The Assassin's Creed Franchise

I'm gonna rate all the playstation 3 games I've played so far and maybe write a longer review about them later. I'm gonna rate games on a scale from 1-10. 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest score.  I'm also rating them based on the things i find important when playing a game. Which are: the awesomeness factor, immersion, playability, storyline, replay value etc. I'm gonna start with rating one of my favorite game franchises. Assassin's Creed. Be advised! The results may shock you...

Assassin's Creed

I got this game when I bought the fourth Assassin's Creed game, Revelations. It was included on the game. I had heard that it was not that great but it was still Assassin's Creed so I decided to give it a try.

And of course, when playing an older game you're always going to compare it to newer ones and obviously it can not keep up. It's a good game though. Free-running and climbing works nice, the locations look pretty good, the story is okay. However, the fighting is not that great and the game gets a bit repetitive at times. Water and swimming is of course your your biggest weakness, as you will die if you fall into the water.

The cut-scenes are a bit weird and I had a hard time following the dialogues and so it was kind of hard getting into the story in my opinion. Assassinating with the hidden blade (the assassin's signature move) is of course as satisfying as always but not as refined as in the later games. The game is not a "must play" kind of game but if you haven't played it, it's worth a try.

     
            Game: Assassin's Creed
            Genre: Action/Adventure/Stealth
            Year: 2007
            Developer: Ubisoft
            Multiplayer: No
            Awesomeness: 7
            Immersion: 7
            Playability: 7
            Storyline: 8
            Replay Value: 7
            Ezio Auditore: No

            My Rating: 7





Assassin's Creed II

With the Assassin's Creed II game is where the franchise really took of. The new protagonist is much more relatable, charismatic and simply badass. The gameplay is much more fluid and the story more engaging. This game is set in renaissance Italy and you get to play as Ezio Auditore da Firenze. An Italian ladies man (obviously) who seeks revenge for his father's and brother's death and trains to become an assassin and eventually join the Brotherhood of assassins.

This game is just so good. Italy in the 15th century just looks incredible and I love free running across buildings and climbing historical buildings, and of course...assassinating people. What really makes this game great is the story. First of, the story of the fight between the ancient creed of assassins and the templars is pretty awesome. But then there is also the story of Desmond Miles and "the ones who came before". There's is just so much mystery in the game which makes the story much more engaging and you just want to know more about everything.

If you are like me and likes games with good stories, badass gameplay and let's the player run around in a big open world and pretty much do what you like (you can even swim in this game). This is just one of those games you would not dare to miss

Game: Assassin's Creed II
Genre: Action/Adventure/Stealth
Year: 2009
Developer: Ubisoft
Multiplayer: No
Awesomeness: 9
Immersion: 10
Playability: 9
Storyline: 9
Replay Value: 9
Music Score: 9
Ezio Auditore: Sì

My Rating: 9.5

Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood

The first game featuring Ezio Auditore was so successful Ubisoft decided to make two more games featuring the charismatic protagonist. And I'm really glad they did. AC Brotherhood is just as good as AC II. It does not really have the same novel value as AC II, as it features the same lead character and follows his story from where it left of in the previous game. The game however is more polished and even more fun to play than it's predecessor. 

You can now recruit your own assassins and have them kill targets for you. They have also included a online multiplayer mode in the game, which is quite fun actually. You basically get assigned targets (other players) to kill and have to use stealth to kill them, but at the same time you are also a target so you have to be really careful to not be killed yourself. A little hard to explain, but it's fun and definitely worth a try.

                                 

Game: Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood
Genre: Action/Adventure/Stealth
Year: 2010
Developer: Ubisoft
Multiplayer: 8
Awesomeness: 9
Immersion: 9
Playability: 9,5
Storyline: 9,5
Replay Value: 9
Music Score: 8,5
Ezio Auditore: Sì

My Rating: 9.0





Assassin's Creed - Revelations

The third game featuring Ezio Auditore is AC Revelations which is not set in Italy but in Constantinople. This game is a bit darker than the previous one's, at least in the beginning. Ezio is now much older but still climbs those buildings as easily as ever. Moving away from renaissance 

Italy to Constantinople brings a nice change to the game series and there's a some characteristic buildings like the the Hagia Sofia that is cool to climb and the city looks really good all over. 

You also get to play as Altaìr (from the first game) and the story of Ezio and Altaìr kind of comes together in the end, in a really good way. It's almost sad to see that the story of Ezio Auditore had to come to an end after all this time. But it is probably good that they decided not to continue Ezio story as that would probably had ruined it. So all I have to say to Ezio is requiescat en pace old friend.

The trailer for this game is really amazing, an features a really good song Iron by Woodkid. I think Ubisoft has really manage perfectly to get the right "feel" to the trailer by combining it with that song. It's worth to checking out.

If you have played through the game it's also worth checking out Assassin's Creed - Embers. A short-film that explains what happens after the game. It's quite sad but beautiful in away. 

Game: Assassin's Creed - Revelations
Genre: Action/Adventure/Stealth
Year: 2011
Developer: Ubisoft
Multiplayer: 8
Awesomeness: 8.5
Immersion: 8.5
Playability: 8,5
Storyline: 9
Replay Value: 8,5
Music Score: 8,5
Ezio Auditore: Sì

My Rating: 8.5






Assassin's Creed III

This was going to be the biggest and best AC game yet and featured a new protagonist named Connor a half-native american and half-british assassin fighting alongside Benjamin Franklin and George Washington in Revolutionary America. 

This game does a lot of things right. It looks great, it's open world is huge, you can now climb trees and hunt animals and you can also command your own battleships in the Naval missions. The story is also engaging and the new assassin is kind of badass (no Ezio though). 

Everything looks great on the surface but there are a lot of things that don't really make this a good video gaming experience. First of all, there's is a lot of cutscenes that kind of interferes with your gameplay, sometimes you don't feel as free as in the previous games. Second, it's not that fun. Sure the Naval missions are pretty fun, but overall some missions, especially side missions seem like they're added just to make it longer and they have no impact on the rest of the game whatsoever. Third, free-running and assassinating is not as fun as before. I don't know why, maybe I'm developing a conscience, (I mean killing IS wrong) but it feels more of a chore.

Okay, I just had to let out some of the negative things about the game also. I'm not saying it's bad game, I like where the franchise is heading and this is probably not the last we are going to see of the assassin's. (Ubisoft has announced that they will release a new AC game in 2014) I just want to state that it's not always quantity that matters, but quality. So I hope that for the new game they will focus more on the quality of the gameplay than adding unnecessary content.

Game: Assassin's Creed III
Genre: Action/Adventure/Stealth
Year: 2012
Developer: Ubisoft
Multiplayer: 8
Awesomeness: 8
Immersion: 7,5
Playability: 8
Storyline: 8,5
Replay Value: 8
Music Score: 9
Ezio Auditore: No

My Rating: 7,5