The worst in the series. Fun, yet heavily flawed.
It's a shame that "Assassin's Creed: Unity", the first game in the series created exclusively for next-gen consoles, is a disappointment. A follow-up to the superior "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag", "Unity" was plagued with massive bugs and technical issues on launch day. More than a month later, developer Ubi Soft Montreal updated it with a fourth patch, 6.7 gigs in size (!) that resolved most of the horrible pop-up and poor framerate. The game now performs much better, but it was always the uninspired gameplay and unsatisfying story that didn't live up to the franchise's standards. "Unity" is a throwback to the original "Assassin's Creed" in that the free-flowing "parkour" running requires more than just a button press to maneuver and melee combat has been simplified to just a parry-and-strike system. The customization has been expanded and plenty of co-op story missions have been added. But the stealth aspect, while changed, still has nothing on "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist".
"Unity" tells the story of Arno Dorian, an upper class Frenchman, who discovers his Assassin heritage and becomes determined to solve his father's year's old murder. In the process, he also helps out a love interest who's family is involved with the Templars during the period of the French Revolution. The game's story, while far from confusing, can be a little hard to follow since all the French names will not come easy to digest for Americans. This being "Assassin's Creed", there is plenty of intrigue and historical landmarks and figures that serve the story. And once again, you can either read up on their true history files or just enjoy the game. The player's true identity is never really revealed at the beginning of the game. You are simply a nameless person who is given an assignment to find a "sage" who was part of the French Revolution by using a newly constructed public "Animus". Strangely, for a game set in France, there are no French accents, only British...which is weird.
The game is a graphical beauty. It features crowds of hundreds if not thousands of common Frenchmen and women populating the streets. As a result, the city seems alive, but there isn't too much new to the formula. The new "Helix" missions, some which take place in WW II, are fun platforming segments and the "Sherlock Holmes"-like investigations help add variety to the usual AC business. However, opening chests, finding scattered icons and tackling or killing random street criminals can be boring, repetitive stuff. The story missions are good, but nothing too surprising. After the Caribbean setting of "Black Flag" and the American Frontier scenario of AC III, the France setting (while beautiful) isn't filled with any new surprises. You can purchase and upgrade "Social" clubs which add more missions, but there isn't anything that helps the game from being just another "Assassin's Creed" game. Unfortunately, the new stealth controls are clunky and the enemy A.I. can detect you when you least expect it, making stealth unsatisfying.
Despite these shortcomings, there is fun to be had despite the lack of innovation. If you have a group of friends, the coop missions can be the best thing the game has to offer. Ubi Soft has created social activity events with this newest AC game as you can create or join a clan and compete for high scores with others. Competitive mode would've been a nice addition to complete the package, but overall, "Unity" is good, but not great. In fact, it might be the least satisfying "Assassin's Creed" game since the original was released in 2007. But if you are a die-hard fan of the series, it's definitely worth playing. "Unity 2", is there is one, should be a much better product though. I'd give this one a 7 out of 10. The lengthy load times and overall familiarity works against it.
