Title: Assassin's Creed: Unity
Format: PS4(reviewed), Xbox One, PC
Release Date: November 11, 2014
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: M
Assassin's Creed: Unity was released with a great deal of bugs and technical issues, now a month later, it seems that Ubisoft has finally cleaned up the game. For those of you who didn't want to be early adopters, the game is definitely worth a playthrough now.
Story and Presentation:The Assassin's Creed franchise has been a staple among the gaming community. Whether you love it or hate it, the game always manages to introduce new locales and mechanics to keep the game fresh and invigorating. This however, is not the case with the game's story. This was one of the weakest stories out of the series, and if it wasn't for your great heroine companion, the narrative would have been a complete snore. Elise and Arno lead the way this time around, and without a large number of side characters, like in Black Flag, the story has a much more focused feel to it. The problem is, the situations you get put just aren't that interesting, if you're a veteran of the series, then nothing about the story will surprise you. With that said, the two's chemistry will keep you tuned in, especially towards the latter half of the game. In terms of the game's presentation, this is where the game triumphs. The virtual recreation of Paris is absolutely astonishing. Even though the game was riddled with bugs to begin with, it didn't at all detract from how gorgeous this game is. As the story progresses, the city crumbles before your very eyes, the streets becoming filled with angry citizens burning effigies and waving flags in protest, while loyalists and revolutionaries fight over the future of their home. The sheer scale of the game is a huge step up from the last as well. A mission where you're tasked with performing an assassination amongst a crowd of thousands shows how Unity is as close as the series has ever come to creating a fully, living, breathing city. There were a few oddities that appeared, one being that given this takes place in Paris, why were everyone speaking with british accents. You did get the occasional french dialect, but it wasn't as dominant as I assumed it would be. Other than that, the game is a visual showpiece, and it only excited me to find out how far they would push the next game.
Core Gameplay and Multiplayer:In terms of its combat and mission structure, Unity brought the series back to what made it so engaging in the first place. The assassinations are simply a wide open sandbox where you can decide how you want to kill your target. Opportunities are the new mechanic that opens up new strategies that will assist you during your mission. It's a cool mechanic that gives you that much more freedom to do as you please. You could just go in knives blazing, but you're probably going to die, as the enemies are a loot more tougher than in Black Flag. I never felt threatened at all while playing as Edward Kenway, but in Unity, I died a lot more. At it's core, the game is great, but there are too many annoyances that bring the experience down. You still have to stealthily tail targets more than you'd want, and the auto fail stealth missions that we all know and love. Thankfully, Unity's new co-op missions eschew these dated ideas, and are largely based on large-scale sandbox assassinations. Most fun are the heist missions, where your team is rewarded for stealth: the more people you alert along the way, the less cash you get at the end. It means that every member of the team has to work together efficiently in order to get the most cash. Unfortunately, when the game launched, the co-op was a train wreck. After about four patches, the co-op was actually playable, and it ended up being a worthwhile experiment that would be welcomed in future titles. Outside of the main missions, well, it's fetch quest central for the most part, along with a few assassinations. The excellent stealth mechanics make these missions more exciting than they would have been. The parkour system has been tweaked, allowing for greater freedom of movement. It means you aren't locked into a set course during a climb, so you can easily move diagonally across a surface, or descend with fewer awkward animations. This was a godsend, and it made scaling buildings a lot more fluid.
Final Thoughts:In the end, Assassin's Creed: Unity got off to a tumultuous start, but after Ubisoft pushed out a number of much needed patches, the game actually felt playable. If you skipped out on the game in the beginning, I would suggest you buying in now, especially now that the DLC is free.
+Magnificent Visuals
+Crowded, Populated Streets
+Sandbox Assassinations are a ton of fun
-Game didn't ship finished
-Lackluster Story
S&S Rating: 7.5/10
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