Revelations is a solid title, but not as good as its predecessors.
Setting:
Revelations is set in Constantinople during the 16th century, a period noteworthy for the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The city isn’t quite as magnificent as Rome was in AC:B, but it’s still a really cool setting.
Story and storytelling:
Where the game falls flat is in its disjointed storytelling. The story consists of two storylines that unfold parallel to each other. First you have your fight against the Templar for influence in the city combined with a conspiracy inside the Ottoman Empire. This part pretty much unfolds like it did in AC:B with the Borgias, just that you don’t know who the evil high master of the Templars in Constantinople is. I don’t think the twist is particularly surprising (in fact, you should be able to figure out who the villain is within the first 5 hours of the game), but it’s not so obvious as to be considered bad writing. Just not very good writing.
The second storyline is the hunt for the keys, which open the library of Masyaf. In every sequence you’ll have one mission focusing on the getting one key. So that is rather straightforward. Every key allows you to play a memory of Altair, the protagonist of ACI. So you’re playing a memory inside a memory. I still find it very weird that in one of the later memories you’re playing an 80-year old Altair, who can barely walk, but there you go.
Now up till here it sounds like a decent story, right? That is because it is. It’s certainly not impressive in any way. But it’s also not terrible as such. What is terrible is the way the story is told. The two main parts: fighting Templars in Constantinople and finding the keys have nothing to do with each other. That makes for weird progress. As I said one mission of every sequence is designated for the keys. Thus you’re ripped out of the story to pursue your hunt for the keys. It’s rather disappointing.
Gameplay:
If you have never played any AC installment the gameplay is rather simple. You control your Assassin and your primary weapons are two blades hidden in your sleeves and sometimes swords. Other weapons like bows, guns and throwing knives can be useful in certain circumstances as well. The game often tries to go for stealth, having you infiltrate enemy territory without being noticed and stealing this item or another or killing your target without anyone noticing. More often than not, that will go horribly wrong and you find yourself fighting some 30 enemies. There are also missions which make fighting and killing a good number of enemies your main objective. Side missions include trailing without being noticed, stealing and the ever popular pursuit.
If you’ve played an AC game before, you know what you can expect. They added two features however: bombs and the hookblade. The hookblade is a rather small gimmick enabling you to perform certain jumps while climbing and new ways of escaping. The bombs are supposed to be the bigger gimmick, but you don’t really have to use them, nor do they add particular depth to the gameplay. They’re nice to have and can be useful at times, but they’re certainly not groundbreaking (even though they’re definitely a better feature than horses in Rome in AC:B).
Otherwise your gameplay remains the solid combination of stealth and action-adventure sword combat it has been since the beginning of the series. Only one major annoyance sticks out: Janissaries. They’re elite guards that take more than one otherwise fatal blow to kill them. They actually have a sort of healthbar for this sole purpose. And since they run in pack they’re annoying as hell. If you’re running low on health, fleeing is advisable.
They also introduced a group of people apart from the guards trying to kill you. They appear out of nowhere, but I never had a problem countering there attack so they weren’t much of a nuisance to me.
What was a nuisance however was the game of tower defense. Like Rome, the Constantinople of AC:R is divided in different districts. You have to wriggle the control from the Templars in each district to gain control of the city. But now the Templars strike back. Even if you captured a district, you can still lose it. Occasionally, especially when your status is notorious, they’ll attack your district stronghold and you will have to stop them from taking it over. That is achieved in a game of tower defense. They throw soldiers and machinery at your base and you have to place your units and take out their units.
It is fun the first time around, the second time around and the third time around. But it gets old rather fast, unless you’re a tower defense enthusiast, which I’m not. Luckily the game provides you with a way to stop the constant tower defense, besides never becoming notorious, and that way ties in nicely to the upgraded importance of your Brotherhood.
In every district you have one Assassin who is responsible for said district and you play a vital role in their education. Those missions consist of two parts: The first part introduces one of those Assassins and a problem within a district (a corrupt merchant, an insane killer). The first mission usually ends unsatisfactory. But as your district Assassin grows wiser and with your help the second mission is successful. Once both missions are completed your Assassin disciple becomes a master and can defend his district without your help. That is definitely one of the best improvements of Revelations over AC:B.
Now what is very disappointing is the lack of side missions. Playing ACII and AC:B you could spend upwards of 40 hours not only pursuing the main story but engaging in various side missions (in Brotherhood you could maneuver a freaking medieval tank! Which was awesome.) If you really take your time in Revelations it should take you less than 20 hours to beat the game, side missions included. In my books, that isn’t worth the starting price of 60 euro it had on release. But by now the price has dropped. You just shouldn’t expect the length of ACII or AC:B.
Again the controls were changed a little. If you played other parts of the series you will need some time to get used to the change of buttons.
Characters:
Ezio the charming Italian from ACII and AC:B is back, but he’s getting old. Personally I think that is undignified having a 52-year old running around doing all the hard work, but whatever. Ezio is awesome.
Now it may come as a surprise to you, but Revelations has a small romance component. Ezio always had affairs and admirers. I mean he is introduced to the skills of an Assassin by a hooker and we first see him pursuing Cristina, a beautiful girl. All the more reason to rage at the romance story in Revelations. Now I don’t want to promote some superficial view of women or reduce love and attraction to physical attraction. But damn Ezio, you could have done better. There is no shortage of hot and smart girls in AC. Cristina was beautiful and clever, so was Rosa in Venice. But ultimately love is blind and Sofia certainly is a smart girl, even though I didn’t find her very likeable or attractive.
Yusuf is a decent support although hardly fleshed out, Sofia is sometimes a little annoying (and his love for her reduces Ezio (and by extension you), a guy so rich he literally owns half of Rome, to picking flowers for her. Nothing wrong with romance, but seriously?), the adversaries are unimpressive and can’t hold a candle to Cesare or Rodrigo Borgia from ACII and AC:B.
The real world (if you can call it that)
Revelations is unique insofar as all the gameplay takes place inside of the Animus. Even the part that has nothing to do with Constantinople and focuses on our real world hero Desmond Miles is spent solving some obscure puzzles inside the Animus to piece back together Desmonds broken mind. This part is boring, but inoffensive. If you like Portal and other such games it might even be fun for you.
Technical aspects:
I do not care about graphics. There was a time when I did, but that guy is dead. Revelations graphics are decent but they weren’t groundbreaking back then and they are not now.
Perhaps surprising for people knowing Ubisoft from successes like their first day patch of AC:Unity or their first day patch of ACIII is the absence of glitches. I pre-ordered the game back in the day (shame on me) and never came across any glitch that bothered me. There are some issues as there are with every AC game (people appearing out of nowhere), but nothing major.
Summary:
Revelations while flawed in its storytelling and disappointing in its amount of content, is a solid game. If you liked AC:B, you’ll like Revelations, but Revelations doesn’t live up to its predecessors.