Friday 20 February 2015

Review: Assassins Creed Unity

There has been a lot of negative feedback on this game but mine is somewhere in the grey area. Is this a fantastic, must play game? I wouldn't go that far. Is it enjoyable to play? I found it so.

There were reported to be a lot of bugs a launch. I count myself lucky in only encountering the one major bug which halted my progress and forced me to reinstall the game. After that, the game ran fairly smoothly. There are some optimisation issues which cause frame rate issues, but if I listed all the technical issues, I would be here all week. The game ran and was playable, which is good enough for me and my computer is average, certainly not falling into the high end gaming rig category.

When I started playing Unity, I had such high hopes. Arno actually had personality and seemed an engaging character, but as the game progressed, he seemed to sink back into your average assassin character and lost a chunk of his personality which was a massive disappointment to me. I really loved the historic setting of revolutionary France and playing the extra missions enhances that setting while not bogging the game down or giving the feel of an interactive documentary. Saying that, the main plot line, I felt, was weak. There didn't seem to be the strong central story focus to the game that was present in Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations, and while Arno started with the potential to match Ezio in personality, Arno's didn't last but spluttered out after the opening sequences.

The game play in the game is good, and I like the new focus of stealth over open combat which AC3 frequently degenerated into, and I like the fact that the rooftops are more open again, as they became increasingly clustered with lookouts ready to snipe you, which by AC3 actually made it easier to travel on the ground, thereby ruining the free running element. The online co-op play, I really enjoy, and does make the game, for me. I love running around with three fellow assassins and the missions are well designed to be completable in a group or solo, so even if you can't co-op you can still access the content. I think this is my favourite element of the game.

I found this an enjoyable game. It's not made it anywhere near my favourite games of all time list, but it's certainly not a bad game and is well worth playing. Assassin's Creed 2 is still my personal favourite, and with the way things are going with the franchise, I don't see that changing. For m,e this is a solid game, but one which doesn't live up to its full potential.  

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