Storyline
This game takes place directly after Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Desmond Miles has awakened from his coma, and arrived to a temple located somewhere in New York, called the Grand Temple. There he needs to find a way to stop the catastrophe from happening again since the catastrophe hit the First Civilisation people, by opening the temple's gate. In order for him to do so, he needs to use back the Animus to relieve another of his ancestor's memories, Ratonhnhake:ton.
Ratonhnhake:ton is an Assassin, with both mixed heritage of British and Mohawk. Due to the threat to his fellow people's land, he needs to find a way to stop the Templars from taking over the land, as well as to eliminate Templar's control in other parts of Colonial America. In order for him to carry out his assassination activities without much troubles, he decided to use another name, Connor. During his travels, he will meet many famous historical figures, such as Charles Lee and George Washington.
Without spoiling much of the story, the game's storyline has improved since Assassin's Creed II, particularly the present storyline. Connor's tale is superbly told, where it focused on his loyalties between his people and his heritage issues, particularly with his father. As for the present storyline, Desmond's storyline is expanded much more since Assassin's Creed II, where you can take control of him in a number of missions during playing the game.
Unfortunately, the game's ending is rather unfulfilled, cliffhanger, and disappointing. It is such a shame, since the developers could have made the ending much more epic and better. This feels like a trend by Ubisoft in Assassin's Creed games: place a cliffhanger ending to hook more players to play the games. In many ways, I really dislike cliffhanger endings, since it creates an unsatisfied feeling in players to see a character's story end in more epic way.
Gameplay
i) Singleplayer mode
a) Progression, Upgrading, and Economy Section
In this game, the entire game map is separated by four main maps. Homestead is your main base, where you can carry out crafting and trading activities, as well as completing Homestead Missions. New York and Boston are the main cities in the game, and the Frontier is the world map that connects these three maps. Frontier map can be considered similar to Kingdom map from the first Assassin's Creed game, except being much more larger area. In order to progress in the game, you need to complete Missions in each Sequences (can be considered as Chapters in a game). Many of the missions have varied objectives, from tracking animals, playing hide and seek, infiltrate a base, kill a target without being spotted, eavesdropping, using your naval ship to travel from one place to another, etc. The variety of objectives in each Missions keeps the game from being repetitive, making more players feel more interested to play the game.
Like Assassin's Creed: Revelations, you can complete optional objectives in a Mission to get 100% Synchronisation. For example, you need to kill 5 enemies undetected in a Mission. Many of the optional objectives are varied, and you need to use a variety of tactics to complete those optional objectives successfully.
There are 12 main Sequences, with a number of missions included in each Sequence. As you progress, you need to complete several Desmond missions, which takes place during the present time. As much as any players want to play as Desmond, they should enjoy while they can since that there are only three missions involving Desmond and you won't be to replay them after finishing the game. You may also exit the Animus and explore the area, or check your e-mails.
In this game, there isn't much upgrading to do, except by crafting items and equipment. In order to do craft items and equipment, you need to have the necessary artisans, materials, and recipes to create one. However, artisans have their own levels, and can only be leveled up by completing their respective Homestead Missions (totally optional). Certain items and equipment may require low leveled artisans, others may require more higher leveled artisans to create it.
The economy system in this game is totally different than the previous games. The main source of money in this game would be hunting animals, and looting treasures or from people also reward you money and items. Animals can be found in the Frontier map and Homestead map, where the former has unique animals at different areas. Each animal have different monetary values, such as bears and cougars have more valuable parts to be sold for money, whereas more common animals such as hares and raccoon have lesser values. The hunting system is similar to Red Dead Redemption, where you can sell animal body parts for money, with the exception of one thing. in Assassin's Creed III, killing animals with arrows or hidden blades will reward you undamaged pelts, but killing the animals with guns will reward you damaged pelts. Like their namesakes imply, undamaged pelts sell much more than damaged pelts in stores. You may also sell your items by sending convoys to other stores, with certain profit, risk and required time. Sending convoys to other stores may reward you extra profit, but may have fail if the risk is high. Sending Assassin Recruits to missions will reward you money, as well as bonus materials such as pelt or lumber.
b) Combat and Travelling Section
In this game, freerunning is more streamlined, where you can easily travel on top of tree branches, rooftops, and etc much more easier. Also, you can enter houses through doors or windows to shake off your pursuers. You may also ride on horse to travel other places. The Fast Travel feature in this game is revamped as well, where you need to travel in a underground area to unlock new Fast Travel points. You may also Fast Travel to other significant icons on the map, such as the exits to another area or the Harbourmaster icon.
Connor has access to a large variety of weapons, such as bow and arrows, swords, guns, tomahawks, rope darts and etc. Each weapon have their own uses, and you should try each weapon to suit your needs in a mission. You may also buy weapons from General Stores, where it can be found in Frontier or New York and Boston maps. Weapons can also be obtained by crafting in Homestead. Notoriety system also returns in this game, where enemy soldiers will react accordingly to your current notoriety level, such as enemy soldiers will recognise you faster if your notoriety level is one or more. You can now assassinate a target while running, which is a pretty cool new feature. Standard low profile-assassination and double assassination moves are present as well.
c) Other Activities Section
As in the previous two games, you can recruit Assassins, except lesser in numbers than previous games. Unlike previous games' Assassin Recruits, they are more unique, with unique design, unique weapons, and etc. By recruiting a new Assassin Recruit, you will obtain a new Ability to be used anytime in New York and Boston (Assassins's Recruits abilities can be used in Frontier and Homestead maps). For example, you can use the Riot ability after recruiting Stephane. You will obtain more new Abilities after recruiting more Assassin Recruits. In order to recruit one, you need to complete all Liberation Missions in certain parts of Boston and New York. Liberation Missions can be found on both maps, and most of it are varied, such as stopping an execution, release prisoners, and etc. Only by completing the Liberation Missions that you can recruit a new Assassin Recruit associated to an area in the cities. Each Assassin Recruits can be leveled up, either by calling them in combat or to assassinate targets, or send them into missions for both experience points and money.
Homestead is your homebase, and you can develop it further by completing Homestead Missions. By completing these missions, you can create more new items and buy more variety of materials. Like I said before, you will not get income by developing your homebase. Instead, you need to sell items such as animal pelts or others for money. It is recommended to complete some of the Homestead Missions early to craft more useful items early on in the game, such as a new tomahawk or double guns holster.
A new gameplay feature in this game is naval warfare, where you can battle against other ships using your cannons and etc. The ship can only be controlled by you steering the paddle, with varying speed. For example, Full Sail grants you full speed, but harder to manuever and easily gets blown by winds to hit rocks, wherea sHalf Sail grants you lesser speed than Full Sail, but is more easier to control. In most missions related to naval, you need to battle other ships. Small ships can be easily taken down by shooing them with small guns called swivels, or by ramming them. Larger ships can only be taken down by cannon fire from your ship's sides, or by shooting their exposed oil storage with the swivels. In most naval missions, you need to traverse the seas from one location to another, and destroy the ships. Some of it can be repetitive, but many of it have different optional objectives that made the naval gameplay fun.
You may also play mini games in various Taverns in all four maps in the game, such as Checkers, Fanorana, and etc. It is nice to see that there are mini-games included in this game, since it makes the game's replay value more higher.
You may also complete Challenges given by various factions, such as Brawler Challenges, Hunting Challenges, etc. These Challenges are easy to complete, but some are challenging to do, such as reveal an entire map of Boston, New York and Frontier. The Challenges are quite fun to do, and there is a lot of them for players to complete.
There are other side-missions to be done in the game, such as deliver letters and items to other people. Deliver letters missions are straight-forward, but delivering items missions can be tricky, since some of the missions require you to craft certain items to complete the missions.
ii) Multiplayer mode
Like previous Assassin's Creed games, this game also includes multiplayer mode, where you can compete against other players online. I won't explain anything about the multiplayer mode, since it plays very similar to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations multiplayer modes. Wanted, Team Match, and etc modes returned from previous games. If you want to read more about the multiplayer mode, read my reviews on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. There isn't much new content included in this game's multiplayer mode compared to previous ones, except few new match types and the new co-op mode called Wolfpack.
Wolfpack mode is an online co-op mode where you work together with up to 3 other online players to complete waves of targets (henceforth, waves will be called as Sequences) in a time limit. In order to succesfully complete a Sequence, you need to obtain a certain number of points. For example, you need to obtain 600 points to clear Sequence 1. In order to get your kill score as high as possible, you need to apply various techniques, such as using Focus, assassinate while blending in a crowd, and etc. The more bonuses you get, the higher score you will get. Also, there will be a bonus objective where it grants you bonus points upon completing it. Should you successfully complete or fail the bonus objective, the bonus objective will change everytime you kill a target. Should the timer clocks less than 30 seconds, you may be granted a chance to kill a target that gives you time bonus. Killing the target will reward you time bonus, from 25 seconds to 30 seconds. Since this co-op mode is strictly time based and it gets harder as you complete more and more Sequences, working together with your teammates is absolutely crucial.
iii) Conclusion
I love the gameplay of this game. The singleplayer mode has vastly changed and improved to make the gameplay more fluid, such as more smoother combat controls like recent Batman games, unique economic system like Red Dead Redemption, better freerunning movements, high gameplay content, excellent naval missions, and etc. I am thoroughly surprised on how well Ubisoft made the gameplay for this game, and the game makes me believe that I am a true badass assassin in a game, where I could freely counter enemy attacks while killing them, use human shield to block gunshots, and etc. It is dissappointing to see that although Desmond's missions are well-designed compared to previous game, it is very limited, and they cannot be replayed once you have beaten the game. Personally, including much more Desmond's missions in the game would have made this game to have much more better pacing in both gameplay and storyline, since this is the last game in Desmond's storyline. Ubisoft should have went all out to make the game a great finale for Desmond's story, since the game feels incomplete in particular when playing as Desmond. The game's multiplayer mode is great, and I don't think it can be improved much more since it is already good on it's own.
Graphics
Unfortunately, the game is riddled with a number of bugs and glitches, which can be quite annoying, downright distracting and possibly game-breaking. It is highly recommended for players to install the latest patch as soon as possible, to eliminate some bugs and glitches. Be warned that some bugs and glitches may remain even after installing the patch. Considering on how vast and big the game is, bugs and glitches are to be expected. However, I did expect that Ubisoft should have resolved these bugs and glitches before the game's launch.
Sound
This time, the game's soundtrack is solely composed by Lorne Balfe, who composed the majority of the music in Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Jesper Kyd, who has composed all music since the first Assassin's Creed game, did not return in this game. Both composers have certainly different and unique style of music composing. Jesper Kyd's music focused on electronic style, whereas Lorne Balfe's music focused on orchestral. However, this game's soundtrack is nevertheless great, with great main theme and other great themes such as the battle themes. It is sad to see that Jesper Kyd did not return to compose music for this game, but Lorne Balfe still did a great job in scoring Assassin's Creed III.
The voice acting is great, with great performances by all voice actors. I like how Ubisoft cast good voice actors to voice in their games, and this is no exception.
Replay Value
Needless to say, with the vast amount of side-activities to be done in this game, the replay value is high. Even higher than previous Assassin's Creed games' replay value due to huge gameplay content, such as taking over forts, hunting rare animals, complete side missions, and etc. If you are bored and wanted to test your skills against other Assassin's Creed players online, play the multiplayer mode.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this game is the best Assassin's Creed game since the second game, with highly improved combat system, great economic system, great naval missions, lots of side activities to be done, astounding graphics, high replay value, great music, great voice acting, and great storyline. Unfortunately, it is plagued with issues like bugs and glitches, inconclusive ending, lack of Desmond missions, and etc. The main problem I find in this game is the lack of Desmond gameplay, because this is supposedly the last game to feature Desmond. Ubisoft could have done so much more to make the game better, just by adding more Desmond missions and make the ending much more satisfying and epic. Despite it's problems, I personally feel that this is the Game of the Year of this year, due to many of it's improvements and lots of game content.
Score
Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
Final Score: 36/40 or 9.0/10.0
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Both Desmond and Connor's storylines are good overall.
- Lots of unexpected plot twists
- Well-designed Desmond's missions.
- Highly improved combat system, with great new counter feature.
- Great variety of objectives in all Missions.
- Improved freerunning controls.
- Large exploration maps.
- More tougher enemies to be fought.
- Unique economic system.
- Fun naval missions.
- Lots of side-activities to be done.
- Great voice acting.
- Epic soundtrack by Lorne Balfe.
- High replay value.
- Impressive graphics.
- Lots of interesting characters to interact.
- Great multiplayer mode.
Cons
- Disappointing ending for Desmond's storyline.
- Lack of Desmond's missions.
- Unable to replay Desmond's missions after finishing the game.
- Enemy A.I is still a bit dumb.
- Many bugs and glitches. Patch installation is highly recommended.
- Hunting animals can be repetitive.
- Lack of new features in multiplayer mode.
Take control another of Desmond's ancestor, Ratonhnhake:ton a.k.a Connor, an Assassin during American Revolution era.
This game takes place directly after Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Desmond Miles has awakened from his coma, and arrived to a temple located somewhere in New York, called the Grand Temple. There he needs to find a way to stop the catastrophe from happening again since the catastrophe hit the First Civilisation people, by opening the temple's gate. In order for him to do so, he needs to use back the Animus to relieve another of his ancestor's memories, Ratonhnhake:ton.
Ratonhnhake:ton is an Assassin, with both mixed heritage of British and Mohawk. Due to the threat to his fellow people's land, he needs to find a way to stop the Templars from taking over the land, as well as to eliminate Templar's control in other parts of Colonial America. In order for him to carry out his assassination activities without much troubles, he decided to use another name, Connor. During his travels, he will meet many famous historical figures, such as Charles Lee and George Washington.
Without spoiling much of the story, the game's storyline has improved since Assassin's Creed II, particularly the present storyline. Connor's tale is superbly told, where it focused on his loyalties between his people and his heritage issues, particularly with his father. As for the present storyline, Desmond's storyline is expanded much more since Assassin's Creed II, where you can take control of him in a number of missions during playing the game.
Unfortunately, the game's ending is rather unfulfilled, cliffhanger, and disappointing. It is such a shame, since the developers could have made the ending much more epic and better. This feels like a trend by Ubisoft in Assassin's Creed games: place a cliffhanger ending to hook more players to play the games. In many ways, I really dislike cliffhanger endings, since it creates an unsatisfied feeling in players to see a character's story end in more epic way.
Gameplay
i) Singleplayer mode
a) Progression, Upgrading, and Economy Section
Complete optional objectives to get 100% Synchronisation for every mission.
In this game, the entire game map is separated by four main maps. Homestead is your main base, where you can carry out crafting and trading activities, as well as completing Homestead Missions. New York and Boston are the main cities in the game, and the Frontier is the world map that connects these three maps. Frontier map can be considered similar to Kingdom map from the first Assassin's Creed game, except being much more larger area. In order to progress in the game, you need to complete Missions in each Sequences (can be considered as Chapters in a game). Many of the missions have varied objectives, from tracking animals, playing hide and seek, infiltrate a base, kill a target without being spotted, eavesdropping, using your naval ship to travel from one place to another, etc. The variety of objectives in each Missions keeps the game from being repetitive, making more players feel more interested to play the game.
Like Assassin's Creed: Revelations, you can complete optional objectives in a Mission to get 100% Synchronisation. For example, you need to kill 5 enemies undetected in a Mission. Many of the optional objectives are varied, and you need to use a variety of tactics to complete those optional objectives successfully.
There are 12 main Sequences, with a number of missions included in each Sequence. As you progress, you need to complete several Desmond missions, which takes place during the present time. As much as any players want to play as Desmond, they should enjoy while they can since that there are only three missions involving Desmond and you won't be to replay them after finishing the game. You may also exit the Animus and explore the area, or check your e-mails.
In this game, there isn't much upgrading to do, except by crafting items and equipment. In order to do craft items and equipment, you need to have the necessary artisans, materials, and recipes to create one. However, artisans have their own levels, and can only be leveled up by completing their respective Homestead Missions (totally optional). Certain items and equipment may require low leveled artisans, others may require more higher leveled artisans to create it.
The economy system in this game is totally different than the previous games. The main source of money in this game would be hunting animals, and looting treasures or from people also reward you money and items. Animals can be found in the Frontier map and Homestead map, where the former has unique animals at different areas. Each animal have different monetary values, such as bears and cougars have more valuable parts to be sold for money, whereas more common animals such as hares and raccoon have lesser values. The hunting system is similar to Red Dead Redemption, where you can sell animal body parts for money, with the exception of one thing. in Assassin's Creed III, killing animals with arrows or hidden blades will reward you undamaged pelts, but killing the animals with guns will reward you damaged pelts. Like their namesakes imply, undamaged pelts sell much more than damaged pelts in stores. You may also sell your items by sending convoys to other stores, with certain profit, risk and required time. Sending convoys to other stores may reward you extra profit, but may have fail if the risk is high. Sending Assassin Recruits to missions will reward you money, as well as bonus materials such as pelt or lumber.
b) Combat and Travelling Section
Freerun on rooftops, climb walls and ledges, kill targets using your hidden blades, the usual stuffs.
In this game, freerunning is more streamlined, where you can easily travel on top of tree branches, rooftops, and etc much more easier. Also, you can enter houses through doors or windows to shake off your pursuers. You may also ride on horse to travel other places. The Fast Travel feature in this game is revamped as well, where you need to travel in a underground area to unlock new Fast Travel points. You may also Fast Travel to other significant icons on the map, such as the exits to another area or the Harbourmaster icon.
Improved and more smoother combat system.
The combat system is both new and similar to previous Assassin's Creed games. This time, you now can counter enemy attacks more freely, such as counter two enemy attacks at the same time and counter their attacks in various ways. You may counter kill them using your main weapon, counter kill them using your sub weapons, counter throw them, or counter and break enemy defenses. All of the enemies in this game require different tactics to beat, such as Grenadiers are immune to kill streaks. You need to try a variety of moves to beat enemies more efficiently, since each enemy type in this game behaves differently than others. The counter system is similar to Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, except the counter moves in Assassin's Creed III are more varied. In battle, you use your main weapon and sub weapon to fight enemies, such as using Hidden Blades as your main weapons and guns as your sub weapons. Each weapon in this game have their own pros and cons, such as tomahawk is more faster to use than heavy axes. You may also chain kills to create kill streaks like previous games if you are not interrupted by enemy attacks or by proper timing of both counter and attack moves. This time, there is a health regeneration like the first Assassin's Creed game, and you can't use items to heal yourself from being desynchronised (a.k.a. being dead).Connor has access to a large variety of weapons, such as bow and arrows, swords, guns, tomahawks, rope darts and etc. Each weapon have their own uses, and you should try each weapon to suit your needs in a mission. You may also buy weapons from General Stores, where it can be found in Frontier or New York and Boston maps. Weapons can also be obtained by crafting in Homestead. Notoriety system also returns in this game, where enemy soldiers will react accordingly to your current notoriety level, such as enemy soldiers will recognise you faster if your notoriety level is one or more. You can now assassinate a target while running, which is a pretty cool new feature. Standard low profile-assassination and double assassination moves are present as well.
c) Other Activities Section
Recruit new Assassins by completing Liberation Missions.
As in the previous two games, you can recruit Assassins, except lesser in numbers than previous games. Unlike previous games' Assassin Recruits, they are more unique, with unique design, unique weapons, and etc. By recruiting a new Assassin Recruit, you will obtain a new Ability to be used anytime in New York and Boston (Assassins's Recruits abilities can be used in Frontier and Homestead maps). For example, you can use the Riot ability after recruiting Stephane. You will obtain more new Abilities after recruiting more Assassin Recruits. In order to recruit one, you need to complete all Liberation Missions in certain parts of Boston and New York. Liberation Missions can be found on both maps, and most of it are varied, such as stopping an execution, release prisoners, and etc. Only by completing the Liberation Missions that you can recruit a new Assassin Recruit associated to an area in the cities. Each Assassin Recruits can be leveled up, either by calling them in combat or to assassinate targets, or send them into missions for both experience points and money.
Complete Homestead Missions to craft more new items and weapons.
Homestead is your homebase, and you can develop it further by completing Homestead Missions. By completing these missions, you can create more new items and buy more variety of materials. Like I said before, you will not get income by developing your homebase. Instead, you need to sell items such as animal pelts or others for money. It is recommended to complete some of the Homestead Missions early to craft more useful items early on in the game, such as a new tomahawk or double guns holster.
Control the Aquila for both sea battle and traversing in sea in Naval Missions.
A new gameplay feature in this game is naval warfare, where you can battle against other ships using your cannons and etc. The ship can only be controlled by you steering the paddle, with varying speed. For example, Full Sail grants you full speed, but harder to manuever and easily gets blown by winds to hit rocks, wherea sHalf Sail grants you lesser speed than Full Sail, but is more easier to control. In most missions related to naval, you need to battle other ships. Small ships can be easily taken down by shooing them with small guns called swivels, or by ramming them. Larger ships can only be taken down by cannon fire from your ship's sides, or by shooting their exposed oil storage with the swivels. In most naval missions, you need to traverse the seas from one location to another, and destroy the ships. Some of it can be repetitive, but many of it have different optional objectives that made the naval gameplay fun.
Play mini-games such as Checkers and Fanorana, complete various Challenges, or do some other side-missions.
You may also play mini games in various Taverns in all four maps in the game, such as Checkers, Fanorana, and etc. It is nice to see that there are mini-games included in this game, since it makes the game's replay value more higher.
You may also complete Challenges given by various factions, such as Brawler Challenges, Hunting Challenges, etc. These Challenges are easy to complete, but some are challenging to do, such as reveal an entire map of Boston, New York and Frontier. The Challenges are quite fun to do, and there is a lot of them for players to complete.
There are other side-missions to be done in the game, such as deliver letters and items to other people. Deliver letters missions are straight-forward, but delivering items missions can be tricky, since some of the missions require you to craft certain items to complete the missions.
ii) Multiplayer mode
More or less the same with previous Assassin's Creed games' multiplayer modes, but with some minor additions.
Like previous Assassin's Creed games, this game also includes multiplayer mode, where you can compete against other players online. I won't explain anything about the multiplayer mode, since it plays very similar to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations multiplayer modes. Wanted, Team Match, and etc modes returned from previous games. If you want to read more about the multiplayer mode, read my reviews on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. There isn't much new content included in this game's multiplayer mode compared to previous ones, except few new match types and the new co-op mode called Wolfpack.
Wolfpack mode is an online co-op mode where you work together with up to 3 other online players to complete waves of targets (henceforth, waves will be called as Sequences) in a time limit. In order to succesfully complete a Sequence, you need to obtain a certain number of points. For example, you need to obtain 600 points to clear Sequence 1. In order to get your kill score as high as possible, you need to apply various techniques, such as using Focus, assassinate while blending in a crowd, and etc. The more bonuses you get, the higher score you will get. Also, there will be a bonus objective where it grants you bonus points upon completing it. Should you successfully complete or fail the bonus objective, the bonus objective will change everytime you kill a target. Should the timer clocks less than 30 seconds, you may be granted a chance to kill a target that gives you time bonus. Killing the target will reward you time bonus, from 25 seconds to 30 seconds. Since this co-op mode is strictly time based and it gets harder as you complete more and more Sequences, working together with your teammates is absolutely crucial.
iii) Conclusion
Excellent both singleplayer and multiplayer gameplay components, with some dissappointment towards lack of Desmond playable missions.
I love the gameplay of this game. The singleplayer mode has vastly changed and improved to make the gameplay more fluid, such as more smoother combat controls like recent Batman games, unique economic system like Red Dead Redemption, better freerunning movements, high gameplay content, excellent naval missions, and etc. I am thoroughly surprised on how well Ubisoft made the gameplay for this game, and the game makes me believe that I am a true badass assassin in a game, where I could freely counter enemy attacks while killing them, use human shield to block gunshots, and etc. It is dissappointing to see that although Desmond's missions are well-designed compared to previous game, it is very limited, and they cannot be replayed once you have beaten the game. Personally, including much more Desmond's missions in the game would have made this game to have much more better pacing in both gameplay and storyline, since this is the last game in Desmond's storyline. Ubisoft should have went all out to make the game a great finale for Desmond's story, since the game feels incomplete in particular when playing as Desmond. The game's multiplayer mode is great, and I don't think it can be improved much more since it is already good on it's own.
Graphics
Impressive graphics, with some bugs and glitches.
The graphics are impressive, with highly detailed environment in all four major playable environments in the games, and great looking characters. Connor's design is particularly great, and Desmond's new look is great as well. Other NPCs also have great designs, such as Charles Lee and Haytham Kenway. The environments in the game are highly detailed, with detailed looking forests and cities, complete with occasional rains and snow environments.Unfortunately, the game is riddled with a number of bugs and glitches, which can be quite annoying, downright distracting and possibly game-breaking. It is highly recommended for players to install the latest patch as soon as possible, to eliminate some bugs and glitches. Be warned that some bugs and glitches may remain even after installing the patch. Considering on how vast and big the game is, bugs and glitches are to be expected. However, I did expect that Ubisoft should have resolved these bugs and glitches before the game's launch.
Sound
Great and epic soundtrack, as well as great voice acting.
This time, the game's soundtrack is solely composed by Lorne Balfe, who composed the majority of the music in Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Jesper Kyd, who has composed all music since the first Assassin's Creed game, did not return in this game. Both composers have certainly different and unique style of music composing. Jesper Kyd's music focused on electronic style, whereas Lorne Balfe's music focused on orchestral. However, this game's soundtrack is nevertheless great, with great main theme and other great themes such as the battle themes. It is sad to see that Jesper Kyd did not return to compose music for this game, but Lorne Balfe still did a great job in scoring Assassin's Creed III.
The voice acting is great, with great performances by all voice actors. I like how Ubisoft cast good voice actors to voice in their games, and this is no exception.
Replay Value
Extremely high replay value.
Needless to say, with the vast amount of side-activities to be done in this game, the replay value is high. Even higher than previous Assassin's Creed games' replay value due to huge gameplay content, such as taking over forts, hunting rare animals, complete side missions, and etc. If you are bored and wanted to test your skills against other Assassin's Creed players online, play the multiplayer mode.
Conclusion
The best Assassin's Creed game since Assassin's Creed II, with some reservations.
In conclusion, this game is the best Assassin's Creed game since the second game, with highly improved combat system, great economic system, great naval missions, lots of side activities to be done, astounding graphics, high replay value, great music, great voice acting, and great storyline. Unfortunately, it is plagued with issues like bugs and glitches, inconclusive ending, lack of Desmond missions, and etc. The main problem I find in this game is the lack of Desmond gameplay, because this is supposedly the last game to feature Desmond. Ubisoft could have done so much more to make the game better, just by adding more Desmond missions and make the ending much more satisfying and epic. Despite it's problems, I personally feel that this is the Game of the Year of this year, due to many of it's improvements and lots of game content.
Score
Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
Final Score: 36/40 or 9.0/10.0
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Both Desmond and Connor's storylines are good overall.
- Lots of unexpected plot twists
- Well-designed Desmond's missions.
- Highly improved combat system, with great new counter feature.
- Great variety of objectives in all Missions.
- Improved freerunning controls.
- Large exploration maps.
- More tougher enemies to be fought.
- Unique economic system.
- Fun naval missions.
- Lots of side-activities to be done.
- Great voice acting.
- Epic soundtrack by Lorne Balfe.
- High replay value.
- Impressive graphics.
- Lots of interesting characters to interact.
- Great multiplayer mode.
Cons
- Disappointing ending for Desmond's storyline.
- Lack of Desmond's missions.
- Unable to replay Desmond's missions after finishing the game.
- Enemy A.I is still a bit dumb.
- Many bugs and glitches. Patch installation is highly recommended.
- Hunting animals can be repetitive.
- Lack of new features in multiplayer mode.
