We were all told in the third instalment to the Assassin's Creed series (even though its the fifth game) that we would be seeing a new ancestor of Desmond's. This game begins with the history of Desmond and the world which his father narrates. He explains that the end of the world is coming and its all up to Desmond to save them. After that introduction, everyone gets out of the van and turn up at this cave. Desmond puts the Apple in a slot and you enter further into the cave. He finds a power source and puts it into a slot and the room lights up and there seems to be a massive gateway, but you wouldn't have any idea where it goes or what is inside there. Juno tries to communicate with you and mentions something about a key. Desmond faints and is entered into the animus. You begin playing with Hatham Kenway whom begins straight away and assassinates a person whom has this key you are looking for at the Opera and soon leaves the country to head to Boston. After several sequences, it is revealed that Hatham is a Templar and after this sequence you begin to play as Connor (or Ratonhnhaké:ton), Hatham's son (he has a relationship with an American Indian) through his quest for revenge after the Templars burn his village in the Frontier.
There are many things to love about this game. First of them all, despite changing the countering controls and how they work, it was actually in my favour because it seemed easier than before. The new assassination techniques such as corner assassinations (whistle and wait for someone to come then you kill them and put them in the corner), assassinations using new weapons, running assassinations and several more. The storyline in this game was great as well, long, lots of twists and was very unpredictable at times. They introduced a lot of new weapons such as the tomahawk, rope darts which were both very effective weapons at times. This time the collectables despite how many, were easier to track due to being able to get maps of there locations which made it quicker if some people were willing to waste some time especially for the peg legs to get the missions to receive a new piece of Eden, The Shard of Eden. This basically was a super magnet repulsor and helped you dodge bullets easier. The naval missions were also a lot of fun as they would bring a new aspect to the game. But the most impressive thing of them all was being able to travel across the trees. This saved so much time rather than just climbing and running along the ground especially in winter with the snow which can take forever to run across. Finally, I love how you can slide or jump over object quickly. I think this was more better and realistic since if you were running you would probably do that.
On the other hand, there are many things which are bad about the game. Firstly, there are a lot of bugs in this game. One day when I was playing, I was just running about in Boston and I fell through the ground!! Don't know if its happened to you but this was very unusual. Second was in the tunnels, when you would assassinate a person, they would still be talking to you even though they are dead, which was very weird. The list goes on but these two were the most unusual bugs. Hunting despite being a cool idea, when you get attacked by a bear for instant and you have to react, I think the time to react was just a little too short, which would end up in you dying several times, so I just ran up to the animal and just attacked it with the hidden blade. Also, Connor as a character to play with was fun, but I didn't like him in the storyline. He seemed to be lost, unsure about what was happening and quite misguided unlike Ezio and Altiar in the previous games. Then you have the missions, several missions seemed really hard or just misleading. The first mission is the one when your playing with Hatham and you infiltrate a camp. You are required to get some kind of map and there is a guard who looks at the entrance of the tent and walks across and turns around and goes back to his starting position. It gives you about half a second opportunity to get inside and none to get out! The most frustrating of them all was you couldn't kill him! The next mission was one when your chase a guy in one of the Peg Leg missions. It is impossible to kill him before he reaches the cave, I have no idea how you can do it. The last mission that seemed odd was the Chasing Hickey mission, where your told to chase him and you would run around in circles and you don't know what is going on. It doesn't give you the hint that you will have to tackle him but eventually you start trying things and it just worked for me. It was very annoying not know what to do. Then you have a mission with Desmond when you go to get a power source and Abstergo is everywhere. When you come into conflict with them, it doesn't let you know when they are going to attack like in the animus so you can counter them which was very confusing for me. Then another problem was in New York, where there is a camp and if you walk there they attack you. This was very annoying because you would have to detour around unless you wanted to run for hours. The pistol is a horrible weapon to use just because of the fact that it takes 7 seconds to reload. by the time it reloads you might of been killed. Then you have the party missions (such as the hunting club, robbers,etc.), which are a little weird because you have to find the missions. This was a little inconvenient because well you don't know where to go at all. So eventually after looking for so long, you just give up or you decide to see if anyone else has posted this online with a solution. Finally, after you finish the game there are all these pivot points which you have to wait hours to do. I suggest you just don't bother since they are for cheats.
At the end of the game, you chase Lee and kill him eventually in the Frontier after tracking him down and finally get the revenge Connor wanted all along. Connor takes the key from his neck and he buries it along in a grave in Davenport after getting the instruction from Juno for Desmond in the future then the Apple of Eden disintegrates. Then Desmond comes out of the animus and opens the gateway. He goes inside to come to some pedestal. Juno comes out and tells Desmond that he has to touch the orb to save the world. Minerva comes and tells you that touching the orb will save the world but will free Juno who aimed to make humanity to slave to her. Minerva shows you the alternative if he doesn't touch the pedestal, where Desmond and a few others survive and he is a god once he dies but he rebuilds humanity. Desmond decides to touch the pedestal whom dies within an instant. The world survives and you see Juno walk out of the cave to end the story. There is an epilogue with Connor but it is nothing special.
Well once again, we are left on a massive cliff hanger. Is Desmond really dead? Is Juno still a spirit who is released or has she taken a human-like form? Who is the person to take the reigns from Desmond if he is dead? Many questions which you may be asking yourself. But we have to wait another year before all these questions are answered. Please feel free to comment on your thoughts?
Rating: 8.5/10
By Armaan Nawaz
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