Good way to continue your Brotherhood experience!
AC3 is a continuation of the story of Desmond, the Assassin's, and the Animus. The story mode is continuing the ancestral history of Desmond. While I haven't made it too far in the story mode yet, so far I have really enjoyed it. Haythem is a very different and very cool character. I found the opening sequence with Haythem in the opera house to be extremely cool and well done. There is a twist that was completely unexpected, although it made so much sense in retrospect. I've now just begun the story of Haythem's half Indian son, who is Connor, the hero of the rest of the story.
I was most excited about the multiplayer version of the game, as it is what I've spent most of my time on in AC Brotherhood and Revelations. The new characters are very well done, and the different outfits and facial characteristics you can give them is definitely an improvement from the past. You can now have 3 abilities instead of two, including a ranged weapon. I was disappointed, however, to realize this meant I could not have a profile that used both gun and knife, as I like to use for defense in Artifact Assault. They have kept Deathmatch, my favorite multiplayer game mode, but I was very disappointed to find that they did away with Chest Capture, my favorite team mode game in the multiplayer. My biggest disappointment in the AC3 multiplayer is that the "autolocking", as I call it, which was so much improved in AC Revelations, is back to being just as bad as it was in AC Brotherhood. This is when you approach a group that your target is in, point towards him without locking on, and press square for the kill. AC Revelations made a HUGE improvement on actually killing the one you intended to kill. But now with AC3, it makes me kill a civilian as often as not, just like it did in Brotherhood. I'm at a loss for they would have decided that making that part worse again would be an improvement. While the graphics are very cool, there is something about it that seems not as clean and clear as Revelations. I have a harder time spotting my target. Good game, but once again it seems that the Assassin's Creed industry has made a new multiplayer without listening to the wishes for improvements from their fans. It seems they're just going to do whatever they feel like. I'm not sure what the point is of now using the square button for everything, both killing and stunning, rather than square for killing and circle for stunning as it was in the past. I sort of get why they might have done it - this way you have to actually figure out who your pursuer is rather than just seeing a big circle over his head when you get close. But for those of us who will be going back and forth between the different games, it sure screws me up a lot. It just seems like a silly and useless change. Oh, I also feel there should be a much better variety of maps. I've always wished for more indoor maps since they did Castel Gandolpho in Brotherhood. The New York Brewery is pretty cool, but I've always hoped for something like a masquerade in a big mansion. So many of these maps seem to look very similar, as usual. I'll spend a lot of time playing this one, but once again I feel a little let down from what it seems like this game could be.Read full review
