Assassins Creed 3 Review

I was so terribly excited for AC3 that my anticipation bordered on, no scratch that, my anticipation of this game did become obsessions which them turned into full blown insanity. I could not stand the wait for this game it was literally killing me on the inside. So you can imagine how chagrin I must be when it did not meet my expectations at all. Don't get me wrong, AC3 is by no stretch of the imagination a bad game, in fact it is an absolutely amazing game, but in the context of what an AC game, how highly I revere them, and the amount of hype that surrounded this title it was just nowhere near as good as it should have been and it is probably safe to say that this game was the biggest disappoint to me in gaming in quite sometime.
As I said before, AC3 is not a bad game, it is easily one of the best games in the series, but it was in far too many areas that Ubisoft completely dropped the ball on this one. Let's begin with this supposed brand new engine that they built, AnvilNext. From early on in this game's development, Ubisoft promised big things from this brand new engine that they built from the ground up. They promised better graphics, which did not happen at all, better environments which, in a way, are there but there are far too many of the same old technical issues with the environments to truly call them better. They said we would see much better character animations which is the only thing I can truly say was delivered but I feel as though the original Anvil engine could have handled a lot of these animations. Now game play has been improved greatly, this is where AC3 shines.
Not only does AC3 have the best traversal and setting that the series has had thus far, running through the trees is absolutely incredible, it has also made some of the best improvements to the combat. First of all, to make Connor sprint and climb you need only hold down one button now freeing up your thumb to control the camera as you move, this is a fix that probably should have been applied 3 or 4 games ago. Combat now yields many more options for awesome kills. Connor has tons of toys to work with and interesting moves that come as a product of the period this is set in. There are tons of soldiers walking around with muskets that Connor can steal and use to run people through with the bayonette or fire off at long range. There are also times when firing lines will form up to take Connor down and if you stun someone you can use them as a human shield and then move up to the men who just fired at you during their long reload period. The counter system has also been changed as you have many more options after a counter now. First of all, Connor does have to be in a counter stance in order to counter, you merely need to press B at the right time after which you have the choice to strike, use your secondary weapon, steal a weapon, throw, or stun. Certain enemies require you to use a combination of these options in order for you to defeat them. Since I have been mentioning Connor so often, I figured now would be a good time to discuss the new assassin.
Unlike the assassins before him, Connor is a horribly written character. You get the feeling he has no idea what he is doing and his choices are terribly unfounded. I find that a lot of my animosity towards Connor is likely a product of his terrible voice acting but even so, the choices he makes throughout the game do not really make sense and the way they write him into history does not really seem to fit most of the time. This is incredibly sad as the story of Assassin's Creed has been one of the greatest things about the series for a long time. Speaking of which, I will not say anything about what happens but I personally hated the ending. I sort of just felt empty and unaccomplished inside at the end, and for a series that I have been playing for the past 7 years that is really not a good thing. AC3 is a great game as all of the AC games are, however, it falls short of the spectacular expectations that so many of us had for it, if only it had been written better.