When Assassin’s Creed III was announced to take place in the American Revolution, there was a lot of excitement and concern about the direction the series could. The excitement being centered around, of course, that American History would be the focal point. The concern would be how much will the game sacrifice from the Assassin’s Creed series mechanics to make it functional and proper. While I can tell you that there were no sacrifices made, with the exception of all the bad mechanics introduced in Revelations, last year’s entry, the game re-introduces a lot of the negative elements from the first game to make you wonder if the Assassin’s Creed series has been good or bad for the most part.
The first thing you’ll notice about Assassin’s Creed III is the amazing atmosphere and visual presentation. It has just the right amount of detail to not look like it’s going overboard on realism while keeping itself in line with the rest of the series’ art design. It’s a testament to the new engine that has been created for this game that such fidelity was achieved. But with a new engine comes problems, as framerate drops and screen tearing are somewhat prominent. The game ranges between 15 and 60 fps, although it hangs around 30 for most of the game. The game is also incredibly buggy, akin to the original Assassin’s Creed. Sometimes the game will force you to reload checkpoints because something didn’t trigger. It’s ultimately frustrating to see the game have these bugs because they do ruin the experience. While you may be reliving history through a computer in a video game that they say ‘this is kind of buggy, don’t worry about it,’ you do end up worrying about it since it presents itself time and again. It’s also more prominent because of the slower than usual pacing.
Combat has never been a strong suit of Assassin’s Creed, and this game follows that trend in spades. While the combat is easier than ever before, it is also extremely slow and obnoxious at times. You’ll be waiting a lot longer to counter enemies, which in some cases is the only way to kill enemies. It really drives home the game’s slow, tedious nature that is seen in other areas of the game. There’s too much build up without enough payoff to keep you motivated for very long unless you are an absolute diehard fan of the series. The game’s tutorial takes 5-6 hours to get going, but it takes about that same length for the game to reach its’ proper conclusion. It feels as though something major was cut along the way, but I can’t put my finger on it. While the game has plenty of side missions and the usual Assassin’s Creed fare, the areas created by the end are still unfamiliar to you, which is a shame since the other Assassin’s Creed games made sure you knew where everything was by day’s end. The only outright shining example of excellence in this game is the ship combat, which is both simple and complex to make sure anyone can enjoy it thoroughly. But that’s just a small portion of the game, but there are still gripes that make up the same portion, if not more of the game.
Chases sequences are a prime example of this. They are terribly designed, and some can go on forever if you don’t know what you’re doing. This really drives home the point that the game doesn’t properly convey things to you. It feels like a game manual would help with these grievances but some publishers have done away with them to save money, even though developers act like they’re still there. If you fail some of these missions, I hope you didn’t waste any items along the way, because you won’t regain them if you reload a checkpoint. It’s appalling that this type of punishment exists in a game like this, and it makes you feel helpless and demoralized to know your one good weapon is gone forever because of a simple failure or glitch. And that’s really what Assassin’s Creed III feels like, a glitch; something that shouldn’t exist because of its’ series history.
While Assassin’s Creed III has a lot going for it, but the expansive nature about it makes it feel unfocused and unpolished. It feels like the series’ yearly iterative cycle has finally caught up with like Revelations was alluding to last year. Instead of falling on the side of 2 and Brotherhood, 3 fell on the side of bad with the original and Revelations. Assassin’s Creed III may delight some fans, but it will disgust and bore the majority of them, just like so many saw it before the series’ inception.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
+ Great Atmosphere
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Haythem Kenway, that dapper fiend
- Extremely Glitchy
- Too much like Forest Gump, where Connor is everywhere, doing everything
- The story has a terrible ending
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