a few technical issues and forced paths, hurt an otherwise brilliant game. Fans of the Assassin’s Creed series will find lots of enjoyment in this game, but beware, the main story is a little bit of a let down.
Story – 2.5/5 – The story comes fast and never really gets as epic as I was hoping it would.
Gameplay – 4/5 – A game that offers a ton of things to do. You’ll find yourself getting rarely bored. The sea battles are amazing.
Graphics – 4/5 – The game is certainly beautiful looking, but some glitches will show up here and there. Still, pretty impressive for the amount of country you’ll be traversing.
Sound – 4/5 – Voice acting for the most part is impressive and the music sets the tone.
Overall (not an average) – 4/5 – Story might let you down, but the amount of content and the impressive visuals more than make up for any faults.