Assassin's Creeed III Review

Title: Assassins Creed 3
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft-Montreal
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox360, WiiU, PC
Genre: Action-Adventure / Open World / Stealth
Sales: 7 million in short order
Review By: Rich Hodges - CEO of TheTechFixation.com

Offering a wide range of pros, this fast selling Ubisoft title has a few downsides to keep in mind while you stare deep into the eyes of Americas greatest leader known to date.

The opening scene offers a twist to the beloved players that had been keeping tabs on each trailer released.  Many people were expecting to jump into the shoes of a young Native American boy, learning what it takes to grow up in the sticks.  Instead, you start off as a mystery man and are confronted with the initial tutorial style mechanics, as you jaunt through the towns first known to America.  A few seamless leaps and bounds and your off to the races!  

While seated atop a viewpoint overlooking your gorgeous playground, you have a sense of entitlement.  Knowing that you have thousands of lives at your fingertips you take a moment to enjoy the crisp clean air that is swirling through the lush forest trees.  It is just then, in the distance from several city streets away, you hear a woman crying out!  Oblivious to the cause of this woman's harm, you scamper from your perch to lend a helpful blade.  From out of the bottom of your hay stack you emerge in a dead sprint, dodging a few civilians, advancing from ledge to ledge toward a rooftop where our trail moves more smoothly.  Closing the gap on the situation, you hear her scream out for help! Now standing over the huddle of men, you see there are a half dozen red coats assaulting the poor woman.  Accusing her of treason, they grab her to attempt an arrest. In a last ditch effort, the angry woman shoves a stack of nearby fruit behind her in hopes to throw off her assailants.  Patiently awaiting for the right time, you ready yourself and prepare for an offensive move.  Expecting that this could be the end, the woman is backed into a corner. Seeing her pleading for her innocence with tears flowing, you recognize the window for opportunity.  Lunging from the building's eve, you slam your hidden blade into the neck of the closest soldier.  Spinning on a dime to continue the attack, the element of surprise is still on your side, you grab the musket of another soldier to disarm him and use his firearm to take him out.  Ducking a shot from his neighbor, you realize that they fully understand your stance on the situation. Swiftly delivering a few cold blows to the chest of two more nearby foes, you've successfully knocked one unconscious while the other was pushed into a well.  Dodging a few swings from the last two enemy's, you knock an arrow and release it into the shoulder of one and seamlessly alter tactics by slipping a blade into the torso of the last.  Time appears to stand still as, you can now take a breath to fulfill your own necessities.  Still hysterical, the lady looks at you with amazement.  Helping her to her feet, you say "There is no room for mistakes as we are at war. Please spread the word about our cause by fighting with me and my brothers."


If situations like this help paint a picture in your mind, then you'll be happy to know that while on you journey through the under belly of New York and along the grim side slopes of Boston, you will cross many of these moments while you decide the fate of the Assassin's Creed.  What seems like a lost cause is now reborn with several of your overarching decisions.

Knowing very little about the story that lay before me, it was hard to decide how high my expectations needed to be.  Understanding the devoted time put into the predecessor, it was easy to for me to keep them extraordinarily high.  Even higher, after previously learning that Ubisoft - Montreal had recently signed on a new editor. Nevertheless, Ubisoft as a whole, has yet to let me down.

Getting into a subject that is very delicate to me and my fellow gamers, the graphics.  Always a must to start off with a story.  So there I was, setting down to indulge in hours of planned time to soak in as much Connor Kenway personality as I could stand. Out of the gate with a surprise, I was seeing only mediocre textures.  The snow wasn't quite delightful, as was the trees, and buildings.  Not to mention the hideous motion from the waterfalls, streams, and ocean! Things just weren't adding up to be even half of what was to be expected.  Our Editor-in-Chief, Dexter Jaekel, suggested that it may be the fault of hardware that the title was being ran on.  Of course, I immediately denied his accusation.  But, I couldn't help thinking about the fact that I was playing on a 3+ year old Playstation 3 that has had some serious wear and tear.  Anticipating the ps3 to quit on me, I quickly invested into another.  As fast as possible, I slammed the beauty together and I was off to the races! With a sigh of relief, the rivers were flowing as if they were intended, the forests gleamed with an early morning frost on the lush branches that were filled with the little berries and acorns as if God himself had put them there.  I could actually let myself breath, rather than be a mess with anger toward my Ubi brothers.  I quickly stole a horse so it would shorten the time to get to a building.  Any building!  I needed to know that every highly anticipated detail was there and in its intended place.  Dex, was the first to steer me toward relaxation after starring at the grain of each plank for several minutes.

My initial thoughts to test the game mechanics were to jump into the largest hand-to-hand back yard brawl I could find.  Looking around, I saw nothing going on anywhere more than a fist fight with a dozen pissed off soldiers, who are ready to tear your limbs off!  Without a hitch or even the slightest error with objects having trouble coming into frame, the battle went flawlessly.  Immediately, I craved to step up my game.  I wanted to set up the most intense of situations.  To test the AnvilNext engines capabilities, I desired the largest of naval fleets, sailing head-to-head, with their worst of intensions driving the sails.  In the nick of time, the smartest of captains see the window opens up, to turn her starboard side and give the, all hell is breaking loose call, "FIRE!"  Your elite fleet, lets out a God-like roar of explosions.  Launching balls of fire that were raging and ready for war.  On the returning side, you would expect in reality, there would be more for the ship to do in preparation for a moment like this but, no.  After the shots were fired, you have 2 options: When you hear your Captain shout "IN COMING!", you decide to either duck behind the most solid of structures or continue your death defying job with your fingers crossed.  After a few rounds with a near by ship, I thought it was time for an up close battle with an opposing team.  Whipping my boat around (which is slower than one might imagine), I headed straight for their flagship.  When heading for their leader, you might think that its a sure shot to the depths of the Atlantic for my team and I, given the major difference in experience between him and I.  But as you close in on each other, the tension raises substantially as one of the deck mates cries out "Prepare For IMPACT!" Its just then that your sweet, hand crafted baby, rams into your beloved adversary.  Without a hitch, your team springs into action, throwing treble hooks to keep the two boats together.  Thrown planks of wood act as catwalks for easy access to the their side of the battle.  Others are swinging from ropes, in hopes to take an aerial assault.  Without backing down, you seek out the other captain with the goal of delivering a gut shot.  Deflecting the occasional bayonet and ending the life of several redcoats and turning the tide of several smaller tussles, you get a lock on your target!  As you gain closure, you see his preparation for the fight.  Standing at the feet of this respectable officer, each of you seem the need to catch your breath while measuring up the enemy.  In this particular moment it is understood that this is a personal battle.  There is much still happening around you. Ships continue to rip each other apart, hoping to keep as few holes as possible.  Gun duals are taking place from the balcony of your mother ship.  Smoke is rolling from a fire that has broken out on a lower deck.  Bodies being thrown into the relentless ocean below.  All combined to make only a drop in the bucket for what is to be expected in this wild adventure.

A story line such as Assassins Creed 3, offers a wide variety of angles.  You are given several opportunities to capture what it's like to be an Englishman and the through and through of an backwoods Native American.  It is a pleasant feeling to see the details before your eyes rather than having to build a picture in your mind about how it "might" have happened.  The writers allow you to see exactly what is needed to fulfill a difficult, heartfelt, tear jerking, butt kicking, fast paced, action packed, intense roller coaster of a story!  What a guy asks himself every time he's committing to movie or cinematic adventure as such is the what's, why's, and how's of the characters that have him invested.  Not sure if it was the fact that I didn't get entirely committed to Connor, but by the end, he was still a distant pal rather than my closest friend.  It was also slightly difficult to understand part of why Connor was so angry.  When I found myself questioning his  motives, an Amazing song was stealing my focus.  At that moment his motives didn't matter any longer.  It was like the song was playing just to get me amped!  On the other hand, maybe that was the plan all along.  It was never unclear as to what his intentions were.  But, at times I do believe it was slightly too difficult of a stretch for Ubisoft-Montreal to force another point of view.  At the same time, in the dev's shoes, I can't see another way to play it out.

When the credits start to roll, I was left with a couple unanswered questions.  Slightly disappointed, I waited until they were finished, to find at least one more bit closure.  Was I satisfied, you may ask.  And to that I would reply, "Yes,very!"

Now, to explain a pet-peeve of mine.  Linear style game play can be a great way to experience a story, a lot of times.  When you are instructed to move from one room to another, maybe while in a house.  You are tired and your stamina is way to low to proceed, so in a perfect setting, there is a bed set out for you.  A no brainer decision, it is time to rest.  As you approach the bed, 99% of humans approach to sit where their butt would be while lying down.  Every gamer is familiar with this, when you walk up to the bed, it is time to push the action button.  The option isn't even available!  There lies an 8 foot frickin' bed and you are forced to scale the accessible sides to search for the exact spot dev's predetermined you could sit down. It's as if they had a cookie-cutter spot picked out for you to stand while trying to input a command.  Un-polished,  maybe a rookie move, however you want to say it, I believe that its ridiculous!  If it was an action purposely placed than I'd like to have a word with whoever made that decision.  If it was something that was meant to be fixed, then I would agree with the "lack of polish" idea.

When a player, has issues completing a mission for whatever reason, it was a shot of pure brilliance to incorporate that "trickle-meter" feature.  When you die a few times it will help with supplying more ammunition or more health to aid in the completion of the round.  While learning to eavesdrop, your current partner helps you understand what to do.  Unless I missed a large portion of the instructions, he very poorly tells you listen to the clues without being seen.  You are stuck with a couple of people conversing with a floating white ring around them.  At that point, I wasn't sure if I needed to be in the circle or outside of it.  It would prompt you with instructions to "Eavesdrop without being seen." My reaction was "What the Hell do I do with this floating circle!" Later you come across a time that it moves and it makes for a more difficult adventure.  Spoiler Alert - Stay In The Circle!

Multi-player is something to be desired! That is if you can handle pursuing a foe that lags his way through a map.  I fully understand not performing very well because of your personal skill level but when you aren't doing well due to a laggy opponent, it's beyond irritating.

@Vdjomb has a few interesting words on the topic. "When I first started this review, I had made it through the first 50 Levels to Prestige in  under 24 hours and felt that this was a major improvement over the previous installments. The abilities seemed well balanced and the Honorable Death /Contested Kill seemed to be better balanced. Sadly, my opinion has been shifted since the last update, as the abilities have been "tweaked". These tweaks now seem to have added a rather substantial lag for some unknown reason. This has made an extra enemy to contend with, the game itself. Kills don't always work properly and your defense weapons don't always deploy properly either. As you might believe, this really generates a high level of frustration. The last, rather annoying, adjustment is that the chat functions are still un-polished.  It offers very poor sound quality and while in-game there is a convoluted way to mute other players.

BEFORE this update I would have said that this was the ultimate multi-player experience, but now I feel it's broken. Which is a real shame, as I thoroughly love playing it. I can really recommend the game but I may have to wait until they fix the issues before saying it's a must play."

Final Thoughts - Amazing graphics, amazing game mechanics, amazing storyline, and amazing sound track.  But unfortunately for the developers, that isn't the entire chalupa.  I would believe that at times they may have gotten caught up in the moment, good times, and the high points to see what is lacking.  I don't want to sound hateful, because I firmly stand by the brilliance that's at work here.  Coming from an owner of the game, memorabilia, and the soundtrack, Assassins Creed 3 is a must own!  

And for these reasons I rate... 

Assassin's Creed 3 a 8.5 out of 10.

$50 out of $60

Written By Rich Hodges - CEO of TheTechFixation.com and
 the TechFixation's Podcast - A Podcast Driven By Consumers, For Consumers