Assassin's Creed Rogue (2014)

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. Here's my next adventure

Game number 56 was Assassin’s Creed Rogue. This is the final AC game for the Xbox 360 and ends my marathon of AC games. I have always had fond feelings towards Rogue. It feels almost surreal that it even exists. In this game you get to play as an Assassin who leaves the brotherhood and joins the Templars. This is an awesome premise for a story! To back this up, the entire naval combat engine from Black Flag is still here and just as fun as ever!

The story for Rogue is great! You play as Shay, a former Assassin who leaves the brotherhood because he feels that they are ignorantly messing with ancient artifacts. The big incident that leads him to abandon the Assassins occurs shortly into the story when Shay is tasked by Achilles (from AC3) to get an artifact from a temple underneath Lisbon. Well… Shay caused a massive earthquake by retrieving the artifact and it ended up destroying Lisbon and killing thousands of people.

Shay returns to Achilles to warn him of how dangerous these artifacts are; however, Achilles does not listen to him and still sends Assassins off to find artifacts. This leads Shay to defecting and joining the Templars in order to stop Achilles.

I think this story is great. Not only does it show us what life is like in the Templar order, it also shows us that the Assassins aren’t infallible. They are human too and the things they seek may not be the best options. Giving the enemy perspective really helps make the world of AC feel real. There are shortcomings on both sides and the Templars may not be these completely evil villains the previous games have portrayed. They just have a different ideology than the Assassins. Rogue really gives the long time AC fan pause and makes them consider their actions throughout the past 6 games.

One thing that must be mentioned when talking about Rogue is that it and AC Unity came out at the same time. Rogue was made for people still gaming on the Xbox 360 and Unity was made for people playing on the Xbox One (or PS4). Unity was clearly the game that received more attention, polish, and new features… but Rogue is still an amazing journey (one that I honestly prefer).

All that above was an explanation for some of the shortcomings of AC Rogue.

One of my biggest gripes with Rogue is that its actual main story is extremely short. Most AC games have 12ish sequences/chapters in the main story but Rogue only has 6. I believe this is a direct result of Rogue being developed simultaneously with Unity. Either way, the story just feels short and I would have enjoyed more of really anything. Learning more of the Templar order, learning about the people, or just having Shay engage with everyone else. I don’t feel like the story is rushed or there really needed to be anything more told… It is just that I wanted to spend more time with Shay than I did.

While the main story in AC Rogue is short, there is an unbelievable amount of side content available. I would say that 4 out of 5 settlements are not a part of any story quest and only exist as extra, side content. It feels like the developers really just wanted to make a big pirate sandbox. The side content is the same exact stuff from Black Flag. You can clear out all the collectables in areas, take down ships and upgrade your own, battle legendary ships, and collect a ton of random macguffins. The one new side quest is Rogue’s take on assassination missions. Because you are a Templar now, your goal is to hijack the assassination missions before they are able to take out their target. This would be cool, but every one of these missions (except the very last) play out exactly the same and it is unbelievably cookie-cutter.

There is nothing really to say about the gameplay. It is still great! It was ripped right off of Black Flag and that game plays perfectly! It may feel a little anticlimactic or redundant… but the game just plays soooo well. Black Flag wasn’t broke, so they didn’t try to fix it.

Overall, Assassin’s Creed Rogue is an awesome game that pretty much uses all the graphics, assets, and gameplay from Black Flag. It could really have been a large DLC pack for that game. I really like how all of it plays out, but Rogue really doesn’t have anything unique going for it from a gameplay perspective. On the other hand, the story is completely unique! This is the only game where you get to play as a true Templar and see their side of the story. I find that fascinating and really interesting to play through. I only wish the story lasted a little longer. If you have played and enjoyed Black Flag then go ahead and play Rogue! This is a no brainer for any fan of the AC games set in the Americas! (8/10)

I spent 33 hours, 51 minutes, and 31 seconds playing Assassin’s Creed Rogue

I have spent a total of 647 hours and 44 minutes on the Road to 360 challenge so far!

Next Game: Bass Pro Shops: The Hunt

When it was announced to be coming out day and date with another main line AC game on the next generation of consoles, my knee jerk reaction was that Rogue would be a hot garbage cash grab there to placate gamers still left on the OLD consoles.

Not an honest take, I assure you, but it was the first time since they annualised the franchise where I thought ‘will this be THE misfire born from hubris? Have they GONE TOO FAR?!’

While it felt like a lot of Assassin’s Creed, this really was an excellent full fledged mainline AC entry. Everything positive about the previous entries was honed and streamlined. It is an excellent cap to the ‘Americas Trilogy’.

It feels very analogous to the ‘Marvel’s Spider Man: Miles Morales’ situation - perhaps Rogue started as chunky DLC and was eventually spun off into its own game only to emerge from production releasing as a tightened definitive experience of the game that came before.

If you enjoyed AC III and IV, don’t sleep on Rogue.

When this game was announced, I was thrilled. But the game itself didn’t meet the expectations I feel were set by the trailer. The trailer made it seem like we were going to play as this cold-blooded remorseless killer, almost like a Darth Vader of the AC universe. That was compelling to me. The idea of playing as a villain, put into the shoes of someone whose morality is the opposite of the assassins we’d played as up to that point, someone who feels nothing but cold anger towards their targets. But instead, we play as a good guy who goes to the other side because of a misunderstanding. And that’s the real crux of the disappointment - the impetus behind Shay’s change of allegiance. You’d think the several weeks’ journey across the Atlantic after the Portuguese earthquake would have given Shay a little time to calm down and rationalize what happened and what led to Achilles’ blundering. But instead, Shay arrives back at Davenport manor as if he’d just come straight from the earthquake a mere hour ago. It just didn’t add up and made it feel contrived.

That said, the idea of the artifacts holding the earth together is interesting.

The gameplay of Rogue is refined but I miss the option of using other weapons like in AC3. The air rifle is a great addition though, and has a blessedly wide array of applications. And something I’m getting really tired of with these older ACs - and the newer ones, to an extent - is how spongey enemies are. I miss the lethality of Unity or games like Dark Souls and Ghost of Tsushima. I would love to see something like the “realistic” difficulty or whatever it’s called from Ghost of Tsushima making its way to these games.

Jackdaw is better than Morrigan, prove me wrong.

The River Valley has mostly boring areas, but the ones that stand out are the large swaths of wilderness that are a little challenging to navigate freely. I like how you must think about your route as you traverse these areas. The River Valley can be fun, but it feels like an AC3 copy and paste. The real fun of this game is the North Atlantic sailing where you get to explore the arctic.

Maybe I'm just done with the old Assassin's Creed format, but I did not enjoy this game. I skipped almost all of the side content and just focussed on the story missions, clocking in about 9 hours of playtime to reach the end credits.

The story is set up quite nicely, and it ties in with all three of AC3, Black Flag, and Unity so should work well. Unfortunately it doesn't quite click, and feels like it's just going through the motions of a story after the turning point early on. There's some fun enough character interactions, but ultimately I can't remember anything memorable about the story beyond the basic hook (I'll spoiler tag, though you probably already know it) that you play as an Assassin who leaves to join the Templars.

The gameplay doesn't really try to do anything new, and feels clunkier than I remember it being (though admittedly it's been a while since I played an older AC game). There were numerous times where I got stuck on scenery while climbing, or starting running up a wall that I was trying to run past. Melee combat and stealth and mindless and repetitive, the map is so big and indistinct that the exploration is tiresome. The saving grace is the ship combat, which is still really fun and both the most cinematic part of the gameplay and the part that feels the most dynamic.

Visuals and sound are good and fit a defined style, and I didn't have any problems with characters missing faces in this one like the famous AC Unity bug.

All in all, I don't think it's worth your time. I mostly wanted to play it because I've played every other AC aside from Valhalla but I don't think I got much out of it.

You know what? Imma just say it! this game is the perfect blend of the three prior AC games! It takes gameplay systems from 3, 4 and even Liberation and blends them together beautifully with the best story the series has had since AC2.

Shay is easily one of the best protagonists of the series, he combines Edward's humour with Connor's drive for justice and middles out somewhere along the lines of Ezio if he were less idealised.

The janky controls and combat from 4 have been replaced for the better and are in line with AC3 remastered (can't speak for the OG Rogue release on this front). The North Atlantic setting is a dream come true for me and I absolutely loved the new icy cold environment. New York felt different enough from its AC3 incarnation that I didn't mind it being reused. And the River Valley is like a great mix of AC3's Frontier and AC:L's Bayou. The game adds tonnes of new combat systems, ambient events and proper base takeovers and the variety would easily have carried the game for longer than it's short run-time.

Which leads me to the one sad thing about the game... its TOO SHORT. The story could easily have been more fleshed out and I wanted to learn and experience more about these characters (Hope in particular!). They sort of make up for this in the ridiculous amount of collectibles and optional content, most of which are actually quite fun to complete, but I would have loved more story!

Between the moral ambiguity of Templar vs Assassin, the references to the past three games, the JOY I felt seeing PENGUINS leap into the icy waves, I simply cannot recommend this game enough and I'd say it's the best the series has been since AC2.

I am completely blown away by how great this game was. After playing through half of Black Flag and hating that game I did NOT expect to like this one. But I actually loved it?? I loved Shay. I loved seeing some of the characters from the others games again. I loved how this game proved not all Templars are bad people and sometimes they ARE right in their beliefs.

In general I have no idea whose side I'm on tbh. Both the assassins and the Templars have very valid points and are in a grey area. There are good assassins and evil assassins, just like there are good Templars and evil ones. I once saw someone comment that in general the assassins were right back then for fighting for freedom but the Templars would be right at this time for wanting order and control to save the world from destruction. I think that's what I'm settling at too.

Intro

This is AC (open-world stealth action game) mixed with broadside-style ship combat. It's a slightly improved version of AC: Black Flag. Honestly, just read my review of that game to get the one of my endless lists of what i like & dislike about this game. Every point is in comparison to BF.

Improvements

• Base assaults are decent.
• Hidden assassins try to kill you everywhere.

Fixes

• You automatically make money.
• Inventory upgrades are easier because of this.
• Weapons are unlocked much quicker.
• No diving missions.
• Fewer trailing missions.

New Flaws

• There are too many locations...
• Spread over three maps.
• Map barf seems to be worse (# of collectibles).

Conclusion

Going back to this game after Unity and Syndicate was rough. All the fucking cutscenes really really really got on my nerve. There's a cutscene for every fart and it's always the same one. Plus all the other terrible stuff. The "fleet" minigame is especially tedious.

This is a better game than Black Flag, which usually gets praised. I would suggest skipping that game and playing this one instead. Do the base assaults (not the sea fortress assaults) and some sea combat, it's the only worthwhile content.

This game is basically Black Flag 2. Not like that's a bad thing but It's just more of the same. I wasn't really expecting anything totally different but it just didn't do much to stand apart from its older brother.

The idea of working for the Templars sounds interesting but I don't think they did enough with it. You're basically doing the same things you were as an Assassin but now you're fighting guys with hoodies instead of guys in long coats and tricorne hats.

The main story is also pretty short. If you ignore the side missions and endless collectibles you can probably finish it in 10 or so hours. The naval combat and upgrading your ship is fun but again it's almost identical to Black Flag's.

If you liked Black Flag and Unity then this game bridges the gap between them and fills in some of the plot. Apart from that it's just more of the same AC.

Random thoughts as I watch the credits roll....

This game felt like a 12-hour-long New York / Canada DLC for AC4:Black Flag. It had all the same RPG-ish progression mechanics, but with a story only half as long as AC4. As a result, you really only end up upgrading your character & boat about halfway (which, honestly, is all you need to beat the game).

Also, because the story seems shoehorned into a game designed for a much longer story, you miss out on a lot of side activities unless you mindlessly grind for money & materials in the various forts that clog the map. And, in my case, I was fed up with the grind of beating forts and finding treasure chests about 3/4 through Black Flag.

Despite the tweaked weapons, sailing felt the same (though I was never able to fight Man o' Wars without getting my butt kicked). Instead of open seas, there were claustrophobic narrow waterways, which weren't nearly as fun to sail on.

The ending has a hard tie-in with Unity, so I'm glad I played this first. Also, Adewale has a relatively major role, so Ubisoft appparently put a lot of stock in Freedom Cry as an important part of the AC story.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue, for xbox 360

Rating: 8.5/10; Great

Played: Feb 2019

Highly recommended for any fan of Black Flag or Assassin’s Creed in general. Might also be worth playing just for the naval combat.

Rogue is essentially the same game as Black Flag with a new story, new locations and a few new game mechanics. It uses the same third person camera for both on foot and sailing, same great naval combat, same parkour and swashbuckling style combat, and same open world with plenty of inane collectibles.

The story is reasonably good with the most interesting aspect being how the main character starts off as an Assassin and then defects to the Templars. Unlike the other games, in this one the Assassins are portrayed as villains who do not care about innocent life while the Templars are portrayed as upstanding people who work towards the good of all. Is this simply a case of having to write in compelling villains and allies, or is the story trying to say something greater about people as a whole; that there are all kinds of people on both sides?

Basic gameplay has you navigate around distinct areas within a larger open world using mostly parkour; climbing and jumping is accomplished by using the “free run” and “jump” buttons. Getting around is mostly smooth and intuitive, though often times the character will not do what you expect. I suspect it may depend on what direction the camera is facing, which can lead to unexpected results when you expect to go the way the character is facing. A big annoyance is the lack of a simple “run” button, forcing you to use the “free run” button to get around quickly. Unfortunately, that will often have you automatically climbing and jumping which ends up making it take longer to get where you were going. It is especially annoying when he tries to climb something unclimbable because you missed a doorway or something.

Melee combat uses the same contextual button presses as Black Flag with a guide showing what each button will do in the corner of the screen. You are also able to freely attack enemies, though some will be immune to damage unless you use one or more of the context buttons. A red icon above enemies and white aura around them indicate which button you are supposed to press, and correctly using the context buttons will lead to instant kills and other special results. Unfortunately, the combat is just as easy as the other games and the enemies will generally circle you and attack one at a time. It is very unrealistic to be able to defeat dozens of enemies at the same time and it provides less incentive to use stealth. You also have dual pistols and the same type of special effect darts as Black Flag, with the new addition of a grenade launcher which can launch berserk, sleep and straight up damage for a small area effect.

Stealth is mostly about staying hidden from enemies and not shooting guns, though it is fairly easy. The enemies are dumb, deaf and blind and you often have enough time to run up to someone who has spotted you and stab them before they go into combat mode. The enemies will react to suspicious activity (such as dead bodies), though they are very easily manipulated to your advantage; especially with that silly whistling. They can be somewhat difficult to get away from when you are caught though. Unless the mission has a failure condition for being detected, there is little incentive to be cautious with stealth; especially when coupled with the easy combat.

The missions have been significantly improved from Black Flag; it does seem like the developers listened to player feedback and the internal mission rating system returns. I personally gave out no 1 star and only a few 2 stars (out of 5). The overabundance of tailing and eavesdropping missions from Black Flag are gone (there is only 1 or 2 in this game), and the missions which have you running through a gauntlet with a time limit are well done and heart pounding. There also seemed to be more naval missions. One new side mission type is assassin interception, where you have to locate a victim and protect him/her from multiple assassins. These assassins will be placed in set locations and move into position to kill the target. You have to use eagle vision to locate them and kill them before the time limit expires; though there is some leeway as the time limit means when the assassins will start the attack, so you can still kill them before they physically kill the target. I did not like these because the time limit forces you to do the entire thing in a mad rush. Another new side mission is taking over gang strongholds, which task you with completing a number of objectives including killing a new enemy type; the assassin. Hiding assassins are only visible with eagle vision (though there is a hot/cold type of visual and audio indicator) and try to ambush you with a very high damage strike, then they flee or use smoke bombs to try again. The gang leader type will also shoot with guns and they are quite challenging; by far one of the most challenging aspects of the game. Generic assassin enemies that try to ambush you for massive damage can be found in many areas of the game, as well as a new poison grenade enemy. Another new side mission type is the frontier clash, where English and French soldiers will be fighting and you are tasked with killing the enemy leader and some kind of sabotage objective. Unfortunately you fail if all your allies die (even if you subsequently wipe out the entire enemy force, which is easy to do), and the time limit before they all die is obnoxiously low. So again, you are forced to do this in a mad rush.

Gang strongholds provide income over time. Whether or not this is a good thing is subjective, though it caused me to be less likely to attack ships for money and I even stopped looting bodies for pocket change. It also makes the money you can make from the Naval Campaign somewhat redundant. The Naval Campaign is a side activity like the Fleet in Black Flag where you can send captured ships on missions for money rewards. It has the same boring and slow 2D combat though the combat is entirely optional as powerful ships will have 100% success odds regardless. New locations are unlocked as the story progresses and there are some useful rewards. Unfortunately, the timers count down in real time and if you are anything like me, you will finish the entire game before the Naval Campaign. While the rewards were worth it and it is a decent way to get a bit of extra money when not playing the game, I would rather be playing the actual game.

The best part of this game is the naval combat, and to lesser extent sailing in general. Controlling your ship form a very immersive third person view near the helm, with the weapon you shoot depending on which side of the ship you look at. You also manage 2 additional weapons, ramming, bracing to reduce damage, adjusting the sails for speed vs tighter turning and even wind direction. It all provides an excellent immersive and tactical experience that is close to real naval combat of that era. Compared to Black Flag, the combat is largely the same. 2 weapons have been altered a bit, and the naval battles (especially the legendary battles) tend to be more epic. The wanted level that goes up as you attack enemy ships only goes down by escaping the area and waiting, so it is quite possible for a battle to snowball a little bit as bounty hunters join in. It still makes no sense how you can board ships in the middle of naval combat with multiple ships; especially when you use the repair option. Realistically, the other enemy ships would shoot you like a fish in a barrel and/or also board you so you would have to fight off multiple crews at once. Mixing things up is the setting of the game; the cold North Atlantic. Sheet ice, icebergs and blizzards are all things that improve immersion and provide interesting gameplay mechanics for sailing. Ice even makes harpooning more challenging, and swimming in cold water causes health damage.

Overall Rogue is pretty much the same game as Black Flag, but it is more than just a new coat of paint. There is enough new content and gameplay mechanics to make the game worthwhile, and enough gameplay improvement to make Rogue an overall better game than Black Flag. I rate the games the same though because Rogue does reuse a fair bit of assets, including most of the gameplay.

Pro

• Good story, characters, dialogue
• Can pick up and use enemy weapons
• Very beautiful and immersive environments, particularly the native pillar areas.
• Good parkour system
• Enjoyable combat with a variety of enemy types that require different strategies, and flexible combat options
• Progression through crafting, gear and ship upgrades
• Tools and abilities are granted quicker than in Black Flag, and there are some new things to play with
• Better missions than Black Flag
• Excellent naval combat, even improved a bit from Black Flag
• Can purchase animal hides for crafting
• Cool ice theme with a variety of gameplay effects
• Amazing naval combat
• New enemy types above what is in Black Flag
• Good map, mini map and icons to help find things
• Can replay story missions

Con

• Menu does not go to the bottom when pressing up at the top (and vice versa)
• Skinning animals and picking up/dropping bodies force changes camera angle and is disorienting
• Quick time events for melee combat vs predator animals
• Lack of a button for only moving quickly causes much unwanted climbing and jumping
• Combat is too easy, especially against many opponents
• Not enough incentive to use stealth most of the time
• Only a few outfits have gameplay effects, and none of these are listed anywhere in game
• AI related to stealth could be better
• Some side activities have tight time limits and require rushing
• Cannot purchase ship upgrade materials
• Boss fights were not all that enjoyable. Too much rushing around in open combat rather than assassination. The game’s combat system is not really designed to deal with fast moving enemies that can shoot you
• Encountered a couple of glitches; one where I got stuck in free fall over a bush, and another where I was sent up into the air so far I died
• Inane collectibles and real world hacking puzzles (though they are completely optional)
• Naval Campaign combat takes too long. New missions only unlock with story progress and take significant amounts of real time to complete
• Sometimes your weapon is changed to fists (such as for bar fights) and not changed back afterwards

This game drew the short straw in the AC series. It came out the same day as Unity for a last-gen console. I, like probably most people, didn't play this at release but playing it now, it may be one of my new favorites.

At first glance, this game seems like a Canadian re-skin of Black Flag, and yes, it does share most of the gameplay from Black Flag. That does mean we're stuck with the rather clunky combat and poor traversal mechanics, but we get the great sailing and sea combat as well. And the new ship has a few different armaments to distance itself from the Jackdaw; including explosive cannon shots, oil slick fires, and a Puckle gun, which is much better at clearing enemy ship decks over the Jackdaw's hand cannon.

There's still some new gameplay features added, so it's not a straight Black Flag rip. You get a grenade launcher, which I'm not sure of the history behind that, that allows you to mass poison people. And since you're techinically a Templar in this game, UbiSoft incorporated some of the multiplayer features in the story mode. You have to watch out for sneaky Assassins and taking over strongholds involves tracking down gang leaders and sneak killing them. This game also has something more akin to boss battles than assassination targets, which I could take them or leave them cause they aren't well made. They also bring back the renovation side activity from AC Brotherhood.

The game is set during the French-Indian War in the Great White North. Such a location means we get lots of beautiful scenery. The Caribbean of Black Flag was nice, but I've always liked the cold, snowy pine forests of the North more. Just sailing around the Hudson River is serene, once you get used to the tighter waterways. Sailing past the aforementioned pine forests, rocky outcrops with lighthouses, and frontier villages. Then you move onto the North Atlantic near the Arctic circle, where most the sailing takes place. Sailing past massive glaciers & icebergs with the Northern Lights overhead, again great world designing. New York also makes a reappearance from AC 3, but you don't really spend much time there, just a few missions.

The good music returns in this title as well. Plenty of nice ambient tracks and the sea shanties return with a few new ones, though they happen to get interrupted often by winds, ice, or enemies. My only wish is that they had some Stan Rogers in there, it wouldn't be accurate, but his songs sound period. It would've been a great game moment to have "Northwest Passage" playing as you sail through the Northwest Passage.

Like Unity, the story of AC Rogue doesn't really tie in a lot with the actual history of the war, just paying lip service to it. The main meat of the story is about your character, Shay Cormac, becoming a Templar after the Assassins act like jerks. While he's an Assassin, Shay is a bit annoying. They have to build up his disillusion & inevitable betrayal of the Brotherhood and they take it a little heavy handed. Once he becomes a Templar his character levels out a little more. He wants to help people and does seem to have an internal struggle about leaving his friends, at least regarding Hope & Liam. The Templars in this game are also not cartoonily evil. I don't know if in this game UbiSoft was trying to show that the Templars & Assassins aren't really that different when you get to the base of it, or if they just went "find 'Assassin' replace 'Templar'".

I enjoyed Shay as a character, his Irish accent brought me back to Sean Devlin days and I think he had some of the best selection of clothes in any of the games. His coats looked more like period pieces with a little flair, they weren't too over designed and no hoods, and there was a good selection of normal clothes you could craft.

This whole game also feels like a love letter and sendoff to the Colonial Assassin saga, it's also the end of my Assassin Creed playthrough until AC 3 gets it's PS4 release in March. It mentions all the games and ties them up together. You see what happens to Adawale and learn about Achilles' backstory, the ending also sort of kicks off the story of Unity. You also get an appearance from Haytham Kenway and learn more about him.

After playing through 4 AC games since Christmas, I've sorta changed my opinion on them. While I still agree they needed to change, and that a focus on the history and not the played out Assassin/Templar battle, I do think there was still something in the gameplay worth salvaging. The gameplay of Unity and Syndicate was much more refined while keeping that Assassin Creed root. I don't know if it was worth sacrificing it all to be the Witcher 3.

All in all, this game is a great addition to the series and it's up there with Black Flag, since they share many similarities. I would love to see more of Shay's story or another colonial game. This game is the closest I'll get to an American Frontiersman game, which I wish there were more of those, but right now UbiSoft seems to be on the ancient era with the AC games.

Played on PS3, May/June 2017

3.5 stars

Pros: The story was good enough. While the setting was not as great as the Caribbean, I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed the new weapons that were added. There should be more pros, I can't think of them right now. New York was a good city. Portugal was a nice setting as well.

Cons: This game tweaked a few things from Black Flag that would have been better left alone. For one, the ship handling. In Black Flag I got to the point that I could park right next to a ship and hardly have to wait through the boarding animation at all. In Rogue, the ship handling is different enough and the ship's hitbox is bigger; I always had to wait through a lengthy boarding animation unless I wanted to swim over to the other ship, and there were many times I banged into shorelines and docks accidentally. The fort takeovers were also worse: in Rogue they were all solo affairs, whereas in Black Flag I fought alongside my crew. The audio levels were all over the place on the PS3 version of Rogue: my first mate's voice was way too loud to the point that I dislike the character; during boarding actions the music was barely audible contrasted with the loud clanging of swords - this worked much better in Black Flag with the booming boarding music getting the blood pumping; after several frontier clashes I had way too many soldiers thanking me way too loudly. My other major issue is there were more places in this game where the collectibles were tough to track down from the mini map. I'm sure there are more cons, but the above ones are the major detractors for me, and why I rate this game much lower than Black Flag.

Do not replay - just play Black Flag again.

Lightning Review – 72%

• Graphics – 4/5:
  Beautiful water effects, environments, and character designs. Add some stunning Northern light effects and snow tornadoes for good measure. I did run into some occasional environment clipping and freezing during sea battles with lots of enemy ships. The latter can probably be blamed on my poor aging “fat” PS3.
• Sound – 3/5:
  The theme song on the title screen was very moving to me. Nothing else about the soundtrack really jumped out at me. The crew still sings most of the same classic sea shanties they did in Black Flag but they have added a few new ones. My crew did seem to hate me though since they often sang the same one. At least I am fairly confident that I now know what to do with a drunken sailor. I would have also liked to have heard more variety in the songs sang by the entertainers found in the game’s many pubs.
• Gameplay – 3.5/5:
  As a huge Assassin’s Creed fan I had no issues with the overall gameplay essentially being a hybrid of Black Flag and AC:III. Most of the game was behind the wheel of Shay’s ship, the Morrigan, sailing from point A to point B while blowing up other ships up for resources. The New York area felt like a “classic” Assassin’s Creed game area. I would have liked to see Shay have more Templar related abilities though. Off ship Shay still sneaks around with hidden blades and I need to press circle to dodge when I see the red thing over the bad guy’s head. I feel that the developers have wasted an opportunity to change the combat and ability system up a bit. Oh and of course add a bit of modern day sequences with puzzles to hack computers and another mobile freemium style mini game. I’ll admit I am getting a little tired of those…
• My Overall Biased Opinion – 4/5:
  I love the story of Assassin’s Creed and watching Shay join the dark side added some interesting plot elements. I also enjoyed getting a little more information about the back story of Assassin’s Creed III. I wasn’t expecting any radical gameplay changes so I wasn’t disappointed when there weren’t any. For now I’m happy with the AC formula but I will grow tired of it. Ubisoft will need to spice the formula up a bit to prevent Assassin’s Creed from becoming just another boring yearly rehash to me.