Assassin's Creed Unity ( XboxOne, PS4 ) ( Rated Mature )
The French Revolution is the latest setting for the Assassin's Creed franchise; while last year's game was set on the high seas and featured tons of islands to explore, this year's game sets all the action in Paris. The world is smaller than last year's game; however, it is more dense than ever before. Paris is a sprawling city filled with beautiful architecture and tons of unique locations to explore. The focus on a smaller; but, far more detailed world harkens back to the style of Assassin's Creed 2. The setting also inspires one of the best stories in the franchise, even topping Black Flag's superb story.
You will play a new Assassin named Arno Dorain, while his origins are cliched his personal story sets up one of the most intriguing plot lines in the series. Arno's origins are not the only well-worn tropes in the story; he also has a love interest who happens to be a Templar and, of course, there is a grand conspiracy. It is a classic clichéd story of love, adventure, revenge and of course intrigue. However, it is how the story uses these elements that elevates the story past its cliches; and, made for a thoroughly captivating adventure. The setting also makes for a different experience, while Assassin's Creed 3 failed to properly capture the uprising of the American Revolution; Unity succeeds in capturing the chaotic French Revolution. On top of that, the game's performances are of the highest caliber; the character models display real emotion, which along with the superb voice overs creates performances that could rival any major motion picture. Arno is a very likable protagonist much like last year's Edward, Arno is a bit sarcastic and has a great sense of wit while maintaining a serious sense of justice. His love interest Elise, is probably my favorite female character in the series next to Mary Reed from Black Flag. With the citizens of Paris starting to revolt, the atmosphere is tense with the streets filled with violence, oppression and a looming sense of bedlam.
When it comes to traversal Creed has always felt fluid and smooth, Unity makes the first changes the series has seen since it's inception. Now you have a button for free running up and free running down, this was added to make traversal flow in a smoother manner. The main issue in past games, was that on occasion you would move down, when you were trying to go up or vice versa. For the most part, the new controls make the movement more effortless than before. There are occasions when traversal is slightly clunky, I would try to move up and the game would not let me, even though I should be able to climb that structure. This does not ruin the game but, it can become very annoying and at times it does disrupt the game's flow. In spite of that, traversing the exquisite city of Paris is thrilling; climbing Notre-Dame de Paris is among this year's most iconic gaming moments. While there are some flaws with the free running system, it is still just as much fun as it ever was.
Combat has also been reworked slightly, swordplay is styled closer to traditional fencing than it has been in previous games; in addition to having a faster and more challenging pace. Parrying for example, now requires slightly more precise timing and counter kills are gone along with killstreaks; also enemies are far more aggressive than they have been in the past. Combat is savage and extremely satisfying while providing a far greater challenge. If you're a fan of the combat from past games, you will enjoy how it has been tweaked in Unity; the added challenge and change to the combat system is for the better, even if it can be slightly frustrating at times. You also have a far wider array of weapons this time around; you can choose from a huge variety of swords, axes, maces, pistols, rifles and, blunderbusses. In fact, the customization options are extremely diverse, in past games you only had outfits to choose from and, the ability to change the colors. Now you can pick your own hood, top, bottoms, bracers, and colors giving you the most customization options the series has ever seen. But, it is not just your appearance you can customize; you also can choose your Assassin's abilities, it is not a very deep system but all this allows you to have a sense of ownership of your Assassin.
Unity packs a ton of content and introduces cooperative play for the first time. You and up to four other players can tackle new missions designed specifically for cooperative play. Side missions also feel more unique than before, you will be doing similar activities but in spite of that, they feel more like story missions then random activities. As always there is plenty of side content, in addition to the games main story missions which features a far more open mission design; you now can choose your own plan of attack in several of the missions and choose how you will accomplish the objectives. Now you will feel like a real assassin, you have the ability to plot your actions and play the way you wish to. The newly revamped stealth system allows you to sneak around with far more ease, which allows for more stealth oriented gameplay than we have seen in the past two games.
Visually the game is very detailed while some textures may be of a slightly lower resolution, the meticulous detail more than makes up for that. The way fabrics react to movement is particularly impressive and the vicious combat animations are extremely satisfying. With that said, however, the game does have noticeable drops in the frame rate and graphical errors can happen on occasion. Still, Assassin's Creed Unity is incredibly immersive, the dense cityscape of Paris is cinematic, instantly iconic and has an epic scope that has rarely been matched. While the traversal has its occasional problems, the outstanding story and terrific mission design makes this one of the year's best games. In a year of incredible games, that is saying a lot.
( Update: Note all of the game's most glaring issues have been fixed by this time 02/25/2015)
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