Assassin’s Creed III sees you playing as a half English and half Mohawk protagonist, Ratonhnhaké: ton later known as Connor. Connor’s aim in the game is twofold, freedom for his people and revenge against the templar that killed his mother.

Assassin’s Creed III opens with Desmond finding a base of sorts from the first civilisation in the mountainous area from the end of the last game, here he find he must journey to 18th century and find what happened to a medallion, which will save all life from the solar flare which threatens to wipe out all life on December 21, 2012.

The game begins with you playing as Haytham (Connor’s father) who steals the medallion during a concert in England. Haytham is sent to America to recruit allies which include well known figures such as Benjamin Church and Charles Lee and to find the exact location of where the medallion is to be used. Haytham is a rather interesting character who at the start I didn’t like because well when he is in America as he kind of looks down on everyone using people as he sees fit, and looks like he only really cares about the mission. While the fact he only cares about the mission is true, I did slowly warm up to him and found his actions begin to become sort of noble but I always felt he was using people to fit his own goal. When the truth of who Haytham is revealed it does come as a surprise, but does set up the story well.

After Haytham has recruited all his allies the game turns to Connor as a child. This part is here to really show the tragedy that happens to him because here is where Connor meets the person where he swears he will kill, Charles Lee. He swears he will kill him because Lee is responsible for destroying the village Connor lives in and the death of his mother. After this game fast forwards to an older Connor were he learns he must become an assassin from the first civilisation via crystal apple of Eden. So in order to be an assassin he finds an assassin called Achilles. Achilles is reluctant to train Connor, but as the early part of the game progresses Achilles decides to make Connor an Assassin, and so the game really does kick off.

Connor’s story of freedom and revenge sees him getting heavily involved with the sons of liberty and later the Continental army’s attempts to free America from British rule. The involvement in the American Revolution is pretty ridicules as you witness and even take part in such big events as the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, The battle of Bunker Hill and more. While you spend a lot of time on the side of the revolutionaries there are parts where you end up going up against them because of how the leaders of the revolution treat you.

Running parallel to Connor’s story is Desmond trying to find power sources that belong in the first civilisation area you working from. Desmond is tasked with going on three missions to different places to locate all the power sources so that when they locate where the medallion is in the present day they will be able to use it and hopefully save the world.

I suppose I should mention the games ending, don’t worry I won’t spoil anything. The ending does wrap up the save the world from been destroyed from the world, and I have to say the way they ended up saving the world might have a few fans of the series a bit shocked, but in a good way.

Now that’s enough of the look at the story let’s look more at the game.

The game does have some new features including weather such as snow and fog, trapping and hunting animals, naval battles, improved parkour which extends to climbing and running on trees.

Apart from the main story there is a lot of side missions including naval missions, homestead missions which are required if you wish to gain and craft more items, liberation mission, courier missions, liberate forts and more, so if just doing the main story isn’t your thing you can run around doing a ton of side missions.

If story and side missions aren’t your thing then you can run around four massive areas which are your homestead, the frontier, Boston and New York. In these places you can do what you want really, in the two cities you can pretty much go around killing everyone in sight, run along the roof tops or do city specific side missions like liberation mission, contract mission and more (this game really likes side missions).

If you like roughing it in the woods the frontier is a great way to pass the time, out in the frontier you can practice tracking, trapping and hunt animals for the skins, meat etc. All you can really do with the items you gain is to sell them to the nearest trader for some money.

The ability buy and sell items for money in Assassin’s Creed III left me a bit confused because honestly there isn’t a whole lot you can do with it apart from upgrade your ship and buy ammunition for your various tools, apart from these two things I didn’t see much of a need to have a whole lot of money and just like hunting and side missions it really just a way to extend the game.

In Assassin’s Creed III you can also unlock some doors and boxes by picking the lock, the method to picking the lock is pretty ridiculous because for example on the PS3 version you have to use the left and right analog stick, and hammer the R1 button all at the same time, if you accidently let go of one of the sticks you have to start again and honestly for me lock picking was an exercise in patients which was luckily an exercise I didn’t have to carry out all that often.

In a better note, naval battles are brilliant. As Connor you are master and commander of your own ship you control when to fire weapons, steer and speed of the ship. The ship is easy to control with the first tutorial style mission teaching you that half sail is great for sharper turns and when you are going into the wind, and full sail is great when the wind is on your side and to catch up to people. The weapons on offer are cannons and swivel guns, cannons are used to deal with bigger ships, while swivel guns which are normally used to hit weak points that appear can also be used to take out small vessels. Overall naval battles are the best edition to the Assassin’s Creed series so far.

On another bright note the new weather effects such as rain, fog and snow are a great edition that pulls you into the game more and at times forces you to think differently. By thinking differently I mean changing how you get around, this for me was most notable when there was snow on the ground and walking through in the frontier was incredibly difficult and so running on the trees was a quicker and better option to get around.

Now enough of the side parts of the game. Let’s take a closure look at how the story goes. Honestly for a game called Assassin’s Creed there is very little assassinating and stealth to be done because well you perform about 4 assassinations (if I remember correctly) and honestly you don’t need to be stealthy as enemies are pretty simple to defeat. Also I felt at times parts of the story made little sense to me. There was one part where I had to chase after someone to kill him, but the game refused to let me shoot him (shooting him results in starting the mission again) I had to chase after him and tackle him to the ground, this led to me getting arrested and the enemy I was chasing almost killing a high ranking member of the revolution. While I suppose just shooting the enemy would have been easier I guess the game would be shorter, so I guess if I want to be cynical it is possible that Ubisoft tried to extend the game as long as possible, but that is me just thinking out loud.

The controls in Assassin’s Creed III are just like in previous Assassin’s Creed titles, so there is not much to re-learn, but unfortunately this means a lot of the issues with the controls still remain. One issue that almost made me throw my controller at my TV was where I had to hold R1 so I could run to chase after a person through alleys, if you have played any Assassin’s Creed game before you will know the R1 button also is used to run up walls and so as you might expect when chasing the enemy Connor would decide to climb a tree, climb a wall, stand on a wall or jump in a haystack that was several meters away from him (Assassin’s really like their haystacks). Other than that one annoyance the controls are alright.

Combat is pretty similar to previous Assassin’s Creed game, so all you will have to do is counter and either start attacking or disarm if they are stronger enemies (usually the ones with axes). Since guns are now more plentiful in this time frame you have to be more careful and so it is wise to make use of your pistol and the muskets you can take from dead enemies, also if you are been shot at you can use a nearby enemy as a human shield which is a nice feature.

Now let’s talk about the game multiplayer. Honestly I’m not a huge fan of online multiplayer so I only dabbled into the Assassin’s Creed III multiplayer a small bit. The first thing that struck me was a three part tutorial which I really appreciated as it helped me a new player to the Assassin’s Creed multiplayer scene learn how to play effectively enough. Now what does the multiplayer contain? The multiplayer consists of four game types: Free for all, team objective, simple deathmatch and Wolfpack. Each game type is broken down into several modes for example the free for all game type contains deathmatch, wanted, and assassinate modes. Most of my time was spent on free for all deathmatch, so I will be focusing on this mode for my thoughts on the multiplayer.

In deathmatch mode you have a target player to assassinate and pursuer to avoid in various crowded areas depicted in the game. Assassinating targets sounds easy, but a lot of planning has to go into it as there are NPCs that look like your target and you can hide in the crowds just like in the single player game, so you have to keep an eye open. There are several ways to locate a target: These include abilities which include throwing money at a crowd to try and spot your target (if you are been pursued you can use defensive abilities such as changing your appearance with a disguise for a short period of time), the game also lets you know when you are close to your target by having the target indicator turn blue when the target is in sight.

Overall the multiplayer is enjoyable and requires you to think things through, act to aggressive and you make yourself an easy target.

The multiplayer does have a progression system which unlocks new abilities to help you find targets easier.

Finally the multiplayer has real money transaction component to it which allows you to buy characters, costumes and some abilities.

Finally here are some minor issues I found in the game. The first and for most was the game on the PS3 seemed to struggle at times when I was in Boston, but this was a rare occurrence. There were also times with items not appearing on screen, and characters and items phasing through walls.

SCORE: 75%

Assassin’s Creed III is an above average game with a great story that is let down by poor controls and excess amount of side missions. For fans of the series the game does a good job wrapping up the series.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Assassin’s Creed III Information

• Developer: various Ubisoft studios
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Genre: Action adventure
• Rating: 18+
• Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii U
• Release date: out now
• Website: http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/ac3/en-us/index.aspx