Ok, so a while ago I wrote a review about Assassin's Creed 1 & 2, and I totally loved those two games. One more than the other because the first game had an issue where it was just too much repetition, but they were still both really good games. Well, the third game in the series was released this last Tuesday on November 16th.
I had reserved my copy of the game months ago, and I even went to the Midnight release for this game. I've never done that for any other game before, but I felt like I needed to have my copy as soon as possible. I didn't really do any good because by the time I got home I was soo tired that I went to sleep right away and I didn't get to actually play the game until late in the afternoon.
I had great anticipation for this game because I absolutely love the series, but I felt like they were kind of milking the series just for money. I had a feeling that they weren't going to put that much effort into the game and it was going to be half-asses. But thank God that I was completely wrong!
This game picks up right were the last game ended, so don't read this review if you havent passed the second game and you don't want to read spoilers.
At the end of the second game, you defeat the Pope and Ezio spared his life. He found a secret chamber below the Vatican and a lady named Minerva made of light appeared before Ezio. She told him a cryptic message and then even mentioned Desmond Miles by name. If you remember, the game is set in the year 2012 and the a Brotherhood of assassin's are using a machine called the Animus that allows the user to relive the life's of his or her ancestors.
In the first game, Desmond found out about the life of his ancestor Altair back in the Crusades. Altair had to steal an artifact known as a Piece of Eden which his Master and the Templars wanted to use to control the world. Altair created a new group of assassins to protect the Piece of Eden and to combat the Templars that want nothing else than to control the world.
During the second game, Desmond finds out about another of his ancestors named Ezio during the renaissance. This the brotherhood had survived and spread from the original group that Altair started after the first game. But the Templars had also managed to survive and they hadn't forgotten their original goal. They conspired against Ezio's family and killed his father and his older and younger brothers. Only his mother and sister survived besides Ezio. He had to learn how to become an assassin since his father never passed down the teaching to him while at the same time he tried to avenge his families death.
The game ends with the player finding out about the emanate destruction of the world, unless several shrines can be activated to save the world. But before the assassins can find these hidden locations, they have to find the Piece of Eden that Ezio had. But to do that, Desmond has to go into the Animus and go further in the memory of Ezio.
When this new game starts, we see that Ezio goes home thinking that all is finished and all the Brotherhood has to do is figure out what the lady Minerva meant by her cryptic message of doom. But just as Ezio is getting comfortable being at home, they attack again destroying his uncles villa and even killing his uncle. Ezio gets injured during the attack and manages to get away only after making sure that he had saved as many people as possible, including his mother and his sister which is now the only family he has left.
Ezio manages to get to Rome and with the support of Niccolo Machiavelli tries to rebuild the now extinct brotherhood all over again. Ezio is now fighting the new forces that have taken over Rome and is trying to renovate the city that has been laid to waste by those same troops. It's up to Ezio to save troubled citizens and recruit them into the new brotherhood in hopes of taking down Cesare and his men.
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| Ezio |
I like this game because it really shows the passage of time, Ezio is no longer the young warrior of the first game. He spend years trying to avenge his family and now has to endure the passage of time. He is still agile and able to take care of himself, but has trouble doing somethings that before he could do without a problem. You can also see this with his friends, I'll show you the pictures of Leonardo da Vinci who appears in both games.
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| AC 2 |
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| AC B |
There is also introduction to new weapons that Leonardo has access to. In the last game, Ezio was able to use the poisoned blade, but thanks to Leonardo he can now use poison darts to kill his enemies from afar. He also get access to a crossbow and after you recruit your first assassin Ezio gets whats called the BAM, which is short for Brotherhood Assist Move.
When you need to kill someone far away or you just simply need help in battle, you can call your assassins and they will help you until you are no longer in danger. You are able to level up your assassins by sending them on missions around the country. But while they are away on their own missions, they can't help you so you need to plan accordingly to make sure you aren't left without help. As they level up, you can increase their defense and attack power as well as the weapons that they have access to.
But you need to be careful, because if they die while on a mission or while they help you in combat, you can't get them back. You have access to more people you can recruit, but if one of your high level assassins, it's a pain in the butt to level up another one. Make sure that you don't send them on missions that are to hard and help them fight. You have access to up to three summons, and if you use up all of them you have to wait for the cool down. You also have the option of using all three summons at once and use what's called the Arrow Storm which instead of assassin's showing up, arrows rain upon your enemies killing everyone around you.
One more feature that is new to this game is the ability to have online play. You can't play campaign online (which would've been cool in my opinion), but you are able to play against other players in several different competitions. For example, you are able to play on Wanted mode which is basically a free-for-all competition where you have to hunt down a player and kill him with out being noticed. This sounds easy, but its actually very challenging when there is many NPCs that look just like the players. You have some abilities that can help you in either killing your target or getting away from your pursuers. This is because as you kill your targets you go up in rank, but the higher your rank that more people are after you.
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| Some of the characters that you are able to play as online. |
You are also able to level up while you play online, and once you hit certain level you unlock new abilities and weapons that can help you in battle.
The graphics are stunning in this game, the only regret that I have is that I don't have a HD TV to fully appreciate all the hard work that the game creators put into making the game. Other than that, I absolutely love the game. I haven't had that much time to play, but I was able to beat the game today (11-21). The ending confused me and it leave us hanging, which makes sense because it sets it up for the next game.
I can't wait for the next game to come out, maybe in a year we'll finally see the end of this series. I still have a lot of stuff that I need to finish in order to unlock all the trophies and a lot of side missions to complete. I won't be as eager to play the game as I was before, but I think it still has a lot of replay value. If you are a fan of the series, I recommend that you pickup this game as soon as possible if you haven't already done so.
Thanks for reading.
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