Hello,

I gather you all here in hopes to properly reset the general consensus that Assassins Creed III is a poor entry in the series.

This is a fallacy. I do not intend to say that people who have played and completed the game and still dislike it should "change their shitty opinion," but rather I mean to speak truth to those who have yet to play it.

I played the original Assassins Creed as well as its sequel - I even played Brotherhood. But I valued the opinion of the Giant Bomb staff too high to throw $60 at AC III at launch. The team had made valid points about it's slow start, and a slow start it has.

But hot damn it's a really great Assassins Creed game.

I just finished Black Flag and decided that I was stupid to not at least give AC III it's chance, so I started it up on PC. I'm about 3/4's through to full synch and loving everything about it. The setting, the characters, and even the collectibles hold the same hook that the other games in the series so faithfully carry. (aside from revelations, I bought that shite and regret it)

The Giant Bomb crews statement that it starts waaaaay to slow is too true. But to clarify, the first 4 to 5 hours of this game does not allow the player to fully start collecting/assassinating/crafting to 100% synch, but right after that 4 to 5 hour mark, it opens up to be a very stunning entry in the series.

So if you felt like Black Flag was a great time, and you missed out on the conclusion of the Desmond storyline, give it shot. It's $15 on the steam autumn sale at the moment. (11/30/2013)

I'm still not convinced. Maybe one day I will give that game a chance.

Maybe one day.

Yeah, I really enjoyed Assassins Creed 3 as well. I didn't think the story was as strong as the Ezio or Edward games, but I had a lot of fun with it.

Yeah, I should really play this finally. Bought it like 4 months ago on sale (an inferior sale to what's going now; I hate when that happens!). It's funny, because I did play Revelations, and despite the ridiculously bad pacing and terrible sluggish start, I enjoyed what I got out of it.

So did they end up patching those really bad sequences everyone was complaining about, or was that just a rumor?

I don't think it was a bad game, i was just disappointed with it.

I'm not entirely sure. The game does have a few quirks here and there, I've noticed a few bugs where my companion would refuse to lead me to the location. But nothing that isn't fixed with a quick reload of the last checkpoint.

I hope to one day reminisce about our time with AC III.

For me too.

And for a lot of people, that leads to "THIS GAME IS TRASH" hyperbole. It's not a bad game, it's just not nearly as good as AC II and Brotherhood. There were a lot of design issues that just added up to make it one of the weaker entries in the series. I do appreciate how much they were trying to do. It felt like the first game in the series were I could really tell that the people who made this game were all over the world not totally working together. So much of it just didn't jive together.

Its not that bad....but a disappointment. I liked Assassins Creed 3....after i got through the beginning of Connor's story. That opening sequence was really good and had a good twist, i liked seeing the Templars in a different light. Other than the sluggish start it just took itself way too seriously for my tastes, sure i understand why Connor is such a sourpuss but everyone else is such a bore. Also there wasnt any cool buildings to climb... Anyways i think people should just give it a try, it has the same good gameplay and a neat setting....if it wasnt for that damn tiresome reampup to the open part of the game.

I liked it too.

I personally enjoyed the overall setting in 3 more than 4 because it had much more character. Obviously aided by being a well-known time period, 4 didn't really have a distinct spacialidentity.

Haven't played 4 yet but I thought 3 was the best one.

In the words of you high expectation holding parents "Assassin's Creed 3 we're not angry, we're just very disappointed in you."

Played in a straight line through, I found it more compelling than Ezio's story (caveat: I skipped both Brotherhood and Revelations). I loved the slow burn beginning. I thought it was brave, masterful game storytelling. And I liked Conner, dour though he was.

A lot of bloat, though -- never once touched crafting or otherwise fiddled with the economy, and barely did any of the side content. Except the ship missions; those were aces.

Still -- I thought it was great. Gamers are too absolutist in their criticism. It either fellates your soul or rapes your time. There's no room for okay, or even good, and god help you if you disappoint.

That sailor man looks so sad.

The only really great AC game was the first, which was an actual assassin simulator. The assassin tombs in 2 were great, but the rest ranged from mediocre to bullshit. I never played Brotherhood or Revelations because they were more of 2, which was bullshit because it was supposed to be a trilogy anyways and I wasn't particularly enthralled with Ezio as a character. Didn't play 3 for a bunch of reasons, ranging from the bullshit canadian vision of 1700s New England (which was 99% farms) to the absolutely ridiculous shit they did with the story. I literally said "they probably pulled some Deus Ex Machina bullshit with Desmond", and was so bothered by that possibility that I went and looked it up.

ACIV looks like a game worth playing, mostly because everything I've heard says that it's basically not an AC game in the first place, which sounds awesome.

I absolutely 100% agree. It's a fantastic game and I was thinking about starting a blog stating exactly what you stated. Conner and Hatham's stories are really badass. The only thing that seemed disappointing at the time was how it wrapped up. However even then I wasn't disappointed. I saw the ending as merely another crazy cliff hanger in the Assassin's Creed series. Especially now that I'm playing through Black Flag and they're building some really cool stuff into Desmond's story post AC3, a lot of which can be found in the side stuff.

I absolutely understand what your saying, and I do think that you will enjoy Black Flag. It's just a really good time.

I haven't gotten to the ending yet, but where I am at in the story literally made me alt + tab out of the game to make this blog. The father/son dynamic and the dialogue is absolutely top notch.

Wait, so have you finished it yet? While a ton of people seem to agree that the Connor story is crazy slow and way too serious, I feel like most of the rage surrounding AC3 is related to the Desmond story and how atrocious that ending was. Granted, AC4 seems like its taking the ideas of the AC3 ending and building something neat with it, but at the time it was total bullshit.

They basically laid out an intricate and extremely significant moral choice for you to make, and then Desmond just makes it without any input from the player and the game ends with no further explanation of what just happened, why it happened, or what was going to happen next.

I was one of the few people that didn't have any real problem with the pacing of the early game, nor did I have any game-breaking bugs or problems with chase sequences like everyone else seemed to. But that said, I have no intention of ever playing AC3 again, because from a story perspective it completely destroys everything they built up to in the previous games. Like I said, AC4 seems to be somewhat salvaging that clusterfuck, but that doesn't make AC3 any better in my mind.

Game is utter garbage. You have not convinced me otherwise.

@waffles13: I haven't finished it yet, and I have heard the complaints about the ending. But I have finished Black Flag and have a general idea of what may come. I am, however, enjoying every minute of the dialogue between Connor and Haytham and the tongue in cheek animus database entries that Shaun writes. If I find any grievances with the late game i'll be sure to write the impressions here.

Three is fine, I just didn't like it as much as I did any of the Ezio stuff, and definitely not as much as Black Flag.

I played all the games except not much of Revelations because I got bored.

3's protagonist was too dry for me, the opening was interesting although too stretched out and the mission structure for a lot of the game, once it opens up, relied too much on following/eavesdropping bullshit. Only thing that game did for me that was fun was making forest traversal cool and introducing the awesome ship battles which Black Flag capitalized on big time and it's a whole lot more fun.

Oh and don't get me started on how shit the ending is, it absolutely killed what interest I had in the running plot which is why I'm enjoying Black Flag's laid back approach with the pirating and leaving breadcrumbs of the overall franchise story in the 4th wall breaking "real world" for those who still care.

Black Flag is here now and its awesome so AC3 can be whatever it wants.

Oh, man. This is not going to be pretty. I was like you once. I liked AC3... until the last few missions and then the end. To be clear, it's not just the end, it is the way that the game wraps up (or doesn't) that really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Other people have pointed this out, I think Vinny even pointed it out during game of the year last year, so I'll try to keep this brief. I have played all of the games in the series and I agree with anyone who says the AC games are at their weakest when you are playing a CHASE on a mission. It makes the mission scripting very apparent, and forces you into a stupid memorization game that rewards you with a cutscene.

Now, Brotherhood and Revelations padded out their stories with chases every once in awhile. I think about half of Brotherhood was about chasing this dude "Cesare" around from mission to mission because he gets away from your failed attempts to assassinate him, but AC3 really takes the award for the worst chase missions mostly because they are combined with a terrible conceit of how this guy is getting away from you in the first place. THEN, the last thing you play in the AC3 story is well documented as the worst fucking chase in the whole game culminating in a long cutscene that many regard as the worst ending in the series.

As much as I enjoyed certain parts of that game, AC3 is the only video game I've played where the ending made me regret even starting the journey. I played it when it had just come out and maybe I might not have been so bitter about it if I had just watched the last few missions on youtube instead of playing them myself.

I was pretty much on-board for 3 until the final chapter of the game. Then, I wanted nothing to do with 3 or any AC games. Luckily, my convictions are shaky, because I came back for 4 and it kicks ass. I would be interesting in seeing your thoughts once you've finished the game, OP! Not to be like HAHAH YOU KNOW NOTHING YOUR GAME SUCKSZZZZ but I actually am interested in hearing what you think when it's all said and done.

@waffles13: I kind of appreciate the ending of AC3 more now that I've played AC4. Some of the best endings have a bit of "fuck you" to the audience. And, in order to annualize in a productive way, they had to do what they did. Could you imagine the stagnation if we were still tied to that character?

I like 3 better than the rest of them. I think I like 4 better now.

AC2>Brotherhood>3>1>Revelations (havent played black flag yet. Waiting to get a ps4

It's all Patricks fault, really. No one except Ryan and Patrick played that game, and he was able to get everyone on board with hating it. Even though it was critically well received, and most of the issues were fixed within a week of release.

And the prologue to that game is great, I dont give a fuck what anyone says

I did give AC III a chance and I still think it has some serious problems. It's a game whose mechanical and narrative ambitions far outstrip what it actually accomplishes, and as a result the cracks show everywhere. I actually enjoyed Connor's story... right up until the game abruptly decided that it had to end with a screeching, unsatisfying halt, so let's see what your tune is when the ending happens, to not even get into the Desmond junk.

YOU HEARD IT HERE GUYS. didn't like AC4? YOU'RE JUST PARROTING THE THOUGHTS OF ONE GUY

who was also apparently THE ONLY ONE MAN WHO COULD FIND FAULTS WITH AC3

and then that slimy motherfucker poisoned the well when he allowed his toxic anti-AC3 sentiment into the thought-stream.

@voshinova: I have it on PC as well and I am going to try and go through it again. I absolutely hated my time with the game on PS3 so I'd be interested to see if the PC version changes my mind.

I've finished it but I thought the characters were not well developed and the story was not coherent (at least towards the second half). It just passes through time without any explanation of what has happened in between chapters. I found that to be very jarring. The only thing I liked about it were the improved controls (which I guess is the most important thing) but everything else just left a bad taste in my mouth. Also I would rather play as Haytham than Connor so the first five/six hours was pretty much my favourite part of the game.

My problems with the game largely rested on the game using an engine that was straining to hold itself together and that Ubisoft clearly dropped the ball with the protagonist. I thought they were going to do something interesting with the native american main character of Connor but they absolutely did not. He also is not defined by himself or his actions but everyone around him. He's merely a stone being shaped by the water passing by opposed to being the water. After how amazing Ezio was in AC2 and Brotherhood I was let down by how amazingly boring, bland, and fetchy Connor ended up being. Definitely a shame as that time period + Connor's ancestry could have really went places but you see how much it did not as the next entry in the series is a prequel and Connor will not be appearing in future titles.

Mechanically it's sound (melee combat is quite a bit better than in 4) but narratively it's incredibly weak.

Haytham was cool, but the only thing more boring than non-character Connor was the War of Independence. As historical events go it's a low-stakes snoozefest and even Connor seemed to have a hard time caring about it, which isn't surprising considering it basically had nothing to do with him. They really should have just stuck with Haytham and let you play as the bad guys manipulating everything.

AC3 had ambition, for that alone I can't really hate it.

Black Flag feels like they went "I don't know, pirates?" and built a game from there, while AC3 felt like they really tried to make something special. Ultimately I think they failed, I didn't enjoy my time with AC3, and it's kinda tragic that I found the ending of Black Flag more touching than anything in AC3, considering what they had to work with... but I respect them for trying, at least.

Well, to be honest, Ive only ever seen this amount of AC3 hate on GB. And it's not like I hate patrick or anything over this, I love patrick. Just think it sucks that the whole GB crew hates the game because of what he said at deliberations last year, and none of them have even played it. And after reading some of the comments here, I think there's a decent amount of users who hate on the game even though they havent played it.

Also, dont you mean AC3?

Also, quit being so dramatic

Eh. AC3 was OK... but rather on the bland side of OK. Its pace was just too slow, it never seemed to catch momentum. The missions were boring. Exploring the world wasn't exciting or rewarding as in previous games (and, especially, now in ACIV). And Connor was a pretty uninteresting character. Both Haytham and his mother were much more appealing characters that went largely undeveloped. And performance on PC was terrible,at least at launch.

AC3 was as middle-of-the-road as you can get. It's few high points are offset by it's glaring low points. Ubisoft could have done so much more with such a fascinating setting as the American Revolution... but they decided to play it safe and the end result was severely lackluster.

I liked the setting, and there were some good characters, but the game was just not as fun, and it doesn't wrap up very well, in both the Connor and Desmond stories.

Hey no... honestly speaking, I LOVE the whole series, AC1 is one of my all time favorites, and I would always defend this series if I had to. But, AC3 was a serious snore fest. The story was so freaking boring and ... non - gripping. I didn't know what the hell was going on for the entirety of the campaign.

I enjoyed the modern day combat, but the puzzles were really tiring too. The end in both the animus and outside was anti climatic and boring too; including the scripted chases. Overall, quite a boring experience (for me)