It's easy to see why this game has disappointed so many. Rushed & untidy. Bring back Ezio!
Games with a 3 on the end have been disappointing lately. Dead Space 3 & in my opinion, Far Cry 3. Assassin's Creed 3 is another. Sure is a pretty game but underneath that attractive exterior it's a mess & I only started playing after the 1.3 patch was released. Surely a law is required to stop companies releasing messy rushed games like this just to keep the coin coming in. This game needed more time it really did.
All kinds of issues. Quests not triggering properly, lip syncing a mile out, clipping issues like I've rarely seen, jittery cut scenes, ungainly animations & in one instance when Conner is captured he gets hauled off by invisible guards. Hilarious, but not in a good way & I heard the console version is even worse. There's loads more problems technically but I think anyone reading this gets the gist. The game performance seems good, though I had some minor lag during the busiest missions. It needs a respectable PC to see it at it's finest & run at it's smoothest. A GTX 460 1 GB & high end i5 can nearly max this with AA turned down a bit.
It certainly doesn't help when the lead character has zero acting skills. As wooden as a pine box. The guy who voiced Ezio was magnificent whether you played English or Italian but this guy! Just read straight off the page why don't ya. When he speaks in native American he definitely is just reading it from script. Zero emotion. He's just so unlikable & boring & it's a shame because this aspect was important for such an epic story driven game.
Side missions are a real up & down affair. Some are really cool like the naval battles, but then you get utter fetch quest dullness were you run from one end of the homestead to the other because the dumb game doesn't allow you to fast travel during any type of mission. So you'll travel many miles just to get a gift idea for one of the settlers romantic interests & then miles back to tell him what it is - 99% of the quest just running. Does that pass for game design? So so dull.
So what's actually good about AC 3 then? Luckily, plenty. The majority of the voice cast is superb like Charles Lee & Tom Hickey. Charles Lee is a great bad guy & he seems so nice in the first sections of the game. The story itself is very good though the pacing is off. It sags when you 1st become Conner & have to do tedious hunting & messing around but in the 2nd half of the game it gets very good indeed. Like the classic football cliche - it's a game of two halves.
The game is also nicely varied. The Desmond sections this time are great unlike in Revelations were I never even finished the last 2 sequences. The quest in New York was fantastic & looks spectacular. In fact the majority of the story missions are consistently good. Not too many frustrating moments like previous games apart from glitches & bugs. Doesn't crash though, not for me anyway. My 360 crashes more than my PC lol.
So overall I'm disappointed in AC 3. To me, it's unacceptable releasing games in states like this just to gorge the Christmas rush. Let's have a few years between titles because I am sick of this franchise, especially when it's deteriorating with each release. I can't comment on the multiplayer. I'd like to but time is short. It sounds great but for now my mark is for the single player which is a 7.
I rate the AC games in this order:
AC 2
AC: Brotherhood
AC:Revelations
AC 1
AC 3