A buggy de-volution of the series
Assassin's Creed 3 is a stealth and combat focused RPG which switches between modern times and the american revolution. You primarily switch between Desmond Miles, from the previous games, and Connor, a native american. The story starts out slow but eventually picks up slightly.
The graphics are improved slightly from the previous iteration, but it is really nothing to write home about. Those improvements are marred by performance issues in the form of a horrible frame-rate during high-action scenes, mostly during chases in the major cities. I also found that characters would fail to open their mouth during cut-scenes which ruined the immersion.
There is nothing to report as far as audio goes, effects are adequate and the voice-acting is passable as well.
Overall game-play is disappointing due to an over-simplification in almost every pre-existing game-play element. Combat boils down to just remembering to hold the counter button. It is made too easy by the AI who will just wait for you to finish killing their friends to attack you. There are some new weapons as well but they just fall into the same niche as old or existing weapons. Rooftop hiding spots have been removed while guards will still attack you. It makes rooftop chases near impossible to get out of without killing the pursuers. This combined with the inability to grab ledges while falling makes rooftop action too much of a risk, and ruins the thrill. The apprentice assassin system has been simplified as well, making it slightly less appealing. Purchasing of property has been removed entirely and Connor's "home city" has been given a crafting a materials system. As well, instead of buying and investing in shops, you complete missions to add people to your city to perform various functions. One of the two major addition to the game-play is the naval battles and the associated upgrades which are fun, but become boring and repetitive very quickly. The other major addition is hunting which occurs in the open wooded areas outside of major cities, I found it to be boring and mostly uninspired because it encourages dumb luck and a lot of time just waiting for animals to kill.
