Wrapping up Assassin’s Creed Revelations and diving straight into Assassin’s Creed III has been quite the polarizing experience. Not only did they introduce a new game engine, switch around all the buttons, and give me a whole new protagonist to get used to, they also changed up the play style quite a bit.
The previous AC titles managed to open up pretty quickly and let me do things at my own pace, but I have yet to feel like I have as much free will this time around. Starting out as Haytham Kenway, whom I knew was not the protagonist of the game, threw my gaming OCD into panic mode from the start. On one hand, I should run around and open up as much as I can, but on the other hand, I knew the Kenway sequences were pretty much just a prologue, so would any of my progress matter? Did I really need to chase down all of Ben Franklin’s almanac pages?
I admit I get pretty impatient when I’m playing as someone or something that I know isn’t the point of the game. For example, I’m horribly intolerant of tutorial sections, in any game. Especially if the game mechanics haven’t changed much. And especially if it just feels like filler. And Kenway’s sections felt like soooo much filler. I really just had to get through it as quick as I could.
Having done that, I finally get to Connor’s story, which starts with his childhood. Yay, origin story. I had to play some hide-and-seek and hunt and do some other menial “it’s not a tutorial but it’s totally a tutorial” bullshit before I finally got to his ‘hero’ moment. You know, that moment, when the character’s innocence is lost, or he/she suffers some great tragedy, or whatever it is that motivates them for the rest of the game. So I finally got past that moment, which led to Connor (who’s not named Connor yet, but I’m not spelling out his real name) to finally meet the ex-assassin named Achilles.
Now I’m at the point where Connor is to begin “training,” which I’m assuming is more tutorial shit. Let me point out that by this point I’m about FOUR HOURS into the game. That’s right, Ubisoft has been establishing this story for over four fuckin’ hours now. Connor’s not even an adult yet and I’m already getting tired of the game. I feel like I’m on a date and the girl keeps telling me I’m gonna get lucky at the end of the night, but she keeps saying “one more dance.” I DON’T WANNA DANCE ANYMORE, SUSAN.
But I digress. I’m playing as I type this, and it looks like the story is finally progressing forward. Connor and Achilles are in Boston, and one of my questions from above is answered. No, I did not need to chase Ben Franklin’s almanac pages as Haytham Kenway. They’re still floating around Boston, many years later. Seriously, Benjamin, I just scrounged up thousand-year-old books from under rocks in Revelations, and you can’t even keep track of pages you just printed? The human race is doomed. Go ahead Desmond, just let the solar flare wipe out the planet again, it’s okay, we deserve it.
UPDATE: Nope. Still more tutorial missions. Boston was a mission for reducing your wanted level. Then it was a tutorial mission for the fast travel. Finally I got to return to the homestead, where I then had a mission for recruiting people, followed by a mission teaching me how to use the ledger, then a mission teaching me how to sail the ship. When it was all finally said and done, Connor was given the privilege to wear the assassin’s robes, after five and a half hours of gameplay.
If I sound like I’m being extra hard on this, it’s because I am. Assassin’s Creed II introduced everything it needed to within probably the first two or three hours, and it did so in a much more efficient and elegant manner. I’m not quite sure why they felt the need for this much extra hand-holding, but it’s really making the game drag.
