UWCrash
12-01-2011, 02:54 PM
Title: Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Platform: PC/360/PS3
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal (http://www.ubi.com/)
Publisher: Ubisoft (http://www.ubi.com/)
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-sony-playstation3/dp/B004YVOCV4/ref=sr_tr_sr_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-1)/X360 (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-microsoft-xbox-360/dp/B004YVOCYG/ref=sr_tr_sr_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-2)), $49.99 (PC (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-Pc/dp/B002I0IHIM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-5))
Editor: Ryan 'UWCrash' Kern
What's Hot: Great production values; Standard Assassin's Creed gameplay, now with bombs!
What's Not: New game modes are out of place; Some bugs The fourth installment of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, subtitled Revelations, dropped on X360 and PS3 two weeks ago and just released this week for PC. This time around Desmond is trapped in the Animus which is operating in “Safe Mode”, trying to prevent the memories of himself, Ezio, and Altair from crashing together. The only recourse is for Desmond to continue reliving the remainder of his ancestor’s memories to build a partition between his own mind and the memories of his progenitors. This is just another stepping stone in Desmond’s story which will be concluded in next year’s installment, but this title represents the conclusion of Ezio's role.
As is standard for the series, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous and the music fits perfectly with the setting. Combined with excellent voice work, the presentation here is top notch. I'd love to say more here, but if you've played any of the previous titles you know exactly what to expect.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7009/6400206501_1590140bc1_z.jpg
For those who played Brotherhood, you’ll see a lot of similarity in gameplay for Revelations. You’ll be renovating shops and landmarks throughout the city, training up new recruits for the local Assassin’s brotherhood, completing faction challenges, and carefully assassinating cowardly Templar captains who will flee when they spot you. Fortunately there isn’t the piecemeal unlocking of content as experienced in the previous titles. By the time you’ve reached the end of Sequence 3, roughly 90% of the city is accessible to you, and I found this extremely refreshing. Nothing is stopping you from charging ahead with the main plot at this point, but playing in the “sandbox” gave me hours of distraction before I went back to advancing the story.
Ezio does get a few new tricks to play with this time, and while the hookblade has a few nice applications the real draw is in bomb crafting. You’ll have a chance to carry up to three different types of bombs, one from each of three categories. Lethal bombs are pretty straightforward in their application (shrapnel or poison bombs). Tactical bombs include smoke screens and snares that will slow down or immobilize pursuers. Finally, Diversion bombs include cherry bombs which will lure guards to a location or pyrite bombs which will attract civilians with fake coins (potentially inciting them to violence). There are more applications than I’ve listed here, and you can also customize the blast radius and fuse type. It’s a great addition to the tools you’ve already had at your disposal, and allows you to set up some neat scenarios (think cherry bomb followed by shrapnel bomb).
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6400206989_d74943d6d5_z.jpg
There are two new mini-games in Revelations, the first of which is Den Defense. This is a Tower Defense style game that may take place every time you fill up the notoriety meter. You can reduce notoriety by paying off town criers and assassinating Templar captains (no posters this time around), so it’s possible to only play this once when explained to you during a core memory. I loved TD back in the Warcraft 3 days, and I’ve played a little bit of Plants vs. Zombies, but there really isn’t anything redeeming about Den Defense. Instead of having a top-down view of all the action, you are given a first-person view from where Ezio is standing on a rooftop. Every time you lose a unit, and you will lose them, the camera briefly changes perspective making it hard to determine exactly who died. Unless you are working on the Assassin’s Guild challenge to win 3 Den Defenses, I’d make sure to keep your notoriety low and pretend this didn’t exist.
The other new mini-game is the Desmond sequences. Playing through these you’ll hear Desmond’s recollection of his life up until his kidnapping by Abstergo (the setting of AC1). Unfortunately this is only a narrative device. The gameplay has you performing first-person platforming while being able to drop two types of blocks to navigate chasms and various obstacles. There were a few places in the early sequences that were actively annoying, but the last couple were relatively fun. Music that sounded like it was off the Tron: Legacy soundtrack and graphics that mimicked the inside of the Abstergo building from AC 1&2 helped to bring it around by the conclusion. I was glad that they expanded on Desmond’s past before ending his story in Assassin’s Creed 3, but the gameplay here was very out of place with respect to the core of the franchise.
It needs to be said that Revelations should have seen a little more QA before hitting retail. I never experienced any major bugs such as crashing the system, but there were multiple occasions where I would need to restart a memory or quit and re-enter the game. These manifested in NPCs which would not advance their dialogue in story events or Assassin’s recruits who would not speak to me after fending off guard/Templar attacks. I never experienced any notable problems in previous AC titles, and it was pretty disappointing to see something like this manifest four titles into the series.
Multiplayer isn't something I was interested in when it was first introduced in Brotherhood, and I sadly never dove into it until Revelations. The basic “deathmatch” mode has you attempting to silently assassinate an assigned target based on their character’s portrait while another player will be looking for you. The winner is determined by score, not just kills, and there are bonuses for style (striking from above or from inside cover) as well as increasing bonuses for your level of stealth. It’s easy to jump into, but there is a bit of a learning curve as you realize which character models are PCs vs. NPCs.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6060/6400206859_c833c457af_z.jpg
Like most shooters these days, there is an experience system woven into the multiplayer which can provide you with perks, active and passive, to help you be a more efficient killer. The Templar story is also woven into the multiplayer as you are taking on the role of a Templar-in-training, and leveling up will also provide you with addition background information on that organization. However, my biggest complaint about multiplayer is that the menu layout for all of this non-intuitive. For X360, all of the character customization and challenge information is hidden under the LB menu, but there’s little to indicate that. Also, matchmaking could have been more streamlined instead of having one huge PLAY NOW option for deathmatch and placing all of the other modes under “Custom Match”. Regardless, even if you’re like me and really only came for the single player, at least give multiplayer a chance. It does, however, require a "UPlay Passport" which is included in new copies or can be purchased separately if you bought the game used.
To date every title in the Assassin’s Creed series has been a great step forward, but Revelations feels like the black sheep of the flock. Bomb crafting is a welcome addition, but Den Defense and the Desmond sequences are really out of place. Sadly a lot of my drive in Assassin’s Creed titles is what happens to Desmond outside the Animus, not in it, and that’s absent here. If you’ve been a fan of the series to date this is a solid pickup, but be warned that some of the new additions might be worth overlooking.
Score: 3.5 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG3_5.png
Ryan says, “If you’re a series veteran, Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a solid title overall with a few hitches, but it doesn’t do much to drive Desmond's story. Newcomers to Assassin’s Creed might want to take a step back to AC2 or Brotherhood before they consider Revelations. Anyone looking to play Multiplayer will also need a new copy or to pay extra for a UPlay Passport.”
*Note - Review based upon the XBox 360 version of game.
Platform: PC/360/PS3
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal (http://www.ubi.com/)
Publisher: Ubisoft (http://www.ubi.com/)
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-sony-playstation3/dp/B004YVOCV4/ref=sr_tr_sr_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-1)/X360 (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-microsoft-xbox-360/dp/B004YVOCYG/ref=sr_tr_sr_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-2)), $49.99 (PC (http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Creed-Revelations-Pc/dp/B002I0IHIM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1322775403&sr=8-5))
Editor: Ryan 'UWCrash' Kern
What's Hot: Great production values; Standard Assassin's Creed gameplay, now with bombs!
What's Not: New game modes are out of place; Some bugs The fourth installment of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, subtitled Revelations, dropped on X360 and PS3 two weeks ago and just released this week for PC. This time around Desmond is trapped in the Animus which is operating in “Safe Mode”, trying to prevent the memories of himself, Ezio, and Altair from crashing together. The only recourse is for Desmond to continue reliving the remainder of his ancestor’s memories to build a partition between his own mind and the memories of his progenitors. This is just another stepping stone in Desmond’s story which will be concluded in next year’s installment, but this title represents the conclusion of Ezio's role.
As is standard for the series, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous and the music fits perfectly with the setting. Combined with excellent voice work, the presentation here is top notch. I'd love to say more here, but if you've played any of the previous titles you know exactly what to expect.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7009/6400206501_1590140bc1_z.jpg
For those who played Brotherhood, you’ll see a lot of similarity in gameplay for Revelations. You’ll be renovating shops and landmarks throughout the city, training up new recruits for the local Assassin’s brotherhood, completing faction challenges, and carefully assassinating cowardly Templar captains who will flee when they spot you. Fortunately there isn’t the piecemeal unlocking of content as experienced in the previous titles. By the time you’ve reached the end of Sequence 3, roughly 90% of the city is accessible to you, and I found this extremely refreshing. Nothing is stopping you from charging ahead with the main plot at this point, but playing in the “sandbox” gave me hours of distraction before I went back to advancing the story.
Ezio does get a few new tricks to play with this time, and while the hookblade has a few nice applications the real draw is in bomb crafting. You’ll have a chance to carry up to three different types of bombs, one from each of three categories. Lethal bombs are pretty straightforward in their application (shrapnel or poison bombs). Tactical bombs include smoke screens and snares that will slow down or immobilize pursuers. Finally, Diversion bombs include cherry bombs which will lure guards to a location or pyrite bombs which will attract civilians with fake coins (potentially inciting them to violence). There are more applications than I’ve listed here, and you can also customize the blast radius and fuse type. It’s a great addition to the tools you’ve already had at your disposal, and allows you to set up some neat scenarios (think cherry bomb followed by shrapnel bomb).
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6400206989_d74943d6d5_z.jpg
There are two new mini-games in Revelations, the first of which is Den Defense. This is a Tower Defense style game that may take place every time you fill up the notoriety meter. You can reduce notoriety by paying off town criers and assassinating Templar captains (no posters this time around), so it’s possible to only play this once when explained to you during a core memory. I loved TD back in the Warcraft 3 days, and I’ve played a little bit of Plants vs. Zombies, but there really isn’t anything redeeming about Den Defense. Instead of having a top-down view of all the action, you are given a first-person view from where Ezio is standing on a rooftop. Every time you lose a unit, and you will lose them, the camera briefly changes perspective making it hard to determine exactly who died. Unless you are working on the Assassin’s Guild challenge to win 3 Den Defenses, I’d make sure to keep your notoriety low and pretend this didn’t exist.
The other new mini-game is the Desmond sequences. Playing through these you’ll hear Desmond’s recollection of his life up until his kidnapping by Abstergo (the setting of AC1). Unfortunately this is only a narrative device. The gameplay has you performing first-person platforming while being able to drop two types of blocks to navigate chasms and various obstacles. There were a few places in the early sequences that were actively annoying, but the last couple were relatively fun. Music that sounded like it was off the Tron: Legacy soundtrack and graphics that mimicked the inside of the Abstergo building from AC 1&2 helped to bring it around by the conclusion. I was glad that they expanded on Desmond’s past before ending his story in Assassin’s Creed 3, but the gameplay here was very out of place with respect to the core of the franchise.
It needs to be said that Revelations should have seen a little more QA before hitting retail. I never experienced any major bugs such as crashing the system, but there were multiple occasions where I would need to restart a memory or quit and re-enter the game. These manifested in NPCs which would not advance their dialogue in story events or Assassin’s recruits who would not speak to me after fending off guard/Templar attacks. I never experienced any notable problems in previous AC titles, and it was pretty disappointing to see something like this manifest four titles into the series.
Multiplayer isn't something I was interested in when it was first introduced in Brotherhood, and I sadly never dove into it until Revelations. The basic “deathmatch” mode has you attempting to silently assassinate an assigned target based on their character’s portrait while another player will be looking for you. The winner is determined by score, not just kills, and there are bonuses for style (striking from above or from inside cover) as well as increasing bonuses for your level of stealth. It’s easy to jump into, but there is a bit of a learning curve as you realize which character models are PCs vs. NPCs.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6060/6400206859_c833c457af_z.jpg
Like most shooters these days, there is an experience system woven into the multiplayer which can provide you with perks, active and passive, to help you be a more efficient killer. The Templar story is also woven into the multiplayer as you are taking on the role of a Templar-in-training, and leveling up will also provide you with addition background information on that organization. However, my biggest complaint about multiplayer is that the menu layout for all of this non-intuitive. For X360, all of the character customization and challenge information is hidden under the LB menu, but there’s little to indicate that. Also, matchmaking could have been more streamlined instead of having one huge PLAY NOW option for deathmatch and placing all of the other modes under “Custom Match”. Regardless, even if you’re like me and really only came for the single player, at least give multiplayer a chance. It does, however, require a "UPlay Passport" which is included in new copies or can be purchased separately if you bought the game used.
To date every title in the Assassin’s Creed series has been a great step forward, but Revelations feels like the black sheep of the flock. Bomb crafting is a welcome addition, but Den Defense and the Desmond sequences are really out of place. Sadly a lot of my drive in Assassin’s Creed titles is what happens to Desmond outside the Animus, not in it, and that’s absent here. If you’ve been a fan of the series to date this is a solid pickup, but be warned that some of the new additions might be worth overlooking.
Score: 3.5 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG3_5.png
Ryan says, “If you’re a series veteran, Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a solid title overall with a few hitches, but it doesn’t do much to drive Desmond's story. Newcomers to Assassin’s Creed might want to take a step back to AC2 or Brotherhood before they consider Revelations. Anyone looking to play Multiplayer will also need a new copy or to pay extra for a UPlay Passport.”
*Note - Review based upon the XBox 360 version of game.