Alright, so continuing my Assassin's Creed marathon, I finished Assassin's Creed 3 the other night. Due to difficulties with Steam tracking game time appropriately and uPlay not tracking game time at all, I could not say for sure but if this was not the longest game in the series, then it sure as hell felt like it.
What a bore and what a drag!
I also started Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag and barring any superlame levels in the later game, my current order would be (best to worst):
1) Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
2) Assassin's Creed II
3) Assassin"s Creed Revelations
4) Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
5) Assassin's Creed I or Assassin's Creed III
I can't really make up my mind whether there should be a no. 6) for either part 1 or 3 but both are about equally terribad so I put them both in last place.
Just about the only positive thing I can say about part 3 is that, without knowing it beforehand, I'm happy I managed to pull through and finish the Desmond story line.
Reviewing it all, I'm kind of glad I played through all of these games. It's a pretty weird mix of fictional, historical, mythological and religious themes plus some conspiracy theories about world domination but the folks at Ubi have done a fairly good job putting it all together for a video game story, although they have definitely failed at a satisfying ending to the Desmond Miles story line.
There are many unanswered questions and the nonchalant transition to Black Flag is kind of strange... (what happened to Shaun, Rebecca and Desmond's dad and "their" Animus device??)...
Anyway, back on part III, it's just really lame. All of the previous parts in the series were modern games with a quest compass and all that but part III is taking it to the "modern" extreme and is the kind of game where you mostly just move from trigger to trigger and push the interact button without any kind of challenge whatsoever...
If there is any challenge at all, then it is to do things exactly as the game expects or requires. There is zero freedom.
Also: The main character, Connor, is very annoying overall. Imagine an even more whiny version of Anakin or Luke Skywalker when they are at their worst.
It's really bad and there are many, many cheesy, facepalm- and cringe-worthy story cutscenes/dialogues throughout the game (and the DLC).
The only redeeming quality in that regard comes from the intro and later parts of the game when the father of Connor, Haytham Kenway, is involved. Both, the voice actor and whoever digitally animated the guy, deserve an Oscar.
But other than that, part 3 is simply awful. It certainly has its moments but every time you are about to forgive the game for all of its shortcomings, it kicks you in the nuts again to remind you how shitty it really is.... I would only recommend this game to anyone who is genuinely interested in a conclusion to the Desmond Miles story.
Outside of that interest, it's just torture... stay away!
So now I'm playing AC4 and it's definitely the best part in the series so far. I love the Caribbean pirate theme, the visuals are awesome and the story is off to a good start.
Apart from the usual consolitis (which is a bane on the entire series), the only negative -so far- is the game's stability.
From Assassin's Creed I, II, Brotherhood, Revelations and all the way to the end of no. 3, I haven't had a single freeze or crash to desktop but AC4 has frozen three times in about six hours now (just the AC4.exe, not the whole system so it's definitely a problem with the program/game, not my system in general)... *sigh*...
