Dearest readers, you know I love America (my blood is red,
white, & blue for god sake!), video games, and for quite some time, the
Assassin’s Creed series. Shoot, I even
reviewed the last two Ass Creed games in my patriotic hype for AC3. Now can
someone please tell me why I hate the third one? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Maybe I am losing it? (Just a head’s up, I’m
going to spoil the shit out of this game.
And don’t play this. Don’t spend
money on this. )
Story
Set in colonial America during the years of 1753-1783. It stars a brand new assassin named Connor –
This got me more pumped about this game than it ought to have; I was so tired
of playing as Ezio! See, but you don’t get to play as or know about Connor for
a good four to six hours! I was going to
talk about this later, but FUCK IT. You
play as Connor’s dastardly daddy Haytham Kenway (pssst he’s a total chode!).
You (Daddy H) are sent from London-town to the colonies, and along the way you
are taught almost EVERYTHING about the game.
I hate this more than words. I’m
used to games having a level that is
solely made to teach you the different basic game mechanics, but nope, Ubisoft decided
to up the ante. They thought it would be
cool if they stretched tutorials out for hours!
It was maddening! It gets
worse. You see, you think while you’re
playing Haytham’s little adventures that you’re the good guy, that you’re
helping the assassins. PLOT TWIST,
you’re a freaking Templar. You’re the
leader of Templars in the colonies, and love the redcoats! Can this get any worse? Yes, Hayeater manipulates
this Native American lady into helping him find this alien artifact boosh, and
for no reason they fall in love. You get
the feeling that these colonists use the Native Americans as a means to an end,
and it’s depressing…It doesn’t explicitly show it, but I’m pretty sure old
Haymaker rapes the Indian chick after she saves his life. It made me so
infuriated, that I didn’t pick it up for a couple of days (I went back to
Borderlands 2).  |
| Thaat's Lee! |
After a break, I jumped
into Connor’s story. You see that Native
American lady got preggers from Hayface, and Connor lives with his mom in a
village of fellow Native Americans.
There’s more tutorials here, but not for much longer. You learn to hunt animals, and your village
is burned down by one of Daddy H’s henchmen Charles Lee. If you thought Connor’s dear old poop pop was
bad, this Charlie is a really twisted villain.
He gets off killing Indians, shooting dudes in the back, pissing on the
American flag, and his favorite: running away like a sissy.
Oh and if you’re curious as to what’s going on with the
game’s true main character (character-ception lololololol. Shootmeplz.)
Desmond, there’s not a whole lot going on.
He’s just in a cave using the Animus, so he can learn to be better? I don’t know. ALIENS? I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going
on in the backdrop of this game because it’s complicated, I don’t remember most
of it, and it’s just not terribly interesting.
Oh and you meet Desmond’s dad.
PARALLELS?!?!?!?!?!?!?
SUDDEN FASTFORWARD.
Connor is 18, and he’s out for his dad and that meanie Charlie
Horse. He is informed of an old black
man named Achilles that has a house in the middle of no-where. Connor’s elder tell him to check that dude
out, and instead is almost killed by TEMPLARS.
Old black man Morgan Freem…..I mean Achilles takes Connor in, and
teaches him everything about being an Assassin (I just realized how similar
this part is to that awful action movie Wanted). MOAR TUTORIALS! MOAAAAAAAR! These aren’t actually that bad. You learn to use
this thing called a rope dart which is essentially Scorpion’s spear from
MK. Super bad ass! And you also learn to captain a ship! Ship shit is literally my favorite thing in
this game, but we’ll get to that later.
So Achilles sends you on your way, and you learn about all the bad, bad
men that help Haydouche with his Templar plans.
You do some not assassinating, and form your own little community back
at Achille’s house. Ugh. And other
stuff. I don’t think you do much in this
game except errands, and kill Brits. I
think you have a grand total of three assassinations in this game. Woo. I
guess I don’t want to ruin most of the story, but I’ll give you a taste. Haydingerdanger tries comes back into Connor’s
life in a helpful way, but he ends up just being a turd to him. They have another falling out, and passing on – eeeeeehhhhhh? Get it? Getitgetitgetitgetit?!
You reenact
some important American historical events like Paul Revere’s ride. And by that I mean you ride on a horse with
Paulie on it. SOOOOO ACCURATE AND
REWARDING. I honestly was expecting a
bit more from the historical aspect out of this game; like, say Paul is riding
on in a flurry to warn the British are coming and you are fending off Red Coats
from catching him from a tree sniping them with bow and arrow. It all just feels weird and unnecessary. I mean, it’s cool that this game takes place
in history, but does Connor have to rewrite history in order for him to be
involved? Again, this is not what I
asked for!
SPOILERS. You kill
Charles Lee after the most frustrating chase sequence I’ve ever witnessed. It’s awful.
You only have one other chase in the game, and that one’s pretty
easy. This one is completely unfair, and
I don’t understand how this was okay’d before release. Its super frustrating because there’s some
quick time stuff going on and you have to run through mobs of people that will
not be budged! And the game that
generally holds your hand throughout its entirety, now it suddenly decides to
not tell you where to climb and whatnot.
I did this section a good twenty times before I got it right. I haven’t been more frustrated with this game
series since Ass Creed 2 with Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying contrapooption. I should’ve remembered why I don’t like these
games, and kept that with me. God
damnit! Don’t play this game!
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
OH! It gets
better. We find more alien shit, and
Desmond dies. It was the most
bittersweet thing ever. I don’t even
know who won! Assassins? Templars?
Aliens? I don’t know. The ending is so fucking ambiguous. I am half-hoping that I’m just too thick to actually
understand it, and the ending is actually good decent.
Graphics
Ass Creed Tres is the culmination of all the prior titles
work into one better game. This game’s
graphics uses a lot of similarities to the older games, but it looks a whole
lot sharper as a whole. The wilderness
can be quite awesome looking – especially in the snow. I think one of my favorite locales is Boston
in the winter; looking onto the city from the docks looks so freaking
good. Graphics definitely enhance this
game, and enrich the experience. There
are some faults, but it’s pretty minor.
I played it on the 360 and there’s a little bit of texture popping. You also might witness some strange things
like this guy floating above his barstool for no freaking reason. Another nice
thing about it is that there’s not a whole lot of loading.
Gamefeel
I was genuinely excited about this game, and kept a blind
eye to the actual gameplay of this series.
This is something I had to do a little bit of soul searching after I
completed AC3. Does this game play
well? Is it fun? There’s no doubt that there is fun to be
found in this game, but there is literally no challenge in this game. Most objectives can be achieved without
breaking a sweat. The only challenge
comes in the form of unfair tasks that they don’t actually tell you what to
do. This is not good game design
especially considering this game commonly holds your hand throughout. This is definitely a problem for me and
probably most of the hardcore gamers. We
definitely prefer a game that gives us some building blocks as to how to play
in the beginning then progressively challenge us with the basics while peppering
in a few new tricks. A good comparison
to something I’ve reviewed is the Alice Madness Returns. That game is, by no stretch of the
imagination, a good game, but it does appeal to good game design in that
regard.
Some of the easiness in AC3 also stems from the combat, and
how simple it is. It’s designed for you
to win; it’s really hard to die in combat in this game. I remember back in E3 of 2012 that they
promised more intuitive combat and the use of two different items in
fights. Well they sort of accomplished
this, but only sort of. You use a long
rage weapon and a close-combat weapon at your ready at all times. But that’s not really the same as saying you
can swing your hatchet into someone’s head, and then swing around and shoot your
recently departed enemy’s musket at on.
All combat situations in this game come down to blocking/dodging and
then countering. It gives the player an illusion of fluidity, but it's just different animations you can pull off based on what you have equipped.The animations are
really awesome at first, but it feels pretty empty after you do it for hours.
The basic interface for combat is bad. It’s really bad. It has a radial menu that pauses the game to
allow you to select your weapon of death, but it’s far too sluggish. It really takes out the immersion of the
game. This happens more than you think
because you can only have three different items keyed to the d-pad, and it will
force you to open this menu when you need a different weapon.
For a game about assassinations and stealth there isn’t much
of either. The stealth in this game is
very janky, and is the exact same from the previous titles. Blend in with people walking, sit on a bench,
hide in bushes, hide in a well are all great ways to hide from trouble. There are several missions that task you in
listening to conversations of peeps while being hidden, and it’s so dumb. You can sit on a bench as they walk by you,
and don’t think anything of it. This is not
stealth. I think for this series to
continue on it would need to overhaul a lot of its components to be a stealth
game or change it to make it feel more of an action game (it’s more action
anywho).
The wilderness, the cities, and the homestead each have a
very distinct feel. The wilderness is
where all the wild animals roam and you can climb on trees. I actually love their tree parkour in this
game; it makes you feel like Tarzan…in a good way. It’s a lot of fun exploring here. The cities, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia
play a lot like older Ass Creed games.
I think my favorite aspect of this game is definitely the
homestead. This is where your good old
mentor Achilles resides. During the course
of the game you meet characters that you help out, and then help them move into
the area where Achilles resides. This is
essentially where you get almost all the side missions of the game. I actually like this even though the missions
mostly go here do this kind of stuff.
You get to know all the different residents pretty well, and you get a
chance to document them (Creepin’!). You
see some families grow, some come together, and some fight. It feels pretty realistic in the setting it
takes place also. Most importantly all
these missions reward you by getting insight on these secondary characters, and
means of actually making Connor stronger.
This leads to a new and excited aspect of this game. Like in the older titles, you can upgrade
your arsenal and the city you live in.
In this one, you earn money by actually trading with merchants you have encountered. I like this especially
compared to the older titles because it’s more of a challenge to make money and
to protect it. You don’t receive money
just for clearing out baddies or buying shops like the previous games. I actually got addicted to figuring out what
items I could sell at the highest price and the quickest way to acquire that
item. There’s also crafting based on the skill of the inhabitants of the
homestead; their skill increases the more favors you do for them. That’s the reward I was talking about
earlier, and it’s really awesome feeling when you know you’ve got the most powerful
items in the game. 
There are a wide variety of different types of side missions in this
game, and they’re great ways to earn some spending money. There’s fighting, assassinations,
hunting, message running, and a bunch more.
I personally don’t find them all that interesting, but some can be
pretty fun. I enjoyed the hunting ones
because you hunted for super-duper rare animals that could be a challenge to
kill. Quick side note about hunting; its
bullshit in this game. It’s so fucking
hard to ambush a bunny while hiding in the bushes, and it’s boring! I don’t like it. The game punishes you for hunting with bow and
arrow or guns! It wants you to pounce on your pray like a cat on a mouse...but you're a dude hiding in bushes. UGH. I gave up on hunting early on in the game, and I never missed it.
I think my favorite addition to this game is being a captain
of the ship. There are a handful of
story missions involving the ship, but there’s a whole lot more side
missions. Both are pretty rewarding and
incredibly fun. I actually think they
designed this aspect of this game the best.
They teach you all the basics in one game, and add new aspects as you do
more missions like adding different ammo and stuff. The ship combat plays from a close third
person viewpoint. You see Connor
steering the ship, but you can sweep the camera around to look out the left or
right side. You can shoot your main
cannons on the left or right side when you line up your shot – the trajectory is outlined for you similar to a golf game.
You also have these miniature cannons that can essentially be fired at
any situation and shoot at any direction but aren't very powerful. The swivel cannons are great to use when your
enemy’s ship is almost destroyed; you can shoot their gunpowder storage and
BOOM. So rewarding! You can also board enemy ships when you use
chain shot which destroys their mast and what have you. Then it turns into an all-out pirate rumble
that’s pretty fun. The side missions
vary in protecting a merchant ship or to destroying a fort. I played the ship sections often, and
preferred them to the standard gameplay.
End of the Line
If you can look past most of the flaws from this sinking
ship there’s a lot of fun to be had especially for fans of this game. Hell, it’s the only game I know where you can
pet a dog! (I can't think of another game that allows that kind of awesome person-to-animal-relationship!) How fucking sweet is
that! But seriously bros, this game is
for serious Ass Creed fans. I don’t think
I could recommend this game to anyone that hasn't played the older games
because there is so much stuff going on that if you didn’t have any prior
information on you’ll be confused the entire game. And to boot the story isn’t all that riveting, original, or great except how they depict Native Americans in a positive light. It’s surprising to see them depicted historically
accurate and also incredibly sad.
I think that’s the appeal to Connor except when he just wants to kill
everyone for not being an assassin.
Meh...I guess what I’m trying to
say is this game didn’t live up to the hype, but isn’t a terrible game. It’s also the best pirate simulator I’ve ever
played – minus the raping and pillaging.
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