Assassin's Creed III Review
The Assassin’s Creed series has always been my gaming comfort food. Games that offer a wide open space in a historical time period for me to largely turn my mind off while experiencing. Unlike a Hideo Kojima-directed game or a Rockstar game that I consume far more attentively and analytically to suck in every detail that I possibly can, the experience is more passive, foregoing analysis for relaxation. But I’m sure as many people in the “art critic” community (I have no idea what to call us) sometimes I just can’t completely turn off that part of my brain whilst experiencing an artistic work.
I cannot recommend Assassin’s Creed III. It is a far too bloated of a game. There are so many gameplay systems that give you little to no reason to engage with them at all. There are many ways to gain currency, but none particularly stand out as worthwhile or rewarding. There are lots of weapons and methods of dispatching enemies, but none are really incentivized or useful beyond the standard hide-and-kill approach. It’s as if the development team thought that giving the player lots of things to do and ways to do them automatically made them inherently engaging. The final boss fight might be the worst final boss fight in the history of final boss fights. In fact even calling it a “boss fight” is somewhat of a stretch.
The game’s world is actually, as you would expect in a Ubisoft game, very well realized and detailed. Set against the backdrop of the American Revolutionary War the locales are various and distinct and are an absolute joy to take in and explore. From the bustling streets and sounds of colonial New York and Boston to the forests and open fields with plenty of places to free-run and buildings to scale, it is easily the game’s best aspect.
The score is very well done. Composed by Lorne Balfe it is consistently good as you would expect from a student of Hans Zimmer.
The narrative is, in my opinion, the game’s weakest element. It is very noncommittal and at times feels like it doesn’t even have a central thesis. The game constantly dances around themes such as the effects of colonization and the costs of freedom, but never says anything coherent or meaningful about these ideas. It’s deathly afraid of itself.
Assassin’s Creed is a series I would never consider to be among the most iconic series of the medium, if there’s one thing I could say about it is that if I were to aggregate the series as a whole I could say it is mediocre at best. This may sound strange to say after spending the past few paragraphs railing on one of it’s installments, but I will say that it is a series that gets unfairly picked on merely because it’s popular. Valid criticism is possible while also enjoying what it has to offer if it is in line with your taste.
I cannot recommend Assassin’s Creed III. It is a far too bloated of a game. There are so many gameplay systems that give you little to no reason to engage with them at all. There are many ways to gain currency, but none particularly stand out as worthwhile or rewarding. There are lots of weapons and methods of dispatching enemies, but none are really incentivized or useful beyond the standard hide-and-kill approach. It’s as if the development team thought that giving the player lots of things to do and ways to do them automatically made them inherently engaging. The final boss fight might be the worst final boss fight in the history of final boss fights. In fact even calling it a “boss fight” is somewhat of a stretch.
The score is very well done. Composed by Lorne Balfe it is consistently good as you would expect from a student of Hans Zimmer.
The narrative is, in my opinion, the game’s weakest element. It is very noncommittal and at times feels like it doesn’t even have a central thesis. The game constantly dances around themes such as the effects of colonization and the costs of freedom, but never says anything coherent or meaningful about these ideas. It’s deathly afraid of itself.
Assassin’s Creed is a series I would never consider to be among the most iconic series of the medium, if there’s one thing I could say about it is that if I were to aggregate the series as a whole I could say it is mediocre at best. This may sound strange to say after spending the past few paragraphs railing on one of it’s installments, but I will say that it is a series that gets unfairly picked on merely because it’s popular. Valid criticism is possible while also enjoying what it has to offer if it is in line with your taste.
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