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Ubisoft Montréal suffers from the most advanced case of Restless Developer Syndrome I believe
I've yet witnessed! On the few, exceedingly rare occasions where they drunkenly stumble
backwards into a remotely decent idea, they're never *** content with it! Rather than
tightening up the frayed ends of what could have been a magnificent, game of the year
title, (like they attempted with the second Assassin's Creed) they throw the maternity
ward out with the bath water in a gratuitous attempt to reinvent the *** wheel! Rainbow
Six... doesn't need set pieces! Splinter Cell... doesn't need Mark & Execute! And Assassin's
Creed needs naval warfare like Cloud Strife needs additional belt buckles! UBISOFT! Listen
to your fans! We are officially saying 'When!'
It's so, preposterously simple, Ubisoft! And be sure to perk up an ear as well, after your
recent lobotomization of the Hitman franchise, IO Interactive. Are you ready? Do you have
a writing implement and some snackworthy perishables at hand?
Dandy. Here goes. Deliver what you have *** advertised!
Beginning... with the title! What... about the phrase 'Assassin's Creed'... screams 'Recruit
your own private army and swashbuckle on the high ***' seas' to you?! Oh, it's fun!
More fun than a night in a co-ed crackhouse when you're holding the only pipe! In fact,
it's arguably the lone new addition that you've implemented with even marginal competence!
But it belongs in Master & Commander: The Video Game, not in one *** thing with
the word 'assassin' in the title! In theory, the game's re-tooled combat system
- with its renewed emphasis on timing and defense - should be a welcome delight. In
practice? Connor Kenway couldn't lose in a two-on-one handicap match with Bruce Lee and
Rambo. This *** has more HP than Jesus. So yeah, it's nice that timing actually counts
for a fraction of a damn this go-around, but stopping time? Every time you so much as counter?
Why not just ship Jade Raymond out to latch onto each player's balls individually, so
she can give them a vigorous squeeze any time basic *** reflexes are called for?! That
way, those of us currently dwelling north of ten *** years old can play our M-rated/18+
games at 'Big-Boy Speed!' I'm wielding a musket rifle! A gun... with
a *** SWORD AT THE END! You don't need to give me magic powers that stop time, too!
I'm fine with losing on occasion! And speaking of which, this is one area where
I really began to lose myself in the game a bit. See, Assassin's Creed III - while an
unmistakably bad game - is probably the most immersive, occasionally entertaining bad game
I've ever played in my life. While racking my brain to discern why this is, I arrived
at the conclusion that by throwing so much disparate, inappropriate *** at the wall,
the laws of probability denote that at least one or two things are going to *** stick.
The improved ranged combat, use of weapons and theatrical, over-the-top method of instantly
counter-killing definitely being one of those areas. Sure, I'm so jaded I need to snort
unicorn ashes just to get a buzz at this point, but when you watch Connor slam a bayonet into
a man's jugular, remove it, then pry the ***'s head clean the *** back like a morbid pez
dispenser... it's nevertheless hypnotically satisfying.
If you experience an overpowering sense of deja vu while scaling this game's environments,
not to worry, you're not having an acid flashback from that late '90s gang-*** at Christy Canyon's
place. No... you've just become acquainted with the omnipresent 'red-brick-vaguely-churchy-type-nondescript-important-looking
building' that Ubisoft copies and pastes at will throughout Assassin's Creed III. And
by 'at will', I mean *** everywhere. I have no *** clue what these buildings
are meant to represent in the year 1776, but if little has changed between 18th... and
21st century Boston... we can logically assume they're colonial abortion clinics. I'd say
you were being lazy, but let's be real... this is Boston we're talking about. These
*** list hash dealers as character references. So here, Ubisoft: have an authenticity prize.
Speaking of traversing the hackneyed environments: May I politely inquire as to exactly what
grade of Thorazine they're spiking these horse's food with? What in the *** happened between
the 13th and the 18th centuries that we somehow went from Altaïr's greased lightning horse...
to the Eeyore on Ambien that poor Connor got saddled with?
Pun intended. I regret nothing. Whatever nefarious power is responsible for
the eternally constricting locomotion of modern gaming needs to cut it right the *** out,
because between Skyrim and Assassin's Creed 3, you'd be better off riding a ***' Pommel
Horse. And can we go ahead and start the game, please?!
'...so I watch and wait... hopeful that my true mission might finally begin!'
I know I'm a different breed of cat, but I've got to believe that when I'm 7 hours into
a game and it still hasn't *** started yet, that's likely not the rosiest of developmental
portents. You're a good 9 hours into this game before you get to rock your assassin
armor... or even get to play as the character featured on the cover of the *** game!
Playing this game makes me want to prescribe ritalin to a brick. What, did your flirtation
with Kojima Studios rub off in the storytelling department? There's no Japanese word for 'pacing'!
If you don't believe me, then watch Toonami for a couple hours! Until I played Assassin's
Creed III, I had no idea you could actually write... in bullet time.
But now you've got me talking about the story, and that's where Assassin's Creed 3 really
swan dives over the shark. Did we really need the 'mutiny on the high seas' sub-plot to
kick off the game?! Isn't that like opening up Lord of the Rings with the Council of Elrond
sequence! This narrative has more padding than iCarly's training bra.
For the first several hours, you're mired in desultory fetch quests and ***-work to
the extent that when the game finally proffers the first of half a dozen M. Night Shyamalanian
plot twist table-scraps... you can scarcely muster the wherewithal or indignation to ***
shrug! Assassin's Creed I wove its narrative through
a series of indelible assassination scenarios. Whether you were skulking through a Knights
Hospitalier infirmary in search of a demented Medieval Mengele or frantically scrambling
to descend from the rooftops to assassinate a man who was executing your compatriots the
longer you waited... each scenario was distinct, powerful, and innately memorable.
But something happened in Assassin's Creed II. Somewhere along the way... the artistry
and extravagance of the assassinations was left moldering in a roadside gulch in favor
of sidequests that turned Ezio into a glorified errand boy.
I've beaten the second Assassin's Creed title twice... I could not describe a *** one
of the targets I had to assassinate, or the circumstances under which I took their lives.
The third game doesn't even take baby steps to remedy that problem, and frankly it's beginning
to suck all the joy right out of this series. I'm sure the whirling typhoon of fictitious
genetic memory pseudo-science is giving your writers a Herculean case of vertigo, but Ubisoft:
Is it really too much to ask for your art department to enroll in high school biology?
Or even Chemistry?! Try and follow me:
If Connor's English father... *** Connor's Mohawk Native American mother... and nine
months later, she pinched out bouncing baby half-breed Connor. Then why... in front-flipping
***... does Connor's full-blooded, tea-swilling, tricorn-hat-wearing, closed circuit television
monitoring British dad... look more Indian than he does?! Being Indian isn't contagious!
One passionate night pressed between the smallpox blankets with Sacagewea doesn't mean the next
day you look like John - ***' - REDCORN! Which, again, I might not have even noticed
if you weren't playing as the guy for damn near 9 ***' hours!
It's becoming painfully apparent that without its creator, Patrice Desilets, this series
is destined for the bargain bin. And with the price dropping as low as $30 just over
a month after its initial release... I like to believe history bears my argument out.
Real history, mind you. Not the revisionist, politically correct Ubisoft version of history
where Jade Raymond reads one poorly-sourced coffee table book about Leonardo DaVinci and
suddenly he goes from 'possibly bisexual' to 'Holy ***, hide your relatives, setting
the drapes on fire, west village fire island *** gay.'
Avoid this game like Sony avoids mentioning the Vita's sales figures.
I'm RazörFist. God - *** - SPEED!