PixlBit

Hello all,

As many of you who follow me and my exploits, you may have notice that I love the universe of Assassin's Creed. I think Ubisoft has done an incredible job recreating environments and incorporating history lessons into the game. I've decided-instead of an individual game review-to review the world of Assassin's Creed as a whole, with points about each game within. If you'll bear with me...

First off, I find the whole world amazing. I've always been fascinated by assassins...the secrets and the skills that they possess just always pull me in. I also just happen to love video games, and when I learned that they combined the two, I was so excited. I hoped to get it for my birthday, and then I hoped for it for Christmas. FINALLY, my dad got it for his birthday, and he let me play it. I immediately loved it. I was so excited that I got to travel back in time to a different culture and become an assassin. It was amazing. I had my favorite weapon equipped, I took the Creed to heart, and I perfected everything. I think I might have replayed the game 8 times. The scientific experiment that Desmond was a part of also held my interest, as it allowed a nice break from the intense life of the assassin. The characters were also entertaining-starting with the second installment. Desmond finally got to interact with other people, and I was happy to discover they were members of the assassin order as well. The characters and their personalities progressed over the course of the series, for the better (in my opinion).

Unfortunately the main problem with the game, if I'm being unbiased, stepping back, and really examining Assassin's Creed, it is so repetitive. There's very low replay value, simply because after your first run through, there isn't a lot to explore. The four cities you have to explore don't have all the nooks and alleys that you have at your disposal in Assassin's Creed II. You have to go to three main cities over and over to complete the assassinations that Al-Mualim assigns to you (all for personal gain, I might add). I don't know if I have good intuitions, either, but Al-Mualim being the baddie kind of seemed inevitable to me. I expected it. The mixed messages from my victims helped that. It actually made me think about people and human nature, and about how the lust for power is sometimes just too great.

So, Assassin's Creed II is announced, and I am so excited! The first game left me with a lot questions about the Animus and previous subject, and what Abstergo might have been trying to accomplish. Now we are in Italy during the Renaissance Period, and oh my goodness. This is MY game. It feels like it was designed for me. First off, I am just in love with the time period, but I get to explore that time period in Florence, Venice, Rome, Montenegro...how wonderful. The cities are beautifully designed, with secret passageways, and lost love, and a headstrong hotshot. Ezio Auditore de Firenze is my favorite assassin out of the three that have been introduced so far. I love his character. He is deadly and serious when need be, but he very clearly has a good heart and is helpful to those he loves. This was, in my opinion, the BEST installment of Assassin's Creed, and I loved the new mini side missions that you were now able to do. And I built up my homestead—it was a lot of money invested into that, but I got it built up completely. Ezio's story also allowed me to feel some type of emotional connection to the character. He has been through tragedy, and continues to experience this throughout his life. He really tries to be strong for his remaining family, and he is kind to everyone he meets (unless you're marked for death, or you are a thug). Going through the second Assassin's Creed game, along with Brotherhood and Revelations, I thought these were the best ones. I know a lot of people didn't like Revelations, but I thought it was a nice ending to Ezio's story and his legacy. There were finally answers to (almost) all of my questions. I enjoyed Ezio's trilogy, and I have probably played that the most.

 

So, here's my problem with Assassin's Creed III. First off, let me just say that I have finished every Assassin's Creed game in 2 days, max. It took me...3-4 months to finish the third game. I do not like it, AT ALL. When the game was first announced, I really was excited about it. It was the next installment, it was a new time period, with a brand new assassin. I was little skeptical when I read that you would be an assassin during the Revolution, since it seemed odd to have an assassin accompanying George Washington, nonetheless a Native American joining the troops, but still, I had high hopes. I was so excited to play this game! New weapons, it promised to be more open-world than previous games and so I hoped for an amazing game. Well, for starters, the beginning was so long. It took forever for anything to happen, and then all of a sudden, you were a young adult about to embark on some great journey you learned about through technology you don't understand yet-for all intents and purposes, it could be witchcraft-and you just go along with it? That seems a bit questionable. But, whatever, on to the game. I really liked the fighting. Free flow combat is always a good thing, and it was definitely more improved by this game. Even the parts where you left the animus were slightly interesting-it was fun to actually do something as Desmond this time, and I got to learn more about the history of the First Civilization. But the parts where you played as Connor...just weren't that great, in my opinion. First of all, there weren't very many things for you to do, as an assassin. You mostly just ran messages, commanded some troops, and took Paul Revere to his destinations. There were some missions where you had to do some investigating, but not a whole lot of assassinating. Any time you killed someone important, it was really just in a face-to-face battle. It was pretty boring actually. I just had to finish the game so it was over. I finished the others, I needed to complete this one as well. THE ENDING made me so upset. I was so angry. I spent the whole game, and actually, Connor's whole life, chasing down one guy in particular. ONE GUY. So I finally get there, I finally hit the last mission, and I get to take this man down. This man that has been the bane of my existence. We have a chase scene, that ends with us both injured, and he escapes. So I go to the last mission location, and trigger the start. It then turns into a cutscene. I will tell you what I expected: a heated conversation, the gauntlet is tossed, and we duel. There are obviously no secret assassinations to be done, so a proper duel then, by blade. I was ready. Well, that just wasn't the case. If you've played this, I sincerely hope you share my ire. I killed the man in a bloody cutscene. This is actually how it happened. Cutscene starts, I walk up to the tavern where Lee is. Slowly, I might add, because of my earlier injury. So I push through, and then I enter to find Lee sitting at a corner table, all bloody and tired. Sitting down at the table, we both stare angrily at each other, exchange a few words, and then Connor leans across the table (slowly, once again) and kind of plunge my dagger into Lee's side, thus killing him and beating the game. Woo. That did not evoke any sense of accomplishment in me. It was so anti-climactic. This whole end of the game happened in a cutscene. I didn't have to press a single button. I was so disappointed.

I didn't like the third game, but that was only one foul-up for me personally. I know other people will, of course, have different opinions, but for me, it was the worst one.

However, I have hopes about Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. I really am excited about the prospect of pirates. I absolutely love pirates. So, to have a pirate assassin is very exciting for me. The more I read about the game, the more excited I get. I'm also very happy they chose to replace Connor Kenway. He was not a good character. He was angry, arrogant, selfish, and abrasive. Even Altair had some redeeming qualities, even though he though he was just fantastic (He was, but he thought he was so cool sometimes. He had to res-discover himself). I am praying that Edward, Connor's grandfather, is a lot more likeable than grandson, or even his son for that matter. So far, the game seems promising-I like the idea of being able to act like a real pirate, with pillaging and plundering and commandeering ships for my crew. The naval combat will be implemented once again, and you'll actually be able to explore the depths of the ocean (!!!). Of course, my favorite part of these games will play a big part once again: the history. I honestly love the lessons I get with each game, along with commentary from the modern day assassins. The modern day parts of this also seem interesting, as you will actually be a sort of mercenary for Abstergo, since Desmond is no more.

Hopefully, it will all be great. Hopefully, we don't deal with the First Civ anymore-it got convoluted and way too involved for a side story. It was kind of cool, but I feel like too much happened too quickly.

 

Fingers crossed.