In short
Assassin’s Creed III wonderfully delves into American history and takes us on the journey of Connor, our new English/ Native American protagonist and the key characters surrounding his story. Connor, born a hero, is on a chosen path that crosses that of the Templars.
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Distributor: Megarom Interactive
For fans of: The series, Story-driven adventures
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Also available on: Playstation 3, PC
If we had to give it a numerical score: 8/10
What we loved
- Connor’s rich story
- The narrative
- Gaming world
- Running through the trees
- New weapons
Not so much
- Graphical shortcomings
- Slow starter
- Clumsy gameplay here and there
Gameplay and Features
More than any title in the series before it, Assassin’s Creed III introduces players to quite a bit on new gameplay elements. Fans of the series will find all the new elements familiar, as the new elements use the same simple but effective mechanics.
When it was announced that the game would take place in America of old, I was a little concerned about the level design, as it wasn’t going cramped up European towns. It was to feature the wide-open flat America. The buildings are pretty flat, but the double-story buildings still make for a worthy playground. When you are not in the famous towns, the wilderness makes for an even better playground, and came as a bit of a surprise, just how much fun the American wilderness was to be.
Among the newest and headlining new gameplay element, is my favourite new parkour ability of free-running across and climbing up trees, scaling across a forest without touching the ground. To make this easier, the developers made the free-running mechanic more simple – you now only need to hold in the RT button to run freely, whereas before you needed to hold down A together with RT. You climb higher up into the trees when you get to a V in the tree, then you hold down a face-button to climb higher. I cannot stress how much fun I had running across forests amongst the trees.
Hunting makes its debut in the series, for which you are equipped with traps, a cross-bow and an axe. An axe you ask? You can perform stunning attacks from the air or ground, axing your prey or your foe for that matter. These new elements all compliment Conner’s half native-Indian heritage. To help with the hunting, and with Indians being in tune with nature, you can pick up scents of animals to look for hot-spots to set up traps or lure your prey. You are also equipped with a Bow to shoot the prey that you can’t get to quick enough on foot. The hunting, whilst starting off as fun, eventually gets a little tedious.
Naval warfare played a big role in the American Revolution, and so you will need to captain a ship in some missions. You will battle other ships at sea and battle the natural elements, with the dynamic weather system making for quite the challenge. Other ships will attack yours and so you need to both defend and attack. Besides the missions that directly pertain to the main narrative, there are some side-missions at sea, but not many. If I can classify the naval portion of the game as a ‘mini-game’, then I certainly found it more enjoyable than the offerings in the previous titles in the series. This aspect of the game was well done, and works beautifully rather than feeling forced. I loved this portion of the game, but unfortunately couldn’t get enough. I am hoping for some more Naval warfare in the form of DLC missions.
An improved multiplayer mode will extend your time with Assassin’s Creed III, but for me, honestly, I’m not exactly going to clear my Halo or Black Ops 2 schedule in future for this. It is fun, and definitely has substance to it, but I am very much a sport, shooter or racing fan when it comes to online. This would fit into “fun every now and then” category with me. The multiplayer mode is modelled around a sort of Animus training programme. There’s a nice variety of modes to choose from; form assassinating pre-determined targets, where players compete for better grades; to team based capture the flag offering. Players are graded on various aspects from how stealthily they approached the activity to time constraints.
With the abundance of new gameplay features, Assassin’s Creed III is the most comprehensive in the series, and for me the most satisfying. The gameplay as a whole is generally smooth, with a few hic-cups here and there. If you have found love with the previous titles, you will probably enjoy this one more. I love and have always loved the mechanics’ design with the series – the most simple of inputs delivers visually-pleasing results, and more so with this one.
Sound and Visuals
I am so hesitant to give away too much of the plot as it was most of what kept me so engages Assassin’s Creed III’s narrative is extremely interesting, more so than any other games in the series for me. The narrative drops twists and drama at strategic points in the game, unfolding slowly, and keeping you intrigued. While I loved the new gameplay elements, the mechanics did feel familiar, so it was the narrative that won me over with this one more than any before it. And it really needed to as this one was such a slow starter. For quite a few hours, the game is a very linear experience. I happened to know it would be, as Ubisoft explained that it was in order to introduce the characters and the narrative, but the first few hours really dragged on.
A new game-engine was used to create America and Assassin’s Creed III, and this is somewhat evident. While America looks gorgeous, featuring dynamic weather, intensely detailed terrains, and good textures and so on – the visuals are far from perfect. The games in the series before it used the same engine, so visual flaws in the latter games were far and few between. Unfortunately hardly a few hours would go by without me noticing some visual imperfection. While riding a horse, your coat always seems to be penetrating the horse’s torso, not resting naturally on the torso. There’s quite a bit of objects overlapping others throughout the game and it was not uncommon to stick a limp into an object (wall, rocks etc.). There’s some cinematic inconsistencies, some frame just flashing from one frame to the next, and being such a large gaming world, I can forgive the often slow-loading graphics. Be it because the game’s world is so vast, or because the game needed more time, the engine might not be quite there yet, the visuals are far from perfect. Like I said though, America looks gorgeous and fans of the series will know that the animations are just about flawless – characters flow through terrains in an exciting and natural-looking manner.
As is also common with the series, the voice-acting and dialogue is of the highest quality. I particularly enjoyed the native Indian dialect, but the combination of the various British accents, from Scottish to Irish, was also a treat. The script was carefully crafted and the dialogue quality really elevates the narrative, more so than the previous instalments for me. I was completely taken with the narrative from the word go and never bored with the story, which is something I have experienced with previous titles in the series.
Closing Comments
I have always respected the Assassin’s Creed series, and have always looked forward to new instalments. I’ve always loved the simplistic but rewarding gameplay the series offers, and the stories have generally captured my interest, but I have always struggled to maintain the motivation to finish the games through the series. I generally get well into them, but eventually end up going through the motions, resulting in taking a break and coming back to them. Not with this one, I look forward to the next sit-down and driving the narrative on.
Be the brilliant manner in how the narrative was written, delivering highs at key points into the game, or be it the welcome new gameplay elements – I was completely absorbed and taken by Connor’s story, the Templars’ story and how the script interlinked it with American history and historic figures. Visual imperfections regularly arose, and while the new gameplay elements were wonderful, they were not without fault. But nothing I could report was enough put me off. Assassin’s Creed III only looses marks with me with the production quality, but it was and is still by far the most satisfying titles in the series for me – an adventure that will surely charm most.
Zombiegamer rating:
[Author’s note]
It’s games like these that our Zombiegamer rating system makes more sense to me. While I cannot scientifically, technically or numerically give it the highest value – as the game is technically flawed. My gut feeling is to highly recommend it!
Read about our ratings here.
