I think AC3 had the worst viewpoint sync buildings of any game in the series, they were just so boring and easy to climb. :(
It doesn’t help that the protagonist is a whining twat.
I know this is going to sound like a stupid question, but what is supposed to be the point of AC3? Just for a point of reference I am in sequence 5 - trip to Boston as Conner. You have the main missions, but much of that is walk over here, press this button, walk back. Some of the missions are quite fun, when you need to stay hidden, maybe do some assassination, have a little combat. Much of AC 3 is just mundane stuff. As I’ve said upthread, climbing towers is pretty dull. Hunting animals seems just like time filler stuff. It doesn’t seem to have the exploration of a world like Skyrim (which I’m not a huge fan of but the world is really good). Freerunning in and of itself doesn’t hold my attention. What is supposed to be the strengths of AC3? I’m trying to decide if I should bother continuing. Is there anything about the game where if I don’t like X, Y, and Z it is just time to quit?
Thanks again - and thanks for your patience.
I haven’t played it yet, so I can’t directly answer the question, but Tom’s Qt3 review of AC3 said that the game is “the real story of America” as presented through gameplay. He loved it as a result of that, though AC3 was the most contentious of the Assassin’s Creed games so far, it looks like.
Normally this would be the part where I would say if you aren’t enjoying a game at a certain point, it’s not going to magically explode into fun at some point further in. Except this game is AC3, and the best part of the game, the naval battles, don’t open up until maybe halfway in. So I would say stick with it until that point and if nothing is grabbing you, bail out.
I’d be very interested to hear what others like about the game, and what do you like to do in the game. What parts do you find worthwhile?
I read Tom’s review. I kind of feel like Tom’s reviews present the soul of the game. You get a good idea how it made him feel, and his love for a game can be infectious. I always have a hard time really getting an idea of how the game plays though. When he likes a game, it is rare (or maybe never happens) that I think boy that game isn’t for me.
I play the Assassins’c Creed games (and I have played them all (well not the handheld one)) mostly to clamber around eye-poppingly beautiful historical landscapes. I really enjoy free running around the environments, reading the historical log entries, and just sinking into the game world. Also, the combat system been refined more and more in each entry, and I think it’s a lot of fun to take on a city block’s worth of guards and come out unharmed. (Have you tried counter->snare against those big Scottish guys?)
Here are the activities I would prioritize in AC3
Main story, as this gates a lot of content.
Freeing the city districts, as this unlocks new Assassin teammates with neat abilities.
The naval battles, as Pogue points out, are a lot of fun.
The homestead missions
Finding the peg leg trinkets and doing the peg leg missions (really cool setpieces)
Doing the hunting society missions (a good way of making the hunting more challenging and fun)
Getting all the feathers, as this will take you throughout some of the most spectacular sights of the frontier
Taking all the fortresses, as these can be fun stealth or combat challenges
If you like making your own goals, I find the cities can become vast, intricate stealth landscapes if you get yourself to one or two notoriety, and then try to travel through them without getting spotted.
I enjoyed finding recipes for advanced gear and crafting them, but most people hate the crafting system, and you can kill everyone with your starting equipment, so I don’t recommend that to everyone.
Could I actually finish all of the main story before tackling any side stuff, or will I need to do some of it to be competitive? Like if I don’t improve my ship will that make advancing the story beyond a certain point impossible? I supposed if I run into a problem it may become obvious, like if I have to defeat a bunch of ships and just don’t have the manpower. I find hunting pretty dull, so I imagine I will do the least amount of hunting as possible, although I will at least sample the hunting society challenges to see if that helps. Thanks again Giaddon, you’ve been a lot of help! Thanks to the others who have helped too.
You can go straight through the story, if you want. None of the side stuff is necessary.
Edit: I retract that last complaint.
The moments of goodness keep me continuing.
I have 2 more sequences left and am mostly continuing to see where this all ends up. More the most part I find the game unsatisfying. Part of it may be do some lack of skill or understanding on my part. First, I find the character frustrating to play. There are so many times you want to slap him. Why does he keep doing what everyone else tells him to do - like when his father tells him to go after the guy because he says so.
Too much of the game is, travel across the map to here. Press button. Go somewhere else. I can see the game being more appealing to those who like to freerun or just take in the environment, but that aspect doesn’t do it for me. The controls are frustrating sometimes - running up trees by accident if you get a little too close, getting your horse stuck in some trees. I also find many of the secondary objectives a bit arbitrary.
I can’t see myself buying other games in this franchise any more. There are some good moments, but as a whole just not worth it to me.
Sorry for the necro, but does anyone know if there is still a charge for multiplayer for second-hand purchases and, if so, how much? (360 version)
I mostly agree with this stuff.
The story is not great or really that believable.
The movement/climbing/whatever system is cool in that you can climb most parts of the world, but you do get stuck on stupid things pretty often even after getting used to it. This is doubly bad for missions where you need to tail someone, which are super common.
The secondary objectives are mainly just arcade style bonus objectives. For better or worse. This didn’t really bother me personally.
Assassin’s creed 3 is a good game nearly run aground by some shitty mission design. The end result is still a pretty good game, but you have to wonder what it would have been with proper play testing.
Note: I am super biased. I really like games with pirates!/pirates of the burning sea style naval combat and thus i really enjoy the naval combat in this game.
UbiSoft support replied that a passport is still required. Not sure how much it is, hopefully no more than $10 or so.
Have you already bought it? If not you can buy from Gamefly used and it will come with the multiplayer code unused.
No, I sold it to someone and didn’t tell them the code was used (I forgot there was one) and now I feel guilty and will probably pay for their multiplayer. Since I sold it for $15 I’m hoping the pass isn’t more than $10 or so. =/
Bought this in the Steam sale.
So whoever is voicing Ben Franklin in the game is doing a pretty blatant rip-off of the character who played Ben Franklin in the bachelor party episode of The Office.
Yay! Now half way through the series! Well, OK, probably a little more since Liberation and Rogue are shorter entries, but still…
I went back and read this thread as I was going through the game, and found that most of the issues I had with the game had been discussed already, so didn’t need to do a long rehash here. But I will, because it’s what I do. I will leave some things out, but these were the items that stuck out to me - both good and bad - on this latest playthrough.
-
I get why the concept of tying free running just to the RT would seem to make sense during design, but in practice, it made things worse. Oh, don’t get me wrong - in spite of this mistake, I think the AI pathfinding worked better than any of the previous games. But during those awful chase missions, the game now had no way to distinguish between ‘run fast’ and ‘free run’, meaning that coming anywhere close to a pole, or wall, or a passing carriage meant that you’d automatically climb that instead of just, you know, running fast. I will say that I don’t remember having this issue with any of the remaining games in the series (although I’ve only played Liberation, Unity, and Syndicate once each), so either they fixed it or added other buttons - like running down buildings starting with Unity - or maybe just got rid of the stupid chase missions. Either way, what seemed like a good idea - and is OK when it works - may not have been the best one.
-
Also a big change - combat. Not sure why they felt the need to do it as the old version worked just fine, but they did. And made combat even easier, given by the one battle I had where infinite respawns lead to 150ish kills (I tried keeping count) before I gave up and ran away. I mean, OK, you couldn’t use hidden blade counters for everyone now, but they could have done that w/ the old combat as well. Not that I mind making things easier, but I suspect I’m one of the few.
-
Also, getting rid of the drop/catch move, which had been a staple up to this point. Why? Why limit to slow descending of buildings now?
-
I missed the improvement of yourself over time with new/better weapons and armor. Now, the only real reason to upgrade is getting guns that can fire more than one shot between reloads. Not sure why they did this (and can’t remember what the other games are like).
-
42 main storyline missions total. 20 of them to get past the Haytham ‘prologue’ and Connor’s training and into Sequence 6 where things finally open up. That is one long tutorial.
-
Speaking of which, something that showed up this game that I don’t remember before. Especially prevalent during the intro sequence of getting into the big temple were sections of movie, followed by you getting control to walk forward 10 feet, followed by movie, then another 10 feet, etc. I mean, just make the whole thing a movie - I don’t need to you load up the ‘playable’ part of the game for me to do nothing more than walk forward a few feet. I think Liberation may have this issue, but at least there it’s a port of a Vita game, so I can get why you might want to do that. No excuses here.
-
The lockpicking ‘minigame’ is awful. I mean, it’s reminiscent of the frequency tool that Batman uses in the Arkham games, but without any hints as to whether the LS/RS sticks are (getting) close or not. And then the stupidity of repeatedly hitting RT. Just bad all the way around.
-
I could bitch about the synch points not uncovering the entire map, but since this is the only game out of 10 (thus far) that took this approach, I think they know that wasn’t a great idea.
-
The Naval combat was worth the price of admission alone - and given that Black Flag was clearly already under development by AC3’s release, it’s obvious they knew it too. One hint - never go back to AC3 shortly after playing either Black Flag or Rogue - the differences in ship controls will throw you off.
-
I liked that they brought back posters for removing notoriety (even if I couldn’t ever find one outside of that notoriety tutorial mission), but you never needed any of that, as fast travel to anywhere - even a point 10 feet away - would automatically clear your notoriety. Not sure if that was intended or a glitch.
-
I thought the underground exploration of the game and opening up the fast travel points was pretty cool, even if it never again showed up in further games. Seemed like it would have fit in either Paris or London.
Few storyline comments:
-
Whatever happened to the homestead? The DB mentions it disappeared in the early 19th century, but why? Seemed rather thriving.
-
There seemed to be some dialogue or something cut. When introduced to Achillies, they talk about both of them knowing that Haytham was Connor’s father. How did this knowledge come about? Not that it would surprise me Connor would know, but how would Achillies know that Connor was his son?
-
At the end of sequence 12, Connor goes back to an abandoned village, and has his chat with Juno. Then, post credits, you can go back and talk to some guy at the fire pit in the village and wonder where everyone was. Um, wasn’t this already covered? Did you get hit in the head and lose 6 months of memory? Did Juno wipe out your memory after your chat? What up?
-
Though this was the best (by far) realized version of the ‘present’ storyline. The Desmond missions were actually fun and modern-day assassin like. Too bad they had to kill him off - which still makes me wonder who, exactly, is living Connor’s story after the credits.
-
Also don’t buy the whole ‘stabbing Lucy was my decision’ thing by Desmond. If that was the case - why was it so traumatic that you went into a coma and subjected us to Revelations? It’s not like it was the first time you killed someone (see random nameless Abstergo goons at the end of AC2).
-
Finally, THANK YOU for changing the key that brings up the last DB entry from the select key to the start key, so I don’t accidentally bring up the history of the latest building I just passed for the first time instead of the map I was trying to get to.
Overall, I do like this game a little more each time I play it. Not that it doesn’t have its issues, clearly. But there definitely were some concepts that started here and kept seeing in future games (naval missions, free running through trees) that were a lot of fun.
Forgot to mention:
Tried to play through the King Washington DLC. Just couldn’t do it. I mean, in concept, it sounds like a cool idea. I mean, even putting aside not seeing how the alternate timeline fits in (ie, Washington didn’t get the Apple until after the battle of Yorktown, which meant he would/should have known who Connor was, plus Connor would already have gone through his Assassin training) and all the Indians now speaking English, it seems like a cool idea. And then - the super powers kick in.
I tried. I really tried to play this Assassin’s Creed/Crackdown blend. And just couldn’t do it. I mean, OK, it worked for Saints Row IV. But I think that was the exception. Keep your Crackdown out of my Assassin’s Creed.
The skyscraper climbing sequence in III is absolutely amazing. The very best thing any of the games have done for present-day sequences.