Assassins Creed III

Once again you are following the story of Desmond and one of his ancestors. This time it's Ratonhnhaké:ton and he takes a step back and reads out of Altiar's book and isn't as ... let's say ... charismatic as Ezio, however he can swim.

Ratonhnhaké:ton, pronounce that however you will, is raised by his mother after your white father knocks her up and sends her on her merry way. Soon your fathers men attack your village, burn it and kill your mother. What's let of your village moves and you become one of the best hunters.

With the rumors that your fathers men are trying to get your village to move in their attempt to kill the rebellion (The American Revolution), you go on your way to become an assassin, by learning from a sassy black man. Soon your very complicated name becomes Conner and you blend in with all the white folk and live happily ever after stabbing everyone wearing red ... wait ... that doesn't sound right.

So if you played Revelations and Brotherhood, if you haven't go to Youtube and watch the cinematics  (Don't worry, you didn't miss much), you will notice that that they got rid of the clutter of items and weapons. You've been brought back down to silent ranged, loud ranged, a few melee weapons and a few tricks (like the smoke bomb). To accompany this much smaller myriad of things they add hunting, which is brought up and turned into a side thing. Even though hunting is a side thing, you use these animal parts for additional money so you can make better weapons.

The fighting system hasn't changed much, you block, counter, and kill. There are occasionally bad guys that need you to counter throw or dodge attack but they are not as frequent as the regulars. For the most part the enemies scream that they are attack on screen, with red arrows that dictate that they are about to attack and you need to block. Sometimes they attack with a yellow arrow and you need dodge and you cannot retaliate.

Desmond actually does something in this game. That's right Desmond has a purpose! Sort of ... kind of ... briefly. For the most part you play as Conner and Desmond has a small amount of missions that are short. I think only one of Desmond's missions actually has a fight sequence. Desmond's story bring some sort of closure to his story arc but raises more questions than were answered.

All in all the game is worth playing, these are much better than Revelations and Brotherhood but I'm not sure if this game is better than II. Conner's story is definitely worth the play, Desmond's story might not be. If you aren't really sure about the series, because they churn out games every year, then at least rent the game. The closure to Desmond's arc is worth it and Conner has an interesting take on the American Revolution and bring you to the perspective of an American Indian, albeit a tree hopping, red coat killing, semi-unrelatable American Indian.

Important

Update this game before you play it. The game seemed to be released well before the game was actually projected to get released so the fresh copies have many, many bugs. You can play the game without the updates, but you will find some hilarious bugs.