Now Playing: Assassin’s Creed 3

I think I’ve spoken before about my experience with the Assassin’s Creed series. I rather enjoyed the first game despite its repetitive mission structure. It felt fresh and unique, blending some large and highly detailed environments with a fluid movement and combat system. What I really liked about it though was the historical setting. AC 2, whilst I probably prefer the setting and character of AC 1, was a fantastic sequel, building upon all the good things of the original game and adding even more quality features. My only real gripe would have been that it was a little on the easy side.

Spin on to AC: Brotherhood, and this is where things start to go wrong. I didn’t think Brotherhood was a bad game as such, but I found it all rather mediocre. It tried to add new features to the AC mix but none of them really worked. In the developer’s efforts to keep adding more, more and even more side fluff for the player to do, it seemed they lost sight of what the core game should be, and that’s a criticism I’ll be raising again with AC 3. Brotherhood was immediately followed with Revelations, but by this time I’d largely lost interest in the series so I didn’t bother with it. Spin on to now and AC 3 was on sale so I thought, why not give it a shot? So let’s begin, shall we?

Assassin’s Creed 3 features a rather lengthy prologue and series of tutorial missions which can last around 8-10 hours. The prologue puts you in control of a man called Kenway (the main protagonist’s father) beginning in London before relocating to the American Colonies. Through a series of short, linear missions you’ll learn the basics. This leads onto control of Connor himself, the real protagonist, and his early years learning to hunt in the forest, followed by his teen years which lead up to him pulling on the swanky Assassin Order garb.

On one hand, I find it quite admirable that the developers wanted the player to take their time to immerse themselves in the setting, story and characters. However, the execution to this approach is somewhat flawed, as the game initially feels disjointed, the action sometimes leaping forward several months or even years. As a result, the missions feel disconnected from one to the next, and to make matters worse, many are cut scene heavy, regularly wrestling control away from the player. Plus, because they are still technically ‘tutorial’ missions, they often force the player onto a specific path, or set of actions. And then there’s all the ‘memory boundaries’ limiting your freedom of movement and approach.

This can result in the game growing rather frustrating, not to mention irritating, and I can understand why people would start to lose interest. However, stick with AC 3 and the game does begin to open up as the sandbox slowly comes alive. Set during the time of the American Revolution, you’ll visit two cities, Boston and New York, both quite stunningly detailed. It’s clear a great deal of effort has gone into recreating these cities in a way that is historically authentic, yet also complements the gameplay.

These cities really do feel alive, with lots of nice little touches and animations on the bustling streets. In addition to these locations, you also have the large Frontier environment which features a couple of smaller settlements and some forts, but is mostly comprised of wilderness to explore and hunt. But we also have the Homestead, which I’ll talk more about later.

So as I said, it certainly takes its time, but AC 3 finally begins to let you in, to trust you to take control and get out there into the world. I get that they wanted to direct us through this early content, but as hand holding goes, this is way overkill, and sadly it’s a problem that crops up again frequently throughout the game.

Once you do get to take full control though you’ll have plenty to keep you busy. In addition to the core missions you have dozens of side activities. The best of these are the Naval Missions, which I’ll touch more upon later, but you also have a variety of other side missions such as courier and assassination jobs, as well as a series of challenges to complete relating to hunting, fighting and exploration. And of course, collectibles! Lots and lots of collectibles!

But that’s not all. You also have the Homestead to manage and missions to complete which allow you to build a thriving community. You can then purchase raw materials to craft new items to trade for profit. In itself, the Homestead is like a mini-game, and quite satisfying to see build up over the course of the story, although it has to be said that the crafting/trading element is rather pointless (not to mention having a horrible menu system) and overall, I didn’t feel as connected to the Homestead as say, the town in AC 2. And this is again due in part to the leaps in time the game makes at regular intervals.

So certainly there’s no shortage of content, but is it quality content? Well, yes and no. Mostly no, sadly. Although numerous, the side content is largely basic, shallow and repetitive, and this is where I bring up the point I made earlier, about the developer trying to cram so much fluff in that they lose sight of the core game. And this game is called Assassin’s Creed 3. Assassin. Except there’s very little assassinating going on.

The core missions guide you (quite literally by the hand at times) through some key moments of the American Revolution, putting you face to face with some famous historical figures. And whilst these moments may be interesting to experience from the historical point of view, gameplay wise it’s another matter entirely. Some, honestly, are just plain boring to play.

As I saw it, the AC games were about a story taking place within a particular historical setting. In AC 3, however, the setting and the story are essentially one and the same. The Revolution isn’t simply the backdrop to Connor’s story – it’s the focus. And whilst that’s fine to do, it leaves Connor and his personal quest feeling rather irrelevant, as the game leaps from one key event to the next and Connor is simply along for the ride. And yeah, very few of these missions involve, you know, assassinating someone.

I mean, it’s fun and all throwing tea into Boston Harbour, but why the hell does an entire mission revolve around it? Because it pisses off a guy Connor wanted to kill? No, this mission exists, like so many other core missions, to put Connor at the heart of a key event in the revolution, even if it doesn’t really make sense for him to be involved, or much more importantly - is actually interesting to play. This can be incredibly frustrating, especially when, as in the lengthy opening, missions are punctuated with frequent cut scenes and insultingly stupid hand holding. Press X to Throw Tea.

To use the tea mission as an example, there’s no reason this event couldn’t have featured in the game, but why not use it as a backdrop? Why not send Connor to assassinate his target, using the tea dumping as a distraction? You can keep the historical backdrop without losing focus on what this game’s primary missions should really revolve around – assassinating people. I know, I know, crazy idea right?

I’m all for mission variety, but many core missions in AC 3 are so simplistic and easy, and there’s simply not enough assassinations, as ridiculous as that sounds. Many just feel like a chore to slog through, and they aren’t even very long if you cut out all the cinematic interruptions. And even worse, many of them limit player freedom and creativity so people don’t accidentally ‘break’ the story.

One example that bothered me was hunting down a man Connor intended to kill. After a lengthy chase through the streets, I closed on my target and struck...only to ‘fail’ the mission because I wasn’t supposed to kill him yet within the story. Oh. This pissed me off so much I had to quit the game for a bit.

So yeah, the core missions of AC 3, although certainly interesting from the historical perspective, just aren’t very interesting from a gameplay standpoint at all. Some do fair better than others, but overall, it’s rather disappointing stuff.

Speaking of gameplay, AC 3 has streamlined the free running aspect into pretty much just holding down right trigger and pointing in the general direction you want to go. I don’t actually mind this too much, as a more complex system would result in less fluid movement, and that movement through the environments is what makes AC 3 so fast and enjoyable, especially the new natural environments. More complexity would result in more frustration, and this is one time when I’d agree that making it more simple is for the best.

But then we have the combat. Oh. Okay, so I can’t deny that the combat is also fast, fluid and great fun to watch. Watch, yes, because it’s largely an automated affair. The animations are top notch, but you have very little control over anything. They’ve actually make it feel even easier than I remember Brotherhood being. Forget stealth or subtlety, it’s just not worth your time, and the game doesn’t exactly lend itself to that play style anyway (although to be fair, none of the AC games handled stealth well) Need to capture a fort full of soldiers? Just walk in the front door, you’ll be fine!

A group of enemies should be threatening, but in AC 3, groups are easy to chain kill with just a few taps of the X button. Counter an initial strike, and you can chain your way through an entire squad or two (B then X). It looks pretty, but that’s about it. They do try to mix it up with a couple of different enemy types who require slightly different tactics (B then A!), but that’s about as complex as it gets.

Compared to a game like say, Arkham City, which although also a little easy in terms of combat, at least really mixed in a variety of enemy types that required the player to be creative with gadgets and tactics. I guess there will always be a tricky balance between ‘cinematic’ combat, and more complex, challenging combat, but AC 3 veers way too far in the ‘cinematic’ direction.

The last major criticism of the game is unfortunately related to technical aspects. AC 3 suffers from quite a few bugs and glitches. These can range from the amusing – npcs popping in and out of existence around you, and ‘dead’ men yelling at you from the ground to give two examples – to the annoying, such as certain events not triggering in missions, forcing you to reload the last checkpoint as you’re left unable to progress.

The most infuriating bugs, however, are the ones that cause some of the side missions to fail to appear or properly complete, which means if you’re aiming for 100% synchronisation, think again. (In particular I found the Delivery Requests very glitchy, and I also had some problems with the liberation missions too, but fortunately I got them all to trigger)

Okay, now for something more positive – the Naval Missions. A number of side quests involve taking to the seas, controlling your ship and blowing shit up. They’re a little short and basic, but a hell of a lot of fun and thoroughly entertaining. An entire game focused around these elements, with more depth, boarding actions, exploring the sea, engaging in battles, going to mysterious islands and...hold on, maybe I will give AC 4 a look after all!

So what else haven’t I touched upon? Well, the assassin recruits return which is a rather pointless feature, but it’s, you know, there, I guess. Oh and you also have the Desmond sections, in which you get to stretch your legs in the present for a bit, but these are mostly short, silly interludes and largely forgettable. Kenway is a magnificent bastard and actually far more interesting than Connor, funnily enough.

Although animations are generally great, facial animations can be a little static and creepy. Switching out weapons and gear can also be a bit cumbersome. Oh, and the final run of missions are so incredibly lame and may as well have just been a series of cinematics for all the player control they offer. In fact, the entire ending feels totally rushed and just left me in a ‘what the f**k, that’s it?’ state, followed by what may be the longest unskippable credits sequence in history. Seriously, don’t do that.

Overall, Assassin’s Creed 3 was a frustrating, irritating, tedious, yet also sporadically quite enjoyable, content packed experience. It’s just a shame that more of that content isn’t more focused or in depth, and that the experience is spoiled by some irritating bugs and glitches, not to mention the extremely lacklustre core missions and excessive hand holding. But there is good stuff in here, as long as you’re willing to overlook the rough patches and slog your way through the more dull stuff. To end on a slightly more positive note, AC 3 at least rekindled my interest in the franchise, so that’s better than nothing.

5/10