Assassin's Creed III is more combat-focussed than previous games in the series there's a lot less leaping around ruined buildings and much more stalking and killing, of man and beast both.Multiplayer is an unexpected pleasure, placing the finely honed running-and-killing mechanics of the single-player game into an inventive and surprisingly cerebral new context. But trying to remain hidden is much more satisfying than just causing a giant brawl – staying incognito during assassination missions is extremely challenging, usually for the right reasons. The game is often at its best outside of the story, when it leaves you to enjoy and inhabit its world.Ĭombat is still a fairly simplistic parry-and-counter system, but it's made much more exciting by some excellently gruesome kill animations and a big selection of weapons – although, weirdly, you have to visit a shop or the homestead mansion to swap out your swords, axes, tomahawks or clubs. There will doubtless be a lot of discussion around this after the game makes its way into players’ hands, but what it really comes down to is that Connor often feels more like an errand boy than a freedom fighter within the missions, Assassin’s Creed III can feel very scripted and dictatorial, fettering you with rigid objectives and punishing you harshly when you step outside their boundaries – chase sequences are particularly infuriating on this front. It’s impossible to discuss exactly why this is without spoiling something of the game’s plot - which you definitely don’t want, as there are some great moments here. Connor isn't as straightforwardly charming as Assassin's Creed II's Ezio, and although writing is excellent for the most part, you never warm to Assassin’s Creed III’s heroes nor grow to resent its villains in quite the same way. He finds himself fighting on the side of the Patriots for most of the game, but because he has enemies on both sides, his motivations for doing so has little to do with their battle for independence from the British crown. Connor's path often intersects with key moments in the American Revolution, putting him in the middle of the Battle of Bunker Hill for one spectacular mission. It attempts an astonishing amount, and doesn’t always succeed.Īssassin's Creed III follows hot-tempered Native American assassin Connor for almost his entire life, starting as a tree-climbing kid and growing from troubled young man to vengeful adult – but without wanting to spoil anything, he's not the only character you'll play. But perhaps because Assassin's Creed III is so huge, it can be pretty inconsistent. There is a vast amount of content in this game, from liberating Boston and New York to building up a homestead on the frontier to sailing the high seas to just enjoying the outdoors and hunting wildlife. It’s all about enjoying the freedom of movement the game affords you and immersing yourself in its world, as well as setting up the set-piece assassinations that form the climax of each chapter.Where the storyline missions usually follow a pattern of gathering information, stalking and eventually killing a high-profile target (with the odd naval mission or large-scale battle thrown in for variety), outside of that you're free to do whatever you want: hunt for trinkets, clamber over the rooftops of New York in search of almanac pages, or pick fights with the Redcoats on behalf of the populace. It turns a fascinating section of history into a vast open-world playground, letting you conquer the rooftops, stalk the forests and sail the seas of revolutionary America and authoring a main storyline that puts you in the middle of some of the most important events of the period, like a fly on the wall of history. You’ve always been on the outside looking in.Not so with Assassin’s Creed III, which hauls the series across the ocean into a new setting that’s absolutely bursting with things to do. Assassin’s Creed games are easy to admire, but you often feel a bit distanced from them, too, held back from inhabiting these worlds as fully as you’d like to. It’s a snapshot that shows off a lot of what makes these games special – their incredible attention to detail, breath-taking verticality, fascinating architecture, unique historical settings - but it also represents their limitations. If there’s one image that encapsulates the Assassin’s Creed series, it’s that of a hooded figure balancing atop some skyscraping parapet, looking down into the city below.
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