Now, I haven't played it myself yet, so I don't want any spoilers. I'd just like to hear your opinions on it though, hopefully that's an easy enough task. My brother bought it on 360, which is not the system I have been playing the series on before, and he's already beaten the game, so soon he'll be letting me borrow it. I'm pretty excited for it. Again, without spoilers, is the story good, or was it good for those that beat it? I'd like to know all I can excluding important things; as an example, what kinds of bugs hindered the experience? Were there any? Simpler stuff like that. Alright, thanks. Oh, and this is off topic, but Halo 4 tomorrow! Anyone else here extremely excited? :D

I have a strange bug in my game. During the cutscenes the texture for Connor's hair doesn't load so he just has a brown colored bald head. It happens during every cutscene now. It's pretty funny. Horse riding is pretty bad since the smallest obstacle will cause your horse to spaz the fuck out. Sometimes guards will chase you for literally no reason at all. Random people in town will disappear. Some of the volume on the conversation will go very low for no reason. When you go to climb over something that are only at knee height Connor will stop and put his hands up as if he is running into a wall. Then you try to climb it again and it works. Major clipping occurring pretty much all the time. Just random spazzing out during cutscenes occurs quite often. Sorry this is so long but there are a ton of bugs plaguing this game. I still somewhat enjoy the game but it is hard to get past how unfinished this game appears to be. The naval combat is great and by far the most satisfying part of the game. The story is ok but I am not a huge fan of Connors character. Haven't tried the multiplayer yet but I'll assume it's a shitfest. Biggest disappointment of the year and I have played Darksiders 2.

@laserbolts said:

Haven't tried the multiplayer yet but I'll assume it's a shitfest.

Wrong. In terms of bugs I haven't encountered any in multiplayer through 160 sessions, apart from excellent maps and additional improvements to the already excellent mechanics. Maybe 5 sessions have had lag issues, that's about it.

I felt it was alright. Horrible ending not withstanding, the world was fun to run around in for the most part (though sometimes traversing the wilderness to get to the next mission seems kinda like a chore), combat was the same as previous Assassin's Creed, so take that how you will, and story was pretty cool around the mid-point and only plummeted that last 10-15 minutes or so.

I didn't really like Conner as a character but that is probably just personal preference. As for bugs, I didn't encounter any that I can recall, just a few spots with the normal AC annoyance of wanting to run one direction, but your guy instead climbing something next to him. Also I got the Ezio outfit with the Uplay points you unlock for playing the game, and with that outfit on the dudes face kept graphically messing up and going through the hood of it, so no more looking like Ezio for me.

I felt the best parts of the game were the Desmond in the real world parts. To me they were fun, played well, and super interesting to see the Assassin skills put to use modern day. And holy shit the last Desmond playable mission was awesome.

All and all it was a fine game. Not the best AC, and the ending really, really rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it won't have that impression on you, so keep playing it :D

Gonna dive into multiplayer now...maybe. If Halo 4 doesn't suck up all my time.

I'm going to counter @laserbolts by saying that it is one of my favorite games of the year. I enjoyed the story at least as much as AC2's story, the combat is greatly improved, the naval combat is spectacular, and the controls are streamlined. When I say the combat is better, I mean it is not as automated as it was in Brotherhood and presents just enough challenge to make you feel accomplished.

There are definitely bugs, but I did not have any that made me look at the game in a negative light. I saw a floating gun, sometimes people disappear as you get near them (random crowd NPCs), and the game still has the climbing issues that the main protagonist always has in AC games. However, like I said, none of these bugs detracted from the whole, and I had a blast playing through the game.

P.S. Oh and the sidequests are actually pretty interesting this time around. I just really enjoyed my time with the whole game.

I've enjoyed my time with it. Naval combat is fantastic, and I appreciate Ubi developing Connor in a way that it set him apart from Ezio. Wolfpack mode in multiplayer surprised me with how fun that is, pulling off sync kills between 4 players feels super rewarding.

For how long Ubi holds your hand throughout the game, there are a lot of things that are not explained very well. I found that getting familiar with the crafting and convoy system to be pretty complex, like the developers spent a huge amount of time working on it and evolving it but rarely thought about explaining the intricacies to the user. While I enjoy the closeness of the homestead, I miss the villa.

Getting 100% sync will lead you down a dark path of countless reloads and fighting the controls and AI, both of which are not perfect. I'd imagine it's more than competent to someone who just wanted to cruise through content.

I'm just getting into the open world part of it as I'm starting Sequence 6. I really like it so far. Technically it's a bit rougher around the edges than previous games have been, so not sure who slipped up on that. Still, I love the combat changes, movement feels great and I especially like the outdoor environments. Horses are kinda weird, although the only two games I actually liked horses in were Shadow of the Colossus and Red Dead Redemption. Story is pretty interesting so far, but to be fair I'm in for the long haul having played AC, ACII, ACB and ACR, so I went down the rabbit hole a long time ago.

I'm not really sure what all the negative buzz is about other than bugs. Maybe people were expecting them to revolutionize the experience? I'm not sure why they would so close to the end of this console generation. All in all, it's very much an AC game and a pretty damn good one to boot. Just needs a patch or two to clean up some of the glitches.

I'm really struggling to get into it. AC2 grabbed you and made you care about Ezio right away. I'm only in Sequence 2 (I know, I'm slow. Blame Sandy and delayed delivery), but I don't give a shit about my character. I'm close to walking away and picking back up with Dishonored.

The game is really good but the ending is the worse thing since the NES days. Still the road getting there is very entertaining.

It's definitely my favorite AC game so far. I guess I'm pretty easy to satisfy in terms of story, and maybe the setting and time period have something to do with it, but this is the first AC game where I've wanted to push forward simply to find out what happens next. In terms of mechanics, they simplified some of the controls which took me a while to get used to, but overall I think the experience has been improved for it. They've trimmed the fat from a lot of the secondary systems so they feel more optional.

In terms of bugs, there hasn't been anything major. Connor has had occasional trouble with the geometry, especially in more cramped areas, but that's always been a hallmark of AC and the new safe-running feature helps mitigate a lot of potential disasters. Other than that, I've had an assassination contract spawn inside of a moving cart, making him unreachable until I ran far enough away from the area to respawn which took no more than 2 minutes round-trip. It probably would have been faster to use the quick-travel but it didn't come to mind. Also I've had a fort commander spawn in the floor forcing me to do the same thing. These were the only times when a bug actually set me back a bit, and again it was only a few minutes each time. I'm sure there have been a few, but I honestly can't remember encountering a single bug during the main story missions. There definitely was nothing significant and the ability to reload checkpoints makes it significantly easier to ensure a full-sync.

I'm nearing the end of Sequence 7 right now I believe and I'm actually getting ready to boot the game up again. If anything of note happens to me between now and the end of the game I'll pop back in and let you know.

I think's it pretty good, but not outstanding. I really didn't like the opening couple of sequences. They felt like they were only in there for the "twist" at the end of them, and I thought the game could have arrived at that point a lot faster than it did. It wouldn't be so bad if you had access to all the cool peripheral stuff right off the bat, but you don't. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of the really fun side stuff (sailing, homesteading, chasing collectables, etc.) is gated behind about 4-5 hours of really linear gameplay. Like a prior post mentioned, you need to get to Sequences 6/12 before the game opens up, and personally I found it a struggle to get to that point while still being interested.

In a nutshell, I felt like ACII and Brotherhood (I didn't play Revelations) were half a step better in almost every respect; the graphics were a little smoother, Ezio was a better protagonist, the plot was a little better, I found the setting a little more interesting, etc. This doesn't make ACIII a bad game by any stretch, I just didn't feel like it reached the heights of prior games.

@laserbolts: That's OK, I understood it all and I thank you for your post. Next time try to separate it into paragraphs though. I also wanted to ask, which version was it that you played?

@takayamasama: Huh, interesting. Thanks for your post. I haven't yet started playing it because my brother hasn't brought it over, but I'm sure the game isn't bad, or at least bad enough to not want to get through, ha ha.

@huntad: Sweet, I guess I'll see when I finally play it.

@UberExplodey: Depending on how much I like it, I'll see if I want to do 100 percent. It's too bad they don't explain all the stuff.

@yevinorion: Yeah, I hope they keep patching it to make it the best possible experience it can be, and I'm with you, I'm in it for the long haul.

@Asmo917: Maybe it's because you're not done with Dishonored that makes you disinterested, ha ha. Maybe not though.

@StarvingGamer: Alright, thanks! It seems to me these bugs are present, but it's up to the player to determine if or how much it bothers them. Or maybe in areas of others sessions different things happen. Hopefully I won't come across too many bugs, and if I do, hopefully they won't bother me.

@LawGamer: Yeah, I've heard it takes about five hours to get into it. You don't think it pays off though? A lot of people have complained about it, but also said that it was probably a good idea that it was there.

Thanks for your posts!

I think it's pretty poor. I'm actually quite surprised at how well it's reviewed, because the game's buggy, the mechanics poorly explained and it feels a shadow of 2 and Brotherhood. There were moments where I saw that greatness that had come before in the series, but not enough to make it cool.

@NTM: Probably some truth in that, but I thought about this and wrote something last night. With AC2, I was introduced to Ezio right off the bat and within 45 minutes I knew his backstory as a teenage ladies' man, saw his family decimated, and wanted to get revenge on the Borgias. I'm 2 hours into AC3 and

I had no clue who I was playing as until I looked up the name. I wondered if I missed something from Revelations? Should I know this guy? And where the hell is the badass Connor that's been the focus of the marketing campaign for 12-18 months?

I got some of those answers and while they were a little spoiler-y, it was nothing I couldn't have guessed. I'm just not as engaged in the world they've created like I was with AC2 and Brotherhood. With Dishonored, I knew who Corvo was, what he was about, and why I was doing what I was doing pretty damn quickly.

@NTM said:

@LawGamer: Yeah, I've heard it takes about five hours to get into it. You don't think it pays off though? A lot of people have complained about it, but also said that it was probably a good idea that it was there.

I guess I'm not far enough into the plot to determine whether it really pays off or not. I certainly understand why it's in there, since it is a necessary part of establishing Connor as a character, I just think it could have been done better (and faster). The way it's done and paced just makes it hard to get into the game.

I think part of my problem is that the beginning of the game exists in this strange "between area." It sort of gives you a limited open world (you can initially explore almost all of Boston), but holds back almost all of the fun stuff. It gives you a couple of chests and the odd almanac pages to find, but overall it's pretty barren. It comes across as being sterile and boring since it gives you this giant city with virtually nothing to do. I would rather they have limited the first few chapters to really linear areas and missions so that it could get to their big story twist and then get into the game proper.

It's disappointing because the devs just can't seem to get it right. In past games, they gated your ability to traverse the environment behind arbitrary story points. Now they get to ACIII, and give you all the traversal skills almost right off the bat, but now they hold back all the stuff you do with those abilities behind arbitrary story points. At some point I hope they realize the side activities are actually a big part of the draw of these games and just let players get to it.

The good news in all of this is that once all the introductory fluff is out of the way, there is almost a paralyzing amount of stuff available to do, so if your like me and enjoy the side stuff more than the main plot, you should stick with.

Oh, and tricorn hats are definitely due for a comeback.

I've played through all the AC games with the exception of Revelations which I only played about 3 hours worth. I just finished AC3.

As a fan of AC, I enjoyed the game and I felt it moved the main story arc along enough that I was satisfied. Connor's story was told well in my opinion. Some would say there was too much back story or tutorial but I'd argue that it was all necessary to build up the character properly.

Gameplay seemed pretty standard. If you like AC games, you'll like how it plays. If not, you won't. I didn't feel like it did anything drastic enough to sway an existing opinion on the moment to moment gameplay.

As for the side story stuff, I liked the way this was set up way more than I did brotherhood. While I didn't go too deep into the actual crafting and selling, I did thoroughly enjoy the stories of all the people who came to live in your village.

One other welcome addition was the ship stuff. If you've played Sid Meyer's Pirates, you should know how the sea battles sort of control. It's good fun and a nice break whenever you need one from the regular AC stuff.

If you like collecting things, you'll love it. If not, you don't really need to do it. The world is really wide and open, especially in the wilderness areas but the game is set up so that you can almost always fast travel to the areas you need to get to so you won't have to waste any more time than you want to.

Long story short, fan of AC will at the very least enjoy the game and get a solid dose of story. If you don't like AC, this won't do it for you.

I was really on the fence after hearing all the negativity surrounding this, but I finally bit the bullet and picked up my preorder...and I'm so glad I did. It might be because I didn't beat brotherhood and barely played revelations but this game feels very fresh and new exactly what I wanted for the series. I'm 12.5 hours in and the game is telling me I am 34% complete so take that for what it's worth maybe it turns to shit after act 7 I don't know.
I love the slower pace of the missions and the environment feels very cohesive and a fully realized world, more alive then the other games for me. I like the new characters more then the old and find the story alot more interesting (I love this period in history though).
This is the first ac game I have liked besides 2 and I am enjoying this far more then that.

Sorry posted this from my phone so I can't make any edits

The only thing I hate in this game is the horse. That fucking horse... What an asshole.

Biggest disappointment of the year for me, right up there with Mass Effect 3. That ending is right up there with Mass Effect 3, at least they didn't stretch it out over 15 minutes. Controls a mess, bugs a mess, mission design a mess, They took one massive step back from the previous installments with this one.

And as for Connor, absolutely bored me. Christ...I waited 3 years for this and I've never been so disappointed in a game.

Double thumbs up for ac3

Not done yet since I'm taking my time doing every side thing collecting stuff and all, but I really love this game.

I'm biaised towards AC though, I love history and the premise and attention to detail the games put in the setting really hook me and make me eager to overlook obvious flaws. So yeah, and I also took a break and didn't play revelations so I haven't touched the series since Brotherhood. I feel this is making the game a lot better since I'm appreciating it more for how different it is from the rest of games and not noticing the more mechanical shortcomings.

Anyhow, I would recommend it, I'm on ps3 and no bugs thus far apart from some minor clipping and open world janky stuff, nothing game or immersion breaking really.

@NTM said:

Now, I haven't played it myself yet, so I don't want any spoilers. I'd just like to hear your opinions on it though, hopefully that's an easy enough task. My brother bought it on 360, which is not the system I have been playing the series on before, and he's already beaten the game, so soon he'll be letting me borrow it. I'm pretty excited for it. Again, without spoilers, is the story good, or was it good for those that beat it? I'd like to know all I can excluding important things; as an example, what kinds of bugs hindered the experience? Were there any? Simpler stuff like that. Alright, thanks. Oh, and this is off topic, but Halo 4 tomorrow! Anyone else here extremely excited? :D

A lot of technical problems, a slow as mollases start, some comically bad writing, but it picks itself up after around sequence 7. The privateering stuff was tremendous fun. I almost want a brotherhood style game that's JUST privateering.

it's great

though the bad part isn't bugs, it's uneven controls in combat and weird AI behavior sometimes

@Will1Lucky: Then it's funny how you have Connor as your icon. Ha ha.

other than a few chase sequences I had a fantastic time with the game.

I've finally gotten deep enough into the story and I have to say I fucking love this game. I can't really put my thumb on it but it's got me like AC2 got me. Also I seriously have had zero bugs aside from clipping but that's in pretty much every polygonal game ever.