Assassin's CRAP III

(Contains spoilers for every main game in the AC series.)

I am a longtime fan of the Assassin's Creed series going all the way back to ACI which, despite its extreme threadbareness, was a game I found enjoyable. There's nothing quite like parkouring around the Middle Eastern holy lands stabbing religious zealots in the head and accruing massive piles of dead bodies to the extent that the game engine starts yelling OH MY !@#$%^&*ING GOD, ENOUGH ALREADY and deletes them because it can't render your carnage-mountain without shitting its framerate. ACI was not the greatest in terms of gameplay mechanics but the story was interesting and I liked it despite its flaws and shortcomings.

ACII was my favorite in the series. It introduced air-assassinations and pulling shitheads into bales of hay for covert stabination, among other things. The highlight of that game for me was jumping down from a high ledge like a demented howler monkey, landing knife-first on some bitch's head, then running away like HA-HA, MOTHERFUCKERS while the guards stand around scratching their asses in confusion. ACII had a great story and it vastly improved on its predecessor in every way.

Brotherhood felt like more of an expansion pack to ACII than a full game but it was still highly enjoyable. I loved being able to sic my little attack-bitches on guards. Half the time, I didn't even need to do anything. I'd just hide in some hay, whistle, and suddenly piles of DEAD everywhere. I was impressed by Brotherhood and it closely rivals ACII as my favorite.

By the time Revelations rolled around, I was excited for a new AC game and I eagerly anticipated Ubi's trend of innovation. "Mild disappointment" is how I would characterize my experience with Revelations. I was not terribly impressed with the story and the gameplay added a bunch of crap that seemed kind of useless. Ubi jacked around the button config which annoyed the shit out of me. I wouldn't say it was bad but it definitely felt like an interim game made specifically to keep us busy until the release of ACIII.

So when ACIII rolled around, I expected a big, grand, fun, new, innovative …...nope. It was boring, frustrating, and unlikable. The ONLY thing I found likeable about ACIII was Haytham who turned out to be an irredeemable jackass in the end which was M A J O R L Y disappointing to me for completely irrelevant, silly fangirl reasons yes I thought he was kinda hot STFU or I will yank you into a bale of hay from whence you shall never return, SILENCE. *cough* Where was I? Oh yes. So what specifically was my problem with ACIII? This:

Plot and stabbing: Assassin's Creed used to be about mainly two things: plot and assassinating the shit out of Templars. Neither of those things seem to play a large part in ACIII. ACIII felt mostly like just…. running around. A lot. And stumbling upon random insert historically significant event here.

Unnecessary padding: I didn't want to play A LOT of the game's content. In ACII and Brotherhood, there was a reason to complete sidequests. You could buff yourself up, get new weapons, acquire new allies, learn new plot points and so on. In AC3, as soon as I realized there was not a single goddamned thing to be gained from sidequests, I stopped doing them. I made it all the way through the game without spending a single red cent on anything.

Religious pandering Atheists are stupid. Really? Why would you assholes put that in there? *sigh* I'll just let that slide on the grounds that it's the opinion of a nonexistent character in the game. Better to have faith in something than faith in nothing? *bristle* Ok, fine, that's just someone's opinion. Not going to let it get on my ass. The Treaty of Tripoli does not expressly state that the US is not a Christian nation, liberals! I beg your pardon? Ok, NOW I am annoyed. WHAT THE FUCK, UBISOFT!? Would you like to know why America is definitively a secular nation? BECAUSE THE MOTHERFUCKER WHO WROTE THE !@#$%^&*DAMN !@#$%^&* RULES FOR THIS COUNTRY SAID SO AND DAMN NEAR EVERY OTHER FUCKETY-FOUNDING-FATHER AGREED TO THE FUCKETY-FIRST POWER, MANY OF WHOM WERE CHRISTIANS. Assholes.

Breaking tradition No badass intro? SUCK. I played the whole game expecting to see this www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W6JsI… at some point and it never came up. If you Ubiholes are going to break tradition, pick the right tradition to break…. like, say, the tradition of "you want me to jump left? Well fuck you! I'm jumping right! WWHHEEE!!! *plummet*" or the traditional lack of in-depth stealth mechanics or the tradition of "if ain't broke, fix it anyway!" Those are some traditions you guys really need to break with.

Lastly: (Yahtzee) www.escapistmagazine.com/video…

Pretty much that and this: (Review) kotaku.com/5958941/how-has-ass… A lot of this seems nitpicky, like... the music seemed fine to me and the glitches weren't really game breaking (at least not in my experience) but he makes other good points that I really agree with. Overall, I just really didn't like ACIII much. I will give it another try at some point but I don't expect it will change my mind.