Player Review of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise by Ubisoft Montreal, and the last installment planned to feature the characters of Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad, an Assassin during the Crusades, and Ezio Auditore da Firenze an assassin during the Renaissance. Both Altaïr and Ezio are ancestors of the storyline’s main protagonist, Desmond Miles, their modern day descendent. Revelations picks up the story where the installment, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, left off. In this installment, Desmond must enter the Animus again to relive the memories of Altaïr and Ezio to gather the information that is needed to separate his personality and memories from theirs so that he can return to this world and help the modern day assassins defeat their eternal and ever present nemesis, the Templars, and find a way to stop the prophesied end of the world in December 2012.

Revelations is available for the PC, Xbox360 and Playstation 3 platforms; I personally played the game on an Xbox360. As with previous installments, Revelations contains a rich storyline and plot, with sumptuous, panoramic views of its environment. In this installment of the game, most of the game play takes place in Renaissance era Constantinople and Animus island. The controls predominately remain the same as in previous versions of the game, with a new addition to the weapons category, “the hookblade”. Also new to this title are the “mini-games” that Ezio must play to defend Assassin Dens from Templar attacks. The storyline of this addition brings a logical conclusion to the motivations of the characters of Altaïr and Ezio, and sets up the next installment for Desmond to bring a resolution to the planned sequel of the game.In addition to the improvements to the storyline mode of game play, multiplayer options have added some story-line quests, improved character customization, as well as Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag modes of play. As your character moves up in multiplayer ranks, you gain more information about the Templar Company, Abstergo.

While this remains a visually stunning game, and brings a necessary conclusion to Altair and Ezio’s part in the storyline, I found that what had been this games strength in the earlier titles has come to feel a bit overused and tiring while playing the game this time around. At times, the mini-games are tedious, as are completing contracts in deathmatch in multiplayer mode. While it was fun, at first, to use the hookblade to zip across lines at the top of the city, it really did not do much to improve the gaming experience. At times, playing Revelations felt like watching a movie in the middle of a trilogy, it tied up loose ends and gave a satisfying conclusion to beloved characters in the storyline, but it really did not break any new ground in terms of gaming innovation. This, coupled with the tedious at times and counterintuitive game controls, left me feeling frustrated as a gamer. Revelations remains a solid game, and covers necessary ground for the storyline, but it no longer exceeded my expectations as earlier titles in the franchise had. Hopefully, with an “in-synch” Desmond, evil Templars to thwart, and the destruction of the world to prevent, the next installment will.


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