Assassin's Creed: Revelations Review

Ezio may be old, but he's still got it!

The fourth instalment of the hugely popular Assassin's Creed games arrived with promises of improved graphics, environments and most importantly (in my opinion) answers. Having played through all three of the previous console games, one of the most intriguing, yet simultaneously annoying, points of the series is how it hints at a much wider and deeper narrative that we only ever see glimpses of. So, eager to have all my questions answered, I swan-dived into the haystack game.

As I said, I have played through the three console games and loved them all (even if I was a little disappointed with Brotherhood which felt more like Assassin's Creed 2.1) so Assassin's Creed: Revelations has some high benchmarks to live up to. The game begins right where Brotherhood left off - Desmond, our modern day assassin, is in a coma having retrieved the Apple of Eden just before the credits rolled. With the memory of Subject 16 as your guide, Desmond is told that to fully recover his mind and awake from his coma he needs to relive both Altair and Ezio's final memories, allowing the Animus to differentiate between the three different assassins. This leads nicely into what is one of the best written and intriguing plots I have had the privilege to play. As Ezio (now older and a little wiser) searches for Altair's hidden library and the reasons why the old assassins failed, we uncover more facts about the Assassin order and are given the chance to play as Altair again, witnessing what happened after the end of the first game. If this isn't enough to get your mind racing, as you explore this new world there are hidden memory fragments which, when collected, allow you to unlock part of Desmond's past, allowing us to finally see how and why he arrived at Abstergo in the first place. With this going on alongside the optional quests, storylines and challenges, it would be easy for the game to feel overwhelming, but the open world sandbox style allows the player to tackle each element at their own pace.  If you get bored with Ezio, you can play as Altair or Desmond. The missions too have had some serious thought put into them and are no longer just the standard 'go here kill this man', rinse and repeat - now you have to bribe heralds to start riots, or pickpocket guards to get keys (one mission even has Ezio picking flowers). Overall the story is amazing, I've tried to be as vague as possible here so as not to give anything away as I really do not want to spoil those jaw dropping moments that exist when finally the answers to questions that many of us have help since the first game are revealed. All I will say is that the game earns its title, as the final moments are truly revelations.

Now that's one hell of a scenic view

Ubisoft seem to have actually listened to comments made after the disappointment of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and have really concentrated on making this the best AC game yet. In Brotherhood, Rome, to me, just felt like a rehash of Assassin's Creed 2 environments, but Constantinople looks and feels much fresher - from the architecture of the city, to the people living in it, everything has had a revamp. Graphically too there appears to have been a big leap forward from the previous games, with the characters moving and fighting more fluidly with very few visual errors, i.e. feet disappearing or characters walking on air. The game play too has had some improvement, as previously stated there is a variety of missions and characters to play that help keep the game flowing and stopping the player losing interest. For example, Desmond's missions are all first person and involve you navigating Portal-style challenges which, whilst frustrating at first, are hugely rewarding when completed. Also, gaining assassin dens now requires you to assassinate the Templar captains, but beware, any pro-assassin actions (such as buying shops, recruiting new assassins or killing guards) alerts the Templers to your presence. Fill the meter and you risk them attacking and retaking your dens, new side missions allow you to defend your dens by entering into an RTS style level as you position troops and barricades to survive waves of Templar enemies. Ubisoft have also kept some things the same, the Brotherhood system of recruits still exists and requires you to send off assassins to other cities to fight battles. The controls have also been given a little tweak so as to make the fighting much more fluid and to allow players to see when and whom to counter, often a difficult task in large fights in the previous games. However, the controls are not yet perfect, and unfortunately I doubt they ever will be. Even with the expertly designed levels and improved fluidity, you will still often find that the primary cause of you failing a mission or dying is not down to poor choices or lesser skills, but to some foible with the controls; meaning that Ezio, Desmond or Altair will at times hurl themselves off the edges of cliffs or jump and grab walls that you had tried to dodge. This has been, and always will be a problem with free running games such as this (see my review of Uncharted 3 for a truly terrible control style), which try to use simple controls to achieve quite complex actions. This is, however, only a minor fault as the game's design has limited it much more than its predecessors, and as a mild annoyance it is forgivable, especially when you manage to create one of those rare perfect moments where everything works perfectly!

I think they ran out of time when designing the flags

Whilst Ubisoft have stated that they have concentrated their efforts on the single player campaign, they have also managed to spend time adding improvements to the multiplayer first seen in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.  Originally this was a novel idea that quickly lost its momentum after you had played it a few times. The concept involves you trying to track and kill other players whilst avoiding being killed yourself, simple, which unfortunately means boring [Debatable - Dish]. Again, listening to critics the development team have added new play styles, including capture the flag, character customisation and a guild system. Whilst not original ideas they do help to increase the multiplayer appeal, but only slightly and I suspect that player numbers will slowly dwindle after several plays.

 

In conclusion, Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a truly remarkable game, Ubisoft have tweaked and pruned the existing elements whilst throwing in some wild new ones to create a game worthy of a master assassin. Bar the inevitable control issues, that come with all free running games I have found it truly difficult to find a flaw with this game. Even the multiplayer is fun for a while, and hasn't been designed to be anything more than an amusing side note. After the slight disappointment that was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood I must admit I was more tentative about Revelations, but I was wrong to be!  For fans of the series this is a must buy! 

Infinity Feed Score 9/10