Ubisoft continues it's new series Assassins Creed with it's next instalment Assassins Creed Revelations. Continuing the story of an older Ezio in a new setting the game improves a number of features started in the first game up to Assassins Creed Brotherhood, the previous game in the series. The premise of this new game is that our behind the scenes hero Desmond is trapped in the animus after the events of the last game. To get out he has to finish reliving the memories of both Altair and Ezio to escape. While playing as Altair player learn what happened during the rest of his life, and as Ezio finishing his last mission to unlock Altair's final secret. Each character play's slightly differently with their own stories that interconnect with each other. Ubisoft has aimed this title like the previous titled, towards the more mature demographic with it's M for mature rating and general content within the game.
The Assassins Creed series hasn't changed it's core movement mechanics since the first game. Players still walk, run, climb up walls, jump around, etc. Which is a good thing. While it might seem complicated at first, the number of controls and options available but eventually they become second nature to new players, and like riding a bike for returning ones. This game adds a new element called the Hook Blade. Along with new fighting animations it gives players an added reach for when they jump allowing them to more jump farther distances. It also allows players to use the scattered zip lines to get around faster and get around enemies that block their path (with a pretty nice animation I'm surprised an older Ezio can do). All this gives the sense of freedom to the player to enable their sense of wonder and fun as they pull of the perfect jump, or climb up the tallest building only to jump from the top into a hay cart. Ubisoft has gotten rid of the horse used in past games this time since the whole game takes place in the city of Constantinople with no open area outside the city. This reinforces the players to use the series parkour and the new Hook Blade to it's fullest. Almost all of the city is open from the start withstanding one area inside the city itself and a section later in the game giving the player the option to explore the world at their leisure.
While the parkour elements have always been stable and effective, the combat in the Assassins Creed game has always been lacking. Too easy and simple, all players needed to do was counter kill all the enemies around them to get out of a battle. In the Brotherhood it was made even easier with the ability to chain counter kills into each other. Revelations tries to fix this by introducing new enemies. These enemies require more than just the simple counter kill to be dispatched, as well as have varied attacks that can't be countered at all. These new elements change the gameplay slightly but not enough. Players can still just counter kill their way out of fights, or use their attained Brotherhood to fight for them. The kills are still very nice to look at though. Bone breaking and bloody these are the visual elements that really show this is a mature game. With each new weapon giving different kill animations is a pleasure to explore and see them all in their gory glory (definitely a saying that should be used for a pulp movie. Just saying).Another new element is Bombs. Players can learn to craft and use their own bombs to use in a variety of different scenarios. There are various bomb making ingredients scattered around the game world to be used to construct different bombs. They could be used to assassinate targets, escape pursuers, or distract guards. While interesting it never serves a necessary purpose and is more of an addition to the already vast array of ways to play the game. It could have been used much more interesting. There is a part of the story where the player is given a bomb to use and it could have been better to have the player create that bomb themselves. I never used the bombs except for during the bomb tutorial missions. A missed opportunity.
The Brotherhood carries over from the previous game where Ezio can recruit and train assassins to help him on his mission. It pretty much works exactly like the last game where players can find people to join their brotherhood inside the city usually by defending them from attacking enemies. In this new game some of these recruits have different stories and missions in order to obtain them which is nice that it changes up the goals and teaches the player new ways to play the game even if these missions are short and minimal. Once the recruit is added to the Brotherhood these assassins can be called into battle to help, or sent out on missions to level up and become stronger. While before it wasn't necessary to use the brotherhood at all in this game it is almost a necessity. Players have to train recruits to level 10 to make them leaders of an assassins den, and then level 15 to make sure that templar's cannot take that den over again. When doing this you enable new missions that flesh out the assassins character as well as show new types of missions. While these missions seem to take the place of the assassin, thief, courtesans, and mercenary optional missions from the last game there aren't enough of them so while the gameplay change is nice, its still brief.
The world of Constantinople is amazing. Fully realized their are many different places for the players to go an interact it. The city takes many of the old elements from the past games with doctors, blacksmiths, and tailors littering the map but changing in this game is the swap of art shops for books shops since the main quest has Ezio looking for books. Along with many different shops there are the usual treasure chest and animus fragments. Treasure chest just give players more money and bomb ingredients. Unnecessary but for completionist its fun to get the maps to see where each treasure chest is located. I spent some time doing just that listening to podcasts (back when I still had free time). The animus fragments actually have another purpose. When the player collects enough of them they can relive Desmond's memories. It's kind of annoying since there are 100 of them and no map of where to find them so invested players will spend a lot of time looking, or google a guide. This game introduces new Templar dens. While similar to the dens Brotherhood these ones a little more complicated. Players must assassinate the leader of the den to make it an assassin den. These dens serve as safe places for players to relax and explore the surrounding area as well as places to craft new bombs and check their goals. Unfortunately these dens can be reclaimed by Templar's if the player hasn't assigned a den to a level 15 assassin. While interesting this tug of war over the city it never serves much of a purpose other to make traveling around a little easier to avoid fights. The assassin dens serve as safe places but are relatively unnecessary since players can just run from fights and be fine.
One thing that Revelation is sorely missing from previous games in the series is the side missions. While in the original game they were boring and repetitive Ubisoft has over the years made them varied and more interesting, giving more back story to the main narrative. These side missions helped give detail to the story as well as the characters that the player interacts with and the city itself. Also it changed the gameplay from time to time. Now Revelations tries to work around this with specific assassin den missions that are interesting and give more insight to the assassins under your control, making them more interesting characters but it is limited to only when you have an assassin high enough level. The story missions keep thing interesting, especially the mission regarding Sofia, Ezio's new love interest and to find the keys to Altairs library, but other than these story mission there is only the templar dens missions that become very repetitive and boring.
More on the templar dens right now. Once a player has defeated the leader of the templar den they take control of it. This makes the area around the den safe for players to travel without getting into fights. Unfortunately until the player locks the templar den by raising an assassin to the highest level it can be contested and recaptured by the templars making players complete the newest gameplay addition to Assassins Creed, the real time strategy segment. Players have to defend the den from an ever increasing amount of enemies that come down one city street. The player can place assassins on roof tops, put barriers in the street or even fire cannon volleys to stop the hoard. For a game that the draw is it's parkour freed this sticks out like a sore thumb. There we many times I just let the enemy win just so I could give them the territory back kill the templar leader again, which I found easier than defending the territory. If this game had any major flaw it would be the inclusion of this unfortunate gameplay element that just doesn't flow well with everything else it's trying to do.
The narrative in Revelation is probably my favourite part which is pretty much like the movie Inception. Desmond is trapped in the animus and can't escape until he finishes the memories of his ancestor Ezio and Ezio must find the keys to Altairs library and relive the memories of Altairs life. It's a memory in a memory sort of thing. This type of story is very much for fans of the series as it answers some questions about the general series. My favourite part of the story was seeing Ezio as an old man. After playing through 2 previous games and watching him turn from arrogant youth to leader of the assassin order this game was the last piece of his journey. As an old man he had a final mission to do for himself and just knowing that this interesting character is now finished (well really finished in the additional movie Assassins Creed Embers) it made this final journey, and the story in the past two games more memorable. Even seeing what happened to Altair made the events of the first game much more interesting. Many games can't pull off killing a main character but Assassins Creed is capable of doing it and giving each one a interesting and emotional story. I'm a completionist in a way that having a good complete end to a characters tale just make me really happy.
The characters in Assassins Creed Revelations are bit flop sided though. On the one hand you have the main characters of Desmond, Ezio and Altair. Each one of these characters get fleshed out and matures in their own way. Desmond accepts that he is an assassin an it's what he's meant to do. Ezio finishes his final journey and finds love giving up the fight against the templar for the next generation of assassins he has been training, and Altair where we learn exactly what happened to him after the first game. His loves and losses are nicely contained in short segments. Unfortunately the other characters don't fair so well. The leader of the assassins in Constantinople is very straight forward and we don't learn much about him, and the love interest, Sofia, is simply a love interest. They make an attempt to make her interesting but it falls flat as everything she does is off screen until a moment at the end. The balance here is the assassins in the brotherhood that have their own recruiting missions and assassin den missions which show them learning to become leaders in their own right.
The visuals of Assassins Creed Revelations are amazing. As usual Ubisoft knocks it out of the park recreating this magnificent city. Like Rome before it it is littered with detail including recreated real places that players can purchase and people walking in the streets. The series has always aimed at realism in everything it does (well except you know going around and killing people... you know I'm really just speaking about the visuals so lets ignore that bit about killing) and it really shows. The aim at realism to to draw in their target demographic of more mature gamers. Between the blood and world their isn't anything aimed for younger audiences which is exactly what Ubisoft wanted. No Cartoony aspects here. Unfortunately I think the location might have hindered them a bit. Last game taking place in Rome game us landmarks we could easily identify with (like the Coliseum) and Constantinople doesn't have things places like that which their target demographic can make a connection. I liked it though I do have to say when I did see the Coliseum in person all I could think about was climbing up it, well that and the actual gladiator fights.
The HUD and menu systems are have the same configurations as previous games but with a darker twist. With the story being slightly darker and the animus being broken everything is tinted black. It looks good but then the problems arise. Considered how bright the game is switching back and forth from a dark menu hurts the eyes. Other than that the menus do everything that they need to. Giving players the choice on how much information they want on the map, and easy access to all the information they could want. The HUD shows the bare essentials with health, map, and a quick information on what the buttons do. While the buttons don't need to be there its nice to show when you can assassinate players but maybe Ubisoft can figure another way to do that.
The Final aspect of the game is the Multiplayer. Introduced in Assassins Creed Brotherhood Ubisoft as improved the the basic multiplayer with new maps characters and features including a storyline with new perks and customization options. My main problem with the multiplayer before was that it separated gamers into two play styles, the 'silent' play style looking for less kill but more points per kill and the 'runners' that get more kills but less points for each kill. Ubisoft has changed this with new game modes that require player to use both these play styles in different ways to win the games. Unfortunately the customization option come a little late and ti would be nice to give some of those options when player start so they can really get into matches and story. There's isn't much of a community online for people to take part in which is unfortunate considering they already have the factions and world set up. Maybe it's a set up for a massive MMORPG later, who know.
After writing this deconstruction about Assassins Creed Revelations I've realized that my favourite part as the narrative. Not event the story but the concept that it was Ezio's last game. That's not saying that it was a bad game. It changes some things up for the better and some for the worst. It looks more like a testing ground for some of the elements in the next game. There's no questioned it's a game aimed at Mature players with its visuals and concept and the more I think about it there is so many places this series can expand and take my money which it will probably do.
