"Nothing is true, everything is permitted"
Game: Assassin's Creed Revelations
Developer: Ubisoft
Rating: Mature
Platforms: Xbox 360 & Ps3
MSRP: 49.99
The Assassin's creed series is nearing it's end. Earlier this week the final chapter, Assassin's creed III was announced bringing to end a saga that has taken many games to unfold. With that in mind, I've decided to review the latest entry in the series, Assassin's Creed Revelations. We will see if this is a gem of gaming or a series that is best left forgotten.
Story
The story of Assassin's creed is one that began simple with a complex story, overtime it has become convoluded and to be honest very confusing. If one hasn't played the Assassin's creed story before you may not understand whats going on for the first hour or so. Every game begins with a narrative that catches you up to speed but in Revelations it is done so sloppily that most probably still won't understand why they should care about certain things.
Here is the story of Assassins Creed, its in the near not too distant future and scientist have discovered theres no such thing as instincts, essentially your ancestors memories are planted within you. Going on these scientists have created a machine that allow people to relive the lives of their ancestors in their mind, a machine called an animus. However there are a group of people, Templars who are secretly at war with another group, Assassins. And the assassins have something the Templars desperately want, so they kidnap a man named Desmond and force him to relive his ancestors memory to find out where that thing is. There, simple and done.
Through the course of the games Desmond lives the life of two of his ancestors, Altair and Ezio Auditore. (Altair being only in the first game and Ezio being in the next two)This game essentially serves as a knot tie of the plot to show you what finally happened to both of them after their perspective games had finished. Desmond in this game lives the life of an old and aging Ezio Auditore as he ironically tries to find out information on their ancestor Altair. It is a quest for knowledge with violence and gore in between.
The game then allows characters to switch between controlling Altair and Ezio in flashbacks which unfold more of the story as you play on. But, I can't help but shake the feeling that this game is essentially a fan service. The story that unfolds with most of the characters begins interesting, but then becomes boring overtime. And at halfway through I stopped caring.
Grade:: C
Gameplay
All of the Assassin's Creed games play the same. It is an open world map of an area and the assassins uses parkour to get to where he needs to. Missions are laid out over the map in markers that the player must walk into to trigger them. From there on, there is alot to do in the game. Ezio can buy and renovate shops, help the townspeople with random troubles, and do activities to weaken the Templar population. These are all really simple and yet time consuming activities, so for the most part this game acts as a sort of time sink. Much like farmville and other facebook games, activities take times and serve no greater purpose than just to do them. Do you need to help people to advance the plot? Or take over Templar Headquarters to beat the game? No, but it's just something the game invites you to do.
Throughout the games the equipment has always been pretty standard. Ezio is equipped with two hidden blades, a sword, a knife and a secret gun. This game hopes to spice things up and offers a new weapon called a hookblade. This weapon allows Ezio to zipline down conveniently placed strings to travel faster. There is also the addition of bombs used to distract opponents. The problem with these two items is that they don't really add anything. The arsenal Ezio has built over the last games are more effective than the bombs the game keeps telling you to make.And the hookblade, while cool for the first couple of minutes isn't really necessary in the grand scheme of the game. So the two biggest concepts the game brags about falls short.
And yet there is something fun about running across rooftops to assassinate someone from behind. But that is something you can do in the other games so why should I pay so much to do it again.
Do a mission. Kill a guy. Repeat. That's the "Assassin's Creed" game arc and unfortunately it hasn't changed at all.
Grade: B-
Graphics and Sound
There is something both beautiful and off about this entry in the series. While it is obvious they spent a lot of time working on details of the face, the environment seems odd. Like it's always in a fog for some reason.And given that its an open world game the environment is everything. The game itself is also eeirely quite unlike past entries in the series. The music when it does play does little to stand out, worse so when compared to "Assassins Creed II" which has one of the most beautiful orchestral scores in a game to date.
Honestly I don't have much to say beyond that. It is not quite bad, just a dissapointment given where the series is coming from.
Grade: C-
Verdict
Assassin's creed revelations is a fan tax. The game does not show as much effort as prior entries in the series do and seems to stretch thin as much of the games plot as it can. While I will always be a fan of this series I can't help but feel ripped off by this entry.
Final Grade: C
Is it worth your money: If you own the last entries in the series you might as well. But if your'e new to the series skip it and begin with either the 1st or 2nd entry in the series. Id say 9.99 is a good asking price for this game.
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