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- Publisher: Ubisoft
- Release Date: Nov 20, 2012
- Also On: PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox 360
User Score
Mixed or average reviews- based on 1197 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 643 out of 1197
Mixed: 233 out of 1197
Negative: 321 out of 1197
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Dec 29, 2012Expected much more than I got. It really is unfortunate that they'd incorporate such a bad ending in an attempt to milk the series in the future. Don't expect anything groundbreaking.
Jul 25, 2013I can't believe assassin creed series would fall so far after reaching its heights in assassin creed 2 and brotherhood.......AC3 introduces a new hero but the storyline I think is one of the most boring in the series but at least better than AC revelations(yeah ...that was the worst)....The gun mechanics were not good to say the least and the fighting mechanics weren't as refined as they were in AC2 and brotherhood......… Expand
Dec 7, 2012The game definitely gives a new vibe to the series. The whole franchise was starting to get incredibly boring, in fact, i only played Revelations to keep up with the storyline. Even though I would've liked them to take some time(a couple of years at least) and come out with an incredible game, I will make the most of what they did and enjoy the small, but interesting changes brought. The storyline continues to be good and the gameplay is a little more varied than before. The game in general has the same feel but if you think about it that's not really a bad thing.… Expand
Dec 22, 2012This game started out so promising. I really enjoyed the storytelling in the beginning of the game. I think that Haythum is a much better character and a much better actor. Then middle of the game flounders along and never seems to gain any traction. The ending is terrible.
All the side missions, crafting, trading, and such do very little to enhance the game. Worse yet you have to finish or nearly finish the game before you can really see that stuff to the end. What's the point? Once the story is over I'm done. I'm not going to hang out in the frontier and craft sewing thread and buttons... Pretty disappointing. I thought Revelations was the series low but now I think AC3 has out done it.… Expand
Jan 20, 2013I was really impressed with this game. I have played the whole series and I think I enjoyed this one the most. An amazing open world, great additions to the classic assissin's creed we know and love and a good finish to an amazing series. Great for series vets and newbies alike.
Dec 27, 2013The beginning of the game is very slow, but after a few hours it becomes very enjoyable. Another beef that I have with the game is that some side missions are a waste of time (e.g., listening to somebody's conversation) because you are not rewarded and/or the mission is just not fun. Despite all this, AC3 is a great game I have particularly enjoyed the never-seen-before naval missions!
Dec 3, 2012This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. SPOILER WARNING - This game was "RUSHED". I have absolutely loved every AC game prior to this (with some exception to ACR), and the buginess of the PC version can attest to that even though the PC version was released weeks after the console versions. Questions...why is Valley Forge in the middle of Massachusetts (Go to VF in the frontier then look at your world map)? Why is George Washington portrayed as some weak imbecile? Why did they lead us to believe this would be the last game in the series when they clearly set it up for another trilogy? Ubisoft really dropped the ball on their flagship series. I wouldn't mind waiting until after 12/21/2012 for a better game. Dear AC fans, we are now officially being milked... -___-;… Expand
May 29, 2014Even now, so long after release a horrible, unplayable broken mess. Glitches around every corner, spazzing out people everywhere, pop-in and pop-out of people, even when they're standing next to you (on an impressive PC). Bad optimization, they still haven't killed off Desmond either so he's still in the game with his dumb **** face trying to make sense of what's going on - a total and complete loss of power and an artificial way to keep the overarching story still going. The Desmond story is like a miscarriage, it was sort of alive when it popped out, but brutally deformed and right now the parents act like it's still alive but really it's just dead, uninteresting, and a bloody mess. Haytham as a character is phenomenal, but is replaced within the first 3 minutes of the game with an uninteresting, arrogant (not in a funny way like Ezio) nitwit who doesn't have the slighest clue of what's going on. Horrible game, only finished it because I loved the previous ones and want to play the 4th one.
But honestly, even if you're a big fan, skip this one. Please, for your own good.… Expand
Nov 24, 2012Big fan of the series, I have played and replayed all the AC games. I have to say I am VERY DISAPPOINTED with this game so far. To be fair, I have to say that I'm at the beginning of the story but there are already so many things that bother me that take all the fun away and playing feels like a chore. The boat trip to arrive to america is so irrelevant, I just cant understand why they included it__1__ The mechanics have changed to worse, the controls have been simplified (probably to make it easier for a controller). Basically everything you need to do is done with the "E" key. __2__ there are cutscenes everywhere, and take all the immersion away. At this rate, on the next AC game you will have a cutscene every time you take out the sword.__3__ Boston (i havent seen NY but I imagine it will be similar) has wide streets and its almost impossible to reach your destination climbing and jumping through the city's roofs. Basically the developers took AC's essence and wiped they butts with it.__3__Graphics are on par with previous releases, good enough.__4__I cant say much about the Multiplayer since there are not enough players to even start a game.… Expand
May 29, 2014Game was fun, the story was good with the exception of the Desmond parts. Many people criticise the game for the story following up on the previous games with Desmond, I cannot comment on that however this game has great gameplay without comparison.
Apr 25, 2013One of the most poorly optimized games I've ever played. Running the game in the lowest settings possible yields no change whatsoever. Despite everything, I managed to slog through about 2/3rds of it. If you're expecting me to say that the game somehow makes the technical shortcomings all the worthwhile, prepare to be disappointed. The story is disjointed, and the gameplay; sluggish. Assassin's Creed was a complete chore to play. I held out as long as I can, but I ended up uninstalling it from my library prematurely and moved on. I suggest that you do the same as well.… Expand
Dec 1, 2012The single player part of the game is the best of all the AC series, the graphics are good even if sometimes the video clips are choppy, the storyline is very interesting, i say best part of the all, but lack in the open world part of the game, yes hunting is fun but limited to just few animals and only one hunting quest, attacking the rare convoys, and try to do a few tricks but get soon pretty boring once you finish the storyline, there's just not enough to do once you're out of the 2 cities. but the very bad side of the game is the multiplayer part: same as in the previous games, only different maps and characters but the sad part is that previously you were able to gain points by fighting and personalize your characters while now fighting points are useless until you are willing to pay real money to get some other coins that you can use to get some gears or perks, very disappointed by the multiplayer game, greatly reduced my score.… Expand
Jun 25, 2013Terrible AI, game breaking control system (even on a gamepad it's dire) and absolutely terrible combat system. I've no idea how they managed to go so downhill from AC1.
Waste of time and money.
Dec 4, 2012First let me address the things I like about the game. The fighting has improved, in that it is much more difficult; in the previous Assassin's Creed games, you could literally just hold a button and block every attack. Not in this one. There is a much wider variety of things that you need to keep in mind when battling. Still, once you are familiar with all of these things, you will never be hit and it does become a bit repetitive. The combat system still needs some serious work before I can call it perfect. Hunting is amazing. It's a great way to pass the time on the way from point A to point B. At first, when the game was introducing hunting to me I was like "Oh boy, this is just another stupid gimmick that's going to force hunting requirements on me". For the most part, hunting is completely optional, and all of the animals react differently. Some can be caught in snares, but larger animals obviously can't. Once you're done hunting you can go to the store and sell all of your pelts, fangs, claws, meat, and other animal products. It's a very satisfying feeling and the game doesn't force it upon the player in any way. If you find it fun, great. If not (I think you should reconsider), don't worry about it because you'll never have to put up with it. Climbing in trees works wonderfully. I had some concerns about the tree climbing; I thought perhaps it would be a bit clunky and wouldn't work properly. One thing I have to say I don't like about the climbing is that they took away the ability to leap up and grab a higher ledge, a trick implemented in Assassin's Creed 2 I believe. I will definitely miss doing that because it made climbing a lot faster. I also really enjoyed the naval missions, finding treasure, battling with other ships, etc. Finding Captain Kidd's treasure is the greatest side mission in Assassin's Creed so far in my opinion. And of course, the main storyline is captivating as always. I mean, come on, it's Assassin's Creed. Now I would like to address the things I don't like about the game. You can manually aim now which seems like a great idea, but it was so poorly implemented. First of all, you can't aim for the head, if you put your cursor on their head, it will auto-adjust and move to their body. Players that can aim well should be rewarded with one hit kills for aiming at vital spots. You also can't shoot freely, despite that you can aim manually. So what's the point? All it does is give you a bit of extra range (maybe 5-10 feet or so), and it auto-adjusts for you if your aim is poor. This was very disappointing for me because since the first Assassin's Creed I have been saying that you should be able to aim manually, and when it was finally implemented, I expected it to be done well. I fear that rather than perfecting the aiming system, Ubisoft may decide to scrap manual aiming altogether. Another big problem is the optional objectives. Some of them are so poorly done that if you want to get them, you'll be restarting the mission 10-20 times. Don't get me wrong, the problem isn't that the optional objectives are hard. I have 2 problems with them. Number one, they're poorly implemented. They're horribly inconvenient, they often rely on luck, and the game often does not set the player up for a fathomable way to complete the optional objective. Look at missions like the one where you have to destroy two British ships by swimming out to them and planting bombs. In that mission, they want you to kill one of the captains with an aerial assassination. But it's like they intentionally set it up so that this is horribly inconvenient to pull off. Look at the mission where you have to shoot groups of approaching enemies with the cannon. They want you to take two groups out with a single cannonball. No good player would really feel accomplished once they pulled it off anyway, because they would know that it relied almost purely on luck and not skill. Look at the final naval mission; the one where you have to destroy 2 frigates and a man-o-war by attacking their weak points. It's ridiculous, and anyone who has tried it would have to agree, unless they were either insane, or being paid by Ubisoft to just lie and say they disagree. Anyway, the second reason I don't like the optional objectives is because they limit the player. They tell you to complete the mission in a specific way, rather than letting you assess the situation and formulate your own course of action. Let us think for ourselves, that's part of the fun. Or rather, it SHOULD be. Another thing that I don't like is that the game is heavily consolized. We constantly have to pause and interrupt the action because Ubisoft refuses to utilize more hotkeys for PC players. Overall, the game is not what I wanted it to be. I expected a 10/10. You still have a lot to perfect Ubisoft, but this was definitely a step in the right direction. AND PUT MANUAL AIMING IN AC4. DON'T SCRAP IT. DO IT RIGHT.… Expand
Mar 2, 2013Try as I might, I really can not enjoy this game. I don't know if it is the setting (not American, so don't care for the setting); the combat; Connors brilliant sack-of-bricks charisma and personality; or what. I just can not, for the life of me, enjoy the game. I've tried multiple times to play it, and enjoy it... but it is the dullest of the AC games so far. I wish I had bought it on xbox, so at least I could have traded it in and replaced it with something enjoyable.… Expand
Dec 3, 2012If you are a PC gamer avoid this consolitus like the plague. Ported straight over to the PC without ANY adustments made for a mouse/keyboard setup [The indisputably superior controls over that neanderthal thumb wiggling device]
To the Assassin Creed 3 moron dev who said "PC gamers should use a controller when playing our game." You know where you can stick your console thumb wiggling device?
Save your money and buy dishonored on the PC instead of this dumb downed console game that is nowhere NEAR as good as the previous assassin creed games, Dishonored actually showed love for the PC control setup.… Expand
Dec 25, 2012Ubisoft sells this product "as is," i.e., without any kind of useful warranty whatsoever. When a merchant does this, it is a tell-tale sign that they have no faith in their product and that you can expect shoddy workmanship. Assassin's Creed 3 lives up to the non-guarantee Ubisoft promises. It is an embarrassing, bug-riddled mess. As numerous players have reported, the game crashes frequently and without warning, sometimes forcing a system reboot. If this happens, you had better hope the game isn't saving your progress, or you will lose your entire savegame data, like I did. Moreover, despite Ubisoft touting that the game was being optimized for PC, and that it was necessary to delay it longer than its console counterparts, the game runs terribly on the PC. Expect to see frequent FPS drops despite very little actual GPU usage. For some reason, the game makes use of only a single core of the CPU and that is causing massive bottlenecks. Don't expect Ubisoft tech support to help you either: they will blame it on your drivers even if they are up to date. When I asked them for help getting a refund they told me to shove off.… Expand
Dec 11, 2012After good AC1, much better AC2 and best AC: Brotherhood, we have here revelations and AC3. Sadly it seems that Revelations and AC3 were made with different dev team that made AC1-2. AC3 is probably the worst. Dumbed down to it knees, fight mechanic, free runing... everything. No options for player, everything is scripted. You cannot control when and where to jump. Just press ASDW and everything is done for you. Occasionally (or more often) you just press E and another script will do everything for you. Cut scenes on every move, "press E" on every corner.. Overall for completing the game you just need 5 buttons- ASDW and E. I was looking forward to this game, but it seems that i will skip this release and will just look at the end cutscene on youtube and im done.... Im very sad that developers slapdash last two releases and ruined my whole AC enthusiasm :(… Expand
Nov 27, 2012What could have been the best game of the year became one of the biggest disappointments I have had to play, however not everything is gray. However, there are so much talk about that i don't know where to start.
I think I'll start with the general history and development.
The game starts off really slow and boring with a tutorial about 4 hours teaching you basic things you probably already know. All that to reach the '' Memory 5'' starts to catch up. However it will still be yawn-worthy until you reach '' Memory 8''.
The unfortunate thing is that this game ends with the same level of mediocrity as Mass Effect 3, but even worse with a final doubly pathetic, confusing and completely incoherent generating more questions than clarifying them.
I think the ending was really bad, it seems as if the writers of this game were all in a hurry and let they let their imagination run wild, and this unforgivable disaster emerged. Another problem, they barely talk about Lucy in this game, despite working for the templars. I think what happened to her, deserved a better explanation.
Connor is not a bad character but not be quite interesting as it was Ezio and Altair. I think Haytham Kenway should have been the main character of this game instead of Connor.
The game is full of glitches and technical errors, some very basic and others unforgettable, the weapon menu interface does not work very well and you have to constantly re-equip what you want to use because it switches to other weapons by itself, the map is bugged and it will usually change the position you marked in the map.
Climb a tree to make the eagle eye can be deadly because climbing is easy but once you want to go down Connor sometimes fails when trying to grab onto the branches causing the fall and died instantly.
The horses get stuck in the ground at times, riding a horse through the woods can be very frustrating because the controls do not respond at all well.
Also, people and horses sometimes disappear in front of you for no reason
Sometimes trying to escape from the guards in a town can be difficult because Connor tries climbs the first thing that crosses instead of running.
Muskets sometimes do not work or can't be grabbed. The music leaves much to be desired, the lack of Jesper Kyd is just remarkable in this release.
The only thing that amazes is the visuals and graphic, it looks beautiful but this is not enough.
The naval battles are entertaining, same with hunting animals, but only for a while.
The Multiplayer was interesting until they decided to add micro-transactions, so you will always be at a disadvantage if you don't spend real money in ''Erudito Coins''. An absolute disgrace that totally kills the competivity in this game.
This is a big shame. I am a fan of AC since its first release and it was always one of my favorite franchises but this installment damaged its name and reputation forever
Never have I felt such sadness and anger at the same time since Mass Effect 3. And to think I spent $ 80 dollars for this.
The hype has claimed another victim. I wish I could go back in time and prevent myself from spending this big amount of money in this mess.
I could go on all day because there are so many more problems that i haven't mentioned.
Not to mention that in this game i feel like an errand boy instead of an assassin.
Like someone said in one of these reviews, this should called ''Errand's Boy Creed'' instead of ''Assassin's Creed''.… Expand
Nov 30, 2012they ruined ac series with this abomination. Cities are boring, street after street looks the same. amount of guards on the streets/ roofs( ??) is ridiculous . Even in the middle of forest there are 9 men patrols walking in circle guarding snow. No idea why they made soo many of them, since you can kill them without slightest problems. Fighting never been so easy, still its ridiculous how many times you have to stab opponent to actually kill him. Main character is just some random dude, not even close to being so charismatic as Ezio. Missions are uninteresting, most of people I'm helping out i would rather leave to death. This game is much worse then Revelations and thats kinda a achievement.… Expand
Dec 28, 2012'I didn't know Zynga made themed boxed sets?' Having been a tragic fanboy of this series since way back at instalment #1, I found myself at a loss as to how to feel about this game. Even from the outset. YES they changed my beloved control setup, and YES the new animus interface is less intuitive than before. But then I wonder how many people would be whining about the lack of innovation in the new title if everything had stayed the same in that regard. I don't think the writing is the problem, because from the outset I LOVED Haytham, and I found myself drawn in to Connor. He may be a bit of a blank slate, but I don't think he is an especially WOODEN one. No. What bugs me about this game didn't really hit me until just before: it's all the mini-games. Granted AC#1 had an exceptionally simple set-up, (triply so if you played it on a console), and the AC2 trilogy addressed this by adding additional things to do, a few mini-games, and some interesting one-time mechanics in the odd side-quest or story mission. I started to get wary of all the extra padding though in Revelations with the new territory mechanic, and the tower-defense game, but THANKFULLY they weren't necessary to the completion of the game. There was still enough assassination to get you through the game without having to worry about it. AC3 though. The mini games aren't mini games anymore. It's as though someone's taken all the content of SPORE and made us play all the stages simultaneously. In Brotherhood or Revelations I could send recruits out on a mission and so long as there were enough of them with enough skill, they would succeed. In AC3 if I send a wagon to market and it gets attacked I have to track it down and defend it or lose the shipment. What happens if I'd rather just stab people than play farmville? Then there's the Naval part of the game. Bloody brilliant, but I need LOTS of money to upgrade that boat of mine which means lots of grinding away at babysitting caravans doesn't it? I could always try my luck at gambling but the use of games common to the era means I can LEARN the rules but they will take a longer time to master well enough to consistently beat the AI and make it viable. So the problem has become one of time... and I don't have time to play Assassin's Creed: Farmville the way it wants to be played. To completion, grinding away my life behind a keyboard playing an imaginary man's dead ancestor. Even with all the extra mechanics the game was fine (I actually loved the new mechanic for opening fast-travel spots), fine that is right up until I had a house and harbour to get up to spec. Then the game slows right down becoming instead of a quest for vengeance, it's a quest to be the richest man in colonial america, in what I can ONLY assume is some ridiculous attempt to pad out an ALREADY long game. I'm assuming at least. The previous titles were all certainly long enough without farmville attached. Imagine if Bioware had decided to pad out ANY of the Mass Effect titles by forcing you to engage in a spotlight stealing mini-game (and I use the prefix MINI loosely in this context) between story missions just so you can survive the next one. The game is simply too complex, and not in any good way. The story is lost under acres of clutter and would be much better served by some simplicity. It's telling that the more complex these games have gotten, the less I have replayed them. I played the first Assassin's creed to death waiting for number 2, and it wasn't levelling up my reputation with the thieves guild or having a guild den in every major port on the Mediterranean that did THAT, it was the context-dependent combat and the flawless execution of a mission that kept me coming back. NOT wanting to see how many wagons full of lumber I could get running back and forth to market (okay maybe there were SOME flags involved...).… Expand
Dec 1, 2012Assassin's Creed III is one of the most anticipated games in this year and its worth to play the Connor's way.this instalment gives much more to exploring,hunting, sailing and war with enemies. the new story is well written and the historical events and characters are well placed. the game play is amazing but I disappointed with new engine it gave me very low fps in some of the parts and PC version have so many bugs but after all I am the big fan of Assassin's Creed games so I ignored and played. i think more to come in series and I am waiting for that.… Expand
Aug 15, 2013This game bloody sucks, worst Assassin's Creed game and just bloody poor design overall.. The save system as with all the other is crap. In most of the missions you have to complete EVERYTHING, including the bonus synchronization tasks, in one go...in other words if you mess up just once you have to start the mission from the very beginning no matter how close you were to completing it, THAT BLOWS. This game is also segmented more than the others, you keep getting cut back and forth between free roam and cut scene a lot which makes the flow disjointed and jerky. Also, the geometry and collision detection sucks as you will find yourself constantly getting stuck on the ground, or even things you're supposed to be able to climb. Horses get stuck in corners A LOT. Lots of random new game mechanics pop up at times too making gameplay feel inconsistent, things like quicktime events that all use different mechanics and that crap. As for sound and visuals and story this has all the Assassin Creed trappings except for the mechanics and gameplay..they suck. Mission save points suck, we need manual save, and the whole game interface, that animus layout interface sucks, it has ALWAYS sucked. Also, this game doesn't give you a clear idea of what you're supposed to do. Sometime you have NO idea what is supposed to be done. Other times they flash directions in the middle of the event as it's happening but it's too fast to read them so what to do when can be very confusing at times. This is a piss poor mess of bad gameplay, interface, clarity, saving. If it doesn't have to do with the visual appearance, sound, or story then it sucks.… Expand
Dec 7, 2012As a warning: I really like every title of the series. Seem to have a penchant for climing around and stabbing people in the back. ;)
AC3 is by far the best title up to now, as its story is simply great and dialogues are very clever. If one cares to listen, these really outshine nearly all other game dialogues I have ever heard. If you like a bit of philosophy, that is. Graphics are great, gameplay in the forests is good, animations are fantastic and controls are way better than before. Oh, and don't forget the voice acting.
Only downsides: Some things a bit too tedious and it very often is much too easy, feeling like an interactive movie. And the crafting menue is needlessly complicated.
Bottom line: One of the best games I ever played.… Expand
Nov 24, 2012The good: Exceptional game design and game mechanics. Far better than the repetitive drawl of previous AC games. The RPG and open world elements are fantastic and the character animations and facial expressions are very professional and well executed. From the 30 minute credit sequence at the end, you can tell that a lot went into this game.
The Bad: Story. The AC series suffers from the same issues with plot that Mass Effect had. It was too ambitious for it's own good and the creative team could not handle how large the universe became after 5 games, novels, tie-in short films (AC: Embers) and others. (Begin spoilers) There are a number of plot holes that are difficult to ignore. The brotherhood is global right? Where are they when Desmond's story is being told? If he's so important why is he helped by only 3 people? Ont he same note, Achilles "let the brotherhood decay". Where were the international assassins that could help rebuild it? It seems like the brotherhood is poorly organized and has not central base of operations. This is the only explanation.
What do the Templars want with the pieces of Eden if they just want the world to end? They should just find a bunker , hoard the power sources and let it happens. Their motives are a unclear as the Assassins. Finally, the ending was as disappointing and confusing as Mass Effect's. Desmond just dies and Juno drops a quick line that signals a potential sequel. That's it.
I really wish I could give this game a positive rating, but the plot was butchered due to overly ambitious writers.… Expand
Dec 20, 2012Even though I haven't had good luck with the Assassin's Creed series, I succumbed to the hype and bought this game. First of all, its an interesting historical novel with a science fiction twist, and a touch of the DaVinci code (references to the Knights Templar). If you're a history buff, you'll appreciate the short background notes with their combination of historical accuracy and dramatic license. I read a few of the notes as I played the game and there was some funny sarcastic remarks sprinkled throughout. Secondly, the graphics were outstanding, even though the intentional fading in/out got a little old. Also, my XPS-8100 with Intel 5 processor and GT-220 card seemed to handle the complex graphics quite well. However, this game becomes annoyingly frustrating at times. In my limited view, the gameplay is too complex. For example, you need three keyboard entries to fire a musket or shoot an arrow. Additionally, moving your character around is difficult at times when you are trying to run away and the character shifts into melee anytime it gets close to the opposition. Still, this game was fun, and I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally finished it after 30+ hours of playing time.… Expand
Nov 22, 2012Well it couldn't match the success of previous games of Assassin's Creed series such as Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood but this really is a great game which is certainly worth your time.
Dec 31, 2012AC3 is a game that starts out well - you get introduced to a really great character, the storyline progression feels natural and there's some overall sense of direction. Some hours into the game though the "real" protagonist (Connor) is introduced and from that point onwards the game gets progressively worse. Connor is a boring bloke without any kind of personality or purpose. The plot - even the one in the Animus - is bonkers as well with almost every other story mission being a historical event shoehorned in to make Connor play some completely nonsensical part in it.
I'm afraid there hasn't been an AC game with a good story since AC2. That one had character, interesting locations, a good plot. This one not so much. I'd say if you can get it cheaply it's worth a try but don't expect too much from it.… Expand
Dec 10, 2012**** Assassin's creed title yet. There is a lot to do, but absolutely nothing is fun. Combat is just silly and once you watch an hour of combat you have seen it all. Sidequests don't feel important. Stealth no longer feels important or fun for that matter. Connor is a dipsh*t. The story doesn't make sense.
Jul 7, 2013This is a bad game. Here's why:
STORYTELLING: While the plot and setting are interesting, the storytelling is very lazy and doesn't fit the game. For example, one early mission has you sneaking into enemy territory, getting past about half a dozen armed guards. After completing this and watching a cut-scene, you magically appear outside the danger zone. How did he get out?
GAMEPLAY: This game is guilty of some serious "press the WIN button to WIN!" problems so combat is laughably easy. On "Normal" difficulty, a punch will kill an opponent where he stands while a riffle-shot to the player's face will take off an eight of your (regenerating) health bar.
GLITCHES and BUGS: I quit the game for the last time after my assassin jumped onto the wrong side of a ladder and climbed through the floor of the room above. This type of this should not happen in any game, let alone a major AAA title.
As a fan of Assassins Creed 2, I was very disappointed by this game. Get Batman: Arkham City instead!… Expand
Jan 30, 2013Yet another disappointing installment in what was once an amazing series. It is very strange to say, but this game is extremely well-done in almost every way you could imagine. The graphics are exquisite. The story is reasonably compelling. The characters are interesting. The voice-acting is decent. It is a clever tapestry of fiction and history woven together well enough that you might have trouble separating the two (uhm...that could also be considered bad, I guess). The naval side-missions are so much fun that they deserve to be their own game. And yet, I had trouble even getting through 40% of the game. The reason? The uninspired, painfully simplified gameplay mechanics. This game has a ridiculous amount of gloss … Expand
May 29, 2013Assassin's Creed III is pretty addictive and has nice graphics & sound but it's really buggy (much more than Assassin's Creed II). Those are annoying bugs where you sometimes can't take down the wanted poster, can't reach a treasure box because it's buried in the ground or you can go through closed gates. Not to speak of your horse getting stuck between trees. The graphics engine doesn't seem to be well optimized for AMD CPUs/GPUs. I have an FX-6300@4,5GHz and a Radeon HD 6870@985Mhz and sometimes frames per second drop to 25 FPS on full 1080p HD without any obvious reason i.e. at places where there is not much detail or in cities even on lowest quality settings. The game is sponsored by Nvidia so this might explain it. The sea battles are really a highlight of the game and could be even a stand alone game but they are not very well integrated in the story and overall gameplay. Overall I think the open world could be a bit more deep with more things to do, more houses to enter, more NPCs to talk to. More in the direction of a real RPG game.… Expand
Dec 1, 2012Beautiful, strange. The one time 'Nothing is true, everything is possible' game has become something else. Maybe this could be applied to the multiplayer? Anyway, this game puts you on a strictly set path for the mission parts. And I mean it, jump slightly off the course in a chase scene and you de-sync (die). There is a lot of open-worldness in the frontier and many achievements to go along with that side of the game. These two aspects are practically fractured from one another.
Multiplayer is fun, tons and tons of customization options for looks and abilities. Thankfully there is now a solid counter to the infamously op smoke bomb. You can spend real money to get stuff instead of using legitimately acquired 'animus points'. Bugs are everywhere in single player, I had a bear get stuck halfway underwater near me preventing me from looting tons of loot. I had a cannon ball get stuck in the air with its fast-moving air graphics all around it. The games you can play in bars and such are way harder than its worth to ever play them. There are no temples with associated achievements, dis-a-pointment!
Overall quality is great with it still being very much the same game, a watered down story and a deeper open-world aspect as well as deeper multiplayer. When has this series ever not been mildly annoying? I love having to overcome something, but sometimes its just downright annoying. Worth playing if only for multiplayer. Despite some shortcomings on expectations I still have to say I love this game and got way into it this time around.… Expand
Nov 22, 2012Gorgeous game, game-breaking controls and AI.
First off- every British soldier in this game is a master marksman with XRAY vision and the reaction speed of a fighter pilot. Jump from one building to another, you just alerted a guard who was standing below you who takes aim- shoots you in mid air (1.5 seconds airborne from one building to the next) and using his IPHONE notified every single British in Boston to your EXACT location- Every British soldier converges on your location and using their extensive PARKOUR training they all leap from building to building to kill you. All while moving around the base of the building underneath you constantly tracking your location with their XRAY vision.
This coupled with the fact I have 1600 pounds and cannot buy a new outfit so I'm not the ONLY NATIVE IN BOSTON. While every soldier is on the lookout for... a native.… Expand
May 18, 2013full synchronization rubbish makes this game so frustrating. playing a sequence over and over again is enraging.
storyline is of desmond is rubbish and written by a 3 year old.
i hope the designers of this game die and lose all their family members.
Nov 24, 2012Initially this game felt very solid to me, it felt like a good addition to the franchise.. that is until I got to the second sequence. This game is absolute trash, a complete waste of money and I couldn't even be bothered to start it again despite paying $50 for it. Even if you get this game for free as a gift or some other form, save yourself the headache and either return it or remove it from your computer.
This shouldn't even be called AC3, they took everything that made it Assassin's Creed out. It's not like the old Splinter Cell games that the first Assassin's Creed was modeled after. The only similarity between the first one and this one is the less than perfect movement. There is a linear path in this game, no creativity at all, the only path you can choose is the order in which you complete the now mandatory Synchronizations. You have to do missions a certain way or you fail, you don't get to try new things unless it's convenient for the game.… Expand
Dec 23, 2012AC3 is an exercise in frustration. I know that I am in the minority here, but I hate this game. Which is shocking, considering that I love the all of the other AC games (yes, I even liked Revelations despite its flaws). I feel that the Ubisoft Montreal has been trying to pack more and more activities into each iteration and this has taken focus away from the core mechanics put into place in AC1 and refined to perfection in AC2. Not that I minded the extras built into each chapter, I just found that Brotherhood and Revelations were veering into territory that moved away from what made AC2 great.
AC3 has obviously been designed with the 'more is better' school of thought in mind and I for one am getting tired of the focus on quantity over quality. In this case, less would have been more. The characters are worthless (including Connor and Desmond), the story felt hacked together like the writers had no idea where to take the series after Ezio, and the missions are rubbish (despite what reviewers are saying). I can only think of one or two that were actually entertaining. Oh, all of the praise that is being heaped on the 'naval' missions - it is essentially Sid Meier's Pirates but more modern. Not one thing in this game is revolutionary and despite all of the raving going on about how it is an achievement for the series, I actually found that AC3 is more linear and less entertaining than the first AC game, just more awkward and confusing. Combat is rubbish, pathfinding is rubbish, running around the forest is NOT fun after the first ten minutes, the cities are bland and not very fun, there is no room for your character to grow, items in game are super expensive (seriously, 24 bullets costed 2000 pounds? Really?). The list goes on...
Why are people raving over a game that really should have taken a critical lambasting for being lazy and rushed?… Expand
Jan 26, 2014It's such a shame that Ubisoft decided to make Assassin's Creed a yearly release title. The result of that decision has slowly led to the demise of the franchise and AC III is the prime example of that. AC was once one of my favorite franchises, but now it has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. First, the pros: AC III has great character models, animations, and cutsences. That's about it for pros. The cons:
The setting is great, but it just doesn't work for an AC game. Remember when this franchise was about sneaking around and stabbing people? Yeah, not anymore. Now you get guns and are constantly expected to fight through hordes of enemies. AC needs to go back into history and stop coming to more recent time periods or it will further destroy the franchise. The gameplay itself has been revamped and now it's worse than before. Combat isn't nearly as fluid or fun as it once was. The game holds your hand for over 4 hours of playtime as it shows you tutorials for things that you will never do throughout the game. IT showed me how to hunt, but not what the purpose of hunting is. It showed me how to craft things and sell items, but i never had more than $4000 in my wallet during the entire game. Remember when the story was the focus of the AC games? The story hasn't made sense for several games, but now it is worse than ever. I had no idea what was going on in the present day Desmond storyline and if i wasn't student of American military history i'd have no idea what was going on in the historical Connor storyline either. The missions are boring and repetitive, the open world is useless as i never felt compelled to explore and i'm usually the person who would go through the entire game intending to get 100% sync by finishing every optional objective, obtaining every collectible and so forth. But this game was so boring i couldn't bring myself to even attempt that. On top of all this, the game is absolutely riddled with bugs and glitches. Every single mission had a problem with it somewhere. Whether it was a mission breaking bug where i couldn't continue, clipping issues, or the part where every time i open my accounting book to manage my property, the game would freeze and i'd have to shut down the process with task manager. SO much for that part of the game! Guess i'll never be able to upgrade my house! AC II is a complete travesty. Casual games looking for a fix and die hard AC fans alike should steer far clear of this disgusting game.… Expand
Mar 28, 2013Assassin's Creed III is the latest edition in the Assassin's Creed franchise. It is the fifth main game in the series, set in the year 1750 takes place mainly within North America.
In this article I will be mainly covering the multiplayer aspect of the game and how well it compares with the previous games. In many ways, Assassin's Creed III takes what elements work in the previous games and supplements them with a variety of interesting modes and objectives. After each battle you earn experience towards your next level up, with higher levels the players are awarded bonuses such as new abilities or other unlockables. When the abilities are unlocked, you can then unlock them for crafting which allows abilities to be enhanced in a variety of different ways.
The highlight of ACIII multiplayer takes the form of Wolfpack, which is a co-operative challenge, designed for 1-4 players. In this mode your objective is to take out targets stealthily in order to gain the highest number of points. Killing targets by charging at them or using the gun will earn you a low amount of points, in comparison with poison and stealthy kills. You earn a focus bonus if you wait next to a target for a few seconds before a kill, and promotes a 'slow approach' in order to maximise the point gain.
In Wolfpack there are 25 progressively harder sequences, each one requiring more points to complete while the player is working against the clock. Some of these sequences are bonus sequences where the player must perform 'sync kills' with their teammates, these require each teammate to attack the enemy within a small window of opportunity. When done successfully they reward the player with high points and a cutscene.
There's also several modes which return from the previous games, such as my personal favourite which is Manhunt mode. In this mode you have four attackers and four defenders, after the first round, the attackers and defenders swap places. This keeps the game fresh and allows players to hone their skills in both offense and defense.
There are also other modes such as Artifact Assault which is a capture-the-flag type mode, Domination which is all about capturing locations from the enemy and Deathmatch, which is a free-for-all race to get the most kills.
Since each player can be stunned or killed in one hit, it's important to emphasise the amount of hiding and cat-and-mouse antics that ensue within each game. Overall, this is a fantastic game and well worth it if you enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the series to date.… Expand
Oct 20, 2013I picked up AC3 on a Steam sale ($12.00 USD). It's difficult to justify paying full price for an AC game just because they're released every year and, frankly, the last few iterations aren't as deep as AC2. That said, this is a good game and am enjoying it (especially for 12 dollars). There are some issues with it, but mostly they're out of AC3's hands. The Desmond Miles plot need to be ended, it was very poorly implemented to begin with and I'm not sure if Ubisoft thought out what they were trying to do with the character. The heart of the issue is that Desmond Miles is, basically, portrayed as a life drifter who is yanked from obscurity and thrust into significance by fate. He doesn't have to work to develop his skills, the Animus does it for him. So, it's basically the Harry Potter or Twilight plot themes that resonate with young adults, an audience composed mostly of people who haven't yet worked for anything or have any real world responsibilities or concerns. It's hard to sell this theme to the type of player who enjoys adult themes of revenge and justice. It's misplaced here and it should be ended or at least very severely downplayed. When AC3 shifts gears from colonial times to the modern plot line, the change is jarring and I can't help but laugh at the juxtaposition; Conner spends years planning and training, Desmond become an Assassin by sitting in a chair and playing through "memories". It's ridiculous, it makes me chuckle whenever Desmond scales and climbs objects when his body isn't even physically trained for it. The release schedule for AC games is too aggressive, they're all beginning to look and feel the same, despite some laudable efforts to change setting and mood between each title. At most, they should be released every 18 months; 12 months is too much. Beyond that, good game. I look forward to playing this November's AC4 NEXT year.… Expand
Oct 6, 2013Well to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed the game.Ofcourse the game of this size and scope was sure to be plagued with bugs and with the recent updates the game has become quite stable Lots of people are complaining about connor being boring but he was supposed to be boring following the unfortunate events which occured in his life, I didn't see any reason to have expected a styled casanova. Concept of american revolution is great, fantastic score and character design.Cities do feel alive and naval battles were the best part of the game.Besides numerous bugs and serious character Assassins Creed 3 was hell of a ride...… Expand
Nov 27, 2012I had high hopes for this game and was really looking forward to it after AC2 and the add-ons. Unfortunately, it does not live up to any of the hype as the storyline is completely haphazard and does not explain itself. To add to that the game play is nowhere near as good as AC2 and the scenes and sequences are cut short without explaining the story well enough. I am 40% of the way through the story and I'm still not sure about how a lot of things came to happen. It doesn't explain itself like AC2 did. The story doesn't flow, it's all over the place. And could someone tell me how an old black man (not being racist here, just factual), could own a mansion in America at that time? He would have been a slave, not a home owner and even if he was freed I'm sure the population at that time would have driven him out of the area.
There is a problem with riding horse along wilderness tracks. The horse keeps getting stuck by running into invisible walls. They also get stuck if you try to cross a river at the wrong place. They can't be backed up or turned around so you have to dismount and call the horse out.
Apart from the terrible story line, I'd like to know why Desmond has transformed into a silver back Gorilla? It was bad enough that he completely changed for a good looking Italian guy into an uglier older guy in Revelations but he now looks like something from several thousand years ago. Why couldn't the character models from AC2 be used in AC3? Have the characters suddenly been mutated by radiation or something?
On the whole, the graphics are acceptable but there are too many errors in game play. The sound effects are pretty good but a lot of the time they are misplaced in relation to the character/object and are too loud/soft in many instances.
This game is a big let down after the brilliant AC2 and unfortunately, there are too many things to "patch out." I don't know what Ubi soft were thinking with this version but they have definitely lost direction in game development between AC2 and AC3. Very disappointed.… Expand
Jul 22, 2013The game is horrible. I am so disappointed being a AC1 hardcore fan. I rated AC1 10/10 AC2 9/10 and I am giving AC3 0/10.
Initially the game felt good. But then I realized that there isn't much to do. Story is boring. Anyway to cut a long story short people that rated 7+ /10 are obviously unfamiliar with AC 1
Oct 19, 2013First I should note, I'm giving this a ten to try help balance out all the bullsh** negative opinions on this game. The game is overall probably deserving of an 8. It's a brilliant game, in terms of art design, world size etc, but it does fall over in a few places. Now, it's my first AC game, so I can't compare, but the combat (as cool as it is) does seem a bit jumpy. On top of this, the story line gets a little lost in itself from time to time and can be hard to follow. The last issue I have with it is the massive amount of bugs. No patch Ubisoft? Really? Anyway, the characters, customisation, music, combat (despite the jumpiness), design and side content are all overall brilliant, the most impressive part being the leaping among the trees; felt pretty amazing. 8/10, good game, don't listen to naysayers.… Expand
Dec 3, 2012Good gameplay, interesting new mechanics, boring storyline and characters, ending will make you go "...wat" and horrible menus for PC. Not as good as AC2.
Nov 28, 2012**** console port. Ubisoft delayed the game three weeks behind consoles for what? The optimisation is horrible. There are barely any changable graphical options in single-player. The low FPS being experienced by many is the straw that broke the camels back. And on top of that, Ubisoft forum moderators state that there is no patch 'forthcoming' to fix issues. This is the last Ubisoft product I'll purchase.… Expand
Nov 12, 2014The last adequate game in AC universe, everything else is money grabbing. Desmond is dead, but with a cliche movement the devs can't stop earning money on the game's name creating repetitive and boring games.
Nov 28, 2012This game should not have been made. The amount of bugs that exist as well as the bland storyline do not create an atmosphere that is worth seeing or playing. For players who have never played any of the previous games it will leave an empty feeling in your stomach for even attempting such a project. Another reason to never try this game is the fact that anything advertised such as the massive battles that took place during the Revolutionary War do not exist in the game. The player will only see 2 or 3 of the main battles and they mainly have you going from side to side avoiding fire or telling colonial soldiers to shoot at incoming targets. There is only one assassination during a battle, and for the most part it is the same rinse and repeat style that exist throughout the entire game. As far as graphics are concerned the game is beautiful compared to its console brethren. However, graphics alone does not make a good game. The sad part about the entire thing is the story. It makes players want to see what happens next but about half way through there is a feeling of a job. The game becomes tedious and not worth seeing after sequence 9 which is a huge shame.… Expand
Mar 7, 2013The introduction takes ages only to reveal something "shocking" which is totally not worth it. The city is dull, generic and the npc's say the same thing. The music is gone, you just run around a generic block town with identlical npc's in silence. This is the game: Run from A to B, cutscene, rince and repeat. When a game is trying so hard to establish a story by making the player sitting endlessly watching cutscenes, it's trying too damn hard. This is the first time I've uninstalled an AC game before finishing it, and it is sadly the last time I'll ever buy another. Maybe I'll play the old ones again, they still have value.… Expand
Jan 29, 2013I enjoyed this game. Sure, sometimes missions were a bit too difficult and frustrating. There is a large number of glitches, though none game-breaking. Give this game a shot, it's worth it.
Feb 16, 2013Assasin's creed III is the best entry in the series, with the best story, fighting engine (which is bassicly the same but with some improvements), best setting (colonial america), and a great cast of characters with awesome voice acting. You can spent hours investigating the wilderness, or fighting with the guards wich is epic, and the soundtrack is very good. The only problem is the bugs and the ragdoll physics are too active sometimes you can even see the guards (while fighting with them) with they're legs and their bodies etc....If you dont have this game go buy it. Go now.NOW.… Expand
Jan 28, 2013Huge dissapointment. Unskippable credits just rolled. These days its either nuke or ufo. Here is the latter. Some great promises from previous installments have been broken. The mysterious story of ancients turned out to be silly and shallow - some answers are best if not told. So the series is over now, completely exhausted and dried out of essentials that made first Assassins Creed establish its name. Every another game in the series was loosing its ground piece by piece, until this quite pathetic conclusion. What about game critics reviews? Game of the year awards? Did we really played the same game, or they got some bonuses together with reviewers copies?
Maybe its just me, did you guys who live in USA enjoy this somehow more than me?
Graphics: great. Sound: great. Story: promising at first, but completely failed in the end. Game mechanics: fights are way too easy though animations are impressive, STEALTH IS WITH NO PROPER TOOLS, eagle vision is completely useless, horses are unnecessary, leap of faith is sour becouse Connor cannot see where the spot is. Side missions: too many, not worth your time, you get nothing apart from silly dresses and minor improvements. Some whole branches of side missions should be eliminated by quality dept. (letters, deliveries, crafting, trading) these are trivial and pointless. Testers let through serious bugs, it seems that they were only able to test until New York, where glitches festival starts. Strong points: naval missions.
Conclusion: for me its just one of these games that make easy money for the publisher. Consists of too many elements that can not make consistent picture. "Shitload of side missions in your face player". Epic finale of the series is not there. No more please. Play first AC and make real reboot, becouse you lost direction. Not the complete failure but still huge dissapointment.… Expand
Jan 15, 2013This review is based having not got very far in the game at all, I've given up and uninstalled it - something I hardly ever do after spending significant cash on a AAA game. The most frustratingly annoying section a few hours into the game gives you a mission where you have to free some captives from three locations, two around a fort and one group on a ship. Now, it doesn't matter how many times I tried to do this, always I would get detected at the last minute, for reasons completely unknown to me, you then desyncronise and have to go through the same process again, and again and again. The enemy AI is not consistent at all. One time I was able to kill a guard at the same spot and no one noticed, the next time the AI guards decide to turn round at that exact moment. I've played I don't know how many stealth games, such as Deus Ex: HR and Dishonored, so I know what stealth-action is all about. However, AC3 does not allow for even one small deviation from what I've seen. The first few hours were ok as an introduction, but still a lot of cutscenes and glitchy combat. Sorry, I know my review score might well be better had I played more, but I think I got through 4-5 hours and then decided that was enough. Pff, disappointing!… Expand
Dec 26, 2012COTSCENE kill 5.... COTSCENE walk 5 meters... COTSCENE press one button... COTSCENCE. 3 for the facial animations and the blood... fap fap fap +1 for the ship fights. the rest mehhhh. I am curious what's next on ASSASSins LOST!? Who's responsible ****
Mar 12, 2013Along with Revelations the worst AC games ever. Revelations had bad gameplay and story. This one has a little better gameplay and an AWFUL story. If the player actually gave a damn about any of characters by the end of the game the ending would be considered as bad as Mass Effect 3. Truly it's that bad. The fact is that none of the characters are the same as they were in AC II (by far the best game in the series and one of the best games ever), they have been redesigned, ripped out of any true content and are just there to say the occasional capitalist propaganda. Actually, this game is a propaganda in and on itself, sexual innuendos all over the place (sequence 7 is a disgrace for the American history), Templars are made to look good, Connor actually is a wimp when it comes to his father (guess the creators have a really big problem with their sons or the new generation as a whole we' re gonna get you anyway :P) and generally it's just an effort after effort to make you doubt the Assassin ideals and turn over to money, for without money and insanity they can't rule the world. In any case, if there was a negative rating on Metacritic this game should have had it as it is the biggest disgrace to a once great series, that after Desilets left has just gone SO MUCH downhill. Serves good as a reminder though of how this system is starting to fall apart and tries any way it can to not lose the supreme control it once had. All these people serving the system are afraid and thank you for showing it so clearly every day. The times have already changed. Good luck with your downfall. :D… Expand
Jan 5, 2013As an AC fan this one has turned out as a disappointment. Worst enemy AI hands down: Whether it's having an enemy go into full alert mode while I'm still down the road approaching from behind or having them give up chasing me the moment I run behind a tree 2 feet away, the enemy AI is terrible/buggy, and really hurts the immersion factor of the game. Story cuts all over the place:
It's seems it was more important to the creators to stick Connor into every significant moment from 18th century American history and then cram them all into a game, rather than have a cohesive well developed story. The pace is terrible and motives or rationalisations of the characters are quite poor. Unfortunate that this was the conclusion to Desmond's story.
Undeveloped game elements:
First AC game where I couldn't stand completing all the side objectives. At certain points in the game you'll click into your map only to find it littered with confusing icons, that, if you had never played an AC game before, you'd have no idea what was going on. Having owned and played every AC game myself, I was still confused. The assassination side missions and delivery missions are so trivial and pointless, their only purpose seems to purpose is to get you to run across the map a couple of times. Less would have been so much more in this case. Why put all these side elements into the game at all if they're just going to be trivial and pointless - just leave them out!
So many bugs...
Want to weapon steal a sword in combat, only to find that you can't put it down and this ugly sword is attached to you for the rest of the game? Ever been surrounded by 5 enemies only to find your gun has randomly disappeared completely? Enjoy seeing dying enemies bizarrely squashed flat and then sucked into the vacuum of space? This game does that and so much more...
Ultimately, this game is aesthetically looks great. The artistic design is spot on Connor's movement throughout the world is slick. Unfortunately everything else seems rushed, sloppy or underdeveloped and unpolished. It is these elements that are omnipresent with the game that ultimately kills what should have been the most innovative AC to date. Terribly Unfortunate.… Expand
Dec 1, 2012I have been eagerly waiting for this game for a year. But it seems that the game hasn't lived up to the roaring expectations. It's just another installment in the series which went wrong since Revelations. The same story as Revelations - side missions are boring and dull, nothing much to do and the story is kind of dull. And yes, one thing I found peculiar was ''WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SHOPS?". No, seriously, where were they. Also WANTED POSTERS were almost nil. And another depressing thing is the time spent in the frontier which is boring.
The graphics are beautiful and the characters are well designed. The voice overs look extraordinary and the scenic beauty are worth a while.
But the missions are mundane and there is nothing to do while you roam except hunting and looting the cargo.
Please UBISOFT, have you forgotten what made Assassin's Creed a great franchise?… Expand
Dec 3, 2013As Assassin's Creed fan I expected more. This is a huge downgrade from previous games. Extremely buggy and unpolished, even after multiple patches. Combat is streamlined and way too easy. One of the good things is that AC 3 looks stunning, both the combat and landscape.
The new protagonist is dull and unlikable. The story inside the animus is mediocre but the story outside is extremely dumb and lacking. The gameplay has been dumbed down and is worse than Revelations, less smooth. I love the American setting, it's realistic and immersive but cities were not designed well, stealth is frustrating and navigating through cities quickly is a chore more often than not.
It has many mini-games but most aren't interesting at all except maybe naval combat which was pretty damn good.
Overall it's a huge let down and it gets only 6/10.… Expand
Oct 16, 2013the game is out for quite some time now and still it keeps closing the tab of the game for me at random so i have to click back in and the map only works when it feels like are they actually serious about this? epic fail no were give about the PC users good job...
Jan 28, 2013Another solid game in the Assassin's creed franchise, I am not sure why it has been getting a bunch of negative reviews but I could understand people being frustrated with it. The combat is very fluid and easy to get the hang of. The park-our style of running, jumping and climbing is also very fluid, more so in this game than the previous ones. The graphics are very good, though I do miss the roman architecture of the previous games. The storyline is overall pretty good but can have some dull stretches. My main issue with the game is just how slow it moves, you can play for 6 plus hours and still not have unlocked a good chunk of side missions. There is a ton of stuff to do in the game but it can get overbearing. The ship combat part was not needed imo, the fun in the game comes from its combat mechanics and this just takes away from it. I liked the character you first play as but I had a hard time liking the main character (Connor). I never really got a good feel for him or his motives. You can tell just by playing it that they put a bunch of time into this game but you really need to be in it for the long haul, it is long drawn out. Sometimes AC3 feels more like a chore than the fun I had in AC brotherhood but it is a solid game.… Expand
May 24, 2014Assassin's Creed 3 is a pretty disappointing game. I find that the game lacks focus and places too much emphasis on pointless side missions, which are often tedious and without any depth or background story to them. I'm also beginning to get tired of seeing games implement collectible quests, as if developers think they're a good substitute for proper side missions (they're not).
Not only has mission design been degraded, but so has the interface. Whether you're playing on KB and mouse or controller, navigating the menus is nothing short of tedious. It seems the devs have decided that flashy menus are more important than functionality. Having to navigate more sub-menus upon more sub-menus is not quick and easy. Neither is slowly scrolling through the weapon wheel in the middle of combat. Why they decided to change all this is beyond me.
Environments are also very disappointing. I understand that devs have to abide by the generally boring architecture of 1770's America, but I've never explored an Assassin's creed city as empty, dull and full of nothing as Boston and New York (which are virtually the same). The frontier is no better. Sure it's large, but that only serves to make travelling from one point to another more boring and tedious than readng Shakespeare. I could go on about the game's flaws, but there'd be too many to list. At least the game has fairly decent visuals and a nice soundtrack, so there's that.… Expand
Dec 23, 2012Honestly, I could almost copy my Far Cry 3 review over here since this game suffers from the same issues. AC3 as well is a prime example of mass produced casual garbage. It also suffers from a complete lack of creativity and vision, not to mention the same dreadful casualisation that aims to take all challenge out of the game and make everything so simple that even a monkey who fell as baby from a tree and badly hit it's head could do it. Why I'm giving it a higher rating than Far Cry 3 (Rating 1)? It's because the world is a little more immersive and you at least don't see blinking weapon and ammunition vendor machines in this game.… Expand
Nov 27, 2012It's only **** port of the console game [ps3/xbox360] , poor graphic options, poor keyboard controls, no aspect ratio 4.3 for resolution. Its good game on console's but **** game on PC.
Nov 25, 2012the only lack of this game is optimization especially on AMD cards. Graphics the best of the series, gameplay the best and more dinamic , elements of batman AC and some RDR airs. Amazing story.
This is the best AC and the only one that didn't get me bored.
Dec 26, 2012First of all, I never finished brotherhood, so I had to go back and play it again. Then I had to Play Revelations because I had never played it, just finished that one 2 days ago. First of all, let's start comparing Assassin's Creed III to Brotherhood. In Brotherhood, you were practically thrown into the city of Rome, with no armor, limited weapons, and no money. But, you had the opportunity to go around exploring and climbing viewpoints. The viewpoints revealed Borgia Towers, which after liberated, would reveal new shops to renew, thus you would make more money. By contrast Assassin's Creed III is set in Boston, and although there are viewpoints to climb, there is no reason to climb them, because there is nothing to do. All the viewpoints do is reveal the map and that is it. Don't expect the familiar areas to liberate, shops to renew, weapons and armor to buy, assassins to recruit type of deal. All I have been doing so far in this game is finishing one main mission, watching a cut scene, then going to another main mission and watching another cut scene, then once again going to another main mission with a huge cut scene. There are only two side missions: collecting almanac pages and courier missions. The courier missions give you money, but it is useless, because there is nothing to buy and no shops to buy anything from. All you have is a pistol, your assassin's blade and a sword, which you buy at the begging and that is it, that's pretty much all you get. For the past few cut scenes, the story line is centers on Conway liberating other dudes, although he says he's going to explain why, he still hasn't...hopefully I will find that out after I watch a little bit more cut scenes. If you are planning to buy this game, I warn you, it's mostly just an interactive cut scene as far as I can tell. The element's that make Assassin's Creed are missing thus far ( I am still in the Haytham Conway part of the game) there's nothing to do on the map, except walk to the next main mission.… Expand
Oct 6, 2013Inconsistent. That is the game's biggest fault. I played it on a pretty meaty PC, v1.06, max setting, without AA (used FXAA). Bugs related with a game this big, there were bound to be some, and there were actually very few. VERY few. Most of them just funny. So it was great there.
Now, the "crowd tech". One of the biggest faults of the game. People DISAPPEARING when you're getting closer to them. They just spontaneously appear or disappear on from on your eyes. In the beginning, it's actually quite disturbing. Not to mention the performance penalty of the tech. It's busted. It's not even as good as AC1. The game is aware of quad-cores at least I guess, it's even maxing them out, but it's not USING them properly.
Next, movement. I don't know what everybody says, but parkouring has been perfected in AC3. Running is a delight. The animations are the best yet. The game mostly flows. From a control point, I find AC3 near perfect. There are times, in trees mostly, when Connor does not want at first to jump sideways and instead tried to wall climb. But that's mostly it.
The story is the flawed. Actually, let me tell you this. The last 4th of the story DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. In about chapter 10, Connor will find something that SHOULD completely change his motivations and what he fights for. It does not, and it will drive you insane, if you pick up on it. It will not be said directly, but be heavily alluded to. You WILL KNOW when you'll see/hear it.
- Also, all of Connor's development, all of it, happens IN-BETWEEN sequences. You'll see "months later. weeks later". All of the supposed traits Connor develops are not shown. So because of this, Connor acts either the same as when he was a teenager or just acts out weird out of the blue. You won't EVER really know what Connor fights for. Actually, there is only one general idea. Of revenge. But even that got thrown out of the picture in sequence 10, or it should've been, because nothing different happens. It is TERRIBLE WRITING.
- The best parts of the story are I don't know, Haytham's parts. Whenever he's in the scene, he steals it.
- For the majority of the game though the story won't make sense. Things don't flow together. They don't stick. It's cutscene after cutscene of mostly nonsense. But they're well made, that's for sure.
Side-missions. What side-missions? The only side-missions fun to do are the Homestead missions, which take a big proportion of the game though, to be honest. They're fun and well intended, but are not to the same quality as the story missions. Why? They could've easily been. The characters are stiff, not as neatly animated and just lacking in a broader array of emotions. The missions themselves are fun at least.
- everything not related to Homestead missions is just a checklist. There are some fun brawls but that's pretty much it. Literally everything else is MMO style grinding: Kill 10 stuffs of this. Kill other 10 stuffs of this while doing that. Kill 20 stuffs of this while doing the other. Dear god.
- Naval Warfare is awesome, you know this. Pretty much the best thing in the game, besides the normal on-foot combat.
- The Captain's Treasure side-quest is also VERY good. It's got a solid feel of the tombs sections from the previous games.
Other things: Graphics are great. Best animation yet in any AC and in any game, period. Face expressions in cutscenes are mostly great. The snow is a marvel when it doesn't destroy your framerate. The running animation is the best animation ever seen in video-gaming. The combat is really bun. Totally different than previous games (about time). Almost every enemy can and WILL counter a specific move or weapon, but are vulnerable to something else. So try and experiment.
- also, you know the drill. Different kill moves and animation for every tipe of weapon. Fists, swords, clubs, two-handed weapons, hidden-blade, the knives & tomahawks (they weirdly share the same moves)
- also, completely AWESOME different for most types of weapons (including muskets) DOUBLE and TRIPLE kill finishers. OH DEAR LORD they are superb.
- the Economic System is BROKEN. There is no money flow in the game. You can buy colors for your hoody, weapons, munitions and different stuff for you Manor Crafting. The thing is, you mostly get you buy stuff to do check-list side-missions (boring) or to craft upgrades, weapons and guns. The best weapons are craftable (but improved stats DO NOT make any difference). Also it's really really difficult to figure out how the whole manor crafting thing works. There's no tutorial for it. You just have to figure out for yourself or/and to check out online.
- there are many more things to be said about the game. AC3 should've been Desmond's story and Connor should've been a more interesting character.
- the ending was too meta for its own good. The AC series didn't deserve it. Especially after the masterful AC1 and AC2.… Expand
Nov 24, 2012I dont know what happened. Did they just dumbed down one of the most popular franchises of all time? I am a huge AC nut. I've played all of the AC titles including the NDS AND smartphone games, and have played through AC1 3 times, AC2 4 times and AC:Brotherhood 3 times. I love the franchise, despite what felt was becoming more of a CoD-scheme of release since AC2: one game/year with the same engine and pretty much the same mechanics. When they announced that AC3 was coming and this time with an enhanced engine and different gameplay mechanics I was pumped. How wrong I was. Firstly, the technical issues. I played the PC version, a version which has been heralded as a 'well-made port' from the console version. WHAT A LOAD OF BS. My PC, which runs Crysis 2 on high with decent framerates and all the AC games on 60fps+, cannot even run AC3 properly, with fps dropping below 20fps. I tried lowering the resolution to a dismal 800 x 600. No change to the fps. I tweaked the ini file and my driver settings (which have been updated to the latest version, thank you very much). Still the same. For review purposes, I gave up on the PC version and played the 360 version. And guess what? This is NOT AC anymore. There are so many technical glitches and bugs that it just felt like a joke at times. The emphasis on the frontier woods and smaller 'cities' means less roofs to stalk and less exploration. They basically just dumbed down the a critical element of the franchise (CITIES) and encouraged players to explore the repetitive, derivative wilderness to kill animals. Dont get me wrong. There are still a lot of things and missions to do in the cities but overall, its a huge step down from previous games. The combat...my God, why WHY did they have to change the combat mechanics???!!! It was perfect and exhilarating before - AC1: it was too easy, AC2: they improved it, made it awesome, AC:Brotherhood: Even more refining, now brilliant, and finally, AC: Revelation: they perfected it. In AC3, the combat just felt so unfluid and felt so disjointed at times that it wasn't as fun as previous times. The controls are different too and shooting is such a pain in the ass that you'll be using the tomahawk and Assassin blade in 99% of cases. The naval combat is cool and is praised by critics as a strong point but its basically more of a visual fest than actual side game. We've all done it before in previous AC games using carts and war machines instead of ships. Its the same fair and at times its linear as hell. Visually, its good. But seriously, this is the SAME ENGINE as the previous AC titles despite Ubisoft promoting it as a revolutionary new engine. It looks the same as AC2 but with more intricate texturing and dynamic shadows. Thats pretty much it. Just like how IW market CoD sequels as having enhanced engines, for AC3, its basically the same visual fair as the previous titles so dont expect anytime too fancy. Overall, whether you like AC3 depends on you: If you're a big AC nut like me, you'll notice the changes & glitches, cut yourself and curse Ubisoft for it all but still play the crap out of it anyway. At its core, AC3 remains moderately true to its mechanics with a decent plot and ends Desmond's tale. Oh yea thats right, the ending. Its almost as bad as Mass Effect 3's ending so all I can say is...prepare yourself. As for those who haven't played AC titles or only played them sparingly, you'll definitely love this game. The PC version is definitely the superior version with highly noticeable graphical enhancements as well as patches for the niggles that the console version had been experiences. Ultimately, if you do have a console, pick AC3 up for that as the PC version is, despite its bells and whistles, a very VERY poorly optimized console port that I wont continue to play until Ubisoft releases a patch to fix the issue. Seriously guys, even the PC version of Dark Souls, a game that basically spits PC gamers in the face with a lack of graphical options, had better optimization. In the end, AC3 felt like a rushed job with poor design decisions that would polarize gamers and will leave fans of the franchise disappointed. The endin… Expand
Mar 7, 2014The story here is really motivating, much better than I expected. The best story in Assassin's Creed series so far. This time the game team put almost everything in it. But the control is bad. By just pushing one button the character makes a serie of movements you don't expect like you're watching a movie. Sometimes you lose yourself in the crowds or you don't feel like you're really in there. Although Assassin's Creed 3 is still a great, playable game that you don't want to miss.… Expand
Mar 21, 2013this game is really really bad dont buy it papapapapapapapapapapapappapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapappapapapapapapapapapapapapapapappapapapapapa
Apr 23, 2013Ridiculously buggy to the point of not even being playable. As always, the storyline and voice acting are superb, but the majority of the game is action based and nothing ever, ever works properly. AC3 spits on the legacy of the franchise and should be ignored.
Dec 13, 2012This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It is far from downright awful, but still lacking something the previous instalments had. On a good rig, graphics look really good. The art is amazing (ships, houses, the whole atmosphere). I think the game is a bit too long for its own good. Trade system is quite forgettable: after a while you've bought everything and It becomes useless. Same goes for crafting. Most of the items you create are meant for trade, so it's all back to square one. There are some bugs here and there: most of them are quite annoying (items not working, losing your whole stock of tools at the beginning of each new sequence). What bothers me most is the drastic change in gameplay. Stealth isn't the best option anymore and once you've been spotted, the best way out is to kill everyone around. Indeed, the AI will chase you on very long distances and the number of places where you can hide has been significantly lowered, to the point that you can't hide on roofs anymore (which makes ground the best option when fleeing...) The beginning of the story was enjoyable, but it drags at the end. The ending is laughable, as bad as it gets: compared to that, mass effect 3's ending was a true diamond... Weapons are unbalanced, most of them are not even worth buying. You don't even see any real difference between them. Armor is gone. The whole sense of progression has been kind of raped. Secondary objectives to reach 100% synchronization add a bit of difficulty but don't reward you for completing them. Just like the other episodes, there's no replayability value, but that was expected. I'm not too much of a multiplayer type of gamer, so I haven't quite tested that yet: so far it looks like brotherhood's and revelation's multiplayer with a few new features.
- All in all -
Pros: graphics, naval warfare, part of the story, animations.
Cons: modified gameplay, unbalanced items, bland side quests, lack of freedom in most missions, ending.… Expand
Dec 29, 2012Its a copy paste AC game... There is absolutely nothing knew to this AC game besides the story. The gameplay is exactly the same as the others. If you want a good AC game take up brotherhood, where you have options on how to play along with an amazing story. Even the main character outside of the levels goes, "oh this again?" Whenever he begins a sequence.
Feb 28, 2013So Assassin's Creed 3 was praised by so many peeps and I just never saw the big fuse about it. So was it as amazing as everyone said it was going to be? In some ways yes but overall no. Now not saying its bad, its a decent but but im just going to explain why im giving it this score. So first talking about the pros about his game. Action and cutscences feel so cinematic. The game looks great with it been best graphics in any Assassin's Creed game. Combat has improved alot even tho it can be annoying at times. Good story and the Navel Ship Battles... best thing about this game! I mean it was an amazing engine for the ship combat and the engine beats alot of pirate engines and I hope Ubisoft make a game like that. Now the cons. Well first the character you play as Connor is just dull and boring compared to Ezio and even Altair even had a little more more charactor then Connor. Lots of stuff to do, but no real reward to them like other games in the series( well maybe a bit more then the first game) Ending was awful and should have given you an option at the end. The new engine makes the game too easy, I mean I want the old engine when you bought armor to take more hits and buy better weapons. Now you still can buy weapons but you can complete this game without buying a weapon(stupid if you ask me). So its got many pros and cons, but the pros just make it a decent game. So overall a decent game. Assassins's Creed 3 7.3/10… Expand
Jan 17, 2013This is one of my least favorite games so far within the franchise for a few reasons. Firstly the environment in comparison to the previous games is extremely bland, in comparison to the characters in the past their is no investment or reason to care about Connor and his story due to lack of personality and character growth. The start-up of the game is extremely slow. past the point of any story pacing and seems like a huge few hour delay before the game actually begins. The big staple of the series mechanics in the past were to use rooftop access to escape pursuers, but in this game you are penalized for it extremely as in within moments you'll have dozens of guards hone in on your position, while that is annoying enough when your at a distance their rifles magically and tremendously increase their firing rate. The campaign is broken in comparison o the other games in the series and can be buggy when climbing trees, ala Connor grabbing a hole in the tree on the third try doing the exact same thing ive been doing. The only upsides is the games combat is more fluid due to change of controls with different button mapping for the controller users. Multiplayer sees some ups and downs in this entry also with the inclusion of a more robust customization system. But once again that suffers from a environmental downgrade.… Expand
Jan 26, 2014The perfect example of how to NOT make a sequel
First, AC3 feels least like Assassin's Creed game. From the overly specific full synchronization mission objectives to the walk-between-cutscenes missions, the player is stripped of the sandbox style of play. The game forces you to play a predetermined style, which rids of the fun. In fact, the entire game plays out like you are more of a soldier than an Assassin.
Connor is the least strong of the AC characters and I actually found him quite annoying. The game is rather shallow in that it does not delve at all into the Creed or Brotherhood, but only that it exists and is there to stop the Templars.
The game lacks any polish. First, the game suffers from poor mechanics. Fluidity and consistency are the biggest problems. While there is the random ledge grabbing and haphazard horse controls, the combat is the biggest misstep. I use to love the combat, but in AC3 it is tiresome. The counters work like half the time. The gunplay ruins any flow. I died so many cheap deaths because of the odd mechanics. Second, there are more glitches in bugs in this game than in any other game I've played, which is sad for a blockbuster franchise like AC.
Next, the extras do not tie into the game whatsoever. I completed the game without doing any extras. I did not find them fun and rather unnecessary unlike previous installments where I did everything. They were not explained well. Also, I did not see weapon upgrades or costume upgrades.
Other serious complaints are the rather terrible fast-travel between zones, strange menu design, and the insanely long 4 hour tutorial at the beginning of the game.
The Assassin's Creed franchise is one of my favorites and AC2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I found so much disappointment and squandered potential with AC3.… Expand
Apr 5, 2014What the hell was Ubisoft thinking when they made this game? Every game in the series thus far has been enjoyable despite their flaws, and if you were given an objective, you were usually given the means to actually do that objective. It seems that in this one, they've decided to completely forgo giving you ANY of the slightest conveniences for getting a 100% synch, MAYBE adding in a distant haystack or something during missions that require stealth. I don't think they quite understood that difficulty also has to be fun. It seems like they'd rather have you constantly replay the same mission with poorly-placed checkpoints until you simply go insane and destroy your computer.
Now that I've finished that little rant, on to more "important" issues with the game, like its ABSURD amount of glitches. It feels like every time Connor actually manages to shimmy and waddle to the place I want him to, I find disappearing people, things stuck in walls, floating objects, etc. It really feels like I'm playing an early beta build or something. It's just not excusable. In addition to all of this, as I've pointed out before, the already somewhat lacking stealth system found in previous games in the series has been even further reduced when you really need it. Coupled with the fact that guards now have sharper vision and alertness than eagles (Except for the times when they don't seem to see ANYTHING, which is rare), this really gets to be a frustrating problem.
I could go on and on about how utterly flawed the game is, but I'm tired, I'm frustrated, and I'd really like to stop thinking about all of these flaws. So lets look at the positives of this game: It looks breathtakingly beautiful, and it's pretty obvious that a lot of attention to detail was given to visuals. Every environment, every animation, every creature... it all looks very believable. Until, that is, you notice that bear that got stuck in a rock and can't do anything about it but spasm.
And... well, that's pretty much all I found enjoyable.… Expand
Nov 27, 2012I simply do not understand why people are so enthusiastic about this game. I hate games that take you by the hand and don't offer anything else besides the scripted linear path. The summary of my experience with this game comes to: "Hold E to skip cinematic" and "Follow the yellow dot to finish your goal". Extremely boring... moving on.
Feb 13, 2013Hands down my favorite game in the series. On PC it is drop dead gorgeous. The story very much begins as an origin story for the new protagonist Connor. This is incredible, but completely replaying the game gets tedious due to the long handhold of an introduction. The new ship warfare and sailing is incredibly fun.
Very long game, in a positive way.
I loved this game.
Nov 22, 2012Lot of fun, very solid port, the controls are much better than the previous games, combat still feels a bit awkward but I will probably get used to it, the graphics are a big step up, the people look almost real, the environments lush and full of detail, and in the frontier there are wild animals that you can hunt and skin, adding further into the depth, trees and rocks are fully climbable, and adds a lot to exploration, the voice work is really high quality, and you meet a lot of founding fathers like Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, and George Washington. My only issue is that Connor is kind of boring as a character, he doesn't have the charm that Ezio had, but he's still pretty cool. Good game over all, worth buying if you're a fan of the series.… Expand
Feb 9, 2013You spend more of your time traveling between places and doing other boring stuff than actually assassinating people and doing other assassin-y stuff. I am almost at the end and never bought anything from a store because they are not visible on the map, also only way to make money is through a tedious process. Plus the confusing battle controls, etc. I liked the previous games, but am disappointed with AC3.… Expand
Nov 21, 2012A better companion than previous 2 AC games because of its long development time ad money . Boston n New York looks good ... frontier hold its own fantasies . It is one of the best port of PC by Ubisoft . Obviously its not perfect Assassin's Creed game , there were even some bugs as well as bit pacing problem . But with Well refined combat mechanics , Great Visuals and Especial Naval Fights , you can spare your few moments to get yourself in this American Fight . Desmond section were bit average and could be much better but with well made mechanics and good game-play features ... GO FOR THIS GAME!!… Expand
Mar 24, 2013This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game could be called "how to ruin a good game with cinematics, loadings times, and s***ty controls" !
The main scenario is full of cinematics, we're starting to get used to it, but AC3 does too much you find the bad guy, short cinematic to show him starting to escape, you chase him for 1 min, short cinematic showing how you catch him and get hurt, you play for 30sec walking straight forward very slowly (you're hurt), short cinematic again.... arghhhh I wanna play not just keep a finger on the move forward button between 2 videos !
If you add that there is a short (at least with a ssd) loading time between every game sequence and every cinematic.... you'll understand why they've spent some time on making an interactive loading screen, it's because it's the screen you'll remeber the most.
Add controls where a single button is used for 5 different actions, and a free run mode making it impossible to run withour climbing on everything that comes near you, and you'll rage... a lot.
It's a shame because the story is quite interesting (except the parts in the present), the maps are full of details and life, graphics are good... it had a good base.… Expand
Nov 24, 2012This game is amazing. History, the plot, art, action, i like them all. It is good to see this revolution from both sides, it's very interesting and make people think about it. The natives could not protect their lands, is a sad thing in history. There are some troublesome glitches if you want to 100% finish the game; but you can still finish it, just have to spend time or Google it. The challenges are not easy, it takes time, and good for hardcore assassins. I give a 10 because it's history and art, it's so AMAZING.… Expand
Jan 18, 2013Amazing graphics but cutscene after cutscene after cutscene after cutscene just destroyed what should have been a great game. Have played and enjoyed all the series but I am forcing myself to carry on to the end of this one. Less then half way there and I don't think I can take another guess what! ya a cutscene. What a pity.
Dec 5, 2012I've never uninstalled any open-world game before without finishing it first. AC3 will be the first. I decided I'd rather watch the ending on YouTube than suffer through the insanity of game design. My monumental disappointment stems from the realization that such an incredible game series has fallen so very far since the first and second games, including their variants. Despite being a "stealth" game, accomplishing objectives with stealth is either impossible or unrewarding. Lockpicking is a hair-pulling affair, the enemy AI is laughable, and travel (despite being reworked in a more advantageous way) is even more of an annoyance. Heaven forbid you run into the rock wall of a cliff above you and need to choose left or right. If you choose wrong, you're running ALL the way back. There's no way to climb up, the trees nearby don't go high enough, and you can't Fast Travel to a closer location to start again because Fast Travel is turned off during a quest. The only thing I love about this game is the music. An incredible score keeps up the exciting tempo. Such a waste, though. God damnit.… Expand
Mar 5, 2013This game is a real dud of a game. The only two interesting game features in the game are the ship battles and the decent combat. All story and side missions suck and the game is full of bugs, waiting around and meaningless drivel. I am fan of AC2 and Revelations but this installment is completely skippable and uninteresting.
Dec 16, 2012Fail and disappointment f the year :( That's very sad because I'm big fan of AC series and was waiting hardly this part to come out. First, this is NOT AC game at all. Everything good from AC2, ACB and ACR is gone. Controls are totally changed and practically unplayable. For first 30 minutes be sure to make popcorns because there is 30 minutes unskipable boring animated sequences series. Overall, unplayable game which have nothing in common with good old AC games. Everything except nice graphics is bad in this game.… Expand
Jan 4, 2013Game is rather dull and the character is not as charismatic as Ezio. Most of the time you will spend on the ground since there are not many rooftops to run on. The tree climbing is pretty linear compared to buildings... This is probably the most boring AC game I played so far. I uninstalled the game half way and watched the crappy ending on Youtube.
Nov 26, 2012It's a very good game. But not so good as an Assassin's Creed :/
It's different, the others opus were more "RPG"... here the story is our primary quest.
And there is no explanations about the game except principal storyline (yeah, 6 sequences of tutorial)
Jul 9, 2014Bugs, bugs and more bugs. And full synch is just free frustration, some constraints force you to play 200 times what doesn't deserve one single playthrough. Worst release of the franchise, by far.
Nov 25, 2012This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was so excited for the third installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise, needless to say, I was severely disappointed. Connor is the most bland character, Altair was a jerk at first, selfish ad reckless, Ezio was always a lovable character for me; but Connor is the most selfish, uninteresting ass I have ever played. I hated him. He has almost no story, and what there is is hardly interesting.
The plot was full of holes, when he joins the brotherhood and talks to Achilles, Achilles tells him "You need to kill all of them, even your father." At no point prior to this did Connor even mention that he was the son of Hathan Kenway. The controls are awful too, the devs seem to have wanted to appeal to the casual gamers far too much and cut out more than half of the controls present in previous AC games. This makes the gameplay, especially the fighting, a constant button mashing, hack'n'slash. No strategy behind "Attack here, this one's guard is down, get him now, block this one" etc. It's just "Left Click Left Click Left Click Left Click".
The missions as well, a lot of the missions are escort type missions with very little combat in between. The one which most recently made me rage quit the game involved me telling rebels when to shoot at the red coats, but the game strapped me to a horse who had a turn radius of a taxing Boeing 747. It was constantly jumping over fences and causing me to take nearly 4x the amount of time I would have had I been allowed to run on foot.
All in all, I think you should buy one of the older AC games, far superior. I don't think I'll be buying AC4 if they ever release one.… Expand
Oct 12, 2014This game was a very mixed experience of good and bad, and while it's not too bad in the end, it suffers from several flaws that could have easily been fixed to make it a much better game. I tried to play it for the first time about a year ago, but before even finishing the prologue sequence I got frustrated and gave up. It took me awhile to give it another try, and this time I stuck it out played all the way through. Connor's story has some really good moments, especially at the end of the prologue sequence (easily one of the best moments of the whole series). However, both Connor's and Desmond's stories went through stretches where they didn't make much sense or were just boring. Worst of all, both stories' ending were pretty anticlimactic. Right when you're waiting for a big payoff (after several games and many hours of play), they just putter out. The game introduced some new features that I liked, such as having different abilities for assassin recruits, hunting game, and crafting. Unfortunately, these features failed to reach anywhere close to their full potential: once they level up some (or you recruit several) the assassin's abilities are not too helpful, as they can just kill anything anyways. Hunting is mostly used for crafting and trade, but there isn't much worth crafting after you get the few available upgrades, and money quickly becomes useless once you upgrade your ship, which you can do pretty early on. By far my favorite new aspect was the addition of naval combat missions. While quite different in nature from the traditional AC gameplay--going for all-out combat instead of stealthy kills--it was fairly well implemented and gave a welcome break from running around through endless streets and trails. One thing that this game did horribly, however, was the controls: AC games on PC have a reputation for being lazy console ports, but it seems like instead of getting better, this issue is getting worse. Instead of allowing you to take advantage of having a keyboard with more than a half dozen keys, the game wants to force you to use the same couple keys for everything, with the result that you frequently end up doing something completely different than you intended. Finally, the voice acting is pretty terrible in general, and this is especially noticeable with Connor, the protagonist, who spends the whole game sounding like he's reading his lines and just doesn't care. Overall, it's not a bad game, and it's worth playing if you're an AC fan. I just wish that Ubisoft had put more thought and effort into the game, as it had the potential to be a very good one...… Expand
Dec 6, 2012Ac3 is probably the most in depth chapter yet in the series. It redefines the whole series it is intuitive and challenging to play..but is quite shorter than expected but however it masters story telling and presents the game in movie style...the opening of the game will say it...
Jan 2, 2013I really hope Ubisoft will take note of the feedback this game receives. It would be a big shame if they didn't do a better job on the next one, because this is one the best gaming franchises ever made and, even after almost putting my boot through the PC display plenty of times while cursing in ways I didn't know I could, I still enjoyed it and it's still Assassin's Creed.
Unfortunately, it's a fine example of a hunt for profit by doing an "almost half-assed" job, to quote PC Gamer, by making some bad decisions like releasing it with a LOT of glitches and bugs (which prevent 100% completion!!!), having some totally cryptic and counter-intuitive mission design (as in: knowing what you need to do), and bloating it with extra features that are out of context and sometimes ruin the experience. But then, what else is new. It seems we're living in an age where the big companies are either happy with the initial money they make for some unfinished, crap quality products, or are putting stuff out there knowing that it's unfinished, because people will still buy it, and when the patches start rolling out to make the game what it should have been, people are all like "oh thank you!". And I'm not talking about the studios, we should know better than attacking them: it's a huge industry and it's full of sharks. But I digress.
Here are my personal opinions:
PROS: - the naval battles - the underground (although it's very uneventful, it still feels so cool) - the upgraded fighting mechanics
- setting is boring
- Connor is boring
- optional objectives are often hard to read in all the commotion and I couldn't find a way to review them after the pop-up fades, besides restarting the checkpoint all over again
- optional objectives vary from "accidentally did it" to "lost 2h retrying it 27 times and I want to die now"
STUPID AND MORONIC (yes, I'm frustrated):
- chasing those f***ing pages
- losing control of the camera when enemy ships are spotted often made me crash into rocks/ships/whatever and restart the whole damn thing OR interrupted a shot just when I was about to fire… Expand
Nov 23, 2013There are too many problems of this game.
First, the flow of plot may be quite ambiguous to player due to the gradual change of controllable characters and timelines in the memory sequences, leaving a lot of unanswered plot holes, which are only addressed in a novel. It is ridiculous to read a novel or to search in wiki to understand a game's plot with a deeper extent.
Second, the pace of game is too slow. Combined with year change, season change and character change, the game becomes a very boring open world game. The sense of achievement is long gone, considering the controllable character or world in previous sequences will not stick with player in late game. It also results in repetitive side quests with low in number in early sequences. Even in late game, the open world still looks empty and dull, and the side quests are still too boring to be bothered with.
Further, the mission design are too linear, with the player to follow direction strictly given by game. Even how the player move is nearly restricted in a mission. The fun of eliminating target with various possibilities is no longer seen in this installment.
At last, this game has too many gimmicks like sea sailing, naval battle and hunting which do not add much to game mechanic and plot, and only add low value to its repetitive side quests.
Overall, the story is in fact not that bad. It is good to see more on the Templar side this time. However, the story telling and game mechanic implementation is extremely bad, which ruins the game play experience completely.… Expand
Jun 8, 2014I have a bit low-hate relationship with the Assassin's Creed games: I love the environment, the quest variety and the collectibles, but I sometimes have to scream loud if I fail an optional task for the 50th time... Luckily, the AC3 seems to have been improved on this aspect. I had far less tough cases than in previous games. Well worth buying it on a 50% sale.
Dec 28, 2012I've played (and completed) AC2, AC2:Brotherhood and AC2:Revelations....honestly, with AC3 I'm having more fun and I'm enjoying the story much more than with any of the previous releases.
This story (AC3) is the best yet written in the entire series (from my point of view, of course). I mean, what the hell was Machiavelli doing in AC2:Brotherhood? And what about da Vinci? If you want to use such historical characters in a fictional renaissance story, at least take it seriously. In my opinion both characters were poorly represented/superficially conceived (like a sorry postcard), I found them embarrassing... In fact, not only historical characters were underdeveloped, I also think they could've improved Ezio's story a big deal if they had put a mind to it (I'm not saying it's rubbish, I'm just saying it could've been better). Don't get me wrong, AC2 trilogy was praiseworthy (for arcade open world standards) in my opinion.
Concerning AC2 trilogy's story, I found it wanting in various occasions...on the other hand, I think that AC2:Revelations finale was very touching: Ezio meets Altaïr's skeleton, speaks to Desmond "trough the centuries" (great concept) and then retires considering his work fulfilled. I didn't really expect much from AC3, now I find myself delightfully surprised. I liked the story right from the start: you find yourself in the flesh of Haytham Kenway (England 1754), who is attending a revival of the "Beggar's Opera" in the Royal Opera House in London. He enters the auditorium, tries to reach his seat while stepping on other people's feet in the process and starts apologizing to them in turn (I found it hilarious and original, a great way to open the story)...he doesn't care for the opera, of course, there's something else in his mind...
If AC3 was conceived like a movie of some sort, a lot of people would probably like it. This means that AC3 screenwriters have done a good job both establishing the main plot and designing characters, dialogs and scenes. For example, I'm still laughing at Benjamin Franklin's dissertation about the advantages of taking older women as lovers (this was a REAL letter by Benjamin Franklin written on June 25,1745. The game developers were simply outstanding here.).
Perhaps the story loses some of its grip while playing Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor), but truth is that I like to hunt game and explore the native american forests, I like my tomahawk and I like the fact that the main character is a Mohawk who tries to defend his people and their way of life (mohawks in the game speak traditional mohawk, by the way, that's another merit of AC3)
The music in this game is great (specially because of sailor shanties and native american tribal music).
They introduced historical board games like the Roman Checkers (I love them).
Now you can fight naval battles (unrealistic, OF COURSE, like almost all things in the AC saga, in case you haven't noticed). I see various people here complaining about controls, clichés, predictable turns of events, glitches, lack of immersion, lack of freedom, lack of creativity, dumb action scenes, unrealistic fights, etc.
1-As far as I can see, they mainly changed two key bindings. Now you use "E" instead of "Shift" and "Q" instead of "E"...that's about it...you can customize them anyway so I don't see the problem here. 2-There aren't more clichés or predictable turns in AC3 than they were in previous releases... I mean, I knew Ezio was going to beat everyone long before it happened...
3-Maybe it's just that I'm lucky, but my AC3 installation doesn't have those horrible glitches some people is talking about.
4-Personally, I can cope with the game's plot "jumping" between characters (this already happened in previous releases), so it's not a problem for me. Just one question to all people who is complaining about this: How do you expect to develop this plot (which is divided in different stories) without jumping between characters? 5-You can still explore Boston, the forests, the frontier, New York, etc. at your will. The game allows the player to do it... So I still don't know why there is people saying that you can't explore the scenarios freely. There are document fragments to be catched, trinkets to be found, messages to be delivered, naval battles to be fought, forts to be destroyed, trade to be established, game to be hunted, treasures to be claimed, missions to be completed,etc. Perhaps there are less sub-missions than in other releases, but there is still a lot to be done in the game, you can be busy if you want to.
6-For those who haven't noticed yet, AC series is COMPLETELY unrealistic.
I mean: haystacks don't save your life, the world isn't some kind of "puzzle" where everything is placed to accommodate your magical acrobatics. Killing is not easy, "medicine" can't restore broken bones and bullet/arrow shots, etc,etc...… Expand
Dec 4, 2012Great story and setting, very well told, but it contains quite a lot of bugs, and the controls can drive you really crazy at times, which is especially annoying in long missions, where you die at the end and are then placed at the start of the mission. Most missions do have checkpoints though, so it's only a few (really annoying) missions who suffer that problem.
May 14, 2013All the other negative user reviews have pointed out all the flaws and bugs etc., so I'll just point out something else which is bad in the series. By they way, the critic reviews are paid off, no doubt.
I completed the main story not making side missions (a few, max) and I explored just a little. Most of the time I just fast traveled everywhere or just rode straight from point A to point B. The game completion says "20 hours" in Steam, and my synchronization-% is 38. The main story is 38% of the game, maybe a little less. Rest of the game consists of vague side missions that simply aren't interesting to play. I don't feel like wasting 35 hours doing some deliveries etc.
Also the accounting system is horrible. I didn't do anything related to the manor economy, and had more than enough money to spend. Who the wants to spend time sending some wagons to export some material to don't-know-where to get 20 bucks? It was absolutely horrible, didn't even try to understand use that... thing. Totally unneccessary. In AC:B the Monteriggioni repairs and stuff at least made sense and you felt like "I need to do this, it's my home town." or something.
Too much time is spent to travelling. Way too much.
Another things:
1.) I have no idea what the Almanac Pages were for. Didn't give a ***t so didn't collect them.
2.) I didn't buy anything from the stores. I didn't even find any stores in the cities every now and then when I tried. All the weapons I used were hidden blades, tomahawk and sword. I didn't even feel that I had a need for other weapons. I also don't have a clue if you could get better armor or so... Connor was pretty much immortal anyway: 10 sword hits and still standing.
I'm also a huge AC-fan, but in this game all I wanted to do was to get the main plot through as fast as possible, and ignore the uninteresting side missions.
About the "real world", outside the animus:
1.) The plot was totally f****d in AC:R with the god-sh*t and ridiculous 2012-apocalypse-sh*t.
2.) In AC3 the plot has gotten very, very lame, and there will be trouble ending it all in a way that makes sense and isn't stupid.
I hope the series end in AC4. It should've ended in revelations, no doubt. It has gotten mainstream like Tomb Raider and has nothing new to offer. It all just smells like moneymaking and Ubisoft being unable to let go of something that's their number 1 profit while they should.
The best possible plot in AC-series would've been that after AC:B Ubisoft would've made an AC game that's located in real world in the present, and the Assassin's would've fought against the Abstergo company and defeated them for good. No paranormal/supernatural rubbish involved. There would've been 4 games in the series, and that's it. No more.
It's hard to write a solid review, because so much things pop up in my mind that needs to be said, and this text box is so damn small.… Expand
Jan 27, 2013This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game didn't quite grasp the full extent of the Assassin's Creed series. In my opinion AC Revelations & Brotherhood are the best in the series. This game however didn't live up to my expectations. There's no final boss battle! You will just kill the final Templar & then the credits rolls up.There are no character developments either. If you didn't read the Animus database, you wouldn't even know who really is Achilles & how the Colonial Brotherhood was disbanded. The story is great but the narration sucks. Ubisoft became lazy after Ezio's success on his past three titles. The naval combat also doesn't really make a difference. I also would prefer Jesper Kyd's music over Lorne Balfe's. AC3's music didn't really impacted to me unlike the past titles. There are very few synchronization points & very few maps.… Expand
Nov 28, 2012Good: Pretty good story line, not a common scenario that you would see in other games. Graphics are good. Cities look realistic, definitely captures the feel of the era. Weapons are pretty cool. Fast travel has been added in more places than just the tunnels. The money systems have been revised, it takes a little more effort to make cash now. Haytham is a very well done character and really good voice acting. The naval battles are awesome, easily the most enjoyable part of the game for me.
Bad: Very linear, yet jumpy story. There isn't a lot of creativity involved in what you do. Combat is great if you love cinematic kill shots, not so much if you enjoy honing your skills to get better. It's basically block when the warning thing pops up and mash the mouse button. It's often hard to pick up dropped weapons while in combat. There are some higher level AI that you fight that seem to just headbutt you and reverse your blocks making you just want to shoot them to end the hand to hand combat. Crafting seems very scattered and doesn't make much sense, why am I crafting barrels again? You will probably get stuck in the crafting menu until they get it patched. Lock picking... wtf. Doesn't make any sense at all. Your horse will likely get stuck inside of things frequently, but no big deal you can just call another. Better make sure you setup your shortcut key to the horse whistle though because your equipped weapons change by themselves. You may try to call a horse and wind up shooting a patrolling redcoat in the face. You can't just blindly jump from a viewpoint because it doesn't automatically line you up with the soft haystack at the bottom, this becomes annoying when you do the tree viewpoints and can't see the ground. Remember all those amazing underground puzzles in the past AC's? Yeah, none of that here. The main character isn't very likable. He's kind of an arrogant dick head to everyone. Achilles's story doesn't really end with a bang. Seems like they just ran out of time and forgot about that part. The story outside of the Animus is just out of control. It's not immersive and mostly leaves you with more questions than answers. The thing that frustrated me the most I'd say was the movement. The cities are designed to look more realistic, but unfortunately that means that rooftops are harder to traverse. Everything is very spread out, and it's hard to stay in the air for very long. The climbing seems to have been dumbed down a bit, when you want to climb it works nicely. If you're just trying to run away on the ground you will probably end up trying to climb the food cart or tree that's vaguely close to you, causing you to be surrounded. Graphics look nice, but aren't quite optimized. I have a decent rig, but there are lots of stutters especially when entering the big cities. At the end of the game, I'm very disappointed. I'd consider this the worst game in the series. So much potential, but not properly utilized.… Collapse
Feb 6, 2013Assassin's Creed III proves to be, despite its promises, a rather indecisive game. It comes with so many strong elements, that it could have been the best Assassin's Creed ever, but it fails to harmonically balance those elements. [January 2013]
Jan 29, 2013Assassin's Creed 3 offers a spectacular way to fill in the blanks in your knowledge of the American Revolution - it never holds back on scope, drama or action.
Jan 23, 2013What, no French revolution? For Europeans, birth of the United States is not really very interesting time nor environment. And after Ezio (or Haytham Kenway), Connor is bland, irritating protagonist. Game is also full of chores that add very little to the experience. [Jan 2013]