A nail in AC franchise coffin.
A big fat lie and a disaster.
Truth to be told, the quality of AC games had been slowly declining since AC:Brotherhood, and while it still delivers a fantastic performance, the dragging out of the story had already started and awkwardly continued in Revelations. Some argued that it was merely because Ezio's time as protagonist was past, but that's not the case. Looking at AC3, I sigh and miss good old Ezio and Altair.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Graphics:
The game offers large explorable areas that are stunningly detailed. Frontier is quite close to Skyrim level. Another brand new feature is actual weather shifts - now we have got blizzards, thunderstorms, mists and etc. Sea scenes are also quite spectacular with great tide and wave simulations. Character model and facial animations are also worth a mention because now they are far more natural than in previous games. On the other hand, at long distance objects are at times displayed as if low on FPS; there are occasional texture glitches.
Overall, great but nothing star-stealing.
Sound: 6
The score in the game is anything but memorable. With Jesper Kyd gone from the project, the music has taken ambient character. There are few nice songs, such as the main theme, but overall nothing comes to mind when I try to remember, as if it never were there to begin with.
The voice acting is rather average. It's good that they have managed to use the style of speech of 18th century though. My main here issue lies with Connor's VA who sounds plain and stoic most of the time, which inevitably tells on your connection with protagonist.
Another issue was sound lag. Despite patching the sound always fell behind the cinematics in nearly all cutscenes which was quite annoying.
Combat: 6
The formula is essentially the same. Controls have been simplified down, that however, didn't add to gameplay. While the new blocking/countering system was relatively fun, you'd really miss all those tiny dirty tricks from previous games, like throwing sand into enemies eyes. Overall, despite new killing methods, like bow or rope darts, the combat has taken a step back. The guns are now too slow to load and shoot, not to mention that aiming mechanism has been needlessly changed to the point that focusing on the same target became more challenging. Now you cannot smoothly finish off the guard you threw on the ground because your aim occasionally switches to another. Essentially, it all comes down to blocking-countering-killstreak, which by the way you can't practice in the animus and as far as I can remember it's not shown in game tutorials.
Naval battles are somewhat refreshing and fun, and that's probably the best combat in game.
Gameplay: 6
The boring part. While the game pretends to offer dozens of mini-missions and assassination contracts, fort liberations and etc., there is no real incentive to do that. You don't unlock new devices from Leonardo, sorry Benjamin Franklin, each time your bring him an almanac page. You don't really need money in this game either - and why? - you can finish your game without buying additional ammunition. In fact, you don't even have proper shops in the game, aside from general store. So no blacksmiths or art merchants or doctors. Investing into your homestead? Why again, considering there's no need for money. Deliver letters? Kill rabid dogs? Recruit assassins? The funny thing, there are only two "true" assassins in game and there is not even a notion of a brotherhood being around. Viewpoints no longer reveal large areas and crowd no longer reacts in a lively way. I still remember the fun in ACB when people scattered screaming when faced with Ezio's casual violence.As mentioned by many reviewers, there's a great amount of most annoying glitches and flawed mechanics. Classical air assassinations interrupted just because Connor somehow managed to get face-stuck to a lantern, or falling down between levels through a chimney.
I loved Desmond's parts though, the ability to explore the temple and also encounters with modern Templers where Desmond shows that he's a real assassin.
Story: 6
I admit I have been bored within first 4 hours. You don't even begin playing as Connor, in fact you play as Haytham Kenway who possesses a dark secret of his own. Looking back now, Haytham and Desmond parts were actually the best in game. The story - from the very beginning to the very end - is far from gripping and thrilling like it used to be with other ACs. Main missions are rather dragged out. At times you have no idea of what exactly you're doing and why you are doing it. Partly it's due to the setting of the game. Boston and New York of 18th century, just freshly built? You can't expect any historical landmarks there or overall, spirit of ancient and glorious history like it was with Rome or Venice, due to the very timeline. American history with all its excessive hype in Hollywood has never been my cup of tea, but even I expected better portrayals of historical figures and major historical events. In the end they were at best, anticlimactic and bland, not to mention that the game never tries to properly tie these people and events with protagonist. Speaking of Connor, I expected more. In reality his character turned out somewhat shallow and unrelatable. We never see his so called "difficult childhood" and he never really expresses any care for anything but his village despite all the talk of freedom and equality. He gets naively spurred by "spirits", gets in constant conflicts with his mentor over trifle things, has daddy issues and is constantly baselessly angry. There is hardly anything personal in his fight with Templars. It was honor in AC and revenge in AC2 and following, but in AC3 nothing grand stands in protagonist's motivations. The second half of the game I felt like I was free-running around, randomly getting into fights while asking everyone "where is Charles Lee?". There was no satisfaction in Connor's "victories".
Out of the animus story was fair. What came as a surprise was the way the company got rid of some side characters that were present in other AC projects, such as Cross and Vidic. The way they were offed did them no justice at all. It's almost as if Ubisoft wanted to kill off everything that still had connections with previous installments and basically it did. You'll see why.
Now the ending, like usual was a "wtf" moment. This time however, it was a negative wtf. It really became painfully clear that the game had been too rushed before Dec 21st/Christmas and so the ending goes against all game lore because it's plain and simple Deus Ex Machina. In the end it strongly reminded me of Mass Effect 3 and its ending. But while ME3 delivered for mast part except for those last 10 minutes, AC3 failed all the way long. And guess what, Ubisoft clearly has eyes on the next sequel just like Bioware does.