Assassin's Creed Week: Assassin's Creed 3 Preview

Ubisoft are faced with a situation very similar to the one which confronted them when set about making Assassin's Creed 2: how do take a new assassin, coupled with a new setting, and grow the franchise?

By choosing the American Revolution Assassin's Creed has moved into the era that - to date - is the one most people will some knowledge of. With historical luminaries such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin providing gravitas and one in the most dynamic settings in human history there's a lot to be intrigued by.

But there is a problem too, namely this, to date the vast majority - if not all - of Assassin's Creed 3's marketing has featured our new hero, Connor Kenway (Ratohnake:ton by his Native American name), killing British troops, not once has he been seen slaying an American. Ubisoft have insisted that he does but they've yet to show; fueling fears that the game will be a case of 'America f@%k yeah!'. 

Even if it does come down to that there will be no impediment upon sales which should be suitably massive. Ubisoft are spending £4 million (€5.02 million) on advertising in the UK alone - their biggest ever marketing push which is up there with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield. 

And as with Assassin's Creed 2 there appears to be a major upgrade of both the core Anvil Engine and as well as the gameplay. We're assured the former has been rebuilt from the ground up. As for the letter with smaller cities and the broader streets in the colonial settlements trees - not to mention the abundant forests we've seen in the trailers - are fully climbable  As easily scale-able as any wall in a previous game. Indeed it seems like such an obvious feature one wonders way it hasn't been present before. 

Another aspect which has been introduced is the ability to enter buildings. Not merely those were designated missions happen but any you should choose to. 

Obviously the American Revolutionary War necessitates the inclusion of the major battles which occurred during the conflict and as the below trailer illustrates it certainly shouldn't be shy in that regard:

There were major battles in the previous entries in the series, particularly Brotherhood, but they were principally sieges and often set pieces. This is full-on open warfare. And there is a key difference this time round, everyone has guns. 

But what of Connor himself? Half British - Half American Indian he is a character who retains the quintessential assassin look while remaining appropriate for the era. Whether or not he will be as spirited and likable a character as Ezio remains to be seen though there is a significant imperative for Ubisoft in this regard who have admitted that he will only feature in future titles if he proves to be as popular as his Italian ancestor. 

Regardless Connor will be confronted by challenges his forebears never were, the naval battles revealed at Sony's E3 media briefing spring to mind.  

Assassin's Creed 3 launches a month from today. It is already the biggest game in Ubisoft's history, it also has the potential to be their best. If they can achieve all that they want to than gamers could be filling Connor's shoes for many years to come. 

Is there a threat that the game will be too one-sided? Yes but a great game is a great game & there's no way to know until it lands along with Vita title Liberation on October 30th. 

In the meantime here are two more trailers to whet your appetite:

My Leviathyn & NewGamerNation Posts This Week (Sep 24-30)

For NewGamerNation:

LittleBigPlanet PS Vita Review [link]

For Leviathyn:

Platinum On Japanese Dev 'Decline' And The Studio's Greatest Failure [link]
Kid Icarus Uprising Listed For Wii U [link]
Xbox Hiring For Next Forza [link]
Mass Effect Trilogy Announced, Original Finally Coming To PS3 [link]
343: There's "No Scope" For Kinect In Halo 4 [link]
Joe Danger: The Movie Coming To PS3 With Ten Hours Of Extra Content [link]

Assassin's Creed Week: Dissecting The Creed: Assassin's Creed Revelations (2011)

(Note: This feature was written as part of Assassin's Creed Week, previous entries on Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood are also available on the blog.) 

Assassin's Creed Revelations featured an older Ezio, now in his fifties the master assassin was in search - not of revenge - but of answers. And while age may not have tired him Revelations nonetheless felt tired. It's not a bad game by any means but it felt like a minor upgrade compared to the sweeping improvements between Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2.

Even Brotherhood had seemed more a jump forward for the series. Revelations brought two primary new elements to the series. Firstly the zip-line. Istanbul was at least as large as Brotherhood's Rome and more urbanised with the option of riding through the city removed players needed a new way to navigate the Gateway to the East. 

The zip-line was the solution, by replacing the right hidden blade with a hook Ezio was able to traverse the rooftops of the city almost a third faster than had previously been possible. 

The second addition was an extension of the Borgia tower dynamic introduced in Brotherhood. This time Byzantines (who replaced the infamous Italian family) could fight back and wrest control of an area you had previously captured. While not a bad idea on paper in practice gamers were forced to defend their towers in poorly implemented tower defence style mini-game.    

After the initial (compulsory) tutorial mission in this mode they became significantly harder (or at least I found them too). As soon as your tower fell, which it often did, you could simply recapture it again using the franchises traditional gameplay methods. 

The only way to permanently protect an Assassin's Den was to train a recruit to level 15 and station them permanently in a den. It was a rather clunky and time consuming endeavor which was quite out of touch with the rest of the game, and the series.

Another notable feature of Revelations was Ezio's ability to access the memories of Altair. Yet these sections were sadly underused as was the underground city of Cappadocia. 

Revelations had two legendary assassins.

Altair's memories, accessed through the Keys scattered throughout Constantinople and needed to access the Assassin's Vault in Masyaf. 

Yet the Medieval killer's memories were woefully neglected and could have had far greater scope or at the very least have lasted somewhat longer. Though this time around Altair had a more appropriate accent than the American twang he utilised throughout the first Assassin's Creed.  

Ultimately Revelations was about resolution and perhaps that would have been a more fitting title. It was the conclusion of Ezio and Altair's stories. It was story of Ezio finally finding love and settling down (though he temporarily returned to the fray in Assassin's Creed Embers, an animated short). 

While Desmond's story told through his collapsing mind in the Animus White Rooms were a commendable tribute to fans as we discovered more about both Subject 16 and Subject 17. The art style of this section of the game - modern and monolithic - was a notable standout and while the gameplay in these sections may have felt clunky at times Ubisoft told Desmond's tale in a way few games have tried before. 

And any game that tries to push the boundaries of storytelling in this medium are to be commended, even if they don't quite achieve what they set out to.  

Both the initial carriage race and the concluding one, as well as Ezio's very long tumble off a cliff seemed unnecessarily dramatic and unrealistic (even for a series where hay will save you from a height of any jump). But that's besides the point, there are two parts to Revelations: the story and the gameplay.

And while the latter has to take precedence the former did all that it set out to do - pave the way for a new era and a new assassin.

Assassin's Creed Week: Dissecting The Creed: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (2010)

(Note: This feature was written as part of Assassin's Creed Week, you can also read the first and second entry on Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2.)

Brotherhood was the first 'primary' entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise to see protagonist make a return (Altair had previously appeared in both Assassin's Creed Bloodlines and Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles). 

An older and wiser killer Ezio takes his war against the Templars and the Borgias to Rome. The Eternal City,  of which you only caught a brief glimpse at the conclusion of Assassin's Creed 2 became the biggest setting to date and marked a formidable area to traverse. 

Most notable perhaps about modern Italy's capital city is the dilapidated state Ezio found it to be in the early 16th Century with many of the ruins, the Coliseum for instance, being far removed from the city. Unlike today. The scale of both the ancient arena as well as other noted Roman landmarks (the Pantheon and Castel Sant'Angelo) both spring to mind) while embellished proved an enjoyable playground gamers.

The size of the city and its environs necessitated the addition of horses within the cosmopolitan area - previously players had to dismount in order to enter urban settings - as well as fast travel via the city's many tunnels. 

But the most notable addition was the Brotherhood itself. Ezio's ascension to Master Assassin brought with it the ability to recruit and train members of the fraternity. The capacity to macro-manage the fight against Templars by sending trainees off to far-flung locations marked a gentle addition of real time strategy elements while the capacity to unleash these assassins in combat often proved an alluring prospect though arguably made some confrontations too easy. 

Regardless this process of raising recruits through the ranks was accompanied by an even greater new gameplay component: multiplayer. 

Brotherhood marked the addition of multiplayer to the series. 

One of the more innovative takes on the genre this mode was complimented nicely by the fact that it fit - and made sense - within the Assassin's Creed universe. 

Though many were initially dubious by the announcement (compounded by the fact the game was released only a year after Assassin's Creed 2) it proved to be an effective new game type wherein Abstergo used the ancestral memories of Renaissance Templars to train their modern day counterparts in the same way that the Assassins were using Ezio's memories to train Desmond - though as with everything in Assassin's Creed they got more than they bargained for. 

This, in retrospect, was clearly the plan at least since Assassin's Creed 2 in which Desmond and Lucy pass through a room of Animii (the former asks what the plural for Animus is (I'm assuming that that's the spelling on Animii which is the correct form)) in Abstergo as they make their escape. 

Those who spent much of the Assassin's Creed 2 rebuilding Monteriggioni will no doubt have felt a little pang as the town was razed to ground at the start of Brotherhood but Ubisoft gave players a much bigger template - the city of Rome.

The ability to take on Borgia Towers and wrestle control of a region marked a tactical incentive to explore (primary missions were easier in regions where Borgia control had been eliminated) and the capacity to upgrade and receive rents proved necessary to purchase the extensive array of equipment on sale. 

 This aspect of the game arguably got out of hand in Revelations' hack-handed tower defence mini-games yet  in Brotherhood it was a welcome refinement. Ultimately that's what Brotherhood was, a refinement. In terms of combat, gameplay and more. But it was an excellent addition to the franchise nonetheless.