Assassin's Creed III

I made a big deal about The Last of Us… a really big deal. It’s definitely on my list of top 5 video games of all time. Well Assassin’s Creed III had an even larger impact. Of all the video games I’ve ever beaten, this is my least favorite and it’s not close. There are so many things that this game does and it does all of them poorly. From climbing buildings to attacking enemies to traveling long distances, there isn’t a single aspect of this game’s gameplay that doesn’t miss the mark. The game is super glitchy and loads every few minutes. Oh, and did I mention that the story is HORRENDOUS? FUCK.

Climbing – Let me preface this complaint with saying that I’ve never played an Assassin’s Creed game before. I fully expected the ability to climb anything and everything to be gratifying. It was not. The controls were so touchy that I could barely control where I was going. Oh let me climb this tree… never mind, I’ll attempt to climb this fence three times on my own despite not pressing any buttons. Oh wait, I can’t climb this fence so I will just stand in place for a few seconds before reacting to any button presses. FUCK.

Combat – On the surface, the combat is cool. You get to take out tons of Red Coats with a tomahawk. However, glitchiness gets in the way again. It’s impossible to target a single person. If another person gets in the way, you will automatically switch to hitting them without trying. That would normally be okay except the only way to kill people is to hit a finishing blow on them. The only way to get to a finishing blow is completing a combo. However, you can’t complete a combo when you keep switching from person to person. FUCK.

Long Distance Travel – The world in this game is HUGE. But most of it is just uninhabited mountains and lakes. I was overjoyed when I discovered you could “fast travel” to specific points on the map. I found this convenient because specific missions start in various locations throughout the world. One mission could start in Boston and the very next one could start in Philadelphia! Great. I’ll just go into the map and click on Philadelphia. That transports me to Philadelphia, right? Nope! It transports you to the outskirts of Boston (after a substantial load). Still in Boston, I must cross into the next area on foot (I can no longer “fast travel”). After another substantial load, I am in the Frontier. I then go into the map again and repeat the same process. This process can sometimes go on three or four times before finally reaching my destination. FUCK.

Oh and there are so many missions that just involve following and eavesdropping. Don’t get too close! Stupid. But man, when I finally killed the main bad guy the game was over and I could finally put this to bed. Actually, no wait. I had to solve this stupid puzzle involving setting off three power sources (did I mention that no one prompted me to do this – all of the other characters kept telling me to do something that I couldn’t do until completing this). It sucked. And it took like 40 minutes not including the 20 minutes of cut scenes. But finally, the credits rolled… for 20 minutes! Seriously. You couldn’t skip ‘em. But, I heard there was an epilogue so I stuck around against my better judgment. After another “fast travel” debacle, I was back in Boston looking for “pivots” on the map. The only way to find them was to triangulate using pivotss I already had in my possession. I went into inventory and clicked on the fist pivot. “To access this pivot, you must be connected to the internet. Press X to connect to UPlay.” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I immediately turned the game off. FUCK.

The worst part about this game is that it had so much potential. I was so amped about the setting. Check out that fucking cover art! Amazing! But guess what, you don’t get to be that character until 8 hours into the game! This game needed at least another year in development. Avoid it at all costs.